The Power of Shared Purpose in Leadership

Inspiring Your Team to Make a Difference

 

Jen and Sue (not their real names) work in the same industry and manage their own teams. Their work requires them to meet with customers and handle their issues. While the nature and scope of their work have some similarities, their mindsets are very different.

Meeting with customers is stressful for Jen. They often have demands (sometimes unreasonable) that sap her time and energy. What makes it worse is her team refers the most “difficult” customers to her. Dealing with these customers’ demands reduces her time for other essential matters. She told me that her team is overwhelmed handling customer demands.

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Many Who Call Themselves “Leaders” Misunderstand the True Essence of Leadership!

Beyond Titles and Authority: Authentic Leadership

 

A senior executive told me that he wanted to speak like a leader. He felt he wasn’t taken seriously because he wasn’t speaking in a manner that a leader should talk.

As I probed further, I found out that he believed a leader should be able to speak with an air of authority, project confidence, and use certain types of words and phrases, among other things.

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Unleash Your Team’s Potential: Coaching Conversations that Drive Results

Ditch the Command-and-Control Model and Build a High-Performing Team (Part Two)

 

According to Gallup, nearly 80% of employees worldwide are either not engaged or actively disengaged.1  Gallup further found that engagement levels would increase significantly if leaders had frequent coaching conversations with their team members.2

Despite the benefits of having regular coaching conversations with their team members, many leaders are still not doing it or, worse, avoiding it!

One common reason leaders say prevents them from coaching is the assumption that they don’t have time. They fail to realise that integrating coaching into their regular conversations with their team members (i.e., coaching-style conversations instead of formal coaching) would take much less time than they expect.

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Unleash Your Team’s Potential: Become a Leader-Coach (Not Just a Boss)

Ditch the Command-and-Control Model and Build a High-Performing Team (Part One)

 

The world of work has changed.

In today’s dynamic work environment, where disruptive change is the norm, the traditional command-and-control model of leadership is no longer effective. Instead, leaders must embrace a model where they empower their teams and leverage their individual and collective strengths to adapt, innovate, and deal with challenges.

In other words, leaders must use a coaching approach by integrating coaching into their roles.

While organisations are increasingly expecting their leaders/managers to coach employees, the reality is that many leaders don’t know how to coach well.1, 2  One problem is that they don’t understand what coaching means. Another issue is that they don’t have the skills or mindset to do it well.

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Why Understanding Your Team’s “Why” Matters

Fostering Meaningful Work to Drive Team Performance

 

Your team is like an orchestra where each member brings their talents and unique contributions to help create a harmonious, emotionally resonant musical experience that moves the audience. A powerful performance happens when every musician understands the collective interpretation of the musical piece and how their parts contribute to creating that unified performance.

If some members have values or motivations that do not align with the orchestra’s (e.g., wanting to be the stand-out lone star, feeling that their part is unimportant, or just wanting to get through the day and receive the paycheck), the collective performance will be significantly affected.

One key driver for exceptional team/employee engagement is team members feeling “My work is meaningful!” Research1 has found that ‘meaningfulness’ matters more to us than other aspects of our work. When employees feel their work is meaningful, their performance improves by 33%!2

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