LEADERSHIP RESOURCES BLOG

Job satisfaction and employee engagement are strongly connected. A Journal of Management study found that job satisfaction is a prerequisite to employee engagement, so it’s almost impossible to have engaged employees without having satisfied employees.

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Employee engagement is a key component of the overall effectiveness of a company. Employees who are engaged with their jobs are more productive than those who are not. This is because engaged employees are dedicated to their jobs and believe in what they do. They are not merely coming to work for the paycheck; they are engaged emotionally, and this emotional commitment drives them to perform at their highest level.

Employee engagement can be enhanced through the creation of an environment that fosters connection and communication. When managers know their employees as individuals, they can give them opportunities to use their best talents and maximize their contribution. They can do this by interacting with them, talking to them about their lives outside of work, and aligning their work with each team member’s strengths. The best managers know where each person excels, and they know how to position them so that they can provide maximum value to the organization.

High levels of employee engagement have been linked to higher sales and profits for a business. Employees who are engaged in their work are more likely to stay in their jobs and spread the word about the company’s products and services. Employees who are engaged also tend to be happier and are more likely to be involved in new initiatives.

Here’s a common way to understand the relationship between the two: Job satisfaction is a one-way street and asks, “What can you do for me?” Employee engagement is a two-way street and asks, “How can I help make things better?”

To put it another way, until someone can understand what their employer is doing for them, they can’t feel fully engaged. Here are 4 key ways your organization’s level of job satisfaction may be impacting its overall employee engagement.

1.  Poor Leadership Destroys Job Satisfaction

Just a few bad leaders within your organization can completely erode employees’ job satisfaction. When someone feels that their leaders don’t care about them or aren’t listening to their concerns, they lose their desire to stay engaged.

One of the biggest secrets to raising employee engagement is improving the leadership styles among your company’s managers. Someone in a leadership role doesn’t automatically have or develop leadership qualities, so they often need training and coaching to learn how to motivate their teams skillfully.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) plays a key role in being an effective leader. It’s even more important than someone’s intelligence quotient (IQ) because it captures their ability to nimbly navigate interpersonal conflicts and seize opportunities for productive growth.

2.  Money Matters for Job Satisfaction

Employers sometimes avoid discussing compensation as a factor in increasing job satisfaction. It’s easier to believe that great workers aren’t motivated by money and just have higher aspirations.

To some degree, this is true. Superstar achievers aren’t solely motivated by money, but it’s part of a constellation of rewards for high achievement. When someone feels consistently undercompensated, their job satisfaction begins to suffer. 

Attracting top talent to the company also requires competitive pay. A recent national salary study found that due to the impact of inflation and other economic factors, employees now expect high salaries and will avoid employers that downplay the importance of fair pay. Workers also feel more satisfied when companies offer additional perks like remote work, tuition reimbursement, flexible schedules, and opportunities for bonuses.

3.  No Communication Leads to No Employee Engagement

Communication and engagement go hand in hand. A common reason why employees begin to disengage is that they feel dissatisfaction over poor communication between themselves and the people in leadership roles.

An employee may feel that their boss doesn’t provide enough performance feedback. They might be irritated that the company seems tight-lipped about new policy changes. Whatever the disconnection is, it leads to disengagement and your employees will eventually start looking for work elsewhere. 

To learn more about communication-related employee engagement strategies, take a look at the Leadership Resources blog post, “How an Established Leader Can Better Communicate.” It shares actionable tips for boosting communication between employees and leaders.

4.  The Ultimate Test of Satisfaction: Tough Times

When a company goes through hard times, employees face additional stressors that impact their job satisfaction. This was painfully evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought illness, stress, interpersonal conflicts, remote work issues, and struggles with job satisfaction.

The National Institutes of Health found that since the pandemic began, employees have started judging their employers more harshly on health and safety procedures. Negative feelings about safety protocols are proven to lead to less job satisfaction.

This phenomenon is also evident in employees’ perceptions regarding issues like social justice and ethical business practices. Gallup attributes a historic drop in employee engagement to the impact of widespread social unrest and persistent diversity and inclusion challenges among American employers.

Even a period of rapid growth, which is usually viewed as a positive sign of a successful business, puts your employees at risk of lower job satisfaction and engagement. Growth brings more pressure and responsibility, so your employees will need extra support along the way.

How to Learn More About Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement

If you’re still wondering, “Why is employee engagement important?” or if your organization needs more ways to attract, engage, and retain top talent, Leadership Resources is here to help. We provide an array of time-tested leadership and engagement techniques to help companies identify and support outstanding employees.

Employee engagement is a crucial part of building your organization’s next generation of talented leaders. To learn more, please click below to download our whitepaper, “Identify and Develop the High-Potential Leaders of Your Organization.”

Considering a business growth coach? Successful professionals often believe they don’t need business coaches. They think, “Why would someone need coaching if nothing is wrong?”

But coaching isn’t just about reviewing the wrong plays. It looks at making more of the right plays too. Leadership development coaching shows how a person or team could become even more outstanding with the right techniques.

Could your team be hitting more goals? Converting more customers? Accomplishing your company’s biggest, most challenging missions? Absolutely.

4 Signs that You Need a Business Growth Coach

1. Your company needs more/better leaders 
2. You have (or want) a growth mindset
3. Your team has low EQ
4. You want high ROI

Every superstar team needs a superstar coach. Here’s how to know if your company should hire a leadership coach to reach its next level of success.

Your Company Needs More/Better Leaders

Perhaps the most common reason to hire a business growth coach is that a company needs to identify and develop leaders within its ranks. Even in companies that employ plenty of talented people, it can be challenging to decide who’s the best fit for formally stepping into a leadership role.

This is especially true when companies are experiencing periods of change and adaptation. When something happens to shake things up, like a merger, acquisition, expansion, or change in the company’s focus, you need to rely on talented leaders who can keep everyone on track.

Hiring a leadership coach helps locate and promote new leaders while maintaining a healthy culture as your company changes over time. A skilled leadership coach assists teams as they address interpersonal conflicts and communication barriers that would otherwise interfere with positive progress.

You Have (or Want) a Growth Mindset

Why hire a leadership coach? Because you’re ready to grow! Personal and professional growth is much easier when you have the right support.

At Leadership Resources, our coaches work with companies that are excited to be experiencing periods of growth but don’t know how to manage it effectively. Sometimes a team’s mindset is the biggest limiter to success.

Your company’s coach can help everyone explore the differences between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. While a growth mindset views new circumstances as opportunities to succeed, a fixed mindset wants things to stay the same and operates out of fear.

Individually, and as an enterprise, you can move past your fears with a coach’s help. As the famous entrepreneur and business leader Dale Carnegie said, “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

Your Team Has Low EQ

Take a moment to think about your company’s emotional intelligence (EQ). In the workplace, EQ is just as important as your intelligence quotient (IQ) because it shows you how well you work with others to accomplish daunting tasks.

A 40-year UC Berkeley emotional intelligence study found that EQ was nearly 4 times more accurate than IQ at predicting success. High-EQ people and teams are open to learning about overcoming conflicts, seeking creative solutions, and making nimble adjustments that open up fresh opportunities. A business growth coach can help improve your team’s emotional intelligence.

EQ development occurs when a business coach helps people look inside themselves and acknowledge areas for improvement. Your leadership coach can help you build your people skills and pursue an adaptive leadership style that’s highly correlated with accomplishing challenging goals.

You Want High ROI

If you’re someone who thinks like an accountant, here’s some great news. The numbers support your company’s desire to hire a leadership coach.

According to the International Society for Performance Improvement, business leadership coaching can bring a 221% return on investment (ROI). For the most comprehensive and long-lasting results, experts recommend engaging with comprehensive leadership coaching programs as opposed to ordinary training sessions. 

Leadership Resources has a staff of seasoned business coaching consultants with the experience to help companies pursue leadership coaching for results. Our programs are focused on success metrics, and our coaches can help you understand why, when, and how your company should adjust its approach to reach the next level of success.

How to Hire a Leadership Coach

Support your staff and inspire a new generation of leaders by providing the resources they need to build their confidence and experience with leadership. Leadership Resources provides robust, collaborative leadership development coaching individualized to each company and participant. 

When you’re ready for business coaching with Leadership Resources, reach out to us to be matched with a business coach who’s the right fit for your business. Learn more about how a business coach can help your company thrive by downloading this whitepaper.

Did you know developing leaders could be the best thing that ever happens to your business? Forbes shared a new full-time worker study that shows big benefits for promoting from within rather than hiring from outside.

Here are a few interesting highlights from the study:

• 71% of employees felt it’s easier to scale up a business when you promote from within.
• 66% preferred to be managed by someone who was promoted internally.
• 56% believe it’s better for morale to hire from inside.

Also interesting is this fact from Forbes: Contrary to popular belief, managers who are promoted from within make higher salaries than outside hires. They’re also 10% more likely to run highly productive teams.

Those are all impressive numbers, but how do you build leaders inside your organization? Below, Leadership Resources shares 3 secrets showing how to develop leaders at your company.

Secret #1: Leadership is Learned Behavior

Leadership isn’t inborn, although some people seem to be naturally great leaders. In actuality, it’s a skill people can learn through desire, focus, and engaging with effective leadership development approaches.

In the business world, leadership development is the process of an organization investing in people to nourish the expansion of their leadership skill sets. The best leadership development programs prepare emerging leaders to embrace leadership roles and adapt to new challenges with confidence and optimism.

This also involves the key quality of having a growth mindset, meaning you view changing conditions as opportunities to succeed in new ways rather than feeling fearful. Again, a growth mindset isn’t something you’re born with. Great leaders learn to develop great interpersonal skills, which almost anyone can do with the right leadership education.

Leadership education involves using tools and methods that are most likely to lead to long-term personal and professional success. An organization like Leadership Resources serves the vital role of providing effective leadership development and a wealth of helpful educational resources.

The results of leadership development are evident in company metrics that show increased productivity, higher employee engagement, better job satisfaction, and consistency in reaching company goals. By learning certain methodologies and applying them to the workplace, a flourishing leader inspires teams of other people to accomplish amazing things.

Secret #2: Developing Leaders Need Help With Their Leadership Styles

Even as your company is wondering how to develop leaders in your organization, you’re wondering how to become a leader in the first place. Most people don’t know the basics of building teams or what their personal leadership style is until they pursue leadership education.

Every business contains diverse people with a variety of approaches to life and leadership. Whether these workers have already received any leadership training or not, some of their approaches are more productive than others. 

Certain behaviors and qualities are most strongly correlated with business success. How familiar are you with the concept of emotional intelligence? If you’re looking to become a better leader or nurture better leadership at your organization, now’s the time to learn about EQ.

A person’s EQ is even more important than their IQ in terms of successfully leading teams of their colleagues. Research from Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that people with high EQ are better team players who keep others on task and accomplish complex tasks more efficiently, both working individually or in teams.

Secret #3: Leadership Development Isn’t a One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Leadership development follows its own path for each person and each company. There’s no single approach that works at every organization in the world because every environment has its own unique needs and quirks.

Your company’s leadership program must be carefully customized and individualized, or it won’t be effective. The most successful leadership development programs take a thoughtful and well-planned strategic effort that plans for at least one to three years into your organization’s future.

To customize your leadership development program, work with a leadership coach who has experience with addressing topics like cultural change, growth-focused leadership, strategic planning, and succession planning. 

Leadership Resources: The Secret to Success in Developing Leaders

It takes time and support to develop leaders who can become your company’s next generation of superstar C-suite executives and stellar department managers. Experts recommend engaging with fully customizable leadership development programs as opposed to following traditional training programs that are less effective.

Leadership Resources is your secret to developing leaders from within your company and supporting their drive to succeed. To learn more, download our guide to identifying your company’s future leaders and taking their skills to the next level.

There are two main types of mindsets: growth mindsets and fixed mindsets. One views every new challenge as an opportunity for personal or business growth. The other avoids facing new challenges in the first place! In this article, we’ll cover the ins and outs of how to develop a growth mindset.

When you learn how to build a self-growth mindset, you’ll discover how to welcome fresh challenges and stay on the lookout for opportunities to succeed. It’s a much more successful path than a fixed mindset, which is inherently limiting to your potential.

Major research studies have shown the positive effects of having a growth mindset. One of the world’s largest studies, which included 78 countries, found that a growth mindset was linked with more academic success, a higher willingness to persevere in difficult circumstances, and a greater sense of personal well-being.

What is a Growth Mindset?

A growth mindset is a way of thinking that encourages people to develop their skills and abilities. It can make people better at almost any skill. It helps people see failure as a learning experience, and it helps them set realistic goals.

What is a Fixed Mindset?

A growth mindset is the opposite of a fixed mindset, which is often associated with failure. People with fixed mindsets believe that their abilities are fixed and that they need to use their skills perfectly. They focus on how much effort they must exert in order to succeed. In addition, they often dwell on not making mistakes, which they view as a personal weakness.

What’s a Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset?

Wondering whether you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Here’s how to tell the difference within yourself and in others. Look at the approach to change.

A person with a fixed mindset stays stuck in the past and is strongly averse to change. Even when they’re suffering from being in a bad situation, they still view change as a threat. Their fixed mindset tends to keep them in a rut, always feeling fearful of what’s to come.

By contrast, a person with a growth mindset welcomes changing conditions. When they encounter new information, they’re curious and open to altering their perspective. They might experience a twinge of fear about the future, but they don’t let it hold them back. They continue pushing forward with optimism.

Why Does a Growth Mindset Yield Success?

Having a growth-focused mindset is essential in the business world because your company’s circumstances are always changing. That’s simply part of doing business.

A strong, thriving business relies on its employees to continually solve problems and achieve goals, even when the business environment is extremely demanding. Interpersonal conflicts must be resolved quickly and skillfully enough that they don’t hinder the forward evolution of the business.

This is particularly important when a company is experiencing a period of change, like rapid business growth, serving new clientele, launching a new product line, starting a rebranding campaign, or approaching an acquisition/merger. These activities need plenty of flexible thinkers who are open to change and opportunities.

One of the most famous growth mindset examples is Oprah Winfrey, who founded her media empire on the belief that people can accomplish things even under the most difficult circumstances. Oprah encourages people to become lifelong learners and to believe that they can choose to be excellent.

Can You Learn How to Develop a Growth Mindset?

Yes! You can learn how to develop a growth mindset and become someone who embraces change with open arms. You don’t have to do it alone.

A leadership coach helps a person or company learn the techniques for developing a growth mindset. Your coach supports you and encourages you to gain perspective on a challenging situation. A skilled coach is also savvy enough to identify gaps in learning and share leadership tools that will help you and your team make measurable progress toward success.

Developing a growth mindset is a process that takes time and dedication. That’s why a comprehensive and customized leadership development approach is much more effective at this task than simple employee training sessions. 

Leadership Resources offers the Accelerate Leadership program, which is a proven leadership and learning program for nourishing a growth mindset. We’re here to show you how growing minds lead to growing businesses!

Do your employees have the leadership skills it takes to lead your company into the next stage of its successful future? When it comes to leadership development, there’s always hope ahead. In this article we’ll share some insight on how to develop leadership skills in employees and in the workplace.

Contrary to popular belief, leadership skills aren’t something you’re born with. A talent for leadership can be learned and honed over time. 

Excellent business leadership takes a strong leadership development strategy plus the right resources to support and educate your staff. Here’s what your company needs to know about how to develop leadership skills within its workforce.

5 Ways to Develop Leadership Skills in Employees

1. Customize and Personalize Your Leadership Development Plan
2. Work With an Experienced Leadership Coach
3. Incorporate Emotional Intelligence Development
4. Establish Succession and Engagement Programs
5. Partner With Leadership Development Experts

Customize and Personalize Your Leadership Development Plan

One of the first things you should know about leadership development is that it isn’t a one-size-fits-all plan. What works for your business isn’t necessarily the same as what works for another company.

Every organization must take a thoughtful approach to leadership development that accounts for its specific goals, strengths, resources, and culture. Ask questions that reveal what your company needs from a leadership skill-building program.

• What kinds of leadership styles do you already have?
• What types of skills/deficits are present in your leadership staff?
• Which new company goals require additional leadership skills?
• How does your organization currently build leadership skills? Is it working?
• Does your company culture support effective leadership and team-building?
• What changes are on the horizon that could impact your needs for future leadership?

Answering these questions builds an understanding of how to tailor leadership development for your company. This is a major step in strategic planning for greater productivity, profitability, and growth.

Work With an Experienced Leadership Coach

The world’s greatest teams have great coaches. Have you considered working with a leadership coach on how to develop leadership skills your company needs for continued success?

Effective leadership coaching expands a company’s capacity for productive problem-solving. Whenever someone faces a tough challenge, they can turn to the coach for individualized advice and support.

One of the biggest benefits of working with a leadership coach comes from partnering to establish an understanding of the company’s strategic planning background. This sets the stage for focused, customized coaching that helps employees at all levels accomplish clear company goals.

Incorporate Emotional Intelligence Development

Leaders are more likely to build effective teams when they display emotional intelligence (EQ). High EQ indicates a capacity to understand interpersonal interactions and make savvy judgments about how to adjust to changing circumstances.

Just like leadership, emotional intelligence is a skill almost anyone can learn. Both your company’s emerging and established leaders could benefit from learning the basics of building EQ in the workplace through leadership development.

The effort is well worth it. Research shows that 9 out of 10 top performers have high EQ, and up to 60% of leadership performance is related to emotional intelligence.

Establish Succession and Engagement Programs

It’s always a shame when a great company loses great leaders. When a talented leader submits their resignation, take this as an opportunity to reflect on your organization’s retention, satisfaction, and engagement strategies. What is your company doing to retain its top performers? Do your leaders feel satisfied with their jobs?

This is also where employee engagement comes in. Every company needs a strong engagement strategy that ensures its staff isn’t on the edge of abandoning ship at any moment. To learn more about engagement, take a look at our related article, “4 Secrets to Employee Engagement and Retention.”

Your company’s succession planning strategy goes hand-in-hand with its engagement strategy. A succession plan establishes which roles are key to the company’s future, then allocates resources to retaining outstanding leaders. As part of the plan, they receive extensive leadership development training that supports their continued success.

Partner With Leadership Development Experts

Now that you know more about how to develop leadership skills among your employees, it’s time to decide how to make it happen. More specifically, you must determine who can help your company’s leaders develop the superior leadership skills they need to succeed. It’s time for a partnership with the pros.

Experts recommend using robust leadership development programs with trained leadership professionals instead of traditional training programs that aren’t customized or individualized. Your employees deserve a well-rounded program that offers a high level of support.

Leadership Resources provides a comprehensive approach that nurtures your employees along the path to leadership development. To learn more, please take a look at our Accelerate Leadership Program brochure.

DRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE THROUGH LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Background

Amy Eberle is a Quality Manager at Royal Engineered Composites—a manufacturer of carbon and fiberglass structures for assembly of aircraft located in Minden, Nebraska, near Leadership Resources’ office in Lincoln, Nebraska—with a client list including Boeing, Bell Helicopter, and Northop Grumman. Amy holds an important role at the employee-owned company.

Starting as a front office secretary in 2001, Amy had no formal education and constantly battled feelings of inadequacy. As a single mom of three, Amy spent a lot of time judging herself. She said she didn’t feel worthy or capable of changing others’ perception, especially when she wasn’t happy about her own situation.

Despite her circumstances, Amy knew she was capable of more and wanted more. She had genuine interest in helping others, and realized she needed to make some changes. She felt a fierce obligation to herself, her children, and her employer to become her personal best.

Taking action, Amy went back to school and received her Associates degree in Quality Technology. Despite her accolades, Amy still struggled with a lack of self-confidence and questioned her abilities to be in a leadership position. However, the President of Royal Engineering, Dave Arnold, saw something different in Amy.

Challenges

Dave chose Amy to run a brand-new department. While Amy now possessed the technical skills needed to take charge, she was faced with a new test—how to lead and manage a team of three.

As Dave recounts, Amy’s biggest challenge was setting clear goals and then building a cohesive team to achieve those goals. There was a lot of ‘new’ thrown at Amy, and Dave admits he did not provide Amy with a lot of direction. What he did provide however, was the opportunity for Amy to develop her leadership skills at Leadership Resources.

Results

Amy enrolled in the Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP) which provides a development pathway and individualized coaching. She experienced tremendous growth. One of her earliest successes occurred during a situation of conflict. An employee came to Amy upset, frustrated, and ready to quit. Amy used this as an opportunity to put her development skills into practice, spending several hours with the employee—focusing on him, not the situation.

At that point, Amy recognized the Accelerate Leadership Program was coming to life. She realized the only way to be successful was in the success of others and that others were looking to her in their times of need. This was the turning point for Amy.

To overcome her feelings of inadequacy, Amy began tracking her negative behaviors—ultimately eliminating the self-defeating stories in her own head. As she progressed, Amy took the tracking tools she learned and began seeking out metrics that would help her measure development success for her team.

Amy’s biggest success came when she had the opportunity to step into the Quality Manager role. She now manages a team of 18 direct reports and is dedicated to the development and coaching of her employees. Amy is a catalyst for organizational change within her company, and her ideas and actions ripple throughout Royal Engineered Composites.

Today, Amy continues to grow as a powerful and patient leader. She’s excited about the level of confidence in her abilities—something she says she could have only dreamed about three years ago. The Accelerate Leadership Program has helped her feel a purpose, not only in her career, but in her personal life too.

Dave says he has seen a fundamental change that will be with Amy forever. Through the Accelerate Leadership Program, she was exposed to several different layers of leadership, in which she learned to identify areas of growth, seek out solutions, test them in application, and then modify them for real life. Amy has learned life skills that will continue to help her grow and meet new challenges.

“There are hundreds of leadership development programs,” says Amy, “but there is nothing so personal that impacts the whole person like the Accelerate Leadership Program does. Through its unique approach, it is guaranteed to create great, impactful leaders.”

Leadership Resources provides comprehensive, high-quality leadership development with the Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP). To learn more about this approach, please download a brochure.

Need to grow your business without letting the growth get out of control? You’re already on the right track by reading this guide. Here, we’ll share our expert insights in business growth planning.

Across the U.S., 51% of small businesses are focusing on growth as their primary goal in the coming year. Despite wide-ranging challenges from forces like the pandemic and inflation, the nation is still experiencing a strong 24% increase in new business startups year-over-year.

Below, we’ll address the key factors in managing business growth. We’ll describe how to handle business growth wisely so your company can preserve its profitability, retain its best talent, and set the stage for a long and successful future. In this guide we’ll explore a few things to consider when starting the planning process for business growth.

4 Business Growth Strategies to Consider

• Short-Term vs. Long-Term Thinking
• Emotional Intelligence Supports a Growing Business
• Preventing Employee Burnout Through Engagement
• Building a Company-Wide Self-Growth Mindset

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Thinking

Take some time to step away from your everyday schedule and think strategically about your company’s overall business situation. It’s easy to forget about the long-range forecast when you’re always busy weathering your daily work.

Look beyond today and tomorrow. What’s ahead in a month or a year? Does your company have a five-year plan that guides everyone to stay on the same path together?

Is there a succession plan in place that adds stability and helps retain your most talented employees? When your company loses someone, do you have a methodical approach to attracting outstanding new team members?

It’s time to do some strategic planning and ensure your company has clarity in its mission and vision statements. If you’re struggling with getting started, connect with a business strategy consultant who has experience helping companies like yours. 

Emotional Intelligence Supports Business Growth

Consider whether your company’s culture and level of emotional intelligence can support fast and lasting business growth. Emotional intelligence in the workplace is extremely important because it fosters adaptability, flexibility, innovation, and problem-solving.

Did you know your emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) is more important than your intelligence quotient (IQ) at work? Business strategists have found that the ability to identify and regulate emotions is one of the most important components of successful team-building. When people feel respected, they’re more likely to share creative inspiration and feel the motivation to accomplish big things. 

Don’t worry if your natural EQ isn’t at the top of the scale. It’s not something you’re stuck with. Emotional intelligence is a human interpersonal skill that can be learned and honed over time. Work with a leadership coach who has a background in boosting EQ.

Preventing Employee Burnout Through Engagement

Does your company have strong employee engagement strategies? This is one of the most important questions you can ask during a period of accelerated business growth.

It would be easy to look at a growing company and assume its employees must be fully engaged. Everyone looks so busy! They must be engaged with their work, right? Not so fast.

The truth is that your busiest employees could also be on the verge of total burnout. Growth can wear people out from daily exhaustion and make them want to abandon the company. They often take their hardworking, like-minded colleagues with them.

Almost 80% of all U.S. workers experience work-related stress in a typical month. When these workers’ baseline level of stress rises above average, they’re at risk of burnout and quitting. This is the time to build a better employee engagement plan to support your company as it grows.

Building a Company-Wide Self-Growth Mindset

A crucial component of a fast-growing business is the company mindset. A mindset is a frame of mind that impacts almost every aspect of how individuals and teams operate. In short, it’s a personal and professional worldview.

Fixed mindsets have a hard time adjusting and adapting to rapid business growth. They prefer the same old reliable routes, even when they’re no longer productive or profitable. 

Inflexible thinkers can severely limit a company’s growth. When they encounter new situations, they build mental barriers that interfere with the entire team’s capacity to move forward. Just one person with the wrong mindset can have a negative ripple effect on the entire company.

The Harvard Business Review Recently shared the results of a research study into the phenomenon of “toxic rock stars.” These are seemingly successful people who actually harm companies due to their negative mindsets. They cost the economy an estimated $50 billion per year through behaviors like lying, bullying, racism, sexism, and pushing out other top performers who can’t stand the negativity.

By contrast, consider what it’s like to work with a team composed entirely of people with self-growth mindsets. These open-minded thinkers are always looking for new opportunities to succeed together. They’re team-builders who welcome diverse ideas and innovative possibilities.

As your business evolves, it needs growth-minded thinkers more than ever before. These are the flexible and creative leaders who inspire teams to achieve great things and supercharge your company’s growth.

Business Growth Planning With Leadership Resources

Growth brings growing pains, but this doesn’t have to slow your company down. Engage with an experienced business strategy consultant to manage your company’s growth skillfully.

Leadership Resources offers a comprehensive leadership development approach that embraces fast business growth and enhances future growth potential. This is the ultimate “secret sauce” for your business!

What’s ahead in the next year for your company? Will there be a new level of success? More clients? More profitability? Or do you predict a period of difficulty and struggle? In this article we’ll explore how the right strategic planning services can help your organization answer these challenging questions. 

Strategic planning is the key to turning an average year into a spectacular year. Its systematic approach takes your business to the next level. Read on to see how strategic planning services can help.

The Basics of Strategic Planning

First, what is strategic planning? It’s a thoughtful approach to running a business that includes key steps like choosing the right methodology, meeting with a strategic planning consultant, developing a written strategic plan, and partnering with strategic planning services to support the success of the process.

During the implementation stage of a strategic plan, individuals and teams collaborate to pursue the best possible outcomes. Unexpected issues arise, and problem-solving occurs under the guidance of the strategic plan and the company’s strategic planning leaders.

An often-cited study from several years ago found that about 67% of all strategic plans fail. More recently, a group of Harvard Business Review researchers found that in the current business climate, 60% to 90% of strategic plans are failing to meet expectations.

The good news is that not all strategic plans are destined for failure! Your results depend on your strategy and commitment.  When companies handle their strategic planning properly, they set the stage for success. Below, we’ll outline the factors that support the best strategic plans.

The Importance of Collaboration and Communication

Communication is the cornerstone of every great strategic plan. It takes a spirit of openness and collaboration to learn the elements of a new strategic plan and bring them to life.

Unfortunately, many companies resist sharing information and avoid communicating key details of their strategic plans across the levels of their organizations. One study found that 95% of employees don’t know or understand what’s in their employers’ strategic plans.

Do what it takes to strengthen your company’s communication. A great first step is to examine the fundamentals of how, where, and when your teams are collaborating. Is company leadership providing the tools they need to succeed? Is technology or structure interfering with collaboration?

One of the most common areas for improvement involves holding productive team meetings. For additional tips, take a look at Leadership Resources’ blog post about creating meetings that are designed to elicit maximum cohesion and performance.

Growth-Focused Strategic Planning

How growth-focused is your organization? When a company has bold goals for growth, the strategic plan should be structured to systematically achieve growth-focused goals.

In our work with hundreds of different organizations, Leadership Resources has sometimes seen companies struggle with manageable growth. The growing pains of rapid growth can cause people and processes to buckle under the pressure.

This is where a business coach or strategic planning consultant makes a huge difference in the outcome of your strategic plan. A skilled, experienced coach keeps you on the lookout for common mistakes and pitfalls, even as they nurture you along your path to success.

Goal-Setting to Reach Your Objectives

Imagine that you’re developing a brand new strategic plan. Everything you’re creating is fresh from the ground up as you build a new strategy from scratch.

One of the most common questions we hear at this point in the journey is, “What’s the difference between goals and objectives in strategic planning?” They work hand-in-hand, but they’re not the same thing. Below are two definitions that clarify the differences between them.

What Are Our Goals?

In a strategic plan, a goal is a single, long-term achievement that serves as a broad, overarching outcome everyone pursues together. When you set goals, you’re thinking “big picture.” This is a fundamental aspect of strategic planning that allows your teams to move forward with purpose as they do their daily work.

What Are Our Objectives?

Unlike goals, which are more long-term, objectives are short-term activities that make progress toward goals. Any objective you set should be measurable and achievable, or it’s unlikely to help you reach your goal.

When you engage in strategic planning, you’re setting goals and arranging the objectives it takes to get there. Companies are most likely to achieve their strategic goals when they’re skilled at devising specific objectives and holding people accountable for their roles in accomplishing them.

Incorporating Virtual Strategic Planning Services

Did you know almost half of all Americans now work remotely for at least part of their job? Virtual strategic planning is the new norm in an environment that’s constantly evolving.

Here are our top 3 tips for working virtually and strategic planning:

1. Be human. Maintain human connections by giving people breaks as needed, offline support, and opportunities for feedback. Acknowledge their feelings and avoid allowing your virtual interactions to feel too robotic.
2. Provide support. Your employees need the tools and technology to maintain remote communication. Offer guidance and support for smooth collaboration.
3. Seek help from the pros. You don’t have to do it all alone. Work with a strategic leadership consultant who has plenty of experience with virtual meetings and strategic planning.

Strategizing Your Next Step: Finding the Right Strategic Planning Services

Taking your business to the next level takes next-living thinking. For the best results, experts recommend expanding your employee resources with full-service leadership and strategic planning programs as opposed to basic training programs. 

We’re here to help! Leadership Resources provides leadership development and strategic planning services that help companies become more adaptable and successful. To learn more, please contact us and schedule a discovery session.

What if improving your mindset could improve your business? Would you invest in developing a growth mindset to gain better productivity, profitability, and opportunities for future growth? Your overall growth mindset in business makes a huge difference in defining how your business performs for years to come. Let’s explore how having the right growth mindset in business can make a difference.

A growth mindset is a smart investment. It supercharges business success and sets the stage for sustainable, long-term growth.

Some of the most famous and fast-growing businesses in the world are using the power of the growth mindset to outshine their competition and achieve their biggest goals. Below, we’ll explain how to build a growth mindset in business, plus we’ll highlight 3 companies that are doing it right.

What Is a Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset?

First of all, do you know the difference between a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset? Here’s how to tell them apart.

Fixed Mindset

Someone with a fixed mindset is stuck on the idea that change is impossible or not worth pursuing. They’re an inflexible thinker who often faces decisions and new situations by displaying fear, denial, and blame.

Growth Mindset

Someone with a growth mindset isn’t afraid to encounter new situations and is fast to adapt to changing conditions. They have the openness to accept evolving circumstances and look for new opportunities to succeed. 

In the business world, identifying the fixed vs. growth mindset is particularly important when it comes to hiring people and developing emerging leaders. A growing company relies on people who can easily adjust and adapt to business growth.

3 Great Growth Mindset Examples

Certain companies and leaders are experts at capitalizing on a growth mindset. Here are three of the best examples of famous businesses that fostered a growth mindset to accomplish exceptional success.

Microsoft: A Tech Growth Mindset

Microsoft was one of the first companies to use the terminology of “fixed mindset vs. growth mindset” years ago. Today, the company still emphasizes the importance of having a growth mindset when you’re one of its business partners. Microsoft bases its approach on Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck’s book Mindset, The New Psychology of Success.

Dweck’s book focuses on educational settings, where young learners do best when they make the connection between mindset and student achievement. This concept translates well to the business world. Leadership development goes hand in hand with having the right mindset.

General Electric: A No-Excuses Growth Mindset

At General Electric, Jack Welch was famous for warning people about the dangers of having a fixed mindset, as opposed to a flexible mindset. He often repeated some version of the quote, “For people with a fixed mindset, failure is an identity.”

People with fixed mindsets get into the habit of blaming others for their failures. Instead of focusing on what they can learn from the experience, they bury themselves in the blame game. People with growth mindsets can instead gather intel from failure and go on to much greater accomplishments. This is widely acknowledged as the secret behind Welch’s success at GE.

Procter & Gamble: A Learning Growth Mindset

In the fast-paced and competitive world of pharmaceuticals, companies that aren’t growing are at risk of getting left behind. That’s why Procter & Gamble famously adopted a “fastest learner wins” approach. P&G rewards its employees for expanding their minds, not just outshining their competition in terms of traditional measures like building revenue or market share.

F.D. Wilder, the former P&G senior vice president of global market strategy, was one of the company’s biggest supporters of an educational growth mindset. He said, “Because growth is shifting and disruption is accelerating, we must be the fastest learners and the fastest at applying learning to deliver business outcomes.”

Building The Right Mindset for Business Growth

Is your organization leveraging the power of a growth mindset yet? If you need extra help, Leadership Resources is here with growth-focused resources and business mentorship.

Keep in mind that growth always comes with risks of unintended consequences among your employees, like infighting, jealousy, frustration, interpersonal stress, and feelings of being burned out. That’s why experts recommend supporting your employees with robust leadership development programs as opposed to simple training sessions. 

To learn more, please contact us and schedule a discovery meeting. Let’s grow your mind and grow your business!

Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, impacts almost every aspect of your business. Success or failure hinges on your employees’ capacity to adapt, interact, and solve problems. Emotional intelligence training can make a huge positive impact on your business’ overall efficiency and productivity. Let’s explore how.

How Emotional Intelligence Affects Leadership

Emotionally intelligent leadership involves being aware of yourself before you put on your oxygen mask. This means bringing your best self to work and supporting others. It may seem selfish, but putting your needs first will help you be more present and connected with your employees.

The ability to manage your emotions is one of the keys to effective leadership. Self-aware leaders have a more calm and rational approach to situations and are more likely to take an organization forward. Self-aware leaders are always aware of their emotional state and how it affects others. They also have a clear picture of their strengths and weaknesses and operate with humility.

According to research by the Korn Ferry Hay Group, 92% of leaders with multiple strengths in emotional self-awareness have high-energy teams. These great leaders create a positive emotional climate, resulting in the highest levels of motivation and extra effort. On the other hand, leaders who score low in Emotional Self-Awareness are more likely to create a negative climate for their teams.

How high is the EQ at your company? How high is it among your most important leaders? Here are 3 reasons why emotionally intelligent leadership can make or break a business.

Emotional Intelligence Training Impacts Success

Companies with emotionally intelligent employees tend to be more stable and financially successful over the long term. Emotional intelligence on a personal level is closely tied to emotional intelligence on a professional level, with the habits of EQ benefiting both the employee and the employer.

One study found that 85% of financial success arises from emotional and personality-related factors. In fact, having a higher EQ throughout a career is linked to an individual employee earning almost $30,000 more per year in income due to the additional success they’re bringing to their lucky companies.

But is it really luck? Many companies now make it a priority to hire with EQ in mind. A Forbes study found that 71% of hiring managers prefer candidates with high EQs over high IQs, and 59% of employers would avoid hiring a low-EQ employee even if they had a high IQ.

Higher EQ Fosters Flexibility and Adaptability

Flexible thinking is strongly associated with high emotional intelligence. Successful companies leverage the talent of leaders who use their adaptive skills to form strong interpersonal relationships and resolve conflicts smoothly. 

If your company is struggling to adapt to changing market conditions or needs to build new relationships with clients, consider whether you’re battling a lack of emotionally intelligent leadership. EQ often provides a beacon of hope just when companies need it most.

Who are your most flexible thinkers in the company? Consider not only official leaders, but also de facto leaders who seem to magnetically draw others to them and foster effective everyday communication. Look for current employees who show the capacity to build their EQ but perhaps haven’t yet had the best emotional intelligence training.

You need high-EQ leaders who can boldly move forward with your strategic plans and accomplish your biggest business goals. It’s especially crucial to consider refining your company’s learning objectives for emotional intelligence training if you’re pursuing new initiatives like:

• Mergers and acquisitions
• Diversity and inclusion
• Social responsibility
• Sustainability and environmental awareness
• New company values or ethical codes
• Personal/professional accountability initiatives
• Expansion into new sectors, services, products, or client groups

Emotional Intelligence is a Teachable Trait

Here’s perhaps the best news about EQ: It’s something you can learn. Although a handful of people are born with extraordinarily high levels of natural EQ, pursuing emotional intelligence training is the secret to raising the overall level of emotional intelligence throughout your company.

Almost anyone can improve their EQ skills with the right kind of coaching and support. In fact, the best emotional intelligence training programs aren’t just “training” at all. Experts recommend engaging with fully enriched leadership development programs as opposed to traditional employee training seminars.

Leadership Resources’ Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP) is this kind of robust leadership development experience. It educates participants about the fundamentals of EQ while encouraging them to expand their leadership talent, confidence, and drive. Each participant encounters a personalized program that nurtures them along the voyage to having higher EQ.

Ready to make a meaningful difference for your business? Connect with Leadership Resources to boost your company-wide EQ and pursue a higher level of success.