The life of a modern-day leader is not easy. Whether you lead from the middle or top of the organization (or you run your own company), whether you’re in North America, Europe, Asia or anywhere else in the world, leadership challenges seem to be very similar. You need to lead and motivate a diversified group of people, improve efficiency and achieve growth. As you face massive changes, you’re trying to balance your time and keep up with competitors.
Research shows, that leaders face the same challenges every single day, yet, they feel ill-prepared to face them!
In my previous article I shared with you top 3 leadership challenges today’s leaders face. Today we’ll dive deeper into strategies to help you overcome these challenges in order to manage your leadership role well. Below are some of my favorite tools and resources to help you break the wall holding you back.
1. Developing personal effectiveness
The challenge of developing the relevant skills – such as time management, prioritization, strategic thinking, decision-making – to be more effective at work.
To become an effective leader, you need to discover and leverage the power of following skills:
- Goal setting – Goal setting should become your second nature. Be intentional about where you are heading, what your goals are and set timelines and deadlines for their achievement. Click here to learn more about goal setting.
- Prioritization – Goals are great, but it’s easy to end up in overwhelm if you don’t prioritize them. I’m a strong believer in 80/20 rule: 20% of your efforts will create 80% of your results and vice versa. Identifying your TOP 20% of efforts that will create 80% of results will transform your productivity! Click here to learn more about setting priorities.
- Delegation – Work on tasks that maximize your unique strengths and delegate the rest. Always look for people who are great at something you dread doing. Leveraging their strengths will make life easier for you. Click here to learn more about delegation.
Resource: I work with leaders like you in my Impact Academy. Join us to discover your natural strengths, clarify your priorities, improve your daily flow and maximize your performance.
2. Developing employees & leading a team
The challenge of team building, team development, and team management; how to instill pride in a team or support the team, how to lead a large team and what to do when taking over a new team.
Here are the top 3 strategies to help you lead your team well:
- Set an example -Best way to lead is still by showing it. You can keep telling your team how important it is to finish projects on time, but if you’re the one always behind, they’re not going to be very motivated to keep a deadline. Keep in mind that people do what people see.
- Be intentional about mentoring, coaching and developing others – Take time to listen, inquire and help people around you. Invest in your people and you will reap the benefits.
- Manage team effectiveness – Discover your team’s strengths and build a synergistic team that constantly delivers results.
Resource: I’ve recently published my Leadership Series where I look at the 21 laws of leadership. It might be just what you need to improve as a leader. This series go way beyond the 3 tips listed above showing you timeless principles proven to improve your results as a leader. Click here to access my Leadership Series.
3. Guiding change
The challenge of managing, mobilizing, understanding and leading change. How to mitigate change consequences, and overcome resistance to change.
Change is a new norm in today’s society and having a skill to manage it well is considered an asset. Here are my top 3 tips to help you in this area:
- Start early – Nobody wants to get behind. Keep in mind that if you have advantage of extra time, you might as well win the race!
- Involve your team in the decision – One of the main reasons why people resist change is because they were not involved in the process. You might not implement every idea that comes up, but people will be glad to know that you value their opinion enough to ask.
- Welcome resistance – Many leaders feel that resistance is a bad thing. The opposite is true – resistance is wonderful. It shows that you’re making some real progress. Resistance isn’t a problem – how we cope with it often is. Make sure that your plan accounts for resistance and think about what you can do about it.
Resource: Managing change can be tricky, depending on the scope of the project. Click here to learn how we help teams to successfully implement change.
What to do with leadership challenges?
It’s actually quite simple – deal with them BEFORE they become problem!
Action step: Go through the tips above and write down ONE thing you can improve today. Then go ahead and make it happen!
