We’ve all had the situation when an employee walks into our office with a problem they want us to solve (or dozens of problems they want solved). Maybe they walk into our office and say, “I need your help boss, that other division won’t respond to my emails about giving me the data I need to finish my report.” And then they stand there waiting for us to solve that problem.
One big mistake many leaders make is delivering advice instead of constructive feedback. People often think it’s nicer to phrase criticisms more gently by injecting words like: should, would, ought, and try. The problem is that by using these words, your constructive feedback becomes advice.
Today’s organizations want to hire self-motivated, self-leading and self-sufficient people. Companies want people who are internally driven to give 100% effort at work; not people who require bribes, babysitting or cajoling to give maximum effort. Of course, that’s a tough attribute to assess in an interview. And there are lots of interview questions that are just useless for measuring that attribute.
Whenever we talk about Hiring for Attitude the discussion typically turns to what are the best and worst interview questions to ask. Now, there is always some group of people that will start asking pop-psychological kind of weird, goofball sort of questions.
If you’re not working on the right projects, heading in right directions and marshaling your best resources in the right places, a great career filled with growth and all the things that make you feel personally fulfilled is not going to happen. But it’s largely up to you, and not your boss or the organization, to change that.
Our research team at Leadership IQ recently conducted a study involving over 3,000 employees from virtually every industry. And among the hundred-plus survey questions, we discovered several areas where Millennials (aka Generation Y) really differed from all the other age groups. Here are 4 big differences...
It may seem like there’s no good way to deliver bad news to the boss. But when you deliver bad news in a way that increases the boss’ feeling of confidence in your competence to handle the bad news and that gives the boss a sense of control, you can actually deepen your working relationship with the boss. How do we do this? No. 1 is offering a little bit of control. This is as easy as walking into the boss’ office and saying, “Is now a good time to talk?”
Employees whose bosses recognize their accomplishments with praise are 63% more inspired to give their best effort at work. Simple, right? Just pay attention to your employees’ accomplishments and when you notice great things happening, praise the employees responsible. And that free activity can create huge increases in employee effort and engagement. So why don’t we do it?
Today’s managers talk a lot about wanting employees to be more accountable and to act on their own initiative. And yet, those same managers turn around and say to employees: “I have to give you assignments; I have to give you feedback; I have to hold you accountable.”
When I asked 5,000 plus employees from a wide spread of industries “Who teaches you more about the dos and don’ts on the job, the boss or your fellow employees?” The results were pretty shocking. 67% said they learn more by watching fellow employees. Now, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion, especially if you have a lot of high performers on your team, that this is a good thing.