Leaders, especially during times of uncertainty, must be prepared to make tough decisions, and often sacrifices, to fulfil their vision and grow into stronger and better leaders.

Whilst the last few years have seen PAB Languages go from strength to strength, it has not all been plain sailing for me…

When I first moved to the UK, my family wouldn’t speak to me. My parents wanted my career to progress in Poland, near them and their support, which definitely made the decision to come to the UK though. But I settled into my new home and discovered that I could be happy somewhere other than Poland, doing what I love.

Since my move, I have successfully built and managed multinational teams and businesses in the UK. I have also experienced plenty of ups and many more downs, especially in my early years as an entrepreneur. I faced numerous challenges that other female leaders may be familiar with, and it took many sleepless nights, gritting my teeth and asking for help, as well as hard work, discipline, and resilience to bring me to where I am today.

During tougher times, I feel being a leader means lots of noise, being buffeted from one side to another; it means working crazy long hours, getting knocked back and getting back up again, getting noticed, celebrating wins, and learning some life lessons quickly.

Here are a few of mine…

Lesson 1: Clarity of purpose

Great leaders must not only have a clear picture of where they want to be and who they must become to get there but also be able to articulate this vision to their teams so everyone is motivated to be the best they can be.

It is absolutely critical for leaders to focus on the big picture. There was a period of a few days, early in the pandemic, when business seemed to stop, as everyone was in a bit of shock, trying to figure out not just what to do, but what had happened. This was the perfect time for my team and me to take a deep look at ourselves, both personally and professionally — our vision, values, structure, goals and company culture — and identify any areas for improvement.

I feel that in both good times and bad, honest and inclusive communication is vital. People, rightly, want to know how changes are going to affect them. When we are informed, we feel more confident. When we feel confident, we do our best work. When we do our best work, clients thrive, and we create a better environment for everyone involved!

Lesson 2: Kindness and integrity

I once heard this quote, which defines leadership for me; “Love your people, love your organization and love those you serve, and you’ll have discovered the secret of great leadership.”

While there is a lot that is out of our control during the pandemic, there is a lot we can control. In particular how we treat our colleagues, suppliers, and clients. The “non-negotiable” principle that I expect of myself and encourage from my team, is to act professionally with kindness and integrity. It’s the culture, method and backbone of our business that has helped me find and attract many talented and wonderful people to our business.

Lesson 3: Empowering my team

I strongly believe that great leadership is committing to becoming someone people can look up to. For me, that means asking myself every day “Did I make an impact on our team today? Was I able to help and motivate those around me?”

We are blessed to have wonderful people from over 50 countries with different faiths, backgrounds, and ethnicities working with PAB Languages. As linguists we are extremely conscious of language and how we say what we say, keeping in mind that people have different communication approaches. Being aware of these differences and ensuring inclusive, regular, honest communication and feedback make the relationships in our organisation stronger and more successful for everyone.

As leaders, we should also look out for our colleagues’ mental, physical, and emotional health. So, the company leader’s self-care, as well as employees’ well-being, should be top of the agenda. Having passionate and happy people around you to deliver on the company goals and mission, but whom you also respect, value, and empower, will enable your business to expand and thrive.

Lesson 4 Passion and dedication

In my opinion, great leaders establish the standards for customer focus. Making sure these high standards are embedded throughout our business and that everyone is fully equipped to provide a great experience for all our stakeholders is a big part of what has made us successful.

At PAB Languages delivering greatness and providing the highest quality is always at the heart of what we do. Delivering on our promises and working with customers and associates to build long-term partnerships is one of our core values. Our dedication to every client goes beyond the completion of any single project. We follow up throughout the process by making sure our client’s experience with our company fulfils their expectations, thereby establishing a continuing relationship for future growth.

About the author:

Iwona Lebiedowicz

Founder and CEO of PAB Group. Language and Communication consultant.

Passionate about delivering results and quality, helping businesses to succeed internationally.

Focused on managing effective communication and building thriving relations with clients, employees and partners from different countries and cultures.

Specialisations:
Communication Training
International Communication
Multicultural Marketing
International Growth
Multicultural Recruitment

Over fifteen years’ experience in leadership positions in public and private sector organisations leading multinational teams, communicating across cultures, and successfully managing multicultural engagement and marketing projects. She has experience is recruitment management working with multinational food produce, horticultural, agricultural, logistics and manufacturing companies.

Much has been written about successful leadership:

How to become a leader, how to develop the relevant skills? Or how to learn from one’s failures? In many respects, all these questions come down to intellectual prowess, technical competence, and operational know-how – in short, good old-fashioned hard skills.

However, while qualifications are essential and cannot be underestimated in one’s day-to-day work, they fail to account for the difference in performance between equally skilled people in leadership positions.

All things being equal, what makes some senior leaders more successful than others?

This was the question Daniel Goleman set out to answer when he embarked on his research into what makes a leader (published by Harvard Business Review in June 1996). What he found was that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership, the “right stuff” that allows some leaders to rise above the rest. Today, this statement rings particularly true.

Does this really work?

Goleman makes a convincing argument that having a leader with a high EQ can be extremely advantageous to an organisation: “the higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more emotional intelligence capabilities showed up as the reason for his or her effectiveness. When I compared star performers with average ones in senior leadership positions, nearly 90% of the difference in their profiles was attributable to emotional intelligence factors rather than cognitive abilities.”

Goleman’s study dates back to 1995 and 1996, and even in his wildest dreams, he could not have predicted the Covid-19 outbreak and its consequences for business organisations – from economic uncertainty and remote work to the impact it continues to have on people, with emotional responses ranging from great enthusiasm about freedom to work from home to depression brought about by the isolation it entails.

Nowadays, emotional intelligence is seen as a must-have for a leader and a key to dealing with unpredictable situations, vulnerability and fears among staff members, liquidity problems on clients’ side, negotiations of contracts suspended or disrupted due to Covid-19, delays in commercial deliveries nearly all across the board, with the automotive and construction industries taking a particularly hard hit. During Covid-19, the world has been a testing ground for stress resistance, resilience, and adaptability, while simultaneously highlighting the importance of communication, loyalty, and a sense of community.

The European Commission predicts that the skills of leadership and emotional intelligence will be essential for workers and businesses in the post-corona economy. The fact that these two skills are given such prominence goes to show how important and challenging it is to inspire and motivate staff members and encourage collaboration from a distance, especially as, with the rise of the gig economy, teams are becoming ever more fluid, requiring initiative and proactivity from everyone involved.

Special attention is given to emotional intelligence, defined as “the ability to understand and be aware of one’s own emotions as well as those of other people”. The European Commission notes that the post-corona economy can be volatile and challenging, and companies will need emotionally intelligent leaders to help workers navigate their way through these difficult times.

Just how important are these two skills? To offer some perspective, both leadership and emotional intelligence are ranked higher by the Commission than technology skills, digital and coding skills, adaptability, creativity and innovation, data literacy and critical thinking.

What is emotional intelligence?

Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as a set of five skills that enable the best leaders to maximise their own and their followers’ performance:

(1) self-awareness – knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others;

(2) self-regulation – controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods;

(3) motivation – relishing achievement for its own sake;

(4) empathy – understanding other people’s emotional makeup;

(5) social skills or, as I prefer to call it, “nothing important gets done alone”– building rapport with others to move them in desired directions.

Emotional intelligence has several components, but essentially it is about leading through empathy, influence, and collaboration.

Can emotional intelligence be learned?

Knowing how essential it is in difficult times to be an emotionally intelligent leader, is there any hope for us, mere mortals, to learn it? According to Goleman, research shows that, given the right approach, people can develop their emotional intelligence. As Goleman says, the process is not easy and requires time and commitment, but it is well worth the effort. After 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic, who would disagree?

About the author:

Agnieszka Pytlas

Adwokat / Managing Partner at Penteris

For the last decade, while leading global training teams across three continents, I have built culturally, geographically, and generationally diverse teams.

The leadership strategy that I employed is what we call establishing multiple excellence hubs.  Such a strategy requires you to do global profiling of the overall work performed by the target audience in the field across all locations. This profiling involves understanding historical events, the nature of customer calls, and regions where most of the demand originates. With this data, leaders can identify the key locations where they should position employees to leverage the local demands, events, and actions happening at that location.

The employees at such hubs have language, culture, norms advantages. That allows better and faster service to customers originating from the same region. In more ways, the customers feel as being served at their home grounds.

Admittedly, some regions’ work practices could be influenced heavily by their home-country norms and other traditions. So, it is natural that some unproductive practices may negatively impact the quality of services. To address that, build more frequent and in-depth international exchanges, best practices forums, and interactions among culturally and geographically diverse teams. Such an action would help co-create intelligence that sets up a base for changing practices in the future for such a diverse team to continue working productively.

The leadership strategy of the excellence hub clearly gives cost benefits in certain regions where salaries are relatively lower. In the other areas, it may allow leveraging characteristically younger population profiles. While our typical first preference always has been hiring experienced senior professionals, but we could open up positions at multiple tiers to include mid-senior and younger generations. In such a structure, the younger people received highly experienced mentoring from senior staff and came up to speed. But the most significant advantage comes in the form of fresh ideas like technologies, software, apps, AI tools, and other contemporary expertise this age group brings.

Not only does it massively uplift the quality in line with the technology-driven world, but it also prepares the workforce for future challenges.

About the author:

Dr Raman K Attri

Is your leadership team running on empty? Are you facing into increasing waves of change? Do you need to reset, reconnect, and reenergise your leadership team to tackle the next wave? How can team coaching help?

Whether keeping-up with new opportunities or struggling to survive, leaders have been working flat-out in the last year. Many are feeling both energised by, and weary from accelerating business change. In teams, it has been hard to give each other time and space. Tensions that were glossed over in the virtual world, are now beginning to fray and chafe.

The demands on leadership teams are escalating, with bigger waves of change and uncertainty. Companies face increasing pressure to take a lead in society and in adapting to a sustainable economic system.

In a recent @APECS webinar, I worked with a wonderful group of experienced team coaches to consider how we might better partner with leadership teams. 3 themes emerged, which I build on here:

1 Leaders Caring for Themselves.

Leaders need to look to their own well-being and development. Resilience is different from endurance. It is about finding the times and places for self-recovery amongst the stretches of activity and includes:

physical well-being: finding your own exercise, moving your body between meetings, talking to people on the phone while walking, rather than doing everything via your desktop. Allowing for rest breaks in the day and weeks.

mental and emotional well being: create separation from work, for family, friends, and self. It is vital to focus on things outside of work that are engaging, fun and absorbing, which may be time with loved ones or maybe learning something new.

self-relating: being reflective and reflexive to deepen self-awareness and perspective, is vital. Noticing what is happening for you, what is energising, draining, and aggravating. Exploring why this may be. What are the assumptions you hold about yourself, others and the world that are serving you or not?

What might you need to let go of, to respond better to the changing world?

Coaches will help leaders with each of these, but the greatest scope to add value is the reflective/reflexive space. The inclination for most leaders is to drive themselves harder, do more, work longer hours. That is partly why so many now feel they are running on empty. It is not sustainable, and what is needed is to do things differently rather than do more. This means a change of gear or an upgrade in your personal operating system, so that you have a greater impact with what you do. To do this requires a deeper insight on yourself and your context, together with the courage to experiment, reflect and learn.

2 Leadership Teams Caring for Each Other and Those They Serve

Compassion was a key leadership contribution in the last year. This meant connecting with people’s humanity, understanding how their lives have been disrupted and sometimes, recognising their loss and grief. Not just in the business but across the ecosystem. For peers in a leadership team, taking time to build openness and trust, even when working virtually, is vital for resilience and performance. Going through tough times together can often strengthen a team but it can also cause friction. Either way the shared experience needs to be processed and learning recognised, which requires generating a safe environment.

Team coaching can accelerate and deepen the capacity for a team to connect, building openness and honesty, appreciating each other’s strengths, and learning together. It can work through the points of tension and damaged relationships that undermine performance. If the team is together and supportive it will be better placed to face the next wave. Team growth can be facilitated virtually but addressing tensions is more difficult. In many countries there is growing scope to get people together again, even if the daily commute to an office may be a thing of the past. This offers more opportunity to surface underlying tensions and rejuvenate a team to face the future.

3 Expanding the Capacity for Processing Complexity

Many leaders and teams have been successful based on their expertise and their drive to set and achieve goals. Generally, this involves working within defined parameters and making assumptions about the future. The world can now seem overwhelmingly complex and fast-paced, requiring a systemic perspective. Leaders need to be much more comfortable and honest about not knowing and to recognise they must explore their way forward together. This means being willing to share their vulnerabilities and engaging in honest conversations with peers and stakeholders, drawing on their collective intelligence in framing opportunities/challenges and developing ways forward.

I am currently reading President Obama’s book, “A Promised Land,” and note how he tackled intractable issues by having a good process in place to explore it with diverse groups, holding opposing perspectives. Embracing diversity in all its richness will help teams make progress in a complex and dynamic world. Leadership team agility means recognising their limitations, listening widely, taking action and remaining open to learning quickly.

The role of team coaching is to help create a safe space, to encourage vulnerability and real conversations. Holding the mirror-up to confront posturing or evasion and encourage honesty. A mindset coach will help in finding good processes for interacting, framing issues, and ensuring different perspectives are heard and considered. Also, for developing the capacities to notice, reflect and learn, even in mid-action, so that teams create experiments and plans which hold their purpose in mind and are agile in implementation.

In short, many leadership teams have been stretched to a point of exhaustion in the last year, handling both opportunities and challenges. We remain in stormy times, facing into societal shifts and the escalating challenge of climate change. Now is a time for renewal, better to take on the next wave of change. To step into this, leaders need to look deeply into themselves, shifting gear to renew their energies and openness to change. Leadership teams need to deepen connection and trust, while growing their capacities for sense-making and leading through complexity. As teams come together, whether face to face, or virtually, team coaches can partner them, to better to face into the waves of change.

Chris Smith

AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical firm, and the NHS, the United Kingdom National Health Service, have successfully navigated through the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing various kinds of leadership methods such as adaptive leadership and reverse leadership style. Which has helped them adapt, innovate, and change through different challenges.

With the COVID pandemic, we have a new reminder that the corporate environment is dynamic and ever-changing. It is vital to have suitable strategies to lead in constantly changing environments. Many organisations successfully navigated through the pandemic and into the 4th industrial revolution. For example, AstraZeneca, and even the NHS, could navigate successfully through these unprecedented times.

AstraZeneca successfully implemented an adaptive leadership style to navigate throughout the past year and a half. Due to their operations in China, they were able to learn and act early on it. First, they predict potential needs and problems, all while juggling significant complexities and unknowns. They communicated these needs to a broad range of internal and external stakeholders to gain commitment and support. Often, when there is a rising threat or opportunely, there are stakeholders that do not believe in it or the outlined solution. Thus, they do not support the cause through effective communication and other methods that can be changed.

Read more on: How to make your team believe in your startup – a short guide to help you win them over!

AstraZeneca also adapted a variety of innovative business models and collaborations to address the most pressing Covid-19 needs — most importantly, vaccine production and testing and screening methods, health facility development, and the use of AI aid diagnostics and case management. Perhaps most importantly, the company has developed an inclusive approach to transparency, including a pledge to help the global Covid-19 response, including several commitments for large-scale manufacture and delivery of every successful vaccine at no benefit during the pandemic season.

One challenge can help you anticipate another challenge.  

Marc Dunoyer

The NHS is a publicly funded healthcare system in the United Kingdom. Even before the pandemic, the NHS has numerous challenges such as long waiting time, lack of options for patients, bureaucratic hurdles and many more. However, similar to other nations healthcare facilities, the NHS has faced numerous struggles with the pandemic, from a lack of staff, lack of infrastructure and equipment as a cause of underfunding. The UK spends a lower portion on health than other EU countries. Thus, countries such as Germany has twice as many nurses then the UK. With the additional stress added by the pandemic, some underlying problems have been exposed, such as health inequality. 

Though there are many challenges, the NHS is addressing them and working on them. By implementing reverse leadership, they encourage their staff to create solutions through innovative ideas. Additionally, they are transparent with their challenges and happening, thus creating trust and facilitating the steps to create solutions to their numerous struggles, which has led the UK to be one of the top countries to have vaccinated the greatest number of its citizens. 

The COVID pandemic serves as a clear reminder that society is complex and constantly evolving. It is critical to have suitable leadership that can lead in rapidly evolving situations to avoid making the same mistakes as other organisations that have gone bankrupt or been acquired by others. Many firms managed through the pandemic and into the fourth industrial revolution. For example, AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that adopted an adaptive leadership style and the NHS, managed manoeuvre through these trying times effectively. By implementing the right leadership style to help the workforce and consumers navigate and cope through all the changes.

Elisabeth Klingler

Even before the covid pandemic, we knew that the 4th industrial revolution was coming. Though everything was at a halt, some things accelerated, like the transformation of an even more digital era, including the trend of remote working. The transition into the future of work can be challenging for organisations that do not have the resources (time, money, and skills). If not taken seriously, the industries and individual companies might be distrusted by innovative newcomers. the right kind of leadership is necessary to help transit into this now upcoming period. If neglected, there will be a huge skills gap, thus widening the income inequality globally. 

Techniques Leaders Need to Help Transition Into the Future of Work

Techniques used to be taught in a traditional manner, such as business schools, corporate universities, and specialised training companies and consultancies. However, PLC (Personal learning cloud) disturbed the traditional way to learn. We used to live in a three-stage life: first education, then full-time work and last retirement. However, that changed before corporations used to train executives, but that is not the case currently, and that might still be the case in the future.

Employees are expected to be able to take more executive decisions on a daily. The problem is that corporations would send employees to learn new skills, but they would only remember what is helpful to them or leave the company with the gained skills. There is less and less a clear division of life stages, thus becoming more fluid, intermixing these stages due to technologies. One educational contribution is a platform that uses the PLC model.

The workforce is forced to independently upgrade their skills to stay woke in their field and industry. If not done, they can face many personal risks such as being fired or not seeing career development. Start-up founders should naturally seek to be aware of external operations in industry and business management, including marketing. If not, they might be unable to gain traction due leading to venture failure.

Many experts suggest different techniques that are necessary for the 4th industrial revolution or to transition to it. Thus, based on the research gathered, here are some of the top three techniques to move into the 4th industrial revolution with ease.

Create an Outline – Future Jobs and Opportunities

We all have seen the changes technologists brought, and we all know that the 4th industrial revolution is right around the corner. Particularly true for workers who have already been replaced with technological innovation. Many of these workers fear the transition because they feel like they do not have the right skills for a job viable for the upcoming jobs created by the tech evolution.

A good leader trying to guide the team member, a whole department or the whole organisation, it is important to outline what is likely to come in the future. In this case, creating a guide of jobs can be found in various places, new jobs are likely to be created, and skills necessary to get those jobs. Thus, creating greater transparency in the workplace, which increases productivity and retention of top talent, employees become more motivated and use their sense of agency and drive to consider what actions they will take to get there.

On/Reskilling Employees

As mentioned before, often employers avoid taking on/reskilling responsibilities because they believe It is not in their interest to help cultivate workers in such a volatile labour environment. However, for employees to stay in the workforce, they need to learn new skills to stay relevant constantly. Particularly important to have retention for top talent from employees within different generations (Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z).

Therefore, many people seek employment in organisations with a clear opportunity to gain new or develop their skills. It is easier to start fostering the learning movement by taking advantage of other employees’ skills and implementing a C-suite communication culture, collaboration, and connectivity.

Nonetheless, this is only a small step in the right direction, and not all means not the finish line. If there are no such opportunity employees, they need to take time out of their leisure time. However, when creating more motivation through techniques such as shared vision, it is beneficial to provide such opportunities.

From Vertical to Horizontal Flow of Ideas  

To create a more collaborative work environment, leaders need to facilitate the flow of ideas and provide greater self-sufficiency at a team and individual level. Allowing employees to speak up to make suggestions. For employees to feel welcomed to do so, leaders need to lead by example. This process encourages reverse leadership.

As we look to the future, role modelling of behaviours is going to be more important than training.

Jeffrey Joerres

The Challenge of Change

Many have accepted the change that technological innovation is bringing to the workforce. However, the transition into the future of work is played out is confronted with resistances by stakeholders. Winning them over is quite challenging, however not impossible, with the right kind of leadership.

Elisabeth Klingler

The COVID pandemic led many countries to enforce a national lockdown, impacting a social and professional work setting. There has already been a remote working trend; however, the lockdown accelerated the trend. Thus, leaders now have to lead remotely. In-person leadership is different from remote leadership. One key difference is how they distinguish themselves from the rest of the team. 

• Remote leader: Logistical coordination rather than through expertise, by monitoring team progress and coordinating team members, a mixture of soft and hard skills 
• In-person leader: Demonstrates traits that we all typically imagine when conjuring a leadership vision, usually personality traits. This is usually easier perceived in person than virtually. 

Learn more about the difference between In-person leadership and remote leadership.

More than 20% of the workers could operate as easily at home three to five days a week as they could in an office if remote work is commonplace at that rate, three or four times as many people would be working from home than before the pandemic. Therefore, having adequate leaders for the growing trend of remote workers is necessary for business success. 

What makes a remote leader successful? 

Virtual teams informally anoint leaders who do the job of getting tasks done, rather than finding the most dynamic personalities in the room, as effective virtual leaders. They assist other staff members with activities to keep the group on track and concentrating on their objectives.

Some successful traits of virtual leaders are: 

• Doers 
• Goal-focused
• Productive
• Dependable
• Helpful

The perceived trend is that in person, people find leaders that give them energy and motivation. However, virtually those traits are difficult to transmit. Therefore, the traits of virtual leaders are responsible and dependable traits are more valuable in that circumstance. 

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

Douglas MacArthur

Though virtual leadership is oriented to get things done, it does not provide support to help each team member achieve their personal goals. This is especially challenging when trying to lead remotely to build a shared vision with the team members. Thus, transformational leadership during the pandemic with some key traits seen in virtual leadership would have been ideal. 

However, this is challenging to do successfully since individual team members must motivate themselves to complete tasks. The remote leader is acting as an entity to provide structure and clarity through the working process. 

Regardless, with the remote leader using some of the practices of a transformational leadership style in a one-on-one setting with each team member, they can create a healthier mix. Thus, encompassing the team’s needs, where they can meet the business and personal objectives.

COVID has all taught us that things are dynamic and constantly changing within every second of the day. Therefore, business leaders have to be dynamic as well. A good leader is constantly adapting. Thus Harvard Business Review recommends an adaptive leadership style, encompassing the 4 A’s.

• Anticipation of possible future needs, trends and options.
• Articulation of these needs to build shared understanding and support for action.
• Adaptation so that there is permanent learning and the adjustment of responses as necessary.
• Accountability, including total transparency in decision making processes and openness to challenges and feedback.

Though this style is usually used in a large-scale international setting, methods are applicable on a small scale with just a team of 5-10 people. 

2020 has again highlighted the importance of adapting leadership styles in different situations. Virtual leaders are different from in-person leaders. Nonetheless, in-person leaders should incorporate some of the qualities of in-person leaders in virtual leadership to encourage motivation feasible by transforming a leadership style.

However, the most important leadership style that 2020 has presented to us is the adaptive leadership style. Leaders can identify, trends communicate accordingly, adjust to the needs and be accountable with every action. To learn more about leadership, join Expert Circle!

Elisabeth Klingler

In the last year, working from home has become the new normal for many. Almost everyone I talk to feels they are working harder than ever, trapped at their desks, in back-to-back, virtual meetings, which they find exhausting. In this article, I explore the deeper causes of these patterns and offer suggestions on how to shift them by re-evaluating our assumptions and making different choices.

What are the Causes?

Broadly, I believe there are 3 causes behind this sense of overwork and exhaustion:

• Continuous virtual working has a different energetic impact, than real, face-to-face time.
• A lack of resilience in our business models, means people stretching to pick-up the shortfall.
• The assumptions we hold about ourselves, our colleagues, and our work, which limit our capacity for change.

Continuous Virtual Working

Some of this exhaustion comes from the peculiarities of continuous virtual meetings.  We are more sedentary, not even walking between meeting rooms or to/from workplaces, which saps energy. Also, we do not get the same emotional connection as when we are in a shared physical space. We are all embodied beings who naturally get energy through physical presence and contact (limbic resonance). This is not fully replaced by seeing and listening to people on a screen.

There are limits to what we can do to change this while working through the pandemic. One thing we can do is choose to better manage our time by creating breaks in the day. This means revisiting our assumptions, which I explore in my third point below.

Lack of Resilience in Our Business Models

The pandemic has thrown into sharp relief how businesses have progressively driven efficiencies by reducing numbers of people. Most managers, professionals and knowledge workers were already expected to work beyond their contracted hours to deliver for the business. Any system working close to its capacity will have problems when grappling with substantial change and disruption. There has been a general expectation that people will stretch even further to meet the new demands. This comes from within people and through the culture and expectations of peers and managers across the business.

As leaders, we have a responsibility to look anew at how we are working, what we prioritise in the business and how we care for our colleagues. I have seen many examples of good leaders stepping up to address these challenges. It requires fundamental changes in how organisations are structured, how processes work and the explicit or implicit demands we make of each other. Such changes in culture will take time to work through, but we can all start with our own choices and actions as leaders.

The Assumptions We Hold

I notice many people feeling a victim of their diaries rather than taking responsibility for their own time and energy. Addressing this is not about time-management tactics but understanding the assumptions we hold about ourselves, our work and how others see us. My encouragement is to fully explore some questions, such as:

• Who and what is most important in my life? Are my choices in the use of my time and energy reflecting this? Honestly? Would others agree?
• Why do I find it harder to say yes or no to some people than others? What does this say about how I value myself? And see them? What do I fear in how they might see me?
• When have I contributed at my very best? What might I do differently to ensure this happens more often? What is stopping me? Is it about others or me?
• Am I focused on things that connect to what matters for the organisation and its customers/clients/people? In this context, what’s the 10% least useful activity I do each week? How might I better use this time? Why don’t I start now?

Only when we have honestly addressed such questions can we take advantage of the various tactics for better managing our time and energy. Hence, we give our best to our organisation as well as family and friends.

Tactics that work for me in using my time to best effect

Prioritise

Be clear about the big things that need to be done and why. Start with the personal and then add the business priorities, rather than fit the person around the business agenda. If you and yours are not OK, then you will not give your best to the business. Focus on what you do and do what you focus on. It’s OK not to do everything that might be done. It does not make you a bad person, just a person.

Work with your energy. What is best tackled when? Manage your diary so that you use your day/week to your best advantage. For instance, I am better at thinking and generating output in the morning. Afternoons are good for talking, connecting and sorting things. It’s not an iron rule, but I shape my days to work with this pattern largely. I like to get at least one substantive thing done each morning, and at the end of the day, I will clarify the next day’s priority action/outcome.

The power of “Yes……and…“

You have to fit with other people’s diaries, and they also have to fit with yours. This includes getting the breaks you need. Don’t undervalue yourself and your time. It is OK to push back and say what will work for you and hear what is important for others and why. It is not uncooperative to be honest and open in meeting competing needs.

Create the restorative spaces.

We all have our own ways of re-energising through the day and the week. It is vital to make time for exercise, even if it is just a walk or stretch. Many one-to-one discussions can be done on the phone rather than on the computer, freeing you to walk and talk. Build short, sharp breaks into the day, between meetings, to stretch the limbs and re-energise. Please don’t allow this to be an option; make it essential.

Working virtually has been a great enabler for the continuance of work in extraordinary circumstances. No doubt the experiences of the last few months will change work patterns in future. There are constraints in our organisations around resources, structures, process, and culture, which will take time to shift. We can start with owning our own choices about what we do, how, and when. This means looking more deeply at our assumptions, needs, drivers and fears. Only then can we find the tactics that will enable us to manage our time and energy to meet our needs and give our best to the organisation and others in our lives.

We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.

Gandhi

Chris Smith 

Many might have heard the idea of reverse leadership, which is when a person that is not in a formal leadership role demonstrates leadership abilities by stepping up with a solution to a problem. This problem can take many shapes and forms; however, for entrepreneurship, reverse leadership would be if a team member or employee within a startup takes on a leadership role and provides a solution to the startup’s problem. However, not many employees might take that stance, even though they might have a potential solution. This can only be done if the working environment is right and cares about the startup vision.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.

Andrew Carnegie

Reverse Leadership Should NOT Take the Place of Regular Leadership

For reverse leadership to work, there needs to be the right environment and the right mindset from the employees. Thus, reversed leadership does not replace regular leadership. Quite the opposite, regularly leadership is needed to create the right environment and mould the right mindset for people to stand up and implement reverse leadership.

Pinpoint your Reverse Leaders

Based on research done by Scott Edinger, reverse leaders other ones with five main characteristics: strong interpersonal skills born of self-awareness, focus more on results than process, a higher degree of integrity, professional expertise vital to the organisation, and maintain a steadfast customer focus.
However, not all people who show excellently reverse leadership qualities want to manage a team within the company. They might lack certain skills or do not want to move up the ladder.
Though the working environment is unwelcome, people with qualities might not express their solutions, thus losing the employee’s full potential. On the other hand, if employees do not care about the vision, they might also not express their full potential and possible solutions.

Shared Vision to Encourage Reverse Leadership

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humour but without folly.

Jim Rohn

Besides, having the right environment for employees shows their full potential to care about the business. As the startup founder, you might be over the moon about your dreams for your business; however, your employees might not share the same passion. By using collaboration, one can foster a shared vision. This can be done by first deeply understand your vision about your business. Make sure that your vision is not depending on your selfish desires, such as making more money. Your vision should be a solution to a problem you have identified in the market. Next, collaborate to foster a shared vision with your employees, find out how you as their leader can help them fulfil their dreams.

Related: Helping people you are managing flourish and Managing Creative Talent – your own and your employees

Lastly, combine your vision with their dreams, encouraging the jobs they are currently doing is not just for you and the business objectives but also for them and their personal growth. Keep in mind this vision is a living vision that the stakeholders are striving for daily. If creating a shared vision is just a one-day exercise and then forgotten, there might be more harm than beforehand.

Benefits of Shared Vision 

Having a shared vision allows the company and stakeholders to move forward to achieve the shared vision. It is a constant source of motivation for every stakeholder in the company to do their best. It is there to create a united team working together to make everyone feel proud of the company and a sense of purpose.

The only visions that take hold are shared visions—and you will create them only when you listen very, very closely to others, appreciate their hopes, and attend to their needs.

Barry Posner and James M. Kouzes

Reverse Leadership in Startups

Now by having a shared vision that everybody is striving for, employees are more motivated to work. Additionally, since they want to do their best to achieve the shared vision, they are more likely to step up and implement reverse leadership. Employees that are not in leadership roles provide solutions with their actions and ideas to gabs in the company.
It is especially beneficial for a startup to stay ahead of the game, and it needs all the help there is. Thus, creating a shared vision provides them with a more aligned vision with the market needs and has employees who are motivated and willing to help the company fulfil that vision through reverse leadership.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

General George Patton

However, within 2020 and 2021, in the pandemic, we have experienced the lacking competence of leadership, especially how to lead remotely and foster team collaboration online. Which just again highlight the importance of adaptability within leadership.

Elisabeth Klingler

Let’s share the quotations that have inspired many leaders as they launched projects, companies, written books, and lead teams. 
Also, you can select and share/schedule to Twitter and Facebook.
Below are the top leadership quotes of all time.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. — Lao Tzu

You manage things; you lead people. — Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. — Warren Bennis

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. — Jack Welch

Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. —Peter Drucker

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. —Max DePree

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does. ― Richard P. Rumelt

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. —John Maxwell
The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. —General Montgomery

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. —Warren Bennis

Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position. —Brian Tracy
Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes. — Peter Drucker

A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants to be done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. — Theodore Roosevelt

You don’t lead by pointing and telling people someplace to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case. — Ken Kesey

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. — John Maxwell

So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work. — Peter Drucker

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. — Reverend Theodore Hesburgh

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. — Kenneth Blanchard

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. — John Maxwell

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor but without folly. — Jim Rohn

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish. —Sam Walton

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent. —Douglas MacArthur

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit for doing it. — Andrew Carnegie

Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. — Brian Tracy

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it. — General Dwight Eisenhower

The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. — Eric Hoffer

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Start with a general discussion:

It’s easy with this first step to discuss their general environment so:
How are you, how are you finding things? How are you getting on with the team? How do you like your working space?

Continue with specifics to do with role

How have you found everything to do with your responsibilities?
With the tasks you have, what have you found easier?

Then invert – What have you found challenging.

The point with this is to see how aware they are of issues they have, they may well flag issues you aren’t even aware of.

What help do you need, to resolve this?

The first job of a manager is to enable people to find solutions to their issues and resolve them autonomously. If they need help from other teammates, encourage them to talk to that person directly and then tell the other person they will approach them.
OR
They need more hands-on training/guidance, etc., to clarify what exactly they need help with.

What is your timeframe for addressing this? When should we do this by?

Set a deadline they actually commit to

Make sure you agree to the deadline/course of action. IF NOT
Discuss either what you see as the key challenge they are facing is
OR
The deadline to resolve it

What are your tips on helping your people flourish?

How effective are your people as influencers? Influencing in sales meetings? In one to one conversations? In internal meetings, when giving presentations and seminars? It doesn’t matter how clever they are if they can’t persuade others to their way of thinking. And if they can’t, they won’t make an impact and are unlikely to win.

So what does it take for someone to make the difference for your organisation and in professional service firms, to really differentiate their proposition from that of the competition? The answer is executive presence – something everyone should aspire to and which is eminently achievable if you know what to do and put it into practice.

What is Executive Presence?

In essence, it is something about you that makes others sit up, pay attention and believe in you, in what you say and follow. Therefore it’s essential for advancement and in influencing clients, and it’s very largely manifest in natural behaviours you can learn if necessary, hone and exhibit. Three broad areas are Communication skills, Gravitas and Appearance.

Appearance

Starting with Appearance because it’s the lesser of the three. Nevertheless, it is the lens through which people see you and make an instant, often unconscious judgement about you. Before you open your mouth or take a step, you have been seen. How you dress is dependent on the context. For example, if you’re a lawyer in a city firm out to meet a client, you may well dress very differently from someone in the new tech industry. Both can be right, but make sure you hit the right note for your audience.

Communication Skills

I always think of that great quote by 20th century American poet

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

Long after you’ve finished your talk or presentation, how do you get your audience to remember that you made them feel good even if they’ve forgotten the detail?

Being yourself, having a truly conversational delivery and structuring content for your audience rather than for you. And I hardly need to mention, and this means avoiding ‘Death by PowerPoint’, which incidentally is a brilliant tool though almost universally used appallingly! It means telling your own stories and examples and, above all, not manipulating your body language. Let it be an honest expression of you (irritating habits aside).

A truly conversational delivery means people will remember you, if you get it right, as just having had a chat with them, irrespective of how many there were in the audience. No jargon, using everyday language and explaining matters so that you don’t underestimate anyone’s intelligence, nor do you overestimate their knowledge.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Albert Einstein

Structuring for your audience simply means that they can answer the “What’s in this for me?” question or put another way, “So what?”

Gravitas

People with it show self confidence which is often seen in very evident behaviours: They are comfortable with eye contact and silence, they don’t use ten words when five will suffice, and this is often manifest by them showing interest, asking questions and listening rather than talking excessively about themselves or their pet project. In their movement and posture, they are upright yet relaxed.

These behaviours can all be learned and applied and the sum of them all is executive presence with all the personal and corporate benefits it brings.

Influencing others is a necessary business practice, read more on the subject.

Jack Downton

Workbooks (process maps) for me are a vital part of my daily working routine. I have set my business up, so the main core jobs have been process-mapped to meet my professional business expectations, and therefore I can spend more time training the team on other aspects of my business.

By process mapping your tasks, you relieve yourself of any wasted time during each task and ensure that everyone is working one best way for the business.

I have also learnt by doing this. I can identify any additional needs of the team and recognise the strength in people and match that to the tasks, making the team feel more powerful as the right people are doing the right jobs and feeling great.

The best thing is, workbooks are easy and cheap to create and you don’t have to be fancy as simple is best

Michala Rutherford

Building a Workbook

Start with the task you want, and every time you go to do something towards completing that task, write it down, then review each step to confirm if it’s needed to get the same result. If it is, then keep it. If it isn’t and you can get the result you need at the end without it, remove that step. However, if it’s a legal requirement, keep it in.

You will find by completing these workbooks; you will save time and money. It also allows anyone in the team or yourself to pick up any job or task at any stage and know what to do next, as each stage is set and clear. If there have been any errors made or any complaints, you can also quickly identify at which stage this happened, which means you can correct it and reply to the complaint in an efficient amount of time.

Tips

1. Remember we LEARN from errors made and adapt but take note of all the good you do too.
2. Everything is all about relationships and communication take time to nourish them it pays off for everyone in the end
3. Be gentle with yourself you cannot do everything in one day

Enjoy being in Business and take the time to look around you and see exactly how far you have come.

Do you need help building a workbook to unlock your full potential?

Rutherford’s Bailiffs and Collection Services is here to help you!

Michala Rutherford

Word of Mouth is old hat; we all know that! So if 80% of business comes via WoM, why don’t we spend more time on it? Why don’t you understand it? Why do you focus on digital and social media that only delivers 20%? Habit and fear?

When I mention WoM, people tell me they do it. So I ask who their advocates are, sometimes they know, often they think they are the ones that buy the most [wrong] they usually struggle to identify who their champions are and what the difference is. Yet Advocates are key to effective WoM. They behave in specific ways. Bottom line; most people talk and think this is WoM.

WoM is a science; there is a formula. We spent over 15 years developing and delivering a programme looking at over 200 case studies and comprehensive research. As a result, we uncovered the formula. This includes how to make a referral. Brits, in particular, are bad at this, and again there is a method.

We know that people believe in word of mouth. 92% of people believe in it over all other forms of marketing. About 60% of marketers think word of mouth is the best form of advertising, but only 6% know how to do it. The results of our work are shocking, and they suggest that marketers aren’t investing in a balanced way, and it’s certainly not evidence-based. Entrepreneurs and small business owners follow the pack and feel they must do digital as they get bombarded by countless emails telling them this every day.
What’s more, it seems we don’t trust the internet anymore. We’ve taken the time to get original data to look at trust in the internet (October 2018). Fake reviews are rife, and we don’t trust the so-called trusted social media giants. Our data also shows that trust in digital advertising is falling off a cliff.

According to an independent study we commissioned, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, and Google all have trust levels at less than 5%. Linked in comes in at a hefty 11%, Trust in Facebook is down 72% over the past 2 years. Please feel free to e-mail us for the original data, as you might find this challenging. jake@womtwo.com

We were surprised and what’s scary is most businesses are still putting all their time and budget investment there. It has been shown a business needs to master around 16 Platforms to deliver digitally, yet each platform has its own full-time experts? A recipe for us to fail then? And didn’t we want to sell the products we love? If you don’t know who your advocates are, you probably ask the wrong people about your brand and their experiences. WoM goes beyond referral. It’s about how we involve and connect; it’s a way to do business if you are prepared to become a listening organisation.

WoM will show you how to build a community that love what you do, they talk more than anyone, because they love it, they are probably the best sales resource you can imagine.

Zappo’s was sold for over $1Billion; all they did was WoM, nothing else. Convincing isn’t it!

Our 15 years of workshops are now the first online learning program for WoM; you should have a look and start to market to build on the bigger opportunity at WoMTWo.

Graham Wilson

If you ask most people how they heard about their last or current job, very few would say they answered an advertisement as most jobs are within the unadvertised jobs market. Advertised jobs only constitute a small portion of the total number of job vacancies. Most persons would say they heard about their last job from someone they knew (or were introduced to). Given the current economic climate, many companies have reduced their advertising budget. They have found that it is easier and cheaper to recruit from other sources and save money by cutting back on advertising because they already have access to many resumes.

Job seekers do not know that the positions advertised in the press and online are really only the tip of the iceberg concerning the total number of jobs available. This is especially true for senior executives in the global market. The higher up the organisational chart you go, the longer it usually takes to find a new position, partly just because there are fewer jobs up there. This means that if you are looking for your next senior executive position, tackling the unadvertised jobs market, alternatively called the hidden jobs market, is likely to be a productive use of your time. Many experts agree that the key to identifying new job possibilities is through networking.

The unadvertised jobs market refers to job seekers finding positions due to (a) Personal networking through business and social contacts and/or (b) Online networking through professional sites like LinkedIn. A large part of our executive career coaching and outplacement includes online networking…

Personal Networking

To succeed in today’s job market, you must build relationships with recruiters and meaningful people in your industry. You cannot rely on tapping into the unadvertised job market by simply attending local events. Think outside the box with your networking and utilise all of the tools and resources available to you.

More tips in how to be in Networking Heaven.

Get active on social media

Research shows that organisations and companies, even within the UK, use social media as a key part of their recruitment strategy and are very active on multiple social media platforms. You can stand to benefit from connecting with them on these platforms. To tap into the unadvertised jobs market, focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. Those two platforms tend to get the most job market engagement with employers, hiring managers, and recruiters.

How to optimize your LinkedIn profile

With over 467 million members (and growing all the time) worldwide, the LinkedIn professional community is a perfect venue to network with people, recruiters and companies all over the globe. Advertising yourself online via sites such as LinkedIn is essential for any senior executive who wants to network and be visible to others in their business community. The site has many interest groups that are occupational or sector-based. These sites act as a useful information resource and are also frequented by recruiters and job agencies that use these sites to source candidates.

Besides having a great professional profile picture, it is important to also have a recruiter friendly LinkedIn profile with a strong professional headline. A keyword-rich profile written in a narrative, conversational style works well on LinkedIn and will attract senior executive recruiters who use the platform to search for candidates. Be sure to use plenty of keywords and phrases that relate to your particular skills set and experience. Recruiters routinely search LinkedIn looking for candidates for their unadvertised jobs. As such, having a well-written profile ensures they can easily find your details and contact you.

There are hundreds of professional networking groups on LinkedIn covering almost every job category and profession. Join some of these groups and actively participate. Mention in your introduction that you are looking for work; other members may get in touch if they have a suitable opportunity. By participating in conversations, you will also pick up useful information about possible openings.

Twitter can work for you

Twitter is also an excellent source of jobs. Jobs are not advertised conventionally, but a quick search will demonstrate plenty of tweets between job seekers and recruiters.

It is easy to join Twitter and start following potential employers and their recruiters. You can make direct contact with any other subscriber and have a chance to tweet the managing director or recruitment manager of an organisation about any suitable vacancies. Importantly, be sure to include the link to your LinkedIn profile when you do so. You may not always get a response, but Twitter is a friendly platform, and some senior managers may be impressed by your initiative.

Steve Nicholls