Lead compassionately

Leading people is a great PRIVILEGE and an honour.  There is so much more going on than just getting ta project or task done - There is a person, a life, emotions, a family, ASPIRATIONS & dreams!

I'll say it as it is - some Some leaders are jerks!

When it comes to leadership, the good news is, you can have heart and lead. 

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7 ways to lead with compassion:

1. Courageously commit to be human. We all know posturing and image-building is fear and fakery. The world doesn’t need another fraud, it needs you.
2. Connect with yourself. Compassion for others is born in personal experiences, struggles, and challenges. Have you failed? Embrace it. Do you struggle? Feel it.
3. Allow others to feel. Don’t minimize emotion. Say, “I see this means a lot to you,” for example.
4. Rise above your inner fixer. Let yourself feel compassion, but don’t feel the need to fix everyone. Fixing people is more arrogance than compassion.
5. Be tough and compassionate at the same time. Fear makes us believe that saying hard things requires detachment. It’s the opposite. The tougher you have to be, the more tenderness you must feel.
6. Beware drama. Some use emotion to gain attention. They’re energy vampires. Be tough with those who persist in “woe is me” behaviors.
7. Commit to more than results. Work to enhance the well-being of teammates, employees, customers, and the larger community.

Successful leaders enhance the well-being of others.

12 SECRETS FOR SUCCESSFUL COACHING CONVERSATIONS

Another great post by Dan Rockwell....

You care about coaching because it’s the path to energy, responsibility, fulfillment, and results at work. You also care because the workforce desires opportunity, purpose, development, mentors, and coaching.

The ultimate goals of coaching are effectiveness and fulfillment.

Coaches help coachees maximize potential, exploit opportunities, and breakthrough barriers.

12 secrets for successful coaching conversations:

1. Relax. Lower defenses. Be your curious self.
2. Identify goals. Define the win.
3. Discuss the process. What do we expect from each other?
4. Embrace silence. Don’t feel pressure to fill the silence. Wait a bit longer than feels comfortable. Allow coachees to fill the silence.
5. Release the need to be an expert. Don’t solve problems or fix people. Remember #1 and relax.
6. Watch for resistance. Coachees often bump against resistance. Points of resistance are growth points. Take your time. Allow coachees to push into resistance themselves.
7. Develop next steps. Always identify next steps in behavioral terms.
   • What will you do?
   • How will you know you’re taking a next step?
   • How will colleagues know?
8. Monitor and explore swings in energy. When energy goes up, ask, “What just happened?”
9. Practice permission accountability. “What would you like me to ask about next time?”
10. Be yourself. Don’t use canned approaches unless they express your heart.
11. Say what you see.
    • Give feedback on both the content and tone of conversations.
    • Watch for patterns.
    • Explore when your coachee looks weak, powerful. energized, discouraged.
12. Bring up awkward topics. Explore apparent inconsistencies, assumptions, and avoidance.

Avoid:

1. Fixing and helping. Control your inner fixer. Successful coaches give responsibility and ownership. They don’t take it.
2. Analyzing like a psychologist or therapist, unless you have training.
3. Defending personal conclusions and agendas.
4. Interrupting.
5. Circling problems. Focus on solutions, not problems.
6. Asking two questions at once.
7. Using “why.” Begin questions with how or what.

What tips help manager-coaches have successful coaching conversations?

Which idea is most useful to you?

SIMPLE RULES OF LEADING WELL

An outstanding post by Mac Lake!

Sometimes I think we make leadership more difficult than it has to be. The truth is if you follow some simple rules leadership is easy 90% of the time. The other 10% is where leaders earn their paycheck.

But some find themselves facing leadership problems with their team 90% of the time! That’s when a leader has to stop and look in the mirror. Is the problem the people or is the problem the way you’re leading?

Leading would be a lot easier for us and those we lead if we’d follow a few simple rules.

• Demonstrate a high confidence in your people. I’ve discovered the higher the confidence I have in people the higher the confidence they have in themselves. When people have a high confidence in themselves they’re more likely to take greater risks and innovate in ways that add great value to the organization.
• Praise progress not perfection. Imagine the difference it would make if leaders would stop looking for what people are doing wrong and started looking for what people were doing right and praising their progress. Team members would begin to discover and maximize their strengths. And that’s always a win for an organization.
• Establish shared expectations regarding performance outcomes. If you don’t establish shared expectations you’ll experience shared frustrations. One of the wisest things you can do is talk to your people about what their performance will look like in the future not just what it looked like in the past.
• Give people the tools and resources they need to do their job well.This will not only help them be successful but also feel successful.  Often times it’s not lack of commitment or competency that creates poor performance, it’s lack of the right tools.
• Smile, laugh and enjoy what you do.  When you enjoy what you do that joy spreads to the team. A simple smile is an expression that communicates you love being there and you love what you do.   It’s amazing how much smiling and humor can create a work culture people love.
• Lead from trust rather than leading from suspicion. If you lead from a position of suspicion then you create a tentative team. They will be guarded and operate out of fear.  If you fail to establish a culture of trust you’ve failed to establish a spirit of team.
• Make it meaningful.  Let’s face it sometimes the work our team does feels very menial.  You and I know it all works together to make the mission move forward.  But it can be easy for them to forget.  So make the work they do meaningful by always pointing them to the big picture vision, celebrating the wins and showing them that their contribution made a difference.

What are some other simple rules of leading well you’d add to this list?

THE TOXIC LEADER SCORE

An amazing post by Dan Rockwell!

A time for honesty?

Your Toxic Leader Score* (TLS) is the level of unnecessary irritation you cause others. If you occasionally irritate colleagues by arriving late, you’re a 3 on a range from 1 to 10.

If you frequently irritate colleagues, but don’t realize it, your TLS is 9. The worst leaders don’t know they’re toxic.

10 ways to elevate your Toxic Leader Score:

1. Make everything about results. “Relationships are for babies and losers.”
2. Minimize or ignore emotion and energy. “Just do your job!”
3. Change course in mid-stream without preparing people or giving reasons.
4. Complain more than affirm and compliment.
5. Devalue progress. When someone makes progress, remind them they have far to go.
6. Set long-term goals – ignore short-term wins.
7. Focus on fixing weaknesses, rather than maximizing strengths.
8. Be a know-it-all.
9. Interrupt people.
10. Believe it’s all about the money.

Leadership is more than vision and strategy. It’s also inspiration. Your unscientific Inspiration Score (IS) is your ability to tap the power of happiness.

10 Ways to elevate your Inspiration Score:

1. Dedicate yourself to building positive energy environments. The most powerful thing you do is create positive environments where people love coming to work.
2. Show respect. If you want people to act like owners, stop treating them like slaves.
3. Be decisive with openness.
   • Seek input.
   • Explore options.
   • Explain purpose.
   • Make decisions.
   • Adapt as you go.
4. Trust people. Meddlers and micro-managers top the Toxic Leader chart.
5. Ask questions, gently. Questions feel like interrogations when all you care about are results.
6. Make work about them, not you. Help people get where they want to go.
7. Give helpful feedback.
8. Practice open handed generosity.
9. Pat people on the back, literally. Touch energizes. But, don’t lay your hand on people.
10. Pursue excellence collaboratively. Set high standards and figure out how to reach them together.

What behaviors make leaders toxic?

What behaviors make leaders inspirational?