Archives For leadership

Ground Rules and Fences | Leading a Frustrated Team [Part 5]

24/05/2013 — Leave a comment

This post is part of the “Leading A Frustrated Team” series.

Frustration is one of those things that can never be separated from leadership. It is inevitable. Frustration can be the result of being overwhelmed. At other times not having enough support or clarity… Whatever the case, it can be harmful if it is not addressed and festers.

When leaders don’t pay attention to their team’s frustration, they nurture it. Frustrated teams are unhealthy and unproductive teams. Unhealthy and unproductive teams fail to meet the needs of those they serve in a satisfactory manner.

Leading a frustrated team is something every leader has to embrace as part of the job. However, it doesn’t have to be exclusively the leaders’ responsibility. When teams and their leaders work together to discuss frustration and its causes, resolution is not far.

fence Ground Rules and Fences | Leading a Frustrated Team [Part 5]

frustration cannot always be prevented but its impact can be minimised

In the midst of frustration leaders, and teams, tend to focus on dealing with the frustration. Both the team and leader need to engage and determine what caused the frustration. Leaders must be careful not to get so caught up in getting rid of the frustration that they overlook dealing with its cause.

Map | How

If you don’t identify the reasons for your teams’ frustration you are bound to repeat them. This means wasting valuable resources by diverting your attention to the problems instead of serving your beneficiaries. Both leaders and teams must be able to come to the table to determine how they arrived there. But that is only the first step.

Ground Rules and Fences

Both parties need to set ground rules. There must be agreement on how future resulting frustration from similar issues will be handled. Fences must be put in place. Placing self-sustaining systems solves some problems. New ways may need to be put in place. Perhaps a clarification of roles might be needed.

Agree what steps you will take in the event conflict happens because of frustration. Conflict resolution will never be effective if it isn’t based on agreed terms. There are rules in boxing ;-)

Point

Leading frustrated teams requires open and honest appraisal. Leaders must create a platform where they can engage their teams in determining the cause of their frustration. The next step is to place boundaries and agreed steps to preventing the same being repeated. There must also be agreement on how repeated occurrences will be handled.

Related Posts:

The Presence | Leading A Frustrated Team [Part 4]

Cool | Leading A Frustrated Team [Part 3]

Hear | Leading a Frustrated Team [Part 2]

Ignore? | Leading a Frustrated Team [Part 1]

[image by laffy4k | cc] 

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The Question My Insomnia Is Asking You

23/05/2013 — Leave a comment

no sleep The Question My Insomnia Is Asking You

Sleep is very important. It is precious. If you’ve never been close to tears from trying to sleep you won’t understand. (Hey sleepers, don’t judge…) Insomnia is one of the worst things you could ever wish on someone. The effects are terrible to say the least. Your productivity and health are negatively impacted.

I have to be careful not to disrupt my sleep patterns. Believe me, the reminders are not kind. Getting my sleep patterns is one of the most challenging things ever! (<– See what I did there? An exclamation mark. Something I haven’t used in a very long time) Earlier this week I messed up my sleep patterns and this post (among others) is a product of insomnia.

I wish I had the gift of sleep many have… When insomnia happens I can only stay in bed and stare at the ceiling for so long.

I’ve figured out some of the reasons for the sleepless nights. Sometimes it is because I’m fighting an idea. The idea wants to come out and I keep trying to tell it to shut up and return during the following day. But I’ve discovered that some of my ideas don’t have working hours. (Those who get ideas in the shower know what I’m talking about… Is there any weird place you get brilliant ideas?)

Other times I’m just plain worried about something. Sometimes it takes me long to figure out what I’m worried about. Insomnia makes one slow and stupid…

When I can’t sleep I read in bed. I’ve had to learn to force myself to read fiction. Non-fiction just makes my mind more active. Sometimes I think I’m wasting time and decide to be ‘productive’. So I try to get out of bed as quietly as I can so I don’t wake Ingrid up. (She’s one of those generally blessed with sleep…)

One of my favorite places in the whole wide world, besides the newly found Medium platform, is at my desk. I sit there and write. I love writing. It is hard, excruciating but I can’t help it… I just love writing. So, I get to it. I write a line and rewrite it fifty different ways and eventually one ends up with a blog content that could be a tome if bound…

At other times, when I’m battling insomnia I study. I do research for my assignments and work on my assignments…

Ah, suddenly the “insomnia inconvenience” has been turned around. There are challenges and inconveniences that are easy to turn around. Everyone has his or her insomnia. This is not about weaknesses. It’s about regular or occasional inconveniences you encounter.

The question, well questions, my insomnia has for you:

What is your insomnia? 
What do you do with your ‘insomnia’?

 

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Figuring It Out

20/05/2013 — Leave a comment

“Knowledge is power”. Are there really people who still believe this “mantra” in its rawness? I can’t believe I believed this “motto” of the school I attend in my first grade, for many years. Knowledge, in itself is, not power.

Understanding knowledge, its relevance, applying it in the correct context… Now, that is power. Even so, this is still incomplete. Increasing your knowledge is never going to be enough. You have to understand its significance and apply it in context.

figure it out Figuring It Out

you’ll never be effective in anything if you’re not passionate about figuring things out

 

The most powerful people and leaders in general, are the ones committed to figuring things out. The one who knows something without a commitment to understand its implications and application greatly cripples not only his ability, but innovation.

The most powerful people are not the ones that amass knowledge. They are the ones passionately given to figuring out its context. It is people who when they know they don’t know something or enough of it given themselves completely to figuring it out.

Leaders committed to always figuring things out are constantly growing and challenging teams. It is not embarrassing or degrading for them when they don’t know something. They are happy not to have their abilities graded higher than they really are.

Instead of hiring or enlisting people who are happy to just know what they know, get people who show a commitment to always figuring it out. The guy who says I don’t know and often comes back with new information, demonstrating his commitment to obliterate any ignorance he discovers, is the one you want to keep on your team.

The ones committed to figuring things out are the ones who grow teams. They are key innovation players as they always seek fresher and newer ways.

Be a leader who never gets bogged down by what he knows he doesn’t know. Be committed to figuring it out. Research, read up, skill up but never be comfortable in ignorance.

Be committed to a constant pursuit of knowledge, unlocking its relevance and applying it for the greater.

[image by: Horia Varlan | cc]

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Start | How To Raise More Leaders

17/05/2013 — Leave a comment

Every leader must aspire to lead well. No. Actually, every leader must lead well. The use of “aspiring” has been reason for too many leaders putting into the future what they should be practicing now.

It’s fairly common talk that great leaders make more leaders and not followers. It is not leadership when it doesn’t produce leaders. Leaders don’t only exist to lead people; they are there to raise leaders.

Leaders are leaders when they produce more than just followers, but more leaders.

The first step to raising more leaders is taking the “follower” label off those you lead. Those you lead are not likely to rise above the labels you place them. Treat those you lead as colleagues and not followers. Helping people realize they are more; that they can be more is the first step to uplifting them.

raise Start | How To Raise More Leaders

you’re not leading until you’re raising leaders

 

 

This doesn’t me you can’t assert your authority as leader, when necessary. It means you expect more from your team by expecting of them the leadership and thinking that your position requires. This threatens insecure leaders.

Insecure leaders are incapable of raising leaders. This is because they see any equipping as a conspiracy against themselves. To an extent, they are right.

Raising other leaders is about making yourself replaceable.

Instead of working against you this can actually work for you, in the sense that it sets you free to focus on other things. When you can grow other people to do what you do, it creates room for you, as a leader, to challenge yourself in other areas.

The reason why some leaders never grow is that they don’t intentionally grow out of their present responsibilities and positions. This starts by making sure that someone can do what you do.

Great leaders raise leaders that are, at least, able to do what they do. John Maxwell states talks about the Law of the Lid, where the leaders determines how high people he leads can rise. You haven’t led until you have, at least, brought people to your level.

Obliterate the word, “Followers” from your organization’s vocabulary. Epitomize the principle of following but stop calling those you lead your followers. They are your colleagues.

Related: What Giving Responsibility Can Do

This sets your team free from looking to you for answers. When you treat those you lead as leaders, they start taking ownership of decisions and strategies. They see themselves as responsible for thinking ahead. For innovation. For foresight. After all, these are some of the qualities expected in leaders.

Related: The Best Way To Train Leaders To Lead

You may want to stop having “team meetings” and start having “leadership meetings”. This makes your team bold in the face of decision-making…

You haven’t started raising leaders if, “Followers” still exists in your organisation… Start there.

[image by thisreidwrites | cc]

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The Mine Of Being Undermined

13/05/2013 — Leave a comment

As I’ve said before, “The truth is we all want people to think of us as more capable than we really are”. It can be gravely damaging to let people hold on to such perceptions, especially to the extent to which we get entrusted with something on the premise that we are perfectly capable.

Honesty is the basis of integrity. Being one with who you say you are and what you’re capable of and letting your actions match with that…

Related: The Grading Tango | Honest

The other side of the coin, however, is being undermined. Undermined not in the sense of being patronized. Undermined when people “grade or perceive” us as less capable than we really are.

3633969341 6a0e73505c z The Mine Of Being Undermined

you can draw value out of being undermined

Irony: We generally hate being undermined yet we can let people “grade” us higher than we deserve. In fact, we’re often infuriated when we are said to be less, in whatever way, than we are. We go into tirades. After all, it is justified. How can we be undermined and disrespected in such a way?!

Whatever you do, you have to choice to how you respond to being undermined. Before you launch your counter attack on being undermined consider the mine that you could dig:

Expectations

Being undermined comes with less expected of you. Thus, whatever you deliver above whatever was expected of you makes you exceptional. It will bring attention. Which is what you want anyway, right?

Show

Instead of talking about how much you are more than what you are said to be, show it. Action still speaks louder than words. The proof of the pudding is still in the eating.

Pressure

Rather be undermined than overrated. When you’re undermined the pressure is less than what would be on you if you were overrated. Use the obscurity being undermined provides you to deliver even better, no greater than what you were said to be.

Challenge

Use being undermined as a reminder that there is always room to be greater. The more you learn, the more you’ll realize how much you don’t know. The higher you climb the more you’ll realize there is still higher to go.

When you’re undermined allow it to remind you stay humble. Let it remind you to stay hungry. Let being undermined drive you closer to getting better than you are already. Don’t let it take your focus to addressing the people who’ve undermined you. As, I’ve already said, let your work speak for you.

Point

People are not always going to have an accurate estimation of your capabilities. Be careful how you respond those estimations. When they’re overrated don’t lie and go along with them. When your capabilities are undermined mine the mine of being undermined; let it work for you and not against.

[ image by Max0rz | cc ]

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