Employee/School Shootings, EEOC Claims, Lawsuits, and Union Campaigns – What Do They All Have in Common?

There was another horrible school shooting yesterday – a more common occurrence than anyone would like to admit. And this morning everyone is asking WHY. The key to this answer lies in leadership and the fact that people don’t do desperate things because of mistakes or simple wrongs against them – they do desperate things because of how you make them feel.

Leaders within any organization should take heed and recognize the role they play in creating an environment based on trust, respect and dignity.

1. Establish performance and behavior standards – most employees (or students) strive to live up to the expectations of respected leaders, so establish reasonable expectations with input from respected members of the team and then communicate those expectations in a way that allows for dialogue. People generally engage in behavior that is rewarded, so be sure you’re rewarding the behavior you want. Remember, negative attention to some is considered a reward.
2. Beware the “Zero Tolerance” policy – Pick your battles wisely and make sure you choose a course of action that fit’s the violation. Employees (and students) want to be treated fairly. Conduct a full investigation before making any decision on next steps and let the objective evidence discovered during the investigation determine any disciplinary action. Taking the easy way out by using a one size fits all approach isn’t leadership and will only serve to damage your credibility and effectiveness.
3. Look for early warning signs and take appropriate action to change the behavior early – As with every situation involving workplace or school violence, there are ALWAYS warning signs. Shortly after yesterday’s shooting students reported they receive a text message the day before, but didn’t take it seriously. Be on the lookout for warning signs and take them seriously. Once you have investigated to determine the fact, take appropriate action to change the unwanted behavior. If you’re not sure what “appropriate action” is, ask yourself “How would I want to be treated in this situation?” before making any final decision. This extra step will help ensure that you’ve considered all reasonable alternatives before taking action. Remember, any action you take will make either a red, yellow or green light come on in every employee’s head. That’s not to say that if the light will be red or yellow you shouldn’t take the action, but it is a heads up that you should proceed with caution.

Yesterday’s school shooting in Ohio is a stark reminder that relationships are fragile and whether it’s a school or work environment, strong leadership is the key to making it all work.  Remember, whether it’s an employee/school shootings, EEOC claim, lawsuit or union campaign – people don’t do desperate things because you made a mistake, they do desperate things because of HOW you made them feel.  Reach out of your comfort zone and lead – your organization will thank you for it.

The Secret to “True” Employee Happiness – Leadership

There is no doubt that employee happiness increases employee performance and translates into increased profits, but what exactly does it mean to make employees happy? Does that mean you should just give in to every employee request, or never tell an employee something they don’t want to hear? Does it mean employees should never face challenges or adversity? No, in a nutshell, it means that you need to be a leader.

The key to employee happiness isn’t being a doormat and giving in to every whim of an employee; it’s about engaging in a relationship and creating an environment with mutual give and take, trust and respect so both parties can grow and contribute in meaningful ways to the organization.

These 3 tips will light your leadership path:

1. Connect with them – Many people in “leadership” positions still believe in the authoritarian style where fear and intimidation rule, that employees will “steal you blind” if you don’t keep a tight reign. In reality this approach is a self-fulfilling prophesy – when you don’t connect, people have no reason to want to live up to your expectations. Especially in today’s rushed, multi-tasking world, people want to be seen and heard. They’re looking for human connections, for someone to really care about what they have to say. If you want to begin to bridge the gap, make a real connection.
2. Be honest and vulnerable – In leadership roles, we often feel that we have to have all the answers, but the truth of the matter is, you only need to tap the talents and resources of your team and lead them to help you find the answer. The kool-aid of old is to never let them see vulnerability, but if you want to truly lead and build trust – you can’t be afraid to be honest and vulnerable. In other words, if you don’t know the answer, don’t try to bully your way through it, ask for help – you assembled the team because you knew you couldn’t do it alone so don’t be afraid to count on the team.
3. Look them in the eye – eye contact is a critical element to building and maintaining trust in relationships. When you’re talking to your team, look them in the eye. Remember, non-verbal communications is 55% of the message and when the verbal and non-verbal communications aren’t consistent, people will believe the non-verbal.

Employers can’t “make people happy” they can only create the environment where people can find happiness themselves. In other words, an environment nurtured by meaningful leadership.

Tapping Into Corporate Coaching as a Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Does your organizational culture inspire employees to jump out of bed on Monday morning and race to the office because they can’t wait to get there or do your employees have to drag themselves out of bed at the last minute looking for excuses not to come in? If it’s the latter, you may want to consider the merits of instilling a “coaching culture” into the organizational DNA.

Being intentional about your organization’s culture and developing a strong one is the only true competitive advantage an organization has today. In recent years, leading organization have embraced the idea of a “coaching culture” as a means to motivate employees to perform at their highest level of competency to achieve impactful and profitable results, both personally and professionally.

“To create a high performance team, we must replace typical management activities like supervision, monitoring and controlling with new behaviors like coaching and communicating.”  

                                                                                                                                                            -Ray Smith, CEO Bell Atlantic

When to Coach:

• Leadership Development Coaching – When an employee is currently performing well in a leadership role and wants to grow and develop to achieve even higher levels of excellence or “high potentials” who have been identified for future leadership growth opportunities.
• Development Coaching – When an employee wants to proactively prepare for future opportunities in a new role or position
• Performance Coaching – When an employee has a performance deficiency that needs to be corrected before it becomes a show stopper

A coaching culture is present when all employees, regardless of level or status, continuously engage in open, honest coaching conversations to improve their effectiveness and results. Does your organization have a coaching culture? Consider these 3 characteristics to decide:

1. The Leader as Role Model: Intentional leaders establish a compelling and inspiring vision and lead by example – by establishing and communicating expectations, holding themselves and others accountable and engaging in coaching for higher levels of performance as a way of life, they transform themselves and their organizations.
2. Proactively Soliciting Feedback and Coaching: In a coaching culture, all employees actively seek out feedback to enhance their growth, development and performance.
3. Coaching that’s up, down and side to side: In a couching culture, people seek the best feedback available without regard to hierarchy, status or org chart position so that different perspective are evaluated and strong networks are formed and leveraged.

Through the establishment of a coaching culture, organizations can reap many tangible and intangible benefits including:

• Passionate/Engaged Teams – in a coaching culture, team members learn to trust each other. This high level of trust helps the organization
•  Increased Trust/Better Decisions – High trust among team members resulting better decisions and improved results – when employees trust each other and are willing to be vulnerable with each other, they can engage in healthy, unfiltered debate about key business issues. When all factors are put on the table for honest evaluation teams can arrive at better decisions.

Leading organizations have embraced the potential power of coaching. These titans of their industry have discovered coaching in proactive, on-going manner rather than a one-time event (i.e. annual performance appraisals) drive employee engagement and results. They are also beginning to connect-the-dots and extrapolate the incredible power of an organization whose capacity for growth and change is enhanced through the systematic practice of coaching.

The question to ask yourself is this: Do you have employees working for you – you know those people that come to work late leave early and steal while they are there or do you have business partners committed to achieving both personal and professional excellence?

Organizational Culture – It’s Not Just Drinking the Kool-Aid

We’ve all heard the leadership cliché – “Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk”, but living that premise on a daily basis can be harder than it sounds. Leaders who are committed to creating a strong organizational culture capable of adapting to the global marketplace understand that it can’t just be a cliché, it has to be a way of life. And these leaders are masters at weaving that philosophy into the very DNA of their organizations.

If you want to ensure your leaders aren’t saying one thing and then acting in ways that contradict what they’re saying, these 5 tips can help ensure a consistent message gets through:

1. Set an inspiring vision – leaders who want to be most effective need to chart a course for their organization that is both compelling and inspiring. A compelling and inspiring vision allows all employees to connect to the organization in a very personal way that naturally motivates them to actively participate in the achievement of that vision.
2. Establish clear expectations – Employees can’t live up to your expectations if they don’t know what they are. Leaders should establish clearly defined, measurable goals and objectives and then communicate those to employees early and often.
3. Engage in transparent communications – leaders need to communicate their commitments to the organization by cascading information on decisions to all employees on a regular and timely basis. When leaders clearly communicate decisions and directions to all employees the likelihood those decisions will actually be deployed and the results achieved increases dramatically.
4. Make it safe to hold yourself and others accountable – being “accountable” doesn’t have to be a dirty word. Actually, accountability can be very positive when leaders create an environment where employees take personal responsibility to rise above their individual obstacles and circumstances to achieve results. Creating an environment where it’s safe to hold yourself and others accountable encourages all employees to go above and beyond to achieve results.
5. Celebrate the little wins – Creating a strong, productive organizational culture takes time, persistence, and patience. When leaders set a compelling and inspiring vision and then measure decisions against that vision while celebrating small wins along the way, employees begin to see that the kool-aid is real. Only through reinforcement of the small wins that lead up to major wins can leaders hope to sustain a winning organizational culture.

Creating a strong, productive, results oriented culture doesn’t have to be hard, but it does have to be intentional. What kind of culture is your leadership creating?

7 Must Have Transformational Leadership Qualities – By Bill Hogg & Associates

This week, I came across the following blog by Bill Hogg & Associates and found the content inspiring – I hope you do too.

Today, more than ever, we need courageous leaders who empower others to reach heights they never thought possible. We need our leaders to expand their capabilities and move outside of the transactional space and into a transformational space that focuses on long term solutions rather than short term gains.

Transformational leadership – growing beyond transactional leadership

Developing your leadership capacity is moving beyond focusing on the day to day operations and expanding your decision making process to focus on long term strategies that are able to sustain business over time.

Leaders need to focus on developing a transformational leadership style that creates positive change and growth. This begins with the goals and vision that are set by leaders and their ability to clearly communicate them to their team in a way that inspires then to buy in.

7 must have transformational leadership qualities

In order to get your team to buy in and be part of your vision for the company, there are certain qualities you must possess to be a transformational leader:

1. A clear vision:
   Transformational leaders have a vision of what they want to achieve and the ability to clearly communicate this vision so that everyone in the organization understands what is needed to achieve this vision. Is your vision clear? Does it need to be refined?
2. Courage:
   An effective leader needs courage; a willingness to take on new challenges, take calculated risks, make tough decisions, and be willing to go out on a limb for something they believe in. Transformational leaders have the courage to create a vision and do what it takes to achieve their vision.
3. Self-motivation:
   Leaders need to fuel their passion from within. Transformational leaders have passion and motivation that people can sense and feed off of it. Are you passionate about your vision and willing to do what it takes to see your vision achieved?
4. Inspiration:
   Transformational leaders, based on their personal passion, have the ability to inspire others and get them to buy into their vision and execute it on all levels of the company. How do you inspire your employees to create change? Are you effective at motivating and inspiring your staff?
5. Know your people:
   Personal interaction is important. The impact of a simple “hello” in the hallway or conversation in the lobby goes a long way into getting employees to feel important and want to be part of the vision a leader has created for the company.  You have the ability to impact each of your team on a personal level. When was the last time you took the time to listen to your team and get to know them as individuals?
6. Set a company standard:
   Transformational leaders model a company standard they expect everyone to follow. They clearly communicate their vision, expectations, and how this standard is to be carried out throughout the organization. What is your company standard? What standard are you setting by example?
7. Follow through:
   While it is a bit cliché, actions do speak louder than words — and when leaders live according to the standard they set, employees take notice. Leaders often promise a lot, but it is the follow through that has a true impact on a leader’s ability to evoke change and get employees to buy in.How do you follow through and ensure your standards are met?

Tips for becoming a transformational leader

Leaders cannot just decide to become a transformational leader. However, they can work on developing transformational leadership by implementing these tips:

• Craft your vision and make it the focal point of the company
• Solicit input from senior management to ensure your vision can be spread throughout the company
• Have a process in place that allows your frontline workers to ask questions and get clarification
• Be clear and communicate the importance that each employees plays in the execution of your vision for the company
• Create actionable steps that align with your vision that can be executed by employees
• Understand what is needed to motivate and inspire your employees to buy in and become part of your vision

When leaders openly accept a transformational style they move beyond day to day functions and operate at a higher level that is focused on creating change in employees and culture that will lead to innovation and growth.