We are very excited to announce that an excerpt of Sal Silvester's newest book Ignite! The 4 Essential Rules for Emerging Leaders has been published in Training Magazine. It's a great summary of the book, and you can check it out here: 

http://trainingmag.com/content/4-essential-rules-emerging-leaders

Would you work for you?

This is such a powerful question that keeps coming up for me, and one that I ask clients as I consult with them on team and leadership development engagements.

Would you work for you?

If you turned the table and considered what it would be like to work for you...

Our destination was the summit of the Grand Teton in Teton National Park, WY. At 13,775 feet above sea level, we'd have a 5,000 foot hike over 7 miles and then 2,200 feet of technical rock.

We took a day to hike in. Then we got an alpine start on the Petzoldt Ridge, an exposed 800 foot rock route leading to a more moderate 1,200 feet  on the Upper Exum Ridge. Almost 14 hours later we were back at our camp.

Effective delegators know that a one-size fits all approach to delegation isn't very effective. The best leaders adapt how they delegate based on their team members' level of competency and confidence. Here is a simple chart that we use in our leadership development and executive coaching programs in Denver and Boulder, Colorado to show the Directing, Coaching, and Empowering delegation styles. 

New leaders often get promoted because they were good at what they did. They rarely receive the training and development to be successful at their new level. 

If you are interested in elevating your leadership effectiveness, join us for our introductory People-First Leadership™ Seminar on July 18th in Boulder, Colorado. 

This 3-hour seminar will give you insight into our practical and powerful 4-point People-First Leadership model to help ignite your leadership potential and the potential of the people around you. 

Imposing your own goals on team members is one of the fastest ways to lose their commitment.

Goal setting is a collaborative process. The role of the leader is to provide coaching to ensure everyone is in line with overall team goals. Make sure any online collaboration tools or other technology you use to support the goal-setting process doesn’t take the place of crucial in-person conversations.

The Rescuer

"It's faster to do it myself than to delegate it to others..." or "If I want it done right, I'm the one who has to do it..." or "Let me do this for you..."
These are the words of the Rescuer - the person, or in this case the leader, who solves problems for others that they should solve for themselves.

The Victim

No one likes to hurt someone else’s feelings, but that doesn’t justify providing feedback that’s so fluffy you never actually state the main point.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not asking you to be ruthless. Use positives, but don’t smother the message with them. The challenge is to make sure the constructive part of your feedback is clear, or else there’s no sense giving feedback!
 

One of the first mistakes new leaders make is to hold back on communication. Usually, this reluctance comes from fear, and it often breaks down into two (bad!) leadership styles:

Leaders who are concerned about losing control often overcompensate by micromanaging and being overly focused on tasks and results. They dole out stingy bits of information on a need-to-know basis, even though their people definitely need to know!

I am very excited to announce that my book Ignite! The 4 Essential Rules for Emerging Leaders will be officially launched and widely available on May 31st!