Becoming a Better Leader in the Workplace

Whether you are the CEO of your company or simply taking charge of one objective in a new business project, being a sound leader is critical. Leadership doesn’t come naturally for everyone, but thankfully, it doesn’t have to. One great example is in Author, Director, and Management Consultant, Peter Gasca. In a piece for The Entrepreneur, Peter admits his lack of natural leadership but credits his mentors and his ambition for new challenges as the root of his leadership growth. Being an introvert doesn’t make you a pushover or incapable of leadership. In fact, introverts are often better listeners than extroverts, which a key characteristic of leadership. Review the four simple priorities Peter recommends every aspiring leader set early in their career.

In this breakdown, we reveal three critical factors to becoming a better leader in the workplace: 

Communication

If you exhibit an uplifting, optimistic spirit, others will follow suit. If you appear discouraged or disinterested, your team will become concerned and uninspired. Being vulnerable to your team does not make you weak, but rather a leader that employees will want to follow. Admitting when you’re wrong will cultivate respect from your peers and your employees by elevating a sense of accountability.

The most renowned leaders are great listeners who show a genuine interest in workplace conversations. Get ‘in the trenches’ and be a part of the team. When discussing long-term goals and analyzing the bigger picture, allow your employees to feel they are a part of the team as well. Be intentional in constructing a bond with them and occasionally discussing matters outside of work. Consider stepping outside your office and walking amongst your team members or employees, but do not micromanage or talk down to others. Instead, take a mentoring approach and seek out what’s best for their career development. 

Trust Your Team

Have confidence in your subordinates, have faith in your peers, and encourage their involvement. As you begin to learn your employees’ skill-sets and strengths, you will know who to trust most in critical situations or with new projects. When you start trusting others, they will start trusting in you. Additionally, you will be offering them opportunities to grow and take on leadership responsibilities themselves. 

When you invest in your employees, you will see individuals grow into more productive, engaged, and happy employees. Seek out feedback for new ways to garner motivation, reward employees, and become a more effective leader. Foster creativity in your team by challenging them in areas you believe they will excel. When an issue does arise, or a mistake occurs, always give your team the benefit of the doubt. Get to the root of the problem and do your part in ensuring the problem does not happen again.

“Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished.” – Lisa Cash Hanson

Celebrate Others’ Wins

When you notice somebody is doing a good job, go beyond the ‘pat on the back.’ Acknowledge and honor them publicly. When they take a bold step in sharing a new idea or comment during a meeting, show your appreciation for their contributions. Hearing compliments of their work will not only provide a sense of accomplishment but will increase confidence, provide affirmation, and bring a sense of job security. The happier your employees are, the more productive and passionate they will become. Not much is better than happy and appreciative employees having your back.

Although it is important to celebrate others and have fun, you must also remember to stay assertive and hold your team accountable to gain respect. Don’t let your team get stationary. Your employees are relying on you to help keep their goals a priority. Lastly, when discussing an employee’s room for improvement or growth, do so privately to refrain from publicly embarrassing or belittling them. 

Wrap Up

What are your preconceived notions of quality leadership? Rid yourself of the ‘my way or the highway’ mentality. It is not about being the loudest in the room, the most-liked, or most recognized. Authentic leadership involves wanting the best out of your team and aspiring to see others grow. The best leaders aim to inspire, entrust, and keep morale high. It is not a quick and easy process, but you can lead your team to success through pure intentions and deliberate planning.

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3 Workplace Conversation Topics You Need to Avoid

If the last 48 hours in the NBA have taught us anything, it is that there are a number of topics you just should not talk about with your co-workers—just ask Los Angeles Lakers guard, Nick Young. For those of you who are not up to speed on drama from the NBA world that is trending on social media, we will give you the cliff notes version.

Young was hanging out with rookie D’Angelo Russell around two weeks ago, and it seems the two were talking about Young’s personal life off the court involving women. While this was going on, Russell apparently was taking a video of some sort (Vine or Snapchat), which disclosed Young’s recent interactions with a 19-year old woman.

So what is the problem, you ask? Well, Young is engaged to celebrity singer/rapper, Iggy Azalea—and somehow Russell’s video got out and went viral, essentially exposing to Azalea and millions of other people in the world what Young had been doing behind her back.

Now, if you want to read more about the story you can easily find it by heading to social media, because it is all over the place. What is important for the team here at NexGoal is that this situation brought up something we have not written or talked about in a while—workplace conversations.

As time goes on at our jobs, many of us become more and more comfortable with the people we are around on a day to day basis. Naturally, this means we will talk about different aspects of our lives—it is only human nature. When you spend 40-plus hours with the same people—which may be more awake time than you spend with your own friends and family—you are likely to open up to them.

However, as is the case with Young and Russell, sometimes there are topics and conversations better left out when it comes to your co-workers—no matter how close of friends you have become. Luckily for you, the team here at NexGoal has put together a list for our usual “Three for Thursday” article that you should avoid if possible in the workplace.

Personal Relationships

Let’s start with the elephant in the Los Angeles Lakers locker room right now and the lesson you can learn from it. Did Russell probably break “team code” by taking a video of his teammate talking about his personal life? Absolutely, anyone who played (plays) sports has received the same lecture from day one—“What happens in the locker room, stays in the locker room.”

Being a 20-year old rookie, Russell will suffer teammate consequences as a result of this. However, it could have all been avoided by simply adhering to the No. 1 thing to not talk about with your co-workers. There is simply nothing good that can come from it.

If you are single and your co-workers are married, you are likely going to draw certain labels based on your outside of work personal relationships. Based on those habits, your co-workers will draw conclusions about you as a person that likely have very little to do with your ability to perform your job function and be depended on in the workplace.

Think about it for a second, we all know how people act. If you are dating around and talking about it at work, you could be viewed as someone who is afraid of commitment and not trustworthy by your co-workers. While that is likely not the case at all, you opened yourself up to criticism and scrutiny by opening that window into your personal life.

Listen, we all get the questions from our co-workers about our personal lives. But it is much easier to answer with, “I’m seeing someone” or “I’m just focused on work right now” than to open that door for follow-up questions. Keep your personal life out of the workplace.

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Politics

This one should be the easiest to avoid for people but it is never avoided—because it is commonplace in our daily news-cycle. To stress how important it is to avoid politics in the workplace, let me tell you a little story.

At a previous place of employment, two of my co-workers LOVED to talk politics. When I say love, I mean it—car rides to lunch, during lunch, back at their desks and any place they could have the conversation, they would. Now, I want to stress there is nothing wrong with enjoying politics—but you have to think about what is happening when you are having this conversation.

First, the people around you who do not know anything about politics are likely clueless about what you are talking about and feeling pretty bad about themselves. Second, those around you who do know politics and choose not to talk about it at the workplace are getting annoyed because you will not shut up about it. Third, and the most important of all, if you are having a heated disagreement about your point of views when it comes to politics, people might think you are about to have a fight in the workplace—seriously.

Avoid these 3 conversations at all costs.

Avoid these 3 conversations at all costs.

For whatever reason, when people who have opposing views discuss politics their faces turn red and voices get louder and louder as the conversation goes on. Passion comes out when we all believe in things—unfortunately that passion often looks like you are about to come to fisticuffs right in the middle of the office.

Just say no when it comes to talking politics in the office, save it for your Twitter and Reddit rants.

Unhappiness at Work

This will be a tough habit for most to break, because we are all guilty of it. I mean, who better to understand the trials and tribulations you go through in the office than those who are experiencing it with you, right?

Unfortunately those you work with are the worst to talk about work problems with—which is a lesson I learned all too well at a previous employer. I thought it would be okay to ask a question about something that was making me unhappy to a longer-tenured employee of the company to see if it had always been like this. Boy, was I wrong—it opened up a major can of worms that should have never been opened.

First, this person began to tell me about all the negative things about the company over their 10-plus years there. Then it turned into a “you should get out while you are still new” conversation. Finally, somehow this person then turned my question into a workplace epidemic of sorts, which reached the management level and came back on me.

Moral of the story, if you are unhappy with something at work just go to Human Resources or your direct report manager. Your words will get twisted, others could become unhappy based on what you said and ultimately the backlash just is not worth it.

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3 Recruiting and Hiring Mistakes Your Company is Making

Steve Jobs once said that a small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. The majority of companies would tend to agree with Jobs’ observation but many struggle to attract the A+ players.

To find these A+ players takes an effective and efficient recruiting strategy that exceeds industry standards. Businesses must lose the mindset that it is solely up to the candidate to impress them and not the other way around.

Perhaps the best place to begin when revamping a recruiting strategy is to first identify mistakes that might be discouraging A+ candidates from applying. Here are three common mistakes our team has identified that companies make time and time again that severely hurt their chances of recruiting the cream of the crop.

Communication

This is probably the biggest area where businesses fail in recruiting. The reason for this failure can be traced to the fact that there are a lot of moving parts in the communication between a candidate and hiring authority.

The first two areas that companies should look at when evaluating how well they are communicating with candidates are job descriptions and company description. Candidates value clarity when they are about to take a new job. The less questions they have about the job and company when they are about to make a decision the better. Whether it is online or during the interview, the company’s vision and purpose should be clearly defined and it should be easy for the candidate to see how the job they applied for fits into that vision.

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Once a candidate understands how the job fits into a business’s vision, it’s important to communicate how the candidate can fulfill the role. If a candidate isn’t quite clear how their skills are relevant or applicable to a position, it’s very likely they will continue to search for other opportunities.

Effective communication is just as important post interviews. Candidates want to know where they stand in the process and how much longer they have to wait for a decision. They also may have lingering questions they may want answered post interview, and it should be someone’s duty to follow-up on those questions in a timely fashion.

Timeliness  

Being timely can be a tricky balance for companies when it comes to making a hiring decision. Certainly, companies want to take time to properly weigh all candidate options. But if they take too much time, companies risk losing the candidate’s interest and allow rival companies to recruit them.

When recruiting elite candidates there is no time waste. It is fair to assume that multiple companies will be recruiting the very best candidates. Showing speed in the recruiting process sends a strong message to a candidate that they are wanted.

To strike an even balance between thorough evaluation and speed, companies should impose deadlines on when a position needs to be filled. It should be fairly easy to set a timetable for hiring, as hiring managers can simply examine how long it took before to fill the same or similar position. Setting a deadline is a great way to prevent overthinking and gives candidates a time frame for how long the hiring process will be.

As mentioned in the previous section, being timely is also important when communicating with candidates. Any questions should be answered within 24 hours of them being asked. Humans by nature can be very impatient, so the quicker you can put their mind at ease the better.

Transparency

The very best candidates will know everything there is to know about a company. They will be just as aware of a company’s strengths as they are the weaknesses. Hiring managers who try to hide weaknesses or problems the company has will only isolate top candidates and raise doubts in their mind.

Honesty can go a long way in the recruiting game.

If there is something unflattering that is being said about a company, hiring managers should be straightforward about the issue. Bringing this up before a candidate does shows that the company has nothing to hide and is proactive in confronting the issue.

Transparency is also important when describing the position to a candidate. It does not look good when a candidate shows up the first day on the job and they are handed responsibilities that were never mentioned in the hiring process. Chances are that person will not last long with the company, which could create a glaring turnover problem for a business.

Hiring authorities need to be able to clearly explain job duties throughout all parts of the hiring process. The position should first be clearly explained on the application and then during the interview.

A very helpful way to paint a clear picture of job duties is to have the candidate talk to someone that works in the same or similar position that the candidate is applying for within the company. This person should have a substantial amount of experience in the position and should be able to clearly explain the position and answer any questions.

If your company is already avoiding these three mistakes, that is a great way to ensure you are attracting top talent to your open positions. If not, the team here at NexGoal has plenty of tips and proven knowledge on the recruiting and hiring process–and we are only one click away.

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LinkedIn I – Invites, Endorsements, Recommendations

“For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert” – Arthur C. Clarke
We’ve included this quote as a disclaimer: this is just advice. No matter what other bloggers promise, we know there are many ways to create a LinkedIn profile. Yes, you can shoot your free throws overhand, but Rick Barry shot underhand and ranks #1 in the ABA and #3 in the NBA.
 

For those of you forward to a post-athletic career, a LinkedIn account is a must. In fact, it is a must for any professional looking to grow and further their career. Unlike a stagnant online resume posted on Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, or the niche job board of your choice, LinkedIn is a vehicle to connect with other professionals, a resource to research companies and careers, and a place to find tips in the form of blog posts, groups, and updates

be-preparedThe biggest piece of advice we can offer is this: it’s not Facebook. A lot of LinkedIn members treat this medium like the Holy Grail. Be respectful to the other members and behave professionally. And resist the urge to add angry comments on the newest feature – LinkedIn Publisher.

Invitations to connect:

When you extend an invitation to connect with someone on LinkedIn, take the time to write a message as to why you want to connect with that person. With just 300 characters allowed in the message:

  • A reminder where you met: “I enjoyed meeting you last night at the 20/30 Networking event and I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn.”
  • A shared background: “I am also a former collegiate athlete and I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn.”
  • Leverage one of their posts, updates, etc.: “I just read your update on the recent product announcement from Acme Company and I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn to stay informed.”
  • Fellow Member of a Group: “I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn as a fellow member of the Collegiate Athletes in the Workplace group and expand my network.”

When your invitation is accepted, send a quick follow-up message thanking them for connecting. Remember, networking is a mutually-beneficial relationship, so include your willingness to help them as well: “Thank you for connecting with me and please let me know if I can be of any help in the future.”

Endorsements & Recommendations

Many people view the endorse button on LinkedIn like a “like” button on Facebook. Please don’t endorse a particular skill unless you can personally vouch for that person’s ability. You also have opportunities to write recommendations for members. Treat it like a letter of recommendation, because hiring managers and recruiters are using them for that reason in the early stages of the interviewing process.

A Couple Other Points

  • Spell check, spell check, and spell check: Ask someone to proofread your profile for any red flags or if anything isn’t clear. And don’t forget to check your grammar.
  • Don’t over-abbreviate: You’re not texting. If you want to use an abbreviation in the top quarter of your profile (job title), that’s fine. However, spell it out the first time you refer to this again, then you can use the abbreviations. For example, “CPA / Financial Professional” is a great title. Later, in your summary “I am a Certified Public Accountant and have been working on a team of nine CPAs for the last three years.”
    Also keep in mind that while everyone in your industry may know what an LCSW is, not everyone knows that it stands for Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and you could be overlooked for an opportunity.
Next week, we’ll cover the top quarter of your profile, including your photo and summary.
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What We Liked & Shared This Week (ending 8/22/14)

We thought about using the Mental Floss video on college mascots, but when your rival is the first one featured, you select something else. (Ed. Note: #RaiderUp) Instead, we’ve selected “Unique College Courses.”

Here’s our weekly roundup of what we liked and shared on social media this week:

Want to help your case with hiring managers? Check out these four tips courtesy of The Undercover Recruiter and learn what they want to see when they read your resume.

In an age when we have more technology than we know what to do with, how simple, common sense approaches to communication can be more effective.

Forget vacation. How about a day out sick? The Daily Muse offered some tips on how to jump back on the treadmill of work and catch up without becoming overwhelmed.

The EPL season kicked off last week and the Arsenal’s female fans updated their matchday wardrobes by selling out the new jerseys (kits). (PS: no bedazzling or pink to be found.)

The Talent Zoo’s post on going after your dream job posed some interesting questions. A good reality check or point of inspiration.

Sometimes a wave of anxiety can be overwhelming. Here are three suggestions to handle things quickly from Inc.com.

We are seeking candidates to sell IT consulting services as well as packaged software solutions to “C” level executives. This Director of Enterprise Sales will cover a territory including Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for our client, an information security and infrastructure management company. For the full description, or to apply, click here.

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