While there’s no one formula for becoming a great leader, there are specific skills that all successful leaders share in common. These skills are what sets them apart from the rest of the team. 

Here are some essential leadership skills you need to have to become a greater leader:

Resilience

Resilience is the ability to rebound from setbacks, bounce back from tough times and overcome obstacles. It’s the strength to face challenges with confidence and optimism without letting them get you down.

Resilient leaders can adapt and change when needed, keep their composure during stressful situations, and trust their instincts when making decisions. They can lead others through crises and inspire them to overcome any challenge.

Resilient people have learned how to deal with life’s ups and downs, which makes them more resilient than those who haven’t experienced these challenges. By realising that failure or disappointment is not personal and is simply a necessary step in achieving their goals, they have learned how to deal with it.

Resilience is an essential leadership skill because it helps you maintain your sense of optimism in even the worst circumstances. It also allows you to attract followers who believe in your vision for success — even if others don’t share their belief in you or your company’s mission statement.

Self-awareness and Self-discipline

The saying “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is certainly familiar to any prospective business owner. That phrase perfectly encapsulates why it’s so crucial for leaders to be self-aware.

Self-awareness is recognising your strengths and weaknesses and understanding how they impact your behaviour. If you’re self-aware, you’re willing to look at yourself with a critical eye. You recognise your flaws, imperfections, and shortcomings — but instead of letting them get the best of you, you use them as opportunities for growth. Every setback is a learning opportunity where you can harness and sharpen your skills.

Self-awareness is also essential if you want to build trust with your organisation’s partners, employees, and clients. Without this trait, any attempt at building relationships will be half-hearted at best — because, without trust, there can be no real connection or collaboration between people working together towards a common goal.

Managing your behaviour and habits to accomplish your goals requires self-discipline. As a leader, self-discipline allows you to remain calm under pressure and make decisions quickly without letting emotions get in the way. A person with good self-discipline can easily delegate tasks and manage time effectively because they don’t need constant supervision or direction from others. They can follow through on commitments and deliver results even when things get tough.

Communication

Communication skills are one of the essential skills to have in business. Communication is how you share your ideas, vision, and thoughts with other people. It helps you to connect with your partners, team members, clients, and customers.

The ability to communicate well comes naturally to some people but not to others. Effective communication is no longer a nice-to-have skill; it is a requirement for any business to succeed. Every day is a great opportunity to improve your communication abilities.

Being precise, succinct and straightforward without hurting anyone’s feelings when speaking with others is crucial in communication.

Whether it is to delegate tasks to your team, hold strategy sessions with your clients or collaborate on a project with your partners.

Does what you say make sense to everyone who hears it? Is your message or what you’re attempting to convey easily understood? Because what makes sense to us in our heads may not make sense to others.

Also, if possible, avoid using jargon or complicated language so that others can easily understand what you mean without asking too many questions or being confused about what you are referring to, especially if you involve people not in your industry.

It’s not a good feeling when the person you’re speaking with feels excluded from the conversation because they don’t understand certain terms or allusions used by other participants.

To ensure that everyone is on the same page, you can always clarify and follow up with everyone in the conversation.

The ability to listen is also essential for business success. Active listening is required to understand what people are saying and respond appropriately. Listening also helps build trust between people, making them feel more comfortable working together.

Relationship-Building

One of the most important leadership abilities you may have is the ability to forge relationships. Why? Because it helps you build long-lasting and meaningful relationships personally and professionally. This can result in win-win outcomes for your business and anyone who works with you.

Relationships are critical to business success, and they’re also crucial to your success. You can’t go far in life without having at least some kind of relationship with others.

Here are some of the ways that relationships help you achieve your goals:

• Relationships help motivate others to take action. People who like and trust you are more likely to follow your direction and do what you ask. They’ll also be more enthusiastic about any ideas or projects that involve them because they’ll see them as an opportunity for enjoyable interaction with their friend or colleague.
• Relationship plays an important role in building rapport with clients. Typically, clients want to engage where they feel valued and appreciated. For this reason, businesses often invest in customer relations management systems to ensure that they give their clients the best experience. When you learn how to build strong relationships with customers, you can understand their pain points, get feedback, and build good customer profiles to help your conversion strategies.
• Relationships create opportunities for collaboration. When people work together on a project, it allows them to contribute their knowledge and experience toward achieving a shared goal and gives them a chance to learn from each other’s expertise. An excellent way to foster collaboration is by developing informal networks within your company or organisation; this will allow employees from different departments (or even different companies) to share ideas, information, and resources with one another so that everyone wins.

Problem-Solving Skills. 

Identifying issues as they arise and taking preventative measures to avoid them is just as important as the capacity to fix them.

Problem-solving skills are not something you can learn from a book. It takes practice.

“We focus on the solution, not the problem,” is one of our company’s core values.

It is important to identify the problem. However, people frequently dwell on the problem without realising that the quickest way to solve it is to focus solely on the solution.

Asking questions like:

• What resources do we have or use to overcome this challenge?
• What can we do now to rectify it?
• How can we overcome this obstacle now?
• Who can we reach out to for support?
• Where should we begin?

All of these questions shift your focus away from the problem and allow you and your team to concentrate on finding a solution and what you can do now.

Honest & Compassionate

Integrity is core to being a great leader and is probably the most important quality you can possess. A leader without integrity will eventually fail because they cannot inspire and motivate others, which is essential when building a business.

Since you can’t expect your staff to have faith in you if you aren’t honest, honesty and integrity go hand in hand.

Integrity also shows you are trustworthy, making it easier for people to respect you as a leader.

Employees need to have faith in your commitment, and you can give them that faith by being upfront and honest with them about your business’s objectives, strategies, and financial situation.

Great leaders don’t lie or mislead their teams. They aren’t afraid of telling the truth even when it’s not what people want to hear. They also realise that transparency is a two-way street. If you want employees to trust you, ensure they understand the reasons behind any major changes in the workplace.

Compassion isn’t just about being nice; it’s about treating people fairly and thoughtfully. Leaders who demonstrate compassion can see things from others’ perspectives and take action accordingly — whether that means giving someone more time off or helping them find another job if they no longer fit into an organisation’s culture.

Leaders who show compassion can also provide emotional support during stressful times, like when employees are struggling with a personal issue or dealing with an unexpected death in their family. Compassionate leaders can help employees cope with these situations by listening attentively, offering suggestions for how they might handle their cases differently,

Be Coachable and Be the Coach. 

No matter where you are or how successful you are in business. There are always new market trends or things you are unaware of. Just because you are a business owner or a leader doesn’t mean you have all of the answers or know what works best in every situation.

As a result, seeking assistance, asking questions, and remaining open-minded is crucial for success as an effective leader. These skills require practice if they aren’t already a part of your personality or work style.

Make it a habit to inquire about various aspects of the business, from marketing strategies to customer satisfaction. This demonstrates your willingness to learn from your team and will inspire them to perform better. Coaching them in areas where they are not meeting expectations will improve and deliver better results over time.

It also ensures that everyone is on the same page and that no one falls behind. For example, your employees will be aware of what is happening behind closed doors and will be updated on progress toward achieving company goals and objectives.

If you are unsure of what to do with your business, you can always seek help by hiring a mentor or a business coach to support you.

Conclusion

Leadership is the major factor that makes everything work together seamlessly, from implementing vision and values to boosting morale, inspiring and motivating employees, ensuring effective communication, improving workplace productivity, and providing appropriate resources for the organization to grow and scale.

Having great leadership skills can help you achieve greater business success. 

“Leaders instil in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.”

At You Want Group, we use visualisaton and manifestation strategies, complemented by goal setting and planning, to help you define your future and set you on the path to success.

Book a free discovery call with me https://youwantgroup.com/attract-the-life-you-want-with-iris/ to learn more about goal setting and manifestation, and start attracting the life you want today. 

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post Top 7 Leadership Skills You Need to Have for Business Success appeared first on You Want Group.

Most leaders know the value of gratitude but few actually practise it in their workplace. Why? Perhaps it’s because leaders think that being generous with their praises is a sign of weakness or vulnerability.  The truth is being grateful is a sign of strength because our gratitude and appreciation are the foundation blocks to building a stronger and more resilient organisation. 

So, the next time you hesitate to let a staff member know how well he or she has performed, don’t hesitate. Say it. But only if you genuinely mean it. Gratitude is not lip service to kindness or flattery. It is a genuine heartfelt belief and conviction. 

1. Self-love

The path to self-love comes in three parts according to Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey. Chopra and Winfrey has an amazing meditation series titled ‘Desire and Destiny’  It teaches you how to expand the love you have into something bigger than yourself. According to the writers, 

in the beginning, you want and need love more than you are receiving it. You feel insecure about being lovable and relationships with others are a constant negotiation.  In the middle, you are aspiring to a higher level of love where you can love someone without needing them to love you back. In the final stage, love becomes unconditional. At this level, you feel love comes from within a spiritual source inside you. Pure compassion is possible and there is a sense of you being part of a bigger whole. 

Self-love is achieved if you can make a connection with yourself and honestly face your inner demons and resistance.  When you achieve self-love you learn to reflect on old wounds, forgive your past and start appreciating who you are. Some people spend a lifetime waiting for ‘the one’ to appear in their lives.  The only way to realistically find ‘the one is to be ‘the one’ yourself. Love and appreciate yourself first. Then the rest will follow.  

If you don’t appreciate yourself it’s hard for you to appreciate someone else. We’re all imperfect beings. Sometimes we are so busy chasing a perfect self that we become intolerant of our ‘real’ selves. We are our worst critics. We judge ourselves higher than we judge others and if we don’t make the cut, we become frustrated and angry. Frustration and anger get us nowhere. If we can learn to embrace ourselves for what we are – warts and all – we open up an entirely new perspective for ourselves.

My mentor once told me that there are two sides to every human being. There is the side that we are super proud of but there is also that other side that we are not proud of. If you can make peace with the latter, you are more than halfway in your journey of gratitude and appreciation.  

Need some help loving yourself? Here are some questions to challenge yourself. Ask yourself: 

• How much do I love myself?
• What do I love about myself?
• What do I feel grateful for? 

Write down the answers then sit back and read what you’ve written. If you don’t love yourself, the answers you have written will be quite obvious. 

Learn to love yourself – warts and all.  You may need to reinforce this love to yourself over and over again until you start believing in yourself. With self-belief comes action because you get to the point where you genuinely want to be that better person or greater leader that you start doing things that can help you realise this dream.    

2. Acceptance

Acknowledgement is a start. Acceptance is the goal. In order for you to start practising gratitude and appreciation, you have to accept it first. Accepting gratitude and appreciation means accepting both the good and bad things in your life.  Unfortunately, you cannot just pick the good experiences to like and ignore all the not so good or bad things that have happened to you.  True acceptance means embracing both.  

Let’s say you made a mistake in an important project. You are mad with yourself.  Your clients are mad at you. Do you then decide to quit because you think you’re a failure? Or do you reflect on it and find ways not only to improve but to prevent yourself from repeating the mistake? If you can accept the bad things you are one step closer to building resilience. Instead of giving up and quitting, you are motivated to become better. That’s how great leadership starts. When you can look at every difficulty or problem as a challenge that you can overcome. 

Life is full of ups and downs. We cannot predict either. We deal with it when we cross the bridge but we don’t let the bad dictate our future. When the pandemic hit two years ago, I nearly lost the business.  No amount of planning or foresight prepared us for what was about to hit. If we didn’t pivot to an online mode, we could have gone under and our staff who depended on us for their livelihoods would have lost their jobs. The last two years were tough for everyone. If there’s one lesson I have learned from it, it is to be grateful for what I have. I am grateful that I still have the business. I am even more grateful that my people stuck with us during the hard times and are still with us today.  

Likewise if you want to demonstrate gratitude and appreciation of your employees, you can’t pick and choose only the people you like.  It’s a blanket strategy that is applied to every employee – even the weakest member of the team. Learn to accept everyone for their strengths and their faults. Praise them where praise is due and help them when they need help. You can only do this if you are authentic and genuine in your appreciation of people.  

3. Congruence and authenticity

Congruence and authenticity are elements that build trust. Have you ever met someone who goes through great lengths to tell you who they are but somehow what they say doesn’t ring true?  Or the times you say something you don’t mean and in the process upset or hurt another person?

Incongruence is obvious to others.  For example, a leader who tells his team that he or she believes in raising the people up but has never invested any time or money to design a reward system that appreciates employee contribution is not congruent.  

Developing congruence is part of great leadership.  When you are not congruent, you are inauthentic. If you say what you don’t mean or mean what you don’t say, people around you pick this up. Hence, if you give lip service to gratitude and appreciation, your people will know you don’t really mean it.  If you want your teams to be on your side, you have to be genuine with what you say and do. Flattery will get you nowhere. It’s better to be honest, truthful and authentic. 

Showing appreciation and gratitude does not have to be limited to only big contributions. Every effort is a contribution. Start with the small things if you don’t have any big things to be thankful for. When added together, small dots become a big universe. If you are keen to practise appreciation and gratitude, start by recognising the contribution of every member of your team. The more you express your genuine gratitude, the more your people will bond with you. Over time they learn to trust and respect you. They may even want to work harder to help you succeed because they see your success as part of their success.   

Gratitude and appreciation are closely linked to humility. Humility is not modesty.  True humility is a mindset that involves focusing more on others and less on yourself. It is the ability to recognise the strengths in others.  Humble leaders are more approachable, more willing to share and more forgiving of the mistakes that others make. Humble leaders are genuine in their appreciation of others and will do all they can to help others succeed.  When the people you lead realise that they are part of something bigger than themselves they are more likely to raise their game which in turn raises the bar for the organisation. All the people in the organisation working hard together is what makes an organisation great.   

Gratitude has the power to make us feel positive about the past, happy with the present and hopeful for the future. It is a powerful skill worth growing if you want to be a better leader to your people.  

In my bestselling book, ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’ I discussed the importance of gratitude and how showing appreciation can help you attract what you want in life. Buy a copy of the book here.

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post How gratitude and appreciation can help you become an even greater leader appeared first on You Want Group.

Productivity and staff engagement go hand in hand. Bear in mind that productivity is not limited to just the people you lead. You, the leader, have to be productive too. No double standards, okay? 

1. Team engagement and productivity

The more engaged your team is to the organisation the more productive they become.  From my experience as a business and leadership strategist, one of the reasons why many companies fail is because they are not keeping their people happy.  It takes more than a good salary and some fringe benefits to keep your staff happy these days.  Salary and benefits are easy to match. Your competition can match these any day.  But they can’t match culture, work environment and values. 

How to build teamwork

In order for your business to succeed you need all your people behind you.  If one part of the business breaks down, the entire business is affected. 

A successful company is like a well-oiled machine. Every part of the machine is lubricated and all the parts work together to support the whole. Everyone in the company needs to work towards a common goal. Everyone needs to have the same commitment even if their level of productivity may be different. 

Build teamwork with communication

Communication is a key component to effective teamwork.  Your organisation has a vision. You have an idea where you want to go and how to get there.  Do your people know this? Have you shared the roadmap to success with them? Are they actively contributing to this roadmap? Or are they just told to do things? 

A leader who wants more productive people starts by articulating the company’s aspirations to the people.  This may require you to have effective communication skills. Your aim is not just to tell the people but to get them excited about this journey. When they are excited, they are engaged.  You can only gain their excitement if they believe that they are playing a part in this success. That their efforts are going to count for something.

In times of crisis, communication becomes vital. How do you assure your staff that their jobs are secured when they are threatened by a one-in-a-century health crisis? How do you keep your teams engaged when they are working from home? How do you monitor work processes when everyone is working from home? Good communication is the answer. 

Build teamwork with culture

A positive team culture produces more productive workers.  Culture is directly linked to how a leader leads.  Great leaders know how to build a culture that is adaptable and inclusive.

Progress equals success. If you don’t have teams who are willing to embrace change, you cannot advance new ideas and innovation. The company’s growth will stagnate. On the other hand, if leaders have their people’s support, the company benefit. The best type of organisational culture is one where the people feel they are part of something bigger.  It is an environment that recognises contribution, promotes equal share of knowledge and information, respects diversity and supports the individual to grow and develop.

2. Leading from within and productivity

Productivity is not dependent on your people alone.  As a leader of the people, you have to lead by example. If you want your people to work hard, you need to demonstrate that you, too, can work hard. If you can work harder, that’s even better.

To be productive as a leader, you have to lead from within. Leading from within means being authentic in your leadership. Reflect on what you think a great leader is and set yourself some goals to become that great leader. Once you have a clear understanding of what you have to do to become a better leader you can start looking for ways to achieve these goals. 

An authentic leader shows genuine interest in the well-being and success of his or her people. They support their people to grow by sharing knowledge, through training and upskilling and by empowering their people and giving them an environment where they can be creative and expressive.  

Leading from within is about recognising the importance of continuous learning.  Just because you are in a leadership role does not mean you’ve learned everything there is to know in the world. I am a successful business person but I am still discovering new things about myself everyday.  The more I learn the better I become at my job. Remind yourself that the world we are living in today is a constantly changing sphere. What is relevant today is irrelevant tomorrow. Think of yourself as the software in a mobile phone. Every month or so, you get a notification from the phone manufacturer asking you to update the software. Why do you need to upgrade the software? New software is introduced all the time because there are new threats on the cloud or new applications that your mobile cannot sync with unless it has been upgraded.

Similarly, as a leader, you have to make decisions in a constantly changing business environment. If you do not upgrade your knowledge bank and keep up with the times, you may not be able to make the right decisions for the business. Being productive as a leader means you must be prepared to learn new things and unlearn redundant things. 

Another trait that helps you lead from within is self-awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to see and understand one’s true self. It comes from reflection and mindfulness. Some while back I discovered the power of mindfulness. Mindfulness is about the ability to focus one’s mind on the present moment without any evaluation. It is achieved through meditation and other techniques.  You slow your breathing. Focus your mind and ‘be in the moment. When you can center yourself, your mind is able to think clearer and you start to develop an understanding of your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

The more self-aware you become, the better a leader you will be. A self-aware leader knows his or her limitations. You can tell whether an action is right or wrong; good or bad.

3. Building relationships and productivity

If you want your people to be more productive, you have to build a relationship with them first.  Relationship building occurs when leaders lead with integrity, honesty and mutual respect. 

People can spot a fake.  If you are not true to yourself, your workers will know. They are not going to believe what you say or support what you want to do. Building a positive relationship with your people takes time. A good relationship between a leader and a worker is one where the leader is prepared to listen to the views of his people. If you encourage your workers to share knowledge, express feelings and voice concerns, you are on the road to building respect and trust.

Respect and trust have to be earned.  Respect is earned if your people see that you are a boss who can walk the talk. The best way to get your people to work harder is to work hard yourself. The best way to get people to embrace change is if you can embrace it too. The best way to stop people from gossiping is to not gossip yourself. The best way to share ideas is to start sharing what you know. The best way to show them they are valued is to show them gratitude and appreciation.  

Trust comes when people feel that they are valued and that you, as their leader, is on their side. 

Once trust is earned, your workers are more likely to work harder to help you achieve the organisation’s goals because they know these goals are aligned with their personal goals.  Employees who trust their bosses are happier in the workplace and are less likely to leave the organisation.  

Build your dream team and build yourself up as a greater leader.  Want to know more helpful tips that can help? Read my recent Amazon bestseller, ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’. You can purchase a copy of the book here. https://youwantgroup.com/great-leadership-book/

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Ways to Increase Your Productivity as a Leader appeared first on You Want Group.

Remember the phrase “When life throws you lemons, make lemonade?” That’s what resilience is about. Resilience is not about being a daydreamer or an eternal hopeful. It’s about action.  Let’s say there are really 100 lemons in your backyard. What do you do about it? Are you going to sit there and watch it rot? Are you going to wish something would happen? Like the lemons miraculously get up and turn themselves into juice? Or are you going to grab some pails, pick the lemons and turn them into the most amazing lemonade in the world that people would happily queue for hours to buy? Even better, you get creative and turn the lemons into more than just lemonade.  All of a sudden you are selling lemonade, preserved lemon, lemon peel, lemon curd, lemon balm and so many more things.  This is resilience. 

Leaders with resilience survive crises and change better. They are not overwhelmed by sudden and unexpected setbacks and know how to lead their people or their business out of difficulties.  

3-Cs to building resilience muscle

There are three elements that are essential for resilience. 

1. Challenge 

Imagine yourself as a top-class tennis player. You can be at the top of the ranking but you still have to challenge yourself to be better. The higher the ranking you reach, the more you want to be better. So you train harder. And strategize more. You are constantly looking for ways to improve your serve, have better endurance and be more focused. 

Leaders who are comfortable resting on their laurels are not resilient.  Resilient leaders know that knowledge and learning are constant. They know that to stay at the top they have to be the best. Problems whether it’s a hard business decision or a difficult employee are not impossible problems that cannot be overcome. For the resilient manager, every problem has a solution. They just have to work at it.  

If you want to be a resilient manager, change your mindset. See difficulties as challenges not crises. If a problem presents itself don’t let it get the better of you. A difficult employee? A tight deadline? A pandemic? There is a solution to every problem if you look hard enough. If you can’t find the answer on your own, it’s time to reach out to others. 

If you have a dream to be great and don’t act on it, then your dream will always be out of your reach. But if you put energy and time into making it happen and stay true to your beliefs, your dream may even come true!  

The biggest stumbling block to achieving your dreams is you. More often than not, we start off a project feeling confident and motivated. Along the way, we lose some momentum and if we hit a few setbacks and we’ve been knocked around a little, we become deflated and unmotivated and we give up!  The reason for this is that we default to the negative.  

Resilient people don’t give up easily. They try and try again until they succeed. Resilience is about breaking out of our comfort zone and challenging ourselves to achieve more. If we persevere we can reset ourselves to default to the positive rather than the negative. Consider looking at every roadblock on your journey to success as a lesson you can learn. Reflect on what you’ve done wrongly. Ask yourself quality questions to gain clarity and think of ways you can improve and be better so you don’t repeat the mistakes.  

If you are training your resilience muscle, there is no room in your mind for regret. Spending time wallowing in ‘what ifs’ is counterproductive and will only impede your progress. Put some urgency into achieving your goals. Imagine what it would be like if you do achieve it. The more you can visualise your dream coming true, the more real your manifestation becomes. 

2.  Commitment

Commitment is about staying true to yourself and having the discipline and strength of mind to stay the course. 

When I first started my business, I was doing a lot of things wrong but I did not give up on my dream to own a business. One night in one of our training events, the venue we booked had a massive water leak less than an hour from the event. We almost gave up. But the event was a success.  I attribute this success to every individual who was present that evening. The venue manager had the foresight and moved us to a room upstairs when the pipe burst. The guest speaker showed up and did not think a leak was a problem. My staff scrambled to get things done at the eleventh hour and my business partner and I had to make last-minute decisions and give orders on the run. Even the participants who came for the event contributed to the success by being enthusiastic about the training despite the calamity unfolding around them.  That night was not one of my biggest or most successful events but it was certainly one of my most memorable. The memory is still with me today. It’s a constant reminder to me to be grateful for small mercies and to be appreciative of the efforts of others who genuinely want to help you succeed.   

Resilience is about staying committed to the cause no matter what obstacles you encounter. If you can survive the odds, the rewards are sweeter and more meaningful.  Discipline, the strength of mind and character build resilience. Whether you have a career, personal or financial goal, if you stay on course and focused on the results, you can achieve anything. 

3. Control

The best way to build your resilience muscle is to be in control of your destiny.  If you want to succeed you have to rise above adversities. To do so, you focus on things that you can control; not the things that you have no control over. Taking charge may require you to take a few steps back to reflect on who you really are and what you want in life. It’s about building self-awareness. 

Self-awareness helps you understand how and why you feel, think or act in a certain way.  The more you understand yourself, the more accurate is your summary of yourself. Once you know what your real strengths and weaknesses are, you can act on them. To succeed, you accentuate and leverage your strengths and improve on your weaknesses. 

Resilience gives you control over your destiny. The more control you have, the more you will succeed. Resilience gives you the strength to survive difficulties and to triumph against the odds. With resilience comes new perspectives. Your priorities shift. This is especially true for people who have experienced some traumatic event in their lives.  They come out the other end, stronger, better and more aware.   

Tips to help you build resilience

Here are some tips to help you build some sexy resilience muscles:

Find your lesson

Every experience – whether good or bad – has a lesson behind it.  Ask yourself, what can I learn from this and you will start working those resilience muscles.  

Set some goals

Give yourself some goals to work towards. Make sure they are realistic and achievable. For example, if your leadership goal is to become a manager with staff to lead, then start by looking at how you can climb the corporate ladder rung by rung. You need to succeed at one level before you can start dreaming about the next.  Very few people enjoy a meteoric rise to the top. So make sure your goals are realistic so you don’t become disappointed. 

Focus on gratitude

Be grateful for the experiences you have and the people you’ve encountered. The more you start appreciating your life – good or bad – the more you grow as an individual and the better you are at understanding how you can improve yourself. 

Embrace change

You can stay the same forever. The world is constantly changing, so you have to change with it or you will not survive it. Accept change as part of life and look for ways you can adapt to this change. If you can adapt, you have resilience. 

Know your Self

The journey to building resilience begins with a deep knowledge of yourself. Reflect on who you are, know your strengths and weaknesses. When you know your true self, you know what your strengths and weaknesses are and can take action to leverage your strengths or improve your weaknesses. For example, resilience is about surviving change. If you are the type of person who likes things to be how you want it to be and get upset easily if things are different, then you can’t build resilience.  If you have self-awareness and know that this is a weakness, you can take positive steps to improve the way you think and feel about change so that when it happens you are more prepared to embrace it. That’s the start to building a more resilient you. 

To be resilient, you need a strong ‘WHY’. Why am I pursuing this goal? Why is it important to me? Why do I think I can achieve it? You need clarity.  The clearer your mind, the more it can focus. Finally, you need tenacity and perseverance. The strength of mind, willpower and determination to never give up, no matter what. 

My latest Amazon bestselling book, ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’ deals with the subject of building resilience to find success.  You can purchase a copy of the book here: https://youwantgroup.com/great-leadership-book/ 

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Ways to Strengthen Your Resilience Muscle as a Leader appeared first on You Want Group.

When you are a leader, you have to manage not just your staff, you also have clients and suppliers to deal with. Sometimes, these external parties may be difficult to work with.  For example, if you have a difficult client who is always arguing with you or challenging the way things are done in your company.  Do you get angry and argue back? Or do you pause and listen to what they have to say and focus on how you can demonstrate to them that you have their best interest at heart?  

Great leadership starts with you. Once you master the art of leading yourself, you can lead others better.

The 80/20 rule

Success is 80% mindset and 20% strategy. When you have understanding of your inner self, you have control over your thoughts, feelings and actions. When you have control, you start thinking, acting and behaving like a great leader. 

The mind is a powerful element. Oprah Winfrey has a famous phrase: ‘The whole point of being alive is to develop into the complete person you are destined to be’. If you think you can do something, you can.  If you start self-doubting, you can’t.  If you want to become a great leader, get yourself into the right frame of mind and start believing in your own greatness. Belief is a potent motivator. If you believe in something long enough, you eventually manifest its reality. I am not saying the stars become aligned and you wake up one morning and you have become a brilliant leader. I am saying when you believe in something hard enough, you take action to make it happen. 

Let’s say you want a promotion. If you believe you are good for the role, you start making things happen for yourself. Perhaps it’s going to the HR Manager and sounding him or her about the role. Or putting in an application. Or making an appointment with the Head of the Department and having a conversation. Things don’t fall from the sky. It’s the actions you take that makes you greater. If you take no action, nothing will happen. 

The television remote syndrome

Andy was a young but ambitious professional when he came to me for leadership coaching. He was taken aback when I decided to talk about his television remote control. 

The televisions we buy come with a remote control and a manual. Nowadays, the manual could be an app but there’s always a guide to tell us how to operate the television and how to troubleshoot a problem.

When we were born, we were not given a manual to tell us how to live our lives or what to do if we want to succeed in life. We learn this through our experiences. Of course we receive guidance and advice from our parents, guardians and others who are close to us. Ultimately, it is ‘us’ who decide how to live our lives. We make up our personal instruction manual and we have the power to change it if it is not taking us in the direction we want to go. 

The good, the bad and the ugly

I said earlier in this piece that our mind is the master of our destiny. If we master our minds, we can control our destiny. That’s the good part. The bad news is our mind is also constantly trying to trip us up. Self-doubt creeps in when we think we’ve won and we start disbelieving our own abilities. Here’s the really ugly – we start behaving in strange, unpleasant ways that not only affects us but affects others around us.  For example, we give up on our pursuit of a higher degree because we start believing we can’t pass it even though we know getting qualified could mean getting promoted. We are prejudiced against our workers because they speak with an accent or we start making biased decisions that favour some and exclude others. 

Let’s end on a positive note and go back to the good bit. The good news is we have the power to turn the tables and take back control of ourselves. We do this through self-awareness. 

Self-awareness gives us the power to understand what we are feeling and why we feel or act in a certain way. So, instead of showing annoyance or losing our cool at an employee, we check ourselves, take stock of the situation, rewind our anger and start again.  

Imagine yourself as a computer. Your body is the hardware, your mind the software. Computers become outdated. They grow old and stop functioning.  Likewise we all age over time. That’s why there are diets, exercise and wellbeing. These regimes are designed to keep our bodies functioning.  If we let ourselves go we become less efficient, slower and sluggish.  Likewise, your mind is the software. Take a look at your mobile.  It’s constantly sending you upgrades, right? That’s why you need to also upgrade your mind. Learning is a constant if you want to be at the top. When you are at the top, learning is still a constant. So, if you want to be at the top of the game, you have to constantly upgrade yourself. If you don’t, you could become outdated and obsolete. 

5 ways to mastering self-awareness

In my book ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’ I discussed at length the subject of self-awareness. It is a book worth reading if you are interested in developing this extraordinary trait.  Here are the 5 secrets to mastering self-awareness I shared in my book.

1. Practise self-reflection

Reflection is about pressing the pause button and taking stock of what has happened. When we start reflecting we think about all the wins and misses we have for the day. It takes only 10 to 15 minutes of our time each day but it contributes to a lifetime of knowledge and awareness. 

2. Journaling

No one can remember everything. It’s a good idea to start a journal and make a record of things. Every experience has value. Even simple things. Start a journal and record what you feel is worth noting. It does not have to be ‘big’ things. It can be simple things like the lessons you have learned for the day, some feel-good moments you experienced or someone who has been kind or generous to you. It can also be some mistake you make at work that you want to take note of. Writing gives you clarity. As you write, you reflect. The more you reflect, the better you understand. You are on the road to self-awareness. 

You can also use your journal to record your leadership, career or personal goals. Again, writing these down help you reflect and gives you clarity. That’s why at an organisational level, we have planning meetings. We don’t just discuss plans. We write them down so every stakeholder can read and understand them. We also constantly review these plans to make sure the strategies we produce are delivering results. You do this regularly at work. So, do this for your personal goals as well. If it works at an organisational level, it will work at a personal level too.

3. Psychometrics

Personality and aptitude tests are brilliant at giving you a snapshot of yourself. Be truthful when answering questions. Answer what you feel is the real ‘you’ for a more accurate forecast. In my role as a leadership coach, I use personality tests as a guide to help my clients better understand themselves. It works so give it a go. 

4. Invite feedback

As managers we are used to giving our team feedback but how easy is it for us to be on the receiving end of feedback? Not easy.  To make it easier for yourself, why not change your perspective on feedback? Don’t look at feedback as a criticism or a personal attack on you. Look at it as valuable information you can use to achieve your career or personal goals. If you change the way you think about it, you become more open to receiving it and less threatened by it. 

5. Practice mindfulness and meditation

Get yourself into a healthy frame of mind before you begin your journey into self-awareness. You can do this by taking time to relax and unwind. A clear mind thinks better than a crowded one. 

The more you learn about yourself, the better equipped you are at mastering your life. You can become that great leader with an inspired lifestyle that suits your unique values, abilities and needs. Be self-aware. Be great! 

Start developing your self-awareness by reading my book ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’. Click the link to grab your signed copy: https://youwantgroup.com/great-leadership-book/

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 5 Tips to Enhance Self-awareness & Become an Even Greater Leader appeared first on You Want Group.

While some people are born with the gift of the gab and are natural orators, many are not. In case you are thinking it’s over, let me interject by saying that effective communication is 100 percent trainable.  

What does leadership mean to you?

Leadership has been a big part of my life for more than 15 years.  Growing up, I never thought I could be a leader. But here I am, a woman in business and a leader in my community.  Even though I have achieved the success I am still learning every day to become a greater leader.  I admit at the beginning of my leadership journey, I was attracted to the status and prestige that being a leader brings. But now, I see leadership as a responsibility not just to myself and my family but to the people whose livelihood and future depends on my success.  With great success comes great responsibility. Because I feel this responsibility, I work harder to be better than I was yesterday.  

Some people think leadership is nature but I believe leadership is both nature and nurture. Some people are born with attributes that make them good leaders like self-confidence, optimism, dynamism and charisma.  Some people train to be greater leaders. The more you believe in yourself and the bigger role your leadership encompasses, the more you will want to better yourself.  

How to improve your leadership communication skills

I honed my leadership communication skills when I started my business.  Running a business means you have to be able to communicate at all levels.  You are constantly challenged to think on your feet and to make decisions that can have an impact on your future and the future of the people who depend on you. In moments like this, clear and accurate communication becomes crucial. I guess you can say I learned to communicate well out of necessity.  My business and my future depended on it. It was survival.  

So, if your job or business depends on your ability to communicate, then it’s time to tell yourself to do something about it.  Even if your future does not depend on it, effective communication is still a skill worth acquiring.  Effective communication can mean the ability to articulate meaning, the power to motivate and inspire others to action or the skill to negotiate complex situations. If you are serious about becoming a great leader, you may want to start by honing these skills.  

One of the best rewards of communication is the ability to connect and build relationships. A leader who can clearly articulate the organisation’s goals to his or her people has more success convincing the people to work for the company. Good communication foster strong bonds and builds better relationships. If your people like you, admire you and trust you, they will not hesitate if you need them for any reason – whether it’s to work harder, accept new changes or deliver better outcomes.  

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, communication is an essential tool for business survival. The recent global pandemic is a good example to illustrate what I mean. During the pandemic, many companies were forced into crisis management mode. In moments of crisis, the ability to communicate clear and accurate information is crucial. Great leaders who communicate effectively know how to use the power of their words to motivate their people, assure their customers and negotiate with their suppliers.  

3 ways to improve your leadership communication skills

Ready to be that great leader who can communicate effectively to your people? These three strategies worked for me. I am confident they will work for you too. 

Great leaders communicate at a human level.

This is an interesting one. Do you know how to communicate at a human level? Or are you a bot? In today’s digitised world, it’s quite easy to default to non-human interaction because there are so many options for us to choose from (text, emails, chats, posts, even videos to a certain extent).  What’s lacking is human-to-human communication. In one of my earlier roles, I worked in an office staffed mainly by millennials who were afraid to answer the phone because it was a real human voice calling. I kid you not. The new generation of workers is so used to electronic communication that face-to-face can become daunting. 

If you don’t start establishing one-to-one dialogues with your team, you lose the ability to connect with them on a human level. Human beings are relational. That means we crave contact with others. Your team may find it hard to relate to you if the only interaction they have with you is inanimate.  When they cannot relate to you, they cannot like you.  The more distanced your staff are from you, the harder it is for you to get them to work harder or to accept change. 

Great leaders listen first; question later

Great leaders build trust by listening to what their people have to say. If you are not given a chance to speak, you can’t express what you feel. A leader who encourages his or her people to speak builds better relationships and trust than one who does all the talking. 

Earning your people’s trust is half the battle won. When employees believe they have a boss who cares about what they have to say, they are happier and more satisfied in their jobs. Happy employees equal higher productivity, fewer resignations, and more buy-in. 

To listen, you need to pay attention, not interrupt and respond when a response is needed. Don’t you hate it when you are in a meeting and it’s your time to present and the boss decides it’s a good time to check his or her emails? It’s annoying, right? If you don’t like it being done to you then don’t do it to others. 

Listening and absorbing is good. Asking questions is even better. When asking questions, try sticking to quality questions that can give you information that is not stated, understood or obvious. Even as a leadership strategist, I constantly remind myself to ask quality questions when speaking to others because quality questions give quality outcomes.   

Great leaders communicate not judged

The ability to articulate vision is a key function of a leader. In times of crisis, leaders who are good communicators know what to say and when to say it.  More so in today’s rapidly changing environment where change is the only constant.  In these times, I believe that effective communication can build trust and instil confidence.

You cannot be an effective communicator if you are quick to judge others. By judging them, you’re not giving the person a fair go because you already have a preconceived notion about their abilities, personality or motives.  Instead of starting a discussion with an assumption, leave your ego at home and begin with a clear and unbiased frame of mind. Allow the person the chance to speak and to present his or her case before you make any judgements or offer your opinions. 

To be a great leader, you need to be a great communicator. I acquired my communication skills running my business. When you are in business, you are facing challenges every day of the week. Problems occur all the time and you are forced to think on your feet.  You learned very quickly how to respond to uncertainties and how to assure your staff, customers and suppliers. 

I am challenging you to do the same – even if you are not your own boss. It’s not difficult.  Start by keeping an open mind and learning how to communicate without beating about the bush. If you are going into a meeting and you have some important issues you want to raise, prepare what you want to say and how you are going to raise these issues with your team. Stay focused. Stay sharp. Don’t digress and never be distracted. 

Mastering the art of effective communication is crucial for success. The ideal is to create an ecosystem where teams and leaders alike support one another through transparent and honest communication. A culture where everyone does what they love and love what they do; where communication is open, clear and inclusive with plenty of opportunities for questioning and sharing.  If you can master this, you have mastered the art of communicating like a great leader!

I recently wrote a book on leadership titled ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’ where I discussed how I improved my communication skills.  Like most people, I was not a natural-born communicator.  I learned through my mistakes and by observing other great leaders around me. I believe you can do the same too. All you need is to take that first step towards your own greatness.  
Read more about Leadership skills in my #1 Amazon bestselling book “Great Leadership Starts with You”

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Ways to Improve Communication Skills as a Leader appeared first on You Want Group.

Great leaders lead from within. Leading from within is about driving transformational change with compassion for the needs and perspective of others. It begins with the personal transformation of the leader through mindfulness and personal wellbeing. But it does not stop there. Leading from within is also about the ability to inspire change in others, to foster stronger relationships and design innovative and sustainable solutions for the organisation’s future. Leading from within debunks the conventional ‘carrot and stick’ method to compel people to change.  It calls for leading through a deeper understanding of change and a compassion for the needs and perspectives of others.  

My personal story. How I discovered my inner greatness

I was fifteen when I came to Australia. My Asian parents were embarrassed by my failures in school at home and believed that a foreign land may have better opportunities for me to succeed.  I was still a child at the time. I had never left home on my own before. All of a sudden I was traveling thousands of miles to a new country with a foreign tongue and an unknown culture. I was petrified.

The early years of my life in Australia were troubled. It culminated with me causing further embarrassment to my family back home in Hong Kong by dropping out of high school.  So, how did I go from high school dropout to successful leadership coach and business strategist? My journey through self-discovery and success is well-documented in my book. In this article, I am sharing some of these stories. I want to share with you what I’ve learned and how I got to where I am today.  I hope that by reading this article, you will be inspired to discover your inner potential and be the great leader you want to be!

1. Mindfulness and self-transformation

Mindfulness is the state of being where you are conscious of yourself. It is a powerful tool to declutter your mind. Just like your home or work station, if you leave things lying around everywhere you won’t be able to find things when you need them. Your mind is the same. If you are preoccupied with negative thoughts, you can’t go beyond your anger, disillusionment or regret. In this state of mind, you find it hard to be optimistic and the decisions you make are influenced by your negativity. 

Mindfulness calms your mind. It helps you declutter the negative thoughts and recenter yourself. 

When you start with a clean slate, you ‘see’ things clearer and can rationalise a situation to make better decisions. 

Mindful leadership requires four elements; focus, clarity, creativity and compassion. Focus allows you to concentrate better and therefore make better leadership decisions. Clarity gives you a clearer picture of what is going on and prevents you from making bias or emotional decisions. Creativity gives you the space to live, breathe and be congruent with your authentic self. Compassion helps you develop empathy and make decisions that are conscious of the people whose lives may be affected by the actions you take.  

Meditation is a good way to practice mindfulness. So, are healthy habits and exercise. Take time off your busy schedule as a leader to occasionally enjoy the fresh air and smell the roses. Your mind will be in a better place if you do. 

Mindfulness was the beginning of my personal journey to greatness.  Practicing mindfulness helped me overcome the negative energies that were preventing me from achieving my leadership goals.  Before I discovered mindfulness, I was filled with self-doubt.  Whenever I did something great, my mind would try to trick me by telling me that I didn’t deserve it.  That I only made it because I got lucky and not because I had the skill or ability. Sometimes our minds are our biggest bullies. If we keep listening to the bully we will never achieve anything. Mindfulness helps us shut the bully out and recognise our own potential for greatness. When we start believing in ourselves, we can achieve anything.  

2. Self awareness and leading from within

If you do not possess self-awareness, you cannot lead from within.  Self-awareness means you can see yourself in relation to your environment and your true authentic self. It is the ability to reflect on why you think, feel or act in a certain way.

When you have a deep understanding of who you are, you can accept both your strengths and weaknesses. Life is not just a bed of roses.  It has both good and bad. Sometimes the bad can overwhelm us and we lose our self-belief.  Self-awareness helps you accept the bad as part of life. Instead of letting it get you down, you take steps to be better.

Did you know I jumped off a building to conquer my fear of heights? I told myself that my fear of heights was irrational. Of course, I did not do something silly like just walking off a ledge. I conquered my fear by taking decisive action. I went to a professional. I was secured to a harness. I jumped and I am no longer paralysed by fear every time I looked down from a height. 

Once you develop self-awareness, you learn to conquer your fears and become a better leader. Maybe your weakness is jumping to conclusions. If you know that is your weakness, you learn to check yourself before you say or do something. You make a conscious effort to investigate and to reflect before you act. 

A self-aware leader is also acutely aware that others are impacted by his words or actions. Self-awareness grows compassion and empathy. You think twice before you act or do something because you know it can have a profound impact on others. Self-aware leaders do not speak carelessly because they know the words they say can influence how others feel and behave. Let’s say you have an employee who is a star performer suddenly starts underperforming. Do you get angry? Or do you take the time to investigate and understand why he or she is behaving in this manner? When you know the reason behind their behaviour, you can take action to help them.

Self-awareness comes with compassion. Leaders who lead from within are appreciative of the effort their people put into their work. They see compliments as a strength not a weakness because they know that by showing their gratitude and appreciation, they are helping their teams become better.  When staff knows that their leader is genuine in his or her interest in their success, they work harder and are happier in their roles. 

Self aware leaders are confident leaders. They are comfortable in their own abilities and have no problem sharing the limelight with their teams. Leading from within means you are not threatened by the successes of your team. Instead, you celebrate this success and encourage and support them to achieve even greater things. 

When you are deeply aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you are more adaptable. Adaptability is a key trait of successful leading from within.  In today’s business environment, change is constant. A leader who is set in his or her way cannot survive in this environment.  Adaptable leaders know how to make decisions to pivot the company out of difficult situations. 

3. Communication and leading from within

Great leaders are great communicators. Technology has become a large component of our everyday life whether it’s at home or in the office.  The more automated we become, the more human connection we lose, the more we need the ability to communicate effectively. 

A leader who knows how to lead from within can articulate meaning. Effective communication helps the leader explain organisational values and goals to the people. The leader knows how to motivate the people to work towards a common goal by aligning every individual’s personal goals with the organisation’s.  

Effective leaders understand the importance of communication in times of crises.  The recent pandemic proved that leaders have to be ready for any emergency. The pandemic caused worldwide disruption to conventional ways of working. Remote working from home where employees are physically separated from their managers demands the leader to have superior communication skills to keep staff engaged and productive. 

Leading from within empowers the leader with the skill to communicate with heart. Leaders who know how to lead from within are mindful about their staff’s feelings and reactions when they give feedback.  They also encourage their people to give feedback.  When you have the ability to lead from within, you do not view feedback as a threat on your leadership abilities or an attack on your person. When you give constructive feedback you encourage the recipients to also do the same when the roles are reversed.

The ability to communicate effectively helps you build strong relationships with your people.  With relationship comes trust and mutual respect.

Leading from within is about leading from the heart.  As a leader, I am grateful for my successes and have made it my mission to help others find success. I believe that the more I can give back to others the more success I will attract into my life. That’s what true leadership is about. 
If you are keen to learn how to become an even greater leader, read my bestselling book on the topic titled ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’. Click this link and grab your copy now: https://youwantgroup.com/great-leadership-book/

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Tips on How to Lead From Within appeared first on You Want Group.

No human being is totally self-reliant. Human beings are social. We need the interaction of others to thrive. At the workplace, office camaraderie can increase productivity.  We work better in an environment where we have others to bounce ideas off and to work out solutions to problems.

Your business (or work-life) is a reflection of your personal life – one influences the other. If you are unhappy at work, you translate some of your unhappiness to your home environment and vice versa.  That’s the reason why when I talk about relationships at my leadership workshops, I usually group the two together. Let’s face it, if you find it difficult to build relationships at home, it can affect your work and stop you from shining in the workplace.   

Why build successful relationships? 

When it comes to building a successful relationship whether it’s on the personal or business front, your goal is to gain the person’s trust and connect in a meaningful way.  No one is going to want to build a relationship with you if you don’t care about them. So, the first thing you have to do is ensure that you are authentic when you reach out to the individual. 

Early on in my career, I had to do a lot of networking to grow awareness for my business. I hated the ‘salesy’ networking events I attended because every person attending the event had something they wanted to sell to you.  So, I decided to organise my own networking events based on shared interests. I made the events lighthearted and fun. The events were a hit. Along the way, I made some genuine friends who have helped me grow my business. If you are friendly and approachable and your attempt at friendship is genuine, people respond to you in kind. They become interested in what you are doing and won’t hesitate to help you succeed. That’s what I call a win-win relationship. 

Whether you are running a business, looking to make more money in your life, progressing your career, aiming for a promotion, or aspiring to be a better leader, fostering strong relationships with people is essential for your success. The networks you build today will help you succeed tomorrow.  

3 keys to successful relationship building

In my recent bestselling book on leadership, I wrote extensively on how you can build better relationships in your personal and business life.  

Here are some useful tips on relationship building from the book.  If you would like to know more, you can check out the chapter on ‘Relationship Building’ in the book: “Great Leadership Starts with You”.  

1. Gift time. 

Time is precious so if you can give people your time, you are giving them a beautiful gift. Sometimes we forget to give ourselves and the people around us time. We may be too busy chasing our career goals, running a business or studying for our exams. During these times, it’s easy to forget about ourselves and others. 

To build great personal and business relationships, set aside some quality time to foster friendships and grow relationships. When you have allocated the time, be sure to give it your 100 percent focus. Don’t go to a reunion lunch with friends you haven’t seen for years only to spend all the time on your phone with the office. If you are having a coffee with your team,  try focusing on enjoying that great brew instead of talking business the entire time. 

Everyone knows the importance of networking. That’s why we attend networking events and we mingle when we are attending functions. Mingling and handing out business cards is not networking. Networking is about building a strong connection with people you think can help you now or sometime in the future. When the time comes to call upon these contacts, do you think the person who can barely remember you will go out of his or her way to help you? Probably not. The next time you network, try connecting, not collecting. By this I mean, connect with fewer people but on a deeper level. Even if it means collecting fewer business cards. Remember, you are not a card collector.

2. Be patient. Listen. Feedback. 

Whether you are in a department meeting, at a family gathering or on a date, it’s important that you learn to be patient and give others a chance to speak. In a work context, allowing your employees a chance to speak is important for their emotional wellbeing and motivation. Employees feel included and valued if their managers encourage them to speak up. They are more motivated to work for the company and more open to change when it happens.  

When you have invited others to speak, pay attention and do not interrupt them. You don’t like it if someone interrupts you mid-sentence so don’t do it to others. Also, giving people a chance to speak is counterproductive if you are not listening to what they have to say. Imagine the manager who invites feedback and when people are speaking, decides it is a good time to check his or her emails. Or worse. Talk over them.  

Finally, don’t forget feedback.  When giving feedback don’t be critical. Be constructive. Consider offering suggestions for improvement rather than criticism or censure. I find the feedback sandwich really works for me when I am dealing with sensitive issues. A feedback sandwich method is one where negative feedback is enveloped in praise. A feedback conversation begins with praise, followed by the negative issue you want to address and ends with another compliment or praise of the individual. It is an effective way to address performance issues with an employee. 

There is no place for bias and prejudice in feedback. No matter how much you may dislike an employee’s sense of style, if they are a good worker, you tell them so. The best type of feedback to give is one that is objective and sensitive. Be objective. Focus on the quality of their work not on their person unless it’s their person that is affecting the quality of their work.  Be sensitive.  Imagine how you would feel if you were on the receiving end. Putting yourself in the person’s shoes helps you become more empathetic and aware of their feelings.  

Also, it is important to remember that feedback is a two-way asymmetrical communication.  Feedback is given. It must also be received. Giving feedback is easy. Receiving feedback is not. No one likes to be told they are wrong or their behaviour is bad. But if you are serious about building good relationships, you need to be prepared to accept feedback. Why not look at it from a positive glass half full approach? Negative feedback is not a criticism but an expression of the person’s genuine interest in your improvement.  It might make the bitter pill a little easier to swallow. 

3. Accept and celebrate differences

Every human being is an individual. We all have different experiences that shape our perceptions and beliefs and that’s perfectly OKAY.  Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions or to start lecturing someone just because you do not approve of their life choices or their faith. Always put yourself in the person’s shoes and ask yourself: “How would I react if it was me on the receiving end?’ before you act on your impulses.  

If you are a manager managing a multicultural workforce, it is important that diversity is celebrated not just at your level but across every level. Build a culture of tolerance and acceptance where every individual is treated fairly by all. Lead by example by not stereotyping other cultures or choosing one race over another. 

One of the biggest barriers to great leadership building is communication. Effective communication involves both speaking and listening. If you don’t express how you feel, you cannot expect the other party to understand you. Likewise, if you don’t give the other person a chance to express how they feel, you won’t understand their position. 

Building great relationships is about developing your communication skills. You want to be equally skilled in verbal, non-verbal and written communication. Ask quality questions. Avoid assumptions. Double-check meanings if you have to.  Don’t complicate things and always, always ask yourself how you can be better at communication. In the words of my mentor, “Keep it simple! If you can make a 12-year old understand what you are trying to get across then you’re on the right track”.  

Click on the link to learn more about ‘Relationship Building’ in my #1 Amazon bestselling book “Great Leadership Starts with You”

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Keys to Improving Your Personal and Business Relationships appeared first on You Want Group.

Leadership goals are important because they help you identify your priorities.  Leaders lead people and teams. While it’s great to make goals for your future, it is even greater to make goals that include your team. Goals set with your team in mind makes you a more efficient and effective leader. If you can have all your dreams come true and help your people to also achieve some of their dreams along the way then you are on the right track to greatness.   

Setting the goals may be easy but making them come true can be challenging!  Often we set goals but we don’t put in the hard yards to make them come true. Or, we start off very motivated but end up losing momentum and self-belief and dropping out of the race.  

What if I share with you a secret way you can manifest your leadership goals? Read on and discover the power of manifestation. 

The power of manifestation 

Manifesting literally means visualising your desire and harnessing the power of your imagination to make it a reality.  Manifestation is not wishful thinking nor is it daydreaming. It’s about acting on your dreams (or in this case, your leadership aspirations). For example, one of your leadership goals is to communicate better. Perhaps you are reserved and feel self-conscious about addressing a crowd. You may decide to take some public speaking courses to build confidence. When you do this and can start visualising yourself captivating your team at the department meeting or winning the audience in a business presentation, eventually you develop the confidence to speak publicly.  You’ve realised your dreams through manifestation.  

When it comes to successfully manifesting your goals, the secret sauce is you!  Manifestation is not an exclusive club reserved only for successful people.  Everyone has the ability to manifest, including you! Let me show you how it can be done. 

1. Be the great leader you want to be!

Leaders don’t just dream about their success. They act on their dreams by putting energy and time into making them come true. By doing this, they are able to attract what they want. 

I find the best way to become a great leader is to lead from within. Use your moral compass and values to guide you to become the type of leader you want to be. You will become an even greater leader if you learn to lead yourself first. Leading from within means you are constantly challenging yourself to be better.  Leading within yourself requires discipline, self-awareness and resilience. It also requires you to have a genuine interest in helping the people whose future and livelihood depends on the decisions you make. Great leaders find ways to align organisational goals with individual goals. If the company succeeds, the people who work for the company will also benefit. People who work in a company that espouses this value feel more connected to their employer. They work harder to achieve goals because they know they will be rewarded for their hard work.  

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there is nothing more you can learn as a leader because you’ve been in that role for so long. That’s not true. Learning is a continuous process without an end if we don’t give it one. Your leadership goals don’t stay stagnant. As you progress up the corporate ladder, you set new goals for yourself.  To achieve these goals you may have to learn new skills, acquire new knowledge and even unlearn some bad habits. The more open you are to learning, the easier it is for you to achieve your leadership goals. 

Even though I have been in a leadership role for over 15 years, I am still learning and discovering new things every day. Great leaders are great learners. So if you want to be that great leader, embrace knowledge and start learning.  Also, the best way to learn is not through instructional videos or textbooks, it’s through real-life experiences. 

By constantly challenging and improving on your leadership skills, you learn to manifest the type of leader you want to be and eventually, you become that leader!

2. Be a great leader who shows appreciation and gratitude.

How often have you said to yourself: “I don’t want to get angry!” But you did. Or “I don’t want to be negative but I can’t help it!” 

If you want to think negatively of yourself (or others) then you invite negativity into your life. Eventually, it spirals into an abyss of despair and anger whether it’s directed at yourself, your loved ones or the people you manage.

On the other hand, if you manifest positivity, then you invite sunshine and happiness into your life. You have the power to be Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America or anyone you want to be.  If you shift your focus and concentrate on abundance, joy, love, and life’s boundless possibilities, you attract the good things into your life. 

That’s the thing about Appreciation and Gratitude. Several years ago, I discovered meditation. It helped me clear my mind, and align my body, mind and soul. Through meditation, I started to appreciate the things I have in life (both good and bad) and show gratitude towards the people whose paths I have crossed in my professional and personal life. 

One of the biggest lessons I learned is not to focus too much on things that I do not have. If I spend all my time lamenting about all the goals I did not achieve, I will not have time to focus on the times when dreams did come true for me. I prefer to remind myself of all the good things that have happened to me like the time I survived a serious car accident or the time when my business partner and I turned our business around by doing things differently. When you look at both the good and the bad times, you become more appreciative of the things you have in life. You expand this gratitude to the people around you. A leader – who is genuinely happy about his or her people’s success is more likely to earn their admiration, friendship and trust. Once this special bond is fostered, staff are happy, motivated and productive. 

Successes are celebrated. Failures are not mistakes but challenges that can be overcome. If we start focusing on appreciation and gratitude, we start seeing opportunities everywhere.  The truth is, opportunities have always been around. We were just too preoccupied to notice it. 

3. Be the self-aware leader

Great leaders have self-awareness. Self-awareness is understanding why you feel what you feel and why you behave in a particular way.  When you have this understanding, you have control and you are one step closer to achieving your leadership goals. That’s because self-awareness helps you recognise your strengths and weaknesses. Not the ones that you write on a piece of paper during a training session. The ‘real’ ones that are buried deep inside your soul that you may be in denial from.  

Self-awareness is power. If you know exactly what you are good at and what you may want to improve, you can take positive steps to get what you want in life. It can be using your strengths or improving on your weaknesses. Either path will lead you to success. 

The reason we fail is ourselves. We are our worst enemy. Our mind is always trying to trick us by planting self-doubts in our heads. So, we lose the courage to be daring; to go out and grab what we want in life. 

Here are some things you can do to develop self-awareness:

Practise daily self-reflection.

Stop and take some time each day to reflect on what you’ve achieved. During this time you can take stock of your successes and misses. If you spent just 10-15 minutes a day on this, you’d have accumulated 365 wins and misses in a year.  Imagine if you’ve acted on every single one of these? 

Seek feedback

The best way to improve is to learn what others think of your efforts. Consider feedback as market research on yourself.  The more data you have, the more informed you are about the best course of action. 

Practise mindfulness

It’s important to allocate some time to declutter your mind. Mindfulness and meditation are relaxing and restful. When you are rested, you think clearer and make better decisions. 
Unfortunately, I cannot share all the wonderful life lessons I have learned in this blog. If you are keen to learn how to manifest your own success, read my bestselling book on the topic titled ‘Great Leadership Starts with You’. Click this link and grab your copy now: https://youwantgroup.com/great-leadership-book/

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post 3 Effective Ways to Manifest Your Goals as a Leader appeared first on You Want Group.

My new  #1 Amazon Bestseller book ‘Great Leadership Starts with You – Be the Leader You Want to Be’ is a step-by-step guide filled with practical advice, mindset strategies and leadership hacks to help you achieve your leadership goals and be the leader you want to be. 

Here are some ideas from the book:

Develop a vision

Turn your dreams and wishes into a vision.  Think of what type of leader you want to be.  Then come up with a plan of action. When planning, a proven method like SMART goals still works so don’t be too quick to write it off just because it’s being used for decades. 

Find the GAPS

Look for the stumbling blocks that can prevent you from achieving your leadership goals and commit to resolving them. Maybe you need better communication skills? Maybe you need a confidence booster? Maybe you need to develop self-awareness?  Whatever the GAP is, you can fill it up. 

Be your authentic self

Learn to lead from within.  Be honest with yourself.  Reflect on your actions, feelings and motives and learn to set standards for yourself.  Use these standards as guidelines on how to overcome challenges.  Stay positive and don’t let roadblocks and detours prevent you from completing your journey to great leadership. 

You might ask, can I reset my personal goals? Definitely!  Leadership is not just for the workplace. You can be a leader in other areas of your life too. Remember, what happens to you personally affects what you do professionally.  RESET, NOT RESENT.  Don’t become bitter and twisted because life is dealing you lemons.  Find the inner strength, press RESET and START AGAIN because you can. Buy Amazon #1 Best Seller ‘Great Leadership Starts with You – Be the Leader You Want to Be here.

Iris Du

Iris Du is a leadership strategist and human behaviour expert who thrives on helping individuals, leaders and businesses achieve the success they deserve. Drawing on leadership, attraction and manifestation strategies, Iris works with organisations to help them leverage their natural talent to create highly engaged and high-performing leaders and teams.

youwantgroup.com

The post How To Be A Greater Leader: Hit Reset and Start Again appeared first on You Want Group.