Sharpen the Saw – refreshing your leadership

March 18, 2012

One of the top-selling self-improvement books of the past twenty-five years has been Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”.  One of the success habits that he describes is termed “Sharpen the saw”, which refers to the need to find ways of regularly rejuvenating yourself.

For those of you in any type of management or leadership role, you will know that having responsibility for managing and motivating other people can be a rewarding experience – and yet there are times it can be an incredibly frustrating one as well.

Particularly during periods of organisation change and uncertainty, the performance of some staff can become inconsistent. If you are a manager or leader, you need to be able to step in and provide guidance and direction to these people. You are supporting your staff to cope with the change, listening to their grievances and encouraging them to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. This all takes considerable energy – and yet you must continue to ensure that your team is delivering good quality outcomes for your customers.

There are many different types of demands placed upon you when you are in a leadership position. You are required to set a positive example, and you cannot afford a moment of irritability when you might snap at an employee. People are more forgiving of their work-mates than they are their leader

So it becomes even more crucial that you have developed strategies for keeping yourself positive, resilient and refreshed.  For example …..

  1. Active lifestyle – Ensure you regularly get some physical exercise – be it through walking, jogging, swimming, tennis, dancing or gym. Exercise not only builds physical stamina and fitness, but helps with mental clarity and concentration.
  2. Support network - Don’t become an island …. it’s all too easy during times of stress to end up isolating yourself from other people. You may be in a leadership position in the workplace, but you still need support and encouragement as much as anyone else …..  Don’t be afraid to confide in the people you trust and ask for advice from the people you respect
  3. Learning and development - Keep yourself fresh by learning new skills or polishing existing skills ….Whether its reading a book or an article on leadership, attending professional development seminars or participating in leadership skills training courses – don’t alow yourself to become stale and complacent.  By the way, a great site for tips and resources on self-improvement is Personal Development

If you’re based in Melbourne, Australia and looking for a short, practical management course to polish your skills in delegation, motivation, decision-making, performance management and team building – then have a look at Management Courses Melbourne

In summary, to be the best leader you can be, it is important that you keep your own well-being on your radar and allocate some regular time for self-renewal. In doing so, you help to ensure that you will have a sustainable reserve of energy, tolerance and patience needed for providing effective leadership to others.

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Presentation Skills – style over substance

November 4, 2011

If you are in any type of management or leadership position, then chances are that you are called upon to deliver some presentations occasionally – or at least do stand up and do some public speaking. And you probably spend a lot of your time preparing the content of what you will say.

And indeed you should spend time on preparing good, informative content. However, in this video clip, you are reminded that if you speak with confidence and authority, then your style can weigh more heavily upon the impression of your audience than the quality of your content.

The video clip describes a classic experiement conducted in the early 1970′s, in which an actor was introduced to an audience of psychiatrists as “Dr Fox, an expert in Games Theory”. He proceeded to deliver a lecture, which was subsequently rated very highly and favourably by his audience – and yet in reality, his content was gibberish. A bit scary really, that such an “intelligent” group could be fooled so easily!

I would never advocate that you don’t need to worry about your presentation content – but whether we like it or not, our presentation skills and our delivery style are at least as important as the content.

By the way, if you’re interested in gaining some great tips on how to deliver with confidence, have a look at Presentation Tips

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Make your message memorable

October 21, 2011

If you’re in any type of leadership position, or in any type of role where you are required to do some public speaking and deliver presentations, then maybe you’ve asked yourself after some meetings whether you’re actually getting your message across to your audience.

Reflecting on whether you can do something better is of course a healthy process. But if you are seeing signs that your messages and ideas aren’t actually gaining traction with people, then you need to change some aspects of either the way  you are structuring or delivering your message.

At the end of the day, if you’re speaking to a group of people (whether it be staff, colleagues, clients or senior management), you’re success is not measured by what you’ve “covered”, it is measured by what those stakeholders actually remember and the subsequent actions they take.

This short cideo clip offers some great presentation tips on how to package your ideas so they have more memorability and influence when you are speaking to a group. See what you think

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Getting The Best Out Of Yourself and Others

February 19, 2011

Welcome to the Performance Development blog - with articles and video clips to help you be the best you can be.  Some of the major themes include …

  1. The Job Interview : how to prepare for, and how to present yourself confidently at the job interview. Now-days the employment market is so fiercely competitive, you need any edge that you can get. This page offers plenty of advice, including how to handle your nerves at the job interview. Unfortunately, it is a myth that the best person will win the job – the reality is you need to be able to sell yourself and understand how the interview game is played!
  2. Management Skills : If you are either new to management, or simply wanting to polish your existing management skills, then this page offers a wealth of tips. For example, how to motivate staff, how to delegate effectively and some useful reminders on how to manage your time. The Management Skills page features video clips from some of the leading experts in the field of leadership development, who share some great advice for new and experienced managers.
  3. Conflict : In any relationship, either at home or in the workplace, some degree of conflict is almost inevitable. One measure of our personal effectiveness and also our well-being, is whether we can learn to confidently deal with conflict situations – this page offers some practical advice. The page also refers to our new e-workbook, called “Seven Keys To Becoming More Assertive”. If you are concerned that too foten you are not speaking up, and you worry too much about avoiding conflict, then you would find this personal development Assertiveness e-workbook a very useful resource.
  4. Motivation : This page offers many personal development ideas and inspirational messages, to assist you in remaining self-confident, positive and inspired – and also offers some guidance on how to overcome any fear or self-doubt that may be holding you back. The Motivation page contains video clips that will give you an immediate lift!
  5. Stress : To retain a sense of well-being in our often hectic lives, we are reminded of the need for a healthy work-life balance. and to take time for relaxation. The Stress Management page also offers techniques that may assist you in re-discovering that feeling of inner calm  and peace.
  6. Teams: If you are in any type of leadership role, then you need to be able to build teamwork and understand the dynamics of effective team decision-making. The Team Building page offers team-building tips and resources.

This site will continue to grow, and I hope you find that it offers you useful resources to support both your personal development and your professional development.

Leave a Comment » | Assertiveness, Conflict, Job interview preparation, leadership, management skills, personal development, stress management, Team Building | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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What Makes A Good Leader?

February 12, 2010

In the following short clip, Gleaves Whitney (a respected US author and researcher on leadership and management skills) shares his thoughts on five key leadership qualities …..

  1. Imagination – a clear vision of the desired future and the capacity to communicate this to others and get them engaged in the journey
  2. Passion – energy and the ability to enthuse others
  3. Network – has intelligently built connections with key people, to be able to get things done
  4. Willing to make decisions
  5. Ability to “weather the storm” and endure criticism and tough times
  • Trust You Have the Ability to Lead

In the following short clip, a series of inspirational quotes remind us that we all have within us the abilty to be great leaders…..

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Tips For the New Manager

September 1, 2009

For those of you who have been appointed to your first management or leadership position, and may be feeling some uncertainty and anxiety – let me reassure you that it is a perfectly natural feeling. Eighty percent of new managers experience varying degress of apprehension, simply because the nature of their new role is now so completely different.

Instead of doing the work yourself, you are now having to get it completed by planning, organising and giving direction to other people for completion of those tasks. And as you will have discovered already, your people skills become so much more important.

Whereas in the past when you were a member of the team – and if you didn’t quite get along with a co-worker, you could often find a way to reduce your interaction with them - or simply work around them. Not so easy to do that as the leader of the workgroup, is it?

I have worked actively in the field of management development for some twenty-five years, and would offer a few brief tips

  1. Be willing to ask for advice and guidance from more experienced managers, who seem to have their act together (ie. they are respected by their staff, and deliver good results)
  2. Give yourself time to become familiar with the new role – don’t expect that you will wake up tomorrow and suddenly have discovered a formula for leadership confidence. To some degree, it is a time and experience thing – your confidence will grow as you gain more experience
  3. As well as experience however, take some time to try and think about issues from the management perspective – which takes a longer term view and considers the “bigger-picture” of not just individual interests, but also those of the wider workgroup, department and company!
  4. Always take some time to de-brief yourself after a critical incident and reflect upon whether you could handle it better next time – again consult more experienced managers if you’re not sure you’ve been able to extract the lesson from the experience.
  5. Don’t lose sight of your strengths – that’s what brought you to the attention of more senior management, and why you won the job! Remaining mindful of your inherent strengths will support you in staying positive – which is imperative if you are going to have the energy and enthusiasm you need to succeed in the leadership role.

Have a look around at our pages here on Management Skills, Conflict Resolution and Stress Management in particular. There are plenty of tips  and videos that you will find useful as a new manager – and even for experienced managers who may be seeking some renewal!  And if you are located in Melbourne, Australia and are seeking a management skills course, visit Management Training Melbourne

Management training

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