HCI Blog

If you are a manager, director or even the owner of your company, you will inevitably reach a point where you will require a coach. There are numerous reasons as to why you might eventually seek a coach which fall into the following main categories:

• When you have a close relationship to your employee, and consequently you know his wnats and needs, as well as his potential and desire to further develop. It is not recommended that you do the coaching yourself, as you might lack the tools which a professional coach has learned over the years.

• When one of your employees ignores your feedback and also has a poor personal performance. It may be time to have a frank talk with him and help him set his work priorities. This person may be a potential coachee!

• When an employee already has a hig performance and requires coaching to even further develop their skills. This is a typical “star on the rise” whom with the help of higher level coaching, will be able to achieve much more than he already has been achieving.

Overall, it is important to note that some questions should be raised prior to making a choice on which employee to coach.

1. Is this person coachable? Is this person willing to be coached?

2. Does this person understand that coaching will require them to question and challenge themselves, making them leave their comfort zone?

3. Does this persons schedule allow them to dedicate themselves to recieving coaching?

BASED ON: Harvard Business Review

You may have heard one or more of these sentences if you ever had a boss which you feel was not a strong leader.

These five sentences should never be said by a boss:

1. “It’s work, it’s not supposed to be fun”

A boss who typically says this is a leader who does not enjoy his own line of work. This will generally demotivate people into believing that their own line of work should not make them remotely entertained or let them feel joy from work. Such a comment can be a major downturn to any employees morale.

2. “I don`t pay you to think”

Besides being completely disrespectful, this shows that in a way, the voice of the employee as well as their thoughts, don`t matter at all! It is important to listen to everyone within a company!

3. “This is the way we’ve always done it”

This literally translates into “Sorry, but we don`t like change”. A sentence such as this is a strong demotivator to free thinking and innovation.

4. “I don`t make the rules”

This, besides completely undermining your bosses own authority, may cause you to feel powerless.

5. “You figure it out”

This displays a lack of initiative and  a unwillingness to help other in their tasks. Offering a helping hand can go a long way!

BASED ON: Linkedin

The role of the leader is central to the company in which he is inserted, where he will follow the vision which has been established by the executives, and also central to those who are in his team, in order to help those within his leadership to discover and realize their maximum potential.

See here five things a leader should do in order to help those around him realize their potential:

1. Value and respect them

A relationship in which the leader shows respect towards the employee and truly values their presence can go a long way. For this, there are no shortcuts; respect must be visible as well as signs that they are truly valued.

2. Back them up

Employees want a leader who they can count on, not only in terms of their work, but also to help them advance in their career. A sponsorship for advancement is a strong motivating factor.

3. Invest in their professional growth

Employees expect leaders to invest in them as much as they also invest their time to the team and the company. What is meant by investment is giving the employee chances to develop their skills as well as their leadership through coaching programs or other specialized courses.

4. Networking potential

Leaders should expose their employees to people of influence and decision makers. There shuld be sufficient level of trust in which the leader feels comfortable to let his employees expose themselves alone to the high-up bosses and showcase their talents.

5. Don’t feel threatened by them

At times, an employee can excel in a given area which is a potential point for development for his leader. The employee expects that the leader instead of feeling threatened by their advanced skills, instead helps them feel valued and secure of the strong skills they have.

BASED ON: Forbes

Most business leaders recognize that trust is absolutely essential to the success and competitiveness of their company. But while 49% of the general public do not trust businesses to do what is right, only 37% of CEOs say they are concerned about the issue of trust in their industry.

Here are four ways you you can build and should not use to build trust of your business organization:

Do:

1. Recognize that trust is no simple matter. It is a intricate web which involves many stakeholders within your organization and also outside your organization. This means you should…

2. Be prepared to work within the system rather than trying to work the system.

3. Acknowledge what leaders can and can’t do. There will always be trade-offs. Being open about unrealistic and unachievable expectations is essential.

4. Know that measures are not absolute. Perfection will never be reached and progress can go up and down. These qualities are the opposite of how many businesses recognize and measure their success.

5. Apologize publicly for mistakes. Accepting responsibility for shortcomings and demonstrating the human and fallible element in business is core to building trust.

Don’t:

1. Expect to always be in control. Creating a new settlement for trust involves ceding a measure of control, in order to work openly and authentically with others within a collaborative system.

2. Try to please all your stakeholders all the time. Being upfront when stakeholder needs are not met and effectively communicating reasons in these instances will strengthen trust in the long term.

3. Try to pretend you always have the answer to everything. Being without a solution is an uncomfortable experience for any business leader. But showing your vulnerable side and then working inclusively with stakeholders to resolve issues is vital to building trust.

4. Wait for others to start building trust before you. Loss of profit or competitive advantage is a real pressure for leaders. Investing in trust-building may cost money or make a company appear less competitive in the short term. But in the longer term it will build a more successful and resilient business.

SOURCE: Huffington Post

It may happen that your motivation at work may drop and everything you try may not help you recover it. You begin to feel like you are behind schedule and that you are not getting any work done.

To solve this, there are five key steps you must take in order to return to the work rhythm and desire you had before:

1.   Identify your tasks

Feeling that you don’t know exactly what to do can be frustrating. A feeing of lack of accomplishment may install itself upon you. Work is motivating once you see progress resulting from your efforts!

A good idea is to do a “done list” unlike a “to do list” at the end of the day. Write down all that you have accomplished every day and leave it visible so you can see exactly how much you have done!

2. Attribute significance to your tasks

Another key point to staying motivated is to know what impact the accomplishment of your tasks is causing to those around you. It could be of significant impact to your family, community, company coworkers, etc.

If you are unable to visualize the importance of your tasks, try to reach deep inside yourself and see the connection they have to the outer world.

3. Vary your work

It may happen that you are doing the same tasks every day. The idea here would be to vary the nature of your tasks.

Watch your work patterns so that you can detect the possibility of varying the work you do! This will cause different parts of your brain to be stimulated according to the point of each task.

4. Feedback

Feedback is an extremely motivating factor. It is the reflection of what others see as a result of your work. From it, you will now exactly what needs to be changed in the way your work.

5. Being able to work on your own

This is an important point to keeping motivation high. Being able to make your own decisions gives you a feeling of empowerment. How can someone feel motivated if they are not allowed to make decisions on how to conduct their job?

Therefore, having the necessary autonomy to decide on the best way to do things on your own is a highly motivating factor.

BASED ON: Muse