Three Top Leadership Skills Every Team Needs to Relearn
After the pandemic, new challenges are popping up as we get settled on moving forward in a more agile environment. Leveraging my roughly 25+ years of managerial experience, I’d like to teach you proven strategies to upskill your team and re-learn these three critical skills to get everyone back into the collaborative game.
Even before the pandemic, delicate topics at work and in life sparked lots of discussions. My workshop attendees were uncomfortable addressing some of the keys we’ll review.
I’ve selected the most talked about👄topics I addressed recently as last week. I’ll give you practical ways to navigate these popular situations that you’ve been tempted to tip-toe away from ~ only to find it’s made its way back to your office or circle talk gathering space.
✏️Use these quick tips and re-learn critical skills today:
Three Leadership Skills Every Team Needs to Re-Learn
Effective Communication.
Communication affects your quality of life. How effectively you engage in written, verbal or nonverbal communication will dramatically impact your relationships and how well you manage the dynamics of your personality.
This season is NOT the moment to back down from tough situations. It’s time to sharpen✍🏽your resiliency skills and drill down on learning how to respond to conversations that would typically throw you off balance.
Don’t worry… I got you!
It’s time to increase your courage in having one-on-one conversations in work and life relationships. It’s 👍🏽okay!! to begin by stating how difficult or awkward an exchange is for you. I dedicate an entire week to my Total Transformation program to help you negotiate difficult discussions. Look for a future email sharing an opportunity for you to join my next cohort. More exciting daysssssssss ahead.
Let’s dwell together for a moment and talk about COURAGE. It’s a character principle, and anyone can cultivate it. If you embrace it right and re-learn the leadership skill of attempting something you’re unsure of, it can really transform how you engage with others and yourself! Yep, grab a seat at the table!
What’s this additional skill to add to your strengths list? It’s called ADAPTABILITY, my friend, and re-learning this one will take you to the head of your team.
A Psychology Today article defines courage as “being afraid and acting anyway.” That basically explains most of my work and life journeys that have turned out pretty darn exquisite. How are you [and your team] “breaking bad✋🏽” and developing this habit and skill?
Great communicators deal with needing to cultivate courage when dealing with tense, frustrating, or annoying circumstances.
Look at Frederick Douglass, who used his self-cultivated and internal moral compass and intellectual and emotional infrastructure to produce large-scale change. He built a Blended Self framework that allowed him to bravely interact with others and move things forward even in one of the most volatile times.
Warren Buffett had to overcome communicating with large groups of people. He had the wisdom to share but needed the courage to impart those principles that he believed would transform the financial sphere. Winston Churchill used short but powerful messages to give people hope. He was known as a bit of a bully but learned to dial it down to comfort a nation confronting vast uncertainty and needing a leader who could weather the geopolitical storms.
Indra Nooyi taught others how to communicate truthfully and be true to their word. Her success as a former CEO of PepsiCo proves people can take and digest hard conversations if you say what you mean and mean what you say.
Those examples detail how important it is to speak from a place of conviction📢 AND maintain awareness of what your body tells you when communicating complex topics.
Practical Tip: Speak more about the positive and focus less on the negative. Practice starting every convo with a positive statement before discussing a difficult one.
When working with teams, I find it’s IMPORTANT to have gatherings where everyone 👯 believes they have a space to share and a community to use their voice. Of course, some meetings are shorter and need to be used to get to the✏️ on workflow processes or specific details on a project. But I suggest you make a leadership effort to have monthly gatherings where everyone can SHARE OUT.
When you see that you and your team have gained more confidence, displace the norm and ask a new person to lead the department’s briefing meeting.
This allows a quiet yet valued member to grow in their unique skill to influence and give wisdom in an area of relevant expertise. Once you and your team improve in handling crucial conversations, you’ll re-learn the courage to optimally design your communication with more skillful persuasion when the stakes are high.
Your BIGGEST TURNING POINT🧨will be when you see yourself and others releasing the fear of the conversation’s outcome!
My recent communication intervention went a little like this. I had two brilliant but completely different personalities needing a communication nudge. Last year, their lack of talking through each one’s workflow expectations and attentiveness to accomplish the overall group goals caused a major communication breakdown.
FEAR of the uncomfortable and not truthfully [and openly] talking through the newest uncertainties forming due to new tasks and changing roles within the team…. screech<*%#… STOPS collaboration.
Their communication hit a wall during the height of peak production.
There’s usually no buffer when uncertainty hits. You felt under pressure and stumped, and self-defeated. Processing those feelings openly can send you spiraling inside and out. I found myself sitting in a sort of relationship therapy, allowing awkward pauses to occur so they could learn how to problem-solve and improve their social and emotional intelligence.
As I sat there, I started wondering, “What tools don’t they have that would help them communicate better with each other?”
The two staffers left the meeting seemingly frustrated, but I could only leave them to reflect on finding a solution that would benefit the team. I knew the best step for each of them was to “GO TO THE BALCONY.” William Ury, International Negotiator & Mediator, developed this masterful strategy. He describes our “biggest block to our success in life is ourselves. It lies in our very human, very understandable tendency to react: to act without thinking. “Ury’s alternative to STRATEGIC communication blocks is to let the individuals’ minds go to an IMAGINARY balcony.
Woo-sahh!!!
I needed each of them to gather their thoughts and emotions and go there ~ to a balcony where they could find a place of calm, a broader perspective, and the disciplined practice of controlling their interest and uncovering the overall prize.
Here, their medal🎖️ was the accomplishment of completing a team goal.
The guiding question Ury uses is - “What is your purpose?”
I left them with that question.
I then gave them the headspace and literal space to figure that out, and they did.
Sometimes you have to go back and remind yourself of the real goal. The higher, collective, and more humble goal that’s integrated into the Servant Leadership model.
This year, I scheduled a series of team gatherings to focus on each person’s personality type individually and as a team. The activities gave them the leadership tools to communicate more effectively by learning how to approach a problem using the best strategy for their team member’’ personalities.
Before peak production, I sent an email asking this particular duo to meet so I could hear how they planned to resolve the issues they encountered last project season. I asked them to study the personality and team collaboration tools and use them to present their solutions and strategies for the challenges faced in the previous year.
The meeting went flawlessly. [Believe me! If you’re familiar with how I roll, you already know there were LOTS of prayers involved.]
They described their game plan on how they had resolved the uncertainties of last season. Each understood that new unknowns could pop up, but they were NOW more relaxed with embracing “different’ and “change.” They openly communicated with one another, shared their misgivings about what happened last year, and reconciled by identifying their personality types and collective team strengths. Their courageous act of communicating more effectively moved them from trauma to emotional and social wellness!
Yes, I had joyful tears on the inside. 😹
Effective Meetings.
What does “effective” really mean?
Today effective means adaptable. An adaptable leader, team, or company uses their skills in creativity, motivation, vision mapping, and emotional empathy to create an effective atmosphere for success.
Merriam-Webster defines effective (ef·fec·tive) as “Producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect. Ready for service or action.”
Are you a part of an effective team or business? Are you desiring to become effective? This is the prerequisite action step to optimize your time with others. It is the light for your path when you’re tasked with coordinating project meetings that ignite energetic inspiration. It’s an absolute dynamic required to empower a high-performing team.
Hosting an effective meeting will need organizations and companies that are open to many leadership styles and personality types that impact team dynamics. There will be a time to listen, brainstorm, delegate, test new ideas, and definitely negotiate power-sharing.
An effective meeting planner should have an overreaching goal to provide everyone with a message, information, or an idea that causes them to return to their individual workspace armed, inspired, and ready to perform an internal or external action.
Practical Tip: With remote and hybrid, and in-person burnout on the rise, time used must be meaningful. If every attendee leaves without wanting to act, maybe you should uncover if some are feeling ineffective and why.
Is the meeting fundamental to providing a significant opportunity for interaction, collaboration, and problem-solving?
If the answer is no, be cautious about planning the meeting.
Gloria Mark with the Department of Informatics at the University of California in Irvine performed a study describing the “Cost of Interrupted Work.” It stated, “After only 20 minutes of interrupted performance, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure.”
Meetings should be meaningful, especially if the topic has nothing to do with the attendees’ present task at hand and cause them a distraction from solid concentration and productivity.
An effective meeting lets attendees feel ownership of the topics being discussed. The best outcome is when your team leaves feeling accountable and responsible for completing their tasks successfully.
If the group meeting is 18 or smaller, ask everyone, “What are you personally going to achieve, and by when?” Or summarize the meeting by having everyone look around the room and determine if there’s someone they need to sidebar with to ensure they can complete their task successfully and on time. This will encourage more connection and direct eye contact. It may also dramatically curb deniability, blame, or deadline pressure-related anxiety.
Is there a new standard for gathering that you need to relearn?
Do you need a notetaker?
When are the best days and times to have meetings?
Answer these questions and a few others to up your meeting game and get on track for a gold star!
I’ve read an entire book on gathering!
Priya Parker does a terrific job of helping us to drill down on why we meet and break routines that aren’t bringing meaning to our jobs, roles, task, lives, and those we serve. In her book, The Art of Gathering, I learned so many helpful tips on how to facilitate meetings better and ensure they were all about the attendees and meeting their needs, and of course, meeting the purpose of the meeting. I mean….. the real deal ones that might need a little nudge to emerge so transformative connections can break through.
How many attendees help create a successful, meaningful meeting? Parker recommends intimate groups of 6, 12 to 15, 30, and 150. Depending on your core team, C-suite team, and other dynamic groups, your numbers may go up or down slightly.
In-person work-focused meetings might last longer because of people’s commute time and their desire to catch up on other work-related items to wrap up. Maybe a good personal check-in is what’s really needed between colleagues that have developed strong bonds. It’s also nice to leave space for one-on-one mentoring or break-out huddles.
What’s a general guide for how long a meeting should last? I culled over a couple of suggestions from Slack and Harvard Business Review and considered my team’s meeting needs to come up with these baseline options for you to use:
How Long Should Your Meetings Last?
Can you rework an agenda and turn it into a strong set of questions to enhance and improve conversations? Push the critical thinking envelope, and get better focus and group buy-in. It’s always a good idea to consistently consider how everyone can engage better and have a voice.
Every meeting should have an empathetic facilitator who can lead decisively.
Relearn the skills to steer the meeting focus to the purpose. Your room and space design, person, group number and activity should fulfill the purpose of the gathering. Remember, sometimes you have to break your team out of their habits to reach the purpose. Brush up on the process questions you ask using “how”, “what”, and “why”, and feel confident enough to ask a closed-ended question when there’s a stinky fish sitting on the conference table.
It’s disheartening to watch leaders not know when to stop and resolve or troubleshoot problems when you may have the best problem-solvers in the room! You have to learn how to be in the process to run the meeting and above the process to decode the energy and atmosphere.
It’s equally frightening to watch a leader put a pin in an issue or schedule a sidebar because they can’t have a difficult conversation with the entire team.
Memorable facilitators are active listeners and great discerners. Again, in the process and above the process. They can discern when it’s time to take a pause and do a group check-in to diffuse a difficult conversation. They’ve also done their homework and have a keen understanding of the team’s personality and group dynamics which helps them to courageously and calmly navigate truth with compassion.
Are you that person?
Can you summarize key points along the way to keep everyone on track and confident the discussions are moving forward with adequate encouragement and purpose-driven closure?
Everyone should leave a meeting knowing one another a little better and sharing an additional piece of information that strengthens their trust in one another. It should also spark their interest in learning how to help someone besides themselves. As Priya Parker perfectly stated, “If everybody thinks about the other person’s needs, everybody's needs are actually fulfilled in the end.”
Effective Ways to Correct Mistakes.
Hey yes! Whether it’s a personal or professional mistake, there’s an effective way to overcome it. Even a team can turn around a production snafu by taking these steps to AVOID MISSING A COHESIVE BEAT🥁 .
No matter the individual or collective blunder, it first starts by acknowledging the error or slip-up. Please don’t ignore it, hoping it’ll quietly go away.
Why risk it popping up at another time, causing more harm or embarrassment?
Accept your part in the mishap, and specifically state what you did. This will help ensure you understand what you did and the negative effect it caused or could have had on the person, group, project, or organization.
When you take ownership of a mistake, you show yourself and others the value placed on integrity.
As a leader, you are helping others relearn a valuable skill by holding yourself accountable.
Another step to effectively correct a mistake is to ask good questions to prevent the error from occurring again.
👉🏽 “Where did things start to fall apart exactly?”
👉🏽 “Do I need to apologize to anyone?”
👉🏽 “Do I see a pattern with other mistakes that need to be addressed inwardly or with others?”
👉🏽 “Do I need to pause another process until this gets sorted out?”
Good questions help you learn and relearn skills such as analysis and problem-solving processes that find the root cause. I know you want solutions that lead you to the next step.
Think about it ~ it could turn out to become the BEST STEP!
Making mistakes can allow you to look at a better plan to help you make up for the wrong action.
You’ve gotta trust me… my organization has developed training and procedures from the mistakes I’ve made! 😯
Plans are made to be tweaked or changed! Ask yourself, “What safeguards can I create and implement to ensure the error won’t be repeated?”
Practical Tip: Using your new plan as a teaching tool can help you and others avoid that awkward misstep. I believe it’ll help you learn or relearn essential project management skills, such as paying attention to detail and prioritizing tasks.
Here’s the thing, my fellow Transformer, after you’ve done your best to correct the mistake, you’ve got to stop and do this: Overcome any lingering self-doubt and lack of confidence that would keep you from getting started and focus on future goals and projects.
Do a self-check-in and see if it’s an excellent time to learn or relearn RESILIENCE. Handling challenges is a part of life, and learning how to get back up after mistakes strengthen your ability to keep moving forward. Mistakes can become meaningful lessons if we observe failure without feeling like one.
BREATHE. Take a moment to focus on your strengths and acknowledge your past accomplishments. 🍾🍵 Take a quiet moment to reflect and journal. Look at your Woohoo list, review your values, and remind yourself that SELF-ACCEPTANCE will continuously inspire you to put one foot in front of the other.
I use a powerful self-confidence workbook [regularly] for continued mental wellness. DM me if you’d like to grab a copy for a pick-me-up to avoid getting stuck, AND pick up a copy of my TRANSFORMATION book to help you reframe how you see yourself.
A guided journal that addresses tough topics and offers powerful process-focused strategies to help you Live your BEST Life Today!