5 Tips for Energy and Stress Management

5 Tips for Energy and Stress Management No matter how positive your outlook and how zen your mindset, it’s impossible for any of us never to encounter stress or fatigue. Unfortunately, experiencing some stress and fatigue is part of life. In truth, they’re part of what make the days we have great energy or feel calm and at peace so wonderful. The best solution is having strategies for energy and stress management in our arsenal to help on difficult days. Here are 5 great tips for energy and stress management. 1. Adapt Rather than Avoid It can be tempting to avoid stressful situations or choices by putting them off as long as possible. Avoiding the most challenging task on our to-do list or postponing that meeting with a challenging person might feel good in the moment. What it does, though, is give us more time to fret over the event. Pushing a meeting or task toward the end of the day can also mean asking ourselves to tackle the task when our resources have already been depleted by other work. Instead, use your natural energy rhythm to your advantage. What time of day do you feel the most energized and sharp? Schedule your most difficult task or meeting at that time. Or, schedule it first thing in the day, so you can get it over with early and move on to easier tasks afterward. At KCC, we call this “eating the frog”…inspired by Mark Twain. 2. Schedule a Stress Session If you’re struggling to keep worries and stress from intruding into your day, try scheduling a thirty-minute block of time to allow yourself to focus on what’s bothering you. It may seem counter-intuitive, but research shows that this actually helps us table anxiety and stress at other times of the day. It means we know we’ll have a chance to process those thoughts and worries at a specified time. You might find journaling to be a helpful way to quantify the things causing you stress. Writing a list may also help you identify solutions or ways to cope with some of the stressors you encounter. 3. Sweat it Out Exercise is a great way to work through stress. It gets our bodies moving, burns some of that anxious energy, and increases blood-flow to our brains. When we exercise, we’re also focusing parts of our brains on physical activity. We’re focused on balance, coordination, and breath. This gives other parts of our brains a rest, which can break that hamster-wheel cycle we sometimes fall into. If you don’t like exercising, try finding an active hobby or class to participate in. Consider joining a dance class, community sports team, or martial arts program. The goal is to get your body moving and have fun doing it! 4. Pursue Balance Is your work-play balance off lately? When we get stressed, it’s easy to withdraw from recreational activities without realizing we’re doing so. Feeling starved for recreation? Consider taking a day or afternoon off. [...]

By |2023-03-24T12:02:58-04:00July 13th, 2022|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 5 Tips for Energy and Stress Management
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5 Great Time and Priority Management Tips

5 Great Time and Priority Management Tips Effective time and priority management can make a huge difference in our effectiveness and ability to achieve critical goals. Taking on too many tasks or not having clearly outlined goals can make it difficult to actually be productive. Identifying your goals and limiting your daily to do list can help you get things done in a more focused, effective way. Deciding which tasks can be delegated or postponed helps ensure that you’re spending the bulk of your time on the things you need to do today. Time management is all about how to work smarter rather than harder. It’s how to be busy for the right reasons so that you can rest and relax at the end of the day. Priority management means deciding which tasks are the most urgent & important and require your specific abilities versus which things can wait or be delegated to another team member. Having a good understanding of both techniques will help you reach your goals and achieve the work-play balance we’re all looking for. Here are 5 great tips to boost your time and priority management skills today. 1. Identify Your Goals If you don’t know where you’re headed, you’ll probably never get there, right? No matter what industry you’re in, your company and your team should have quantifiable goals written down and communicated to all team members. When you understand how your role fits into the company’s goals, you’ll know how to be most effective at your position within the organization. 2. Set Reasonable Limits on Your Daily Tasks by Picking Your Frogs! How many tasks can you reasonably accomplish in a day? A lot of this depends on the kind of job you have and your ability to manage interruptions. If you don’t already, write a to-do list for yourself each morning with a few (no more than 5) tasks on it that you want to get done in a day. At KCC, we call these your “frogs”. Do a little bit of analysis. On average, how many tasks do you finish in a single day? Are there certain days you consistently get more or fewer tasks done? Maybe Mondays are meeting-heavy, so you usually only get to 1 or 2 other things, but you notice that Wednesdays tend to be your most productive days when you get 4 or 5 things done. Adjust your limits according to your own data. If you rarely, if ever, check more than 4 items off your to-do list in a day, set a new limit for yourself of only committing to 4 tasks per day. This will help reduce your stress level and help you set realistic goals and deadlines for yourself and your team. 3. Tackle Most Urgent and Important Tasks First As you look at your goals and assigned tasks for the month, week, and day, sort them by which tasks are the most to least urgent and most to least important. There are lots [...]

By |2022-02-15T18:25:41-04:00February 15th, 2022|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 5 Great Time and Priority Management Tips
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Get a Fresh Start with These Tips for Managing a Hybrid Team

Get a Fresh Start with These Tips for Managing a Hybrid Team The new year is the perfect time to create a fresh start and update your skills in managing a hybrid team. You may have practices that used to fit your team that simply don’t work well today. We live in a new world in which employees may be at home, in the office, or some combination of both. From time to time, we all need to reevaluate our performance and change what we’re doing to meet new challenges and opportunities. Turning the calendar to a new year is a perfect time to freshen up our management approach with some new strategies for today’s agile teams. Here are 4 tips for sharpening your effectiveness as a leader and help in managing a hybrid team. 1. Communication is Key Whether your team works on site or remotely, one of the best ways to maintain a cohesive, productive team is to clearly communicate how you want things to operate. Be sure your preferences are clear as far as what types of issues or communications should be handled via an email versus scheduling a meeting. Make sure your team understands which projects have top priority, and any changes to the scope or deadline to your team’s work. Some hybrid team leaders have opted to have daily standups or check-in meetings at the start of each day. While that approach may not be right for every team, pay attention to the needs of your crew. While extroverted personalities are energized by spending time together (even virtually), introverted workers may find too many meetings to be disruptive and inhibit workflow. One approach for managing a hybrid team that fosters clear communication is to set an agenda for each meeting and send it out beforehand. If your team members review the agenda and determine they do not need to attend, they can skip some meetings and continue working. 2. Combat Natural Bias One issue faced by hybrid teams and their leadership is a natural bias toward members who work on campus. It’s sort of like the expression, “Out of sight, out of mind.”. We naturally think that team members who are in the office (whom we can visually see working) are more productive than team members who are working remotely, when this is probably not true. Managing a hybrid team effectively means you’ll need to work to correct that natural imbalance by connecting with your remote team members. Set regular one-on-one calls or video chats to briefly check in with them. Making sure they have what they need can go a long way toward making team members feel supported and valued. It also keeps their contributions to your overall team present in your mind as you lead. 3. Create Connections Leaders do so much more than herd a project toward completion by a specific deadline. They’re responsible for finding ways to pull a team of people together so that the resulting sum is greater than [...]

By |2022-01-18T13:09:29-04:00January 18th, 2022|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on Get a Fresh Start with These Tips for Managing a Hybrid Team
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4 Ways Personal Development Boosts Leadership Skills

4 Ways Personal Development Boosts Leadership Skills It is exciting to lead people and it is a critical role. According to experts, leaders can have a direct impact on their team’s happiness and self-esteem. That said, in today’s new reality, with fewer resources and a hybrid workforce, being in charge of a team presents unexpected and complex challenges that can leave even seasoned managers at a loss. The solution? Focused personal development training or coaching gives leaders the effective tools they need to navigate these challenging times. Personal development assists leaders and managers in critical ways. Here are 4 key reasons to take advantage of the “back-to-school” season and prioritize personal development to boost your leadership skills. 1. Identify and leverage your strengths and manage your weaknesses Personal development often incorporates assessments that allow managers to discover strengths and opportunities for development. It also teaches how to strengthen both. This assessment is an important first step toward more effective leadership. Self-awareness is one of the top key competencies for leaders, and I always say that an assessment is like a mirror. Even if you know yourself well and/or if you have used them before, it’s always good to take stock again from time to time…and who knows, you may have blind spots! You can choose any of these tools: a potential assessment, a psychometric questionnaire, a personality test, a 360° feedback process or a survey sent to your team. Pursuing personal development that includes identifying strengths to leverage, weaknesses to work on, and then after that targeting course corrections where needed, will give leaders huge opportunities to be more effective, retain employees longer, and meet or exceed goals. 2. Set goals and share with your team Another important way personal development through training or coaching assists leaders is by identifying and breaking a large goal into smaller, achievable steps. This is useful not only in preparing your action plan. It also helps you make sure that your development is on your radar and remains a priority. Communicating your plan with your team is also very impactful. It allows you to demonstrate authenticity and even your vulnerability. It also shows that you “walk the talk” when you say development is something you believe in and take seriously. This can inspire employees who would also benefit from personal development to take action as well. It helps boost team morale and improves employee retention. 3. Stay up-to-date We’ve probably all experienced sometimes being a little behind the times professionally. The best practices of yesterday may not all apply today. With the fast-paced back-to-back changes in today’s world, it’s necessary and inspiring to look for new ideas. The latest, science-based trends, advice and recommendations on how to adjust and adapt your approach will help you to be as successful as possible. 4. Discuss and share ideas with others Another way that personal development training assists management is through focused discussions. These conversations involve a trainer and other participants from or outside your organization. A [...]

By |2021-08-24T16:38:07-04:00August 24th, 2021|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 4 Ways Personal Development Boosts Leadership Skills
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4 Reasons Leadership Requires Friendliness

4 Reasons Good Leadership Requires Friendliness Leadership requires a lot of different skills. In addition to expertise in a specific field, it requires the ability to manage resources, budgets, projects and most importantly, employees. One of the best ways to invest in the people who make up your team is to make friendliness a key component of your relationship with them. Friendliness isn’t the same thing as friendship. It’s possible, even beneficial, to craft a friendly management style and still maintain professional boundaries with your team members. Why does good leadership require friendliness, now more than ever? Here are 4 good reasons to use a friendly approach with your team in order to boost morale and reap the rewards of success together. 1. People respond more openly and positively to friendliness. Getting results through friendliness can take a lot less energy than getting results through direction. Task-oriented managers find it more difficult to motivating people. Think about it this way: if you use a positive, friendly approach when communicating with your team, they’ll be far more likely to leave a meeting feeling valued and energized. When team members feel like their boss is pushy or demanding, they may work more in the short term. In the long run, though, they’ll be less inclined to be fully engaged. They may also move on to a new job or boss more quickly than an employee who feels appreciated by a leader who understands them and shows that they care. 2. Friendliness increases the chance that others will buy in to the objectives. Friendly leaders believe that the way they address people is a key part of what creates a happy team environment. It cultivates the feeling that you’re all in this together and shows an investment in them. Friendliness also contributes to creating a safe environment for your team to ask questions. Employees are more likely to invest in objectives that they understand and believe in. 3. Friendliness in leadership sets the tone for your team. Whether leaders realize it or not, the people they lead carefully watch their words and actions. People model their leaders, too, so adopting a friendly style and using that approach with your team sets the tone for how they deal with each other. A warm tone and a positive approach reassure your team, especially in challenging circumstances. Bring out the best in people by showing them that you are not disproportionately results-oriented. As always, balance is key! 4. A friendly leader actually has greater impact on the team. A leader who approaches his team with intense emotions—displaying anger, stress or frustration openly—might hurt the team over-reacting. Venting might feel gratifying in the moment, but it can also reduce the trust between a leader and his team. It creates a leader-versus-team dynamic rather than a sense of facing a challenging situation together. Friendliness on the other hand, helps craft that sense of community and team spirit. A friendly approach shows the team that the leader views himself [...]

By |2021-05-25T16:01:14-04:00May 25th, 2021|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 4 Reasons Leadership Requires Friendliness
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9 Positive Leadership Maxims

9 Positive Leadership Maxims Being a great leader is more than a job—it’s a way of approaching life. It can sometimes be a challenging lifestyle, and can even be discouraging. Here are 9 positive leadership maxims to energize you in your leadership role. 1. To make a difference, be the difference. Are you practicing the changes you want to see in your team? Leading your team by example is a powerful way to lead. 2. Leadership is showing people not that they MUST take a certain action but that they GET TO take that action. The way we word something can make a huge difference in perception and motivation. “I chose you for this and here’s why it’s an opportunity…” sounds and feels better than “I need you or want you to do something…” 3. To get the best out of people, embrace the best in them. What gifts and talents do your team members bring to the table? Are you leveraging those effectively? Consider making a list of each team member and what they do best, and look for new ways to use those abilities to enhance your team’s performance and success. 4. It's not so much what you say as a leader that's important; it's your ability to inspire action that matters. What are you doing to energize your team in meetings? Do they leave a meeting feeling excited to get to work on the next project? Use the last few minutes of each team meeting to inspire your team and instill some excitement for the tasks ahead. Connect what you’re doing to real life. How is your business making a difference in the world, and how do your employees’ actions directly contribute to that? 5. Half the art of listening is waiting. Sometimes just giving people that extra pause before speaking shows them you’re truly open to what they have to say. It can indicate that you’re not only listening but also processing what they share. 6. If you are always right, you are usually wrong. Nobody is perfect, and nobody is right all the time. One of the quickest ways to destroy trust with your team is by refusing to admit when you’re wrong. You may not always be ready to acknowledge it, but your team probably already knows you’ve made a mistake.  The great news is that being humble enough to admit mistakes and correct course with your team will actually help build trust and better position your team for success. 7. The best leaders make use of the simplest of ideas. Complex ideas can take a lot of energy to explain and to convey to others. But a simple idea that can be explained in just a few words? It’s more memorable, more energizing and easier to pass on to others. 8. Leadership is seeing hope in any adversity. In leadership, you don't have to expect the worst, you just have to make the most of it when it happens. It might take some [...]

By |2021-01-19T17:44:56-04:00January 19th, 2021|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 9 Positive Leadership Maxims
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The Difference Between A Boss and a Leader – 3 Tips!

The Difference Between a Boss and a Leader - 3 Tips! Every leader is a boss, but not every boss is a leader. What’s the difference between a boss and a leader? It all comes down to how you do it. A boss is in charge because of his or her position and title. He may be the company owner, or a senior level manager. Usually, a boss has years of experience and familiarity with the job, which are great assets to bring to a job. What truly determines the success of the team working with him or her, though, is not how much they know about the tasks to be done, but how they lead the people on their team. A leader learns the tasks and familiarizes himself with the process, but the secret he knows that sets him apart and makes him successful is that he sees his team as the most valuable resource in his workflow. Here are 3 ways a leader inspires his team and earns the respect that distinguishes him as a leader and a boss. 1. Focus on Solutions. A leader inspires the people he works with. When they face a problem, the leader focuses his team members on fixing the problem, not on fixing blame. 2. Use Your Team’s Talents. A leader recognizes the gifts and talents of his team members and assigns them tasks based on those strengths whenever possible. When a team member brings forward a suggestion, a leader listens with an open mind. 3. Invest in Their Development. A good leader mentors and trains the people he works with, coaching others every chance he gets. This not only strengthens the team as a whole, but strengthens the whole company. Being a leader is a deliberate choice, and it’s one that impacts the entire team in a positive way. People work longer for a person that they trust and respect, and ultimately everyone wins as good leadership means the team is more happy, productive and successful. Tools to Help You Build Your Leadership Skills Looking for ways to grade your current leadership ability and target growth based on your potential? I recommend the DISC (What’s Your Color?) Leadership Report. This test takes about ten minutes and identifies your leadership strengths as well as potential that’s not being leveraged and opportunities for growth. The step-by-step results show leaders exactly what to do—and stop doing—to unleash their team’s potential and maximize personal effectiveness.   Ingrid Kelada Owner of KCC Positive Business Psychology & Happiness Expert

By |2020-11-30T14:01:23-04:00November 18th, 2020|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on The Difference Between A Boss and a Leader – 3 Tips!
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5 Ideas to Create an Atmosphere of Employee Appreciation in Your Team

Benefits of Employee Appreciation We all crave appreciation, even when we already know we’ve done a job well. When is the last time a coworker or boss showed appreciation for what you do? Do you remember how it made you feel? In the 1940s, Lawrence Lindahl conducted a study on employee motivation. The results may surprise you. During the study, supervisors and their employees were asked, “What motivates an employee?” The number one answer was “appreciation for a job well done.” This is pretty amazing for a number of reasons. One is that appreciation is free! Motivating an employee doesn’t always need to come from bonuses or pay increases. Simply noticing a good job and offering praise can be a huge motivator. You might be thinking that our culture and workplace culture may have changed since the 1940s. It was a long time ago, that’s true. But these study results have been replicated in multiple studies since then. Time and time again, employees have made it clear that hearing a leader show appreciation makes a huge difference in morale and happiness at work. Here are the 5 Ideas to Create an Atmosphere of Employee Appreciation Be an Appreciation Role Model. Compliment a team member in front of others. This both boosts the morale of the employee you’re complimenting and communicates to others that showing appreciation is something they can do, too. Give Regular Coaching Feedback. Be a coach and let people know that you want to help them perform and succeed. Try making suggestions, instead of criticizing. We all prefer recommendations instead of people told what we should and shouldn’t do! Give Immediate Praise on a Job Well Done. The closer the reward happens to the behavior that triggered it, the more powerful the association between the good behavior and the reward will be. Make sure to show appreciation as soon as possible so that an employee connects those positive feelings with the job they did well. This will increase their motivation even more. On the spot positive feedback is the trend now! Forget about waiting for annual review. Remember to “catch them doing something right” as recommended in the classic must read: The One Minute Manager. Send a Thank You Message When You Notice Someone Doing a Good Job. Having an encouraging message, note or email gives your team member a tangible reminder of your appreciation they can revisit again later. Make appreciation part of your daily routine. Set aside a few minutes each day show appreciation…whether it’s to jot a quick note or to simply connect with an employee or team member who’s doing a great job. Appreciation Doesn’t Need Bells and Whistles The most effective kind of appreciation is sincere and unstructured. Resist the temptation to create some sort of complicated employee appreciation program or tie words of appreciation with other incentives, like bonus programs. Those other ways of saying thank you are great for other purposes, but if you want your employees to receive the best [...]

By |2020-05-03T16:54:46-04:00March 11th, 2020|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 5 Ideas to Create an Atmosphere of Employee Appreciation in Your Team
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4 Ways to Make Your Management Skills More Effective

A good leader provides constant motivation to his/her team to help them maintain excellence and quality in results. A good leader always looks for ways to improve efficiency and quality, especially if this can be done by simplifying processes or without increasing an employee’s workload. Here are some skills you can sharpen to boost your leadership skills and help your team be more effective and increase results. 1-Wander Around Do you remember M.B.W.A. aka Management By Wandering Around? It’s still the best, even if it’s a “virtual MBWA”. Observation often gets neglected due the demands on a leader’s time and schedule. Find ways to schedule regular visits to your team’s work environment into your calendar. If your office is nearby, try blocking out a few minutes before or after lunch to walk through and check on your team. If you’re far away from your team, stay connected and use technology like video calls. Also, when possible travel to their location and spend time working with them on a regular basis. When you visit, notice workflow and ask questions. Is everything going okay? Does everyone understand what they’re working on? If not, who is the best person to assist them? Observing employees work procedures and the work flow is foundational to implementing adjustments and improving results.  To have credibility, a leader must be seen and trusted to be up to date with what is happening in the work place. 2-Feedback and Praise Fair monitoring helps keep the ship on course and gives employees confidence when expectations are clear. Give feedback regularly, especially when things are going well. It’s easy to fall into the trap of only confronting an employee when there’s a problem. Regular praise and feedback help raise employee morale. Everyone likes to feel appreciated. Do your best to provide quick individual assessments on a regular basis. Think of the time and energy you spend on feedback as a direct investment in your team. Set goals with your team and any leaders who work with you. Make sure everyone understands the role they play in reaching those goals. 3-Demonstrate Working Knowledge and Expertise Have you ever seen the show Undercover Boss? One common theme that runs through each episode is the way the leaders have become detached from the actual workings of their businesses. They may have lost touch with how difficult the job can be or may have inadvertently implemented policies or procedures which actually make the average worker’s job harder while not providing adequate compensation for the changes. Good leaders stay connected to their workers. If you do not possess the expertise and knowledge needed for tasks employees regularly complete, consult them regularly and LISTEN. This is important in order to maintain an accurate and informed overall picture of the business. 4-Ability to Anticipate To keep on the cutting edge in business, it’s vital to be open and curious about upcoming trends. While managing the present to ensure ongoing excellence, a good leader also looks towards the future. [...]

By |2021-08-21T15:46:05-04:00August 26th, 2019|Leadership Tips|Comments Off on 4 Ways to Make Your Management Skills More Effective
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