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Navigating the Now: Mastering Leadership Flexibility

Proactive Leadership: Embedding Flexibility into Your Organization

In today’s fast-paced world, leaders need more than just a solid strategy—they need flexibility. Building this adaptability within your organization is essential for navigating disruptions and staying ahead of the curve.

Why Flexibility Matters

The future is filled with challenges, from economic shifts to unexpected global events. Even the most successful organizations can struggle if they don’t have flexible structures in place for budgeting, resource allocation, and decision-making. 

Identifying Key Areas for Flexibility

Start by pinpointing three to five critical areas in your organization or team that could hinder your ability to adapt. Common areas to consider include:

  • Performance Targets: Traditional KPIs and reviews can quickly become outdated if external conditions change. Sticking to unrealistic targets can demoralize teams or lead to poor decisions. 
  • Decision-Making Processes: Simplifying and speeding up complex decision-making can give your organization a competitive edge when agility is crucial. Flexibility in decision-making empowers you to steer your organization in the right direction, even in the face of uncertainty.
  • Critical Roles: If key individuals struggle with change and adapting procedures, it can cause delays in implementing necessary changes in people, resources, or strategy.

Action Steps for Building Flexibility

To ensure your organization stays adaptable, implement regular check-ins on key areas. Here’s how:

  1. Anticipate the Unexpected: Schedule a quarterly check-in with your team to discuss potential disruptions that could impact your operations. Use this time to identify necessary adjustments, such as talent shifts or process changes. Regular discussions will sharpen your team’s ability to recognize and respond to change quickly.
  2. Integrate Flexibility into Budgeting: Treat your budget as a living document. Conduct monthly reviews to identify areas where quick adjustments might be needed, like responding to a sudden supply chain disruption. This proactive approach ensures that your team is prepared to make necessary changes immediately.
  3. Create Adaptive Performance Metrics: Regularly reviewing and updating performance targets and KPIs ensures they remain relevant and achievable. This practice not only keeps your team focused but also reassures them that their efforts are aligned with the current realities, fostering a proactive mindset and keeping your organization moving forward.
  4. Navigate Long-Term Contracts with Agility: Review your B2B contracts to ensure they include clauses for automatic adjustments, such as currency fluctuations or material costs. This foresight protects your cash flow and profitability, allowing you to respond to market changes.
  5. Adapt Your Workforce Quickly: Regularly assessing your team’s structure and readiness to adapt ensures you can quickly reassign or restructure roles in response to changing circumstances. This readiness not only enhances organizational agility but also makes your team feel prepared and ready to face any challenge, keeping you competitive.

 

Flexibility isn’t just about reacting to change; it’s about proactively preparing your organization to thrive in any environment. By regularly checking in on these key areas, you’ll build a culture of adaptability that empowers your team to navigate uncertainty confidently.

Book your complimentary 30-minute consultation now or email us at askme@jennyreilly.com to schedule a convenient time.

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Persistence: The Power of Perseverance in Achieving Long-Term Goals

Time Management: Mastering Your Priorities

 

The Power of Prioritization:

Effective time management is not just about doing more in less time but about doing the right things at the right time. As leaders, it’s crucial to identify our highest priorities and align our daily activities with our long-term goals. This involves delegating lesser tasks when appropriate and carving out time on the calendar for strategic thinking and important projects. Remember, managing your time well is equivalent to managing your life well, and it’s a key step towards achieving your long-term goals.

 

Action Steps:

  • Audit Your Time: For one week, track how you spend your hours. Identify time wasters and look for patterns where you can consolidate similar tasks.
  • Set Clear Priorities: Each morning, determine the three most crucial tasks that will make your day successful and focus on completing them first.
  • Use Technology Wisely: Leverage tools and apps designed to improve productivity and minimize distractions, like task management software or focus-enhancing apps.

 

Communication: Building Strong Connections

 

Adapting to Your Audience:

Effective leaders understand that communication is not a one-size-fits-all endeavour. It’s essential to tailor your approach (verbal and written) to suit the diverse preferences of your team members, internal and external stakeholders, and clients. Adapting your style to meet varying needs can significantly enhance the strength of your connections and productivity.

 

Action Steps:

  • Listen Actively: Make a conscious effort to listen more than you speak. Understand the underlying messages, not just the words.
  • Regular Feedback: Provide constructive feedback in a timely manner. Make it specific, actionable, and focused on behaviour rather than personality.
  • Practice Transparency: Communicate the “why” behind decisions to foster trust and alignment within your team.

 

Meeting Management: Enhancing Efficiency

 

Streamlining Decision-Making:

Effective meetings are crucial for making decisions and ensuring team alignment. Preparation, an agenda, clear objectives, resulting actions, and timelines are key to managing meetings that are both efficient and productive.

 

Action Steps:

  • Prepare an Agenda: Always circulate a clear agenda before the meeting. Include topics, objectives, and times allotted for each section.
  • Encourage Participation and decision-making: Use strategies like asking open-ended questions to encourage everyone’s contribution and keep the meeting dynamic. If a decision is to be made in the meeting, ensure it is made and communicated with clarity.
  • Follow Up: End each meeting with clear action items, responsibilities, and timelines. Within 24 hours, send out a summary to ensure everyone is on the same page.

 

Presence: Commanding Respect and Attention

 

Acting with Intention:

A leader’s presence is about the ability to command attention and inspire action. This requires self-awareness, control over your emotions, and the ability to project confidence even under pressure.

 

Action Steps:

  • Be Consistently Engaged: Show genuine interest in your interactions, whether in person or virtual. Maintain eye contact, nod your understanding, and avoid distractions.
  • Set the Tone: Your demeanour sets the tone for your team. Use a calm, confident voice and body language that conveys openness and respect.
  • Reflect on Your Impact: Regularly reflect on how others perceive your presence. Seek feedback and be willing to adjust to maintain or enhance your effectiveness.

 

We hope that these practical action steps will enhance your effectiveness in these areas, driving better results and stronger team dynamics. For more insights and personalized strategies on leadership and business success, book a discovery call today.

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Setting the Tone for Success in 2024

Goal Setting and Planning:

If you have not already communicated your goals for 2024 to your team, it is time to do so. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of setting clear, measurable, and achievable goals for yourself, the team and individual employees. As important as it is to have professional goals, your personal goals should hold equal weight. I do this exercise annually and revisit the goals quarterly to check in on progress made and determine if a pivot needs to be made.

Key Takeaway: Regularly revisit and adapt goals to align with your evolving priorities and aspirations.

Building Resilience:

Resilience is a crucial leadership trait in our current political and economic climate. Consider sharing strategies for building resilience in the face of challenges, such as promoting a growth mindset, fostering open communication, and providing resources for managing stress within your team. Highlight the importance of empathy in supporting employees’ well-being during uncertain times.

Key Takeaway: Promote a resilient mindset by encouraging your team to view challenges as opportunities for growth.

Remote Team Management:

Roughly 50% of my clients are remote workers globally, and with remote and hybrid work becoming the norm for many, providing specific tools and techniques for leaders to motivate and engage their remote teams is top of mind. A focus on maintaining team cohesion, leveraging technology for seamless communication, and fostering a positive remote work culture is required to lead a successful remote team.

Practical Action: Implement practices that enhance team connection and well-being in the virtual work environment.

Professional Development:

Prioritize the professional development of your teams in 2024. Share resources and strategies for providing ongoing learning opportunities, coaching and mentorship. Consider incorporating insights, identifying individual development needs, and creating personalized development plans to help employees grow and thrive.

 

Reach out today to learn more about how Jenny Reilly Consulting can help you with your 2024 goals. You can book a complimentary 30-minute  consultation.  Or, please email askme@jennyreilly.com to coordinate a convenient consultation time.

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WHY IS COACHING ESSENTIAL TO GREAT LEADERSHIP?

There are various leadership styles we can exhibit, and one of them is the coaching style. 

Coaching requires patience, instruction, and feedback. In a fast-paced working environment, leaders often find it easier to answer a question or solve an issue rather than coaching, as it takes less time. Ironically, the long-term coaching results override the initial time taken, and it is worth adapting your leadership style to have more of an emphasis on coaching your employees. At its core, coaching will help you work with your employee to become:

  1. More self-aware
  2. Help them move forward, learn, develop and grow so they can take on more, and
  3. Create more satisfaction in their roles as they take on added responsibility in their positions.

Coaching is a positive and powerful tool that you can use to improve performance, results, increase engagement and company culture.

I challenge you; the next time you are about to answer or solve a problem for an employee, think long-term and coach the employee through the process, I appreciate that it will take time, but the outcome will be worth your return on investment. 

 

You cannot teach a man anything. 

You can only help him discover it within himself.

-Galileo Galilei

 

Coaching benefits:

  • Coaching can positively impact performance, culture, and the bottom line.
  • Coaching can help individuals unlock their potential
  • Ongoing coaching dialogue improves clarity and understanding of expectations
  • Coaching allows leaders to delegate, give challenging assignments, and promote an environment of learning and knowledge 
  • More companies are trying annual bonuses to a leader’s development of their direct reports. The reality is that there is an understanding that coaching does positively affect bottom-line results

Listen intently and ask powerful questions

When we listen, we are not distracted by anything else around us. The individual has our full attention, and we are not as prone to jump in and provide an answer, solution, or fill in the gaps. 

Ask powerful, short questions. When formulating a question, I keep in mind two things: 

Why are they telling me this?

What’s the real problem?

I then follow with an open-ended question that starts with ‘What…‘

Try the following questions in your next one-on-one:

  1. What should we focus on (a work project, people issue, or behaviour) discussing that will help you most?
  2. What is the heart of this issue for you? Tell me more… what else…
  3. What is the challenge, and why is this important to you? 
  4. What have you done so far to address the issue?
  5. What is your ideal outcome?
  6. What is the next best step to take?

 

Most people do not listen with the intent to learn and understand. They listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak.

-Stephen Covey

 

Don’t be the bottleneck

Leaders and managers need to coach their people. Coaching helps decrease overdependence overwhelm, and this dependency creates bottlenecks and frustration for both leader and staff member. 

Stop being the bottleneck and allow your team members to develop. Coach your team members to help them learn and grow. 

Empower your staff by giving them the responsibility to do their job, coach them through knowledge gaps and then allow them to run with it. Autonomy allows the employee to learn by doing and demonstrates your trust in their ability. Trust that there will be setbacks and debrief on these areas in your regular one-on-one meetings. 

Coaching Tips

  • ask one question at a time 
  • listen with intent for the facts and maintain neutrality
  • ask ‘what’ questions
  • be curious about the details
  • focus on what matters most
  • explore off-hand comments (what is not being said). They will often assist in getting to the heart of a problem
  • ask questions that will help the individual expand the way they are thinking about the problem or issue
  • don’t use rhetorical questions that offer advise
  • Using the 80/20 concept allow the staff member to speak 80% of the time and yourself only 20% 

If you would like more information on leadership and coaching tactics, and you need someone to keep you accountable for your process and execution, I can be contacted at +1-604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com. If you want monthly leadership 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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