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7 ways to earn your employees’ trust Employees are sensitive creatures, and one of the quickest things they pick up on is whether or not their boss trusts them. Trust is a critical element for a healthy workgroup and company. Without it, morale and productivity...
Grateful people are happier, healthier, and nicer to be around. Research has shown that thanking others and explaining why we’re grateful is one of the most powerful ways things you can do.
What are the benefits of expressing gratitude?
It builds and strengthens relationships. When others know we need them, our relationships deepen.
It improves health. Gratitude positively impacts our health by reducing stress.
It makes us nicer to be around. We can all do with a little more social capital; expressing gratitude builds those networks of relationships.
It creates optimism. Gratitude shines a spotlight on things we have, rather than drawing attention to what we lack. This fosters a culture of abundance within us, making us optimistic about the future.
It reduces anger. A practice of gratitude makes us more open to receiving negative feedback and strengthens us over time.
It causes us to be more people-centered. Gratitude shifts attention away from ourselves and directs it to others.
It eliminates negative emotions. With a focus on positive emotions, room for negative thoughts becomes smaller.
It feels good. When we express gratitude, it helps our meed and allows us to feel better about our circumstances and ourselves.
Give yourself the gift and power of gratitude. It will foster stronger relationships, and help you live happier. What are some of the ways that you express gratitude in your life?
“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” —Zig Ziglar
We may live in a digital world, but soft skills like communication, problem solving, collaboration, and empathy are becoming more valued than technology. It’s time to elevate soft skills to a topic worthy of frequent leadership inspection.
Here are four ways you can develop your team’s soft skills on the job with minimal financial investment:
Set the stage. Help your team members understand that developing their people skills is part of their path to internal career mobility; and that only focusing on their technical abilities will hold them back in the long run.
Put soft skills front and center. Celebrate wins that highlight people skills. Give equal praise for how something was done as well as what was achieved.
See the opportunity in challenge. Setbacks are an opportunity to coach employees through the speedbumps of organizational life while building a portfolio of critical soft skills. Work with your employees to overcome these challenges and they will come out the other side stronger than before.
Get clear about what good people skills look like. Consistent detailed feedback is core to leadership. When offering feedback highlight specific things your employees said or did that demonstrate their soft skills.
The modern workplace demands top-notch soft skills. Help your team members shine by developing their human skills in equal measure with their technical skills.
“The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff.”
– Roger Enrico
Giving feedback is part of being a leader, but sometimes recipients don’t recognize feedback as the gift it is intended to be. What can you do to help the recipient move past resistance and into understanding?
Gut check
Before responding to the individual, take a moment to consider your motivations in giving the feedback. Do you really want what’s best for the recipient, or do you have a bone to pick? If your goal is to be helpful, keep going! If you’re motivated by your own self-interest, move on.
Redirect
When you come up against a wall of resistance, don’t keep hammering your point home. Instead, ask these questions and listen to their answers.
What’s going on for you right now?
Go through the senses. What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you hearing? What are you seeing? Hitting their preferred way of thinking may help them open up.
Imagine, if this feedback was true, what would you say next?
Imagine, if this feedback was true, what would you ask?
Explore intent vs. impact. What did you intend? What is the impact?
When someone is resistant, what do they do?
What’s at stake for you right now?
From: The Leadership Freak
“Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man’s growth without destroying his roots.” – Frank A Clark
In our last newsletter, Assumptions that can Harm Your Coaching Culture; we focused on developing a coaching culture that inspires discovery, reflection, and persistence. This kinds of cultural shifts can require big changes in the landscape of leadership.
This powerful video explores one leader’s high stakes decision to let go of control, and empowering his crew to make decisions.
“Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves” -David Marquet
