Tag Archive for: leadership impact

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!

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.