Do you lead teams, departments or even projects? Then this video is for you. I'm Adriana
Girdler I'm a Productivity Specialist and president of CornerStone Dynamics
and MyVisualVision.com and in this video you will learn how to be a better
leader at work in three impactful steps.
there is so much on this subject of leadership and I want to go beyond just
skills and traits that you can totally pull it off the web yourself and I want
to go into three impactful techniques that you can start utilizing today with
your team to be more successful and be a better leader. Step number one I like for
you to create a safe environment, a psychologically safe environment that is,
where people feel accepted and respected. Ss what's an unsafe environment? So we
can understand why the safe environment is so important well an unsafe
environment is where there's lots of judgment, where you're reprimanded, that
if you make a mistake it's held against you,
we're bringing up new ideas are shot down, does any of that sound familiar?
Well that really is an unsafe environment and if you're going to be a
better leader and you want your team to click and connect and move forward and
come up with creative and new innovative ideas that every organization always
says they want, the first thing you have to do is ensure that your team feels
safe and as a leader that is your role and responsibility to do so. So how do
you create this safe environment? Well I have the perfect solution for you.
Something that I've actually incorporated with many of my clients
that we're having this very particular issue. Step number one is with your team
you actually want to create Team norms or team ways of working and this is an
agreement where everyone comes together to say "hey this is how we all agree to
be and work together so we can ensure that we are a cohesive group". Step two is
you actually want to put it in a poster and place it everywhere, because
you want to reinforce these norms. And the last thing which is step three is
now that you have your team norms that everyone's created together they're
plastered everywhere, I'm assuming you're also going to have them in meeting rooms,
is you actually want to revisit them as much as you can and then give some tools
and techniques for your team to call you out on it as well as each other. And so
at every meeting you want to review those
rules, You may want to have like a little bell, ding-ding-ding, that allows you to
kind of call someone out on it sometimes people have done cards where they
actually said hey give you a card you went against a team norm. But when you
set up these norms right away with everyone's buy-in it gives them the
permission to call each other out when people go against the norms but even
more importantly, as you as leader they can call you out, because it's really
important that not only as a leader, you talk the talk but you walk the talk. Step
number two: I want you to be a roadblock remover, not the roadblock. I see this
over and over again even some of my own clients are actually a roadblock for me
when I'm trying to get things done and then I see that trickle effect happening
within their own teams. So what do I mean by this:
it means being available to answer critical questions so that your team
actually can move forward on stuff, it's very frustrating when your team is
basically stopped and they can't do the next step because they're waiting for
you to reply back to an email or provide the direction necessary in order for
them to proceed on the tasks. One of the things as a leader is if you can empower
your team and set up some rules around this, it's really helpful but critically
even more so it's your responsibility as a leader to ensure that you're not the
roadblock and that you do everything in your power to ensure that your team can
move forward. So what are some things that you can do for your team? Well,
number one is established a rule around email: answer your emails within 24 hours
and what I mean by that is if you're really busy and you don't answer emails
and I do have know some people like that even if you're just reply back saying
"okay I got it", people at least know she's really busy, he's really busy, they'll get
back to me. At least have that 24 hour rule. Something else that we've
incorporated with clients as well, is use that subject header line in your email
to say ACTION NEED REPLY, bold I mean every single part BOLD, and then in there
put your stuff that you need. That's really important way of kind of
popping out for that particular leader knowing that "hey I better answer this
now because has criticality to it". Now you have to
train your team not to do that for every single email because then all of a
sudden you have the same problem you had before. So it's really for answers that
you need right away. and then when another technique that we've used to is
train your team to come and start compiling a list of everything they need
to talk to you about. because one of the things I see a lot in major
organizations, is this sense of urgency "oh my goodness,
I need this answer right away", but in reality, you really didn't, I always say,
don't interrupt someone who's doing their work unless it's absolutely
necessary like there's a fire or an ambulance has been called, but in all
honesty, everything else really is not an emergency. It's only our emergency
it's something that we feel is urgent but we don't understand how we can
interrupt people and their flow. Do teach your team as a leader to compile
everything they have to talk to you about and set up those one-on-one
meetings, so that when they do reach out to you for instantaneous reply, you know
it's a true instantaneous reply, and they also know that ultimately all their
other questions will be answered because they've started that list compiling
everything they have to talk to you about and they're going to meet with you
at some point anyway. Step number three is to provide structure to empower your
team to make decisions. Too many times I see leaders become what I call the
bottleneck, just like what I said earlier you're on, sometimes leaders don't get
back to their team members and as a result team members are stuck, but the
opposite side as well is the leader has all the information in their head and
they're becoming a bottleneck, and that also stops the team
members from moving forward. So if you want to become a better leader, have some
structure. So there's three core things you can do to have some structure and
bring empowerment. The first one is be very clear on what the vision is. Whether
that's a vision for the project, your department, or even within your
organization, and use that as a tool, so people can say "hey wait a minute
I'm working on this, I know it's in line with the vision, I'm okay to move forward
and doing it". Versus always having to ask "is this okay" "can I do this", if it's in
line with the vision because as a leader you say
"hey everything we do is aligned with the vision", so if you can tell me it's
aligned with the vision and back it up than I'm cool with it.
That's an amazing empowerment you can give the team in order to move forward
so that they're not constantly coming to you for every single approval which then
you become a bottleneck. Second thing you can do to not be a bottleneck for them
and to provide that structure is to actually do a priority board for all
your projects and activities that are going on, so even my own organization we
actually have that we have a priority board, and you can do this electronically,
you can do it on a whiteboard, it's really up to you what's going to work
well, but something that you have to take a look at and at the beginning of the
week, you actually cohesively with your team, look at the priority board, and say
all right, here all the projects we are working on, all the major milestones
what's number one today, or for this week, what's number two, number three, that is
really helpful because when things pop up and you have to fight fires, which
always happens, right, in the business world, then you actually know what you
can and are supposed to work on, and your team doesn't have to come to you saying
"oh my goodness, oh my goodness, leader what do I do now, I have this issue and I
have these three things to work on." Empower them to say "hey this is priority
one this week, so this is the one that is of importance, and they don't have to
worry about justifying it because you did it collectively as a team. And last
but not least, have a team action list, so whether that is something that is just
high-level milestones and everyone has er more detail one, but a common place
that everyone can go to and know that for these priorities these projects here
are the high level milestone action names that we all have to work on, is
really powerful for empowerment because, when they're done something they don't
have to knock on your door and saying "hey I'm done this what do you want me to
work on next". You then become the bottleneck because you know you have to
as a leader figure it out. Well guess what?
You don't have to do that anymore. Have the action item list and say just go to
the action item list and take a peek at what's next that you're responsible for.
And it empowers them to move forward allowing them and you to do what needs
to get done to move forward on the organizational goals. Being a leader is a
really important responsibilities, and by implementing these three impactful steps,
you will see a huge difference not only for yourself, but for your team, allowing
you to move forward to your goals. Please feel free to check out our website, we
have tons of blogs actually on leadership that has a lot of other, what
I call "golden nuggets" and you can take those, along with the advice given in
this video, to move you and your team to the next level. If you like this video,
please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the button below, but not only that
please share it with your friends and colleagues because. Again if everyone's a
great leader, it makes everybody's life easier. Thank you very much, and I'll see
you at the next video.