Let’s Play: Follow The Leader

Let’s play follow the leader!

When I grew up Follow The Leader was one of the many neighborhood games I played. The Leader spot (first in line) was the most fun. I loved being the leader and having my friends follow me. I’d try some strange moves to see if they would actually do them. I felt powerful as the leader because I got to decide what crazy thing we were all going to do.

There’s an important aspect to that game – you can only be the leader if you have followers.

The first lesson I learned playing that game was that I needed to follow. It was important for me to learn the rules of the game and the best way to do that was to participate. I’d follow different bigger kids and learn their leadership style. Only then could I develop my own. Experience is key here.

I soon realized there were kids I liked to follow and others I did not. The kids I like to follow were those that took into consideration their followers. If we had a kid following who was not as skilled as the others and the leader did something purposefully knowing the follower couldn’t do it and used this as an opportunity to bully then I was out. No following that leader again.

The kind of leader I liked to follow was one who was challenging, who made it interesting, who was creative. I also liked a leader to look back at us followers to see how we were doing and then decided the next challenged based on our abilities.

The leader’s attitude played a big role as well. Being positive and encouraging was huge. Knowing the leader was caring about us followers also huge.

When my turn came to be leader in the game I tried to lead this way. I looked back at my followers and if there was a little kid in the group then I tried to do movements that even he could do. It was important to me to make sure that even the little kid was able to participate.

Life lessons were being learned during Follow the Leader. Who would have thought!

What type of leader did you like to follow?

 

http://www.levelupnowcoaching.com

 

 

Communication : Body Odor

“Sandy has a body odor problem and you need to tell her.”

Those were the words Nancy said to me as she sat across from me in my office. I looked at the Nancy and said, “But you are her closest friend in the unit. That kind of message is received best from a close friend.”

That began a conversation in which Nancy tells me about a problem and expects me to fix it because it is my “responsibility” as the supervisor to address these types of issues.

Welcome to Supervising 101 – the stuff they don’t teach you in college. The real life issues that happen when a group of people work and sit closely to one another all day long.

Nancy walked out of my office and I just sat there. I definitely needed to sleep on this one and think this through. First thing I did was put myself in Sandy’s position and think about how I would want to receive a message like that.

Changing my perspective really helped me figure out how to handle this. Most importantly I wanted to respect Sandy’s privacy on this and not draw attention to her when I spoke with her. I also didn’t want to blow this up into some big issue so no calling her into my office to discuss this. Timing was going to be important. I decided short and sweet would be my approach (cause that’s how I’d prefer to hear something like that).

I started watching for an opportunity when Sandy was alone and no others were watching or within hearing distance. It took a couple days, but eventually the perfect time arrived. Sandy happened to be moving a bit slower than the others to get to lunch. I walked over to where she was and got close to her to speak softly. I told her I wanted to bring something to her attention that I noticed. I mentioned there were days when her body odor was a bit strong. She looked at me with shocked eyes. She said she had no idea. I said I thought she might not realize it. She said she would take care of it. I said that would be a really good thing. Then I walked away casually.

The next day at lunch I noticed Sandy went to the restroom and freshened up. This was a behavior she adopted from that day forward. She solved her own problem without me making suggestions. There was no more body odor problem after that. I never had to talk with her about that issue again.

 

What I learned from this experience:

1. Sometimes the people who should be telling others about these types of things just won’t step up and do it.
2. When I’m responsible for a group of people, whether  supervising, managing or whatever level I am going to have to handle difficult situations. It comes with the territory. No getting around it. I will need courage to face these situations.
3. Sleeping on it for a night is wise strategy. I find after I sleep on it a new thought or rather better thought comes to mind.
4. Thinking through a situation from the perspective of the person receiving the news is crucial to it being successful.
5. Handling the situation in a timely manner is important. No need to drag it out for a weeks.
6. Being respectful really helps the person to be responsive to what I’m saying.
7. Regarding personal issues like this it’s important not to make it a big deal.
8. Sometimes people are totally unaware of the problem and caught off guard when spoken to.
9. People need to be spoken to honestly and given a chance to handle it on their own.
10. I did not need to tell Sandy how to solve the problem. She figured it out all by herself.

https://levelupnowcoaching.coachesconsole.com

 

 

 

 

 

Take your life to the next Level!

A light went on in my mind!! A great revelation occurred!!

I understood exactly what I was reading because I had experienced it firsthand. The article was about hard skills and soft skills. The article explained the difference between them and the value of both.  I have seen how hard skills can take us only so far in life. It’s the soft skill set that can take us to the next level.

What are hard skills? They are the things we have invested our time and money into to become really good at what we do. Our education and our work experience are the major factors in developing our hard skills. We have invested in ourselves to become very knowledgeable and skilled at something. Our investment  was a huge time commitment as well as costly one. We spend many years paying off the debt we incurred to get that education.  Society teaches us we need the hard skills to become successful. There is definite truth to that. We see people who have become experts at something and it has made them successful. This is part of the American Dream. Something we all grew up believing in.

What are soft skills? They are intangible skills and often overlooked. They are communication, negotiation, influencing, team building, leadership, coaching and dealing with difficult people to name a few. This skill set is not one that a person typically invests in. These skills are not as measurable as hard skills.  They are more difficult to achieve. However the value of these skills is huge. Soft skills will take us from being successful to being extremely successful. In other words we’ll go from being good to being great.

Hard skills will take us 80% of the way. At some point we’ll level off and we will not be able to go any further. We end up hitting a wall. It happens to men and women. Gender doesn’t matter. What we do at that point does matter. We have a decision to make. Do we want to stay where we are or do we want to level up? What will it take to level up? Soft skills are what it’ll take. They will take us the other 20% of the way. How do we make that happen? Are there books to read about soft skills?

You bet there are books to read. Reading up on something is a great first step. Googling “emotional intelligence” in books will show a vast selection of books on soft skills. However the reading of a subject and applying it are two separate things. Reading will give us the head knowledge. Head knowledge can only take us so far. A coach can walk us through the application. A coach can take us farther than we can go alone. Having a coach walk alongside us as we strive to develop these soft skills is key to becoming extremely successful.

The idea of being coached on something other than a sport is relatively new. The purpose of being coached is to reach a level we are not able to reach ourselves. The coach is able to give insight and objectivity. Having a coach come alongside us to develop these soft skills will lead to a break through of the wall; a  break through leads to a empowerment; empowerment leads to an extremely successful life; an extremely successful life leads to a leveled up life.

https://levelupnowcoaching.coachesconsole.com