1. Your coffee cup is empty at the end of group meetings. No, coffee drinking itself isn’t a sign of good leadership. But if you’ve spent the whole meeting dominating the discussion, you haven’t had time to sip your coffee and listen to the input of others. A full notepad and an empty coffee cup means your team had the time and space to share their input.
Addressing Invisible Labor of Your Employees
Most organizations are reporting challenges to maintaining a fully staffed workforce. Retaining existing employees has become an even higher priority than ever. Naturally, leaders, high performers, and high potentials tend to receive the most attention when it comes to retention. This is understandable given the impact these individuals have on the organization and the cost to replace them. However, that may not be the best strategy for today’s workforce challenges. Instead, it’s important to ask who is disproportionately leaving the organization and why.
Exploring the Burnout-Vacation Connection
“I’m not saying I’d want to go back to 2020, but 2021 has honestly been worse from a work and burnout perspective.” This honest comment from a friend accurately reflects what so many people are feeling in the workplace today. As the world returns to “normal,” most managers are dealing with more complex issues than ever. Turnover is high in entry-level roles, and despite creative recruitment efforts/incentives, many roles remain unfilled. Who has time for a vacation when you’re just trying to keep your head above water?
When You Lose Your Leadership Mojo
In so many ways, being a leader is a labor of love. Leaders have the privilege of sharing good news, but also the responsibility of delivering bad news. Leaders work to bring out the best in their employees and watch them flourish, but also mourn when they decide to move on to other opportunities. And when times are tough, they have to put on a brave face and inspire everyone to charge ahead even when they disagree with the battle plan. In today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) business world, it’s easy to lose your way. After you’ve been … Read More
Don’t Make This Development Budget Mistake
Budgeting season is always a tough time for leaders as they juggle maintaining business-as-usual while simultaneously trying to predict the future. The process can be exhausting with several rounds of revisions and the need to advocate for necessary resources. So, it’s understandable why, out of pure exhaustion, the column for employee development costs is often just copied and pasted from the previous year’s budget. Many leaders probably see that as a win because that means they’re able to retain employee development resources. However, carrying over a budget line item arbitrarily means we’ve skipped an important step in the process—the employee … Read More
Finding the Perfect Fit
Hiring a new employee to join your team is an exciting, and often stressful, process. Finding an individual with the right combination of skills, knowledge, and experience is only one piece of the puzzle. The individual also needs to have a personality that aligns well to the nature of the role. For example, if the role involves a fast-paced environment where the employee must adapt to rapidly changing priorities, then an individual with a slow work tempo who has a high need to finish tasks may struggle and become overwhelmed. For many organizations, it’s also important that the individual’s values … Read More