Leadership Growth: Overcome Your Obstacles

Be Willing to Make the Tough Decisions

Previously I offered suggestions on how to overcome the things that might be standing in the way of your effectiveness as a leader. Now I’ll share with you some tips on how to turn it all around.

Be Willing to Make the Tough Decisions

One surefire way to let the obstacles overrun your business is to be unwilling to make the scary changes. Identifying what doesn’t work and being able to abandon it for something else it is a necessary ability. This is especially important when it comes to your staff. It’s important to cultivate a work environment where people are collaborating and putting their greatest efforts toward a common goal. If someone is consistently disrupting that, it’s time for a change.

Be Open to Product or Service Innovations

People aren’t the only thing in your organization that requires examining. Maybe your products or services aren’t generating the necessary results but you’re having a hard time letting go. Be sure to evaluate the effort being put into such things and whether or not the outcome favors the cost. Knowing when to walk away from something is an invaluable skill to learn. It might just be time to create something new.

Update Your Strategies

Knowing when to walk away from a product or service you’re proud to offer but is proving ineffective is difficult. It might be even more difficult to walk away from an embedded marketing strategy or a long-held managerial approach yielding a similar lack of results. Again, take a look at the efforts versus outcomes and look for direct correlations that may outline exactly how or why something isn’t working. You don’t have to abandon your ideas altogether, but finding ways to improve them can trigger a worthy turnaround.

Connect to Every Business Function

Stay involved with all aspects of the business, whether or not you’ve grown out of it. If you developed the product and were there from the start, you’ve passed the torch of sales down to a sales team while you went on to bigger and better things. But how much do you know about the current workings of the sales function in your business? If your answer is “not much,” it’s time to fix that.

Obstacles are part of the job, so how are you going to use them to improve your business output, office morale and customer relationships?

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Do you want to motivate and lead your staff more effectively? My executive coaching services can help you hone your leadership skills and clearly define your goals and objectives.

Leadership Growth: Identify Your Obstacles

1. Set Parameters

Last week we discussed leadership failures and how to overcome them, but those big defeats only come once in a while; the daily challenges that you my face can be equally daunting if you don’t go in with the right game plan.

Your day at the office is a busy one and you probably haven’t ever taken the time to single out your biggest obstacles; the things that slow you down or lessen your morale without you even realizing it. It’s important to identify your challenges so you can learn how to work with them instead of working for them.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to start with identifying; overcoming comes later. Here are some things to try.

  1. Set Parameters

An obstacle is a detriment to your success; a roadblock in the way of your effectiveness as a leader. We aren’t talking about your employee coming in late this morning, but if he or she is late every morning and you have to waste a part of every day disciplining them to no avail, that might be an obstacle. Their lateness is a detriment to your success a leader, and your consistent attempts to right the wrong is blocking your effectiveness with wasted time and worn-down morale. Before you start identifying problems, set the parameters of what you’re looking for in defining an obstacle versus what is simply an annoyance.

  1. Look Around

This part of the plan will focus mostly on nouns. Scan the room, browse your meeting calendar, shuffle though old emails; are you thinking of any people, places or things that fill you with doubt or hesitation? Are too many department meetings taking up your time for no real reason? Or maybe the amount of meetings are fine but they’re always held in inconvenient places. Are any members of your team behaving in a way that is less than helpful to the overall goals of the company? You may think you would already know the answers to these questions, but once you take the time to examine your working environment, you might learn something new.

  1. Compare and Contrast

Once you have an idea of the factors that might be holding you back, imagine a world where those things didn’t exist. When you compare the current situation to the ideal situation, do you see vast improvement? It’s important to note that by saying vast improvement, I don’t mean you get to have time to grab a doughnut on the way to your meetings now or that you now have an excuse to fire your least favorite person. I mean do you see an overall spike in team morale, a better balanced schedule or the potential for more productivity? If so, you’ve done a good job identifying your obstacles.

  1. Ask Why

This may sound existential but it’s important. If what you’ve identified as an obstacle is as bad as it seems, why does it exist? If it’s a system or process that’s ineffective to the company’s production, consider why it was used in the first place or why it’s still used, despite its lack of efficacy. There might be good reasons for seemingly unhelpful things to exist, so see if you can think of any.

  1. Develop a Solution

This is the ultimate checks and balances system of identifying your obstacles; figuring out how to eliminate them. If what you’ve identified as an obstacle is truly in the company’s favor to avoid, now is your chance to suggest how to do that. Does an employee need to be redistributed within the team? Can you propose one longer weekly meeting to replace several shorter daily meetings? Think outside the box but within reason and be prepared to offer plenty of support for your suggestions.

So you’ve identified your workplace obstacles and maybe you realized things weren’t so bad. Going though these 5 steps can help you gain a greater perspective on your work situation. It will give you a clear picture of what might be tripping you up and how you can fix it, but it might also silence some ongoing concerns of yours with a little more insight and consideration. Perhaps you realized something wasn’t so bad and there’s already a work-around in existence, you just have to use it. Otherwise, now’s your chance to speak up.

Next time we’ll discuss ways you can overcome the obstacles you’ve identified if the answers aren’t as obvious as you may want them to be.

 

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Do you want to motivate and lead your staff more effectively? My executive coaching services can help you hone your leadership skills and clearly define your goals and objectives.

Problems vs Solutions: 5 Tips to Change Your Workplace Thinking

Avoid trying to fix what isn’t broken

We’ve discussed obstacles and failures at the leadership level, but one critical way to improve your response to obstacles and failures at any level is to ensure your attitude is positive.

There are several ways to turn your workplace thinking away from counterproductive negativity. You know the very value of this because you’ve had that conversation with the office complainer. The office complainer is the person at work who is never satisfied and loves to say how dissatisfied they are without ever offering a positive way to fix the things they’re dissatisfied about. They’d rather complain and rev up your engine so you’ll complain with them. Not only is that person not helpful, they bring down office morale and leave you questioning your own positive outlook. There’s no room for that in a successful business.

If you’re a manager or director, you should use these 5 techniques to lead your team to success through your words and your actions. If you’re not a manager, exhibiting this type of thinking and positive approach will make you a viable managerial candidate in no time.

  1. Avoid trying to fix what isn’t broken

Don’t look for things to be mad about or ways to break down existing systems. Only attempt to improve a situation if it’s proven to have a negative impact to you, your coworkers, your customers or the business.

  1. Update your language

Whether communicating via email, phone or in person, avoid using dooming words like “fail” “problem” “mistake” “impossible” and “loss.” Replace those terms with more hopeful ones, such as “progress” “challenge” and “improve.” While on the topic of language, be sure to apply it outside of business chat as well. It should come as no surprise that it doesn’t set a good tone when you speak in a derogatory manner about your coworkers, customers or boss, so be sure to steer clear of that.

  1. Comply with the office dress code

When you decide you want to skirt around the office dress code, you’re showing signs of disrespect to management and the overall collaboration of your work community. While it may not be your intention, your actions speak loudly on your behalf. Stick within the structure to show you’re happy being a part of the team.

  1. Apply The Golden Rule

It’s called the Golden Rule for a reason and it will never stop being relevant. If someone has an idea you don’t agree with, put yourself in their shoes before you respond. Would you want someone jumping down your throat and belittling your thoughts? Or would you prefer someone offer to work with you to improve the base of your idea?

  1. Help Out

Your relationship with colleagues, employees and employers is vital to tipping the scale of the office atmosphere from negative to positive. Are you communicating? Are you being kind and pleasant? Are you offering to help when others could use it? If you finish your project while someone else is struggling, offer assistance for the good of the team.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of negativity at work.  But with the right thinking and minor actions, you can start to notice a turnaround not just in your mood, productivity and reputation around the water cooler, you’ll also start to get some of that positive attitude back from your colleagues.

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Do you want to motivate and lead your staff more effectively? My executive coaching services can help you hone your leadership skills and clearly define your goals and objectives.

More Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Quit Your Job

How will I explain this on future interviews?

There are several reasons you might think about quitting your job. If you’re suffering from career-induced stress, a lack of financial stability or are feeling undervalued, you could be looking eagerly toward the exit.

But there are several things to factor in to such a big decision. In our last batch of quitting question suggestions, we recommended that before you start contemplating your exciting and bold exit strategy, ask yourself these questions:

  • Can I effectively address these issues with my boss first?
  • Can I see myself as the boss?
  • Do I have a financial backup plan?
  • What are my other options?

If you’ve worked through those answers and still aren’t sure, here are some more things to examine.

How will I explain this on future interviews?

Everyone knows that a hot topic on any job interview is why you left your last place of employment. If you feel uncomfortable having this conversation with a potential future employer, it might be because your reasons to leave aren’t quite enough. In addition to your reasons, your interviewer will consider how long you were at this company, and even the one before it. If they notice a tendency of job-hopping, they won’t be impressed. Take a look at your resume and see if you sense a pattern. Notice it before someone else does.

Am I considering all of the benefits?

It’s easier to be disgruntled about work than it is to appreciate it. Not every company offers the same incentives, benefits and even pay as the company you’re with now. This includes amenities, flexible schedules and commute ease and time. You may feel unmotivated but it’s possible once you compare what you have to what else is out there, you may suddenly feel very grateful. If not, once you see where you are compared to where you could be, you can determine how much it’s all worth to you. Do you dislike your job so much you’re willing to give up a shorter commute and steeper benefits?

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

This may seem like a silly question to ask at a time like this, but it can serve you well in two ways; 1. You’re already prepared with an answer for any potential upcoming interviews and 2. Truly understanding these things about yourself will give you the clarity you need to make a choice.  Consider that the reason you’re not getting the most out of your job is because you’re not putting the right kind of focus and effort into it. If that sounds about right, now is the time to try to change that. Express a desire to your boss about different projects that you can work on where your strengths can best benefit the team and company. If that’s not possible, your new-found self awareness will lead you where you want and need to go next.

Quitting a job is complicated yet often necessary. There are many reasons to desire the change, but for every reason, there’s a serious factor that needs to be weighed before making the decision.

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Do you need help assessing your career anxiety or improving your relationship with your boss? My executive coaching services can help you hone your communication skills and clearly define your goals and objectives.