Day: July 16, 2019

Many companies thrust employees into new leadership roles without equipping them with the proper tools and training. This transition can heighten anxiety and stress for that individual, resulting in them under-performing or reverting to only what they know. Transitioning into a new leadership role often requires aligning bigger teams (and therefore more personalties), managing “up” to senior leaders/stakeholders and working at increased levels of operational and strategic complexity. Ideally your organization has an on-boarding process in place to ensure a successful transition. But if it does not, it is imperative that you are pro-active about this transition. Tools to get you started: Set Critical Milestones. Create a 30/60/90 plan with clearly defined milestones for you and your team. Call them Rocks, OKRs, or KPIs, etc–just be sure you and your team knows the big priorities. Commit to an effective time management system. As you step into increased responsibilities and demands on your time you will need to have…

Great hurdlers know that they must clear the obstacles while maintaining their speed. The same applies for good leaders: you must overcome barriers—both externally and internally—while maintaining your focus and energy. In my previous article “Time Management Principles To Live By”, I suggested a number of tools for leaders to test and practice. Delegation is one of the most difficult time management skills for two reasons: a) when done well, delegation involves multiple steps (often referred to as “Realization/Observation/Collaboration/Evaluation/Delegation”) that can derail at any stage and b) it tends to trigger internal barriers (i.e. limiting assumptions and beliefs) for leaders, often resulting in sabotage of the delegation process. My clients and colleagues know that the Enneagram Personality Tool is the primary personality assessment tool that I use in my 1:1 Executive Coaching work. I won’t describe here the details of how the Enneagram works (I refer you to Mario Sikora’s excellent articles on this) but it is…

Time management is one of the most common and daunting challenges for busy executives. In my Executive Coaching practice, I find that many leaders either never learned a time management system, resulting in reactivity and lack of focus, or they have learned an overly rigid system preventing them from fluidly adapting to the realities of their organization and shifting challenges of the marketplace. In fact, there is no universal time management “system” that works for everyone. Rather, I suggest that leaders test and practice specific time-management principles to see what actually works depending on the demands of their business and jettison those that do not. Clarify your Intent.Start by asking yourself: if I had a more time, then what would I do with it? What would I actually spend my time on that I would both enjoy and drive the business forward? Clarify what you want to do, why you want to do it and…