Zero Stress Leadership Video Part 1 of 5 by Jeff Saari

In this first video you will learn a tested model that I created as a leadership consultant to small organizations.  You will learn as a leader or manager how to deal effectively with adverse emotions in the workplace.  And how to turn negativity into constructive action.

In this first video you will learn a tested model that I created as a leadership consultant to small organizations. You will learn as a leader or manager how to deal effectively with adverse emotions in the workplace. And how to turn negativity into constructive action.

Maximizing Your Delegation Situation

I worked with a Chief Operating Officer of a company who was stymied by a project that kept showing up on his to-do list week after week and month after month.  He was great a strategizing up front about the project but couldn’t get it off the ground; it was clear that he wanted it done though.  In my coaching with him I asked if there was someone on his team that he could delegate all or a portion of it to.  He sat back with a pensive look and told me that he had considered it previously but then retorted that the person he was thinking of was too busy.  So of course I asked him to ask the person as soon as possible and see what happened.  Incredibly the person he asked was actually looking for a new project to sink her teeth into and right there a delegator was born.

Most of us know conceptually what delegation is and what value it has, but there are many reasons why as leaders we don’t delegate (and they may be true!):  being unaware that you can delegate, being too busy to make it happen, not trusting others, it takes too much of your time to train others, thinking you can do it better than anyone else, assumptions about others’ workloads, fear of losing control, and not wanting to look weak or incompetent by others, just to name a few.  All of these reasons however can be brought to light, inspected and worked with.  To maximize your ability to delegate, you must get intimate with your reasons for not delegating and challenge these areas. 

One way to expose your delegation challenges is to take a look at your recurring to-do list to see if there is anything there for you to pass on to others and to see if it exposes one or some of the aforementioned reasons.  Delegation is different than procrastination however, something I will expose in a later article.    Another way is to create a list of everything that you do in your role as a leader and to assess if some of those are the best use of your time and/or talents, or not.  If some items don’t make the grade, consider passing them off to someone who could possibly do them.  One other way is to work with a coach or mentor to challenge your relationship to delegation. 

If you decide to give delegation a go, and have found someone to delegate to, consider the following tips to make the task or project go as smoothly as possible:  make the expectation or deliverable of what you expect crystal clear, put a time limit on it, make yourself open/approachable to questions about the task/project, and consider periodic check-ins without falling into the tendency to become a micromanager.  

Delegation takes practice, but with time can bring a big sense of relief to you and leave you in a position to be more strategic about your organization or team.  And as you think more strategically about the people on your team and what their strengths and abilities are, delegation will become more natural and frequent with time. 

Leadership Self-Awareness

In this video I talk about 3 ways to boost your self-awareness as a leader.

Get the right people in the right roles

Don't waste time leading ineffective meetings.

Meetings can have a positive impact on outcomes in your organization.  Learn how to lead them a little bit better.

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Don't Let Overwhelm Dictate Your Actions

I worked with an engineering manager recently who was overwhelmed by a few things, but one in particular.  Upon talking with him he told me that he has been avoiding, or procrastinating on this item for a while now.  But he really wants to get it done.  Sound familiar?  Most of us have dealt with a dose of this avoidance energy, and it can be demoralizing. 

Because I get to ask questions and be curious in my work, I asked him about the overwhelm.  In thinking it through he told me that it just seemed too big, that he didn’t know where to start.  As he began talking to me though, the confusion began to lift, and something started to happen.  The overwhelming nature of this big project began to unravel itself into smaller steps.  What he essentially wanted to do was to document all of the designs of the company in one central place, so the CEO and sales could have access to it all in one place.  It would also serve to revise some of the older ones as needed.  So there is a real business value to getting this done for himself and others. 

One first step that he came up with was to make a list of all of the outstanding designs, which he thinks there are between 50-100, but isn’t sure.  In reality he has documented 3 of them so far so he isn’t starting from scratch.  Another extenuating factor is that he doesn’t actually care for the documenting process, that is sitting in front of the computer inputting the data required to document one of these designs.  So not only did the task seem overwhelming, he doesn’t particularly have a knack or interest for typing these up.  As we soon would see though, that is workable now that he knows that is a motivating factor. 

Essentially a way forward began to materialize in our session.  He could see that he has been avoiding the project for the reasons mentioned above, and yet in reality he had 3 of the however many number of designs completed.  I asked him to consider that if there were 100 designs to document and he did 2 per week, that it would take him roughly a year to get them done.  This can seem like a long time, but contrast this with avoiding for the next year and getting none done, the choice is clear.  He thought this was a reasonable number to shoot for so we made that as an inspired action.  Next was to deal with getting him support for actually documenting some of these for him, which he agreed that there might be a couple people in the organization who could help.  He told me that documenting one takes about an hour so that is potentially one hour a week for him and one hour a week for someone else if he splits it up.

In our session we essentially blew apart the overwhelm he was feeling, that was causing him to take the action of procrastination.  Once he saw it clearly and realized that he actually truly wants to get this project on its way and done, he had renewed energy.  I am confident that he will get it done and I will use my coaching sessions to check in on the progress as we go along.  The metric of progress will be if he is on par for the 2 per week or not.  If he isn’t then we get to reflect on that, reorient and potentially change up the number he does, which of course makes the project go out longer.  But that becomes a conscious agreement instead of “someday I will get to that” sort of thing. 

I recently wrote about a procrastination I found, with making a call to connect with a high level executive.  For me it was anxiety and the fear of rejection that was the motivator for procrastination.  I encourage you to look at the things that you are avoiding, for whatever reason and to assess what is going on, what you want, and bust through the clouds so you can begin to take newly inspired actions to get what you want. 

To continue your leadership education I want to offer you a FREE copy of my book Zero Stress Leadership. I know you will enjoy it! Fill out the form here for instant access to my eBook.