Do you want to enhance your leadership?

The story is told about a homeowners organization that was looking for a leader. During Election Day many names were nominated to vie for the presidency of the homeowners organization.

Prominent among those names were Nap and Pablo. Nap was a loudmouth and a voracious talker. On the other hand Pablo was the reserved type he seldom talks but when he talks he commands attention. After the votes were counted Pablo was declared the winner by a mile. 

How can you enhance your leadership? Many have this false notion that leadership is enhanced by being a loudmouth, blabbermouth and opinionated. None of these are actually true, leadership is not in anyway enhanced by these ego driven characteristics. On the contrary leadership is thrown into oblivion by a person that seeks attention. As the saying goes, “An empty can is noisy” so is a person who pretends to have leadership qualities.

Thus, how do you enhance your leadership? Be reserved, listen more; don’t seek attention and talk only when it’s necessary for you to talk. Silent water runs deep, right? The same is true with a person who has unfathomable leadership qualities.

This kind of person carefully studies and reflects on his leadership character. He/she thinks ahead regarding the outcome and the ramification of the words that he/she might say.  – Marino J. Dasmarinas 

When there’s resistance to change

The story is told about an organization that was planning to institute change in its working hours. From the usual 8:00 am-5:00 pm it would be changed to 6:00 am-3:00 pm. For the past thirty years it had always been 8:00-5:00 and the employees were used to that already. So the employees union resisted and told the management that they would not agree.

What are you going to do when there’s resistance to change?   The first action to do when there’s resistance to change is to call for a meeting among the parties involved. In this case the employees union and the management. In that meeting the fuzzy issues should be threshed out. Employees resist change because they have no clear understanding yet why is there a need for that change.   

Therefore the component of listening and flexibility are very important here. Management and the employees union should listen to each other’s viewpoints and be flexible if need be. There would naturally be initial disagreement about the change that is to be put in place. But there are also some valid points that both parties could agree.

For this reason, focus first on the points of agreements after that focus now on the issues of disagreement. Why is this so? Because when both parties focus first on the issues that they could agree it immediately creates an environment of calm. Which is very conducive as a starting point to begin threshing out the issues of disagreement.

The thorny part when an organization wants to implement change are the issues of disagreement. Therefore, management must not push its weight around it should extend its patience to the limit. This means that meetings and dialogues about the change that is to be implemented should continue until the nitty-gritty details of that change are ironed out.  

It’s not easy to implement organizational change however change is needed for an organization to evolve, upgrade and grow. Therefore change must be implemented for nothing is permanent in this world except change. – Marino J. Dasmarinas  

Competent and Effective managers/leaders delegate comprehensively

Do you delegate comprehensively? Delegation is one of the important functions of management. And many leaders and managers utilize delegation to achieve more than what are expected of them.  How are they able to achieve more than what are expected of them? They use the management function of delegation comprehensively.

To be an effective delegator of work we have to communicate the delegated work comprehensively. This means that all the details and all our expectations of the delegated work are communicated clearly. For example, the deadline, the quality of the output that we want, our expectations, just to name a few.

Many managers/leaders fail in the aspect of delegation because they don’t delegate comprehensively. They simply delegate and then they expect their direct report or subordinate to know everything of the delegated work. Or they just wait for their direct report or subordinate to ask them about the details of the delegated work.

Competent and effective managers/leaders don’t wait to be asked about the details of the delegated work. They see to it that all of the details of the delegated work are clearly communicated and already comprehensively attached to it. They think proactively thus they already anticipate the question/s that their direct report or subordinate might ask them.

The function of delegation is a handy and effective management and organizational tool available for all managers and leaders. So that they can multiply their accomplishment, influence and utilization.  They can easily unsheathe it whenever they want provided they delegate comprehensively.    

What does the word comprehensive mean? It means thorough. Therefore, this imply  thorough understanding of the delegated work which the manager/leader can actually do. But because of lack of time and for the reason that he/she wants to multiply his/her accomplishment, influence and utilization he/she is forced to delegate it.

Effective managers and leaders always delegate comprehensively they don’t delegate haphazardly. Why? Because this is what are leadership and management are all about. It’s about comprehensively understanding our leadership and managerial functions, duties and responsibilities which include comprehensive delegation. – Marino J. Dasmarinas    

Compassion in your organization

Alex is a manager of a home care facility. Every morning it had become his ritual to have scheduled visits to their patients. He talks to them and ask them about how they are feeling. This home care facility is always 100% full and the reason behind is the compassionate care that is administered by the manager and his staff.

To be compassionate is perhaps alien to many business organizations. Because as we all know the bottom-line of business organization is to earn profit. And maybe compassion towards its employees is the least of its priorities.    

What does it mean to have compassion with your employees or to be compassionate with your employees? To be compassionate is to do acts of kindness, caring and be concerned with the well-being of your employees.

To be compassionate is not only to understand your employees’ present emotional state. You also have that strong desire to help them soothe it with the end in mind of helping them cure that present emotional state. For example, if you notice that an employee is forlorn and has a sudden distant behavior. You can say to that employee that you are ready to listen and help in whatever way you can.

When we are compassionate toward our employees we establish connection with them which in turn will motivate them to work hard. Why? Because we cared when they were in that emotional state. We therefore have to establish a compassionate and caring organization not an organization whose only bottom-line is to earn profit.

Our employees are humans with feelings they are not machines they are very sensitive to acts of compassion, kindness and caring. Thus, the more compassionate we are the more that we reinforce their loyalty to our organization. – Marino J. Dasmarinas

Positive feedback as opposed to Negative feedback

An organization that was downsizing was in a dilemma as to whom amongst their two managers would they terminate. Both had exceptional performance and both seemed to be loved by their subordinates. The top executives of the organization didn’t know whom they would give the pink slip.

Therefore, they decided to secretly conduct a survey among their employees which manager would they prefer to stay. The workers voted to retain the manager who always gives positive feedback as opposed to the manager who only knows to give negative feedback.

Hearing or receiving feedback is important in an employee’s work life. Why? For the simple reason that feedback also acts as motivator and demotivator for employees. It’s no brainer that positive feedback motivates and negative feedback seldom motivates but often downgrades employees’ motivation. It’s also no brainer that employees always lean toward the side of managers/leaders who give positive feedback more than negative feedback.

Negative feedback silently diminishes the manager/leader power to motivate. While positive feedback loudly increases the manager/leader power to motivate. However, the power of positive feedback is hardly being utilized by managers/leaders. What they utilize more is negative feedback and the reason behind is very simple: Mistakes are easily highlighted than accomplishments.

We are generally quick to spot the negative than the positive, we are prone to be blindsided by the negative than the positive. Therefore, we have to reverse this mindset of bias towards negativity to a mindset of positivity. From now on we have to be quick to notice the positive than the negative. We have to praise more than criticize we have to highlight the positive more than the negative if we want to continuously have motivated employees.  

Why? For the simple reason that your employees would love it very much if they would hear it from their leaders/managers. It also makes giving negative feedback a lot more easier when the need arises. – Marino J. Dasmarinas           

The silent leader as opposed to the loud leader

Why are the silent types the best leaders? Because they let their achievements make the noise not them making their own empty noise. Many are easily taken by a leader who is loud, loud in the sense that they want their subordinates to know what they are doing.

However, loud leaders are generally empty inside they don’t think deeply. They act without careful thought of the consequence of their actions. They base their actions upon their whims and caprices and the popular demand of the subordinates that they govern.  What is important for them is to feed their bloated egos and to satisfy the popular demand of their subordinates. And when they are already able to feed their egos they now think of the consequence of their egotistical and thoughtless action/s.  

Upon musing of their thoughtless  actions they will come to the realization that what they’ve done was not right. Therefore, embarrassment and swallowing of pride comes next and the loud leader is exposed as incompetent, all noise and fury without any intellectual bite.   

The silent types of leaders are those who think profoundly and they think in advance. They are always head and shoulders above the rest. They get the job done albeit silently they don’t make noise to advertise their achievements they rather let their achievements and accomplishments make the noise for them. 

Silent leaders are also the humble ones, this don’t mean that they think less of themselves they rather purposely don’t highlight themselves. They don’t want the spotlight of leadership solely focused on them they want it focused on the entire organization that they lead.  

Do you have this silent type of leader in your organization? – Maarino J. Dasmarinas

On giving behavioral feedback

How do you give behavioral feedback? For example you noticed that your direct report is noisy at work. How are you going to correct this errant behavior without offending the concerned direct report?  

When we give the behavioral feedback we have to focus on the offensive act and not the person who did the offensive act. But before doing that we have to find an appropriate place where we can civilly talk with the concerned direct report.  The appropriate place could be in your office or a place where there is privacy and solemnity.

Be calm, objective and civil when you talk about the errant behavior so that you avoid antagonizing the person. Some managers do this without considering calmness, objectivity and civility. Hence they lecture the guilty person as if the concerned individual is their slave. So what happens is the concerned will push back and defend herself. This can happen most especially if the direct report has a strong personality.   

After talking about the errant behavior allow the person to speak and voice her sentiment and as she speaks listen with your attention poured into her. Your expectation here is she would talk also with calmness, civility and objectivity. Why? For the simple reason that this is how you approached the concerned person. We have to remember that we get what we give: If we give respect we would also get respect and vice versa.

Close the one on one conversation on a positive note by telling the person that she has your back anytime. Ever ready to listen whenever she has issues about work or even issues about his/her family. -  Marino J. Dasmarinas