The beginning of a new year is often equated with new beginnings or with a fresh start. It’s in that vein that I’m sure you’ve noticed a very big change here on website.
It’s been over 10 years since I started this site and it just felt like it was time for a change … And in the case of both my website and my company, a rather sizeable one at that.
For starters, I’ve officially shifted my focus completely onto my speaking work both in keynotes and corporate training workshops. I will still offer leadership consulting services as well, but keynotes and corporate training workshops will be my primary focus. You can learn more about this by visiting my brand new speaking and corporate training pages. While you’re at it, please do also check out my brand new homepage and the podcast page for my leadership podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”. I’m quite proud with how those turned out.
I have to admit as much as I love this new look, I’m going to miss my old site design. As many of you know, it had some rather personal elements featured on the site – from photographs of my daughters to artwork they made to decorate the bottom portion of my site. But after 10 years, it was definitely time for a change as not only have my daughters’ grown a lot in that time, but so has my company and myself.
But before I look ahead, to kick start this new site and new focus, I want to look back on last year as part of my annual reflection on what leadership insights I wrote about in 2018 resonated the most with my readers. It’s always a fun and informative exercise, and on this occasion, a great way to begin this next, new chapter.
And with that, here are my Top 10 leadership insights of 2018. Here’s hoping they help you start 2019 on the right leadership foot.
Leadership Insight #10 – A leader’s ability to chart their organization’s path forward is connected to their ability to understand the current reality of their employees. [Share on Twitter]
“It’s only through understanding what challenges and obstacles your employees are grappling with that we can better understand and deliver what they need from us to move forward.
That’s why we shouldn’t simply gloss over negative outlooks with pithy, motivational quotes or inspirational chants. Rather, as I shared with a group of leaders a few weeks ago, sometimes we need to let our employees know that it’s okay “to own the suck.” To be open and honest that things are not great; that we’re frustrated and maybe even doubting that we’re on the right path.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: Are You Curing Only The Symptoms Of What Ails Your Team?
Leadership Insight #9 – The way we challenge ourselves to believe in a brighter future is not by fear of regret, but in the hopeful aspirations of who we can become. [Share on Twitter]
“That’s why I think the question we should be asking ourselves is not are we doing what we can to avoid being on our deathbed looking back with regret over the paths not taken.
Rather, the question we should ask ourselves is this – would you be willing to waste a year doing less than what you’re truly capable of achieving just to get things done? Would that be something you’d willingly settle for?
Now I know at the beginning of the year, we’d all answer with a resounding “No!”, as the arrival of a new year instills us full of hope and aspirations for what we can achieve.
But as leaders, it’s also our job to ensure that this sense of optimism, hope, and belief in ourselves and our potential is not simply a flickering flame that shines brightly at the start of the year. Instead, we need to use our leadership to feed it and transform it into this unstoppable force that takes on a life of its own, thanks to the will and power of those under your care.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: The One Thing Exceptional Leaders Never Forget
Leadership Insight #8 – While it’s understandable that we’d want to soften the blow of failure, sometimes the best thing we can do is “own the suck”. [Share on Twitter]
“That we give our employees – and sometimes, ourselves – the permission to accept the negative emotions that swirl around us in those moments of failure.
After all, this is what emotional intelligence is all about – it’s not just deciphering our employees’ emotional state, but empathizing with what they’re going through. Of what their reality is and how that’s impacting them, not just in terms of their productivity, but in terms of how it’s affecting them personally.
Not only does this give our employees the emotional space they need to deal with the pain that comes with failure, but as I did with Malaika, it sets the stage for us to help them gain clarity about what they can do about it going forward.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: Do You Allow Your Employees To “Own The Suck”
Leadership Insight #7 – Optimism in leadership is about not letting setbacks and failures hold you back from achieving your goals. [Share on Twitter]
“In terms of leadership, optimism at times can suffer a bad rap as leaders are often encouraged to instead be positive with a firm dose of realism to keep them grounded. Invariably, this is because we tend to think of optimism in terms of putting perceptual blinders on, where we only see the good and ignore the bad. Of looking through rose-coloured glasses as a way to avoid dealing with any of the problems or issues around us.
To be sure, optimism is not something that we should be thinking about in terms of our leadership only when times are good; that it’s something that’s nice to have, but not necessary for us to do our job effectively in terms of guiding our team forward.
More importantly, we need to recognize that being optimistic is not a sign of weakness or being out of touch with reality.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: What One Successful Leader Learned About Optimism From Failure
Leadership Insight #6 – The key to sustainable motivation is not just how much progress we’ve made, but how we measure progress towards achieving our goals. [Share on Twitter]
“A few years ago, I wrote a piece about a study that had showed that the key to sustainable success over the long run was shifting your focus as your task proceeded.
Since sharing that study’s finding with my readers, I’ve been applying this technique to some of the more mundane tasks I have to do and I can honestly say, it really does help in sustaining my motivation over the long run.
Basically, as I start working my way through a particular task I don’t enjoy, I focus initially on how much of it I’ve completed. But around the half-way point, I shift my focus towards how much I have left to do. This simple shift in perception makes it easier to keep going on tasks I don’t enjoy because by changing how I measure my progress, I’m changing the kind of motivations I’m tapping into to help me keep at it to reach that proverbial finish line.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: 3 Uncommon Strategies For Achieving Your Goals
Leadership Insight #5 – Our sense of purpose is not simply derived by what we do, but by how we choose to view what we do. [Share on Twitter]
“In writing this leadership blog, I’ve had the opportunity to share several personal stories that help to illustrate some key insights into how we can succeed in our role as leaders. So it seems only appropriate to share here what will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of my career – my TEDx talk that I gave on the topic of finding purpose in what we do.
In my TEDx talk, I share two personal stories from my work career that have helped to shape my understanding of not only what it takes to be a successful leader, but what it takes to achieve enduring success, and the motivation to always bring our best to the work we do.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: My TEDx Talk – A Personal Journey To Find Meaning In Success
Leadership Insight #4 – Courageous leadership is about using your influence to challenge the way things are and where we’re headed because you know we need to do better. [Share on Twitter]
“It’s about using our vantage point that takes into account the long view to help others understand why we need to change course, why we need to stop what we’re currently doing if we want to achieve our shared purpose and long term goals.
Of course, it’s not simply about our words; it’s also about the actions we take and that there’s consistency between what we say is important and what we treat as being important. And that means that as leaders, we need to be willing to not simply make the hard decisions, but to ask ourselves tough questions about our leadership.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: Are You Missing This Critical Element In Your Leadership?
Leadership Insight #3 – The difference we make through our leadership is creating conditions that drive people to aim for greatness because they believe in their ability to attain it. [Share on Twitter]
“In many of my talks on leadership, I share this point that what motivates people to do their best work is knowing that they’re making a difference. And this most certainly applies to leadership as well. Again, it’s easier as leaders to convince ourselves that we are making a difference by pointing out the things your employees have achieved under your leadership.
But this idea only gives rise to another question. Namely, are the achievements your employees attain under your leadership something that’s unique to your leadership, or is it something that anyone in that role can ensure gets done?
That’s why the “you” in the question above is emphasized because it’s about what you specifically are able to bring out in those you lead, thanks to what you create and nurture through your leadership. That it’s only because you put in these efforts and changes that allowed for these outcomes and successes to be achieved.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: 4 Questions Every Leader Should Ask To Be Successful
Leadership Insight #2 – Empathy allows us to aspire to be the leader we want to be: someone who brings out the best in those they lead and rallies them around a shared vision of the future. [Share on Twitter]
“Now in my experience working with leaders across Canada and the US, what I’ve found trips most leaders up is that they conflate understanding the challenges and obstacles their employees face with now having an obligation to do something about it. And this is why many of them pull back because they know in most cases, they don’t have the time and resources to address the concerns of each and every employee.
And that’s why it’s important that we gain some clarity here about empathy in leadership. That it’s not going to mean you’re now obligated to do more. Rather, the goal is for employees to see and feel that those in charge are aware of the challenges and obstacles they have to navigate on a daily basis and with this greater clarity, shift and prioritize the efforts and measures you do employ so as to truly leverage your employees’ abilities to overcome and succeed in their collective efforts.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: 3 Powerful Benefits That Come From Empathy In Leadership
Leadership Insight #1 – Leaders need to provide clarity to their employees in terms of what’s expected of them, as well as what employees should expect from their leaders. [Share on Twitter]
“One of the common challenges I hear from many leaders is this growing focus to just ‘get things done‘. For many leaders, this becomes a major distraction as they end up paying more attention to issues that are considered urgent, but are not critical to achieving their long-term goals.
This tendency to just get things done becomes even more pronounced as we start planning out what needs to be completed to achieve our year-end goals. Now for most leaders, the focus of such efforts tends to be on assigning tasks that will ensure a successful outcome. While this is a necessary step, it only reflects half of the process.
The other critical measure we need to take is to provide clarity over what our employees can expect from us in terms of resources, support, as well as what we’ll be focusing on as being mission critical.”
Read more on this leadership insight here: 3 Easy Steps To Energize Collaboration And Drive Success