The hurdles women face when trying to climb the career ladder are real. They have to fight many biases that hold them back. When building your performance management system and promotion criteria, stop relying on “future potential” as a reliable metric, or at least try to make it as objective as possible.
Stepping in to lead a new team can be overwhelming. Be humble and open-minded. People rarely do something without reason, so before you criticize something, make sure you understand the reason why it is happening. By listening first and being respectful to your new team you will earn their respect in return.
Nothing beats face-to-face interactions when building new relationships. Create at least semi-regular opportunities to get the whole team together and interact in person. For the rest of the time, the richer the media used, the better. Sometimes a voice-only call can be all that is needed. And sometimes, even the dreaded email can get the job done.
While energy leads to excitement, clarity of purpose leads to inspiration. Once you are inspired and understand the purpose, once you are clear on values, you need to make them actionable, and that means using verbs.
Don’t get caught in some of the most frequent pitfalls like doing things the way you have always done, not listening, trying to take action too quickly without understanding the environment, learning the wrong things, setting unrealistic expectations, or trying to do too many things in parallel. A thoughtful, well-planned approach will pay dividends.
Gratitude can significantly increase the quality of your life and the lives of those around you. It makes us more optimistic, less materialistic, and less self-centered.
When leading with compassion, you do what is right regardless of what people may think of you. You stand up for the truth rather than trying to please everyone. You are compassionate and kind, yet you maintain high expectations. You support others rather than punish them. You do what is necessary rather than what is easy.
If you worry about employee productivity while working from home, then work on your own personal and professional development as a manager and a leader so you build enough confidence in yourself that you can lead with trust.
Hire motivated people with unique strengths and then find ways how to develop their strengths to the point of mastery. You turn everyone’s strengths into results.
Don’t underestimate the importance of proper onboarding and integration. It is very attractive and often expected to dive right in and start quickly producing results, but it will make you less effective and haunt you down the road.
The Geeky Leader 