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We’re starting something new; we’re kicking off a series about relationships and why they impact the ability to be highly effective leaders with the ability to achieve success.

The series will consist of relationships and impacts to:

1. Understanding Differences
2. Communication
3. Feedback
4. Mentoring/Influencing
5. Conflict

We’re starting with Understanding Differences because of the strong linkages with being aware.

Highly successful leaders are not only aware of their own styles, skills and gaps, they are also in-tune with the styles, skills, gaps, and professional desires of those they lead and interact with. Additionally, they are keenly aware of their work culture. Why is this important?  The group culture impacts relationships. This includes behaviors, attitudes, satisfaction levels, and the comfort of the environment, all which impact the ability to obtain results.

Things to ponder:

• Every work culture has differing styles – are they all appreciated?
• Is there tension or cohesion within the group?
• Does the leader (perhaps you) recognize the differing styles and address conflict if it exists?
• Is the reason for the work/tasks/goals understood and supported? 
• What does the team value most?
• Does there seem to be negativity in the break room? 
• Do people speak up or have they gone quiet?

Understanding differences requires energy, courage, honesty, and an open mind.
It also requires addressing the “why” behind our thoughts, words, actions, behaviors, and emotions.

When strong relationships exist there’s a greater likelihood that team members will want to understand differences.  They will address when behaviors seem “off”, and openly share issues, fears, emotions, and preferences.

Colleagues will also be in the position to encourage each other to support goals and priorities by using their “magic dust” (their strengths). Most of us know what we like and what we’re good at, and we also know the strengths of others. Ex. Who are the visionaries? Who prefers providing detail? Who enjoys status updates? What about communicating change?

Understanding differences and leveraging those differing styles, behaviors, skills, and abilities makes for stronger relationships, is energizing, and will help us achieve our goals while creating a happier workplace!

Sincerely,

Mike and Jan

In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.
—Mark Sanborn

Leading the Future of IT: PeopleTek’s Premier Strategy for Advancing Tech Professionals and Their Teams

At PeopleTek Coaching, our expertise lies in guiding IT visionaries, propelling them to the zenith of their capabilities. With a potent combination of bespoke coaching sessions, forward-thinking methodologies, and deep-rooted insights from the tech sector, we empower both individual tech mavens and cohesive teams to thrive in the dynamic world of IT.

Our state-of-the-art coaching model hones leadership skills and bolsters team unity, aligning them with a shared technological mission. This steadfast dedication to fostering teamwork has cemented our standing, making us the go-to consultancy for myriad tech corporations over our distinguished 20-year journey.

Beyond just business achievements, our aspiration is to mold IT spaces that resonate with positivity, creativity, and mutual respect. We champion environments that catalyze individual advancement and heighten productivity. This visionary approach forms the cornerstone of PeopleTek’s ethos.

At PeopleTek, we invite you to reshape your IT leadership path and lead with unmatched accuracy and enthusiasm. Delve into the nuances of our tailored approach by visiting PeopleTekCoaching.com. Boasting a comprehensive array of tech-focused services, we are primed to refresh your ascent to tech leadership excellence and collaborative success.

 

So many of us work virtually with most business interactions conducted via conferencing which is fine, but we lose the opportunity for the in person “coffee chats” which can create energy and fun in the workplace (while at the same time building relationships).

Don’t ignore the need for these relationships. They’re essential for building trust, for encouraging collaboration, for understanding differences, for allowing healthy conflict, for job retention, and for networking.  Bottom line, they’re required to be successful!

Chances are there will always be some virtual interactions, either with us working remotely, or engaging with colleagues that are offsite, and it’s important to build in some personal time. 

Assess what works best for your team. Examples:

1.    Encourage (mandate?) that everyone be on camera

2.    Start or end each meeting with personal chat time
             (ex.   Family/vacations/hobbies, etc)

3.    Allow family members or pets to be on camera for a portion of the call

Some other suggestions are to have coffee breaks online, hold an after-hour cocktail hour, start a book club with monthly meetings, watch a movie together, share wordle results (or other games), and play virtual games.  You could also have a monthly birthday club or create a WhatsApp group where team members could send personal updates, jokes, or interesting pictures.

These aren’t for everyone so feel your team out. What works best for them (and you)?

Also assess if budgets allow for a once or twice yearly in person get together.  It’s a great way to create upcoming goals and tasks and obtain buy-in, and it’s also a great for sharing progress against goals, for team members to determine best practices, and for celebrating successes.

Be intentional about keeping in touch with team members and clients and build it into your schedule. It’s all too easy to get bogged down with daily issues that prevent us from strengthening our virtual relationships.

Sincerely,

Mike and Jan

In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.
—Mark Sanborn

Leading the Future of IT: PeopleTek’s Premier Strategy for Advancing Tech Professionals and Their Teams

At PeopleTek Coaching, our expertise lies in guiding IT visionaries, propelling them to the zenith of their capabilities. With a potent combination of bespoke coaching sessions, forward-thinking methodologies, and deep-rooted insights from the tech sector, we empower both individual tech mavens and cohesive teams to thrive in the dynamic world of IT.

Our state-of-the-art coaching model hones leadership skills and bolsters team unity, aligning them with a shared technological mission. This steadfast dedication to fostering teamwork has cemented our standing, making us the go-to consultancy for myriad tech corporations over our distinguished 20-year journey.

Beyond just business achievements, our aspiration is to mold IT spaces that resonate with positivity, creativity, and mutual respect. We champion environments that catalyze individual advancement and heighten productivity. This visionary approach forms the cornerstone of PeopleTek’s ethos.

At PeopleTek, we invite you to reshape your IT leadership path and lead with unmatched accuracy and enthusiasm. Delve into the nuances of our tailored approach by visiting PeopleTekCoaching.com. Boasting a comprehensive array of tech-focused services, we are primed to refresh your ascent to tech leadership excellence and collaborative success.

 

We all want our work culture to be the place where we, and our team members can learn, thrive, and actually enjoy our jobs. Why? Because when we create the right environment success is more readily attained.

There are many thoughts around what is required to have this kind of work culture and we want to share highlights of two differing perspectives.

Amy Somerville, CEO, Success Magazine states that there are four components:

1. Curiosity – Get to know your team, learn about their perspectives, passions, and personal stories. This will help with understanding key value drivers, purpose, and what causes joy or discontent.

2. Collaboration – Co-creating your vision, mission, goals (VMG) and company values is galvanizing and will help obtain buy-in and make the VMG come to life.

3. Clarity – Curiosity and collaboration help bring priorities into focus  and clarity encourages direction, trusting relationships, and inspires innovation.

4. Connection – Leaders must continuously assess their work culture by observing and addressing how connected people are to the vision and one another. Evaluate what’s working well, what is not, and determine the reasons why.

Adam Witty, founder and CEO, Advantage Media Group feels there are 5 elements that create a desired work culture:

1. Staff Your Team with A-players – This person not only possesses the required job skills but they also add a human element to the team (which admittedly is not always seen during a brief interview). Do they have a “can-do” and positive attitude, a desire to maximize their skills, and can they put the team before their own needs?

2. The Importance of Having Fun – Having fun at work creates energy and enthusiasm and helps promote the feeling of being valued, that the team members are making a difference, and that they are appreciated. The intent is to have a team of individuals who are motivated by the “why” of what they do.

3. Make Employees and Clients Your Extended Family – A family environment facilitates a team mentality especially for those who like to keep to themselves because they’re shy. Treat clients, suppliers and other business relationships with this mentality.

4. Encourage Difference Makers – Team members are driven by the “why” of what they do. The right content in the right person’s hands at the right time can change the world forever. Share stories, passion and knowledge to guide and help others learn and grow.

5. Commit to Lifelong Learning – (we know you’ve heard this numerous times before!). Encouraging all team members to establish a path of personal and professional development. With increased knowledge, experience and skills, people lead a more fulfilled life, which profits everyone in their work environment.

A simple recap is that it’s all about people and relationships. If we want our work culture to thrive, we need to invest in our team members. That’s what drives success!

Sincerely,

Mike and Jan

The work environment is very important in determining how enjoyable work is.
It is very important to work with smart people who have a superior level of intellectual bandwidth and still have softer skills as well.
— Kumar Mangalam Birla

Leading the Future of IT: PeopleTek’s Premier Strategy for Advancing Tech Professionals and Their Teams

At PeopleTek Coaching, our expertise lies in guiding IT visionaries, propelling them to the zenith of their capabilities. With a potent combination of bespoke coaching sessions, forward-thinking methodologies, and deep-rooted insights from the tech sector, we empower both individual tech mavens and cohesive teams to thrive in the dynamic world of IT.

Our state-of-the-art coaching model hones leadership skills and bolsters team unity, aligning them with a shared technological mission. This steadfast dedication to fostering teamwork has cemented our standing, making us the go-to consultancy for myriad tech corporations over our distinguished 20-year journey.

Beyond just business achievements, our aspiration is to mold IT spaces that resonate with positivity, creativity, and mutual respect. We champion environments that catalyze individual advancement and heighten productivity. This visionary approach forms the cornerstone of PeopleTek’s ethos.

At PeopleTek, we invite you to reshape your IT leadership path and lead with unmatched accuracy and enthusiasm. Delve into the nuances of our tailored approach by visiting PeopleTekCoaching.com. Boasting a comprehensive array of tech-focused services, we are primed to refresh your ascent to tech leadership excellence and collaborative success.

We’ve mentioned Servant Leadership in the past and feel that it needs to be discussed again.

The term servant leadership was coined in 1970 by Robert K. Greenleaf, and some describe it as being the reverse of traditional leadership. It’s where the needs of the people/employees/colleagues are viewed as priorities, and it means replacing the dictatorial and drill sergeant types of leadership styles and behaviors (that were so prevalent in the past) with “people” and “relationship” skills. It also includes a focus on helping others grow.

Carol Smith wrote an article where she compiled research regarding servant leadership entitled The Leadership Theory Of Robert K. Greenleaf.  In it she highlights 20 characteristics and attributes critical to servant leadership (excerpts below):

9 Functional Attributes (defined as intrinsic characteristics of servant-leaders):

1. Vision
2. Honesty
3. Integrity
4. Trust
5. Service
6. Modeling
7. Pioneering
8. Appreciation
9. Empowerment

11 Accompanying Attributes

1. Communication
2. Credibility
3. Competence
4. Stewardship
5. Visibility
6. Influence
7. Persuasion
8. Listening
9. Encouragement
10. Teaching
11. Delegation

It’s interesting that so many of these attributes are included in the Leadership Journey and in our COMPASS assessment! Our belief is that strong and effective leadership means building relationships with others, it means being genuinely interested in those we interact with, it means being committed to continual learning (for ourselves and others), and it means creating a work culture of trust and inclusiveness.

Are you a servant leader? How are you helping others grow and thrive in their career? Could you do more? 

Sincerely,

Mike and Jan

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

~Mahatma Gandhi

Leading the Future of IT: PeopleTek’s Premier Strategy for Advancing Tech Professionals and Their Teams

At PeopleTek Coaching, our expertise lies in guiding IT visionaries, propelling them to the zenith of their capabilities. With a potent combination of bespoke coaching sessions, forward-thinking methodologies, and deep-rooted insights from the tech sector, we empower both individual tech mavens and cohesive teams to thrive in the dynamic world of IT.

Our state-of-the-art coaching model hones leadership skills and bolsters team unity, aligning them with a shared technological mission. This steadfast dedication to fostering teamwork has cemented our standing, making us the go-to consultancy for myriad tech corporations over our distinguished 20-year journey.

Beyond just business achievements, our aspiration is to mold IT spaces that resonate with positivity, creativity, and mutual respect. We champion environments that catalyze individual advancement and heighten productivity. This visionary approach forms the cornerstone of PeopleTek’s ethos.

At PeopleTek, we invite you to reshape your IT leadership path and lead with unmatched accuracy and enthusiasm. Delve into the nuances of our tailored approach by visiting PeopleTekCoaching.com. Boasting a comprehensive array of tech-focused services, we are primed to refresh your ascent to tech leadership excellence and collaborative success.