Category Archives: Leadership styles

Leadership Styles – Now Discover Your Strengths

Posted on 4 April 2012 | Leave a comment
The Ritz Carlton logo at the former Hong Kong ...

For decades, Gallup scientists have researched the topic of leadership. They’ve surveyed a million work teams, conducted more than 50,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and  interviewed 20,000 followers to ask what they admired in the most important leader in their life.

The results of that research are set out in the book, Strengths-Based Leadership.

Using Gallup’s discoveries, authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie identify three keys to being an effective leader

  1. The most effective leaders are always investing in strengths. In the workplace, when an organization’s leadership fails to focus on individuals’ strengths, the odds of an employee being engaged are a dismal 1 in 11 (9%). But when an organization’s leadership focuses on the strengths of its employees, the odds soar to almost 3 in 4 (73%). When leaders focus on and invest in their employees’ strengths, the odds of each person being engaged goes up eightfold.
  2. The most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people and then maximize their team. While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are! Strong, cohesive teams have a representation of strengths in each of these four domains: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking.
  3. The most effective leaders understand their followers’ needs. People follow leaders for very specific reasons. When asked, thousands of followers were able to describe exactly what they need from a leader with remarkable clarity. This was trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

Tom Rath and Barry Conchie used firsthand accounts from highly successful leaders to show how each person’s unique talents can drive their success. The leaders included the founder of Teach for America and the president of The Ritz-Carlton.

Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment is available to readers with an access code that accompanies the book. This helps you discover your own special gifts, and specific strategies show you how to lead with your top five talents and how to plot the strengths of your team based on the four domains of leadership strength;

  • Executing,
  • Influencing,
  • Relationship Building
  • Strategic Thinking.

The second theme in this work is identifying the followers “Four Basic Needs”; Trust, Compassion, Stability and Hope which should inspire us all!

If you would like to buy the book you can find it at this link.

Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach.  She helps people have
the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career. You can email her atwendymason@confidencecoach.me or ring ++44(0)2084610114 

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Team Work; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. Part 3 – Managing the Norming Stage

Posted on 2 April 2012 | 3 Comments

In a recent post at this link, I introduced the Tuckman theory of how groups/teams develop. Most groups go through a formation process like that described by Dr Tuckman. Understanding the model can help you to lead, manage and facilitate teams and work groups more effectively.

Some group leaders find the stages uncomfortable – they can be challenging to handle. Some stages seem slow and a waste of precious work time. But going through them means that a more cohesive and efficient working group is formed – a group that allows everyone to contribute their best!  A skilled manager can observe the stages happening and help the process along.  That means you get the best outcome for all in the least time.

In this short series, I discuss how you can lead your group through the stages to achieve a good result. In my two last posts in this series,  I discussed Stage 1 Forming and Stage 2 Storming. In Stage 1 we described how the group will be looking for some ground rules. In Stage 2, they set about testing what they think those ground rules might be. Now in Stage 3, people begin to experience a sense of group belonging and a feeling of relief that conflicts are being resolved.

Stage 3 – Norming.

If the team leader has taken the advice set out for moving from Stage 2, the group will now be resolving any conflicts which have arisen.  People become much less defensive and are willing to change their preconceived ideas or opinions on the basis of facts presented.  They ask questions of one another.   Leadership starts to be shared and cliques break up in the light of new information and new relationships.  A sense of group belonging emerges.

People share feelings and exchange ideas.  They explore possible actions for reaching the goals and creativity is high. They are on their way to being organized so that they can achieve their goals.

Trust builds and information flows well! Roles and responsibilities become clear and are accepted. Big decisions are made by group agreement and smaller decisions may be delegated to individuals or small teams within group. Commitment and unity are strong.

Leading the group through Stage 3 – Norming

What is the role of the leader?  The leader facilitates, enables and makes sure that data keeps flowing between group members.  Encourage the group by congratulating them when they listen to each other and work cooperatively. Now is the time to make sure they put in place detailed plans and systems, and standards, for completing the work. Encourage them to work together to achieve the task.

What if they get stuck in Stage 3 – Norming

Some groups stay in Stage 3 and complete the task with a degree of dependence on you as the team leader and others in the group.  The main danger of Stage 3 is  that members may begin to fear the inevitable future break-up of the group, so they may resist change of any sort.   This can mean they may not find novel and original solutions to problems.  Encourage the group to try out new ideas, and approaches, and to develop the confidence to work independently while remaining part of the group. Be a cheerleader – encourage your group and recognize them for the good work they are doing.

Now we are moving towards excellence  – the next post will be about Stage 4 Performing

I’d welcome your thoughts and your questions.  Please share your own experience of handling Stage 3. What lessons do you have to pass on to others?

Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach.  She helps people have the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career while maintaining a good work/life balance. You can email her at wendymason @wisewolfcoaching.com

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Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Posted on 30 March 2012 | 1 Comment

Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Using emotional intelligence can help you succeed as a leader. But what is emotional intelligence, and why is it that success in life sometimes seems unrelated to intelligence and how hard you are prepared to work?

In 1996 Daniel Goleman wrote his groundbreaking book “Emotional Intelligence“. His exhaustive research had confirmed that success in life is based more on our ability to manage our emotions than on our intellectual capability or our physical strength.

Dr Goleman describes five main elements of emotional intelligence:

  1. Self-awareness.
  2. Self-regulation.
  3. Motivation.
  4. Empathy.
  5. Social skills.

The ability to call on these five qualities can help you to succeed as a leader.

  1. Self-awareness means you are in touch with your own feelings and emotions. You understand how they affect your behaviour and how they influence those around you.  You can strengthen your self-awareness by keeping a daily journal where you record how you feel each day and then reflect on what you have written.  Take time during the day to monitor yourself, your feelings and how you are reacting to things.
  2. Self-regulation means you don’t let fly with negative emotions or make rushed judgments about things or people.  Successful leaders stay in control of themselves and they are prepared to be flexible while being accountable. To help you do this, you need know your values and where you are not prepared to compromise. Spend some time thinking about what really matters to you.  Make a commitment to be accountable for what you do and practice staying calm. A relaxation technique can help – try this technique on our sister site WiseWolf’s Your Happiness Factor.
  3. Motivated leaders have a clear vision and work consistently towards their goals. Do you have that clear vision and is it still appropriate to you and your organization?  Find out more about developing the right vision at this link. If you get to the point where you are responding to events, rather than being proactive, then take action because your lack of motivation could put your organization at risk.
  4. For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful organization or a successful team.  Empathy means you can put yourself in someone else’s situation. Leaders with empathy help develop their teams as they develop themselves. They make sure that people are treated fairly, and they listen.  As a result they earn respect and loyalty. Practice imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes – put yourself in their position.  Listen carefully to what people say and pay attention to body language – respond to feelings!
  5. Leaders with social skills are good communicators – they communicate well and often. They’re just as open to hearing bad news as good news!  Leaders who have good social skills have the confidence to resolve conflicts before they threaten the team or the organization. Learn to talk to your team and if necessary do some formal training in communication skills and conflict resolution.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage both your own emotions, and those of the people you lead.   Having a high EQ means  knowing what you are feeling, what this means, and how your emotions can affect other people. For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. Take time to work on self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.  They will certainly help ensure that you succeed as a leader.

If you would like to know more about emotional intelligence and how it can help you in job search go to our sister site WiseWolf Leaving the Public Sector.  If you would like to know what emotional intelligence might mean for you in your life outside work then please visit WiseWolf’s Your Happiness Factor.

If you would like to read Dr Goleman’s book click on the picture link below

You can try out an EQ test at this link http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/3038

Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach.  She helps people have the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career. You can email her atwendymason@wisewolfcoaching.com or ring ++44(0)2084610114 

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Team Work; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. Part 2 – Managing the Storming Stage

Posted on 27 March 2012 | 4 Comments

In a recent post at this link, I introduced the Tuckman theory of how groups/teams develop. Most groups go through a formation process like that described by Dr Tuckman. Understanding the model can help you to lead, manage and facilitate teams and work groups more effectively.

Some group leaders find the stages uncomfortable – they can be challenging to handle. Some stages seem slow and a waste of precious work time. But going through them means that a more cohesive and efficient working group is formed – a group that allows everyone to contribute their best!  A skilled manager can observe the stages happening and help the process along.  That means you get the best outcome for all in the least time.

In this short series of posts, I discuss how you can lead your group through the stages to achieve a good result. In my last post (at this link) I discussed Stage 1 Forming. In Stage 1 we described how the group will be looking for some ground rules. In Stage 2, as you will see, they set about testing what they think those ground rules might be.

Stage 2 – Storming.

If the team leader has taken the advice set out for moving from Stage 1, the group will now have some goals.  But they are not yet organized so that they can achieve them.  By now they have been together long enough to stop needing to be on their best behaviour.

They may begin to debate how they should go forward. What are the priorities going to be and who is going to take which role in the team?  What systems and processes are going to be put in place?

Differences of opinion and beliefs can lead to conflict and they may begin to jockey for position. Power struggles may break out, particularly if you have a number of strong personalities vying to lead.  They may begin to challenge you as group leader and cliques may form.

Leading the group through Stage 2 – Storming

So what can you do?  The team needs to be focused on its goals to avoid becoming distracted by relationship and emotional issues.  Some compromises need to be made and you need to help them find the middle ground. You need to start selling ideas and the benefits of what you are trying to do.  There needs to be lots of communication. The group needs to understand the importance of the task, the processes needed and their roles.  If all is going well the group will move quickly through this stage to agree some “norms” for working together.

What if they get stuck in Stage 2 – Storming

If necessary, your may need to set down the ground rules for group behaviour and get the group to agree that they should treat each other with respect.  You need to keep a close eye on the debate – if it is about ideas, that is a good sign and they can be left to work it out if time allows. But if the debate becomes personal then you will need to intervene.  Don’t suppress conflict completely because the group will stagnate and not learn to work together very well.  This is where planning social events can help so that individuals begin to see each other in a more rounded way.

If necessary, tighten up the goals and targets!  Get the group to focus very sharply upon them and the benefits which will be lost if people are not prepared to compromise and reach agreement.  If cliques have formed, try putting people to work with others outside their chosen subgroup so that new relationships can be established.

Now we are moving towards the real work  – the next post will be about Stage 3 Norming

I’d welcome your thoughts and your questions.  Please share your own experience of handling Stage 2. What lessons do you have to pass on to others?

Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach.  She helps people have the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career while maintaining a good work/life balance. You can email her at wendymason @wisewolfcoaching.com
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Team Work; Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. Part 1 – Managing the Forming Stage

Posted on 19 March 2012 | 5 Comments

In a recent post at this link, I introduced the Tuckman theory of how groups/teams develop.

Most groups go through a formation process like that described by Dr Tuckman.

Understanding the model can help you to lead, manage and facilitate teams and work groups more effectively.

Some group leaders find the stages uncomfortable – they can be challenging to handle. Some stages seem slow and a waste of precious work time. But going through them means that a more cohesive and efficient working group is formed – a group that allows everyone to contribute their best!

A skilled manager can observe the stages happening and help the process along.  That means you get the best outcome for all in the least time.

In this short series of posts, I’m going to discuss how you can lead your group through the stages to achieve a good result.

Stage 1 – Forming.

When they first come together in a group, people are cautious.  Usually, they want to get to know each other and to get on with the task.  But, they might be a bit anxious.  They are usually tentative and tend to check each other out. Generally they are polite and somewhat reserved.

The group wants to work out how they should behave.  At this stage, they are not likely to challenge each other or you, as their leader. They want to understand properly why they are there – what is the task and what is this really about?  The group wants to know what they are being asked to do and how they expected to do it.

No one feel very comfortable – are there any hidden agendas?

They are looking for the “ground rules”.

This stage can feel frustrating for the leader because things can feel as if they are moving very slowly.

Leading the group through Stage 1 – Forming

So what can you do?  Well, you need to provide a safe environment in which the group can operate and you need to set some goals for them to achieve.

But let then have some time to get to know each other! Allow people an opportunity to share their hopes and their anxieties.  (You might recognise now why trained facilitators put so much store by ice-breakers).

If you pace the group carefully, they will move through this stage and not get stuck.  Encourage them all to contribute.

What if they get stuck in Stage 1 – Forming

If they get stuck then you will need to become more directive.

  • Involve them in setting the goals
  • Let them air their reservations.
  • Get those ground rules out in the open air
  • Get people to agree the ground rules.
  • Support anyone who shows reticence so that their confidence develops.

Then stand by because you need to go through Stage 2 Storming before the real work begins and Stage 2 can be turbulent.

I’d welcome your thoughts and your questions.  Please share your own experience of handling Stage 1. What lessons do you have to pass on to others?

Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach.  She helps people have the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career while maintaining a good work/life balance. You can email her at wendymason @wisewolfcoaching.com

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