How to Gain the Respect of a Team

Think back to your days at school, and try to remember the different types of teachers that you dealt with. Chances are, that you had teachers who were able to gain the respect of your classes and who were well liked by everyone. When they asked the room to be quiet, it normally became quite quickly!

 

But then there were the teachers who had no grasp on the class whatsoever – who were teased and bullied by the class and who couldn’t control their behavior.

 

And so it is with managers, parents, and all kinds of leaders. So how do you go about gaining the respect of your team and avoiding becoming an ineffectual leader like the latter example?

 

Don’t Want it Too Badly

 

One of the worst things that any leader can do, is to appear desperate for their team to like and respect them. This is why the “buddy buddy” approach never works. If all you do is to try and please your team, if you try to make them laugh, and if you give in to all of their commands and requests, then you will eventually find that you completely lose the respect of your team and that they end up taking advantage of you.

 

Don’t try and be cool or be liked – just try and do the best for your team.

 

Control Your Emotion

 

Another easy way to lose the respect of your team is to lose your cool. The teachers that were most effective at controlling the class were not the ones who shouted the most but often the ones that were able to remain calm and collected.

 

If you seemingly explode every time something goes wrong, then you are going to become a target for your team to try and goad. But if you can stay calm and in-control, then you will earn their respect.

 

Do the Best For Them

 

Ultimately, the best manager or leader is the one who sacrifices themselves and puts their team first. That means taking flak from higher-ups when things go wrong, and it means trying to guide and nurture the team so they can do their best work.

 

If you do this, then your staff will pick up on that vibe. This will ensure that everything you do is seen through that lens, which will ensure that you gain their appreciation, and therefore, their respect.

 

How to Get the Most Out of Members of a Team

Being a leader is truly about taking a step back, and about allowing your team to really perform their best work. Rather than “taking the bull by the horns” and attempting to micromanage your staff to follow your every instruction, instead you should be letting the individual creativity and talent of each person shine. That’s why they were hired in the first place, after all!

 

So how do you do this? How do you go about getting the most out of each individual team member? Here are some useful points to keep in mind.

 

Make Them Feel Safe

 

One of the most important roles of any leader is to make the team feel safe. In a work place environment, this will often mean that you are taking on responsibility, such that they don’t take the blame when things turn sour.

 

If your team know you will blame them for every mistake that they make, then they won’t be able to take creative risks. Likewise, if they are terrified of layoffs and higher management, then they’re not going to work well either!

 

Know Their Skills

 

Another important thing to consider is how each of your members operates as an individual and how best they can be integrated into a team. Different people have different skill sets and work better in different capacities – which means that different people will work better in certain groups and in certain positions within those groups. If you have someone who is a born leader then of course that person is an asset to any group – unless that group already has a born leader in place in which case you are going to cause friction. Think of how each new member will fit into the dynamic of each group and choose how you assemble the teams based on this. At the same time though, be sensitive to how your staff react to these decisions and be willing to move individuals to other groups and departments if necessary.

 

Likewise, this allows you to know who to assign to each task when they are required to work independently.

 

Give Them Ownership

 

One of THE most important tips for any leader, is to give members of the team a sense of ownership over what they are doing. While it’s your job to take responsibility when things go wrong, you should also make sure that they have something to show for their hard work, and that they have control over. If it goes well… they get all the credit!

When someone isn’t working their best, it normally isn’t because they are “bad workers” but instead because they don’t feel intrinsically motivated by the work they’re doing. Give them a project that they have some creative control over, and that they can add to their CV… and all that often changes!

 

How to Make Sure Your Team Reaches Their Targets and Goals

As a leader, you have many important jobs. In a business setting though, one of the most important of these is simply making sure that your team reaches its targets and goals.

 

You will be put in charge of a group by your managers, and the reason for this is so that you can help them to get the business to where they think it needs to be. This likely means earning a certain amount of profit, taking on a certain number of new clients, or perhaps turning over more work.

 

Whatever the case, you need to decide how to help your team to get there. So how do you do that?

 

Smaller Goals

 

The first step is to break those overarching targets down into smaller and more accomplishable goals. This will help you to see whether or not you are on track to meet the targets at any given point. Have you reached X milestone within the expected timeframe?

 

You should make sure that these milestones are not too tight, and that they leave a little bit of space for error and leeway. It’s not a good idea to try and race toward a deadline as it will create a stressed atmosphere and it will likely lead to you getting behind schedule which can be very difficult to recover from.

 

Assigning Roles

 

Once you have your goals, you need to start assigning roles to members of the team and placing them correctly to do their best work. That means further dividing the work you need to do into small and precise chunks. Think about who is best to tackle each of those chunks, and how best to motivate them to tackle them.

 

Process Kaizen

 

The next thing to think about is efficiency. This is sometimes referred as “process kaizen,” which essentially means honing in on small changes you can make to daily processes, that can save large amounts of time and energy in the long run.

 

For example, if your team of writers are writing their work, editing it, then uploading and formatting it, then you might find that having them edit at the same time as they upload and format can reduce the number of steps and thereby get work done more quickly.

 

Invest in Force Multipliers

 

A force multiplier is anything that you can use in order to get more work done more quickly, without putting in more energy. An example is a forklift – this multiplies the number of palettes that a single person or a team can move exponentially! Computers are also force multipliers, and making sure that everyone’s works to the best of their ability is a huge way to make sure they’re able to work as quickly as possible.

 

Why Getting Staff to Work Together is Vital for Any Business

A business is much more than just the sum of its parts. You can have all of the very best staff, all of the very best tools, and the best ideas and business models – but if it doesn't all come together into one cohesive whole with a strong message, a great drive and single-minded ambition, then it can still fail.

 

One of the most important aspects of this is getting your staff to work together and if they do not, then even if they are each individually incredibly skilled and talented, they still aren't going to produce the best work and will be likely to make mistakes.

 

Getting your staff to work well as a team and as a cohesive unit requires a lot of understanding regarding group dynamics and psychology in general, and it can be a constant struggle. This is where it pays to have a skilled and effective leader in charge, who can help to take charge and lead that team as a unified group.

 

Here’s what that involves.

 

Knowing Your Team

 

One of the most important skills for any manager is emotional intelligence. This is the ability to understand what motivates someone and what affect your language or behavior might have on them (it also describes your ability to understand and control your own emotional response too!).

 

Being an effective manager means knowing which members of the team are likely to get along. It also means recognizing what has gone wrong when those people don’t get on. Not taking sides or pointing the finger, but understanding that sometimes personalities clash, and sometimes people have bad days. Your job is not to punish, but rather to diffuse the situation and prevent it happening again.

 

Reducing Stress

 

One of the most important ways to prevent arguments and even bullying within the workplace is to reduce stress and pressure. If you are trying to squeeze as much productivity as possible out of your team, then you might inadvertently be increasing the likelihood of arguments and other issues breaking out. This is suddenly when it’s a big deal that Jeff likes to take 20-minute cigarette breaks!

 

Let your team work at a more relaxed pace however, and you might find they’re more likely to get on!

 

Avoiding Boredom

 

That said, it’s also important to avoid boredom as this is what can often lead to petty behavior. Make sure that everyone has work to do, but that they are happy doing it with a strong sense of camaraderie. 

 

Why Micromanagement is a HUGE Mistake

When you think of someone who is a bad manager, you will likely find that a few specific words and phrases come to mind to describe that stereotypical individual. One of the most common of these is “micromanager.”

 

What is a micromanager?

 

This is someone who feels the need to take control over every last aspect of a job, and who will often attempt to grapple that control from their workers.

 

They might do this with the best of intentions. Probably, it is the manager who will be in trouble if the team is not meeting targets. Therefore, it makes sense that they should take control. At the same time, they might be trying to help their staff and their team by giving them lots of detailed instructions.

 

But the end result is a frustrated and stifled team, along with sub-par final products.

 

Let’s use web design as an example. If you are a micromanager who has tasked a member of your team with creating a website, then you might be tempted to provide lots of steps and details. You might tell them the size that the logo needs to be, the color, and the position. You might show them multiple examples of what the site should look like, and you might make strict rulings about the tools used to build it. Perhaps you tell them that they should use a certain font, and maybe you send the work back multiple times for corrections and for changes.

 

This is micromanagement. 

 

But it’s also a big waste of time – all the time you spend going back and forth with your work is time wasted that could have been spent simply developing a better website.

 

It also wastes the talent of one of your skilled workers. You likely hired this person because they were good at web design – so why wrestle control from them?

 

From their perspective, this is highly frustrating. Chances are that you – not being a web designer – are providing them with a spec that they know will result in a sub-par end product. But what is more, is that it removes all their creative freedom and expression.

 

Creating a great website is creative work that someone should enjoy and should feel proud of. But if all they did was to follow an exact brief to the letter – with zero room for improvisation – then they won’t have any of that feeling at all.

 

The Power of Silence for Leaders

Being a leader means many things, but one of the most important skills for anyone who is in charge of other people, is the ability to command a room and to gain attention. You can be the best leader in the world in terms of your strategizing and your people management – but if you can’t get anyone to listen to you, then you won’t be effective!

One of the greatest tools in your arsenal when it comes to getting over this obstacle and commanding that audience, is to use silence.

 

Many of us think that the best way to gain attention and to look in control, is to shout and make a lot of noise. The truth couldn’t be further from this.

 

Why is that? Because when you shout and make fuss, you look desperate for that attention. Most of us have been conditioned to learn that if someone is desperate for attention, then we probably shouldn’t give it to them!

 

Conversely, someone who is seemingly calm and indifferent to you, will instantly become more intriguing and dynamic. Because they are trying to impress you, the power dynamic shifts and you find yourself trying to impress them.

 

When someone stands up to talk and starts with a moment of silence, this makes them seem extremely confident. That’s because most of us are constantly anxious that even a moment of silence will mean we lose our audience!

 

At the same time, starting a sentence or a speech with silence will ensure that everyone needs to lean in and listen to what you are saying. This will set the tone for what you’re about to say.

 

Watch an actor or a politician who is known for being charismatic. That could be Will Smith, Dwayne Johnson, Obama, etc. What you will find, is that they tell a lot of stories. And when they do this, they leave moments of silence in between their statements in order to create suspense and drama. This is one of the biggest differences between those confident and charismatic speakers, versus someone who comes across as nervous and anxious.

 

How can a story have a dynamic ebb and flow if you try to get it all out in moments?

And when someone uses silence in this way, they come across as supremely confident and in charge of the room.

 

Try using more silence the next time you speak to someone, and see just how powerful this can be!

 

Understanding Convergence and Divergence for Leaders

Convergence and divergence business/sociology term that refers to the way that groups tend to grow to become more and more like the other members of that group. In other words, if you spend time in a group of people with a particular accent and particular habits and views, then most of the time you are likely to find yourself speaking with that accent and adopting some of those habits and views. That's convergence; divergence meanwhile however refers to the way in which those groups grow to become more unlike other groups so that they develop a kind of group identity. This is often how feuds and disagreements start so you need to keep an eye on it.

 

So, what does this have to do with leadership? Simple: if you are leading groups, then you need to recognize the tendency for sub groups to form. This is why many offices will end up becoming somewhat tribal – where the accounting department is made up of one clique for instance, while sales might be another.

 

Convergence is a good thing if you can encourage it as a way to get all of your staff to feel like they're part of the same group and working towards the same cause (as long as they aren't too much of a clique when you get new staff), but it's a bad thing if it means they become narrow-minded and don't take on board other vies and it's certainly bad news if it means that the finance department goes to war with HR. It's your job to prevent this happening and one of the best ways to accomplish this is to make sure you keep rotating and mixing up the teams so that there is constantly new blood and they are constantly woken up to outside views.

 

Another option to prevent convergence from happening to a large extent is to ensure that you engage in group activities for the whole office/team. That might mean days out to team building events, or just the occasional party.

 

Finally, keep in mind that convergence can be a destructive force even when it affects the entire team and seems to bind them together. Diversity is crucially important for any system, as a way to prevent defects from becoming magnified, and to help bring new creative ideas to the workflow.

 

Keep looking for outside influences, and don’t allow your team to become too cliquey.

 

15 Key Characteristics Of Effective Leaders (Infograpic)

Why Do As I Say Not As I Do is a Terrible Approach to Leadership

As a leader, it is your job to lead by example. You set the tone for the team, and you provide your team with the motivation and encouragement they need to work their very best. Your job is to nurture and protect that team, so that they can do their very best work.

 

This is something that is understood by very few managers and bosses. Instead, too many people believe that being a leader or a manager makes them infallible – and gives them a kind of supreme authority over their team.

 

This is why they think it’s okay to utilize a “do as I say, not as I do approach.” 

 

But to do this, is to fail to understand the intricate psychology of leadership. Someone who works for you does not view you as being a perfect leader. Nor do they believe that they signed away their free will and rights when they agreed to work for your organization.

 

While you might higher up in the hierarchy, that does not make you a more important person.

 

And so, when you tell someone to do something while failing to do it yourself, this then causes ripples of dissatisfaction through your team. They will ask why they should bother to do work that their leader can’t seemingly be bothered to do themselves. They will resent you for this, and they will therefore begin to complete their work to a lower standard, with a lower amount of job satisfaction.

 

Instead of a “what I say goes” approach, which lacks emotional intelligence, a good leader should create a spirit of camaraderie – you’re all in it together!

 

While aspects of any job will suck, knowing that everyone else – even your manager – is also doing the same thing, can help you to get through it with a smile.

 

Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course there are, every parent will know that occasionally they have to tell their children that no, they can’t have that glass of wine. And that it’s only okay for Mummy and Daddy to speak to strangers.

 

This is far LESS common in a workplace setting. But when situations like this do arise, the key is to explain why the situation is different for you on this occasion, and to try and make it up to your team when you can.

 

3 Online Courses To Improve Public Speaking

When you are ready to improve your public speaking skills, then taking a course in public speaking may be one of the best decisions that you can make. This will help you learn some of the techniques that you need and will give you some practice so that your skills will get better. Some of the best online courses that you can take include:

Storytelling and Influencing: Communicate with Impact

 

This is a course through Coursera that will provide students with 13 hours of public speaking practice. The lessons are going to tackle how to give a great speech from a business perspective, though it can be effective for those who just want to do better with public speaking. In the class, students will learn how to do persuasion, how to tell a story, how to connect with others, and even how to handle some of the negative feedback. 

Intro to Public Speaking – Give a 5 Minute Talk Without Dying

 

This is a short class of just 47 minutes, making it perfect if you want to learn some tips but not spend forever learning the secrets or coming back week after week. While you will not be an expert after it is done, you will gain some new skills that will be amazing. The goal is to help the student learn some of the basic parts of public speaking like practicing the speech, creating an outline, brainstorming the right topics, and building a stage presence that is sure to wow the audience. 

Dynamic Public Speaking Certification

 

This course is a bit longer, but the student will get a certification when they are done. It requires three hours of week to complete within seven months. There are also four courses that are covered within it including an introduction to public speaking, speaking to inform, speaking to persuade, and speaking to inspire. You will be able to progress through the course with writing, practicing, and recording speeches while getting feedback on what is working and what you can improve on. 

 

There are so many benefits to public speaking and it is worth your time to hone these skills and get better at it. With practice and the right course to help you along, you will be able to enhance your skills and speak in any public situation that you want, convincing others that you are a professional!

 

It’s Not Just What You Say, But How You Say It

It is easy to get caught up in the words that you will say during a presentation. You spend hours writing out the sentences, practicing, and trying to make it perfect. While the words behind the message are important, there are a few other things to consider as well. Namely, you need to also pay attention to your body language and your appearance. 

The Importance of Your Appearance

 

The way that you look and present yourself will make a big difference as well. You need to make sure your outfit looks nice and matches the situation that you are in. Showing up in baggy clothes that do not match or looking like you just rolled out of bed will never be a good idea for giving a great speech. 

 

Dress nicely for the event. Consider what will look the best. Sometimes being really dressed up is necessary and other times business casual is a better option. Have your hair cut or kept back out of your face and jewelry can be worn, but make sure that it is simple and elegant without being distracting. 

Your Body Language

 

You also need to consider your body language. A few changes to the way that you hold your hands, how you stand, and even a smile can help get your message across better. If you spend time pacing, fidgeting, and slouching, no one is in the audience will take you seriously. 

 

There are different things that you can do with your body language to help make sure that you appear more confident. First, stand up straight and tall. This gives the appearance of confidence and may be enough to make you feel better. Maintain eye contact with the audience, rather than looking at the ground. And if you are going to use your hands, make sure that they are used in a way to promote your message, rather than a distraction. 

 

And finally, make sure that you smile. A smile can help you and your audience feel at ease, like you are forming a good connection together, and will make a big difference. You do not need to smile the whole time, but when you feel nervous about the situation, give a smile and see what a difference it can make. 

 

A few simple changes to your appearance and the body language that you show to others will make a world of difference in how well you can present yourself and how you get your message out to others. 

 

The 5 Most Common Filler Words In The English Language

One way to ruin your speech and lose the attention of those who have come to listen to you is to add lots of filler words. These are simple words that will fill up space, but do not add anything to the conversation and do not move it further. Filler words are some of the most commonly spoken words in all languages, but when you are participating in public speaking, it is a good idea to avoid them as much as possible. 

There are different reasons why people choose to use filler words. They may use this when they hesitate or pause during a conversation, to be indirect as a way of showing politeness, to indicate the tone or mode, and to express doubt. None of these are good for public speaking though, so it is best to just keep them out of the speech if possible. 

There are a lot of filler words in the English language, but some of the most common are:

1.  Oh: This is one of the most common and is often found right at the beginning of a sentence. It can get distracting and repetitive if it is used too often. 

2.  Like: Like has become very common for young English speakers. There are different ways to add it into a sentence, but unless you are saying that you like something in particular, it is a filler word that can be removed. 

3.  You know: This one can fit anywhere in the sentence from the beginning to the end. It is a way to collect the thoughts during a speech, but it is not necessary and can take out some of the seriousness of the speech. 

4.  Well: This is often just a way to add in more sounds to the sentence or to make the speaker sound better, but it is just a waste of space. 

5.  Uh or umm: These are often used interchangeably and will make the speech very convoluted. This one does not mean anything, but can be used when the speaker is nervous. 

 

Most speakers have a filler word that they tend to use more than they should. When you recognize these filler words and learn how to avoid them in some of your public speaking engagements, your speech will flow better and you will enjoy the way that it sounds while delivering your message. 

To Speak Or Not To Speak?

When having a conversation with someone else, there are two things going on. One person is doing the talking, and the other person is doing the listening. The problems in conversation can often happen when both partners want to talk, and neither really wants to take the time to listen to the other person. 

 

While talking is an important part of communication, if no one is doing the listening, you will end up with hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and a conversation that is not the best to start with. There is a time to talk and a time to listen in any conversation. And you may be surprised by how much listening you should be doing. 

 

It is actually better to spend more time in the conversation listening rather than talking. This is counterintuitive to what we are used to, but there are some benefits. When you take a step back and listen to the other person, you can learn and really formulate your responses, rather than just jumping in with the first thing that you think. 

 

How many times have you been in a conversation, but focused more on your own thoughts and what you should say next, rather than hearing what that other person has to say? Or how often has that happened to you, where it felt like they were not listening to you? This is a good example of why you should listen. 

 

During the conversation, do not focus on what you are going to say first. Spend the time listening to what the other person is saying. Ask for clarification if something is confusing or if you think there is more information that you need. And really listen, rather than focusing on what you will say next. You can then speak up and give your response, based on what the other person has told you. 

 

Do not worry about the conversation stalling. This will actually help it to get ahead and do better because both of you will be on the same page. And even if you do need to pause for a few seconds afterwards before you respond, that is not a big deal. It shows that you are actively listening and trying to come up with the right response for that person, rather than the one that you want to get out there. A good balance between talking and listening will be critical to good communication. 

 

Visualization: The Key To A Good Speech

When it comes to giving one of the best speeches possible, visualization is going to be a great tool to help you out. When you visualize how the speech should go and all the right moves that you can do to give the perfect speech, you will find it is easier to put it into fruition.

Visualize Your Speech 

 

To start, we need to visualize the whole speech. Sit down alone for a few minutes and imagine how you would like the speech to go. Imagine yourself getting up in front of the class, keeping calm and collected as you go. Imagine the words that you would like to say, the tone inflections, and all the other parts that need to go into the speech. Imagine how it will feel when the whole speech is done. Try to add in as many details as possible from start to finish, including how you feel, who is there, and how well it goes. You can use this to help you get through the speech. 

Visualize How You Can Recover If You Mess Up 

 

It is possible that you will mess up during the speech. Maybe you will forget something important that you would like to discuss or you stumble over a word. You may even lose your space in the speech at some point. Rather than getting nervous about it and worrying about how bad it looks, take this time to visualize the mistake and figure out how you will recover. 

 

Sit down and close your eyes. Imagine that you are giving the speech and you do make a mistake. What are you going to do? There are different ways to recover, so spend some time going over them to see how you will respond. This can give you more confidence even if any mistake does happen. 

Visualize How You Will Respond To Q&As

 

If you plan to have a Q&A session with your speech, you can visualize this portion as well. Imagine some of the questions that others are going to ask you about the topic and come up with the responses. When you can imagine some of the potential questions ahead of time, you can reduce some of the stress you feel the day of the speech as well. 

 

Visualization is one of the best tools that you can use to help take control over your speech and to reduce the anxiety that you feel along the way. Try some of the techniques above to see how easy it can be for you.