How Daily Tracking Can Help You Reach Your Goals

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If you begin tracking your daily routines or habits, you’ll begin to find some flaws in your memory. You might not be eating as healthy, burning as many calories on your runs or being as productive with your time at work as you think you are.

Our brains aren’t developed to store information, but rather be inventive and creative. That’s why tracking is more reliable, but you may be surprised at what you will find.

Why Should You Think About Daily Tracking?

Effective tracking can provide a better success rate in creating new habits, increase your productivity and hold you accountable. Tracking your actions will provide clear performance results. It will keep you honest by increasing your self-awareness and provide motivation through a chain of successful days, weeks or even months.

In the past, meditation was always a difficult habit for me to develop. Every time I’d start I would do well at first, and then my practice would fall apart. I had my excuses; not enough time, I forgot, or I thought I was meditating more often than I was – until my Insight Timer app would display a “two-day streak.” I struggled to make meditation a daily practice.

I only became successful after I started tracking my results and tying meditation to an existing habit. After my morning shower, I’d take 10 minutes to meditate and then check it off my list. I tracked every day I meditated, and the odd days I missed. After I had completed a week in a row, I became more motivated to keep the practice going. Every day, I’d take my morning shower and then head to the same spot in my condo, sit down and meditate. Through tracking and attaching it to one of my daily habits, it was easier to make meditating a regular practice.

The Dark Side of Tracking

Tracking can have a positive effect in achieving your goals, although negative consequences can occur– when tracking becomes too much.

Recently, a friend showed me his habit tracker and all of the activities he regularly completes – getting up early, stretching, doing push-ups/plank every morning. He proudly revealed his meditation app indicating 107 days in a row! I was impressed.

He went on to tell me a story about how on Day 79, after meditating on the plane, his streak reset to zero due to a time zone change. Understandably, he became upset and ended up contacting the app to update his streak.

This is where I realized the negative side effects of tracking. When crossing off your task becomes more important than the benefits of the activity, you might want to stop and re-evaluate.

If you find yourself falling down this path, miss a day on purpose.

The point of creating a habit isn’t to create the winning streak of the century! It’s to benefit from creating a long-term habit by using tracking to assist you. Be aware if your competitive nature might be getting the best of you.

There are many more apps you can use, find one that works best for you. Or you can play it old school and keep track of your activities via pen & paper or on a calendar. However, an app provides better accessibility, and you can even set daily reminders!

Habit Challenge

If you have doubts about tracking, just try it – what do you have to lose?

Identify a few specific habits, that contribute to your performance at work and well-being. Spend a week tracking how many times you go to the gym, what you eat or how often you perform a bad or good habit. If you forget or miss a day, let it go, and pick it up the next day. Create consistency and avoid missing twice in a row.

If you take on too much it’ll be difficult to do it over the long term, so start slow.

Determine your WHY by asking yourself what is motivating you to improve this area of your life? Use this as a reminder during times of struggle or distress. Understanding why you are doing something will help you stay motivated to make the activity a habit.

Take action today and pick one specific habit or daily action that you already do or want to start and begin tracking it regularly. Post your commitment in the comments below and I’ll follow up to hold you accountable 🙂

The Human Skills of Leaders

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In leading a team, being an efficient and strong communicator is not the only thing that matters. Your overall behaviour plays a big role. Getting to know yourself and further developing your human skills as a leader can have a great impact on your team’s performance as well as your own.

Indeed, Assistant Vice President of Continuing Studies at York University Tracey Taylor-O’Reilly says that “While technical skills may get workers hired, it’s their human skills that will allow them to excel in the workplace”.

Self-awareness and empathy often top the list of the most in-demand human skills in the workplace – along with curiosity, communication, and decision-making, which are directly correlated.

Self-Awareness for Better Performance

How we behave as professionals is no different than how we behave as individuals. We may be able to adapt but who we are transpires in everything that we do and influences our behaviours and our relationships at work.

However, society has placed the focus on assessing performance first. Growing up, schools hand out report cards and the process continues throughout our professional career with performance reviews.

But such processes have been developed to measure our knowledge and actions and fail to analyze the root causes of our performance. They don’t take into consideration the beliefs, the emotions and the behaviours that we are made of.

The reality is that practising introspection and self-awareness gives us the opportunity to truly perform to the best of our ability. In fact, it has been demonstrated that there are significant correlations between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. If emotional intelligence is such an essential human skill to have in the workplace, it’s that it allows us to identify our limiting beliefs and to manage and adapt our behaviour so it doesn’t affect our performance and our relationships with others.

We rarely stop to reflect upon ourselves and on how our actions might affect others.

What makes us cringe at a colleague might be appreciated by others. What aims to express respect can sometimes be perceived as disrespect. But beyond knowing what you dislike in others and recognizing that no one is perfect, it may be worth asking yourself a few questions to assess the situation.

  • What are the behaviours that characterize you?
  • What types of behaviours can’t you stand in others?
  • Do you have a routine and what does it look like?
  • Do you go with the flow and rarely plan ahead of time?
  • Do you ever experience anxiety and when does it show up?
  • What sort of feedback have you gathered from others about yourself?
  • What sort of leader and communicator are you?

The answers to such questions can help you identify how you show up for others, what are the superpowers you need to leverage and which areas require improvement.

Don’t limit yourself to the workplace. Source examples from your private life as well.

The Role of Empathy

Self-awareness and empathy go hand in hand when it comes to the human skills of which the best leaders are made of.

In a recent blog post on self-awareness, I wrote that empathy is “a mindset and a comprehensive approach to being – in the workplace and in life”, and that it is “what gives us the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes so we can see and feel from their perspective”.

A high-performing team is one where resistance is at its lowest and trust is at its highest. Without trust, there is no collaborative mindset and no commitment to the team nor the company. And without empathy, there is no trust.

Empathy can be expressed by demonstrating interest, showing appreciation, practising active listening and asking questions. Empathy is about gaining context about where others are coming from, questioning our own beliefs and biases, avoiding criticism and being fully present.

When there is empathy exhibited by leaders and peers in the workplace, trust can automatically follow. This lends itself to a ‘safe to fail’ work environment that we’re all striving for.

At Intuity, we support leaders wanting to adopt trust-based leadership and improve their human skills in different ways.

We often start by working with organizations to understand their team dynamics. Showing our curiosity, we lean into questions like: What kind of leader are you and how do you show up with your team? What type of individuals are part of your team and how do they interact?

This can be done through observation, interviews, as well as our DISC, 360 Leader, Emotional Intelligence-Q, and other assessments and reports.

Coaching is also a great resource to increase self-awareness and help you find the answers within yourself.

Lastly, our Showing Leadership Blueprint Training is a full-day virtual group training that helps teams assess their individual and joint behaviours and how they influence team dynamics and performance.

Want to find out more? Contact us!

Leading Staff Through Change

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The global pandemic has brought forward major change to the way we work but teams need to prepare themselves for additional iterations of what work looks like in this day and age since organizations are bound to evolve if they want to prosper. Leading staff through change and giving them the tools to perform to the best of their ability is therefore imperative.

Innovation as a Centrepiece

Change can be traumatic even when we know about it ahead of time. But having to deal with something new without any notice is stressful – for management and staff alike.

This being said, change is not always bad.

As a leader, you must learn to welcome change yourself, and to encourage a similar mindset within your team.

In fact, according to the McKinsey Global Survey, companies are more than five times more likely to have a successful transformation when leaders have role-modeled the behavior changes they are asking of their employees.

Lead the change, don’t let it lead you. In other words, place change and innovation at the centre of your organization. Encourage yourself and others to question the status quo, to be creative and to think outside of the box.

This is a great way to tackle the beast and to nurture positive conversations on the topic. When innovation is part of everything that we do, when we are constantly challenged to change our perspectives, we are better prepared to welcome change, even when it is unforeseen or negative.

Obviously, the time will come when change will happen whether you like it or not. But leading your organization as if change could happen any day will make it better prepared for the real challenges ahead.

The Role of Empowerment

Organizations that encourage staff empowerment perceive risk-taking and mistakes as opportunities for employees and employers alike to learn and to grow.

The trust you display by handing over the reins to your team allows for innovation to emerge and encourages workers to experiment and to share new ideas – making them feel more at ease with change and therefore more inspired and more satisfied in their job.

Leading staff through change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long process that constantly needs to be tweaked, refined and reinforced.

Empowering your team slowly but surely is one thing you can do to set it up for success before change hits.

1. Encourage personal growth

Act as a mentor to your team or implement a mentorship program. Provide professional development opportunities inside and outside of the office. If you cannot pay for them, be at least flexible towards your staff’ work schedule so they can attend classes, and make your commitment to personal growth known within the organization.

Identifying potential within staff and offering them early leadership experiences is also the way to go.

Whether it’s from a hard skills or human skills perspective, providing skilling opportunities to your talents will not only improve their satisfaction and retention but also make them more rounded individuals capable of taking on new challenges to support the organization in the future.

2. Leverage your team’ strengths

Indeed, we all have something new to learn. But it’s also important to be cognisant of people’s personalities, strengths and weaknesses. In the wrong job, the most talented and dedicated individual can become miserable and underperforming. Place people where they have the most potential to thrive.

3. Encourage time off

Observe your team. Take note of their time off. Whenever you see someone in need of a vacation or even just someone who hasn’t taken some time off in a while, encourage them to do so. Disconnecting from work and resting can do miracles for performance.

4. Show appreciation

As obvious as it may sound, leaders don’t express their appreciation often enough . Even when something may seem trivial, take time to thank your staff and to express how grateful you are for them, even if it’s just by stopping by their desk or sending them a heartfelt email. We all need a tap in the back every now and then.

5. Learn to forgive

We’ve said a lot about the importance of creative thinking to develop an innovative and ‘ready-for-change’ workforce. But not all ideas are brilliant. When an individual fails, practise forgiveness. Employees cannot thrive when afraid of being reprimanded. Use failures as opportunities to learn and to grow.

Need help?

Intuity Performance can support you in leading staff through change. We offer educational, training and coaching solutions on individual and team performance and can also create effective systems that are personalized to your specific organizational needs, in collaboration with your HR team in place.

Intuity Performance applies a Whole Person Performance approach to cultivate an environment for growth within organizations. Contact us to find out more.

The Future of Work – Towards a More Human-Centric Model

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Throughout history, the face of work has gone through several iterations, from an agrarian economy relying heavily on manual labour in which the wealthiest didn’t take part, to the mainstream knowledge economy as we know it today, relying on computerization, automation and intellectual capital rather than production.

The future of work is now

While the pandemic has accentuated this trend and made certain skills appear irrelevant moving forward, it has also demonstrated the flaws associated with a technology-driven economy and therefore highlighted the need and accelerated the implementation of a human-based economy and of a human-centric workplace.

Welcome to the future of work – a world where know-how takes a step back and human skills are no longer an asset but a definite must for workers and organizations, acting as a counterbalance to the overpowering technology.

In this bizarre era, human skills can no longer be ignored by organizations when it comes to positioning themselves as trustful and successful employers, partners, brands and leaders.

In the future of work, human skills allow organizations to:

  • Show their true colors and express their individuality
  • Retain and attract talent
  • Build a culture that people want to be a part of
  • Get management to lead more intentionally and more efficiently
  • Engage workers and make them feel listened to
  • Benefit from enhanced individual and team performance
  • Model diversity and inclusion authentically
  • Make their technology more impactful and relatable
  • Make a hybrid or remote work environment more efficient

Human skills are what make us adaptable, well-rounded individuals leading adaptable, well-rounded organizations ready to face this ever-evolving workplace and economy.

In short, human skills are the catalyst of a successful organization. Even business schools are trying to incorporate them in their curriculum.

Ok. But what are human skills exactly?

Human skills, soft skills, interpersonal skills. These are all synonymous.

Human skills and soft skills are HR concepts that refer to personality and behavioral traits and a certain set of transferable skills that focus on people and their capacity to interact with one another, solve problems and manage situations. To the contrary of ‘hard’ skills or technical skills, soft skills are inherent to a person. This is not to say that you are necessarily born with them. Such skills can be learned through experience and can be improved over time when cultivated.

Amongst them, we find communication, trust, empathy, adaptation, curiosity, resilience, leadership and flexibility.

Communication

Being a good communicator and creating a culture of communication is not an easy task and involves different things: concision, clarity, intention, honesty, collaboration, active listening, enthusiasm and leadership. When done well, it can achieve miracles for organizations.

Empathy

Empathy is what makes us relatable. It’s about being able to see the world through someone’s eyes, to authentically put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to say ‘I know how you’re feeling’. It’s showing that we are human after all, no matter our role or our position.

Trust

Entrusting others and demonstrating that sense of trust through delegation, collaboration and empowerment is a requirement to avoid frustration and conflict and generate cohesion and adherence.

Flexibility and adaptation

Being able to remain flexible and adapt is one of the most precious qualities one can have in this ever-changing landscape. It sends a positive message to those around while making things easier for ourselves.

Curiosity

Keeping an open-mind and facing challenges as they arise is much easier to achieve when training and stimulating our brain regularly. Forcing ourselves to ask questions, to learn and to read is a good way to generate a fresh perspective on things and to deal with uncertainty.

Resilience

Our resilience is best tested when faced with adversity. It is our capacity to deal with situations, to confront challenges, to look for solutions and to start all over the next time an issue arises. Failing to do this can result in being perceived as inadequate.

Leadership

Leadership is not reserved to management. Everyone has the capacity to demonstrate leadership. It’s about taking one’s place, sharing ideas, collaborating, being able to respectfully state a position and allowing others to take their place.

Not to say that ‘hard’ skills are no longer relevant. But as workers are being replaced by computers, it is clear that learning to be is becoming more important than learning to do. Machines may have an edge over us in terms of savoir-faire. But our very nature as humans still gives us a competitive advantage.

As Manish Bahl of the Center for the Future of Work puts it: “your skills + social and cultural context = hard-to-automate skill”.

More so, Forbes contributor Charles Tower-Clark tells us that “while automation and digitization may displace around 85 million jobs by 2025, around 97 million new roles may emerge that are better adapted to the new division of labor between humans, machines, and algorithms”.

Indeed, there are a lot of synergies for machines and humans to work together. When we look at it that way, it becomes obvious why working on improving those complementary soft skills is so important.

Ultimately, this is what will lead to more compassionate and better performing workplaces.

Through workplace training, coaching and human resource solutions, Intuity Performance applies a Whole Person Performance approach to cultivate an environment for growth within organizations.

Contact us to find out how we can help you take on the future of work.

Fostering Community

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At Intuity Performance, we believe in people, community and understand the importance of giving back. Each year Intuity Performance evaluates synergies and selects a charity to partner with, this year we are thrilled to have partnered with Family SOS.

Intuity Performance is the partner that elevates individuals, teams and cultivates an environment for growth through Whole Person Performance. Similarly, Family SOS is a Halifax-based, non-profit, child-centered organization directed toward building strong and healthy families.

Family SOS serves our community by:

  • Increasing parenting confidence
  • Developing relationships within families
  • Fostering self-awareness
  • Improving confidence in children and youth
  • Encouraging prosocial choices
  • Strengthening communication within families
  • Improving health and well-being
  • Empowering self-sustainability

com·mu·ni·ty

/kəˈmyo͞onədē/

noun

  • a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.
  • A feeling of fellowship with others due to sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Definitions from Oxford Languages

Feeling comradery, “sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals,” translates whether you are an entrepreneur or a family struggling with a problem. A robust community is powerful – together, people can achieve and build amazing things. We are better together.

In our efforts to give back we have created Intuity Branded shirts that will be available for sale. All proceeds will go to support Family SOS and the programs they provide to local families.

If you would like to help support Family SOS, you can purchase an Intuity T-shirt here.

Can Workplace Culture Evolve Through Leadership?

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I’ve interviewed over 80 CEOs in the past 12 months, and often we get on the topic of company culture. I get excited each time. When we ask CEOs to define culture, the range of responses varies with every company, AND many leaders are not aware of what culture means to them specifically.

Some responses include:

  • Teams create culture as a company grows.
  • Culture changes based on values, beliefs and assumptions of the organization’s values, ideas, and assumptions.
  • Culture is built around the goals and objectives of the organization.

The odd time, we get a candid answer – “I don’t know- but we need to figure it out!”

Culture Defined

So what is culture, and why does it matter in the workplace?

Workplace culture is not tangible. The term is thrown around all the time, but it’s not something that you can point to and say, “That’s culture.” Yet, it holds immense value because it is essential to tie together every aspect of your business.

Workplace culture is the beliefs, behaviors, and values shared by employees within an organization. Whether good or bad, working in an organizational culture can significantly affect how people grow professionally and personally.

Based on my experience, I have learned three essential things that contribute to culture shaping which companies can apply to get desired results.

  • Self-awareness allows you to see others more clearly by understanding how beliefs, behaviors, and values shape performance.
  • Curiosity – what drives and motivates the human side of teams
  • Judgment – Ensuring there is enough information to see people without bias.

Here’s what we know about culture:

  • We go after what’s easy – changing company artifacts, behaviors, and metrics is more straightforward.
  • Writing can easily change company artifacts, behaviors, and metrics.
  • Influencing changes in behaviors and metrics can be easily agreed upon by teams.
  • Beliefs, values (our real ones, not those on an internal billboard), and assumptions are much harder to change.

Blind Spots

Organizations can write down and discuss their intentions, but here’s where the realism comes into play. If our beliefs, values, and assumptions aren’t aligned, we do not have an effective organizational culture – despite the matched RRSP and monthly gift cards.

Culture touches on everything – mountains of data tell us that organizational culture hits on performance, decision-making, atmosphere, team approach, structures and even how we communicate.

Regardless of the debate, culture is from the top-down and the bottom up. The profound thing that screams out to me is that culture isn’t as intentional as it should be. I haven’t done the research, but it certainly leans into self-awareness and EI-Q.

It’s something that is moving and growing daily. That demands our attention, especially now in this hybrid working world with new and undiscovered pressures.

We are human first – To answer the questions around “Can culture change with leadership?”. In short, YES! By becoming self-aware and tapping into the human side of organizations, leaders can capitalize on the human (soft) skills that drive performance, decision-making, atmosphere, team approach, and communication in order to drive performance and foster an intentional and effective workplace culture.

3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

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What is Intentional Leadership?

Good leaders care about the people they lead. They make sure their teams are clear on goals and objectives and that they are empowered and aligned with the organization’s overall direction.

Intentional leadership is effective in the workplace because it empowers teams with the knowledge and tools they need to meet objectives. When everybody is confident in their role and understands their contribution’s impact on the big picture, it sets leaders and teams up for success.

Why is Intentional Leadership important?

Lack of intention in leadership can cause harm to teams and affect confidence and motivation. Without clear direction, teams can become confused and frustrated, which can negatively impact organizational outcomes.

3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership + Bonus Leadership Self-awareness Checklist(s)

1. Prioritize Personal-development

We’ve all heard the saying: “Leaders are made, not born.” But what does that mean?

Leadership is a skill, not a talent. It’s one thing to have a natural ability to lead, but empowering yourself through continued learning helps leaders guide and inspire others to show up too.

What does it take to be an effective leader? First and foremost, you must be committed to your own personal development. A leader who knows that there is always more to learn and improve upon will be able to help others grow as well.

Personal-development Checklist:

  • Do you know your leadership style?
  • Do you understand the different leadership styles and how they can be adopted for different scenarios?
  • Are you communicating clearly and effectively
  • Are you a self-aware leader?

2. Build Trust

Leading with intention requires leaders to help their teams discover the answers for themselves. Sometimes as a leader, it’s essential to get out of the way – this may seem hard at first!

You might be worried about losing control over what happens next, but this is where leading with intention comes in: Instead of telling your team what to do, ask them what they think is the best course of action. Encourage them to come up with their own solutions. Don’t make decisions for them—instead, guide them to figure it out independently.

It takes practice to let go of your ideas and suggestions. But when it works, it’s beautiful. Teams feel empowered, which motivates and builds trust because they can see their contributions are valued.

Fostering Trust Checklist:

  • Acknowledging your shortcomings (I’m human too)
  • Having your team’s back
  • Proving space for your team to be heard
  • Being proactive vs. reactive
  • Leaving ego at the door when communicating/collaborating
  • Leading with empathy over judgment

3. Engage and Show Interest

Good leaders know the value of taking an interest in their teams.

Team connection is about more than status reports and delegation. Taking an interest in your team members individually helps you understand their talents, motivations, and goals and can build respect between you and them. Respect is a huge motivator for both parties and can be huge for productivity!

This is especially true for employees who are not just seeking a salary but also fulfillment and job satisfaction.

Fostering Engagement Checklist:

  • Understanding the needs of your team
  • Asking questions/staying curious
  • Carving out time for routine check-in’s with team members
  • Identify/acknowledging your team members working styles
    • Who likes to work fast and requires communication that is direct?
    • Who is more methodical and needs time to understand and plan before starting a task.

On the surface intentional leadership seems simple: It’s creating a plan and effectively communicating it to a team of people to execute. However from the leadership lens intentional leadership is much more nuanced than that. It’s actually a layering of hard and soft skills that require training and development, and well…the intention to do so.

Are you interested in developing your skills to become an intentional/human-centric leader? Check out our Whole Person Leadership Cohort info page to learn more.

Leadership Burnout: Common Symptoms and How to Turn it Around

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What is burnout?

We’ve all been there, feeling mentally or physically exhausted, but what is burnout really? Most of the time, burnout comes from taking on too much at once, like an overwhelming workload. But it can also come from neglecting your self-care (i.e. how much sleep did you get last night?) and being isolated from friends, family and colleagues (remember early pandemic days). Burnout can be tough whether you’re a leader, manager or individual contributor.

If you’re starting to feel run down in life and at work, it’s time for some self-reflection. Slowing down and thinking about what’s bogging you down is the first step toward feeling better. If you aren’t sure if you are experiencing burnout, here are some common symptoms that arise:

Symptoms of Burnout

  • Detachment from colleagues, company engagement opportunities, friends and family
  • Not communicating feelings of failure and self-doubt
  • Loss of motivation leads to increased procrastination and absenteeism.
  • Exhibiting anger or lack of patience towards employees, friends, or family.
  • Showing signs of reduced efficiency.

Life is busy, and it can be so easy to get wrapped up in our daily responsibilities, but I’m sure we have all heard the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup’ – this statement couldn’t be more accurate. If you’re feeling burnt out, it can be hard to take action because it can feel like ANOTHER thing to think about on top of your already huge pile, but it’s better to face burnout head-on to find your way back to your best self.

Here are some things to consider when trying to overcome burnout:

How to Overcome Burnout

Practice self-awareness – becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings, and environment and understanding how you react to things can help you step back and allow for space to make more precise, better-informed decisions.

Find your purpose – leaning into what lights you up can lend to your well-being; when we feel like what we do matters, it helps us focus and fulfill objectives.

Practice well-being – most people focus a lot on their careers, but the truth is there is a lot that goes into ensuring we as people are functioning in our optimal state. It’s essential to take the time to get movement into your day, eat nutritious food and get optimal sleep. We can’t expect to show up as our best selves at work if we aren’t taking care of ourselves in the other areas of our lives.

Learn to Prioritize – there isn’t a person on earth who knows and can do everything, so practicing resilience is essential.

  • Break large tasks down into smaller, more manageable parts and assess if items can be delegate
  • Learn to prioritize tasks in order of importance or impact
  • Aim for consistent, not perfect
  • Focus on personal development, and learn new skills that foster growth and improve work-flow.

As individuals, we all experience natural ups and downs in our energy levels. However, incorporating conscious choices into your daily routine can significantly impact your motivation, engagement, creativity, and productivity. By proactively managing your physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual well-being, you can create a healthy balance that allows you to perform at your best.

By exhibiting a healthy work-life balance as a leader, you can foster a workplace culture prioritizing mental health and well-being, leading to increased engagement, better productivity, and higher job satisfaction

Take a step back and prioritize your well-being so that you can lead your team to do the same.

How can I set clear objectives and expectations for my team?

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As a leader, you may often find yourself frustrated by the gap between your expectations and the reality of what your team delivers. Despite your best efforts to communicate clearly, there seems to be a constant need for ‘tweaking’ or ‘amending’ the mark. But fear not, for there is a solution! By learning to set clear expectations and drive effective and open conversations, you can bridge this gap and steer your team in the right direction from the get-go.

What’s In It For Me?

Mastering clear expectations offers leaders a multitude of benefits. It enhances team performance, fosters improved communication, and establishes a framework for accountability. By showcasing leadership capabilities, leaders inspire trust and respect, driving individual and team success. Ultimately, this contributes to organizational growth and sustainability.

What Challenges Might Come Up?

Navigating and setting clear expectations can sometimes feel like a jigsaw puzzle for leaders. You know the feeling when you think you’ve clearly laid out your expectations, only to find out there’s been some miscommunication along the way? It happens more often than we’d like, leading to a lot of head-scratching moments. Then there’s the challenge of communication barriers – whether it’s the wrong platform or differing communication styles, it can throw a wrench in things. And let’s not forget about those assumptions we sometimes make about our team members – thinking they’re on the same page when, in reality, they’re not quite there yet. And just when you think you’ve got it all figured out wham! Priorities shift, or some unexpected curveball comes your way, shaking up your plans. That’s why it’s crucial to keep those lines of communication open, truly understand your team dynamics, and continuously tweak those expectations to ensure everyone’s on the same page and moving toward collective goals.

How Do I Do This?

Crafting Clear Conversations to Support Expectations: Crafting clear conversations to support expectations can be achieved through proactive communication strategies. This involves organizing structured team meetings dedicated to defining goals and responsibilities collaboratively, ensuring every member has a voice and feels ownership over the expectations set. Clarifying roles and responsibilities during these discussions is crucial, as it promotes understanding and accountability among team members. Additionally, documenting these expectations in written form and distributing them to the team provides a tangible reference point for clarity and helps mitigate potential misunderstandings. Overall, fostering open and transparent communication channels within the team facilitates the alignment of expectations and enhances overall team performance. Feedback and

Follow-Up: Achieving effective feedback and follow-up involves establishing structured processes for gathering and delivering feedback within the team. This includes scheduling regular check-ins or meetings where team members can provide input on progress and address any concerns or challenges. Additionally, it’s essential to create a supportive environment where feedback is constructive and focused on improvement rather than criticism. Following up on feedback by implementing actionable steps and monitoring progress ensures that issues are addressed promptly and expectations are met. Consistent communication and accountability are key in this process, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and ensuring that the team remains aligned with its goals.

Empower Your Leadership Journey: Empowering your leadership journey involves embracing self-awareness and actively seeking opportunities for growth and development. It requires setting clear goals and objectives for personal and professional advancement, as well as seeking feedback from mentors, peers, and team members to gain insights and refine your leadership skills. Additionally, fostering a growth mindset and being open to learning from both successes and failures is crucial. Empowering leadership also involves delegating tasks effectively, trusting team members to take on responsibilities, and providing support and guidance when needed. By continuously refining your leadership capabilities and embracing opportunities for growth, you can empower yourself to lead more effectively while inspiring others within their organization.