If someone asks us a question or asks for our advice, it is amazing how many times we feel that we have to know the answer. Yet sometimes the opposite is true.
The most effective and successful people will not always just give you the answer but will instead ask you really good, smart questions to help you find the answer yourself. When you are given the answer by someone you don’t learn as much as you would if you found that answer for yourself.
We can use Stephen Covey’s insightful thinking:
“Seek first to understand then be understood.”
This may sound like such a simple phrase yet if we apply it, it has a big impact.
If you ask questions you can learn from what the other person is saying and then decide if your answer really was the best answer. Invariably there is a better, enhanced answer after a few open and inviting questions. This allows you to explore more, learn more and indeed get to a better result or solution. It opens you up to be innovative and invites fresh new thinking, which can create new ideas and new thoughts.
As the world moves into more complexity and with even more change ahead, we will find ourselves being a member of many work teams or partnerships where new solutions need to be found. In those constellations we cannot possibly have all the answers or indeed keep up with ALL the changes needed. So we need to work together as a team to find the answers and ask smart questions to get us to the smart answers
Go ahead give it a go today, be ready with your smart questions and get to even smarter answers.
About the authors
Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn, award-winning authors of ”The Team Formula”.
Their latest book, multi-award-winning ”Leading Teams – 10 Challenges: 10 Solutions”, published by Financial Times International is a practical tool for building winning teams. You can download a free chapter of the book here.
Praise for ”Leading Teams: ”Enjoyable to read. Simple to understand. Practical to implement. A must read for team members or leaders”Debbie Fogel-Monnissen, Executive Vice President, International Markets Finance Officer, Mastercard, NY, USA
Your attitude matters. In life, at work, in leadership.
Attitude, perspective, approach, outlook – whatever we call it – it changes or impacts everything.
Imagine if something unexpected or even unwanted happens. What if you ‘failed’ at something, or even lost your job, or you simply didn’t meet your goal?
We can’t control things that happen, that’s a given. What we can control though is our attitude. We can choose our outlook and perspective on what has happened.
This may sound obvious and simple, but yet, when we really need that attitude, we don’t always look for it. We get stuck in the ‘automatic’ reaction of anger, sadness, disappointment or sense of failure. The key word here is to go look for the attitude. It’s definitely a choice and that choice can be made at any time, in any situation, whatever we are facing.
And an easy way to look for it and find it, is to be prepared with an attitude, a thought, a mantra if you like, which can promptly get you on the right path of taking the next step to progress, success and results.
Here are a few examples that have helped us keep an optimistic attitude in challenging situations:
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn” – Anonymous
“It’s all happening perfectly” – Susan Jeffers PhD
“When things go wrong, don’t go with them” – Elvis Presley
Yes, our attitude is everything. Being able to look at any situation and find something good or at least valuable in it is a question of choosing our attitude to it.
We have met so many people who have been disappointed or sad or angry when something happened and who have later on realized that it was the best that could have happened to them.
People who have failed at something and then realised that they never would have come up with that brilliant new idea unless they had failed and had been forced to rethink.
People who have lost their job and then understood that it was the push they needed to take the long overdue step of doing something new that they had wanted to do for a while but not dared to do.
People who have experienced conflict within their team and realised that it made them take a new approach to collaboration, leading to better team climate and better results.
Some of the best leaders we have ever met are extremely good at this. And as we are really keen for leaders to get ready for the future – do you think this a crucial ability to have? So do we. So many things will not go our way – it’s part of change – but our way of looking at it is ALWAYS ours to choose.
Yes, attitude is everything, and one of the few things in life completely within our own control – if we choose to take that control.
So go on, have an attitude! You’ll like it.
About the authors
Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn, award-winning authors of ”The Team Formula”.
Their latest book, multi-award-winning ”Leading Teams – 10 Challenges: 10 Solutions”, published by Financial Times International is a practical tool for building winning teams. You can download a free chapter of the book at www.leadingteamsbook.com
Praise for ”Leading Teams: ”Enjoyable to read. Simple to understand. Practical to implement. A must read for team members or leaders”Debbie Fogel-Monnissen, Executive Vice President, International Markets Finance Officer, Mastercard, NY, USA
You may aspire to be a leader or you may already have a leadership role.
Regardless of what your official role is, what we know is that you influence and have an impact on people every day. And you are therefore a leader. In fact, many of the most influential leaders in the world are informal leaders. They are the people that that others listen to, and also feel heard and seen by.
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Leadership is not really something you learn in a classroom. Yes, you can learn useful principles, acquire relevant models and tools that can help you practice leadership, but real leadership development occurs when you start to apply your knowledge in your daily work situations. It’s how you act and behave that builds your leadership effectiveness and influence.
Yes, leadership is most definitely about influencing others. To influence is to have an impact. And impact happens through how you behave towards others.
What impact are you having? And what impact could you have?
Being leaders ourselves, and having worked with many hundreds of leaders around the world, here are some of our observations of what the best, most influential leaders do. They:
Take an interest in and care about other people
See the uniqueness in each person and how they can contribute to the team and the organisation
Listen attentively to others
Stay 100% present in the moment
Involve others and invite them to contribute and participate in things that impact them
Recognise when people do a good job
Hold themselves and others accountable
Practice what they preach
Convey a clear sense of purpose and vision for the team
Are generous in sharing their knowledge, skills, ideas and wisdom
Are authentic, they stay true to themselves, making the most of their unique strengths and capabilities
This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives a number of pointers on how influence works.
We would love to hear from you.
What are the best experiences you’ve had with leaders around you? How did they behave and how did it impact you? What great leadership have you seen?
Please share your thoughts, observations and comments below. Thank you.
There are a lot of discussions going on at the moment regarding annual appraisals and whether they should be performed at all.
Sadly appraisals are often ineffective and something people dread, both the person appraising and the one being appraised!
Now the idea behind the review is of course to look at how it’s going for each person at work, (and we do all need feedback!), plan for the future and assess development opportunities – and to make sure that this happens for everyone and at a regular interval.
“Make feedback normal. Not a performance review.”Ed Batista
Looking towards the future though, as we like to do in this blog, we believe the process for development will change.
Let’s think about it.
As a leader it’s your job to enable others to do a great job. It’s about leading in such a way that people can perform their jobs well. If we start with that in mind, then any feedback conversations need to happen regularly, in real time, not just once or twice a year. If someone is struggling at work for example, that needs to be picked up and dealt with a.s.a.p.
“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”Elon Musk
It’s of course better to have an annual performance review than to have nothing at all, but we are also seeing that more and more organisations, like GE, Accenture and Netflix, recognise that performance leadership and management can be done in better ways.
“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”Harvey S. Firestone
Yes, it’s part of a leader’s job to help people grow and develop, for the benefit of the people themselves and for the organisation. In order to do this, organisations and leaders of the future must continue to build better relationships with their employees; listen more, talk more, engage more, have creative, meaningful conversations about work. Not only is it a great way to connect with people, but it also delivers results. People want transparency and clarity, and to feel that they are involved in their own future. This happens best in a workplace where there’s a real sense of working together, which those regular conversations help create. And this is something you can make a reality, as a leader.
About the authors
Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn, award-winning authors of ”The Team Formula”.
Their latest book, multi-award-winning ”Leading Teams – 10 Challenges: 10 Solutions”, published by Financial Times International is a practical tool for building winning teams. You can download a free chapter of the book atwww.leadingteamsbook.com
Praise for ”Leading Teams: ”Leadership is about effective conversations. This book is a very useful ready reckoner for leaders everywhere seeking the words and methods needed each day at work.” Sanjay Gupta, CEO English Helper Inc, India
Hope is a great fuel of human drive and determination. As a leader, to inspire hope in others, and of course yourself, is one of your most important tasks.
The future may seem unclear or uncertain at times – that’s only to be expected with the constant change that is part of reality at work. What you can do as a leader is to continuously look for the opportunities and possibilities of the future, to rally people around those and to give them hope that obstacles can be overcome and maybe even a trigger for something better.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence
Helen Keller
Here are some practical tips on how to inspire hope
Frame all challenges/problems as a blessing in disguise. Encourage conversations that explore how addressing the problem can lead to something better.
Instead of thinking of what could go wrong, ask yourself “what could go right”? And ask your team the same.
Build a plan to overcome the problem or each obstacle (together with your team if possible). Get specific about what to do and when.
Get some quick wins in, by focusing on one thing at a time.
Recognise and value the wins, showing people that progress is being made – this creates more hope and determination.
Make creative challenging part of your team’s DNA. Take time at regular intervals to talk about changes that are coming up and how you jointly, with all the wisdom, experience and ideas of the team can solve anything that needs solving.
And finally, if people tend to worry about things that may or may not happen in the future, remind them that 95% of things we worry about never happens anyway! Worrying is waste of time – come together and look to the future with curiosity and creativity.
About the authors
Mandy Flint & Elisabet Vinberg Hearn, award-winning authors of ”The Team Formula”.
Their latest book, multi-award-winning ”Leading Teams – 10 Challenges: 10 Solutions”, published by Financial Times International is a practical tool for building winning teams. You can download a free chapter of the book atwww.leadingteamsbook.com
Praise for ”Leading Teams: ”Enjoyable to read. Simple to understand. Practical to implement. A must read for team members or leaders”Debbie Fogel-Monnissen, Executive Vice President, International Markets Finance Officer, Mastercard, NY, USA
