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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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YOUR FOCUS IN QUARTER 3

As we enter Quarter 3 of 2022, it is time to reflect on how far you have gotten on your goals over the last six months, what has worked well, what has not, and what you will keep, start and stop doing. Make the next quarter matter. Continuous execution of small daily changes leads to tremendous results.

NARROW YOUR FOCUS IN Q3

As a business consultant, strategist, and executive coach, I work with successful companies and leaders who share a common practice of conducting quarterly reviews and previews.

By starting each quarter with an initial review, you are taking the time to set a benchmark and do a post-mortem on the past three months’ activity and results.

Analyze wins, identify ongoing challenges, and reflect on lessons learned. Evaluate what you will continue to focus on, what you will stop doing and new initiatives and priorities that need to be implemented.

After the review, you then move on to a preview of what is upcoming in the following 90-day period and identify priorities. These 90-day/quarter priorities ensure alignment and provide a transparent and clear focus.

 

‘You will either look back in life and say I wish I had, or I’m glad I did.’
– Zig Ziglar

 

QUARTERLY REVIEW PROCESS

  1. REVIEW your cash flow and identify your top five activities that provide you profit.
  2. ANALYSE your Key Performance Indicator (KPI) results, shortfalls and gaps. This activity will assist in the identification of areas that require your attention. Your KPIs drive your triple-bottom-line results and can often simply be viewed in terms of profit margin per:
    a.   employee
    b.   customer or client, and
    c.   production or delivery.
  3. IDENTIFY your core areas that can be improved upon to increase operational efficiencies. Quarterly process optimization goals are an excellent way to look at this with your team. Creating core processes saves time and provides standard operating procedures, combined with checklists that can reduce errors and increase efficiencies.
  4. REVIEW your long-term strategic initiatives and identify at least one that you can focus on in Q3 that aligns with your vision, will bring value to your team and stakeholders, and will add value to your customers and clients.

WHAT IS ONE THING YOU CAN DELEGATE THIS QUARTER?

Have you recently thought/said,

‘I don’t have enough time,’
‘There is too much to do,’
‘I never have enough time to focus on what is essential?’

If so, it’s time to evaluate how you spend your time and on what.

STEP 1.   List at least 20 things you do in your job or on a day-to-day basis, the more detail you have in your list, the better.

STEP 2.   Draw up a quadrant and in each box, write the topics you see on the image below.

Jenny Reilly Consulting | How To Delegate

STEP 3.   Of all the items you listed in Step 1, please put each one into the most relevant quadrant. Tally how many you have in each quadrant.

STEP 4.   Your objective should be to have most items in the top left quadrant. Everyone is more effective and productive when they work to their strengths and are engaged. If your quadrants are bottom-heavy, work towards making some changes and, when possible, delegate a minimum of one task per quarter to others where they may be a better fit.

 

‘The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.’
– Warren Buffett

 

QUARTERLY THINKING

ONE:   What do you want to accomplish by the end of Q3?

TWO:   How will you unwind, unplug and recharge to ensure you bring the best version of yourself to the job weekly?

THREE:   Identify three core professional areas of strength and three core areas of weakness. In Q3, aim to work more in your areas of strengths and do some professional development work in at least one area of challenge to help you improve in the job.

FOUR:   Identify at least five areas you can say ‘no’ to this quarter. One of my TEC members, Joseph Fry, Founding Principle of Hapa Collaborative, operates under a ‘hell yes’ or ‘hell no’ system when defining where he will spend his time. I love his energy and focus on working in areas that matter to the business.

 

If you have any questions about your quarter 3 review and planning or want to learn more about 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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KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY IN LEADERSHIP

Leadership is complex and challenging. You need to set the direction, communicate your vision, and be on top of strategy execution.

Focus on a positive workplace/team culture, align and mobilize talent to ensure they are working to their strengths and effective in their roles.

You are connecting purposefully internally and externally with a timely cadence. And…all the while personally managing your effectiveness and energy levels.

How a person performs in a leadership role matters. This is an obvious statement, but one we need to ponder as the top 20% of leaders could contribute more than 2.8% of the average leader.

Working on soft leadership skills is hard – ironic, isn’t it!

If you rate yourself on how you are performing as a leader on a scale of 1-5 (1-being abysmal to 5-knocking it out of the park)

  • How are you performing?
  • Why do you give yourself this rating, and in what areas can you improve?

No matter the industry sector nor size of the business or team, a leader’s key areas of responsibility include these steps:

1. SETTING THE DIRECTION

Looking back to look forward or conducting a review to do a preview of what’s coming is an essential leadership tactic.

Think of a Venn diagram, with the overlapping circles intersecting in the middle, that central area of overlap is the core focus. In the instance of setting direction, consider what is needed (your customer/client needs), what is your superpower (what you are good at), what drives you (what you are passionate about) and the big business kicker $ (how you can make money).

Be bold when setting your vision, direction, strategies, and resource allocation. Think beyond what is needed and focus on what is required in the future.

QUESTION: Why should we exist five years from now?

2. ALIGNING STRATEGIC PRIORITIES WITH BUSINESS GOALS

When taking on any new priority, ensure first it aligns with your overall business goals. This will ensure that you stay on track and focused for the long game. Don’t forget to set performance milestones, these will motivate and keep you accountable. Eliminate activities that do not contribute to core areas of focus.

QUESTION: What strategic priorities are you working on that ARE NOT aligned with your business goals? Why?

3. LEADING TO AN INDIVIDUALS PSYCHOLOGY

Everyone has a different psychology. What they need from a leader and how they receive it can be unique. A good leader makes the time to understand how to best lead each person in their team and get the psychology and mechanics right to help the individual be the best they can be in their position. A leader applauds an individual’s wins, supports them in situations, and provides professional development to help them be more effective in their role.

QUESTION: Do you know how you can best lead each team member?

4. EXECUTING CONSISTENTLY ON THE RIGHT THING

I love this quote:

‘There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.’
~ Peter Drucker

A reminder to constantly be assessing what the right thing is to be focused on and consistent in the execution of action to get it done. Remember the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle (80% of our outcomes come from 20% of our causes), prioritize high-impact tasks, resulting in greater productivity and results. Look at your entire task list, prioritize based on the impact level each task would have if complete on your work/business goals, focus first on those top 20% of items on your list as they will result in 80% of the impact that you can generate for the day.

QUESTION: What are the top 20% of tasks I need to focus on today?

5. FOCUSING ON CULTURE AND ENGAGEMENT

One of the most challenging things about leading a business team is not the work that needs to be done but… working with the people, navigating personalities and reframing a business culture to be more positive. Motivating and inspiring someone to improve their mindset, work ethic, or ability to work with others takes time and needs to be very intentional.

From a work culture and employee engagement perspective, I encourage you to start by working on one thing. It could be your: hiring process, onboarding, annual performance reviews, processes to address bottlenecks and points of frustration, engagement survey, revised job descriptions or the incorporation of team building activities to look forward to.

There are so many items that you can focus on, pick the lowest hanging fruit that will help you improve culture and engagement and go for it!

QUESTION: How can you inspire your team to do their best work?

6. CONNECTING WITH STAKEHOLDERS

To ensure strong relationships with your stakeholders, you need to start with a foundation of trust.

When was the last time you asked your stakeholders for feedback on any process or improvement recommendations?

Engage and share the goals you are working on, help your stakeholders understand your opportunities and challenges, harvest new ideas, and stay focused on a forward-looking agenda.

QUESTION: What stakeholders should you connect with this week?

7. MANAGING PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

As a busy professional, one of the most important things to focus on is your time. Take back your calendar, be conscious of every item scheduled one week out and determine if you need to be present in every meeting. Be intentional about what you want to achieve daily, weekly, quarterly and annually.

QUESTION: Can you articulate your professional areas of strength and work style? What changes do you need to make to be more consistent and effective in your role?

 

‘You have to reinvent yourself. The world changes. You have to change.’
~ Roberto Setubal, Chairperson, Itau Unibanco

If you have any questions about leadership and leader’s key responsibilities, or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your leadership 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 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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STRATEGIC FOCUS AND PLANNING

For our businesses to continue to thrive, we must constantly evolve and adapt to changing needs of the market and our clients. Transformation only happens when we focus on it, and at the beginning of every quarter, it is time to take stock of our areas of focus and determine if we need to change or pivot our direction. Be strategic. Consider the impact of technology, talent, and operational changes to help you continue to grow and remain competitive.

Q1 REVIEW

Strategic focus sustains and builds on an organization’s high performance and effectiveness. Set aside time to conduct a Q1 review:

Step 1: List your three biggest wins and accomplishments from Q1.
Step 2: How far did you get on your Q1 goals?
Step 3: In Q1, list what worked and what didn’t that you can learn from.
Step 4: Define what you will keep doing, improve upon, stop doing and start doing due to this review.
Step 4: List your goals for Q2 and who will be accountable for the results by when.

STRATEGIC FOCUS TIMING

Remember it takes time to define your focus, implement and execute the action.

    • 20% planning
    • 40% implementation and change installation effort
    • 40% sustaining high-performance effort on the direction and plan over the long term

NO STRATEGIC PLAN?

If you don’t have a strategic plan, it is time to work on one. There are three core phases to follow:

Phase One – Assess and Organize

    • Environmental scan and organization assessment

Phase two – Strategic Design and Plan

    • Define company positioning
    • Articulate customer focus
    • Clarify competitive strategies and critical success factors

Phase three – Operational Design

    • Plan priorities
    • Strategic budgets
    • Performance management systems
    • HR management strategies

COMPONENTS OF A WRITTEN STRATEGIC PLAN

There are core components of a strategic plan. The points below can be used as a checklist for you in the design of your plan:

    • Introduction – opening defining your ‘why.’ Include your company vision, mission and values
    • Current State Assessment (SWOT: Strengths – to build on, Weaknesses – to eliminate, opportunities and threats))
    • Environmental Scan
    • Marketplace (segments and characteristics) Analysis: key customers, main products and services, the value of segment, market share percentage, industry competitors, the life cycle of product or service
    • Organizational Goals
    • Key Success Factors (KSF) and Action Plan (Areas of concentration, actions to develop target measures and baseline data, who is responsible and due date)
    • Core Strategies and Actions for Each Strategy
    • Major Change Summary (summary of significant changes desired over the life of the strategic plan) and Change Management Structure
    • Priority Actions (key must-do actions in addition to the day-to-day operations and other stats that you can complete in addition)and Implementation Game Plan
    • Annual Plan Format – break this down into a yearly roadmap

TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIC PLANNING

    1. Have the process facilitated
    2. Take an organization-wide approach and integrate all level planning
    3. Define quantifiable measures of success
    4. Include short and long-term forecasting
    5. Use transparent and straightforward terminology and language
    6. Clarify and benchmark against the competition
    7. Define strategic business units
    8. Make informed budget decisions
    9. Make tough decisions when necessary
    10. Be open to pivoting from the initial direction
    11. Implement an effective process to roll out new initiatives
    12. Empower and support staff to take action on strategic initiatives

Acknowledge that the process does not end once a document is produced. It needs to be executed on, implemented, evaluated and measured. Your strategic plan has to be a living document, one that is continually reviewed.

HOW WELL ARE YOU DOING?

On a scale of 1-5 rank (1 being the lowest and 5 the highest), your organization on the following:

    1. A culture of excellence
    2. Accountability of resource
    3. Effective and efficient business processes
    4. Collaboration and teamwork
    5. Communicated long term vision and direction
    6. Constructive problem solving
    7. Continuous process improvements
    8. Data based decisions
    9. Employee empowerment
    10. Equality of opportunities
    11. Facilities and equipment
    12. High staff productivity and performance
    13. Innovation and creativity
    14. Job design and descriptions
    15. Marketplace competitiveness
    16. Performance appraisals
    17. Profitability consciousness
    18. Quality production of products/delivery of services
    19. Resilience level to adaption to change
    20. Resources (monetary and other)
    21. Reward systems
    22. Staffing levels
    23. Team development
    24. Technology
    25. Visionary leadership

STEP ONE: Highlight any score below three
STEP TWO: Brainstorm action that could be implemented on low scoring areas to raise your rank
STEP THREE: Attain buy-in on identified actions, implement and execute

 

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.

~ Winston Churchill

 

If you would like more information on strategic planning, and you need someone to keep you accountable through this process, 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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