Become a Great Leader, Not Just a Boss - Part 2

Skills Tips, Part 2

As part of my signature programme I coach many clients and I am frequently asked to advise on ways of improving their leadership skills. I thought I would share my best tips in a series of posts. (For Part 1, click here.)

Here are another four quick tips:

Always ask for and reflect on feedback
Feedback is a very useful tool in the development of the whole team. As the leader, you can set a great example for all your team to follow. Encouraging feedback makes the team feel they are listened to and opens the channels for positive, two-way communication. If you accept all feedback, and reflect and respond to it, you will learn and develop as a leader. At the same time your team will be following your lead and learning the positives of feedback loops.

Recognise the times when you need to behave differently
Do you struggle to get your views across to your team and make yourself understood? What’s the feedback from your presentations like? If you get feedback indicating your public speaking needs work, have you got the capability to make changes? Have you got the required skills or do you know where to go to get training and development and respond to those challenges? We can only change our own behaviour, so it is important to recognise the times when we need to behave differently and take action.

Believe in yourself
When the going gets tough you might find yourself thinking that only certain people are successful and great leaders, and you’re not one of them. Write down all the reasons why you should succeed and read through them every day. Start with 20 reasons: keep it simple to start with, for example, “I come to work every day”, and add at least two more reasons every day. This will bolster your self-belief and remove any negative feelings as to why you shouldn't be a successful leader.

There’s no I in Team 
I know this is a cliché, but is your behaviour tied up in your sense of self? Maybe you find it difficult to speak to your team as a leader because you dislike being the centre of attention. Take small steps to change this and do something different. Make different members of the team your centre of attention. Be interested in them and the challenges they face at work and how they manage. Gradually you will find that you will be the centre of their attention and that you have a more balanced view of how that feels. Your dislike of attention will disappear and interacting with the team becomes an enjoyable part of the day.

These skills can be learned and developed. You might already use these skills in your working life, but you might feel you can improve on them too. I can provide training, coaching or refreshers in how to improve your use of these skills, for your benefit and that of those around you.

Give me a call on 01497 820520 or email sallyherdman1@gmail.com to find out more.

Become a Great Leader, Not Just a Boss

Skills Tips, Part 1

As part of my signature programme I coach many clients and I am frequently asked to advise on ways of improving their leadership skills.  I thought I would share my best tips in a series of posts. These aren't in any order of priority, just as they came into my mind.

Here are four quick tips:

1. Be adaptable to change

There will be instances when you will need to make changes and be flexible in response to circumstances.  If you adapt to change quickly and easily you will not waste energy being affected by negative emotions such as frustration. 

2. Look at problems from a fresh perspective

Change desks or chairs or do something different to give you a different view on a problem.  If the accounts department has a problem, ask to sit in their chair so you can see the issue from that perspective.  While you work to appreciate their perspective, ask them to sit at your desk and see the problem the way it seems to you.

3. Don’t complain

Complaining is such a drain of energy.  It is very negative and it doesn't solve any problems.  Look forward and up the road to see the best possible way forward and focus all your energy on travelling in that direction. You will find that if you don’t complain, others won’t.

4. Be willing to help others

Be keen to help others in your team or your business.  Take time to ask everyone - from the coffee maker and cleaners to the executives - “How may I help you?”  Your example will cascade throughout your company and a very positive, helpful ethos will develop.  It will also be fun!

These skills can be learned and developed. You might already use these skills in your working life, but you might feel you can improve on them too. I can provide training, coaching or refreshers in how to improve your use of these skills, for your benefit and that of those around you.

Give me a call on 01497 820520 or email sallyherdman1@gmail.com to find out more.

Are you aware of the power of non-verbal communication?

A French student came to stay with us for two weeks this summer and her understanding of English when she arrived was about the same as my French – limited! As we began to try to communicate I became aware of how intently I was listening to her and observing her; it wasn’t just about verbal communication - she was fairly shy – it was about all the things she wasn’t saying but doing.

How did I ‘know‘ she was shy? I deduced it from the way she looked at me, the way she moved her hands and tapped her foot when she spoke. And though all these signals were miniscule, I realised that for every group of gestures and expressions she made, I could interpret them as easily as if she had spoken words I understood. And if I was reading her micro expressions, then she could read mine as well.

For the first few days, instead of relying on Google Translate, I concentrated on exaggerating my non-verbal signals to match whatever I was saying in English. Our young French visitor caught on like wild fire and we began conversing in English and understanding each other, although part of this was rather like a stage play sometimes. After four days I could tell when we hit a word she didn’t understand simply by the fleeting muscle movement in her face.

Each day we also spent time with the horses and it was fascinating to observe her communicating with them and them with her. As their whole world is non-verbal they were quick to understand and respond to our visitor. Every day we went for a ride and I noticed that after a just a few hundred yards on horseback she was gaining confidence, and becoming much more verbal and fluent in the English language.

Good communication is partly about listening and observing, and these skills can come into play in the most unexpected places. For our French student, exaggerating non-verbal language improved our communications as well as giving her more confidence. And when she communicated with the horses it was just the same – words were redundant, so interpretation of non-verbal communication became of paramount importance; yet she did it quickly and easily. It’s amazing how much we all subconsciously pick up on non-verbals and accurately interpret them at a much faster rate than we do words.

You may not think this is relevant to you as might not have to engage with non-English speakers. But the next time you are having a difficult conversation, maybe at work or socially, imagine that person does not speak or understand you verbally. You may find that non-verbal communication is an easier conversation!

These skills are innate, but they can be honed. If you want to know more about improving your non-verbal communication, please give me a call.

Will an empathic object replace the need for Emotional Intelligence?

A friend sent me this link to an interesting idea which was demonstrated in Tel Aviv Israel in April (click here to watch the video). Kip1 is a little robot which monitors the tone of voices during interactions. The object doesn’t recognise words, but reacts to an aggressive tone of voice by shrinking and shivering away from the sound and growing relaxed when the tone calms. Its third state is curiosity and will extend its neck to “listen” to what is going on around it.

Kip1 and a curious cat

Is this the best way that we can improve the impact of our communication with others? Maybe taking that little gismo into a business meeting with a client would prove an interesting talking point, but would it really help in a conflict resolution situation? And would it fit in my briefcase or handbag? Not the most convenient tool and probably a fairly costly option.

I am more minded to grow my Emotional Intelligence (EI), which I carry internally to whatever business or other interaction I have anywhere in the world with another human. We have EI with us at all times, can use it instinctively and it is free! So what is it?

Daniel Goleman described Emotional Intelligence as:  “The capacity for recognising our own feelings and those in others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”

The core components for being Emotionally Intelligent are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Being aware of how we communicate with others, our own levels of self-confidence, what triggers us and how to manage our own behaviours, inevitably leads to us approaching our interactions with others in a much more consistent, empathetic way. A heightened sense of our own self-awareness enables us to avoid arguments and concentrate our energy on outcomes, before we get into conflict with others.

If we were to rely on a robot to tell us how we are communicating, by the time it crumbles and quakes it may well be too late to modify our tone and body language and rescue that sales pitch or difficult meeting!

Knowing ourselves is an important first step to recognising emotions in others and how our behaviours can have a major influence in achieving the outcomes we desire. By learning to recognise our own tone of voice and body language, we become aware of what we can do to avoid conflict and achieve the outcomes we want.

So go on, give it a whirl. Start building your self-awareness and your self-confidence will be boosted - and you’ll see how it can change your relationships with others!

Give me a call on 01497 820520 to find out how I can help you to improve and develop your emotional intelligence.

Don’t let your projects go Hay-wire!

A week on Thursday (22 May) sees the start of the world-famous Hay Festival of Literature and Arts (www.hayfestival.com) which is down the road from me. From its inception in 1987 when it was just an idea discussed around a kitchen table, it grew from a thousand visitors to now an expected quarter of a million visitors…all to a town with a population of 1,500!

Over the 10 days of the festival, there are a staggering 230+ events, talks and shows. On top of organising all of these, there are over 60 sponsors and partnering companies to deal with, as well as numerous suppliers and providers of various facilities, catering and other services. To get an idea of the scale of this, the event programme is a mere 112 pages long – enough to be a book itself.

What started as handful of friends “wanting something to do of an evening” getting together to organise the first event is now a major project management achievement. And with its continual success, the Hay Festival leadership team can sure show the business world a thing or two about how to manage projects.

I came across this fascinating research conducted by the Standish Group in 2001. They analysed over 500 projects and found out that:

• Only 16% of all projects are fully successful; 84% of all projects fail in some way
• 53% were late or over-budget
• 31% were cancelled prior to completion
• Only 61% of promised features and functions are typically delivered
• The average project goes over budget by 189%, some exceed 400%
• On average, a project lasts 222% longer than it was planned to last.

When Standish analysed the reasons for poor performance, they came up with this top 10 list of why these projects failed:

• Lack of User Involvement
• Incomplete Requirements
• Unrealistic Expectations
• Changing Requirements and Specifications
• Lack of, or poor planning
• Lack of Executive Support
• Lack of Resources
• Unclear Objectives
• Unrealistic Timeframes
• New Technology Problems

One of my colleagues has conducted numerous ‘Lessons Learnt Reviews’ for the last 15 years for several Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 companies. He defines a lesson learnt as “an action that should or should not be performed the next time a similar project is run.” To capture these lessons in a facilitated team meeting conducted at the end of a project, he asks, “What could have gone better?” The most frequent responses over the years (in no particular order) were related to:

• Poor planning
• Unclear objectives
• Deficient capture of the customer’s requirements
• Poor and infrequent communications
• Little or no risk analysis
• Infrequent/non-existent team meetings
• Discontinuity of team members
• Non-compliance with procedures

When the project team members were asked, “In one word only, what could have been improved to make the project more perfect?” Have a guess what the most common response was…. yes, ‘communication’.

Starting to see a pattern here?

No matter whether your project is a major international collaborative programme, the world’s biggest book festival or a home DIY project – failure is almost guaranteed if communication is poor. (By the way, if you don’t believe me on the last example, try painting on the wrong shade of white and see how your other half reacts!)

Good communication doesn’t necessarily mean a nicely worded email or a colourful corporate newsletter. As I’m sure you’ve heard so many times, real communication has little to do with the words themselves.

Want to know how to improve how communication skills in your business? Well, just ask the ‘experts in their field’….no, that’s not necessarily me! I’m talking about horses - who are intuitively excellent at picking up non-verbal communications and sub-conscious meaning. www.executivehorsepower.co.uk/why-it-works.html

Give me a call on 01497 820520 to find out how we can help you and your business ensure your projects don’t go haywire.

Exceptional Leaders are experts at creating rapport and trust

Interpersonal relationships work best if there is a base of trust and rapport, for instance, between a manger and his team, a salesman and his clients. First impressions are made usually in the first few seconds of meeting someone and can be hard to change if you create the wrong one! We have all had an experience of meeting someone and either instantly liking them or disliking and mistrusting them. Often, this has nothing to with what was said, more an ‘intuition’ or feeling. These instances show us how important our non- verbal impact has on others and if our visual cues don’t match the words coming from our mouths, the wrong impression can be created.

The ice skaters Torvill and Dean, are the best examples I can think of how our body language creates amazing partnerships. They have an instinctive rapport with each other and their dancing is faultless, all with body language and no words! Meeting the horses in our equine assisted development workshops is a very quick and easy way to learn about our non- verbal language and the impression we create. Observing the herd behaviour, you can see the smooth easy interactions and the fluidity of the horses together. They are so tuned in to each other they seem to move as if one body. By virtue of their honest and non- judgemental feedback we can quickly learn how to establish rapport and trust with them. This can effectively be translated into our human relationships both at work and in our personal lives.

You all have the skill of reacting to each other’s body language and can hone and perfect this using equine assisted development. You can use this same open, honest and interested to know you approach with the people you meet. Very soon you will find that people are instinctively drawn to you and will reflect your behaviour.

Executive Horse Power - Optimising Your Leadership

We are holding a free, half-day event on Thursday 27 March for business leaders at the Kings Equestrian Centre in Bromyard.

Our keynote speaker is Floyd Woodrow, author of “ELITE!: The Secret to Exceptional Leadership”, followed by Debs and Steve Adams, from Life Change Connection, who will run a Team Leadership Goal Setting Session. In the practical part of the morning you will experience Equine Assisted Development for yourself and understand how it can improve your leadership, communication and team building skills.

9.00am – 9.30am - Registration and refreshments

• Welcome and Introduction
• Optimising Performance and Leadership Skills
• Team Leadership Goal Setting
• Practical Session
• Discussion

1pm – Close

I hope that you can join us at this unique event.  Please RSVP as soon as possible, either by email to enquiries@executivehorsepower.co.uk or call me on 01497 820 520 to confirm your place.

How good is the communication in your relationship?

40 years of marriage

A married couple in their early 60s are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in a quiet, romantic little restaurant.

Suddenly, a tiny yet beautiful fairy appeared on their table.

She said, 'For being such an exemplary married couple and for being loving to each other for all this time, I will grant you each a wish.'

The wife answered, 'Oh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband.'

The fairy waved her magic wand and - poof! - two tickets for the Queen Mary II appeared in her hands.

The husband thought for a moment: 'Well, this is all very romantic, but an opportunity like this will never come again. I'm sorry my love, but my wish is to have a wife 30 years younger than me.'

The wife, and the fairy, were deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish!

So the fairy waved her magic wand and poof!

The husband became 92 years old.

Everyone can benefit from using Emotional Horse Power to improve their communication skills in their relationships. For more information please contact Sally Herdman today.

The top six communication skills that will get you promoted

According to a new year-long study by the Centre for Talent Innovation, leadership potential is signalled through an employee's gravitas, communication skills and appearance. The following six communication skills were deemed the most important by director-level executives and above.

• Excellent public speaking
• Ability to command a room
• Assertiveness
• Emotional Intelligence
• Sense of humour
• Good posture and body language

For more information on the research please click here

For more information on our bespoke communication skills courses, please contact Sally Herdman today.

The Importance of Effective Communication

"Whether you are talking on the phone, sharing on social or meeting in person, never underestimate the importance of communicating effectively." Sir Richard Branson

www.virgin.com/richard-branson/communicate-clearly

That's our philosophy too, and our communication skills workshop is designed to benefit anyone in business who wants to enhance their communication skills, whether the aim is to achieve better sales performance, increase productivity or build a winning team. This essential course will improve understanding of how you communicate and how to read others' signals, leading to greater effectiveness in all areas of communication.

For more information please contact Sally Herdman today