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#Leadership : This Is How To Turn Procrastination Into A #Management Technique…Sometimes the Best Thing you can Do is Not Answer your #TeamMembers’ Questions Right Away.

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You’ve just been promoted to a supervisory role, and you reallydon’t want to be the absentee boss who inspires articles like this one. So you make a concerted effort to be attentive and responsive–answering questions whenever your employees ask, and making yourself available whenever they need you. So much so that some days, you feel like you barely have any time to get your work done.

But it’s just part of being a manager, right? ……..Well, yes and no.

It is important to train your direct reports on the skills they need to do their jobs well–because if they excel, that’s going to reflect well on you. However, sometimes that training involves knowing when to put off their requests. Yes, you heard right: There are times when procrastinating can actually be a powerful management strategy. Here’s when and why.

Related: The Five Hidden Benefits Of Procrastination

YOU TEACH YOUR EMPLOYEES TO BE RESOURCEFUL

Think of a time when you desperately needed an answer to a question, but there was no one to ask. What did you do? You probably tried to find the answer yourself–whether it’s typing questions into Google, Slacking a coworker, or searching the company’s server because you know those files are in there somewhere.

So if your direct report comes to you for help, consider procrastinating. Push the request off a few hours. If someone approaches you in the morning, tell them you’ll get back with them to help first thing in the afternoon if they haven’t figured it out by then. Similarly, punt afternoon requests to the next morning.

As a manager, putting off certain requests–at least for a little while–prevents you from becoming a one-stop-shop for your direct reports. That way, they’ll learn to search for things themselves before coming to you. Over time, many of the issues, questions, and requests they approach you with initially will begin to evaporate. Everybody wins: You get some time back, and your team members learn to solve more problems on their own.

And when they do come to you with a question, you can be confident that they’ve attempted to find the answer themselves–and you’re more likely to have a productive discussion about the issue.

Related: Why Trying To Be A People Pleaser Makes You A Bad Boss 

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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YOU HELP YOUR TEAM MEMBERS BECOME BETTER LEADERS

More importantly, when you don’t leap to help with requests immediately, you’re teaching a lesson about leadership that your direct reports wouldn’t otherwise learn. Some day, some of your team members will be sitting in your position fielding the requests that you’re fielding.

By encouraging them to solve problems on their own beforecoming to you, you’re developing them into more efficient, high-value workers and reinforcing the fact that you have your own priorities (which they should respect). Likewise, they’ll learn that it’s perfectly acceptable to prioritize their own work as long as they help out their teammates in a timely fashion.

Related: Five Questions You Should Ask Before Accepting A Management Position

When you push back a request a few hours, encourage the person who’s made it to keep working and not use your delay as an excuse to put the task aside.

Of course, sometimes the person making the request has exhausted every option, and they’re coming to you because they’re at their wits’ end on how to proceed. When their words or body language tell you this, go ahead and help. It really is okay to drop everything and help every now and again–just not all the time.

FastCompany.com | January 29, 2018 |  BY ART MARKMAN 2 MINUTE READ

#Leadership : A Simple but Ruthless Exercise Reveals who your #StarEmployees Are & Who Should be #Fired … A #Strategy you Might Call the “Six-Month Exercise”. You Should Do it Regularly & Here’s How it Works

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  • Patty McCord is the former chief talent officer at Netflix. She now runs her own consulting business.
  • In her new book, “Powerful,” McCord says managers should always consider whether the team they have now is the team they’ll need in six months.
  • If not, they should let go of the employees who don’t have the requisite skills and knowledge.

Being a manager requires practicality bordering on ruthlessness — at least according to Patty McCord.

McCord was the chief talent officer at Netflix from 1998 to 2012; she and Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings created the company’s infamous culture deck. Now she runs her own consulting business.

McCord has just published a book titled “Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility,” in which she distills the lessons she learned at Netflix and as a consultant into insights any manager can use.

One of the most jarring insights is that the team you have now may not be the team you’ll need going forward. And since a manager’s goal is to build the best team possible, you may have to make some tough decisions about which employees to keep on — and which to let go.

 

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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To that end, McCord recommends a strategy you might call the “six-month exercise.” You should do it regularly, she writes. Here’s how it works:

1. “Write down what the team will be accomplishing six months from now that it’s not accomplishing now.” It could be a product they’re building, or money they’re making.

2. “Think about how things are being done differently from the way they are currently done.” Imagine yourself walking around the office — maybe there’s more collaboration, or fewer meetings.

3. Think: “In order for those things to be happening, what would people need to know how to do?” It could be technical knowledge, or negotiating skill.

Now here comes the hard part. Does your current team have the right skills, knowledge, and experience?  If not, you may need to bring in people who do, potentially even replacing some of your current team members.

In an interview with Business Insider, McCord said that companies’ missions should be “hiring the best people to solve the problems that you need to solve in your particular company — and then making sure that those teams are always comprised of those kinds of people.” But — and here’s the kicker — “it’s not always the same people.”

Netflix is clear that it only keeps its most effective employees

Netflix doesn’t appear to have changed its management practices very much since McCord left. In the “culture” section on its website, Netflix makes clear that they “keep only our highly effective people.” The website reads: “Succeeding on a dream team is about being effective, not about working hard. Sustained ‘B’ performance, despite an ‘A’ for effort, gets a respectful generous severance package.”

It’s worth noting here that McCord was let go in 2013. “I am the ultimate product of the culture that I helped create,” she told Business Insider, noting that she’s had a successful career since leaving Netflix and is still in touch with many of her former colleagues.

This isn’t an easy way to manage people — in fact it might seem downright unfair. McCord’s argument in the book is that “you’re building a team, not raising a family.” That is to say, you’re not responsible for your employees’ career development.

McCord told Business Insider that employees should steel themselves against this reality. “You should be wary of expecting a company to take care of your career for you, because that’s not their job. Their job is to take care of their customers and their clients.”

 

Businessinsider.com | January 18, 2018 | Shana Lebowitz

 

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#Leadership : 3 Things Leaders Must Consider For The Sharing Economy…A Constantly Changing Landscape Needs People who are Willing and Able to Constantly Change with It —People who can Adapt Not Only as Individuals, But also as Teams. They Must be Adaptable, Resilient and Curious Enough to Learn So as to Embrace Change Quickly and Continue On.

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With teams on the rise in business today according to research by this article, people must be able to coordinate disparate interests, communicate across silos and do so without the added advantage of a stable team environment. After all, the business environment of today is anything but steady—it’s fast moving, constantly changing and a bit chaotic.

Clockwork

If, for example, you work in a hospital where your team changes every shift, then every time it disbands and re-bands there are new interpersonal dynamics to learn, new skills and competencies, new mindsets and fears that you must re-familiarize yourself with every time.

The problem is, in such fast moving environments, there’s no time to learn about each other’s backstory or practice working together. You must be able to work together before called upon because otherwise the patient (client) suffers.

A constantly changing landscape needs people who are willing and able to constantly change with it —people who can adapt not only as individuals, but also as teams. They must be adaptable, resilient and curious enough to learn so as to embrace change quickly and continue on.

However, it’s not simply up to each and every individual to “get there” but rather organizational leaders to set the right environment for such behaviors to occur. Here are three considerations for doing so:

Knowledge feeds knowledge. When you know more, you more you want to know. In a study conducted by psychologist George Loewenstein, subjects were divided into two groups. In the first group, each participant was placed in front of a computer whose screen was segmented into 50 different squares. Behind each square was a different animal, so every time a participant clicked on a square, a new animal was revealed. After a few clickthroughs the participants stopped clicking because they knew what to expect.

Now, compare this with the second group who faced similar computers with 50 squares on the screen again. Except this time, behind each square was a picture of the same animal. What happened? Every participant clicked through because their curiosity was heightened the more information they received. Information enabledprogress, just as it does for people in your team. That’s why…

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Knowledge is not power. Yes, you read that correctly–knowledge is not power. The old adage that knowledge is power is no longer relevant in a world of interconnectivity and global dispersion . If you’re holding onto information because you think it’ll protect your own interests, think again. Knowledge enables. Knowledge arms. Knowledge feeds knowledge , just as we saw above. It builds the capacity for others to build theirs. Unless you want to be bogged down with information overwhelm anddecision fatigue, you must share what you know with others to:

  1. Avoid duplicated tasks
  2. Maximize time and reduce wasted costs
  3. Stay sane

The increased rate of technology today beckons more subject matter experts to be able to “diagnose” technology, but the global dispersion of information warrants generalists who can assimilate those unique pieces of information and fit them into a larger puzzle. What this means is that people must learn how to team, how to share information and fill each other’s knowledge gaps.

Teaming is a skill. There’s a realization taking place in business today. Companies are realizing that the hierarchy in which they’re structured isn’t how work actually get things done. Instead, work is accomplished through clusters of relationships; through teams of people—it always has and most likely always will. This has profound impacts for competitive advantage because if these clusters aren’t leveraged for their scalability then that means the tacit knowledge held amongst these networks can’t be shared. Relationships are sources of intimate knowledge, which is a challenge for any leader to set a psychologically safe environment for people to share what’s on their minds with the team rather than at the bar, I mean, water cooler.

The ability to team is a learned skill–one that starts by sharing information and trusting each other to share.

Jeff is the author of Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations and former Navy SEAL who helps business teams find clarity.

Forbes.com | September 12, 2016 | Jeff Boss

#Leadership : Accelerate Your Understanding Of Teams With These 3 Facts… What are the Differences between a Group and a Team? Here are Facts you Should know to Accelerate your Understanding of Teams.

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If you don’t think teams are important, you’re living in a bubble . In the interdependent and technological world of today where the increasing pace of change is constant, teams are the lifeblood that drive better (read sustainable) business. Nobody is smarter than everybody, and while people certainly work beside others in the workplace, they rarely work with them. Here’s what I mean.

top view, group of students together at school table working homework and have fun

The difference between a group, where people work beside one another, and a team, where people work with each other, is this: there is no mutual accountability in groups, no shared purpose. Groups are essentially clusters of people with individual agendas who have their own definition of “winning.” There are no shared consequences and no accountability. Teams, on the other hand, depend upon each members’ efforts because they’re aligned toward a common purpose. Teams are guided by shared leadership and share a mutual understanding—and therefore accountability—of team roles, responsibilities, the scope of work to be accomplished and the purpose for which the team exists.

Here are three more fun facts you should know to accelerate your understanding of teams:

Teams adapt to circumstance. Teams are living, breathing organisms that change and morph over time depending on the task at hand. Not every team is—or should be—structured similarly, as the team’s mission will dictate team typology. If, for instance, a deadline is approaching and time is of the essence, then the team leader may assume a more “command and control” type of role where she goes point-to-point with each team member to ensure follow-through and timely delivery. If a team is in transition (i.e. rotating roles, new members) then there may not even be formal leadership as members try to figure out the best fit for 1) the team and 2) each member.

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Team dynamics are everything. What goes unsaid in meetings is oftentimes more important than what is. The challenge for organizational leaders today—and every day for that matter—is observing the social dynamics that fly beneath the radar—not because the leaders themselves are unobservant, but because running a team meeting and focusing on the agenda while also observing the unsaid intricacies of non-verbal communication is too much for the brain to ingest. If you’re running a meeting, for example, you’re focused on tasks and you simply don’t have the mental bandwidth to observe and reflect upon each members’ actions and how they impact the team as a whole. The problem is this: when social dynamics aren’t addressed then questions go unanswered and follow-on hallway conversations become the norm because there was either an unwillingness to address the dynamics in the first place or a lack of awareness to know they even existed.

Teams are valued, but rarely understood. Most companies claim they value teamwork but few really know what great teamwork looks like. If teaming was clear, then there would be more team-based rewards rather than corporate incentives that promote individualism. Here’s an example. While sales teams claim to be a “team” they’re typically incentivized as individuals. Meaning, that bonuses aren’t allocated based on the collective efforts of the team but rather the individual wins of each sales person, which only leads to sales reps encroaching on others’ territories, stealing others’ clients and doing everything they can do to promote themselves because that’s what they’re rewarded for.

If you want to understand how businesses operate, start by understanding the essence of teams.

Jeff is the author of Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations and former Navy SEAL who helps business teams find clarity.

Forbes.com | July 25, 2016 | Jeff Boss

#Leadership : 4 Things You Need To Know About Working With #Teams Today…Not all Teams are Created Equal. So if Working in Teams is as Normal as the Workday Itself then Remember These 4 Points When Working With your Team

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Businesses today are compelled to keep up with the rapid pace of change if they want to survive. If they want to stay competitive, however, they must get ahead of that change curve. Companies—and the people who run them—must adapt to change by finding new ways of working for which there are no blueprints. And they must do so together.

Free- Boat going Nowhere

 

Nothing gets accomplished as effectively or as efficiently as it does through a team. Everything in business today happens through a “team” or group. (I use quotation marks because not all teams are true teams.) It must. The complexity of business challenge is too great for any single individual to think through on one’s own.

However, not all teams are created equal. So if working in teams is as normal as the workday itself then remember these four points when working with your team:

1. The team’s decision is more accurate than your decision. In his book The Wisdom Of Crowds, James Surowiecki explains how team decisions are more accurate than any single decision made by an individual. When there’s confrontation or differences of opinion within a team, members don’t typically ask dissenters to change their opinions. Instead, the team is forced to work through the problem, thereby discovering new solutions previously unforeseen. Strangely, the best way to encourage “smart” team thinking is to promote individualism.

 

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2. Team potential depends upon the leader’s maturity. Teams oftentimes don’t realize their potential because leaders aren’t sure how to do so; they’re unaware of what it means to be a team or how to adapt their leadership style to the situation. Leaders fall into one of two roles within a team. They fill a top-down role where they delegate, instruct and outline rules and boundaries, or, they fill a peer role where they work side-by-side with fellow teammates. This role change requires a mental shift that isn’t easy for leaders and it stunts team development.

3. What’s not said is just as important as what is. The challenge for many teams and the leaders who run them is not just managing the social dynamics, but being aware of them. Running a meeting, for example, demands an enormous amount of focus and attention to the content at hand, and trying to process the emotions exchanged throughout the group is too much for any single person. Agendas fall off topic, egos get in the way, sidebar conversations create new agendas and all of a sudden nothing gets accomplished. What’s needed is a third party to observe these trends and drive the team back to its stated goal; to raise the individual and collective awareness of the team.

4. The message sent isn’t always the message received. The game of telephone that we all failed in kindergarten (it’s OK, I did too) was a simple exercise in communication. You simply listen to the message passed and relay that message to the next person. The reason playing telephone fails is because we inject our own interpretations into the process. That is, we interpret a message based on what we think it should mean and then pass that message as the original. Unfortunately, the same phenomenon occurs in business everyday.

We assume that the message sent over email will be the message received but without precise language, that message falls prey to interpretation which leads to duplicative efforts, excess costs and wasted time. Now, scale this to a team–or a large company–where people are geographically dispersed all over the globe and you understand why organizational chaos exists. Teams require consistent communication and (role) clarity to get ahead. Without clarity, it’s easy for members to play the blame game (“That wasn’t my job”) and without communication, the ball gets dropped.

Teams are everything and they’re everywhere, and the first step to realizing the hidden potential of your team is being aware of the unspoken challenges ahead.

Jeff is an executive coach, author of Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty in Uncertain Situations, Managing The Mental Game and former Navy SEAL.

 

Forbes.com | April 8, 2016 | Jeff Boss

#Leadership : Why We Seem To Be Talking More And Working Less — The Nature Of Work Has Changed….The Real Reason That we Communicate More is Because, Today, we Need to Collaborate More to Be Effective.

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Are communication technologies like Slack, Yammer and Skype actually helping us, or just getting in the way? Certainly, they have made it easier to communicate, share information and collaborate with colleagues, but what if all that extra communication is actually preventing us from getting important work done?

Free- Iphone with Gadgets

In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, Bain & Co. partner Michael Mankins estimates that while a typical executive in the 1970’s might have received 1,000 messages a year, that number has skyrocketed to more than 30,000 today and argues that we may “have reached the point of diminishing returns.”

I think just about everyone can see his point. Today, the amount of meetings, emails and IM’s we receive can seem overwhelming and it’s increasingly hard to find uninterrupted quiet time to focus and concentrate. However, the nature of work has changed. The real reason that we communicate more is because, today, we need to collaborate more to be effective.

 

Today, Machines Do A Lot Of The Work For Us

First, consider how different work was 20 years ago, when Microsoft had just released Windows 95 and few executives regularly used programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We largely communicated by phone and memos typed up by secretaries. Data analysis was something you did with a pencil, paper and a desk calculator.

Now consider how Mankins performed the study he described in the article. He writes, “My colleagues at Bain and I have studied these effects using people analytics and data mining tools.” It’s safe to assume that all that data was collected and analyzed electronically and shared instantly with the press of a button.

It’s also safe to assume that he and his colleagues spent quite a bit of time discussing what the results of all that analysis meant. 20 years ago, they would have had to set up a meeting or a phone call when they were all free, but today, they can toss around ideas between meetings, in airport lounges or even while waiting for an elevator.

As Mankins himself wrote in an earlier article, “Today, an algorithm can assemble many more facts about the accounts than any human being could easily process.” The truth is that we’re increasingly collaborating with machines to get cognitive work done and so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re taking more time to discuss that work with each other.

 

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Problems Are Becoming Much More Complex

Another thing to take into account is that the work we do today is far more complex. Would Mankins have even undertaken his study without the “people analytics and data mining tools” made available to him today? Possibly, but it would have been significantly more onerous.

It’s also important to note that the trend toward greater communication is not just visible in industry, but in academia as well, where we can assume that researchers have more options to work quietly and without interruption. Yet they are increasingly choosing to work in teams and those teams outperform solo performers.

The journal Nature recently noted that the average scientific paper today has four times as many authors as one did in 1950 and the work they are doing is far more interdisciplinary and done at greater distances than in the past. It’s hard to see how any of that could happen without the improved communication technologies we enjoy today.

Clearly, technology is enabling us to tackle problems we wouldn’t have dreamed of addressing a generation ago. To work on these challenges, we are increasingly collaborating in teams and our work has become more social and less cognitive.

The Value Of Sharing Information

In the past, communication was often just chit chat. Valuable information was locked away in file cabinets and, if we could find it, we would have to make a hard copy in order to share it with anyone else. Yet today, even teenager with a smartphone has more access to information than a highly trained specialist a generation ago.

For a typical executive, the effect has been even greater. The new technologies that make up the Internet of Things collect information automatically from a vast array of sensors embedded in just about anything you can think of. This data, in turn, is analyzed through the use of other technologies, like Hadoop and Spark, to help us make sense of it.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re discussing all of the information we now have access to. We can glean new insights, share them with others and they can reply with insights of their own. The result of this collaboration is often even more collaboration, as we pull people in with a greater diversity of experience and expertise to get their take.

That doesn’t seem like wasted time to me. The truth is that nature of work is changing. The office is no longer a place where we access information—today, we can do that anytime, anyplace—but rather a place where we access people. It’s where we can meet face to face, communicate non-verbally as well as verbally, build stronger working relationships and collaborate more effectively.

Collaboration Is The New Competitive Advantage

To be fair to Mr. Mankins, his greater point—and the subject of much of his other writing—is that we should put more thought into how we adopt and use our newfound communication assets. Surely, we all spend time attending meetings, getting pulled into conference calls, reading and responding to messages that could be used more productively. And that’s frustrating.

However—and this is a crucial point—we don’t know those interactions will be fruitless until we actually have them. Further, while it’s easy to remember the frustration of having our time wasted, it is not much harder to recall times when we have come across a random thread of information that we were able to capitalize on by sharing with colleagues.

It is also those chance encounters that often lead to bigger things, precisely because we are able to share them, get diverse viewpoints and mobilize the efforts of others. Increasingly, we live in a social economy with collaboration at its center. It is no longer just efficiency, but agility and interoperability that makes firms successful.

So, while I take Mankins’ point about the potential for new communication technologies to unproductively monopolize our time, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, the cacophony of the constant barrage of communication can seem distracting at times, but it can also open up new worlds of opportunity. That is, if we are paying attention.

Greg Satell is a US based business consultant and popular speaker. You can find his blog at Digital Tonto and follow him on twitter @DigitalTonto.

Forbes.com | March 6, 2016 | Greg Satell

 

#Leadership : 5 Signs Your Leadership Style Is Too Soft…There’s Huge Pressure on Leaders to Keep Employees Engaged & Inspired & to Create Workplaces that are Fun & Fulfilling. But Sometimes these Initiatives Go too Far & Bottom-Line Business Results Suffer.

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There’s huge pressure on leaders to keep employees engaged and inspired and to create workplaces that are fun and fulfilling. But sometimes these initiatives go too far and bottom-line business results suffer. Leaders turn overly soft and are so focused on making people happy that they forget to help employees be productive and efficient.

Free- Focus on Work

There are four fundamental leadership styles: Diplomat, Pragmatist, Idealist and Steward. Leaders can be effective or ineffective within each of these four styles, but one style in particular is at the greatest risk of being too soft—the Diplomat. (There’s a leadership styles assessment to determine your own style.)

Diplomats prize interpersonal harmony. These leaders are kind, social, and giving, and typically build deep personal bonds with their employees. They’re often known for being able to resolve conflicts peacefully (and for avoiding conflicts in the first place). Working for Diplomats has been described as being more fun and social than working for other types of leaders. Diplomats put less emphasis on challenging their employees, focusing instead on putting their people in positions that leverage their strengths so they can reliably achieve success. And traditional measures of employee satisfaction are often very high for Diplomats.

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Working for a boss with a Diplomat leadership style can be an amazing experience. (Read more about all the leadership styles in my Forbes article“Which Of These 4 Leadership Styles Are You?”) But if any of the Diplomat characteristics sound similar to your leadership style, you want to make sure you don’t go to extremes. Here are five signs that your leadership style has become too yielding…

1. A 5-Minute Conversation Turns Into 50 Minutes

Imagine you give an employee a highly specific bit of constructive feedback (e.g. “this report is too long, shave off 1,000 words”). It’s the kind of feedback that requires no more of a response than “I got it, I’ll fix it now.” Now imagine that even though the feedback conversation should be done within 5 minutes, you find yourself engaged in a lengthy conversation with the employee about why they fell short, how that makes them feel, and why you’re somehow to blame for their mistakes.

Has that ever happened to you? If the answer is yes, that’s a good sign that you’ve become too appeasing. It’s good to encourage dialogue with your employees and it’s great when they feel comfortable sharing. But when employees believe they can talk themselves out of being criticized or held accountable, that’s a problem.

There are times when an employee just needs to say “I’m sorry. I messed up. I’ll fix it immediately.” That’s not indicative of a dictatorial environment; it’s usually just a sign of an efficient and accountable operation. There are some conversations that should be five minutes and done. So when you regularly feel like five-minute conversations are turning into 50-minute therapy sessions, that’s a strong sign that you’ve moved from approachable to acquiescent.

 

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2. Your Meetings Get Off Topic And Take Too Longg

Have you ever been in one of those meetings where a few of the big personalities just dominate the conversation? They talk louder than everyone else, including you. All you hear are their thoughts, their ideas, their yeas and their nays. The quieter employees feel totally shut out from participating. And even when you try to rein them in, they manage to barge right through and keep dominating.

Ideally meetings are value-adding forums where all invitees participate. Isn’t that why you called all those people into the meeting in the first place? Yet, when we struggle to control the loudmouths, when they don’t respect our authority (formal or otherwise), it’s a sign that we’re not being forceful or commanding enough.

Of course people should talk. Intense conversations can signal a healthy team. But there still needs to be someone in the room with enough power to keep the conversation on track, on time and thoroughly professional.

3. You Regularly Mediate Employee Conflicts (Instead Of Employees Solving Issues Themselves)

It’s troubling when a leader is regularly sucked into employee conflicts. In an ideal world, employees would act like adults and resolve conflicts themselves, reserving the boss-as-mediator for only the most serious issues. But when a leader has become too accommodating, employees quickly figure out that they plead their case to the boss and the boss will intervene on their behalf. It’s actually quite similar to the games that our kids play; whether it’s “ma, he’s looking at me funny” or playing one parent off another.

When the leader has a no-nonsense, ‘suck-it-up’ reputation, these manipulations are rare. But when the leader is seen as overly accommodating or appeasing, these games will be a frequent occurrence.

4. You See The Same Problem Multiple Times

There isn’t an organization on the planet that doesn’t have employees who make mistakes. That’s the price of doing business. But when you see employees making the same mistakes again and again, that’s often a sign that they haven’t gotten the message that they need to improve. And that’s often the result of employees believing that their gentle leader won’t really follow through on enforcing consequences.

I’m not suggesting that leaders move to the opposite extreme, where employees are risk-averse and paralyzed by fear of being fired. That’s every bit as damaging. Rather, the effective leader will find the middle ground of mistakes may be inevitable, but we all must strive to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly. Employees need to know if they don’t take their mistakes seriously, and work diligently and earnestly to improve, the consequences will be more than just a leader’s look of disappointment.

5. Employees Aren’t Learning New Things

One of the biggest leadership tests is: are your people learning new things? Because if they’re not, they’re not growing and developing and it’s a likely sign that your leadership style is too soft.

Making sure that people learn really isn’t that difficult. Once a month ask your people “Hey, what’s something you’re better at now than you were last month?” If they don’t have an answer, follow up with questions such as, “What would you like to get better at this next month?” and “What new skills are you going to have to develop this next year to reach your big goals?”

Give your people HARD Goals that challenge them and push them outside of their comfort zone and let them know that you believe they can do it. What’s interesting to think about is when you ask leaders, “What were the most significant goals you’ve ever achieved in your life, were they easy, or were they hard? The answer is always hard. And yet, those same leaders give employees too easy goals that are achievable and realistic and then wonder where the greatness is.

The best goals are not the ones that sit totally within your comfort zone. The best goals activate the brain and get the most neural activity going in a positive way. These are the goals that are 20 to 30 percent outside of your comfort zone, where you can look back on that goal and say, “Honestly, I wasn’t even totally sure I could pull that off. It was a doozy, but I’ll tell you what, I learned a ton.”

Conclusion

As a leader you don’t ever want to stop focusing on inspiring and engaging your employees. But you do want to ensure that all the deep emotional connections you build with your employees and the level of challenge you create translate into exceptional bottom-line results. Pay attention to the warning signs, be engaging but not too accommodating, and you should achieve great success.

Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestselling author, founder of Leadership IQ, aleadership training speaker and creator of the leadership styles assessment.

 

Forbes.com | February 11, 2016 | Mark Murphy