Increase Your Effectiveness – Follow Up

“The follow-up factor correlates with improved leadership effectiveness among both U.S. and non-U.S. executives.”
– Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan

Do you consistently follow-up? As a leader this could entail many things. You could follow-up on project tasks, goal achievement, new hires, promoted individuals and delegated assignments.

You can also follow-up with business partners, vendors, and acquaintances from networking groups. And, follow up includes process improvement ideas, cost saving opportunities, and progress against development planning.

In a leadership study of eight major corporations, Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan found that the top rated item by employees for leadership effectiveness was “the ongoing interaction and follow-up with colleagues. Leaders who discussed their own improvement priorities with their co-workers, and then regularly followed up” were also rated highly effective.

All eight companies had the common goal to determine the desired behaviors to ensure leadership effectiveness, and arrived at the same conclusion: leadership interaction and follow-up were essential for success. http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/docs/articles/LeaderContactSport.pdf

Another perspective for follow-up is from a marketing and sales approach. How often do you meet someone new, exchange business cards, share business ideas and potential opportunities and then can’t recall their name or link the name to that “new opportunity”?

Keith Ferrazzi recommends following up within twelve to twenty-four hours after you meet someone new. If you meet somebody on a plane, send them an e-mail later that day. If you meet somebody over cocktails, send them an e-mail the next morning. He also provides the following tips for flawless follow-up:

  • Put the name and e-mail address of a new acquaintance in your database and program your calendar to remind you in a month’s time to drop the person another e-mail, just to keep in touch. Remember—and this is critical—your follow up shouldn’t remind them of what they can do for you. It’s about what you might be able to do for them. It’s about giving them a reason to want to follow up.
  • Always express your gratitude.
  • Be sure to include an item of interest from your meeting or conversation—a joke or a shared moment of humor.
  • Reaffirm whatever commitments you both made—going both ways.
  • Be brief and to the point.
  • Always address the thank-you note to the person by name.
  • Use e-mail and snail mail. The combination adds a personalized touch.
  • Timeliness is key. Send them as soon as possible after the meeting or interview. Many people wait until the holidays to say thank you or reach out. Why wait? Your follow-ups will be timelier, more appropriate, and certainly better remembered.
  • Don’t forget to follow up with those who have acted as the go between for you and someone else. Let the original referrer know how the conversation went, and express your appreciation for their help.
  • “Make follow-up a habit. Make it automatic. When you do, the days of struggling to remember people’s names—and of other people struggling to remember yours—will be a thing of the past”.  How effective are you with following up with your colleagues? With new acquaintances? Rate yourself now and make changes today!

Managing Your Leader

Managing your boss isn’t a matter of “apple polishing” or playing politics. It involves working together to generate the best solutions for you, your boss and your company.

Can you really manage your boss? Probably not, but you can improve your relationship with your boss by effectively communicating, better understanding their preferred leadership style, and by building an open and trusting relationship.

Start by aligning expectations and having a clear understanding of your organization’s vision and mission statements, and supporting goals; we must know our responsibilities and how we support attaining shared goals, and hold one another accountable for our actions (or lack of actions).

That’s the relationship. You’re trying to live up to the boss’s view of your best self.
–Dale Dauten

8 Tips to Improve Your Relationship With Your Boss

Management experts, Joe Takash and Bahaudin Mujtaba, provide the following tips for fostering a better relationship with your boss.

1.  Learn your boss’ communication style.
What level of detail do they prefer? How often do they want to meet? Identify who seems to communicate best with them and try incorporating their style with yours.

2.  Be proactive.
Understand the strengths you bring to the organization and ensure your boss is aware of them. If you have ideas, share them and create an executable plan.

3.  Meet regularly.
Schedule monthly meetings (minimally); discuss your progress against goals, identify areas for improvement, and jointly update your development plan.

4.  Ask for your boss’ opinion.
Ask for their perspective on things.  State your idea and approach, and ask for their input. If you’re the boss, ask your team for their ideas and LISTEN.

5.  Go to your boss with solutions.
Most of us have heard “don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions.” That doesn’t mean we don’t ask for help or have questions, but rather that we have thought it through, have solutions (which may have failed), but would now like another opinion.

6.  Develop a power that makes you attractive.
Become an expert, stay apprised of changes in your industry, understand the competition, have the dream customer/business partner relationship.

7.  Address problems.
If you seem at odds with your boss, talk to him/her. Do it when you can have one another’s full attention, remain fact based as to why you feel uncomfortable,  and keep your emotions in check.

8.  Play devil’s advocate.
This doesn’t mean having open disagreements or making your boss look “wrong.”  Instead, say, “Let me play devil’s advocate” so you are viewed as stating an alternate opinion which may bring additional light to the situation.

Invest the time to build a relationship with your boss, understand how they prefer to be communicated with, and model your leadership behaviors to support those preferences.

Guaranteed to build a “win-win” relationship!

The glue that holds all relationships together — including the relationship between the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity.
–Brian Tracy

QwikTip and QwikCoach

QwikTips Powered by e-Coach – 5 Common Leadership Mistakes.

And for those with a QwikCoach license, refresh your existing skills and acquire new skills by visiting the QwikTips library for leadership ideas and techniques.

If you don’t have QwikCoach, it’s an excellent resource for growing your leadership skills remotely that you should consider.

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Help turn your leadership knowledge into leadership action!

Lessons In Leadership

“We are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to,” President Obama said. “That is the story of our history.

Read more:

http://www.businessinsider.com/4-leadership-lessons-from-obamas-speech-2011-5

Dear Leaders,

Sunday, May 1st , 2011 is a day many rejoice in. Regardless of your political views, President Obama’s speech regarding the death of Osama bin Laden was inspiring and direct, and the actions and professionalism of members of SEAL Team 6 accomplished what they set out to do.

In the case of President Obama, the following leadership traits were exhibited:

He gave credit where credit was due (U.S. intelligence and military forces). Providing timely feedback and recognizing accomplishments is a leadership trait we frequently talk about.

He talked about the need to take action. Again, having clearly defined goals and tasks and completing them to perfection is what we strive for (for us and for our organization).

Tough decisions were made. We all know being a leader is not a popularity contest and what we do is not always pleasant and requires courage.

John Baldoni summarizes what all leaders can learn from when delivering a message:

  1. Deliver the headline first. This is the hook that captures our attention.
  2. Put the news in context. Explain the issues, the impacts, the consequences.
  3. Tell a story. Make it personal, paint a picture.
  4. Get to the point; brevity rules. This speaks for itself.

Additional leadership skills were displayed by the SEALs (Sea, Air, Land), specifically members of “Team 6”. This group of elite military professionals is considered to be the “best of best”. They had a vision, a mission, with critical deliverables defined, and they had very clear roles, responsibilities and timeframes in which to execute.

Not only are they well trained but they are also cross trained so everyone and every task has a back-up plan; they are motivated, dedicated, and understand what their priorities are.

These lessons in leadership can serve us well and will support us in achieving the motto that “We can do whatever we set our minds to . . .”