Did you know having a low EQ could hurt your career? People with low emotional intelligence, which is commonly abbreviated as EQ or EI, often find themselves struggling to thrive in leadership roles.
Consider these facts from studies on emotional intelligence in the workplace:
- 85% of financial success arises from emotional and personality-related factors.
- 71% of hiring managers prefer candidates with high EQ to high IQ.
- 59% of employers wouldn’t hire someone with a low EQ, even if they had a high IQ.
In fact, one study found that throughout your career, having a higher EQ correlates to $29,000 more per year in income. People who are more emotionally intelligent tend to be hired into higher-paying jobs and make more productive choices to benefit their employers.
Here’s the best news of all: EQ is something you can control. Almost anyone can improve their level of emotional intelligence and any company can set the stage for emotionally intelligent leadership.
Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important in Leadership?
People who have high emotional intelligence tend to be good at navigating interpersonal relationships and resolving conflicts. They may or may not have formal leadership roles at work, but they often serve as de facto group leaders. Everyone feels magnetically drawn to them.
In everyday work settings, others look to high-EQ people for their opinions, advice, and feedback about how things are going at the company. These high-EQ leaders always seem to say and do the right things that help people feel motivated to work in cohesive units.
By contrast, when someone’s EQ is low, they’ll likely struggle to feel connected to their coworkers and lack the right ingredients for long-term career success. A study by The Center for Creative Leadership looked at “career derailments,” where people had tried and failed to make headway in acquiring leadership positions within their careers.
The study found that 75% of careers derail due to EQ-related factors. Low-EQ individuals displayed behavior like failing to manage interpersonal conflicts, providing poor leadership in crucial moments of difficulty, not adapting to change, and lacking the ability to foster interpersonal trust with coworkers.
Today’s companies place a priority on emotionally intelligent leadership because it dovetails with so many other common company initiatives like diversity, inclusion, sustainability, and ethical behavior. Company executives want their leaders to have the capacity to use soft skills like active listening, effective communication, and showing positive interpersonal appreciation.
Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?
Emotional intelligence has become a highly-valued trait in modern society. It helps people stay connected in an increasingly digital world and allows them to nimbly navigate complex social interactions.
We’ve all experienced a moment of confusion over a text message or emoji that we couldn’t quite interpret. Someone with high emotional intelligence can usually guess what the sender might have meant, easing the flow of interpersonal communication. By contrast, someone with low EQ might struggle to understand what’s being said and begin to disturb the smooth flow of communication.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a whole new cascade of additional challenges for interpersonal interactions. Conversations that used to take place in-person within moments now extend into the digital world on tech platforms, stretching across time zones. Proper communication is an enormous challenge when it’s always at a distance.
As Forbes Magazine puts it, “Navigating the pandemic’s psychological, physical and economic effects is complicated and evokes a range of different – and often conflicting – emotions. Add social injustice and political unrest, and emotional intelligence is needed more than ever before.”
Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?
A study by Johnson & Johnson found that in the average company, the highest performers were the ones with the highest emotional intelligence and the lowest performers had the lowest EQ. Among the highest-EQ performers, the J&J researchers found characteristics like self-confidence, initiative, achievement orientation, adaptability, self-awareness, and a desire for service-oriented leadership.
But the good news is that EQ isn’t a fixed or inborn trait. It’s a skill that can be learned and there are numerous proven methods for improving it. Through emotional intelligence education, almost anyone can discover how to build a talent for interpreting others’ thoughts, navigating interpersonal situations more skillfully, and resolving conflicts in a positive way that brings fresh opportunities for success.
Best Emotional Intelligence Training
Any company looking to improve the level of EQ among its employees and leaders can do so through emotional intelligence training. However, for companies looking to have meaningful, lasting guidance in support of developing high-EQ leaders, experts recommend true coaching and development programs as opposed to training programs.
At Leadership Resources, we offer the best emotional intelligence training to help companies identify emerging leaders and nurture emotionally intelligent leadership. When your company needs to implement an effective leadership development plan, we’re here to provide expert guidance and support.
Raising EQ With the Accelerate Leadership Program
The Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP) helps participants expand their leadership talent, confidence, and knowledge. Each participant expands their level of emotional intelligence while learning the essential skills it takes to motivate and inspire people. ALP is a personalized program that allows each person to build productive new habits in their own way.
Experts say it’s most effective to implement a full program that involves leadership coaching and individualized support, not just training. ALP’s coaching program goes far beyond basic leadership training programs because it uses a robust approach that incorporates a proven guided process, customized coursework, interpersonal peer connections, leadership coaching, interactive software, and an enormous archive of helpful resources to help them stay engaged.
This is the best emotional intelligence training, consulting, and support you can offer your employees. Let’s work together to identify your emerging leaders and help them take their EQ to the next level.
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Competent leadership lies at the heart of every successful organization. That said, strong leaders don’t appear out of thin air. While some individuals display a propensity for leadership at an early stage, their skills must be honed and directed towards the business’s long-term goals. When properly managed, a company’s top talent paves the way for its future, taking over roles left vacant by previous leaders who have moved on – two terms describe this larger process: talent development and succession planning. But while these concepts are closely related, they’re not one in the same. Understanding the similarities and differences between these two processes will help you figure out how to approach the ongoing development of your leadership team.
What Is Talent Development?
Put simply, talent development (also dubbed talent management) refers to an organization’s various processes dedicated to the assessment and advancement of their most promising employees. This process begins at the recruitment and hiring stages, wherein existing leaders seek the best candidates for particular roles. Once a new hire is on board, efforts must be made to retain this talent, especially in a highly competitive market. Talent retention and leadership development go hand in hand – when employees are incentivized to grow within an organization, they’re more likely to stick with it. There’s always a risk associated with talent development, of course, as this process also makes your employees more attractive to other employers. Generally speaking, the potential benefits of continuous talent development and management outweigh the risks.
What Is Succession Planning?
Whereas talent development takes a close look at individuals, succession planning first takes a close look at specific roles. Once key roles have been identified, current leaders must consider which qualities are required for filling said roles when they become vacant, and which employees are prime candidates (internal or external) for taking on these responsibilities when the time comes. If you’re wondering, “Why is succession planning important?” consider the pitfalls of losing a C-level leader without an adequate substitute for an extended period of time. Proper succession planning ensures that every vital position maintains strong leadership, securing the organization’s legacy.
How Talent Development and Succession Planning Interact
Succession planning and talent development are unique processes, but they’re inextricably linked. Without a thorough leadership development plan in place, you’ll have a hard time filling existing and new leadership roles in your organization. Likewise, without the incentive structure inherent in succession planning (i.e., major promotions and structural changes), your top talent may feel less motivated to grow within your company and stick around for the long haul. In other words, the best approach to both talent development and succession planning is one that understands the connection between them and facilitates a structure that cultivates leadership that propels the business forward.
Determining the Needs of Your Leadership Team and Organization
Different leaders within your organization’s leadership team will have different ambitions and needs. Budding leaders still have plenty to learn, but they also have a lot to teach their more seasoned peers. Leaders who have been around for some time might be preparing to retire, and others might be seeking employment elsewhere. Figuring out what your leadership team and your business needs requires strong communication and transparency. Leaders should promptly know when a vacancy is on the horizon and whether or not they’re in the running to take over the position. Everyone should also be kept in the loop regarding the organization’s mission and direction moving forward. And talent at all stages should continue to receive first-rate training and development to prepare them for whatever the future may hold.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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No one would argue against the importance of training. Whether you’re trying to get fit, learn a new skill, or form new habits, sticking with a training regimen is necessary for helping you achieve your goals and continue to grow. And yet, when it comes to training leaders within an organization, so many efforts fall short. Why is this? In this blog, we’ll explore why traditional leadership training models so often fail, and what you can do to foster more effective leadership development.
What to Know About Failed Leadership Training
Pitfalls of the “One and Done” Mindset
Training can take many different forms, but it always contains an educational component. As all students know from experience, some educational tools are primarily focused on delivering concrete answers that one can memorize and check off on a multiple-choice questionnaire – other programs, however, are rooted in cultivating a deep understanding of a topic and all its nuances. Leadership training too often falls into this former category, placing more emphasis on the completion of a course than on continued growth. A comprehensive leadership development program, on the other hand, recognizes that leaders never stop learning, providing foundational tools and support systems that help leaders adapt and grow throughout their careers.
Training Can Be Too Narrow or Too Broad
Leadership training programs often have another major problem: they’re either too hyper-focused on an organization’s specific operations or so broad that leaders struggle to apply what they’ve learned in any tangible way. Much like the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, the key to continued growth lies somewhere in between. The ideal leadership development program should offer a wide range of resources and tools, so all bases are covered – but it should also be customized to comfortably mesh with your organization’s vision and goals. At Leadership Resources, our Accelerate Leadership Program is multi-faceted in this way, providing integrated software, leadership content, personal and communal development processes, emotional intelligence training, one-on-one coaching, and more.
The Issue Is Systemic
There’s a bit of push and pull when it comes to training leaders within a particular organization. On the one hand, existing business leaders want to maintain a steady ship, so leadership training is key. On the other hand, cultivating new leadership can put this stability at risk, for better or worse. What often happens, then, is that training protocols become too restrictive. This stagnation is usually unintentional and systemic in nature. Simply put, if individuals aren’t empowered to make necessary changes to the existing system, the system will retain its power, preventing meaningful change. So, in order to unlock the true potential of budding leaders and foster ongoing leadership growth, certain structural barriers must first be overcome.
Overcoming the Obstacles of Leadership Training
The question remains, then: how can a business overcome its systemic issues and provide a leadership program that makes a lasting impact on the individuals and the whole? For starters, top-level leaders should re-establish the organization’s values and clearly define a strategic plan. From there, collect anonymous feedback on current management and training protocols to pinpoint key issues. To tackle these concerns, you may need to reconfigure roles and responsibilities and create new goals aimed at affecting real change. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure how well you’re achieving these goals and make adjustments as needed. Taking the time to dig into your business’ systemic failures and obstacles in this way will allow you to implement more effective leadership development processes. And as you cultivate stronger leaders, it will become easier to continue making these structural improvements, creating a positive feedback loop that propels your organization (and everyone in it) forward.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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What to Know About Leadership Team Development
What Is Leadership Team Development?
Leadership team development refers to initiatives, materials, and opportunities aimed at helping your leadership team hone existing skills and learn new ones. The best leadership development programs help uncover potential blind spots in your leadership team and form new habits that propel the entire organization forward – leaders also find ways to grow as individuals. Let’s explore five key signs it’s time to begin implementing a strong leadership team development program in your organization.
1. Team Members Aren’t Fulfilled in Their Current Roles
Ideally, each and every one of your employees will be well-suited for the tasks under their purview. However, as time goes on, some team members might lose interest in their current roles, and others might no longer perform as well as they once did, despite their previous proficiency. One way to resolve these setbacks is to provide new opportunities for your team members that allow them to explore other roles and take on new responsibilities. However, without proper leadership development, said employees might not be prepared for a promotion or even a lateral move. Therefore, it’s crucial to provide leadership team development resources for your people so they’re ready to accept new challenges and switch roles when the time comes. Otherwise, you may be left with dissatisfied team members and uncomfortable overlaps in duties.
2. Communication Is Faltering
Leaders and employees within your organization must stay on the same page in order to make progress – this requires strong communication. If team members begin to lose sight of the collective vision or establish different benchmarks for success, everyone will struggle to work toward common goals. Improper communication will also make it difficult to resolve issues, which can fester over time. The importance of leadership development programs in regards to improving communication cannot be overstated. The best leadership development programs prioritize transparency and consistency so that there’s little room for misunderstandings or long-term conflicts in the future.
3. You’re Experiencing High Turnover
If your business is having a hard time holding onto its best people, it certainly stands to benefit from leadership team development. Simply put, people won’t stick around for long if they feel they’re not appreciated or that they’ve run out of room to grow within your organization. Honing leadership skills in all of your employees improves retention rates by, 1) expressing how much you value their personal growth, 2) opening doors for promotions and other opportunities, and 3) keeping your business competitive. The stronger the leaders inside your organization, the more formidable and valuable your business becomes – and people will want to be a part of that.
4. Your Team Is Missing the Mark
Performance issues are another key indicator that your company needs to invest more heavily in leadership development. It’s important that your employees not only continue to meet their goals but also that they’re able to adapt to a shifting marketplace. Goals and benchmarks are bound to change, and everyone within your organization must be able to face these challenges and changes head-on. A comprehensive leadership development plan improves employee flexibility and proficiency, ensuring that your business’s goals are continuously met or exceeded, no matter how things change over time.
5. Your Organization’s Future Is in Question (Succession Planning)
Even your most loyal and long-term employees will retire or otherwise leave at some point. If you want your organization to stand the test of time, you must be prepared to replace existing leaders with new blood when the time comes. As alluded to earlier, these roles can only be properly filled if you have employees at the ready who harbor the experience, skills, and passion to move up the ladder. So, you must always consider who someone’s successor will be – if you struggle to find an answer, you must make a quick and concerted effort to increase your business’ leadership development initiatives.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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What to Know About Starting Succession Planning
What Is Succession Planning?
The most enduring organizations see many people come and go over time. These companies have remained successful for so long thanks to one generation passing the torch to the next. Succession planning describes this strategy of preparing key employees for leadership roles as existing leaders move toward other opportunities or retirement. You can find many succession planning examples by browsing the histories of many major companies. Properly planning to fill vacancies in your business is essential for ensuring an organization’s legacy. However, succession planning features a number of potential pitfalls that can lead to stagnation and frustration. As such, deploying the proper strategy is crucial. Let’s explore the top three ways to start business succession planning before it becomes detrimental to your team members and your organization as a whole.
1. Maintain Open Communication with Your Team
Transparency is always important when managing a team. While there’s always room for some discretion, withholding important information can damage trust and reduce your ability to plan for business succession. Simply put, your team should know when existing positions are preparing to open up. Not everyone in your organization will be a strong candidate for the role, of course. That said, failing to inform your team might cause certain high-potential employees to seek other opportunities, as they might feel they have no further room to grow within your business. By letting your people know what changes are on the horizon, you further motivate your team to maintain high achievement and consider their long-term involvement – this is good for morale, productivity, and longevity.
2. Remain Flexible
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for succession planning. Not only is every organization and role unique – each role within your business may be subject to change. For instance, an existing role might no longer be necessary due to changes in the market or technology; conversely, brand new roles may need to be created for similar reasons. Moreover, a high-potential team member might end up leaving before they can take over a role – without a backup plan, your organization can be left in a challenging position. So, if a leader is planning to leave in the near future, your succession plan might be more complex than replacing that one individual and role. Your plan should be flexible enough to adapt for these potential changes. As a general rule, reevaluate your current succession plan at least twice a year. Such a dynamic process deserves periodic updates.
3. Continually Invest in Leadership Development
You can’t implement a business succession plan if your people aren’t ready to take on new opportunities and challenges. By actively engaging your team in ongoing leadership development, you help ensure that the right people will be ready to take on new roles when the time comes. As mentioned earlier, not every team member will be capable of or interested in filling vacant positions down the road, but providing your entire organization with the tools required for leadership growth is essential for successful succession planning.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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What Is Strategic Planning?
Attempting to grow or optimize your business without a detailed plan is sort of like trying to navigate uncharted territory without a map. Now that a new year is underway, it’s a perfect time to take stock of your current operations and develop a strategy for decision-making that will steer your ship in the right direction; this process is known as strategic planning. The best strategic plans don’t appear out of thin air or pop up overnight. Developing the right plan for your business requires a deep analysis of your operations, goals, roles, and resources. Strategic planning consultants have put in the time, effort, and research to help businesses find the best path forward through actionable strategies. Of course, not all consultants are created equal, and some are bound to be a better fit for your organization than others. If you’ve decided it’s time to work with such a consultant, you’ll want to do your due diligence before selecting a candidate.
With that in mind, here are four important questions to ask before hiring a strategic planning consultant.
What to Look for in Strategic Planning Consultants
1. What Is Their Experience?
Just as you would before hiring a new employee, you’ll want to learn all about a strategic planning consultant’s prior experience before bringing them on board. Even if all strategic planning consulting firms share a similar skillset, some will have experience that’s more relevant to your business, and some will have more experience on the whole. Ask a candidate about the firms they’ve worked with in the past and the industries they’re familiar with. Prioritize those who have been consulting for a long time and who have helped similar firms as yours develop and execute effective plans.
2. What Is Their Process?
Though every business will benefit from a unique plan, consultants should bring a strong strategic planning process to the table as a basic framework to get started. It’s important to get a glimpse into these processes before choosing a strategic planning consultant. For example, at Leadership Resources, our Accelerate Leadership Program is designed to help every organization build a culture of accountability and productivity via tools, content, peer development, one-on-one coaching, and more. The specifics of this program vary from business to business, but the building blocks remain the same, and they’ve proven effective.
3. What Is Their Reputation?
The best strategic planning consultants should be proud to reveal their track record. Ultimately, of course, it’s up to you to dig deeper into a candidate’s reputation. Fortunately, it’s often easy these days to find reviews and testimonials online. Be sure to examine a wide range of feedback (if applicable), and don’t be afraid to ask a given consultant about specific situations or clients (though they may only be able to volunteer so much information).
4. Are They Compatible with Your Culture?
This last factor often gets overlooked, but it’s crucial for ensuring long-term success with a strategic planning consultant. Simply put, if your company doesn’t mesh well with a consultant and/or consulting firm, problems can quickly arise, stifling results and sending you back to the drawing board. So, take the time to get to know a strategic planning consultant before hiring them to see just how compatible (or incompatible) you are. If they’re not a good fit, it’s best to look elsewhere, even if said candidate has everything else going for them.
Selecting a strategic planning consultant requires a bit of strategy in its own right. Checking for experience, process, reputation, and compatibility will help you find a reliable, long-term partner that will propel your organization in the right direction with clarity and accountability.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Though there is certainly no shortage of “Help Wanted” signs across the U.S. right now, many businesses are struggling to welcome new people aboard. The past two years have been challenging for employees and business leaders alike, and there’s no telling what the future will hold. Those in charge of team management may find themselves in a bind these days – even if they’re overseeing a solid team, it might lack in size. Though a smaller group can actually make team management easier, it can also limit productivity and growth. With that in mind, what can management teams do to prepare for the future when it’s been difficult to hire new team members? Let’s discuss.
How to Prepare for the Difficulty of Hiring New Team Members
Re-Establish Your Mission and Goals
As the world slowly returns to normalcy, there’s perhaps never been a better time to take a step back and re-evaluate your business’s and team’s priorities. Balancing multiple projects while short-staffed is never easy, but some projects are bound to be more essential than others. Consider whether and how your organization’s mission and goals may have changed since last year (and the year before that, etc.) – you might find that certain roles no longer need to be filled or that other roles can evolve, combine, and so on. Indeed, managing a smaller team might help you prioritize and focus on the most pressing matters that will propel your business forward. And when it becomes easier to recruit new team members once more, you’ll have a stronger grasp on the types of people you need and what to expect from them.
Focus on Developing Current Employees
Plenty of value can be derived from hiring new people. That said, you don’t want to bring new people on board simply for the sake of it. After all, recruitment is costly, and retention is vital. In many cases, the person you need to fill a new, important role is right in front of you – at least, they have the potential to grow into said role. As such, it’s equally as important to engage in leadership development as it is to seek out new team members externally. Employees with leadership potential will want to find avenues for growth, and it’s essential to provide them with these opportunities to keep them around. Of course, promoting an employee internally can leave a lower-level position unoccupied, so it’s crucial to prepare for these outcomes in advance (i.e., succession planning). Still, adding a member to your leadership team is a key way to strengthen your organization from the inside. In fact, doing so may help you hire new team members in the future.
Rethink Your Hiring Process
Some things are simply out of our control, such as the current pandemic and its economic fallout. That said, you can still control how you approach recruitment for your business. Sure, your hiring team can’t magically change the way things have been for the past two years, but they can find new, creative ways to find the best people available and encourage them to apply. You might open your doors to a wider pool of candidates, improve and expand your employer outreach campaigns, create and advertise more remote work positions, establish new incentives for applicants, and so on. Not every initiative will succeed, but taking the time to reconfigure your hiring processes can benefit your business in the long run.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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Employee recognition matters, both in terms of retention and productivity. According to a recent Glassdoor survey, approximately 53% of respondents claimed they’d be more likely to stick with a company for the long haul if they genuinely felt appreciated by their managers — 81% stated they were more motivated when their hard work was regularly recognized. If you want to establish a durable, driven company culture, then you need to let your people know that they’re doing a good job. Of course, delivering positive sentiment for its own sake won’t yield the result you’re looking for either. The recognition you deliver must be earned or else the weight of said recognition will diminish. Moreover, you risk losing the respect and trust of your team and colleagues if your praise rings hollow.
Here’s how to maintain respect and authority while still showing plenty of appreciation to your team.
How to Appreciate Your Team Respectfully
Uphold Strong Communication Always
Some people still associate authority with a sort of reservedness, wherein the person in power is behind the scenes, rarely speaking to others outside of a close circle. However, making an effort to speak directly with team members is vital in building mutual respect and showing appreciation. Indeed, your team is bound to respect your authority much more if you’re regularly in the room with them, listening to their thoughts and concerns and playing a role in day-to-day decisions. By honing your leadership communication skills, you can remain well aware of what each team member is doing so you can highlight outstanding performance when you see it — and since your face will be well-known, your employees will believe your kind words when you convey them.
Set Clear Expectations
Good team management relies on coherent ground rules. Some of your employees will simply want to get their work done while others will actively try to go above and beyond. In either case, you need to set clear expectations so every team member knows what they should be doing, how they should behave, and whether or not their actions are worthy of distinct appreciation. When everyone is on the same page in this way, they can better direct their efforts and earn your recognition on a regular basis.
Manage Individual and Team Performance
In order for your praise to be consistently well-founded, you must keep close tabs on your team’s performance. As part of your expectation-setting, you should lay out key performance indicators (KPIs) that help you and your employees maintain a clear grasp on which metrics matter and why. Some common KPIs include sales targets and changes over time, customer retention rate, amount of time it takes to accomplish certain repeated tasks, etc. It’s crucial that these employee KPIs are measurable, realistic, specific, and understood. Performance management using KPIs and other methods will allow you to point to tangible data that reveals exceptional effort, distinct accomplishments, and other benchmarks worthy of applause.
Find Fresh Ways to Deliver Praise
If you’re still not sure of how to best manage your team and express your appreciation in a genuine way, do your best not to fall into stagnation — recognition is always more potent when it’s delivered in unexpected, novel ways. Employees who regularly go above and beyond deserve more than just another shout-out — it might be time to give them a meaningful reward (which in turn may encourage others to follow said employee’s example). Also, avoid concise, rote appreciation, instead taking the time to cater your praise in such a way that emphasizes an individual’s efforts. Timing and context can make a difference, too — will you recognize someone in the presence of their team or recognize their work one-on-one? There’s no single way to show your team appreciation, so mix up your delivery and wording to make the biggest impact each time.
Recognition with Respect
As a leader, you must strike a balance between expressing appreciation to your team and maintaining your authority so your people continue to feel motivated to do their best work. Pursuing ongoing leadership communication training is one of the best ways to achieve this balance. The better you are at communicating with your team, the stronger your culture will become — making sure your people feel sincerely appreciated is a major part of this equation.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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The world of business is always in flux. Whether it’s a global pandemic like the one we’ve seen in recent years or the accelerating growth of technology across industries, the only constant is change. Rather than run away from change, leaders must be ready and willing to adapt to uncertain circumstances. Getting too stuck in your ways can quickly lead to organizational stagnation. On the other hand, constantly switching up leadership styles can create instability and confusion in the workplace. Sustainable leadership strikes a balance between resolve and flexibility. Here are some ways to ensure your leadership style can adapt to an ever-changing market and world.
How to Adjust Your Leadership with the Culture
Communication Comes First
As we’ve discussed many times before, communication lies at the heart of leadership. In order to continuously adapt as a leader, you must not only keep your people apprised of relevant information — you must also actively seek feedback to make sure your leadership style remains productive. Open and reciprocal communication allows everyone within an organization to stay in the know, address their ideas and concerns, and get ahead of issues before they arise. In this way, maintaining strong communication elevates company culture and allows it to bend with changing circumstances without breaking.
Stay Savvy to Current Trends
The list of important leadership qualities can become extensive. One key quality that’s sometimes overlooked, however, is staying informed — not merely in regards to internal matters but also relevant trends and changes occurring outside the workplace. After all, the only way to ensure your leadership style is adapting to a turbulent world is having a finger on the pulse of said changes. Losing sight of the world around you can silo you and your company in detrimental ways. Knowledgeable and worldy leaders can better anticipate important changes and therefore enter the future with more confidence and direction.
Never Stop Learning
This piece of advice is related to the previous one. More specifically, however, leaders should never feel as if they’ve completed their leadership journey. There is always more to learn about being a leader, especially considering how often and quickly the world around us changes. Indeed, ongoing leadership development prevents stagnation and opens new doors. Moreover, the more you grow as a leader, the skills you learn will naturally pass down to others in your workplace, promoting growth across the board. So, if and when possible, seek new opportunities for leadership growth — this might mean taking classes, attending networking events, hiring an executive coach, teaching others, and more.
Review Your Progress
Lastly, the only way to stay on the right track as a leader is to track your progress over time. Every business and leader will approach periodic reviews differently, but the idea is to check in at certain intervals and go over how specific strategies and goals are panning out (or not panning out). Taking the time to audit your personal performance as well as the performance of your peers, employees, and business at large will help you identify areas of improvement and celebrate successes. Once you have a more tangible sense of what’s not working, you can take steps to make purposeful change as a leader and an organization.
Embracing Change
We all would like certain things to stay the way they are, but most of these matters are out of control. While we can’t force the world to go in our direction all the time, however, we can respond to a changing world with tact. Focusing on strong communication, staying informed, constantly learning, and holding yourself accountable will allow you to adapt your leadership style for everyone’s benefit.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease onstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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The expansion of your business is both an exciting and daunting prospect. If this growth occurs too quickly or lacks direction, your business can soon find itself facing hardships. One of the best ways to keep your business growth from ballooning into chaos is to put the right people in the right positions. Of course, finding key employees during a period of growth is often easier said than done, and keeping them around is another challenge in its own right. With a steady and strategic approach, however, you can find key employees and get the most of their abilities when growing your business — here’s how.
How to Find the Right Employees
Clarify Your Business Goals and Roles
Your first order of business should be to determine what you wish to accomplish and which positions will aid in achieving these goals — these details will become your map and compass when seeking key employees. Without this map, you’ll have a hard time knowing where to look and what to do once you arrive. Clarifying your business growth goals involves re-examining your mission and vision and calibrating it for this new chapter (these changes might be minute or more ambitious). Once you’ve got a grip on your ideal direction, you can narrow your employee search, create better screening criteria, pose more focused interview questions, and more, saving you time and energy in the search and placement process.
Don’t Be Afraid to Search Outside the Box
Even if you have a strong idea of where your business is headed and how you wish to get there, business growth always includes some unknown factors. As uncomfortable as these unknowns might make you, note that the unexpected also holds the greatest potential for innovation. In other words, you might find key employees in places you wouldn’t have guessed. This isn’t to say you should just hire anyone on the spot — rather, don’t strictly limit yourself to potential candidates who fit a particular mold for the sake of easier employee management. Leave the door open for candidates with diverse ideas and unique energy. By stepping outside the box, you just might find someone who sparks further growth in your company.
Keep the Long-Term in Mind
No matter how rapidly your business grows at certain intervals, sustainable growth spans long stretches of time. Therefore, it’s imperative to seek employees who mesh with your current workplace culture and who won’t likely leave the second they get another offer. As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, onboarding the most talented employees is a double-edged sword since your competitors might try to pull them away from your organization. If you want to keep these key employees around and have them grow with your business, you must be prepared to negotiate terms and continue offering them development opportunities. It’s also worth asking candidates during the interview process if they see themselves sticking with your company for the long haul.
Consider Promoting Employees Within Your Organization
Sometimes the right person is already in your organization. Depending on how your business is growing and how quickly, it might make more sense to promote current employees rather than hire externally. One of the main reasons to invest in leadership development programs for your people is to prepare them to take on more responsibilities and enter new roles over time — this is also the essence of succession planning. Indeed, the more you invest in your employees, the easier it will become to identify key positions for succession planning and fill said roles with confidence.
Unlocking the Key to Your Business’ Growth
As your business grows, so too must its people — whether this means finding new employees or promoting current employees to fill new roles, Leadership Resources can help your business, and its people unlock their full potential.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease obstacles and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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