“Type A” Bosses and Their Leadership Challenges

There are many traits of “Type A” Bosses that can be transformed into positive leadership qualities. “Type A’s” are successful, creative, passionate and driven. But these are qualities that, unless modified to address the needs of their employees, can overwhelm, intimidate and discourage their direct reports.

• Work on your listening skills and try to slow your pace. Some of your best workers need time to think and to express their ideas. Encourage a dialogue and ask questions that show you care about their development and contributions.
  
• Get to know your team personally as well as professionally. Once you get to know what motivates them, you have an opportunity to delegate tasks that speak to their strengths and interests.
  
• Build a team rather than expecting to do the job all on your own. This will give you a better work/life balance and inspire your followers to participate in the overall mission because they fulfill an important role.
  
• Learn to be a coach rather than a critic and give credit where it’s due.

These are not easy transitions. But try them out a little at a time. As you apply this in the real world as action learning for leadership development, you will make progress and find that the leadership role is one that can suit you (and your Type A personality) well.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/action-learning-leadership-development/

Leadership Development - Does the Perfect Team Exist?

A perfect team may be the goal but perfection is unattainable when human beings are involved. Even the best of teams suffer from some degree of political maneuvering. It is inevitable. But the trick is in how you deal with the politics.

Here are some strategies that will help keep you above the fray. Consider them an exercise in action learning for leadership development…a way to exert your influence without alienating team members.

• Prepare a plan for dealing with those who would sabotage your efforts. Try to map out various scenarios and create strategies for dealing with them effectively. Anticipate others’ moves and plan ahead how you might handle them in a way that aligns with your personal values and your organizational culture.
  
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• Find an ally who will advocate for you. The higher up the better. It should be someone who believes in your capabilities and will toss in your name as opportunities arise. Let your “agent” do your lobbying for you.
  
• Stay calm and develop some thick skin. The minute you let yourself be personally affected, you lose. Try to stay objective and think of the politics as a sort of game to be played.  Do not get defensive.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/action-learning-leadership-development/

Lead Better by Better Managing Expectations

One of the keys to leading well is the ability to set and manage clear expectations. If you have been in a leadership position, you may well understand this intellectually. But do you practice it? 

A very good way to test out your skill at setting expectations is to experience a form of action learning for leadership development. Take a page from your own book…perhaps notes from the last time you addressed your team and told them what you need from them in the way of performance. Then play the role of a team member. Did you as leader:

• Prioritize goals so the team knows what is most important when demands conflict? 
• Ask for a clear plan on how the major goals could be achieved? 
• Demand significant (yet possible) improvement? 
• Assign clear accountability? 
• Identify acceptable excuses for non-performance? 
• Specify actions and set out a timeline for when they should be completed?

If not, the blame for unmet expectations may lie with you.  How can you expect your direct reports to consistently succeed in a fast-paced, ever-changing and complex environment with unclear, unspecific, unassigned and unaccountable expectations?

Now return to your role as leader and script a clearer set of expectations. Review them and see that all the questions above have been covered until each and every key stakeholder agrees upon the goals, roles, processes and interpersonal expectations required to succeed.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/action-learning-leadership-development/

Four Times Not to Give Feedback

This action learning blog post has been moved to:

• http://lsaglobal.com/4-times-leaders-managers-not-give-feedback/

Two Leadership Challenges that You Must Overcome to Get Along With Your Mates

This action learning leadership development post has been moved to: http://lsaglobal.com/best-leaders-know-get-along-team/

How and Why to Finally Stop Micro-Managing

You don’t ever want your top talent to quit. Star performers are too difficult to find and cultivate.

The sad thing is that it happens…employees quit and often their managers had little clue the employee was a flight risk. All the more reason to constantly evaluate your leadership skills so you know what your team is thinking and feeling.

It turns out that one of the biggest lessons learned from action learning leadership development assignments is that too many employees leave because they feel they are being micro-managed. And yet their bosses had no idea that their behavior was so resented. Micro-managers stifle employees. Micro-managers decrease motivation. Micro-managers squelch engagement.

Are you a micro-manager? Check your leadership style against these clear signs:

• You enjoy making frequent and minor corrections.
  
• You are never fully satisfied with employees’ work products.
  
• You insist on being copied on all work and all emails.
  
• You are frustrated when you would have done something differently.
  

Guilty?

Even if not, ask your team if they would like less oversight and supervision from you. You might find that less structure will unleash their greater potential and productivity.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/action-learning-leadership-development/

4 Reasons “The Best Way to Learn” Works

The kind of lecture-based, rote learning practiced in old-fashioned classrooms may have worked once upon a time…but this is a new era and it calls for a transformation in the way lessons are learned.

The best, most effective, most efficient way for aspiring leaders to learn is through action learning for leadership development under the tutelage of a skilled consultant, facilitator and coach. Here is why it works…

1. You learn faster. Rather than read or listen about what you should do in a certain situation, you try it out real-time. The results and feedback are immediate and the lesson is learned because it is interactive, relevant and engaging.
   
   
2. It is personal and specific. The learning scenarios are designed for the most important leadership situations you will encounter within your specific organizational culture and role. Just like scuba students learn how to clear their mask, paramedics learn to give CPR and pilots learn how to take off and land, leaders within each company face key challenges unique to their industry, strategy and culture. Effective learning focuses only on what matters most.
   
   
3. You get insights. By consciously reflecting on the results of your actions and with the help of your peers and coach, you will understand what to do better next time and even how to avoid key mistakes going forward.
   
   
4. There is accountability. You are the one to direct the action and you are the one to take responsibility. Your coach will be there to support you and provide insights but, ultimately, you are making the decisions and determining how to apply the lessons going forward.
   

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/action-learning-leadership-development/