Welcome to Leadology's
Courage-Sparking Corner
A roundup of content and interviews dedicated to helping you awaken the leader within.
Improve your manager-employee conversations with this hack
At Team Leadology, we know firsthand just how tempting it can be to cancel those touch points with your team members. We know you think canceling will give some time back to both you AND your employees… but in reality, the cost of postponing 1-on-1s is so much more than the benefit of receiving an extra 30 or so minutes it frees up on your calendar!
Grow Your Leadership Library with These "Friends of Leadology" Book Recommendations
As part of our ongoing efforts to provide valuable resources for leaders of all kinds, we've compiled a list of book recommendations from the "Friends of Leadology" network. These books cover a range of topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and personal growth - all of which are essential components of effective leadership development.
Remove These 6 Corporate Pet Peeves to Improve Your Leadership Language
While attempting to improve relationships and communication within teams, leaders often adopt industry-specific language to convey complex ideas efficiently. Unfortunately, these clichés often miss the mark, creating an even larger gap between managers and their teams. After being featured in Forbes alongside 19 other communication experts, we’ve identified our top six pieces of workplace jargon that leaders should eliminate to refine their leadership language. Read more to delve deeper into these common phrases as we offer our insights on why they hinder effective communication and how to replace them with clearer, more impactful language.
3 Ways Managers Can ShoW Gratitude to Their Teams on Employee Appreciation Day
With Employee Appreciation Day on March 1 this year, it's time for managers to think about how to recognize their team's hard work and dedication. But how can managers make the most out of Employee Appreciation Day and ensure their team feels valued and recognized? In this article, we'll explore three impactful ways managers can show appreciation and recognition to their teams, fostering a culture of recognition and engagement in the workplace
Help Employees Find Happiness at Work
Finding happiness at work has been a struggle for many of our readers. According to recent studies, new employees are experiencing lower levels of engagement and inclusion than ever before. If you’ve been feeling a bit disconnected at work lately, you're not alone.
In this article, Team Leadology breaks down what it means to be happy at work and how you can spot the employees who need a little help finding it! Read on to learn our simple solutions and take away an actionable strategy that actually works.
Why is Unplugging From Work so Damn Hard?
Ten Percent Happier has an article titled "Why Can't I Relax”, which explains the barriers we face in finding inner calm and disconnecting from work during our time away, and in it they have a very relatable quote about the struggles of unplugging from work:
"Do you ever notice that when you have time to relax, you can’t help but squander it in ways that are anything but regenerative? All too often, the little time we have to ourselves leaves us far from feeling rested and restored. In fact, having downtime can lead to even more anxiety.”
How to Be a Great Leader in 2024
With 2024 already in full swing, we are already dreaming about all the ways we can transform as leaders this year.
At the start of each new year, the widely adopted "back to the grind" mindset can easily overwhelm us. Setting goals that propel our development is crucial, but fostering habits that empower both teams and leaders has been proven to be more sustainable in the long run.
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!
Going Without Recognition? Why You Should Expect Gratitude in the Workplace
With Thanksgiving already just around the corner, one thing is cutting through all of the noise of travel plans, meal preparations, and Black Friday shopping: gratitude.
While this time of year offers frequent reminders to express our thanks to the most important people in our lives, we recognize that the workplace is an area in which we aren’t always eager to show the same amount of love. In this article, Team Leadology weighs in on why providing recognition to your employees is so crucial, and just how to go about it!
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.
How to Build a Team of Self-Reliant Superstars
You’ve probably already seen these kinds of employees in action within your own organization–– they’re efficient, proactive, and easy to work with. They’re no stranger to taking initiative and owning their part, especially due to their solution-focused mindset.
It’s important to remember that while many employees can bring these qualities to their role from the very start, they can also be encouraged and fostered among teams with the help of workplace leadership.
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.
Strategies to Avoid Burnout and Support Your Employees
In our experience as workplace leaders, recognizing our roles in both avoiding burnout in our employees and supporting them when it happens is an important reminder of the kind of impact we can have on our organizations at large. At times, the meaningful parts of the manager experience can feel overshadowed by overwhelming workloads or packed schedules, but by remembering that we play an integral role in cultivating wellbeing and engagement among our team members, we feel charged to support them in the fight against the phenomenon at every turn.
In this next article on burnout, we’re aiming to equip you with our anti-burnout strategies and best practices for supporting employees that can make the ongoing effort a rewarding one!
Resolving Burnout in the Workplace through Strengths
When in full effect, the challenges of burnout in the workplace may seem insurmountable. But research-backed strategies advise us to return to the basics of strengths-work to weed it out of our organizations. Managers from across the globe are putting this approach into action within our premier leadership development program Activate, which is engaging networks of workplace leaders in purposeful conversations and equipping them with the resources needed to reduce workplace burnout on a mass scale.
3 Tell-Tale Signs Your Employees Are Suffering From Burnout
According to the World Health Organization, burnout is characterized by three persisting symptoms: exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.
While we may pass these things off as fairly common, Gallup research states that, when left untreated, these symptoms have the potential to make severely burned-out workers 63% more likely to take a sick day, and 23% more likely to visit the emergency room.
The sheer prevalence of burnout in the workplace may actually be contributing to its inconspicuousness and, to some extent, normalization. But the truth of the matter is that burnout is an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition–– meaning, at the end of the day, it can absolutely be prevented with the cultivation of personal work-life balance and the prioritization of wellbeing in company culture.
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.
Is This the Key to Improving Mental Health in the Workplace?
Across the globe, a growing number of companies are reporting rising levels of burnout and mental health issues in the workplace, despite taking intentional steps to provide mental health resources and support. While these offerings are incredibly important when it comes to supporting employee wellbeing, they don’t always address the root of the issue– and in some cases, the issue lies with lackluster management.
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.
- 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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