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Leadership Tools For Your Day-To-Day

I am sharing two leadership tools with you to help you focus on your role.

  1. A brief questionnaire to help you identify your leadership focus.
  2. A self-ranking assessment to assist you with your core leadership activities.

Tool 1: How is Your Leadership Focus?

STEP 1: Answer the following ten questions in the questionnaire below with a yes or no answer.

STEP 2: Prioritize your ‘yes’ answers in order of what would help you most in your role if improved.

STEP 3: Select the top three, and list one thing you can do in each area to improve. These are your top 3 areas to focus. Implement these actions into your schedule to follow through to ensure improvement.

Leadsership Tools - Questionnaire

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tool 2: Your Core Leadership Activities

Leadership requires continual development. Competencies can be strengthened when managing yourself and your team and supervising managers, leads and senior leaders.

HOW DO YOU RATE YOURSELF ON YOUR CORE LEADERSHIP ACTIVITIES?

Step 1: Rate yourself on a scale of 1 (being low) – 5 (being excellent) on the following.

Step 2: In areas where you are rating yourself low, prioritize improvement for next month.

Leadsership Tools - Core Activities

 

If you have any questions about these leadership tools or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your leadership success, please contact us, or reach out directly to jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session.

 

Leadership Inner Circle

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2022 Review & 2023 Preview

It’s time to review your past year and set your professional and personal goals and intentions for 2023.

2022 Review

Reflect on 2022 and answer the following four questions:

  1. What worked well for you professionally and personally in 2022?
  2. What did not work and why?
  3. What were your most significant time wasters this year?
  4. What did you enjoy doing most in 2022?

“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”
— John Dewey

2023 Preview

Now the fun part, projecting ahead and defining what you want to focus on professionally and personally in the next year.

Annually, I set between seven and ten professional and personal goals.

Professional and personal goals

 

To start, I look at the buckets that are important to me professionally and personally and go about listing the focus for the upcoming year:

For example:

PEOPLE – is everyone in my consultancy in the right seat? They must get it, want it and have the capacity to do it. I then look at how I hire, onboard, train, review, engage and recognize individuals.

CLIENTS – are our clients satisfied with our work? Check-in on client satisfaction, and determine what we can do better to serve client needs.

DATA – what metrics am I using to measure my consultancy. Focusing on my scoreboard of 3-5 core high level numbers form my business that are essential for continuity and scalability.

PROCESSES – review core processes and determine if they remain simple, scalable, efficient, and profitable to the bottom line. Determine if any new processes are required and ensure they are executed uniformly.

FINANCES – review current cash position, pricing model, areas that can be tightened up and financial reporting model for improvements.

Action Plan

After you have determined the areas on which you would like to focus your professional and personal goals in 2023, it is time to write them into a S.M.A.R.T.E.R. statement.

 

Goal Planning

The last step to ensure action on each of the identified goals is to write the first three tasks that you will complete under each goal. This will give you the momentum to move forward and help you work on your goal through to completion.

Action Plan 2023

 

 

If you need executive support to create a production action plan for 2023, please contact us, or reach out directly to jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session.

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YEAR END BUDGETING 2022

2022 in Review

As the year approaches a wrap, it’s time to highlight your achievements and position yourself for 2023. Review and report on topics like your organization’s accomplishments, value creation, budgets, financial ratios, your competitor analysis, and the year ahead. Take time to create a full-year timeline with strategic projections and goals. Use the 2022 Annual Report Components infographic to serve as a guide for elements to include.

Annual Report Infographic - Jenny Reilly Consulting - Executive Coaching

 

“A budget is more than just a series of numbers on a page; it is an embodiment of our values.” – Barack Obama 

Know your numbers

Over this quarter, a primary client focus has been on analyzing financial reports and data to aid the decision-making required for 2023 planning. Understanding the budgeting process is crucial in evaluating opportunities and risks.

Understanding your numbers allows for more strategic decision-making. Your numbers can provide:

  • comparability,
  • verifiability, and
  • understandability

of the next best steps to take in your company.

As a leader, you are expected to have a thorough understanding of your numbers, prepare forward-looking financial reports, set financial targets, determine the usage of resources, and evaluate the costs and benefits of each option.

Business budgets help leaders run a successful business. A budget provides the opportunity to assess the actual budget against what was forecasted and planned.

Steps to take in preparing for 2023

  1. Before developing your budget, it is normal practice to have a strategy session that will review relevant economic factors, sector issues/constraints/ opportunities, and management plans. Develop or review your 2023 budget (that should accommodate your short-term plans, normally one year in duration) and ensure each of your strategic objectives is related to your budget.
  2. Your budget should address each of your strategic initiatives, including cash and payments, sales volumes and revenues, detailed inventories, labour, and production requirements.
  3. Break your annual budget down into monthly budgets that will assist in planning and communication to the team.
  4. If you are working on a unit or department budget, ensure you understand how the budgeting process interlinks with the various budgets in the business.

Can you answer the following?

  • What is your mission, vision, short- and long-term strategic objectives?
  • Have you recently conducted a position analysis of your organization?
  • Who are your current competitors?
  • Do you have a comprehensive forecasting and budgeting process? Can you explain when and how this process is performed?
  • How often do you review your annual budget, identify variances between your forecasted and actual performance and update as strategic initiatives pivot and change?

Understanding your budget will enable you to:

  • identify short term problems
  • promote forward-thinking
  • help in the coordination of units within a business
  • communicate budget guidelines
  • motivate your employees to promote better performance
  • monitor performance relevant to the budget
  • implement a system of control, levels of responsibility, and authorization

If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, or c-suite executive and have any questions about this month’s topics, or feel this resonates with you and you need executive support to project your budget successfully into 2023, please contact us, or reach out directly to jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session.

 

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FIVE CORE LEADERSHIP TACTICS

There are five leadership tactics that I follow that help me in my consulting practice. I encourage you to think about how they could help you in your position.

1.) Planning Backwards:

Focusing on the future and planning backwards is an effective leadership tactic. It encourages unconstrained thinking and disruptive ideas and will help you to propel your organization forward. Once you have a focused vision, align your people to engage on goals, and develop a comprehensive action plan to move forward.

  • Where do you want to be professionally and personally one year from today?
  • What do you need to do to get there? (Of your action items, prioritize them in sequenced order and develop an action plan on what is required in each step.)

2.) Purpose-driven and value-focused:

My consultancy purpose and values determine my guiding principles. If you have not listed your guiding principles, it is time to do so. Your guiding principles outline how you operate, the organization’s role and the individual within. 

  • What is your company vision, purpose statement/mission, and what values define how you do business? 

3.) Intentionally listen actively:

Leadership is a conversation. Improving your listening ability will be a cornerstone of your leadership success. Listening will assist you in problem-solving, determining and implementing innovative ideas, defining process improvements, and developing new ideas for faster and better outcomes. Engage your team, clients/customers and external stakeholders in a discussion on progress once modifications have been agreed upon, design and circle back to question if you have it right. 

4.) Innovate continually.

You cannot afford to become too comfortable and complacent. Customer and client preferences in the product or service area you are offering are continually changing. Technology advances will improve speed and results, can transform our processes, and adaption of best practices. Quarterly question processes, this will help you retain focus on improvement and will become part of your culture. Encourage bottom-up and top-down idea initiatives for improvement. Make decisions faster and base them on data with a focus on quality. Quarterly, prioritize the top three areas you can innovate to bring the greatest return to your organization. 

5.) Performance – think short and long-term.

To thrive in the long term, we need to have not only long-term goals but also short-term goals to gain momentum. Future-proof your performance by answering the questions below: 

  • What trends are influencing your business and sector?
  • What are your customers and clients seeking or asking that is not currently being provided? 
  • What is your data telling you? The facts have the answers. 
  • Ask your employees for feedback on what is working and what isn’t and any suggestions they have for improvement.
  • What are your duties and responsibilities – are they aligned with your purpose? 
  • Assess how you are doing things, is it the best and most effective way, or have you fallen into a routine and repeated past actions hoping for better results? 

If you have any questions about leadership tactics or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or askme@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for information on my new upcoming 6-month executive leadership course.

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HOW CAN ‘DEEP WORK’ GET YOU BACK TO DOING AN EXTRAORDINARY JOB?

Do you want to do your job or do an extraordinary job?

There are times when we run on all cylinders, everything comes together, and we feel like we are at the top of our game. In contrast, there are times when we may feel we have lost our work mojo, are bored, stagnant, and just go through the motions of our job. I know how I prefer to feel, how about you?

A tool to help you regain focus on what you are doing and how you are doing it is to ensure you immediately implement ‘deep work’ time into your schedule. This mode helps you have an uninterrupted focus on a significant task.

Your ‘deep work’ time should be allocated to projects or tasks that require your undivided attention to move forward and will have the greatest impact. This sounds so straightforward and obvious that you may ask why I even need to write about this, so I challenge you to look at your schedule over the past month and honestly evaluate how much time you allocated to ‘deep work.’

When you allocate time in your day where you can work in isolation, without distraction, the quality and quantity of work you can complete can be extraordinary. It takes time, focus and persistence, but it will be worth it.

Reorganize your month ahead to ensure you have time in your schedule daily for ‘deep work.’

Your days maybe spent, rushing from one meeting to another or putting out continual fires – this is fractured work. Fractured work occurs when you are primarily responding to others’ needs and requirements. It is unrealistic to think that you can cut out fractured work in your day-to-day commitments; however very realistic to combine it with periods of uninterrupted focus.

To do extraordinary work, we need periods of concentration and focus.

Determine how much ‘deep work’ time you need daily, schedule it, and make it a non-negotiable priority for the month ahead.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ANSWER:

  1. How can I schedule my time in September so five days per week, I have at least one hour daily allocated to ‘deep work’?
  2. Are there any periods in the year that I need more time to focus on ‘deep work’? If so, when? Now go ahead and block off that time in your schedule.
  3. What will you have to do in your space to ensure it will promote ‘deep work,’ or where else can you go to facilitate ‘deep work’?

EFFECTIVE ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS WITH DIRECT REPORTS

Having effective one-on-one meetings is a critical leadership skill. I recommend having weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your direct reports. The objective of this meeting is to ensure there is open and transparent communication on priorities, identification of opportunities, issues or challenges and time to address any questions or concerns that may be affecting the progress of your direct report.

To have effective meetings, ensure you have a plan, are organized to optimize your meeting time, have clear outcomes in mind, and record who is responsible for what by when, making it is easier for you to follow up.

The following are an example of questions that you could ask in a one-on-one:

  • What were your biggest wins over the last week/since we last met?
  • What worked well, what didn’t and why?
  • Are there any areas in that I can support you?
  • What are your top three priorities for the upcoming week?
  • Is there anything else that you would like to cover today?

I encourage you to monitor how much you talk in these meetings. My suggestion is that you should not be speaking for more than 20% of the meeting. Focus on listening, not jumping in and solving problems but asking clarifying questions.

MEETING TIPS

For many, meetings are painful, and I am sure you have felt, heard, or empathize with the following:

‘I have too many meetings.’

‘The meetings are too frequent and too long.’

‘Meetings are a waste of my time.’

‘I hate it when people show up late or don’t contribute – why bother!’

 

Here are some helpful tips for you:

  1. Look at the meetings in your schedule over the upcoming week and determine if your attendance is necessary. If it is not, message the organizer with your rationale and withdraw yourself from attendance.
  2. When scheduling a meeting, ensure that the right people are in attendance and the duration is the correct length (the shorter, the better).
  3. If you are organizing or chairing a meeting in advance, prepare and circulate an agenda along with any documents that need to be reviewed.
  4. Follow up on your meeting notes, complete what you said you would and hold others accountable for assigned tasks.

Speak up on annoying behaviours like:

  • Individuals being on their phones during the meeting, checking emails, social or surfing
  • Arriving late and being disruptive
  • Interrupting and talking too much
  • Not coming prepared
  • No participating

Each behaviour is a sign of disinterest and disengagement, don’t ignore it. Be focused on acknowledging it and changing the behaviour.

If you have any questions about implementing deep work times in your schedule or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

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