Horizon Point Consulting

Category: General

Horizon Point writes about dozens of leadership, career, workplace, and workforce topics. Sometimes we write whatever we want. Read this category for general blogs from the HPC team.

  • Ultimate Personal Leadership- Supporting Others

    In all the focus on women andpersonal leadership in our recent posts, I think what is so important in personal leadership is establishing leadership and decision making that is best for yourself and being able to take it a step further by respecting others approach to personal leadership that guides their decision making.

     

    A few weeks ago while out to dinner with friends, one of my friends who was about 30 weeks pregnant shared with me her decision not to return to work after the baby was born.  I could tell, although we are close, that she was almost ashamed to tell me this.  As a working-outside-the-home-mom, it was almost as though she had her guard up that I might judge, and I hated myself for making her even begin to feel that way.  I wondered what I had demonstrated in my past behavior that indicated to her that I might judge, and I silently thought about how I might avoid this behavior in the future.

     

    She expressed her concern over her husband’s demanding job and her excitement over taking some online classes that she had a real passion for the field in, but most of all her excitement about their soon-to-be son or daughter arriving and this being the best decision for her.  I applaud her for it.   And the great thing is, I know she applauds my decision to work outside the home, even though it is different path than hers.

     

    What I thought had been a conversation down at the other end of the table about sports and beer with the husbands, I found out ended up being some of that but also some of the same soon-to-be parent concerns, as my husband shared with me what the boys discussed that night.  For example, the spouse of the 30 week pregnant friend, expressed to my husband his worry about his demanding job as well and his focus already on determining ways to spend more time at home now and especially once the baby arrived.

     

    What does the decision to work or not to work or to come home early from work and discussing it casually amongst friends at dinner have to do with personal leadership?  Everything.

     

    What strikes me the most though, is that many of us self-impose the decisions we have found to be right for us onto others, because what’s right for us, especially if we have done it through considering personal leadership principles, has to be right for everyone else, right?  Wrong.

     

    True personal leadership is about the ability to, yes, determine the right course of action for yourself through examining your priorities, roles and focus, but is also about having the leadership capability to support others in what they discern is best for them.

     

    I think we’d all admit that this may not come easy, but creating an environment around us where people know that you are there to offer personal support for decisions they make, whether they are congruent to yours or not, is truly establishing personal leadership for yourself.   Especially if you can celebrate their decisions, while remaining true to yours and welcoming them in celebrating what is best for you as well.

     

    Are you lucky enough to be surrounded by friends and family who build an environment for support for the decisions you make?

  • For the Love Make a Decision!

    5 TIPS FOR ESTABLISHING PERSONAL LEADERSHIP THROUGH DECISION MAKING

    Have you ever been around someone that waffled on everything?  Whether big or small, with each decision they go back and forth and back and forth until the decision, oftentimes, becomes null and void.  Also, oftentimes, they only worry about what others are thinking in making a decision instead of moving forward based on what is right and best for them personally.

    By and large, leaders are decision makers.  Establishing personal leadership requires sound personal decision making and being confident in those decisions.  This is necessary before you can make decisions that impact others and/or an organization.  It is difficult to see how people who have trouble making personal decisions will be able to step into leadership roles where decision making is constant.

     Keys to sound personal decision making: 

    1. Decide based on your mission and values. If you have your mission and values always at the forefront, decision making is much easier.  I saw a twitter post this morning from Tim Elmore that stated, “Roy Disney once said, ‘It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.’”
    2. Get the facts.  What are the pros and cons of the decision that are factual, not emotional?
    3. Weigh in with others who matter.   In personal decisions, make sure you’ve talked with those people who are important in your personal life, in which the decision will impact, before making a decision.  Get their input. Having a colleague to bounce possible pros and cons of different business decisions is valuable.  There may be different people you go to based on different decisions at hand
    4. Don’t worry about what those that don’t matter think.  These are your decisions, not someone else’s. Personal leadership starts with knowing what is right for you.
    5. Step back, but not too long.  If you are faced with making a potentially life altering or organization altering decision and you’ve gathered the facts and talked with others, step back for a bit.   Take time to focus your thoughts on other things, because if the decision is life altering, it has probably consumed you.   Focusing on other things may help bring clarity to the right path.  But don’t delay too long, this may end up begin worse than making the wrong decision.

    What have you found to be most helpful to do when faced difficult decisions?

  • Putting Your Talents, Passions and Values Together

    Putting Your Talents, Passions and Values Together

    After you’ve explored your talents, passions and values, you can review your job matches in each of these categories and determine which career direction may be right for you.   If you’d like a copy of a spreadsheet tool to help you do this, email me.  The best job matches are ones that are identified in each of the three categories, at the center point of all three areas, as the diagram here represents.

    So what about our example of Graham?  The top jobs that came up for him in his analysis of his talents, passions and values are:

    Advertising Sales Agent (and closely related Advertising and Promotion Managers)

    Chief Executives

    Clergy

    Computer and Information Systems Manager

    Some pretty varied stuff!   This is where talking to a career coach may come in handy, but that is not to say that you can’t use this process on your own to determine great career matches for yourself.

    Graham works for Billy Reid as their Director of E-Commerce.  It’s a small, growing, high-end men’s clothing company and he wears lots of hats (no pun intended) for them.  He has a lot of say so in how is work gets done (the CEO aspect coming out in this as a decision maker) and he does of lot of sales work with wholesale accounts in addition to e-commerce sales (Advertising, Marketing and Sales coming in). He is constantly staying on the forefront of e-commerce trends has a strong knowledge of technology (Computer and Information Systems Manager) and advertising techniques (Advertising Sales Agent/Manager).  I’m not sure where clergy came from, although he does have a strong spiritual grounding.

    Next week, we’ll discuss more of how Graham got to this point in his career and how “planned happenstance” played a role.

  • Personal Leadership Lesson 3: Know your Value

    Personal Leadership Lesson 3: Know your Value

    Knowing your value in the marketplace is an important component in establishing personal leadership.  In our first post in this series, we focused on how much emphasis recently has been placed on women’s issues, particularly in the workplace, and in women having the ability to know their value in the market.  It seems as though much of the issue stems from women not knowing their value or undervaluing themselves whether it be as a news anchor as one recent book discusses or whether it be as a stay-at-home mom with a side business.  I’m guilty of this, are you?  Do women just not know what they are worth or do they just feel uncomfortable defining it and talking about it?

    Our first two lessons in personal leadership focused on inward influence by defining a personal mission and knowing when tounbalance yourself for the sake of your mission.

    But why is knowing your value important, for a male or female, in establishing personal leadership? Taking influence to the next step, you must be able to influence others, and one of the major things we influence others in is our worth to them.

    Keys to define value:

    Economics 101: What will the market bear? It’s a supply and demand thing.  Whether you are a computer programmer looking for a job, a business owner considering how to price services, or a mom trying to sell your kids clothing they’ve outgrown on eBay, you need to know first what the going rate is for what you do or what you are selling.

    As an employee, salary.com is a good place to start (although I think some of the rates here are inflated based on the area of the country you are looking) as well as careeronestop.org  Seek out salary survey data particular to your industry and area to understand what the market rate is for what you do.

    For business owners or budding entrepreneurs, look at companies or individuals that provide similar services to you and see what they charge.  Usually an average of this data is a good place to start in pricing your services or goods.

    Is it Fair?  Nine times out of ten, what the market is going to bear is a fair price.   My husband and I recently returned from one of his I-must-do-this-before-I-die trips.  We spent Saturday and Sunday at the Master’s in August, GA.   We paid $300 for a roach motel in Augusta (it would have cost $50 on any other weekend) and talked to one gentleman at the tournament whose company had six weeklong passes and had rented a home for the week for a whopping $40,000.   Unfair you say?  People are paying it, and if no one is getting exploited, it’s a supply and demand thing.  You decide.  Maybe we should all go buy houses in Augusta!

    Want to be legit? Charge for what you do and don’t discount it.  And time is money, charge for it.  The first lesson I had in taking a business start-up class was to charge for the services or good provided, even to your best friend.   If you’ve done your research on what the market will bear and its fair, why would you feel the need to apologize for your fee or discount for it?  It’s only a hobby if you don’t charge for it; therefore and unfortunately, people won’t take what you do seriously.

    I recently got a gift certificate as a birthday present from friends for an interior designer to come spend a couple hours at our house to tell us what she thought needed to be done.   When we were finishing up, I asked her how she structured her rates, in particular if I wanted to get some window treatments done through her.  She embarrassedly said that because people had taken advantage of her time, she was now charging for the time she spent selecting fabrics and coordinating with the person who made the window treatments for her.  She apologized to me numerous times for having to charge for her time (why, I don’t know). She had spent hours picking out fabric for clients, shown them to them, only for them to say, “Oh, I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” and all her time had been lost on something she didn’t generate a penny of revenue doing.

    It’s just money.  Don’t be embarrassed to talk about it.   Discuss upfront your salary requirements, fees or prices before starting any arrangement or selling a product and don’t be afraid to negotiate.  If you’ve done your research, you know what you are worth and you can establish legitimacy and personal leadership by having an honest conversation about money before you start.

    Continually prove your worth.  Do a great job (not a good job, but a great one) day in and day out.  This is personal leadership at the core.  Your worth will be communicated in your actions that lead to results, further increasing your value.   It’s easy to get what you’re worth when people can’t live without you, or at least perceive that they can’t.

    When have you had a hard time communicating your value?

     

     

     

    image source: http://www.jacksonvillecriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/assets_c/2012/10/money-thumb-255×300-7496.jpg

  • Work and Lifestyle Values: A Real Life Example

    Continuing with the example of Graham, thework and life values he identified for himself are (those in blue you can click on to see job matches):

    $1·      Responsibility for Outcomes and Results

    $1·      Freedom to Make Decisions

    $1·      Recognition

    $1·      Flexibility of work schedule

    $1·      High Earning Potential (related to cost of living in the area)

    $1·      Culturally and socially rich city or environment

    Graham likes to be in charge and be responsible for his work and the outcomes that are achieved.  And he wants to be compensated accordingly for the outcomes he achieves. He thrives in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment where his results can be measured.

    Lifestyle wise, he seeks opportunities where he can be in charge of his work schedule and have flexibility in how and when work is performed.   He likes opportunities for cultural and social outlets in the city/town in which he lives, but does not seek a big city lifestyle.

    Next week, we’ll put the pieces together of talents, passions and values through the example of Graham.

    Can you guess what he does for a living yet? It isn’t something run of the mill…