Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Leadership Development

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step in your own leadership development (or if you’re looking for resources for someone else).

  • Impacting the performance of employees when you just want them to show up, do their job and not complain

    Impacting the performance of employees when you just want them to show up, do their job and not complain

    “I just want them to show up and do their job and not complain,” said one burned-out manager to me not long ago.  He was struggling with how to motivate the performance of several members of his staff, and in his exhaustion to try to be a leader, had adopted a mindset of something far from leadership.

    So how do leaders influence and impact the performance of employees when sometimes we just want them to show up and do their job and not complain?

    1.  Adopt a Leadership Mindset. First, a mindset of leadership needs to be present.  Leadership is grounded in seeing people as assets and realizing that the greatest responsibility of the role is to invest in people to drive their performance.   This means spending most of our time as leaders with those we are trying to develop, not wishing they would disappear into the oblivion get their work done and not bother us.  My manager client is never going to be able to drive performance in his employees long-term if his mindset about what his role is doesn’t change to one of leadership.

    2.  Get over your own burn-out. You can’t motivate performance if you’re burned out yourself.  My client was tired.   On top of dealing with employee issues that were unpleasant, he was trying to run a business, meet client needs and juggle a never-ending myriad of tasks.    The personnel issues were just another thing that he was barely spending enough time on to be able to see any results, and his people know from his actions that they are being seen as just another annoyance in a never ending cycle of being hopelessly behind and burned-out.  If you aren’t working smarter, not harder, why would they?  Part of a leadership mindset is setting an example.  If you are burned out and annoyed, you’re probably complaining and that’s why they are complaining too.

    If you are burned out:

    1. Take some time to regroup; get away if you have to and unplug.
    2. Manage your time. Consider how you can kill two-birds with one stone by empowering your people through delegation.
    3.  Get rid of stuff that doesn’t matter- say no.  And saying no to investing time your employees shouldn’t be one of the no’s on your list.  Saying no to things that aren’t important leads you to be able to say yes to your employees, who are important.

    The bottom-line is leaders impact the performance of their employees by the example they create.   If you want people to show up, do their job and not complain, then do the same.  Adopt a leadership mindset and find ways to get over the burn-out and negativity you may be experiencing.   If you can’t, then maybe you’re in the wrong role.

    You’ll find that if you empower employees through your positive mindset and results, you’ll get much more than just a group of non-complainers who do their job.  You’ll get a group of people who are engaged in their work and drive productivity. Start with yourself and it will rub off on those you seek to lead.

  • How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    “This is why I’m not married anymore,” said a participant in a recent leadership training class.   She was partly kidding, but it was obvious that the results of her personality assessment, which were being used to launch the leadership training series we were conducting for her company, had struck a cord.

    Her personality assessment showed that she was a highly dominant, take charge, get it done kind of person.  These characteristics had served her well in her role in finance with the organization, but she realized that maybe her personality had impacted the success of her marriage.

    In another conversation with the director of a college career center, concerns were expressed about students’ ability to know themselves- their strengths and areas for development- and take this knowledge into the workplace in order to succeed.  In designing a leadership workshop for them, our first approach was to implement a personality assessment to help these student leaders with the self-awareness they seem to so desperately need.

    As we’ve often said, self-awareness is the first step in establishing yourself as a leader.   Although it isn’t the only way, personality assessment can help with this self-awareness and then provide a framework for building interpersonal relationships, providing feedback, delegating and a host of other leadership issues.

    Here are some assessment tools/vendors we use based on client needs (Note: It’s important to know which personality assessment is right to use based on your organization’s needs.   You should define the needs first- are you wanting to facilitate teambuilding, leadership coaching or training, make better hiring decisions, etc.- then pick the best assessment, not the other way around.):

    Hogan Assessments

    DiSC Assessments

    Tools from Assessment Associates International

    Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

    How as a personality assessment helped you at work or in your personal life?

  • 3 Extraverted Leaders and the Lesson we Can Learn From Them

    3 Extraverted Leaders and the Lesson we Can Learn From Them

    Last month, we focused on introverted leaders and the characteristics they naturally exhibit that all leaders, introverted or extraverted, should strive to emulate.

    If you recall, extraversion and introversion can be defined as:

    Orientation of energy

    E     EXTRAVERSION

    Energized when you are with people

    Talk out your ideas

    First you live it – then you understand it

    Enjoy the interaction

    Breadth of interest

    		 and direction of focus

      INTROVERSION    I

    Energized when you are alone

    Reflect on your ideas before vocalizing

    First you understand – then you live it

    Enjoy the concentration

    Depth of interest

    The interesting thing about the three introverted leaders we highlighted (Moses, Stephen Wonziak of Apple and Rosa Parks) is that all had extraverted counterparts that helped drive the results that made both the extravert and the introvert of the partnership successful.

    These three extravert leaders are:

    1. Aaron:  Aaron, Moses’ brother, was the voice of Moses.  He was the one who spoke to the Israelites inspiring their action and movement towards the Promised Land when necessary.  There were a lot of times when the people were ornery at best, combative and worst, and it was Aaron’s motivating words that helped lead them to their eventual destination.
    2. Steve Jobs:  The personality of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and driver of so many of the innovations that have changed the way we think about and use a computer, a phone and listen to music, seems to be larger than life.  In his biography, many people describe his “reality distortion field” coupled with his sales ability to get people to do things and think differently.  Many of the innovations we find commonplace today would not have been possible without this extraverted leader’s ability to get people on board and get work done through others.
    3. Martin Luther King, Jr.:  The voice and face of the Civil Rights Movement had a way with words and a way with people that led to successful and much needed change.   His words still ring true today when we think about what it means to be human and to interact with others.

    Extraverted leadership trait seen in these three leaders that is needed for today’s leader:  The words to inspire action to move the crowd.

    Know or work for an extraverted leader?  How has he or she moved you?

  • Get a best friend at work and other tips on work and life wellbeing

    At the recommendation of the Alabama Society of Human Resource Management’s Wellness Director, I downloaded a copy of Wellbeing:  The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath and Jim Harter. The book describes the five essential elements of wellbeing (in order of importance) to be: 

    Career

    Social

    Financial

    Physical

    Community

    The authors emphasize how each element is intricately interwoven with each other.

    Here are some tips for maximizing work wellbeing by seeing wellbeing from a holistic perspective:

    Don’t be a workaholic.  “While you might think that people with high career wellbeing spend too much time working, they actually take more time to enjoy life, have better relationships, and don’t take things for granted.  They love what they do each day.”

    Get a work best friend.  “Our research revealed that just 30% of employees have a best friend at work.  Those who do are seven times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, are better at engaging customers, produce higher quality work, have higher wellbeing and are less likely to get injured on the job.” 

    Salary matters, but it isn’t everything.  “Generally, those who have a lot of money can do what they want when they want to do it.  Money can increase short-term happiness by giving us more control over how we spend our time, whether that means a shorter commute, more time at home with family or additional social time with friends.”   And “What we found was that financial security- the perception that you have more than enough money to do what you want to do- has three times the impact of your income alone over overall wellbeing. Further, the lack of worry about money has more than double the impact of income over wellbeing.” 

    Being engaged in your work leads to giving back to the greater community.  “In one organization we studied, workers who were the most engaged in their jobs donated 2.6 times more than those who were not engaged in their careers.”  We agree.  Read more at Passion + Productivity = Give Back 

    How does your work wellbeing impact other areas of your wellbeing?

  • Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    We’re working on a compensation project now with a company to redesign their exempt salary structure. When thinking about how to best design a system, it’s important to realize there are two key factors: 

    Internal Equity– Are you paying people fairly compared to what other people within the organization are making based on the knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role? 

    External Competitiveness– Are you paying what the market demands for certain knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role in order to recruit and retain people?

    Basic steps to consider when designing a compensation structure: 

    You gotta do a job description. In considering the factors of internal equity and external competitiveness, both of these hinge on knowing the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for the jobs in which we you trying to define a compensation structure.  Read more about performing job analysis and what a job description needs here (link back to previous post). 

    Get market data.  For external equity, you need to know what the market pays for the jobs you have.   

    Some sources for market data: 

    Career One Stop

    Salary.com

    Salary Expert

    BLS

    Define compensable factors. Compensable factors are based on what the organization places a value on (internal equity) in order to differentiate the value of roles.  For example, education is a compensable factor.  In general, positions that require a bachelors degree have a higher value placed on them than those that only require a high school diploma.

     

    Create the structure. Creating the structure takes the information defined in the previous steps to create salary grades and ranges. Grades are the hierarchy of the salary structure (grouped by jobs with relative worth) and ranges are the minimum and maximum established within grades. Using compensable factors for each job, you will then place each job into the appropriate salary grade.  

    Create a Salary Administration Manual. In order to make sure that the structure you created is implemented appropriately, a salary administration manual needs to be created.  The manual should include a description of the newly created structure, administrative procedures governing the structure and guidelines for annual salary increases. In addition, it should contain ways to keep the program up-to-date through a periodic systematic review of the structure.

    Designing and creating a compensation system seems like a daunting task. But if you take things step-by-step, you’ll see that it can be manageable. More importantly, if done correctly it can add tremendous value to your organization by helping you recruit, retain and reward talent appropriately.