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The Upside of Situational Leadership That Everyone Is Talking About

Leadership differs from management in a very fundamental way. Management doesn’t have to involve inspiring or motivating others. Situational leadership is a specific style of leadership, where your leadership style is dependent on the situation. You could be leading b either delegating, supporting, coaching o directing depending on the team and complexity of the task.  Which essentially makes you practice one or more of the 4 popular leadership styles. The image here is self-explanatory.

Situational Leadership
Situational Leadership

What You Can Do About Situational Leadership Starting in the Next 11 Minutes

Leadership programs are appropriate for supervisors, managers, entrepreneurs and company executives. A leadership development program can help the company leaders in receiving new capabilities. This is a good 10-minute video on Hershey Blanchard situational leadership that you must watch

Now that you’ve understood, it’s vital that you take one of the critical projects that you are heading and see what amongst these leadership team would require at this point in the current situation.

The Number One Question You Must Ask for Situational Leadership

Leadership is more than only a word, it’s the action of leading. It can also cause a company’s demise. Situational leadership or the one size doesn’t fit all method is all about adapting your style to the particular circumstance.

“Knowing all that I know about this team and this project, what is the leadership that is required to help the project move to the next level, project right now?

Leaders help ordinary folks achieve extraordinary outcomes. They should be sent to various countries and allowed to learn that way. Superior leaders identify great talent, give them direction, then escape the manner.

The Hidden Truth About Situational Leadership

Leaders will need to function as a catalyst for change. Thus, a situational leader should have the needed aptitude in order to adjust their actions in order that they may fit with the present situation as a way to assist and meet the requirements of the faculty. Today, the leader with one principal leadership style can’t survive.

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Six Things to Remember While Writing Feedback

Over the two decades in the many leadership roles, giving/writing feedback was one of the most arduous of all jobs — across dozens of roles, organizations, countries, and cultures. If you are a manager or a team leader — you are solely responsible for the feedback you are giving your team, both on content and method.

So, what is the secret of giving/ writing feedback?
Feedback giving/ writing is both an art and a science. It is an extremely critical component of team building and as much as it is for developing one’s own career. I have condensed the feedback process into six points that can work in any situation. Good feedback will help your team be high on energy and ideas, become awesome in execution and develop a great attitude.

The secret sauce, ironically, is not about the receiver of the feedback. It is about asking yourself (feedback giver) these six vital questions.

  1. Am I being specific?
    It is extremely critical to be as specific as you can be. It is easy to get carried away with analogies and incidents related to the point being discussed. Such meandering, however well-intentioned it may be, often leads to dilution of the message. It may even lead to a defensive mindset being triggered for the receiver. State facts and give examples in support of the feedback being given. Nothing more, nothing less.
  2. Am I showing the way to grow and develop this person?
    Your job as a reviewer is to develop and grow people. Pointing to shortcomings does not help in any case. In fact, it would work counter-productive as the receiver pulls up the defences and closes their mind to any suggestions.
  3. Can this person really do something about this?
    Think before if this person can do something about this or if you can help to change this behaviour? If the answer is no, that specific feedback is best left unsaid. Yes, think about it. What is the purpose of feedback on which the person cannot act?
  4. Will this add value to this person?
    Focus your feedback on its value for the receiver. If your feedback will not add value to the receiver in the current state, resist from even saying it. Often, it is for us to offer some advice because it is dear to us and (however well-intentioned) do not think of the value it would add to the other person.
  5. Does this represent facts?
    Write feedback promptly when the incident is fresh in your mind. Do not let other unrelated incidents influence your feedback. Good managers maintain a small notepad, to jot down incidents when they occur. This small notepad is worth terabytes of data that may be residing in our memory. Maintaining and referring that small notepad, will always bring us back to the facts at hand.
  6. Finally, let silence do the heavy lifting.
    Silence is an extremely powerful tool. Any good negotiator would tell you that people tend to underestimate the power of silence when it comes to sales and social dynamics in general. “Saying nothing is way more powerful than spoken words” they would vouch. Silence during feedback not only defines alpha roles but also build the readiness to assimilate, process and draw on an action plan in the receiver’s mind. You must recognise the five signs that indicate silence is needed
  • Interrupting by talking over someone else
  • Formulating your response while someone is talking
  • Using a break in the conversation to create a distraction to change topics
  • Talking in circles
  • Monopolizing airtime

With these six simple steps, you will see your self a lot more effective and sought after by your team and people Try it out!

This article first appeared on the Times of India Blogs on March 22, 2019.

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Rajesh Soundararajan is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Futureshift Consulting, a boutique consulting outfit that helps organizations chart their business, marketing and technology strategies that generate demand, drive predictable revenue and achieve impactful outcomes.

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Aspire to be a CEO: Avoid travelling with your bosses!

This rule is some what counter-intuitive.
Most aspirants to the top jobs, usually jump at the opportunity to travel with the superiors. They think that travelling with bosses gives them that extra time to shine. Don’t do it. Good senior executives judge on results, not on clever conversations.

Good top managers are also busy and unless you are working ion their projects, in less than ten minutes they get back to what they are working on.
You must spend your travel time working . Airplane time is work time, so you may want to fly by yourself and gain those extra few hours.
If you travel with a top executive and end up working on the flight, they would think you are doing it to impress them. Worse still, they want to read a book, relax, take a nap or may be watch a movie and they will be unsettled by your industriousness. Even if you have to fly the same plane, sit in a different section.
Hotel time is also work time. If you travel with superiors they may be obligated to ask you for dinner. If they don’t you will feel hurt. Either ways your valuable time is wasted.

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#Hiring: The Fallacy of Job Descriptions…

...and how ex-Air Traffic Controller became the best Sales Person in Tech major.

#HR #Talent #Human Resources #Hiring #Job Descriptions #Bias #Resume #sales #India

This is not a story of rags to riches. This is not even a story about the candidate. This is the story of how strong our biases are in the hiring process and how limiting our job descriptions are in selecting a great candidate.

A job description, as defined by Wikipedia, is a document that describes the general tasks, functions, and responsibilities of a position. It specifies the qualifications, experience, or skills needed by the person in the job.

Almost all HR and hiring managers swear by Job Descriptions. But have we ever realized that Job Descriptions could also limit our searches, resulting in potential false negatives?

Continue reading “#Hiring: The Fallacy of Job Descriptions…”
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#LeadershipLesson: Follow the footsteps of your Boss!

‘Boss Bitching’ is a fad. An entertaining one, at that; though not the right one to take you to the top.
All of us have heard people who can just complain and complain about their bosses – just give them an opportunity and they can rattle the worst things about their twenty-seven bosses through career. They  share horrifying stories about their tyrannical and incompetent bosses, that have reached the top while leaving these people in the lurch. Such sad stories are for losers.
Winners do not have tyrannical bosses. They have fantastic bosses and amazing supervisors.
Just as most people can vividly remember their memorable teachers and their teachings from kindergarten to Graduate school, the same applies to business. Winners do remember learning from their bosses.
They know, that most people do not have a choice on hiring their bosses. But they do have a choice of learning the good qualities from them. They know, that nobody is perfect, and every body is good at something. Winners learn, study, emulate the good things from their boss – whoever they are.
Great teachings from superiors are subtle, yet significant—they praise properly, they are fair goal setters, they are honest, they  let people grow. There may have their idiosyncrasies and whims – but great bosses are usually hard working, smart and open minded.
Seek those people early in you career. Seek people with those qualities. Work for them. Watch them closely. see how they handle problems and handle criticism. Note how they manage people and get things done.
Walk their way!,
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Aspire to be a CEO? Make your Boss look a Star and your Boss’s Boss a super Star!

Q: How do you rise up in the organization?
A: Take your Boss’s job faster than others.

 Having said that, your Boss cannot vacate his job, unless he has a better job! So essentially it means two things
1. Make your Boss look good so that he is promotable.
2. Make yourself promotable by making your Boss’s Boss look better.
Why am I talking of your super Boss here – because you must look good to your  Boss’s Boss as well. Because in many cases, Boss’s Boss still is influential and is a key player in your growth. He may not proactively push your case. But if he does not see worthy of the job, he will stall your case.
How does one make these happen. I am not talk of sucking up or sycophancy here!
You make people look good by these eight steps. Simple…

  1. Anticipating their needs
  2. Do that extra work to solve their problems
  3. KEEP THEM INFORMED (by far, this is where most people fail – no boss likes surprises or for that matter even good surprises – and most people fail in keeping the bosses informed on the possible risks and seek their help proactively. Remember, you may be confident that the issue may be small and you will be able to handle it. Well then state the issue and say it so. The worst thing is that at 11th hour you reach out to your boss and tell that you just screwed it up and he is helpless.
  4. Always finish work ahead of schedule.
  5. Do a little bit more
  6. See your job and actions through their eyes.
  7. See their job through their eyes
  8. DON’T let them make a mistake.

Hmm… get cracking today!