Lead Like it Matters… Because it Does, part 3 of 4

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Lead Like it Matters… Because it DoesWe asked Roxi Hewertson about the 8 overarching leadership insights that kick off her new book Lead Like it Matters…Because it Does hitting the stores in just a few weeks. She agreed to share them with us as a four-part series. This is Part 3 of 4.

Insight #5: Leading is All About Relationships

Let’s get to the heart of the matter. If no one is following you, you aren’t leading. Period. You can manage all kinds of tasks that might involve schedules, money, projects, budgets, and so on, and yet everything you do with your staff and other stakeholders involves relationships. How well those relationships work has a lot to do with how much TRUST is at the center of them. Susan Scott, author of Fierce Conversations, sums it up well. “When the conversation stops, the relationship stops.”

The question is not IF we will have relationships at work; the question is what will the quality of those relationships be? Each leader plays a critical role within her and his ecosystem in what I call your ‘responsibility pond.’ This is where your leadership ripples are most strongly felt, no matter how big or small your ‘pond’ may be.

As a leader, informal or formal, you contribute to – often create, model, and nurture the norms, culture, and environment that everyone who lives and works in your ‘pond’ will experience. You can sustain and strengthen the culture or you can weaken and sicken it. Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? Understanding this reality is often a huge wake-up call, and in my opinion, not a moment too soon.

I’m sure you know that it is not enough to be really, really, smart. Emotional intelligence matters a heck of a lot – more even than IQ, particularly if you want to have healthy and productive relationships. Bad and ineffective leaders can create a lot of damage. Good and effective leaders can accomplish incredible feats with their followers.

I believe most of us would choose the latter as our legacy.

Here are 4 suggestions about what you can do to pay attention to those important relationships:

  • Create a healthy culture
  • Build trust on purpose and often
  • Walk around a LOT
  • Model how you would like others to behave

Insight #6: Learning the ‘Soft Skills’ is Hard!

I’ve noticed that adults tend to resist learning or re-learning good interpersonal and social management skills. These involve thinking about relationships, behaviors, and even emotions. This is very different than an impersonal or technical task – and still it is a task – just a human one.

This IS hard work. Most of us know that we need to engage and energize employees, build trust, and communicate so that people understand us and know where the organization is going. They want and need to know what part they can play in getting there. We will not get all that good stuff from our people without doing all the hard soft stuff. It’s really that simple.

Mastering leadership skills is not rocket science. It is a lot harder, precisely because it is far more qualitative than quantitative, and because we are leading people, not machines.

Building trust is one of the key outcomes of mastering interpersonal skills. Try to resist the urge to say, ‘Oh, no, not the touchy-feely stuff!‘ Because, really, you can’t get far in life without knowing how to communicate so people understand, how to have tough conversations, or how to transform conflicts into solutions.

While it does take determination, practice, and feedback, nothing is beyond you when you are committed to learning or honing your interpersonal skills. And I know I’m not telling you anything new; I’m just reminding you to pay attention and grow your emotional intelligence competencies to improve your effectiveness. When you do this… your teams will thrive and of course all of this flows directly to your bottom line.

Here are 4 suggestions about where to focus some of your attention:

  • Listen more than you talk
  • Increase staff engagement at every opportunity
  • Make improving your dialogue skills a priority
  • Take or revisit what you learned in a good leadership course

About the Author

Roxi HewertsonLeadership authority Roxana (Roxi) Hewertson is a no-nonsense business veteran revered for her nuts-and-bolts, tell-it-like-it-is approach and practical, out-of-the-box insights that help both emerging and expert managers, executives and owners boost quantifiable job performance in various mission critical facets of business. Through AskRoxi.com, Roxi — “the Dear Abby of Leadership” — imparts invaluable free advice to managers and leaders at all levels, from the bullpen to the boardroom, to help them solve problems, become more effective and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

How can you make the leadership leap gracefully? Well, learning and practicing effective leadership skills is a good place to begin. When you read Roxi’s book you’ll be well on your way! Click here to learn more.

The StrategyDriven website was created to provide members of our community with insights to the actions that help create the shared vision, focus, and commitment needed to improve organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We look forward to answering your strategic planning and tactical business execution questions. Please email your questions to [email protected].

Lead Like it Matters… Because it Does, part 2 of 4

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Lead Like it Matters… Because it DoesWe asked Roxi Hewertson about the 8 overarching leadership insights that kick off her new book Lead Like it Matters…Because it Does hitting the stores in just a few weeks. She agreed to share them with us as a four-part series. This is Part 2 of 4.

Insight #3: Leadership Is a Discipline, Not an Accident

We know for sure that highly effective leaders get much better results. There is no debate about this, and you know it’s plain old common sense. Don’t we all want better results? Don’t we want to get more bang for the buck?

Those of you who already lead people (as opposed to technology, science or thought leaders, for example) may think you got to your position because you are a good leader and were recognized as such. “They hired me, didn’t they?” The sad truth is that you, along with the rest of us, probably got your first and even subsequent leadership roles by luck, not by design, and sometimes even by default.

Leaders find themselves responsible for the work lives of other people because their knowledge, performance, and technical skills as an individual contributor were exemplary, or at least pretty good. Learning to become an Olympic athlete, an engineer, a teacher, a scientist, or an opera singer requires one to learn increasingly difficult skills; to practice, practice, practice; and to receive regular feedback on one’s performance again and again.

This is also true for becoming, practicing, and remaining a skilled, effective leader.

Insight #4: Leaders and Individual Contributors Require Opposite Skill Sets and Motivations

From the day we were born, all the applause has been about “what I have done well,” not “what we have done well.” Look at your life and your experiences and then fast-forward to where you are today. I think you’ll agree that for most of your life, your personal performance generated the lion’s share of your positive rewards or negative consequences. It wasn’t a group of people; it was you, you, and more you.

The exception is teamwork within or outside your family. Whether you were on a great team or a lousy team, you probably learned something about leading and teams. Unfortunately, few people integrate those lessons when they become leaders at work. The fallback position for most of us is what we know best and think we can count on the most – and that would be… ‘me.’

The skills, attributes and even motivations required to lead people successfully are entirely opposite from those required to be a successful individual contributor. Consider this: if the roles and skills weren’t so opposite, it would be a walk in the park for someone to move seamlessly from being a great violin player to being a great conductor.

In the first case, the violin player is responsible for his performance. While the conductor is responsible for her skills, her real job is knowing how to get the most out of each person so that everyone’s work will blend well and produce magnificent music. She succeeds only when the entire orchestra succeeds.

Leading others is an emotional and intellectual seismic shift that will quickly separate effective leaders from ineffective ones. Making the transition from being an individual contributor to being a leader can seem as difficult as swimming from New York to London alone, without a life jacket.

About the Author

Roxi HewertsonLeadership authority Roxana (Roxi) Hewertson is a no-nonsense business veteran revered for her nuts-and-bolts, tell-it-like-it-is approach and practical, out-of-the-box insights that help both emerging and expert managers, executives and owners boost quantifiable job performance in various mission critical facets of business. Through AskRoxi.com, Roxi — “the Dear Abby of Leadership” — imparts invaluable free advice to managers and leaders at all levels, from the bullpen to the boardroom, to help them solve problems, become more effective and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

How can you make the leadership leap gracefully? Well, learning and practicing effective leadership skills is a good place to begin. When you read Roxi’s book you’ll be well on your way! Click here to learn more.

The StrategyDriven website was created to provide members of our community with insights to the actions that help create the shared vision, focus, and commitment needed to improve organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We look forward to answering your strategic planning and tactical business execution questions. Please email your questions to [email protected].

Present for Success

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals ArticleDoes this sound familiar? You have a big presentation and you practice reading your notes for several days. You work on the perfect PowerPoint slides and polish your content, but on the big day it feels like your presentation falls flat. What happened?

If public speaking makes you uncomfortable or gives you anxiety, you’re not alone: public speaking is one of the most common fears in the United States. Unfortunately, that anxiety can interfere with your delivery. It doesn’t matter how strong the content of your presentation is, if you’re unable to speak in a clear, confident manner, your message will suffer. In fact, recent research has shown that how you say something actually matters twice as much as what you say!

Learning to speak with confidence and master the art of public speaking is crucial to professional success. Whether it’s giving a sales presentation, pitching an idea to a committee, or presenting your ideas to a prospect or client, the ability to speak in a clear, engaging and confident manner is a crucial part of advancing your career. In today’s business world it is imperative that we polish our tone, engage the audience and deliver a dynamic presentation; even if it is just to one person.

Ready to take your public speaking skills to the next level? Take a look at these five tips to improve your speaking and presentation skills:

  1. Always keep water on hand when you speak. I am always surprised to see people stand at a podium or deliver a speech of greater than fifteen minutes and not have an accompanying glass or bottle of water. Speaking for a prolonged period can dehydrate your vocal cords, and dry mouth caused by nerves can make the situation worse. Staying well hydrated will help keep your voice strong and clear. In addition, taking a sip of water can be a great way to take a moment to compose yourself and collect your thoughts during your presentation.
  2. Don’t forget to breathe! Closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths before you present is remarkably effective for helping you to calm down and focus on the task at hand. Take a moment and breathe in through your nose and out from your mouth several times before taking the stage or podium. Taking deep breaths from your abdomen as you speak helps you retain this calm, and also gives power to your voice.
  3. Before you begin, take two minutes to do some vocal warm-up exercises. They’ll help to relax you and make your speech more fluid. This is even more important if you are giving a morning presentation and have not yet conversed with colleagues; you literally need to “warm-up” your voice! Lip flutters and humming are two simple and effective ways to warm up, and sliding your voice from its highest to lowest speaking pitch can prepare your vocal cords to use the range you need for a dynamic, engaging speaking voice.
  4. Improve your clarity. When people get nervous they tend to rush the delivery of their message, which subsequently causes mumbling. When people swallow their words or mumble, the importance of the message can be lost. Focus on saying each sound, especially at the ends of words.
  5. Practice! If you’re completely confident in the content of your presentation beforehand, you’ll be much more relaxed, and free to focus on the quality of your speech and your presentation style. Once you’re confident in what you are going to say, put in some additional practice time focusing on your performance style. If you incorporate clear speech and a dynamic voice into your practice, it will come much more naturally on the big day.

Polishing your public speaking skills will help you to gain confidence and increase your professional credibility. Take the time to focus on your speaking style, and make sure your presentation is doing your message justice. Remember: It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it!

About the Author

Jayne LatzJayne Latz is an expert in communication and CEO of Corporate Speech Solutions, LLC. She has worked as a speech trainer, coach, professional speaker, and has co-authored two books titled, Talking Business: A Guide to Professional Communication and Talking Business: When English is Your Second Language. She was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal and on The TODAY Show.

If you are interested in learning more ways to improve your business communication skills, contact Jayne at [email protected] or visit www.corporatespeechsolutions.com.

Lead Like it Matters… Because it Does, part 1 of 4

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Lead Like it Matters… Because it DoesWe asked Roxi Hewertson about the 8 overarching leadership insights that kick off her new book Lead Like it Matters…Because it Does hitting the stores in just a few weeks. She agreed to share them with us as a four-part series.

Insight #1: Knowing is the easy part. Doing is the hard part.

Some of the best-intended and least effective leaders I have known regularly read lots of books and even more articles on leadership. They often know the buzz words and the jargon, the latest trend in strategic planning, and the best way to build a new organizational chart.

Retaining this plethora of information in your brain is one thing. Integrating what you learn into your behaviors and actions and making it real for you and those you lead is a much bigger challenge. Why? Because changing our behaviors is one of the most difficult feats known to humankind. There will be days you might think it would be easier to jump across the Grand Canyon! Unlike jumping the Grand Canyon, changing behaviors is possible.

To do anything new or difficult, you must be truly motivated, and you must know exactly what you want to change. You need to identify what success looks like for you – not someone else’s definition, but your definition. You also need to develop an ongoing focus, along with built-in reliable sources of feedback about your progress.

Once you combine knowing and doing, you are well on your way. Don’t give up on something that matters to you. You can expect to slip and fall. You will screw up. I don’t know anyone who rode a bike perfectly the first time. It’s also important to celebrate your progress, because each step, no matter how small, gets you closer to your goal.

Insight #2: Leading people is messy!

People are, and will always be, unpredictable. Each person is unique, and that means leading people is complex, fun, interesting, frustrating, and yes, messy.

Life happens, and it’s full of triumphs and tragedies, any of which can happen to any of us at any time. We can’t predict surprises! Leaders have to be ready for just about anything and everything.

Like it or not, every person brings their emotions to work. People are 24-hour thinking-feeling creatures. They can and often do behave differently from our preconceived perceptions and/or assumptions about them. Our values drive our decisions, which generates emotions that often show up in our behaviors. It’s a knee bone connected to thigh bone kind of thing!

Emotions are contagious; we catch flyby emotions more quickly than we catch a cold. The idea that we can keep emotions out of the workplace is a lot of bunk.

Besides, we want people to feel when it suits us, right? We want them to be loyal, grateful, ethical, engaged, and kind to the people they work with and for. It’s just the inconvenient feelings that we would like people to leave at the door. It doesn’t work that way. We all bring our 24-hour, lifelong selves into work, like it or not.

Leading is one of the most rewarding jobs anyone can have, if and only if leading is joyful for you. If you find that most of the time, you dread the messiness of leading people, stop doing it. Go out there and do something that you really enjoy. Don’t try to lead people unless you have a passion for doing so. You’ll make yourself sick and everyone else at work and home miserable. The human and business costs are far too high, and really – it’s just not worth it.

About the Author

Roxi HewertsonLeadership authority Roxana (Roxi) Hewertson is a no-nonsense business veteran revered for her nuts-and-bolts, tell-it-like-it-is approach and practical, out-of-the-box insights that help both emerging and expert managers, executives and owners boost quantifiable job performance in various mission critical facets of business. Through AskRoxi.com, Roxi — “the Dear Abby of Leadership” — imparts invaluable free advice to managers and leaders at all levels, from the bullpen to the boardroom, to help them solve problems, become more effective and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

The StrategyDriven website was created to provide members of our community with insights to the actions that help create the shared vision, focus, and commitment needed to improve organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We look forward to answering your strategic planning and tactical business execution questions. Please email your questions to [email protected].

Advice to New Graduates in Their Job Search: ‘Put Your Baseball Cap to the Side’

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If you are a recent college graduate entering the job market after spending the summer backpacking through Europe or taking some downtime, you are facing a tight labor market.

Now is the time to put your baseball cap to the side and look long and hard at how you can present yourself to an employer in the best possible light.

Here are some basic, yet all-important, steps you can take to stand apart from the crowd as you embark on your job search in this highly competitive environment:

Have a great resume – The newly minted grad should have a resume that looks grounded and substantial. It should be free from typos, organized and feature a classic font. Don’t get artsy unless you are looking for a job in a creative field. It should be one-page long and leverage every marquis interaction you have had. Cite every internship and recognized brand company name.

Get great references – Call your professional references, network with them, and ask them if you can count on them for a glowing reference. Solicit their advice on your job search and ask for their feedback on your resume. This is the time to start thinking about who could be your mentor when you need to make career decisions.

Practice interviewing – Before you meet anyone, practice conducting an interview. You can find sample interview questions suited to your industry online. It’s important to be able to field tough interview questions that come your way, so rehearse interviews with a trusted advisor. Candidates who are unprepared for interviews are a constant source of irritation to hiring managers.

Interview for information – Ask and arrange for informational interviews. Not only are they an opportunity to practice your interviewing style, but they also may provide you with an opportunity to get your foot in the door. Go dressed like you are ready for a real interview; make eye contact; be aware of your body language and be prepared with questions. It’s important to demonstrate that you are serious even though the interview is informational. Ask about their hiring plans for the year. Ask them for advice. Take notes and pay attention. Follow up with an emailed or written thank-you note and connect on LinkedIn.

Know what you want and be specific – Be prepared to tell a prospective employer exactly what you want. Refer to your skills, education and contacts that are applicable. You should be able to clearly articulate your goals and vision. This can leave a far better impression than trying to be flexible, open to anything and non-committal.

Be prepared to discuss the highlights of your academic career – Your GPA and even your SAT scores matter. Prospective employers, especially for highly quantitative roles, look at these scores to benchmark candidates competing for entry-level positions.

Perhaps the best thing you can do is get an advisor or mentor. Ask them for advice and candid feedback. Have them role-play interviews with you, review your resume with fresh eyes, and ask if they’d be willing to give you a reference if needed. Having someone in your corner during the job search process can make all the difference.

About the Author

Kathy HarrisKathy Harris is Managing Partner of New York City-based Harris Allied, an executive search firm specializing in Technology, UX/UI Design and Quant Analyst placement services in the Financial Services, Professional Services, Consumer Products, Digital Media and Tech Industries For more information, visit www.harrisallied.com. Contact Kathy Harris at [email protected].