If you are running a company or an organization, incorporate these ten tips into every work day and reap the fruits of increased productivity, greater efficiency, and improved quality of life.
If you are running a company or an organization, incorporate these ten tips into every work day and reap the fruits of increased productivity, greater efficiency, and improved quality of life:
1. Approach every meeting, task, and project realizing that peers and subordinates are constantly watching you—even when you think they aren't noticing a thing. Model the behavior you want to see copied.
2. Establish an environment in which employees thrive, not stagnate or die. Nourish people, and they will eat out of your hand.
3. Seek regular input and feedback from your employees, colleagues, and Board. Periodically, get unfiltered feedback via 360 degree and cultural assessments conducted by an outside contractor.
4. Recognize and reward exceptional work. This motivates staff in powerful ways.
5. Demonstrate a willingness to embrace rather than resist change. Show people that you welcome the opportunities that come with hard times and special challenge.
6. Take definite steps to develop yourself professionally and personally. Assess your skills, behavior, and character honestly.
7. Create, implement, and regularly monitor progress around an organizational strategic plan. Involve representatives from all layers of your organization in these processes.
8. Build authentic relationships and solid partnerships with other people. Phony, false relationships can only haunt you and hurt your business.
9. Say what you mean and mean what you say—no exceptions. Communicate clearly.
10. Be transparent with your Board, colleagues, and employees. Secrecy undermines your credibility and perhaps even your future.
If you commit to living these ten tips, you generally succeed in getting others to trust you. Gaining trust is like owning gold—and lots of it. If folks don't trust you, they don't really care much about your impressive educational background, previous prestigious leadership/management experiences, and supposed skill set.
Picture someone you respect and regard highly. Do you trust them? To what level? I'm willing to bet that this person is someone you place a lot of trust in and value their opinion greatly. Making others feel this same way about you requires that you build a solid foundation of trust within your relationship. They need to believe in you. When they do, they choose to follow you just about anywhere.
What Message Is Your Professional Image Sending?
Do you have sense of how other people view you when they first meet you? Do you really know what others in your professional world think of you, even after years of being in a relationship with them? Do you realize what messages, spoken and unspoken, you are sending every single day? Have you thought about this? If you haven't already done so, it's time to pay attention to the direct and indirect messages you send. Your promotion may depend on it.
Helping Versus Damaging: How to Pull Off Constructive Criticism
Criticism is a necessary part of growing and improving both ourselves and others, but most of us don't do it well. Whether we're giving or receiving this negative feedback, these six essentials of criticism will help you better handle this often awkward and unpleasant situation.
Building Trust at Work: Three Essential Components
You can have a collection of intelligent, creative, and visionary people working together on a project, and if they don’t really trust that each person is going to do his share by the established deadline, there’s a big problem. The following article provides the three essential components for building trust in a work environment.
