Lately, I’ve been thinking about how right-sized confidence can be the difference between failure and success.
One of my coaching mentors used to be a confidence coach. He would meet with people and try to help them become confident in one session, hoping they would leave ready to boldly venture where they had previously feared to go.
Of course, these sessions had their limitations.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the leader inside all of us. Occasionally, people tell me that they “aren’t leader material.” Sometimes this idea comes from false humility. Sometimes it is an expression of the residual trauma of working for a poor leader. And sometimes it’s simply a failure to recognize the ways in which that person is already leading.
Lately, I’ve been contemplating a recent study about employee turnover. A report by the Corporate Executive Board found that companies with strong career development programs had a 20% lower turnover rate compared to companies with weak or no career development programs..
That got me thinking about the difference between leading like a chef and leading like a gardener.
If you took every business conversation about remote work and extracted the essence, you’d find something like this…
Company Leaders: We want people back in the office.
Team Members: Umm, not so fast…
Warren Buffett said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.”
Most of us would agree with Buffet’s line of thought, but that doesn’t make it easy.
When you are conditioned to live in the land of yes, no feels confrontational. It feels like a fight.
But no is the vanquisher of burnout.
Lately, I find myself talking to more and more people who find themselves in a nearly permanent state of exhaustion – maybe even close to burnout.
It’s a real challenge to try to keep themselves in a sustainable place where they can still work hard but enjoy their job. Even more importantly, it’s vital that they find a way to do that work for a long time instead of pushing themselves so hard that the edge of the cliff is in sight.
If you find yourself in this place, I would urge you to think about your life in three different buckets.
There is no “talent shortage.”
True, the data shows that there are nearly 9 million unfilled jobs in the US. But these positions aren’t vacant because there isn’t enough available talent.
The jobs are unfilled because workers are becoming more selective about their employment. People are realizing that they don’t have to tolerate what they perceive to be unrewarding work experiences.
This is bad news for companies that are stuck in an industrial-era mindset, but it’s great news for employers willing to create high value jobs that attract and keep the best people.
There are five key talent retention factors in 2021…
When is the right time to change?
We all wonder about finding the right time to change. We lie awake some nights and ponder. Sometimes the universe seems too big, and our place in it too uncertain.
I can tell you that because I’ve coached hundreds of people who felt the same way. Each one of them had something they wanted to improve or a circumstance they wanted to change.
For some, it was a job that was no longer fulfilling. For others, it was a personal goal they wanted to reach. For many more, it was a hazy vision of a better future. But in every case, something was holding them back.
Are you being your authentic self?
I was leading a presentation on authentic leadership when a participant stopped me in mid-sentence.
She told me that she didn’t believe in authenticity. Her evidence? People at work didn’t seem to accept her behavior.
After a little discussion we both realized that she had been using the cloak of authenticity as an internal excuse not to adapt to change. She had been putting up roadblocks to progress and expecting people to be OK with that.
That’s stubbornness, not authenticity.
Leadership, high performance, and effective strategies are needed more than ever as we move into the new opportunities of 2021.
Last year was tough on us. It brought unprecedented business and personal challenges. Our mission now is to leave that behind us and focus on ways to create success this year.
To do that, I gathered thoughts from thought leaders in various aspects of business. Together, these tips will point any business in the right direction for the next 12 months.
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