Yearly Archive: 2023

It doesn’t matter how smart, capable or intelligent you are. Navigating the challenges and unknowns as a leader requires a basic skill—curiosity. You’ve to be open to the idea of improvement. You have to differentiate between behaviors that push your team to the ground and those that lift them up. A great way to do this is a quarterly self-reflection exercise to take a fresh look at your leadership style.

Leadership / Management

Ask These 10 Questions to Take a Fresh Look at Your Leadership Style

Higher up in the hierarchy you go, the bigger are the problems you need to face. Not only do you need to deal with complexity, what others expect from you goes up as well. It’s also lonely at the top, which means there’s less feedback on how you’re doing and what you can do to improve. This is where most leaders go wrong. Instead of paying attention to their leadership style, they pack their schedules with meetings and run with a long list of things to do.

Positive feedback from your team is essential for your well-being while negative feedback from them is critical to your growth. Learn to handle negative feedback well.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Handle Negative Feedback From Team

When our team appreciates our work or applauds us for a job well done, we feel proud, joy and inspired. Having a team that celebrates our wins and keeps us motivated to do even better is key to happiness and long-lasting work satisfaction. However, to grow in our career, cheer and admiration is not enough. We also need people who can point out our faults, highlight our flaws and help us see our imperfections. Negative feedback, however good it may be for our growth, is hard to accept.

False urgency culture in an organization misleads employees by keeping them super busy, stressed and anxious without doing impactful work or creating any value. Here are the 5 strategies to root out false urgency culture in your organization.

Leadership / Management

How to Combat a Culture of False Urgency at Work

Some leaders ruthlessly prioritize to ensure important work is not compromised at the cost of urgent actions. Other leaders treat every request as a priority and don’t pay attention to how much something deserves their attention. Attaching a heightened sense of urgency to every request makes it difficult for their teams to get any meaningful work done. Jumping from one task to another and being in a constant state of overwhelm and reactivity can drain team energy, increase stress and can even lead to burnout.

Thinking clearly isn’t something you can achieve in a day. Building mastery in it is an iterative process because the things that get in the way of clear thinking never really go away. You only get better at catching errors in your thinking and applying the right strategies to remove brain fog that gets in the way of clear thinking.

Decisions / Leadership

What Gets in the Way of Clear Thinking?

Our thoughts aren’t clear most of the time. Instead of a clear blue sky, they often appear as dark clouds and storms in the sky. While some people are able to look beyond this temporary darkness into the hidden bright blue sky, others get bogged down by it and feel trapped, unable to think and act clearly. Clear thinking is a point of leverage—it helps you make better decisions and avoid deadly mistakes with far-reaching consequences. Many forces—some within our control and others outside it—delude our thinking and judgment.

We all have tremendous hidden potential waiting to be unleashed. Some people utilize their potential to achieve amazing feats while others never realize what they’re capable of as they let their self-limiting beliefs get in the way of their growth.

Leadership / Personal Development

How to Unleash Your Hidden Potential

We all have tremendous potential waiting to be unleashed. Some people utilize their potential to achieve amazing feats while others never realize what they’re capable of as they let their self-limiting beliefs get in the way of their growth. When you consider talent as the only measure of success and don’t give enough credit to effort, attitude and practice, you construct an artificial wall in your mind that limits your visibility and makes you believe you don’t have what it takes to reach the other side. It’s not your natural ability, but your attitude to learning that determines where you end up.

In all our endeavors, success is a desired end state. It brings a moment of exhilaration, joy and pride that’s hard to explain. Failure on the other hand is disappointing, frustrating and can even demotivate some people from trying to reach for their goals. There’s no playbook to success because it’s often a culmination of many different factors—depending on not only what you’re trying to do but also your circumstances, knowledge, experience and luck.

Leadership / Personal Development

6 Factors That Determine Whether You Will Succeed or Fail

In all our endeavors, success is a desired end state. It brings a moment of exhilaration, joy and pride that’s hard to explain. Failure on the other hand is disappointing, frustrating and can even demotivate some people from trying to reach for their goals. There’s no playbook to success because it’s often a culmination of many different factors—depending on not only what you’re trying to do but also your circumstances, knowledge, experience and luck. These 6 critical factors provide a blueprint to success to guide you in your journey towards your goals.

Learning to converse with others is one of the most important skills at work—we all need to learn and improve upon it. It requires conscious effort to hash things out, embrace uncomfortable conversations and desire to listen and learn from others. Use these practices to reduce communication gaps at work.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Reduce Communication Gaps at Work

Communication problems are the source of a lot of misery at work. They lead to expectation mismatch, misalignment, confusion and even friction between people. When communication breaks down, project deadlines are missed, stakeholders lose trust and business suffers. Poor communication makes it hard to get things done and achieve success. Learning to converse with others is one of the most important skills at work—we all need to learn and improve upon it. Reducing communication gaps requires conscious effort to hash things out, embrace uncomfortable conversations and desire to listen and learn from others.

You can’t get employees buy-in by enforcing change. You can’t let them play a guessing game. To lead through change, you have to be on top of your communication game. Here are the 5 strategies that work extremely well to lead effectively through change.

Leadership / Management

How to Lead Through Change

Change is necessary to adapt, innovate and move ahead with the changing times. Organizations that don’t embrace change and stick to the status quo are often left behind. When leading through change, leaders have to face many obstacles, but the biggest bottleneck isn’t the challenges along the way, it’s how change is presented and communicated to employees. There’s too much focus on strategy, execution and operational excellence and too little on ensuring effective communication. Communication which is the key driver of ensuring a smooth transition is mostly an afterthought.

There's a lack of leadership in organizations because managers with great leadership potential often get stuck fulfilling the demands of their role. Managers shouldn’t be promoted and given a leadership title without building essential skills first. Use these 5 strategies to rise from management to leadership.

Leadership / Management

How to Rise From Management to Leadership

The path from management to leadership is often not clear. This makes many managers with great leadership potential get stuck in their jobs. To rise from management to leadership, managers need to commit to practicing a few essential skills. They need to expand their thinking skills, contribute beyond their team and learn to connect ideas from different disciplines and domains. Instead of trying to earn the leadership title, they need to focus on being seen as a leader first.

Disagreeing with people above you is not easy. Fear of reprisal can make you nod in agreement even when you disagree. Holding back on your ideas and opinions keeps you safe, but it also means turning a blind eye to preventable mistakes. Practice courage and confidence to share your viewpoint without letting your fear get in the way.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Disagree With Someone More Powerful Than You

What do you do when you disagree with your manager or someone senior to you? Do you voice your opinion or do you choose to keep quiet? Speaking truth to power is a rare skill. Telling someone above you that they’re wrong requires courage and confidence. Holding your tongue and staying silent or nodding your head in agreement even when you disagree definitely feels safe.

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst.

Communication / Personal Development

Recovering From an Emotional Outburst At Work

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that conflict with your personal values and aspirations.

People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk.This prevents most managers from getting an accurate picture of how others view them, often creating a huge gap between perception and reality.

Management / Personal Development

How To Give Feedback To Your Manager

People refuse to give candid feedback to their managers because they don’t want to put their jobs at risk. This prevents most managers from getting an accurate picture of how others view them, often creating a huge gap between perception and reality. Just like your manager is expected to share constant feedback to help you learn and grow, you also need to contribute to your manager’s growth.

If your employee is unpredictable or inconsistent in their performance or if they are not reaching for their potential, helping them bridge this gap is your responsibility as a manager. Don’t assume there’s something wrong with them or that they simply don’t care. Many factors play a role in determining how people put their talents to use.

Leadership / Management

What To Do If Your Employee Isn’t Reaching Their Full Potential

If your employee is unpredictable or inconsistent in their performance or if they are not reaching for their potential, helping them bridge this gap is your responsibility as a manager. Don’t assume there’s something wrong with them or that they simply don’t care. Many factors play a role in determining how people put their talents to use.

Good sponsors can take you to the next level in your career by identifying where your work might be valuable and signing you up for it.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Find a Sponsor Who Can Advocate For You

To succeed at work, you need someone to advocate for you. Someone with the real power to shape your career by aligning your aspirations with the opportunities you need and making them possible for you. Good sponsors can take you to the next level in your career by identifying where your work might be valuable and signing you up for it. Finding the right sponsor can help accelerate your career.

Pressure is inevitable when you’re trying to do worthwhile work. Reacting to pressure can put you at a disadvantage as you end up making poor choices and terrible decisions. Leading under pressure requires the ability to keep your calm and think with a clear head—being purposeful in the way you behave and act.

Leadership / Productivity

How To Stay Calm and Thrive Under Pressure

How can you bring your best to every situation when dealing with the pressure of high expectations? You know that you can’t screw up when doing something that matters to you or when you really care about the outcome, and yet high pressure situations make many people react poorly and lose their calm. It leads to poor choices, bad decisions and can sometimes even lead to inaction.

We take things personally because it’s easy to do—it’s the default setting hardwired into our brain that gets invoked most of the time without our conscious awareness. Taking things personally evokes a strong negative emotional response—we feel hurt, rejected, insulted, disappointed and let down. Left unhandled, these emotions create a downward spiral of negativity and rumination which takes a toll on our mental health and personal well-being.

Personal Development / Productivity

How Not to Take Things Personally At Work

Human mind which is capable of achieving amazing feats isn’t without its limits. Out of thousands of thoughts that run through our mind every single day, 80% are negative. This tendency to give extra weightage to negativity makes our mind, which is a meaning-making machine, attach meaning to things that don’t even exist. We start taking things personally even when it’s not about us.

Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible. It doesn’t require being noisy or bragging about your knowledge and skills. Just the right intent and a few good practices will do the trick.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Showcase Your Value Without Bragging

There are two types of people at work—those who make a lot of noise and others who actually do the work. Loud ones get the attention and opportunities even though they may not have the skills. Quiet ones keep adding value behind the scenes silently but never get the appreciation and recognition they deserve. Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible.

Spending all your time analyzing while failing to act leads to analysis paralysis. Desire to make the perfect decision turns into indecision. You struggle to reach a conclusion because you keep chasing certainty which does not exist—no one can know with surety if a particular decision is the best or will lead to the desired result.

Decisions / Leadership

How to Stop Analysis Paralysis and Make More Confident Decisions

When making important decisions with possible life altering effects, the uncertainty of the outcome and the fear of stepping into the unknown keeps us locked in an unproductive cycle where the more data we collect and the more we analyze it, the more we overthink our decision. Spending all your time analyzing while failing to act leads to analysis paralysis.

Effective leaders, though rare, are inspirational. They bring people together and enable them to collectively achieve great things together. They put the welfare of the organization and their people above their own self interests.

Leadership / Management

9 Powerful Behaviors of Highly Effective Leaders That Sets Them Apart

What makes some leaders produce excellent work while others barely do a part of their job? When leaders aren’t conscious of their time, let fear guide their decisions, worry about being disliked, and use excuses to delay or put off things that need their time and attention, they fail to do their job. Their behaviors push the organization back instead of lifting it up.

Many people confuse likability with popularity, bias and favoritism. They’re not the same. Likability is not people pleasing or going out of your way to charm others. It isn’t about refusing to take a stand or avoiding actions that might upset others.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Be More Likable At Work

Who would you like on your team or choose to work with—someone who’s highly competent but unpleasant and difficult to work with or someone with decent skills but an amazing attitude? Likability plays a crucial role in your success at work. Because after all, everyone likes to work with people they like. Competence, knowledge and skills are important to get the right opportunities and additional responsibilities at work, but those things alike, likability gives people an additional reason to choose you over others.

When you keep playing safe, you fail to leverage the right opportunities to advance your career. Using risk strategically and managing it well can build credibility, increase your influence and open the doors to bigger and better opportunities. Here's how you can get better at risk taking.

Decisions / Personal Development

How to Get Better at Risk Taking

Some people have the nerve for taking risks. Give them a challenge and they’ll jump right into it. You’ll find these people leading some of the biggest initiatives, driving the most challenging projects, and making bold decisions at work. They’re admired and respected for their ability to step up when everyone else is trying to escape the risk. These people are the change drivers, thought leaders and visionaries who have a knack for solving tough problems, courage to step into the unknown and the skills to handle the uncertainty. But what makes these people such good risk takers?

Becoming a manager may appear like a step up in your role. It definitely comes with a better pay and more responsibilities. But are you ready for it?

Leadership / Management

Am I Ready To Be a Manager?

A big mistake that employees at all levels make is confusing career development with attaining specific positions. Rush to climb the career ladder makes them take on positions which make them miserable because they actually don’t enjoy the role or not having the proper skills to do their job well leads to exhaustion and burnout. Becoming a manager when you’re not ready is the worst of all. Your job is not just about you. You’re now responsible for other human beings. Take a long term perspective. Don’t be short-sighted.

Giving power to circling negative thoughts in your mind refrains you from contributing and sharing your valuable ideas and opinions. Staying silent inhibits you from making meaningful contributions to your team and organization. Being able to speak up in meetings is a very valuable skill. Sharing your perspective or contributing to the discussion even in small ways not only projects confidence, it also builds credibility.

Communication / Personal Development

How to be Bold and Speak Up in Meetings

Are you bold enough to say what you need to say in a meeting or do you feel knots in your stomach and refuse to speak up? Being able to speak up on the spot is a very valuable skill. Sharing your perspective or contributing to the discussion even in small ways not only projects confidence, it also builds credibility. But how do you find the courage to do so when your heart starts racing at the thought of uttering even a few words? How can you say something that can potentially make you appear silly, feel embarrassed or look incompetent?

Make the most of your todo list by turning it from a bunch of meaningless line items to a more meaningful action oriented list.

Personal Development / Productivity

How to Make the Most of Your Todo List

Big or small, it’s impossible to remember everything you need to do. When you don’t actually write things down, it’s hard to prioritize complex, long-term, forward looking tasks over easy, short-term, time wasting activities. Not writing things down has another problem. Keeping track of all the unfinished tasks puts an unnecessary burden on the brain. To make the most of your todo list, you need to turn it from a bunch of meaningless line items to a more meaningful action oriented list.

Building credibility requires earning trust of people who work with you—your colleagues, manager, stakeholders and others. It requires more than just competence and knowledge. Being an expert in your domain or enthusiasm and motivation about your job can only take you so far when you lack credibility with your team and others.

Personal Development / Productivity

How to Build Credibility at Work

What erodes credibility at work and what builds it? Most employees don’t think about credibility consciously which prevents them from taking the right steps to build it. They think that if they keep their heads down and keep doing the good work, someone will take notice and good opportunities will land their way. But workplaces aren’t designed to lift people with good intentions and good skills. Building credibility requires earning trust of people who work with you. It requires more than just competence and knowledge.

As a leader, making your employees comfortable to criticize you isn’t easy. Don’t expect them to walk over to you and give you the feedback unless you take the first few steps in seeking it. Get actionable feedback by following the right practices.

Communication / Leadership

How Leaders Can Get the Actionable Feedback They Need to Grow

Feedback is a crucial part of growth. If you don’t know how you’re doing, it’s impossible to take corrective actions and improve. Many leaders fail at this. They either do not explicitly seek feedback or the way they ask for it only boosts their ego by getting feel-good praise about what they’re doing well without surfacing the actual areas where they’re falling short.

The human brain has this remarkable cognitive capacity to perform at levels far beyond what we consider as our natural abilities, but it’s not without its limits. The cognitive biases that enable the brain to prioritize and process large amounts of information quickly also gets in the way of our productivity. These mental shortcuts are the brain's way to conserve energy and work more efficiently. But they also lead to many thinking errors.

MentalModels / Productivity

4 Cognitive Biases That Impacts Productivity

The human brain has this remarkable cognitive capacity to perform at levels far beyond what we consider as our natural abilities, but it’s not without its limits. The cognitive biases that enable the brain to prioritize and process large amounts of information quickly also gets in the way of our productivity. These mental shortcuts are the brain’s way to conserve energy and work more efficiently. But they also lead to many thinking errors.

For a manager, being effective is not optional, it’s a crucial part of their job. Without effectiveness, more time is spent on inconsequential tasks and less on forward moving activities.

Leadership / Management

6 Micro Habits of Highly Effective Managers

For a manager, being effective is not optional, it’s a crucial part of their job. Without effectiveness more time is spent on inconsequential tasks and less on forward moving activities, effort spent never matches up to the results, opportunities are missed and problems linger on. Effectiveness is nothing but a habit and much like other habits in life, it too can be learned. If you want to be an effective manager, master these 6 micro habits.

Meetings can be extremely stressful unless you know how to run them well. Sharing your ideas and making others lean your way is not easy. The biggest mistake we all make when trying to make our meetings impactful is to place extreme focus on ourselves and the content of the meeting without paying much attention to the process. To create an unforgettable impact during meetings, practice these 4 key strategies.

Communication / Productivity

How to Create an Unforgettable Impact During Meetings

Meetings can be extremely stressful unless you know how to run them well. Sharing your ideas and making others lean your way is not easy. The biggest mistake we all make when trying to make our meetings impactful is to place extreme focus on ourselves and the content of the meeting without paying much attention to the process. To create an unforgettable impact during meetings, practice these 4 key strategies.

To turn your managers into successful leaders, don’t be too involved or too disconnected. Find the sweet spot where you know just enough to coach when needed while giving them the space to explore, work things out on their own and learn from their mistakes. Ask your managers these 5 questions every month.

Leadership / Management

5 Questions to Ask Your Managers Every Month to Help Them Grow as a Leader

When you stop managing individual contributors and start managing other managers, a lot needs to change. Your role is no longer about assigning tasks, meeting deadlines or taking care of your team’s work assignments and other responsibilities. Your managers are now doing the work you used to do yourself. So, how can you let go of the control? How can you trust them to do the job while you’re still responsible for it? Ask these 5 questions to your managers every month.

The difference between high impact contributors and typical contributors isn’t talent, competence or skills. They’re equally capable, have similar potential and the urge to do well. Yet, impact players consistently find ways to add value while others are simply going through the motions.

Personal Development / Productivity

Master These 5 Behaviors to be an Impact Player

What makes some employees rise through challenges, tap into opportunities, find a way to break through and make an impact while others are taken aback by a difficult circumstance and don’t know what to do or how to move forward? The difference between high impact contributors and typical contributors isn’t talent, competence or skills. They’re equally capable, have similar potential and the urge to do well. Yet, impact players consistently find ways to add value while others are simply going through the motions.

Mental health at work should be everyone’s utmost priority. Instead of relying on organizations to offer a perfect work environment that caters to your well-being, stay mentally healthy by looking inward to your own behaviors and actions.

Personal Development / Productivity

4 Shifts in Behavior To Be Mentally Healthy At Work

There are definite benefits of being part of an organization that promotes employee well-being and work towards building a mentally healthy culture, but they’re not enough. What if it’s not the work culture but your own behavior that gets in the way? Most people look outward when it comes to addressing mental health challenges, without paying attention to their own behaviors and actions. Master these 4 behaviors to stay mentally healthy at work.

As important as it is to apply the right strategies to manage your imposter syndrome, equally important is to know what constitutes bad advice. Knowing what isn’t helpful will not only save you time, it will prevent you from applying advice that can amplify your feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt. #impostersyndrome #selfdoubt #limitingbeliefs #growthmindset #successatwork #unconsciousbias #ownyourgreatness #womeninbusiness #badadvice #lifelessons #productivity #mentalhealth

Personal Development / Productivity

Bad Advice for Imposter Syndrome

As important as it is to apply the right strategies to manage your imposter syndrome, equally important is to know what constitutes bad advice. Knowing what isn’t helpful will not only save you time, it will prevent you from applying advice that can amplify your feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt. Don’t settle. Don’t look for shortcuts or quick wins. Don’t go after the fake it till you make it, positive thinking and pushing on through advice.

To be an effective manager create a safe space for employees to voice their opinion, help them build creative thinking skills by leading with questions and strike the right balance between challenging and personally caring for them.

Leadership / Management

Want to be an Effective Manager? Build These 3 Skills

As a manager, you may feel that there are too many things to learn and too little time to put everything into practice. However, working hard to catch up to the demands and expectations of the job will only leave you tired and exhausted. Good management does not require being a superhuman with extraordinary skills. It only requires practicing these 3 important skills.