Welcome to Leadology's
Courage-Sparking Corner
A roundup of content and interviews dedicated to helping you awaken the leader within.
Don't Be a Feedback Scrooge this Holiday Season and Give the Gift of Feedback
The holiday season is a time for spreading joy and cheer. And what a better way to do that than by showing appreciation to your hard working team. Careful that the “busy-ness” of the season makes you forget about the importance of positive feedback. As a leader, it's crucial to remember that recognition is not just a once a year thing, but a year-round practice that fosters motivation and productivity. When you acknowledge the wins, improvements and resourcefulness of your employees, you create a culture of recognition.
Leadology’s Forbes features that will help you improve manager effectiveness at your company
Over the past decade, we've helped countless clients to reduce suffering at work and increase job satisfaction. Through our Leadology newsletter and blog, we've shared the insights and tools that can make a real difference in your professional and personal life. Now, we’re sharing our best advice as recently picked up by Forbes!
How to Create Better Boundaries Around the Holidays
According to a 2021 study by telehealth provider Sesame, 3 in 5 Americans feel their mental health is negatively impacted by the holidays, with 60% reporting an increase in anxiety and 52% feeling an increase in depression compared to the holiday season before.
As staggering as these statistics are, it’s always helpful to remember that things don’t have to shake out this way every single December, especially once we’re equipped with the proper tools that allow us to establish, communicate, and enforce clear boundaries in our personal and professional lives.
3 Pitfalls You Should Avoid in the Workplace: Manager Edition
Before we dive into the 3 pitfalls you or your managers might be making and should avoid in the workplace, let’s discuss how to recognize whether managers are falling into these habits and why that’s a problem.
We’re hearing managers express that they are shying away from tough conversations, canceling meetings to give back time to their teams, and taking on more in an effort to help manage their employees' workload. These are only a few of the many examples that our managers are currently dealing with on a daily basis.
Tips for Managing an Employee Who Always Makes Excuses
If you’ve engaged with our socials over the past few weeks, you know that we’ve been simmering on the topic of manager effectiveness–– namely, how it’s changed over the years and what it now looks like for workplace leaders in 2023. We even had the opportunity to hear from a greater portion of our community through a recent Instagram poll, where managers from all over shared their insight and experiences on the subject, particularly when faced with managing employees who are prone to making excuses about their work.
Understanding the *Real* Causes and Effects of Burnout
Level with us… how often do high levels of stress at work make you feel like you’re not contributing to your team or organization in meaningful ways? Maybe you’re going through the motions, feeling like you’re perpetually stuck on a hamster wheel when it comes to your work. We may be able to easily define burnout on paper, but when we’re in the thick of its symptoms, it can be much more difficult to remedy.
New Managers: Is Your First Year the Worst of Your Career?
We need to be speaking honestly about both the pitfalls and pleasures of becoming a new manager, so we can address them and minimize any dip in career satisfaction. In this article, Leadology summarizes the challenges of first-year management and provides three tips to smoothing the transition from buddy to boss.
You’re Doing Workplace Boundaries Wrong - Here’s What to Do Instead
When it comes to workplace boundaries, there are a few main things that will make setting them the most effective. It’s little surprise that communication skills are at the forefront of any boundary-setting need. Setting workplace boundaries might feel intimidating but it’s important for all of us to feel confident to look after ourselves. If you’ve been unsuccessful in your attempts to set boundaries in the workplace, Leadology has some tips for you!
Managing Employees with Anxiety: Using Radical Candor to Overcome Difficult Conversations in the Workplace
If you or someone you know has anxiety, you probably already know that pursuing a straightforward answer to the question of best to manage employees who are open about their own anxiety is tricky. As workplace leaders, it’s vital that we remember that while we’re not mental health experts, we do have the ability to navigate these kinds of difficult conversations with compassion, unique insight, and– radical candor.
3 Powerful Feedback Conversation Tips to Maintain Supportive Relationships in the Workplace
Did you know that one of my absolute favorite parts of our Activate program is getting to actually practice the concepts we teach? While it’s great to have management insight in your back pocket, it’s a completely different experience to actually put it to work.
How to Handle Office Gossip
Let’s talk about gossip: How many times in the office have you gotten a sinking feeling after hearing a conversation start with, “Did you hear that so-and-so did X, Y, and Z”?
How to Keep a Growth Mindset about Negative Feedback in the Workplace
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that workplace leaders are human too, and not immune to giving teams badly communicated– or altogether negative– feedback. If you’ve ever found yourself in a position where you’re receiving poor feedback or feedback that you disagree with, it’s important to keep a growth mindset and ask yourself: what can I still learn from this?
Setting Boundaries at Work Doesn’t Have to be Risky
Setting boundaries at work can seem like a risky thing to do. Since there are a lot of misconceptions around setting boundaries at work, you may think people will view you negatively.
A healthy work environment won’t occur if you’re wondering how you can better meet your own needs without putting your paycheck at risk. Maybe you’ve worried about how to tell your boss “no?” Felt anxious about in-person work? Or found yourself stuck in your career but didn’t know how to speak up for yourself?
How to have effective meetings, so you can stop canceling your 1:1s
In theory, 1:1 meetings are a chance for managers and employees to have an open, honest conversation about how they’re feeling, and how they view their positions within the company. If used correctly 1:1s can be one of the single most important tools a manager has at their disposal to help boost the performance and morale of their team.
The Manager’s Guide to Difficult Conversations
On a scale of one to ten how much do you dread difficult conversations? You know, those conversations that might include delivering unpleasant news, discussing delicate (and often emotional) topics, and talking about something that needs to change or went wrong?
Combat burnout at work by completing the stress cycle
Ok, let’s roll up our sleeves and talk about burnout. To an outside observer, burnout might seem unavoidable. We’re living in a fast-paced culture, especially right now when many companies are under-resourced and forced to do more with less. But what most people don’t know is that conversations, projects, virtual events...none of these are inherently stressful. In fact, by definition, stress is a perception.
Let's Rumble
According to Brown, “The word rumble is more than just a weird West Side Story reference, it’s a way to say, “Let’s have a real conversation, even if it’s tough.”
Why coaching skills are integral to your role as manager
So why do so many great leaders struggle to coach? According to this blog article by leadership consulting company Box of Crayons, “People have spent a lifetime being rewarded for not asking questions, and for instead focusing on having the answers.
Receiving Feedback: The *Most Important* Skill I’m Never Asked to Train
If you’ve been around the Leadology circle for any length of time, you already know that we frequently cover the importance of giving frequent, on-going, and honest feedback. And, although we already have numerous articles covering every angle of recognition, feedback, and connecting 1-on-1, in this article we’re going to talk about how to make it as easy as possible for those around you to give you the gift of feedback.
Can I Give You Some Feedback? *Cue Stomach Drop*
What comes to mind when you think of the word feedback?
For many of the leaders I coach it’s something along the lines of dread.
- 2 plus 2 conversation
- High-Impact Virtual Experiences
- Personal Development
- ask for help
- become a better manager
- boundaries
- brene brown
- buddy to boss
- burnout
- coaching
- communication
- dare to lead
- delegation
- difficult conversations
- eLearning
- empathy
- employee development
- employee experience
- feedback
- growth mindset
- hybrid workplace
- leadership tips
- learning and development
- management skills
- manager success roadmap
- meetings
- new managers
- office routine
- performance review
- productivity hacks
- professional development
- promotions
- purpose at work
- purpose-driven leadership
- recognition
- return to office
- self-efficacy
- social learning theory
- strengths-based development
- team leadership
- team management
- time management
- toxic coworkers
- workplace strategies
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