Week In Review

Looking back at my week, I’ve learned a lot this week from other blogs, and today I’m sharing a few of those learnings with you.

10 Ways to Fail as a Leader – All 10 ways made me think about how I lead my team. The one that struck the deepest chord with me was

7: Do as I say, not what I do
If you want your employees to be on time, you need to be on time. If you want your employees to work hard, you need to work hard, if you want your employees to play by the rules, you need to play by the rules. Being a leader is also being a positive example. I always arrive 30 minutes early to work, because I would love it if everybody would be on time.

Three Questions for Potential Managers to Ask Themselves – Great questions for anyone considering a career in management. It’s not for everybody, and before you make the leap, you better make sure it’s what you really want.

3: What do I want to become:

…start with a vision of who you want to be as a manager – and even more important, as a leader. What’s the legacy you want to leave, on your organization and others? What kind of a leader do you want to be remembered as? Who are the leaders you admire the most? This list of characteristics become your own personal leadership vision statement that you’ll use as a north star to make sure you’re not straying from who you want to be.

How to handle a missed deadline – While this was written with the freelancer in mind, think about this as it relates to your work and it’ll be just as relevant.

2: Apologize

If the deadline was tight in the first place, or missed due to the client’s actions or interference, this may not apply. But if you committed to a deadline and missed it based on no fault but your own, it’s professional to admit your mistake and apologize sincerely. This is where good customer service comes into play. While there is little an apology can actually achieve, it does demonstrate good manners and an appreciation of the client’s needs at least.

Learning to Listen with the Daily Five Minutes – This is a great history about the D5M that Rosa Say developed, and it is one of the tools I hold closest to me as a manager. This is a powerful post and reminds me why listening is among the most important skills I can work on as a manager.

That is why in my workplace coaching, I will always start with the managers in a work team being the first D5M givers. They are the ones charged with solving whatever problems or concerns an employee brings them, and if they don’t listen well to the problem in the first place, they waste time and create more frustration: They think they are following up, but the employee says they aren’t because they’re working on the wrong thing!

For those who just want links, the 4 articles mentioned are below:

• 10 Ways to Fail as a Leader
• Three Questions for Potential Managers to Ask Themselves
• How to handle a missed deadline
• Learning to Listen with the Daily Five Minutes

There’s so much more that I learned this week, but these are enough to get you thinking. I’m going to start sharing learnings every Sunday, and I welcome you to share your learnings in the comments below.