Actionable strategies and techniques that are easy to understand and apply in real life.
To delegate effectively, managers need to be intentional about the work that only they need to do and create clarity for their team on the rest. They have to learn to invest in those around them by letting go of control. Giving up control can feel hard, but it’s also necessary for growth. It’s the only way to scale for impact in an organization
Most managers discard the notion that they could be toxic due to a flawed assumption about what contributes to toxicity. The standard list of toxic behaviors is well known. What misses attention are the subtle behaviors that also impact employees’ well-being. If you are a manager, open yourself to the idea that your actions might be unintentionally contributing to a toxic work environment
What’s more crucial than not promoting the person who isn’t ready for one? The right kind of communication. Because this is where most managers fail to do their job. As the manager fails to communicate, the employees continue developing a chip on their shoulders with their unfulfilled wishes and desires. It amplifies every time they lose an opportunity to get promoted
Growth mindset in the workplace shows up when hard work, determination and perseverance are valued over talent. Employees who work for growth mindset organizations have far more trust in their company and a greater sense of empowerment. They welcome challenges which makes them more successful learners and better contributors to their organizations. Learn to promote this mindset
Any manager looking to grow into a leader needs to do a self-evaluation of their skills to the demands of the role. It’s only by staying true to yourself, you can embrace the role with openness and curiosity. Developing your leadership style is always going to be a work in progress. There’s no end state. But recognising a few essential traits can get you started and help you identify if you are ready for the leadership position
Are you a bad manager standing in the way of your employee’s true potential? You may believe that you are clearing the path for employees to produce great work. What you may end up doing is standing over their heads thereby preventing them to think clearly. You know what’s worst about the worst boss? They are ignorant of their own ignorance. Learn to recognize signs that lead to bad boss behaviour
Confident humility is the confidence in a leader’s ability to make the right decision while acknowledging that they need others to do it right. It’s knowing what they don’t know and having trust in what they do. It’s having faith in their strengths, while also being aware of their weaknesses. It’s accepting that they don’t have the required knowledge, but enough confidence in their ability to acquire that knowledge
Even with the best of intentions, giving constructive feedback is hard. It isn’t intuitive and most of us aren’t good at it. Even when we dare to do the right thing, we may not do it right. Telling people what they are doing right and wrong is not enough, you need to learn the art of giving constructive criticism and positive feedback to your employees
Leadership isn’t about personal greatness and entitlement, it’s the humility to lead with courage and passion. Leaders who focus on their brilliant mindset spend time and money in enhancing their image, and use people in the company to feed their ego as opposed to leaders with a growth mindset who show drive and enthusiasm to grow their companies
When leaders don’t practice effective listening, they are disconnected from their people and their problems. These leaders fail to recognise that true value is created only when people listen to each other, when they are free to share an opinion and when they feel heard and respected for their views
Learn how communication varies across cultures and how subtle differences in communication patterns can have a tremendous impact on how we understand one another and how we convey and interpret information
Lead with vulnerability. It’s the courage to let your guard down, courage to be seen, courage to accept you don’t know, courage to acknowledge mistakes, disconnect your identity from your ideas, embrace discomfort and the ultimate belief that you are not perfect, you are always work in progress
Do you take time to tell your high performers that you value them and care enough to be invested in their growth? High performers are 400% more productive than an average performer. Losing them robs the organisation of excellence. Nothing will be more valuable than the time spent in helping your excellent performers achieve further excellence
Great leaders aren’t perfect and they are not always right, but they clearly exhibit a set of leadership qualities that makes them stand out. To understand what makes someone a truly great leader, we need to move from a superficial attribution of their characteristics to the underlying behaviours and actions that make up these qualities
Do you base your decision on what’s going to happen in the future or what investments have been made in the past? By not shifting our mental frame from the cost of moving on to the cost of not moving on, sunk cost fallacy causes us to ignore the promise of a better experience in the future by making an attempt to negate a loss in the past
The ability to think big is the first step to break out of our bubble of self imposed limits and channel our energies to explore a bigger and better future. Thinking big doesn’t end with the visualisation of a better future, it’s rather the beginning of commitment to think right every step of the way
Navigating the path to each employee’s success is not trivial and requires a commitment to be patient, dedication to push ahead despite failures and devising unique ways to inspire and bring out the best in every individual. One-on-one meetings is a slow process, but done right it can be your ultimate advantage as a manager
How can we transform from the command and control style to leveraging the power of self-direction that energizes and engages people? Empowering teams by giving up control is not easy. The fear that others are not capable and lack the required amount of clarity to make the best decision interferes with our ability to relinquish control
In a culture where title carries more weight than the desire to do your best work, staying in a position for long is considered a sign of incompetence and promotions are a means to drive authority and exert influence, the classic Peter principle comes into play
Should we agree to disagree or disagree and commit? Agree to disagree stems from a negative mindset of right vs wrong, us vs them and can make us adopt dismissive behaviour and ignore the decision. Disagree and commit divulges the importance of commitment despite our differences
How can we learn to lead with questions and not answers, shift from giving advice to gaining insight, and from knowing to learning through others? Leading with open ended questions develops innovators, deep thinkers and decision-makers who consider not knowing as an opportunity to build new skills
Do you let hierarchy magnify the distance that you have from your people, especially those who do not report to you. How do you learn about the issues that impact people on a day-to-day basis? Skip-level meetings are powerful conversations that can give you access to the personal map every person uses to navigate the organisation
When you are part of a group, do you speak up and voice your opinion or avoid criticism and choose a path of less conflicts. When popularity takes priority over individual responsibility, people develop a tendency to conform to ideas that lead to conservative thinking and make decisions with incomplete and biased information leading to groupthink
Why do strategy and tactics belong together? Strategy without tactics is intent without action while effort spent in planning that does not originate from a specific strategy is keeping busy without clarity on what you are trying to accomplish
As a new manager do you watch out for mistakes? The excitement of the new job along with the commotion of its demands will cause you to make mistakes. Without the mindset to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them, you cannot approach this role with openness and curiosity
Are you leading from fear? As a leader, you may believe that you do not lead from fear, but have you taken time to reconcile reality. Are you willing to let go of your ego and develop leadership skills and qualities that make people want to follow you?
How do you turn a group of strangers into a team which is united by common goals and empowered to succeed? Navigating friction requires understanding different stages of the team development to help the team move across these stages with leadership and guidance
In times of uncertainty when there’s little clarity on how the events will unfold, fear and worry of the unknown can consume us. Risk of business and personal lives in such surreal circumstances can cause feelings of fear, helplessness, anger and stress. Learning to lead through a crisis will require people to step up in their roles and lead others through unsettling and uncertain times
Feedback culture built on the principles of openness and growth can give way to a feedback rich environment where employees feel safe to voice opinions and take charge of their own growth by giving and seeking feedback. The desire to work better and improve together shifts the mindset from one of fear to one of growth.
Engineering management is a discipline, a subjective practice that’s hard to quantify. It requires a mindset shift from doing to enabling others. While there’s no one answer to all the problems an engineering manager faces at the workplace, learning about the basic building blocks can help people improve and find their own management style
Right talent is the most valuable resource and asset of any organisation. As humans continue to be the future of work, creating a structured interview process which is consistent and repeatable is crucial to objectively assess the candidate, provide superior candidate experience and drive results
Leaders who find time to create the right balance of effectiveness and efficiency determine what needs to be done first and then find a way to do it efficiently. They look beyond the bounds of the organisation with the desire for a better future laying down future strategy that leads to growing people and business
Leaders with self awareness and willingness to learn and change can be a powerful force of a successful company or the ones with closed mindedness and sense of superiority reason for its downfall. Recognise, reconcile reality and take charge of your blind spots
How does workplace culture give way to inflexible working environments. Can we provide flexibility in the workplace where trust is the basis of all work and employees feel committed to company’s success and growth
Learn how to turn a powerhouse of cross functional teams to enable effective collaboration and achieve 10x better results through empowerment and open communication
