Are You Feeling Less Ambitious?

 You’re used to thinking of yourself as a high achiever, but lately, you haven’t been feeling that usual spark of ambition. Is this wrong? 

Absolutely not! Here are three tactics you can use to make peace with your desire to tone it down—even if that impulse conflicts with your previous vision of yourself. First, adopt a flexible mindset and recognize when it’s time to shift to another strategy. 

This could mean acknowledging that it may be time, after years or decades of grinding hard at work, to reallocate energy toward your health and happiness, family, or hobbies and passions outside of work. Next, understand that there’s no standardized timeline. Your career is a marathon; give yourself the grace to slow down sometimes, take mental breaks, and pace yourself. Finally, figure out what you need in order to grow. 

Moving forward isn’t always a function of getting a raise, making new professional connections, or building your resume. Sometimes it’s a function of changing things up and exposing yourself to new inputs—whether it’s a month-long trip abroad, or a year of stepping back from the grind mentality and focusing on other areas of your life and well-being—that eventually lead to new and different outputs.

10 most admirable leadership traits

 1. Humility - a beginner’s mindset that is open to new ideas and less judgmental.

A mindset free of prejudice. A quiet mind that values actions above words.

2. Honestly - radical transparency with grace and dignity. The ability to give feedback without causing resentment. The ability to admit mistakes quickly and to ask for forgiveness. And a willingness to show vulnerability.

3. Self-awareness - reading the room and balancing one’s contributions to ensure a value exchange that benefits all. Knowing when to speak and when to listen. Knowing that given a choice of being clever or kind, being kind is right choice. It is balancing ambition with value.

4. Sense of humor - do not take yourself too seriously. Show passion and ambition but not at a cost to others. Make people comfortable and at ease. Laugh loudly but welcome humor with open arms. But not at the expense to others. Happy people smile more.

5. Active listening - if you are waiting for a pause, so that you can speak, you are not truly listening. And the most important part of listening is the ability to hear the unsaid. Sometimes the best way to support and help others is to give your undivided attention.

6. Interest in others - be interesting first. The goal is to leave people better than when you found them. Everyone you meet knows more about something than you do. Care more about the people around you.

7. Generosity - the coolest people I know are unselfishly generous with their time and knowledge. Give more than you take. And give without expecting a get. The strongest leaders give more than they take. Takers may end up with more, but givers sleep better at night.

8. Intellectual curiosity - learn to search for the grounded truth. And be willing to change your mind when the facts and the truth contradicts your prior beliefs. The strongest leaders are lifelong students. They are also lifelong teachers.

9. Good manners - be nice and polite to all. This may be life’s biggest hack. Say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ more. Hold doors a bit longer. Do not interrupt people. Do not brag. Do not shout or speak poorly of others. Be a good person, but do not waste time trying to prove it.

10. No sense or entitlement - the world does not owe you a thing. The best people that I know are not chasing compliments or validation. Learn to fight for your happiness and do it with dignity, optimism and grace.

Are You Hard to Work For?

 Nobody wants to be a bad boss. Here are a few questions to help you assess whether you might be hard to work for.

• Are your standards unrealistic? Expecting excellence isn’t a bad thing. But if your standards are too high, you’re setting your team (and yourself) up to fail. Consider whether you have perfectionist habits that frequently impact your team. Ask them for feedback about what they need to do their work effectively—and listen.
• Are you a micromanager? Do you tell your employees exactly how things should be done, leaving no room for creativity or initiative? If so, shift your focus to outcomes. You can provide feedback and guidance along the way, but leave the process and execution to your team. In other words, don’t do the work for them.
• Do you only delegate busywork? Everyone wants to grow, and if you raise the bar and let go of a little control, you will be surprised by how people respond. Use delegation as a tool for development.
• Is your feedback overly negative? Aim for a 6:1 ratio of positive to negative feedback. If you don’t often deliver positive feedback, start by acknowledging your employees’ strengths and successes in a specific and timely way.

Prevent Negativity from Taking Over Your Team

 As a manager, you need to constantly be taking the pulse of your team’s collective emotions—whether they’re frustrated with a new strategic direction, anxious about a leadership transition, or upset because of recent layoffs. How can you prevent these negative emotional dynamics from festering on your team? First, to the extent that you’re able, modify the situation that’s at the source of the negativity, and express to your employees that you recognized their collective emotion and made a change. At the same time, reappraise the underlying situation that’s brought on the negative energy. Can you reframe it in a way that inspires hope and positivity? Next, galvanize your team by returning its focus to a collective goal or priority. Finally, practice “response modulation.” This involves controlling your outward expression of your own emotional experience in order to set the tone for others. Your employees are looking to you as a signal of what they should feel. If you maintain a positive and authentic posture in response to a challenging situation, you can positively influence the group’s collective emotion.

Build Luck into Your Career

 Every success story involves some amount of luck. And contrary to popular belief, serendipity isn’t entirely out of our control. Here are two ways to build luck into your career. First, actively practice “serendipitous networking"—connecting with others for the sake of getting to know them, their perspectives, and their stories. Should you find yourself drawn to their story or experience, dig deeper. Ask them questions about how they discovered their passion, what they’ve learned, and what they like or dislike about their role or industry. Their insights might spur a new sense of motivation or a vision that could lead you to your next career move. Second, look at big changes in your life through a prism of possibility rather than fear. Yes, changes that feel out of our control can be scary but try to see them as opportunities. What can you learn? How can you capitalize on the disruption? It can pay off down the road to go with the flow and trust that new opportunities will arise with time.

Build a Team Culture That Honors Quiet Time

 

Build a Team Culture That Honors Quiet Time

In the run-up to the new year, we’re sharing some of our favorite tips from 2022.Life is noisier and more distracting than ever. As a manager, how can you build a team culture that truly honors quiet time? Start by deliberately talking about it. Begin an open dialogue with your team in which each member has an opportunity to answer the following questions: In what ways do I create noise that negatively impacts others? The best starting point is to have everyone check-in with themselves. Encourage people to question whether any given habit is necessary or if it’s really just an unexamined impulse—a default that needs to be reset. What noisy habits bother me most? This isn’t an opportunity to point fingers but ask people to be honest about what most disrupts their day. How can I help others find the quiet time they need? This is an opportunity for everyone to step up and to commit to group norms such as “no email Fridays” or “no meeting Wednesdays.”

 

How Busy People Can Develop Leadership Skills

by 

• Darja Kragt

December 07, 2022

Shana Novak/Getty Images

Summary.   

Leadership development should be recognized as an ongoing part of professional life. And while dipping in and focusing on it when time allows is great, as we all know, time doesn’t always allow. That doesn’t mean that you can’t develop your skills. All it takes to...

Tweet

Post

Share

Save

Print

Carving out time for learning and development is critical for anyone who wants to improve their leadership competencies and performance outcomes. Yet finding the time for it is hard for many managers. With looming deadlines, daily tasks, and urgent meetings, learning to lead can often take the back burner. But advancing yourself doesn’t have to be excessively time-consuming. In fact, much of it can be done in the course of your daily work.

The latest research says that structured programs should only account for 10% of leadership development. The rest of your development should be spent on experimenting (70%) and self-discovery (20%). But what does that look like? And how do you get started? Here are several evidence-based approaches that work.

Leadership Development

Let’s start with the smallest chunk of time — leadership development. You may already be familiar with platforms to consider doing formal lessons on, but there are two things you need to do before you hit the “play” button on any video.

First, it is important to identify a key leadership area you want to develop. You’re already time-poor, so don’t try to tackle too much at once. Review any data or feedback that you have, such as performance reviews or results of a recent 360 survey. Identify no more than two competencies or skills you want to improve.

Second, set yourself a time limit. Really. I often see leaders making a critical mistake by trying to do too much, too fast. You will get excited, watch an hour’s worth of content in one day, get overwhelmed by too many ideas and tips, and either lose your motivation or try to implement and get discouraged by the lack of results. Instead, remember this is a long-term game. Small actions you do every day will be much more effective in the long term, than short bursts of activity.

Luckily, many online programs are built just this way with short videos, meaning that you only need to invest three to five minutes a day. Find a course that matches a developmental area you have identified. Commit to watching one or two short videos a day. And don’t just watch, make physical or mental notes of key takeaways and ideas for how to implement into your day.

Self-Discovery

Self-discovery should take up 20% of the time you spent on leadership development. Remember that you just spent less than 10 minutes a day on formal learning; we’re looking to spend just a bit more than that on self-discovery. And the good news is that you can do this during your normal day.

Here’s what you’ll need to do: spend time observing other leaders. Find a leader in your organization who demonstrates behaviors aligned with your areas of development. Observe how and what they do. If you have an opportunity, ask them questions about why they did something, but don’t push — we’re often not aware of our behaviors. Again, don’t just watch. Make notes and think about how you can replicate it.

Experimenting

Now the biggest chunk of time — experimenting. Think like a scientist and conduct small experiments to modify your typical behavior. Apply something that you have learned from online courses or by observing other leaders. For example, if you need to have a difficult conversation with a subordinate, try an approach you wouldn’t normally follow. Decide ahead of the meeting what specifically you will do. Try it and observe the results. Even if it fails, you can always fall back on what you already know and move on to the next experiment.

My research shows that experimenting is critical to strengthening your leadership identity or self-perception as a leader. Over time, acting in new ways will become ingrained in your sense of self.

While experimenting is the largest chunk of your development time budget, it’s also integrated into what you are doing each day and so it’s important to find time to record and reflect. Take notes about what you try and how it works. If you don’t already, experiment with a journaling practice to record your thoughts and reflections.

Becoming a Better Leader

Leadership development should be recognized as an ongoing part of professional life. And while dipping in and focusing on it when time allows is great, as we all know, time doesn’t always allow. That doesn’t mean that you can’t develop your skills. All it takes to become a better leader is dedication and a small investment of time.

If this still feels overwhelming, remember this: We mistakenly think that leadership development only occurs in the workplace. However, research suggests that most effective leaders learn all the time and everywhere. Being a parent, a community sports player, or a volunteer — all these roles involve an element of leadership. Think about what you can learn about leadership from these roles, conduct behavioral experiments in these other contexts, and reflect on how the learning applies to your work role. I guarantee it will help to accelerate your development as a leader in key areas you have identified.