High Impact Leaders

As a business owner, I was chomping at the bit to get back to work on Friday morning. By 9 AM, though, only half of my staff had arrived. I was shocked. My assumption was that after six weeks of working from home, the team would be as excited to return as I was. As the team started trickling in, though, I didn’t see excitement. I saw an entirely different emotion — fear. The fear that they were experiencing was entirely caused by uncertainty.

I knew I had a huge problem, so I visited with a few of my team members one-on-one. (In a few cases, I don’t think I was a great leader, by the way. When you combine fear and frustration, the outcome can be somewhat challenging.) However, after a few heart-to-hearts, I began to get a more clear picture of what my team was experiencing.

Later in the morning, we had a mastermind meeting with everyone. This was one of the most inspirational and powerful meetings that I have participated in since the crisis hit.

Once the vision was set and the uncertainty was diminished, the excitement started to return.

My Need to Help My Team Led Me to a Few Shocking Discoveries.

You and your team may be experiencing something similar, so I thought that a little clarity might be helpful. Since I like to think of myself as a pretty decent researcher, I decided to spend some time recapping where we are in the Covid-19 Crisis and how we got here.

About one-and-a-half-days into the research, I was both appalled and furious with what I found.

• First, this loss of life and loss of livelihood is tragic.
• Second, many of the decisions made by well-meaning politicians have been based on lies and false data.
• Finally, it is now clear that everything that we have done to our economy has been an extreme overreaction.

For the remaining show notes, go to Note to All Governors: Be the Leader that You Were Elected to Be

With the Covid-19 crisis of 2020, many companies have had to adjust to managing remote teams on the fly. For the first 15 years that The Leaders Institute ® existed, we operated entirely remotely. In fact, we went through the opposite of what companies in early 2020 went through. We had to adjust our company culture from going from a virtual company to an office environment.

Of course, we had a couple of years to master the change. So, when the virus epidemic hit, and we had to start working remotely, we had a distinct advantage over our competitors. Here are a few tips about leading a virtual team that you can use based on our experience. Perhaps you can get a jump on your competition as well!

Create a Critical Communication Guide Before Going Remote.

Since we started as a virtual team, we never sat down to create a critical communication guide. Instead, we created it as we went along based on the mistakes and challenges that we experienced. (I don’t suggest that you do this, by the way. It is a very costly way to create a virtual team.)

The guide doesn’t have to be comprehensive or detailed, but you should put it in writing. This document is basically just a way for you, as the leader, to outline your expectations of how the team will communicate. For instance, we have internal projects that four or five people may be working on. Each of those team members needs to know the protocols for how to let the other team members know when the project is ready for input from another team member.

For example, we have recently been working remotely on creating and releasing online mini-courses. The team consists of four people — Me, the videographer, the website person, and the copywriter. The website person can’t really do a lot until the copy is written and the video is completely edited. So, it is important for each of these team members to keep her in the loop on their timetables.

Prior to having the guide in place, team members would jump from project to project not realizing that coworkers were waiting for them to complete a task. The more incidents like this occur, the high the frustration level will be.

A Few Items Include in Your Communication Guide that Can Help Avoid Miscommunication.

• Daily Face-to-Face Meetings Via Zoom
• Keep Your Meetings Short and Have an Agenda
• Use Slack so Everyone Can be in the Loop
• Post Summaries

Full Podcast Notes are available at Leading a Virtual Team-How to Lead Your Team Remotely

Once we start coaching our team, we want to consistently reinforce positive behavior that we see. The best way to reinforce positive behavior is with a strength-centered compliment. In this session, we will show you, step-by-step, how to give and receive a compliment. This single skill is something that can absolutely set you apart from other leaders. It is also a valuable way to build more of a team culture within your organization.

Bad Managers Reinforce Negative Behavior. Great Leaders Reinforce Positive Behavior.

I hate to start in the negative, but it is important to set the stage as to why this skill is so valuable today. Most managers think of their role as being a “fixer.” What I mean is that most managers have trained themselves to look for problems and then go fix them. The big challenge here, though, is that a problem has to exist before the manager has a role. If he or she doesn’t see a problem, they just look harder until they find one.

Good coaches and leaders, however, look for positive behavior. Then they reinforce that positive behavior so that they get more of it. For instance, John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach had an incredible career. His team won the NCAA championship 10 times in 12 years, had four perfect 30-0 seasons, and at one time, had a record 88 game win streak. One of the secrets to his success was creating a phenomenal “reserve team.”

Coach Wooden decided that he would have more success if he limited playing time to just seven or eight players. That meant that his reserves (his bench) were not likely to ever see any playing time in an actual game. Coach Wooden, knowing how frustrating his method was to these reserves, used a different coaching style for them. He knew that his regulars received positive feedback from the crowds and the media. The reserves didn’t receive that affirmation, though. So, he made a conscious effort to constantly tell the reserves about the value they brought to the team. (Gallimore and Tharp.)

Did it work? The praise caused the reserves to work harder which made the regulars better. Bill Walton once said that actual games seemed slow because the pace of practice was so much faster.

Sincere Compliments Are Needed to Build Confidence.

For full show notes, go to https://www.leadersinstitute.com/reinforce-positive-behavior-how-to-give-and-receive-a-compliment/

Tipping Point-Reduce Stress and Increase Productivity in an Uncertain World.

Uncertainty and constant change are causing high levels of stress in most industries. The stress, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. It is the way that we deal with that stress that causes either a good or bad result. Change creates opportunity. If you can reduce the negative stress, you can accomplish great things while others are scrambling.

Items Covered in this Session: Warning Signs of Stress. | Protecting Yourself from Negative Outside Influences. |Adapting to Change to Produce a Positive Outcome. | Focus on Things w/in Your Control. | Balance Your Life. | Stress Reduction Techniques.

For more details, visit the live, online leadership training page of our website.  You can also view a free Facebook Live version of the content on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/leadersinstitute (Like and share the page with your friends as well!)

I'd like to extend a personal invitation to all of our listeners to attend a series of free, live, online webcasts designed to help people navigate through the stress and challenges associated with the Covid-19 crisis.

High Impact Leaders is offering short, daily sessions via our Facebook pages, and the topics are specifically designed to address challenges that you are likely going through right now.

You can access the sessions at 10 AM Central time Monday through Friday via our Facebook pages.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we will conduct Facebook live sessions for High Impact Leaders on https://www.facebook.com/leadersinstitute

• Monday, March 23, 2020: Tipping Point - Reducing Stress and Increasing Productivity in an Uncertain World
• Wednesday, March 25, 2020, Leading a Virtual Team
• Friday, March 27, 2020, Social Distancing - How to Work as a Remote Team

We also have sessions on Tuesday and Thursday on our Fearless Presentations page as well located at https://www.facebook.com/fearlesspresentations

Go to either (or both) pages and Like the page to subscribe to updates. That way, as we post new sessions, you will get access to each one as it is published.

Who said that experience is the best teacher? Well, just about everyone who has ever taken a class on a subject and who later struggled to apply the content. In fact, one of the reasons why we attract so many people to our leadership classes is that we understand that people learn by doing. When a teacher or coach gives us instructions, the words are theoretical. However, when we put those words into practice and experience success, the words become very practical. So, this statement is absolutely true that when you consider that experience builds confidence in a skill.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.leadersinstitute.com/experience-is-the-best-teacher-really-maybe-not/

I have to admit that I am uncomfortable when given constructive criticism. You know why? Because I’m human. Guess what… You are too. (You are also human.) So, if most people are uncomfortable receiving constructive criticism, is it really constructive? In addition, is there a real difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism?

Well, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” All criticism can be destructive to a relationship no matter the motives of the giver. In this episode, though, we will cover some things that you can do, other than criticize, to help someone else correct mistakes. Basically, we will cover a number of constructive ways to influence others that don’t raise resentment in the other person.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.leadersinstitute.com/the-difference-between-constructive-and-destructive-criticism/

This is part two of a four-part series of leadership principles that can be used in an office environment. Last week we covered how to build trust and a team culture within your group. The focus of this session is on conflict resolution strategies and dealing with difficult people. Remember that these principles are cumulative. The strategies to resolve conflicts work much better in an environment of teamwork that is already present. If you find that your team is experiencing a high level of conflict, back up and work on building the level of trust.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.leadersinstitute.com/7-turnkey-conflict-resolution-strategies-for-your-office-team/

If you are like most people, you probably believe you are a great listener. The problem is that everyone else that you have to deal with needs to improve listening skills, right? The truth is that this often-used term has two parts -- "Listening" and "Skills". We often overlook the second part. Skills are those strengths that we develop with consistent focus over time.

SHOW NOTES: https://www.leadersinstitute.com/how-to-improve-listening-skills-in-the-workplace/