Keith Ayers - Trust Inside

Can Temporary Employees be Passionate About their Work?

The global economic crisis caused unemployement in the United States to spike. As the economy continues to recover, firms have started to hire again. But statistics are telling us that companies are hiring in a different way than before, preferring temporary workers to permanent ones. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation for many workers. But what kind of impact might it have on organizations' levels of employee engagement?

In this article I wrote for the American Management Institute, I explain how leaders can ensure that temporary workers become passionate about their work, and avoid a negative impact on organization-wide engagement levels.

The Importance of Flexibility in Leadership

Flexible people tend to have a greater ability to gain endorsement for their initiatives, projects and proposals. Hear Keith Ayers discuss the impact of both high and low flexibility in the workplace.

 

A Proactive Workplace

Almost every leader or manager wants proactive employees. But it doesn't just happen. You have to create an environment in which proactive employees thrive. Keith Ayers shares his insights into how leaders can help create change in their organization.

 

 

Respect: The Foundation of Trust-Based Relationships

All people want to be respected for who they are. Not judged, criticized or made to feel inferior. When people know they are respected, they are more committed to giving their best to the organization.

 

Leadership is Not Rocket Science

I'm not saying that being a leader is easy, but I do think it is a lot less complicated than some people think it is.

Successful leaders inspire commitment from a group of people to achieving a meaningful outcome or Vision.

In my recent blog I focused on "the work of a leader” – what the leader needs to do to achieve their Vision. But before you can do the work of a leader, you need a team of people who want to help you achieve the vision and are capable of executing it.

There are four leadership skills that determine a leader’s success in alignment and execution – which really is the measure of a leader. Anyone can have a vision of how things could be. The truly successful leader inspires the alignment and execution that delivers the fulfilment of the vision. Those leadership skills are:

1. Build trust – team members do not align with leaders they do not trust. Too many leaders fail to achieve this first step because they assume people will trust them and then fail to work at developing and maintaining trust relationships. See my blog on the Elements of Trust™.
2. Capitalize on talent – every member of the team has talent, but many don’t see it in themselves. Successful leaders ignite passion and creativity by helping people believe in themselves and encourage risk taking to develop those talents.
3. Make work meaningful for everyone – everyone’s role is meaningful – it has a “purpose”, otherwise it would cease to exist. Successful leaders are “purpose-driven”, and get all team members aligned with the purpose of their roles to deliver exceptional value.
4. Build a high performing team – turning a group of workers into a high performing team is a skill all leaders should possess. Getting all team members aligned and working together interdependently to utilize their talents makes all the difference in the execution stage.

What would your organization achieve if every leader used these four skills to focus their teams on executing your vision?

The Work of a Leader

Millions of words have been written about the qualities and characteristics of a leader, and there has been much debate about what makes the best leader.

But in the end, leaders are judged by what they have achieved, and rightly so. But what do successful leaders do?

Put simply, they lead people somewhere they haven’t been before. That is, leaders create change. In the process of doing that, leaders do three things:

1. Vision – the starting point is a vision of the change they wish to create. We’ve all heard that leaders are visionary, and unfortunately I think that many people see that as a talent that very few are blessed with. Being visionary simply means being able to see (in my mind’s eye) the end result I want to achieve.
2. Alignment – just as important as being able to “see” the end result is the ability to articulate the vision in a way that gets the team into “alignment” – to be fully committed to achieving the vision.
3. Execution – getting team members engaged in executing the vision is the essential final step to creating change.

The ability to do these things should not just be reserved for the executive suite. Every team leader should have a vision of what their team is capable of achieving, get the team in alignment with that vision and then execute to achieve it.It’s the work of a leader!

Would you like to assess how you go about doing the work of a leader? I am working with Inscape Publishing Inc in the beta test phase of a new Leadership Profile designed to help leaders be more effective in doing the “work of a leader”.

If you would like to take the profile please send an email to nicola@integro.com.au with Leadership Profile in the subject line. I will need you to respond to the profile by July 30.

What is your experience of working with leaders who were effective at performing the work of a leader? I would like to hear your stories.

Is Your Leadership Approach Working?

Some managers attempt to control people in order to get them to do the right thing at work. Yet control-based leadership kills passion, creativity and initiative. Here is a recent video where I discuss the need for a change in the way we lead people.

Leadership and Humility

Have you ever worked for a leader who lost his cool under pressure and took his frustrations out on other people? He most likely also came across as arrogant and pushy, putting his own needs ahead of the team, and had a hard time admitting that he ever made a mistake.

These are the characteristics of a leader who lacks humility.

If you have worked for a leader like this, you know how demoralizing it can be. You dread going to work because you never know what kind of mood she will be in, you don’t trust her, don’t respect her, and put a lot of energy into staying out of her way.

All that energy you and your colleagues expended in staying out of trouble was energy not being applied to being productive and delivering value to your customers.

Leaders who lack humility are a liability to the organization… they have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Can humility be learned? Of course it can, but only when the leader becomes aware of the impact their lack of humility is having on their business results. Appropriate assessment tools that give the leader feedback about the impact their lack of flexibility and trust building ability is having on business results, can give them the shock they need to wake up and get serious about being a leader.

Do you have any stories you would like to share on this blog about leaders you have worked for? I’d like to hear about your experiences with leaders who have humility as well as those who don’t.

An Example of an Act of Leadership

In my video blog Leadership is an Act, not a Role I introduced a three step process for performing an Act of Leadership. I refer to it as the Out-In-Out process to remind me that it starts with me seeing something “out” there that needs changing, fixing or improving, and ends with me doing something “out” there to create change… taking action.

In between is when I go “in” to my mind to process thoughts feelings and observations.

You don’t have to be an appointed leader or even in a leadership role – anyone can perform an Act of Leadership. Here’s an example.

Mary is a data entry operator whose job is to enter data from forms sent in by customers. One of the challenges Mary and her cohorts experience daily is that the software program requires that the data be entered in a different sequence to how it appears on the form.

Now typically employees in this situation would talk amongst themselves and say: “Wouldn’t you think they would fix up this form. It would save us so much time if it were in the right order!”

But Mary didn’t do that. In her own time she came up with a new design for the form that would save at least a minute of data entry time for each form. Mary didn’t have the authority to change the form, so she took it to her team leader as a suggestion for productivity improvement.

Unlike some team leaders, Larry didn’t tell her to mind her own business and get back to work. He thanked Mary and took her idea to the department head and the form was subsequently implemented.

Mary performed an Act of Leadership… she saw something “out” there that needed improving, she came up with an idea for the improvement (the “in”), and took action by submitting it to her leader – the second “out”.

What would happen to productivity and employee engagement if every employee was encouraged to perform acts of leadership – to speak up with ideas they have on how your organization could be more successful?

What kind of leadership would you need to have at every level of your organization to capitalize on the burst of creativity and innovation that would follow?

Leadership is an Act Not a Role

Successful leaders understand that it is their behavior that determines their success as a leader. In this video Keith Ayers presents a case for looking at leadership in a different light, and how doing so can benefit your organization's performance.

Why Trust Is Essential In Business Today

The level of trust employees have in their organizations and their senior leaders is at an all-time low. After the events leading up to the global financial crisis and the way many organizations have responded, it’s as if the entire foundation of employee beliefs has gone through a tornado. What we are left with is the shattered emotions of today’s workers.

Somehow, the trust and integrity that once were the foundation of our relationships with our employees need to be rebuilt.

Where are the Leaders?

Management vs. Leadership: What's the Difference?

This debate has been going on for decades, with the most popular distinction being: manage tasks, lead people.

But the difference isn’t that simple. Managers manage people to get tasks done – projects, goals or objectives that have already been agreed upon.

The word "lead" implies going somewhere new, and that to me defines the difference more clearly. Leaders take people where they haven't been before, to new levels of performance.

Both managers and leaders deal with people, and therefore need people skills. With managers, it's the one-on-one skills of coaching, mentoring and motivating.

With leaders, it's more the one-on-many skills that are needed: communicating the vision, aligning the group behind a common purpose and set of values, and inspiring commitment and team spirit.

Managers or leaders? You need both!

How Flexible Are You?

Most change management initiatives that fail do so for one reason: individuals are either unwilling or unable to change their own attitudes and behavior.

The mistake most leaders make is thinking that change is an organizational issue, and that they can restructure, implement new systems, processes, and technology, and voila, the change will take place!

But the change does not take place in so many cases because of a lack of flexibility in people. Not just the people who have to implement the change; the leaders who design the change and their implementation strategy.

I have been working with business leaders on increasing their “personal flexibility” for over 30 years and I have identified a few key characteristics of a flexible leader. How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 for each of the following samples of the characteristics?

1. Willing to listen to ideas you don’t initially agree with.
2. Adaptable – willing to change your mind in the face of new evidence.
3. You believe that other’s needs are at least as important as your own.
4. Willing to compromise.
5. Willing to take risks, especially with ideas that are not your own.

How flexible are you? Before you answer that question, consider that you are only as flexible as other people see you as being. How would others answer these questions about you?

Innovation is More Important than Ever

As the world’s economies move into a recovery phase, few business leaders around the world expect their companies to get back to the way things were before the global financial crisis.

In a global survey of 1,677 executives, representing all regions, industries, company sizes, and functional specialties, findings showed that most organizations were planning for a “new normal” with “lower long term growth expectations.”

The majority of the executives report than innovation is more important than ever. Among their top priorities are responding rapidly to changing economic conditions, developing new products and services to respond to changing customer needs, and restructuring the company to reduce costs and position them for growth.

Not discussed in this report, however, is the underlying need for innovation at the leadership level. If leaders themselves are unwilling to change the way they operate – the way they make decisions and manage people – the changes listed above will never happen.