Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

Teams 365 #151: MAy Stock-Taking

5/31/2014

It is the last day of the month and time to take "stock" of what May held. You may want to reflect on:
What your major achievements were this month
What you are most proud of
Where your biggest learning was
and...What you need to leave behind in May, and NOT carry forward into June.

It can be useful to take notes around these so you can refer to them down the road.

What other things will be useful to note as you wrap up this month?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams365 #150: Leader as Guide

5/30/2014

Today's leadership quote comes from Bill Owens. How do you guide others? What activities do you undertake to support others in being successful?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

TeaMs 365 #149: Simplifying as a Leader

5/29/2014

Today's quote comes from Colin Powell who points us to the importance of simplification, and the ability for masterful leaders to be able to distill messages down to their core.

Consider the great presenters and communicators in your organization? What do they do to communicate the core of messages, and offer a "solution everybody can understand"?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams365 #148: Strengths as A Leader

5/28/2014

Today's quote comes from Jack Zenger. As this quote demonstrates, strengths are critical in our definition as leaders.

A number of posts this year have focused on strengths:

The Case for Strengths - a post from February which explores why strengths are so important

Collaboration Success Factors - a post from January which looks at different things which make collaboration work, including the importance of complimentary skills, and leveraging strengths

What Makes You Unique? - a post from last week which points to what makes us stand out, including strengths.

as you consider your "definition" as a leader, how would you describe yourself? How would others describe you?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams365 #147: Where did you get your Leadership Mettle?

5/27/2014

Where did you learn your greatest leadership lessons? Where did your "mettle" get called forward? My guess is that for all of us, myself included, it's through those times when our leadership and team waters were at their choppiest.

Mettle is defined in the Mirriam- Webster Dictionary as " vigor and strength of spirit or temperament b : staying quality or stamina"

It's the times of crisis and challenge where we often see the best, and worst, of people and leaders. Being able to lead through turbulent waters, and ongoing change, is what great leadership is all about. Turbulence and ongoing change is also the current business context today. How does this impact your approaches, your staying power?

In a quiet moment this week, think about and reflect on where your leadership mettle has been honed? What experiences have caused you to learn the most? How would you characterize your leadership spirit? What id your staying power? Which experiences have influenced you to become the leader you are, or motivate you to be the leader you aspire to be? What have you learned from these?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams 365 #146: Managing Up and Managing Down (Cartoon #4)

5/26/2014

The role of the team leader is one of being a mid-point liaison between their team and supervisor. Successful team leader are great influencers and communicators. Consider what support is needed for your team by you as a team leader? Your support to your boss?

Some of the areas team leaders will want to communicate upwards to their supervisor, and will need to also communicate downwards are:
Goals - Organizational Goals, Team Goals and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
Team needs and achievements
Flag any areas of concern or support

At the same time, your team is looking to you as a team leader for
Support
Feedback
Resources
Troubleshooting
and of course connection

What other areas do you as a team leader find you need to communicate upwards to your supervisor, and down to your team?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams 365 #145: Attraction

5/25/2014

Today's quote gets us to think about how we are bringing greatness into our team and how we keep that greatness together through connection, results etc.

Enjoy your weekend!

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams 365 #144: Leadership

5/24/2014

It's a long weekend for many, and a catch up weekend for others. Today's quote comes from Peter Drucker who so succinctly captures several of the themes we have explored so far at the blog. The importance of leadership and vision, performance and also strengthening ourselves.

How much attention are you putting into these three areas?

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

Teams #143: Capacity Development and Leaders

5/23/2014

This week celebrated International Coaching Week. I spoke at several coaching events on team coaching, including at an International Coach Federation Vancouver Island chapter webinar on Capacity Development.

Organizational capacity building has been a key part of the work I have done throughout my career over the past two plus decades. As a leader in the international sector most of my posts ranged anywhere from 12 - 36 months in length. A critical part of what was expected was to build systems and pass on skills to the people I worked with - both national and international staff.

How important is capacity in your organization? What role do you play in building capacity with your team? Your organization?

Today's quote is about capacity development and what it is. What focus do you want to put around this in your work?

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner

Teams 365 #142: What Makes You Unique?

5/22/2014

Today's post is one of the Leadership a-z from my sister blog The BizToolkit blog, a long term blog I've hosted since 2005 for leaders and small business owners. This year, with the focus on daily blogging here at the Teams365 blog my writing over at the BizToolkit has been a little more sporadic.

Today's Post is about What Makes You Unique? Here's what I wrote a few months ago,

"We each bring our own uniqueness as a leader. Becoming more self-aware of who we are, what be excel in and how we need to adapt to the things we don’t do so well, is an important part of emotional intelligence. As we have seen in other posts, EI is a critical skill set for leaders.
How do we explore what makes us unique?
Some of the things that make us who we are include: 1. Our values - What are the things you hold as important? What are the things you will go to bat for - integrity, quality, excellence? We sometimes become aware of our values when they are compromised or stepped on.

2. Our strengths - I’ve written past posts on Strengths and working with strengths on your team. You can read them here.
Gallup outlines the business case for working with strengths. As Marcus Buckingham states, “Team members who are encouraged to use their strengths regularly at work are

38% more likely to be highly productive
44% more likely to have high customer satisfaction scores
50% more likely to have high employee retention” (http://www.tmbc.com/offer/strengths)

What would that translate to your organization?
Exploring strengths can be done using a couple of online assessments, including:
1. Via Strengths - Emerging out of the positive psychology movement, the VIA Strengths Profile has been taken by millions around the world. IT will identify some of your top signature strengths. It is a free online assessment
2. StrengthsFinder - I widely encourage leaders to look at StrengthsFinder 2.0 as a great resource to invest in in their team as it provides an important conversation starter at the team and organiatonal level. It is also linked into Strengths Based Leadership Model. You can learn more about the assessment here.
The more aware we are of our own strengths and others the more we can leverage them with the leadership and team context.
3. Explore styles - A third way to open the dialogue about uniqueness for yourself and/or team members is exploring styles. I continue to do a lot of work using the Everything DiSC suite of tools. The 363 for Leaders provides a useful 360 along the leadership vein. The Everything DiSC Work of Leaders also provides valuable feedback on leadership styles when we lead MANY. Contact us for more information.
Activity: Select one of the assessments/tools identified in today’s blog post. Complete it. What do you recognize about what makes you unique as a leader? What have you learned from this process? Consider what adaptations you can make, and want to make, in becoming more effective in your interactions. "

Excerpt taken from: http://biztoolkit.blogspot.ca/2014/02/leadership-z-u-is-for-what-makes-you.html

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats
Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Authorized Partner
Everything DiSC® Authorized Partner
Contact us and let us know how we can support you in helping your team reach its' full potential: (416)996-TEAM (8326)