Building Confidence

To a great extent, each of us needs to be responsible for building our own confidence, but as leaders we can often instill confidence in others. It’s an ongoing process. As a leader, you can enhance confidence building in others by incorporating the following practices into your daily routine.

1.     Provide experiences to learn from – Building confidence stems from providing employees with experiences that they can learn from and deal with successfully. When dealing with less experienced employees, you need to review tasks in greater detail and, when possible, break them down into specific activities before delegating them. Setting up the proper learning experience is the leader’s responsibility.

2.     Provide honest feedback –Giving positive feedback exclusively is dangerous – it can cause inflated egos and is unrealistic. No feedback is just as bad; employees don’t know where they stand. Honest feedback is when a leader is willing to be transparent and has no fear of giving credit where credit is due. Likewise, the leader is willing to point out the negative or deliver criticism. Delivering criticism or negative feedback is where most leaders have difficulty, primarily because they lack any formal training in the area. One thing is for sure – delivering criticism or negative feedback effectively cannot be done by the seat of your pants, nor can leaders rely strictly on common sense. Delivering criticism or negative feedback so that it results in improved performance and strengthens relationships is a skill, just like hitting a ball in golf is a skill. Both have to be learned and practiced. Honest feedback entails presenting candidly how a leader perceives a particular situation or a person’s actions. When a leader communicates honestly, there is no need to waste time second guessing what is being conveyed. It also begins to lay the foundation of trust in the leader’s relationships. People trust people who use praise and criticism effectively.

3.     Communicate the results of the effort – One way to build confidence in others that is frequently overlooked is communicating how someone’s actions positively or negatively affected the outcome of an effort. Rarely do we, as leaders, have the time to get back to our employees to let them know the outcome of their efforts, yet this is one of the most significant confidence builders available to leaders.

Tags: coaching, communication, confidence, inspiration, performance, self-confidence, stress, tasks, teamwork, work, workplace

Understanding Confidence

Confidence is the belief in one’s ability to achieve a particular outcome or goal or, put more simply, confidence has to do with self-assurance.

Where does personal confidence come from? Here are three underlying factors I’ve uncovered that build personal confidence:

1.     Knowledge and Experience – The more we know about something, the more confident we feel. As an example, think back to the first time you got into a car to drive it. You were most likely unsure of yourself. However, after a period of time, and with some experience, driving became second nature even to the point where you became comfortable working with a GPS system or waving to a friend while competently negotiating through the traffic in front of you.

2.     Successes – Acquiring a lot of knowledge and having a number of experiences with “no successes” rarely leads to building confidence. It’s necessary to have some successes along the way.

3.     Control –Knowing exactly what we do that contributed to a success and knowing how to repeat that success is what control is all about. Control awareness occurs when a person has personally and successfully completed a task and can directly attribute the success to his or her own efforts.  When reflecting on these three underlying factors, an exciting conclusion emerges which is that we have a lot of control over building our own personal confidence.

Tags: coaching, communication, confidence, control, negative feedback, self-confidence, teamwork, work, workplace

Acknowledging People In A Meaningful Way Part III

Action Steps

 Ideas for acknowledging people for the value they bring to an organization or team that stick within a budget!

1.   Asking the employee to give a speech at a high school/college
      respected association.

2.   Offering the opportunity to write an article for a publication
      respected by peers.

3.   Giving the employee a job title or upgrading his/her title.

4.   Inviting the employee to dinner with his or her spouse (if
      appropriate, flowers might be sent to spouse and baby-sitter
      arrangements offered).

5.   Providing tickets to sporting events.

6.   Asking the employee to attend a prestigious meeting with
      his/her boss.

Tags: acknowledging employees, business, career, coaching, effectiveness, leadership, managers, managing, meaningful, teamwork, work, workplace

Acknowledging People In A Meaningful Way Part II

Discussion

Praising, rewarding, and, yes, sometimes even criticizing people makes them feel that their presence within the organization is important. Acknowledging people for the value they bring to a team department or organization instills pride, which in turn boosts energy levels that can be creatively channeled into their work.

Giving people recognition is the easiest thing to do, but toughest to be effective at doing. For starters, leaders need to make the reward or recognition meaningful. 

• The best approach that I’ve learned for how to ensure that an attempt to deliver recognition that’s meaningful is by asking the employees the following question: “Putting money, promotions and raises aside, what is the best way I can let you know that the organization values your contributions?” or “Putting money and promotions aside, is there one thing I can do that’s within my control to let you know that I value your contribution?” 
• Another option is to learn what people do in their leisure time and use that to reward and recognize people.  It’s according to their interests. 
  • Rewarding people and recognizing them with money is a nice thing but a memorable thing is to give people something tangible that they might not get for themselves. 
  • One thing you can do daily that shows respect and is appreciated  is to say, “Please” and “Thank you” to your people.
  • Give feedback for the results of their efforts is another effective way to recognize employee’s contributions. If someone has worked hard on something and turned it into you, you want to get back to them and let them know how their contribution either helped the project along or detracted from the project.

These are the best things you can do up front.  Remember, it’s easy to reward and even easier to mess it up!

Tags: acknowledging employees, business, coaching, communication, control, effectiveness, goals, management, performance, work, workplace

Acknowledging People In A Meaningful Way: Part I

Predicament

John, who heads up the finance group, is hearing rumblings, especially among people in payroll, that all they get is complaints. They are ambushed when the littlest thing goes wrong but never do they hear any compliments when things are accurate.  When considering their role, John decides that he wants to do something to let his employees know he values their contribution since the job itself is a “thankless one”.

Tags: acknowledging employees, coaching, communication, control, effectiveness, employees, goals, inspiration, meaningful, workplace

Meeting Deadlines the Positive Way: Part III

Step 2–DEALNG WITH THE TASK ITSELF:

In addition to dealing with the emotional aspects of pressure, the actual meeting of a deadline also needs to be accomplished. If peers or subordinates are involved in completing certain tasks of the project, there are several management techniques that are sure to be of assistance.

1. Let everybody in on the big picture. When people know the importance of a task and how it contributes to the entire project, they are motivated to better perform.
2. Try to delegate the detail work to others on your team while dealing with the major issues yourself. And when you delegate, be certain the person has the resources to complete the task.
3. Explain slowly, clearly, and completely what you want others to do. Be sure you’ve been understood, and then cheek their work regularly. Remember, you won’t get what you expect only what you inspect.
4. Be aware of the amount of work you’ve delegated. If you have the type of employees who are supportive, they may take on every assignment without letting you know they are overwhelmed. This can result in increased stress and/or subsequent reduction in their performance.

Pressures from deadlines in today’s workplace are increasing in many areas of endeavor because of the need to do more with less. Much of it simply results from the genuine concern about being accurate. Whatever the reasons for this additional pressure, the techniques outlined above can be a real help in directing one’s energy in more productive ways.

Tags: coaching, communication, control, effectiveness, expectations, goals, leadership, tasks, teamwork, time management, work, workplace

Meeting Deadlines the Positive Way: Part II

Step 1– DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONAL ASPECTS OF PRESSURE

 The first step in managing pressure involves learning to identify the underlying sources that cause pressure. When pressure stems from a deadline, the underlying cause is fear of failure to live up to a set of expectations within a given time frame. Such pressure is a natural consequence of recognizing that the amount of time or resources available may not be sufficient to complete the job on schedule, and the active word is “fear.” When we are afraid, a number of physiological changes may occur in’ our bodies, including the constriction of blood vessels, an increase in heartbeat rate, a decrease in blood supply to the brain, tightening of muscles, dilation of the pupils-to name a few.

If these effects continue at this elevated state for a prolonged period of time, performance may deteriorate, even though we continue to push ourselves. After all, we are going to meet this deadline…even if it kills us! For these reasons, it is important to be aware of the signals that your body produces and get yourself back to an “optimal level of performance” by using Bright’s Breathing Quick Charge.      

Bright’s Quick Charges are easily implemented techniques designed to help users perform at their best when a difficult situation demands it.  They are instantly effective, giving their users a “boost” that helps them through high-pressured moments—but even better, they are undetectable by anyone but the person using them.  They are like a “secret weapon” working to keep their user in control of a situation.

 Bright’s Breathing Quick Charge is an effective technique that can be used instantly for controlling the mounting pressure of an approaching deadline:

1. Inhale deeply and smoothly.
2. Hold your breath for three or four seconds.
3. Exhale slowly and evenly while imagining a wave of calmness that spreads throughout your body from head to toes.
4. Repeat the above steps a few times, if necessary. Each time make sure you relax all of the muscles in your body while exhaling.

It’s important to “stop” and ask yourself:  at what level does this task need to be completed?  Remember, you have some control over setting the performance expectations around a particular task. Not all tasks need to be perfect- but all tasks when completed need to add value! 

 When practicing this technique, it’s important to exhale very slowly and evenly, preferably through your nose. During the exhalation phase, remember to relax your muscles starting with your head and ending with your toes. Besides feeling more physically relaxed, you’ll immediately notice that you are able to think more clearly. Greater clarity of thought is linked to the additional supply of oxygen being transported to the brain. Don’t be embarrassed with using this technique. It expands and improves upon the familiar “sigh.”

Tags: coaching, communication, control, effectiveness, expectations, management, managers, not enough time, organization, tasks, workplace