Whether or not your job requires you to supervise others, you’ll often find yourself caught up with multiple projects or tasks that all seem to have a high priority assigned to them. Sometimes that’s true, and it doesn’t help if your boss keeps lumping stuff onto your plate -- it can make managing your time difficult and affect the quality of your work. Every now and again this can become a little overwhelming.
The problem is compounded if you’re responsible for the activities or performance of other employees. As they wait on you for directions or feedback and you’re now getting pressure from above and below to finish your to-do list, being stuck in the middle quickly becomes no fun at all. Situations like this are occasionally further complicated when your boss doesn’t set you up for success by giving you the tools or resources you need.
An example of this scenario might be having quarterly production reports due to your corporate office, a monthly safety huddle to plan and conduct with your entire staff, manufacturing goals for that same staff to meet coming up shortly, a meeting with your director to report on those production numbers, a VIP visitor needing a tour, and a coaching session with a struggling employee. Also, maybe your HR office hasn’t provided you with last month’s lost-time injury numbers yet for your safety meeting. Sound familiar? Competing demands for your time and the stress that you experience are just the nature of the business for many jobs.
I have a suggestion for you: Be cool.
Easier said than done, right? I know, I know, I probably just lost some of my readers over that. Let me explain. It’s probably not time to freak out unless you’ve demonstrated complete and total negligence in managing your time. First of all, understand that your boss probably expects you to ask questions, not only to clarify expectations but also (infrequently, we hope) to push back and ask for more time or more reasonable goals if you can make a legitimate business case for such. Similarly, if you’re in a leadership position, your employees most likely understand that you’re incredibly busy and haven’t forgotten about them. Or you didn’t mean to, if you already have!
I’m not going to go into depth here about basic task prioritization - is it important? urgent? et cetera - since for the sake of this article we’re going to have some fun and assume that all of your tasks are critical with imminent deadlines. How to keep your cool in this case, then?
Let’s stick to the scenario laid out previously. Although you won’t always be able to make everything fit into your agenda, you can get a little creative and save yourself some headaches. Consider asking the VIP to sit in and observe your safety huddle; perhaps you’re able to delegate conducting this meeting to another employee, to get the team more engaged? While preparing your quarterly reports, shoot an email over to your director and explain that the VIP visit has necessitated pushing back your meeting. Although it’s not ideal to delay performance management for too long, save your coaching session with your employee for later on. If you’re going to be giving constructive rather than positive feedback, you don’t want to set the tone for your day by criticizing someone.
There will be times when you just aren’t able to complete every project on your plate, though. In these situations you need to think about how to accomplish those tasks which will have the greatest or most immediate impact. If there are heavy fines associated with not holding a safety meeting on time, then focus on that before you conduct any other meetings. No one wants to compromise safety anyway. If your tasks involve settling matters that affect employee job security, don’t delay on those more than a day or two. You don’t want to hold off on giving employees feedback on their performance for too long, if you have an employee producing defective brake rotors into mid-May but you’ve known they were using the wrong set of moulds since early April.
The bottom line is that being smart about it will help you resolve many of your time management issues. There will be times when you won’t be able to complete all of your tasks in the most desirable amount of time. As long as this is due to circumstances outside the individual’s control and he or she is taking the initiative to prioritize intelligently, I don’t usually punish managers under me for not getting every single thing done when I’m the one adding tasks to their checklists. Do be diligent however; times like this are not for malingering or dawdling.
Finally, try not to let your stress drag down your peers or the people who report to you. Juggling multiple projects successfully sometimes just means getting the most impactful things done first. Keep your cool, get organized so you don’t lose track of the things you need to get done, and you’ll be all right.
Do you frequently find yourself piling up with tasks from every direction? How do you decide what’s most important or most time-sensitive? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Lunch break link
Ever written down your thoughts about a tough experience or situation you’ve been through and found it to be cathartic? That’s the focus of this article about expressive writing. In it, the author shares some surprising study results about people that go through negative experiences and write about their feelings afterward. The results indicated that it didn’t just make people feel better, it actually made them perform better:
“Both groups wrote for five days, 20 minutes per day, describing the emotional challenges of searching for a new job, relationship problems, financial stressors, the immediate experience of being fired, losing their coworkers and feeling rejected.
Three months later, in the control groups, less than 5% of the engineers were reemployed. In the expressive writing group, more than 26% of the engineers were reemployed.”
Adam Grant, the author of the article, continues to go into some really specific detail in similar studies, and in every situation they learned more about how people feel and perform better after writing about their stressful events. We all occasionally feel stressed out by traumatic events in life or in the workplace. Maybe keeping a journal like Richard Branson isn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Both groups wrote for five days, 20 minutes per day, describing the emotional challenges of searching for a new job, relationship problems, financial stressors, the immediate experience of being fired, losing their coworkers and feeling rejected.
Three months later, in the control groups, less than 5% of the engineers were reemployed. In the expressive writing group, more than 26% of the engineers were reemployed.”
Adam Grant, the author of the article, continues to go into some really specific detail in similar studies, and in every situation they learned more about how people feel and perform better after writing about their stressful events. We all occasionally feel stressed out by traumatic events in life or in the workplace. Maybe keeping a journal like Richard Branson isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Lunch break link
I’ve gotten spoiled with my current employer -- we don’t have an email inbox size limit. I can store as many emails as I want for as long as I want, or at least thus far that’s the case. With past employers, however, I’ve run up against fairly strict limits where there was a clear need to be picky about what got to stay and what had to go. In today’s link, Randi Zuckerberg shares a few tips for managing one’s inbox, and a really fun way to get it manageable in the first place:
“It’s hard to motivate yourself to take on such a daunting, overwhelming task on your own. I procrastinated for months cleaning out my garage at home. But this weekend, when my husband turned to me and said, “Let’s have a garage cleaning party!” it suddenly became a fun, social thing. We drank beer, played music, and laughed about random old stuff we found. Just like that, cleaning our home and getting rid of our junk didn’t feel like a chore anymore.
So why not apply that philosophy to taming your inbox?”
I won’t ruin it for you here; you’ll just have to go read her article for yourself. Obviously this week’s link isn’t as relevant for everyone. For those who do face a daily deluge of emails, keep in mind that the less time you spend sorting through your inbox, the more time you free up to lead and serve your team.
Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
“It’s hard to motivate yourself to take on such a daunting, overwhelming task on your own. I procrastinated for months cleaning out my garage at home. But this weekend, when my husband turned to me and said, “Let’s have a garage cleaning party!” it suddenly became a fun, social thing. We drank beer, played music, and laughed about random old stuff we found. Just like that, cleaning our home and getting rid of our junk didn’t feel like a chore anymore.
So why not apply that philosophy to taming your inbox?”
I won’t ruin it for you here; you’ll just have to go read her article for yourself. Obviously this week’s link isn’t as relevant for everyone. For those who do face a daily deluge of emails, keep in mind that the less time you spend sorting through your inbox, the more time you free up to lead and serve your team.
Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
Friday, May 17, 2013
What does my boss want?
I am not a mind reader. I never expect to become one. Fortunately so far, none of my roles have required this or listed it in the job description, although some have certainly felt like it. It wouldn’t be fair to expect that of me, and I certainly wouldn’t expect it from my own employees. I’m sure there are times when you felt like your own boss wanted you to be a mind reader. I can’t give you that particular superpower, but I can give you some insights. Although the specific daily needs of each business are different, there are basic principles and behaviors that every manager loves to see in his employees.
I’ll explain some of them here based on my leadership style and those of the men and women who’ve managed me. These won’t address every situation in which you may find yourself, but they may come in handy. This goes double for those of you with bosses who are just plain hard to get a read on. Although there’s no real hierarchy to this list, I suspect I’ll probably be writing them down more or less in order of importance to me personally. I want to point out that these examples of what your own boss might want from you apply whether you’re currently in a management position or not.
Act with integrity. I know what you’re thinking -- okay, I’m wasting time reading this, that goes without saying. This goes beyond simple ethics like “do not lie, cheat or steal” though. Do the right thing for the right reason all the time. In any functioning business where you would actually want to work, earning the trust of your peers, employees and leadership goes a long way.
Look very hard for the big picture. Now, at the end of the day, you should work to live and not the other way around. We fully understand that you’re in this for your own best interests and would be worried if you weren’t. What we want you to get is that what’s good for your personal career are your long-term goals and development within the scope of the business needs. If your personal needs aren’t compatible with those, you’re wasting your time working there. If your supervisor is asking you to do something you don’t necessarily agree with (or stop doing something you prefer to do), open your mind and think about the part you play in things before you push back. You might be surprised by how important your success is to his plans.
Give 100% while you’re on the clock. You don’t always have to have the right answer for every situation, as long as you earnestly attempt to get that answer before all is said and done. You’re not going to get every task done every day, and we know that. Demonstrate that you’re doing your due diligence and don’t be afraid to leave us a little evidence to that fact. We don’t always know that you’re working on a response to our last email, or making progress on a project, so if you’re doing all you can then make sure you’ve got something to show for it.
On the other hand, you may find yourself done ahead of time frequently, or that your job is too easy and you get bored. While we really have no concerns for who you are or what you do after work, while you’re on the job we want to see you give it your all. In this economy there are a dozen people willing to put forth everything they’ve got even when it exceeds their requirements, and you don’t want to get a reputation for coasting along. This is not to say you should be stressed out or running at full speed all the time. No boss wants you to hate your job. Even if it takes you half the effort to do your job when compared to your peers, you should always be looking to contribute more. True leaders are those who improve the people around them, and believe me when I say we recognize those who expend their “extra” energy helping the people around them.
Pay attention and follow directions. Let’s face it, not every manager out there is great at communicating expectations all the time, and sometimes you may have to read between the lines. While your boss should be explicit about what he wants from you, this won’t always be the case. Either way, simple or unclear, be alert for potential “action items” in each conversation, verbal or otherwise. It’s frustrating when we want something done and feel we’ve expressed that, only to find that it’s not being done accurately or at all. Help your boss help himself in this situation -- ask for clarification or takeaways. Just like we restate customer requests by repeating back and restating their issues to confirm we understand their needs, you want to be sure you’ve got all the information you need to do your job. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Trust in our intentions. A lot of managers occasionally articulate their thoughts poorly or don’t handle problems as perfectly as they’d like. Every supervisor I’ve ever had, and every supervisor who’s ever worked for me, has had the best of intentions for their own direct reports. I didn’t always realize it at the time (Lance, I’m looking at you) but in the end getting onboard with the vision shared by my boss almost always worked out better for me than if I’d just gone all cowboy about it.
Similarly, I frequently see managers who work for me trying to do right by their customers by enabling and supporting their own employees. The employees don’t always believe it, but I don’t keep supervisors under me who don’t bust their behinds for their employees day in and day out. I can’t necessarily explain that to their employees. The truth is that, while there will always be bad apples, most managers don’t get to be in a leadership position without understanding that they only rise to the top on the success of their teams, not themselves. Finally, sometimes business needs aren’t so great for the employee. No manager enjoys delivering bad news; please understand that a good boss will carefully consider any decision that adversely impacts an employee and it isn’t personal.
That’s it for today; there are more things your own leadership would probably want from you, but let’s save that for another article. Are you in a position where you’re managing people or teams? What do you want most from your employees? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
I’ll explain some of them here based on my leadership style and those of the men and women who’ve managed me. These won’t address every situation in which you may find yourself, but they may come in handy. This goes double for those of you with bosses who are just plain hard to get a read on. Although there’s no real hierarchy to this list, I suspect I’ll probably be writing them down more or less in order of importance to me personally. I want to point out that these examples of what your own boss might want from you apply whether you’re currently in a management position or not.
Act with integrity. I know what you’re thinking -- okay, I’m wasting time reading this, that goes without saying. This goes beyond simple ethics like “do not lie, cheat or steal” though. Do the right thing for the right reason all the time. In any functioning business where you would actually want to work, earning the trust of your peers, employees and leadership goes a long way.
Look very hard for the big picture. Now, at the end of the day, you should work to live and not the other way around. We fully understand that you’re in this for your own best interests and would be worried if you weren’t. What we want you to get is that what’s good for your personal career are your long-term goals and development within the scope of the business needs. If your personal needs aren’t compatible with those, you’re wasting your time working there. If your supervisor is asking you to do something you don’t necessarily agree with (or stop doing something you prefer to do), open your mind and think about the part you play in things before you push back. You might be surprised by how important your success is to his plans.
Give 100% while you’re on the clock. You don’t always have to have the right answer for every situation, as long as you earnestly attempt to get that answer before all is said and done. You’re not going to get every task done every day, and we know that. Demonstrate that you’re doing your due diligence and don’t be afraid to leave us a little evidence to that fact. We don’t always know that you’re working on a response to our last email, or making progress on a project, so if you’re doing all you can then make sure you’ve got something to show for it.
On the other hand, you may find yourself done ahead of time frequently, or that your job is too easy and you get bored. While we really have no concerns for who you are or what you do after work, while you’re on the job we want to see you give it your all. In this economy there are a dozen people willing to put forth everything they’ve got even when it exceeds their requirements, and you don’t want to get a reputation for coasting along. This is not to say you should be stressed out or running at full speed all the time. No boss wants you to hate your job. Even if it takes you half the effort to do your job when compared to your peers, you should always be looking to contribute more. True leaders are those who improve the people around them, and believe me when I say we recognize those who expend their “extra” energy helping the people around them.
Pay attention and follow directions. Let’s face it, not every manager out there is great at communicating expectations all the time, and sometimes you may have to read between the lines. While your boss should be explicit about what he wants from you, this won’t always be the case. Either way, simple or unclear, be alert for potential “action items” in each conversation, verbal or otherwise. It’s frustrating when we want something done and feel we’ve expressed that, only to find that it’s not being done accurately or at all. Help your boss help himself in this situation -- ask for clarification or takeaways. Just like we restate customer requests by repeating back and restating their issues to confirm we understand their needs, you want to be sure you’ve got all the information you need to do your job. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Trust in our intentions. A lot of managers occasionally articulate their thoughts poorly or don’t handle problems as perfectly as they’d like. Every supervisor I’ve ever had, and every supervisor who’s ever worked for me, has had the best of intentions for their own direct reports. I didn’t always realize it at the time (Lance, I’m looking at you) but in the end getting onboard with the vision shared by my boss almost always worked out better for me than if I’d just gone all cowboy about it.
Similarly, I frequently see managers who work for me trying to do right by their customers by enabling and supporting their own employees. The employees don’t always believe it, but I don’t keep supervisors under me who don’t bust their behinds for their employees day in and day out. I can’t necessarily explain that to their employees. The truth is that, while there will always be bad apples, most managers don’t get to be in a leadership position without understanding that they only rise to the top on the success of their teams, not themselves. Finally, sometimes business needs aren’t so great for the employee. No manager enjoys delivering bad news; please understand that a good boss will carefully consider any decision that adversely impacts an employee and it isn’t personal.
That’s it for today; there are more things your own leadership would probably want from you, but let’s save that for another article. Are you in a position where you’re managing people or teams? What do you want most from your employees? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday's Thought
"Success in management and success in sport are derived from the same basic principles." - Will Carling
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Lunch break link
Today's link is to an article called 7 Simple Rules to Being a Leader, No Matter What Your Experience that showcases an organic, demonstrated leadership with the always-engaging sports metaphor:
"The Redskins season is a perfect demonstration that regardless of circumstance, anyone and everyone can be a leader. It’s not about age, gender or title. It isn’t even about being the best communicator or being the most popular. Many will argue that the characteristics that make up a leader are something you’re born with, but I disagree wholeheartedly. These skills can be developed at any time throughout your career and leaders can and do come in all different personality types. There is only one truism - You never become a leader through a job promotion, you become one only through your own actions."
This Rajat Taneja article is short but sweet. A young rookie steps up and earns his respect by showing the principles outlined here. Will you step up? Will you prove yourself? True leaders are those who improve the people around them, not just by raising the bar, but by lifting up their team.
"The Redskins season is a perfect demonstration that regardless of circumstance, anyone and everyone can be a leader. It’s not about age, gender or title. It isn’t even about being the best communicator or being the most popular. Many will argue that the characteristics that make up a leader are something you’re born with, but I disagree wholeheartedly. These skills can be developed at any time throughout your career and leaders can and do come in all different personality types. There is only one truism - You never become a leader through a job promotion, you become one only through your own actions."
This Rajat Taneja article is short but sweet. A young rookie steps up and earns his respect by showing the principles outlined here. Will you step up? Will you prove yourself? True leaders are those who improve the people around them, not just by raising the bar, but by lifting up their team.
Friday, May 10, 2013
What your interviewer wants to tell you but won't
Over the years I’ve interviewed many people for a wide variety of roles ranging from entry level to management. It’s a facet of my job that I truly enjoy, because I not only get to meet new people but I frequently see people at their best, their most positive and animated. Recently I had the opportunity to conduct several for my employer and it reminded me of one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place, which was to help people prepare for job interviews. A lot of it is what we would now consider common sense, such as dressing appropriately or maintaining eye contact and good body language. I’m going to skip those for today and share with you the things that I, as a hiring manager and interviewer, wish candidates would take a little more seriously.
There are thousands of questions you might encounter during a job interview; even if you narrow it down to the most likely to be asked, there are still hundreds you might expect to hear. There are numerous books out there with great ideas about how to answer these, but you’re not going to have time to read them all. If you did have time to read them all, maybe that’s time better spent researching the companies and jobs you’re applying for. Which brings me to my first point...
Do your homework and understand the nature of the job you’re interviewing for. This includes learning as much as you can about the specific responsibilities for the position. In addition to reviewing the job description, talk to anyone you can, and read anything you can, about it ahead of time. Try and find out what the actual hiring manager is looking for in a successful candidate.
During the interview itself, pay attention to cues from the interviewer that may give you some insight to the duties and expectations for the role. If you give off the impression that you don’t really know what you’re getting into, the hiring manager may well decide that you’re not a good fit for the job. If you have no idea what your potential future employer does at all, you’re giving off the clear sign that you don’t put a lot of effort into important tasks (like landing a job).
Listen to the questions being asked and make sure you address their points. This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how often job candidates start formulating their response before the question is even fully asked. There’s a reason Jeopardy doesn’t let players hit their buzzer until Alex is done reading the clue.
I’ve heard lots of very interesting stories, and of course some of these have showcased great skill sets. However, if I’m asking you to give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond for a customer, and you simply tell me how many customer service awards you’ve won, that doesn’t actually answer my question. It does tell me you’re not an effective listener, though. A follow-up to this point is to make sure you ask some questions of your own. Intelligent, non-redundant questions let me know you were in fact listening and engaged in our conversation.
Speaking of examples, try to be as specific as possible. You won’t always have a perfect anecdote to share with your interviewer that’s 100% relevant to the job you’re interviewing for, especially when you’re changing career fields. But the person interviewing you isn’t asking just to hear the sound of his own voice. Rather than just list your job responsibilities - he’s already seen your resume after all - show off your decision-making ability as well as reinforce that you’re not just making things up by telling a story with humanizing details. Your interviewer wants to know your thought process and how you handle yourself. Giving specific examples suggests that you’re not merely being hypothetical about your ability to do the job; it suggests you’ve been there, done that, and proven yourself.
Finally, for your bonus tip, timing is important. Familiarize yourself with the location where you’re going to be interviewed ahead of time, and know the traffic patterns - there are very few excuses for arriving late to an interview. Although it goes without saying that you should arrive early, you don’t want to get there too far ahead of time. When I was in the Marines, we took the “15 minutes early IS on time” thing a little bit too far -- I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say my platoon once showed up over two hours earlier than we were required to for a routine event.
That’s ridiculous. In today’s world of smartphones and GPS, so is showing up half an hour early to a job interview. Honestly, if you arrive more than about 10 minutes early (especially if you request to see me right when you arrive) it makes me feel like you don’t know how to manage your time, and you don’t respect mine. Your appointed time was most likely set for a reason. In many situations, if you arrive too far in advance there will be other employees - store associates, receptionists, and the like - who will observe your behavior and report it to the interviewer. You’re better off waiting around the corner or down the street. Take that time to review the job description, your resume, or work samples once more, and please, just try and relax.
Got any great interview tips you want to let people know about? Please feel free to share them in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
There are thousands of questions you might encounter during a job interview; even if you narrow it down to the most likely to be asked, there are still hundreds you might expect to hear. There are numerous books out there with great ideas about how to answer these, but you’re not going to have time to read them all. If you did have time to read them all, maybe that’s time better spent researching the companies and jobs you’re applying for. Which brings me to my first point...
Do your homework and understand the nature of the job you’re interviewing for. This includes learning as much as you can about the specific responsibilities for the position. In addition to reviewing the job description, talk to anyone you can, and read anything you can, about it ahead of time. Try and find out what the actual hiring manager is looking for in a successful candidate.
During the interview itself, pay attention to cues from the interviewer that may give you some insight to the duties and expectations for the role. If you give off the impression that you don’t really know what you’re getting into, the hiring manager may well decide that you’re not a good fit for the job. If you have no idea what your potential future employer does at all, you’re giving off the clear sign that you don’t put a lot of effort into important tasks (like landing a job).
Listen to the questions being asked and make sure you address their points. This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how often job candidates start formulating their response before the question is even fully asked. There’s a reason Jeopardy doesn’t let players hit their buzzer until Alex is done reading the clue.
I’ve heard lots of very interesting stories, and of course some of these have showcased great skill sets. However, if I’m asking you to give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond for a customer, and you simply tell me how many customer service awards you’ve won, that doesn’t actually answer my question. It does tell me you’re not an effective listener, though. A follow-up to this point is to make sure you ask some questions of your own. Intelligent, non-redundant questions let me know you were in fact listening and engaged in our conversation.
Speaking of examples, try to be as specific as possible. You won’t always have a perfect anecdote to share with your interviewer that’s 100% relevant to the job you’re interviewing for, especially when you’re changing career fields. But the person interviewing you isn’t asking just to hear the sound of his own voice. Rather than just list your job responsibilities - he’s already seen your resume after all - show off your decision-making ability as well as reinforce that you’re not just making things up by telling a story with humanizing details. Your interviewer wants to know your thought process and how you handle yourself. Giving specific examples suggests that you’re not merely being hypothetical about your ability to do the job; it suggests you’ve been there, done that, and proven yourself.
Finally, for your bonus tip, timing is important. Familiarize yourself with the location where you’re going to be interviewed ahead of time, and know the traffic patterns - there are very few excuses for arriving late to an interview. Although it goes without saying that you should arrive early, you don’t want to get there too far ahead of time. When I was in the Marines, we took the “15 minutes early IS on time” thing a little bit too far -- I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say my platoon once showed up over two hours earlier than we were required to for a routine event.
That’s ridiculous. In today’s world of smartphones and GPS, so is showing up half an hour early to a job interview. Honestly, if you arrive more than about 10 minutes early (especially if you request to see me right when you arrive) it makes me feel like you don’t know how to manage your time, and you don’t respect mine. Your appointed time was most likely set for a reason. In many situations, if you arrive too far in advance there will be other employees - store associates, receptionists, and the like - who will observe your behavior and report it to the interviewer. You’re better off waiting around the corner or down the street. Take that time to review the job description, your resume, or work samples once more, and please, just try and relax.
Got any great interview tips you want to let people know about? Please feel free to share them in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Thursday's Thought
"The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success." - James Cash Penney
Friday, May 3, 2013
Who works for whom?
One of the bosses I’ve worked for who had the greatest influence on my leadership style happened to be someone with whom I spent the least amount of time. In early 2007, my methods of managing others were still based mostly on having worked lots of retail and directing the efforts of Marines in fast-paced working environments. My communication and decision-making was usually very straightforward and based on my first instincts. It would also have been fair to say I could be somewhat abrasive at times toward the people I supervised. Still, a senior manager at my organization saw some potential in me, and took a chance on promoting me within his group.
I sincerely think of that year as a major turning point in my professional development. Up until then, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my life, or even of my upward path at that company. Working for this particular boss changed that. His guidance and mentoring style not only made me a more effective leader, but gave me the confidence in myself to narrow down the direction in which I wanted to take my career.
This senior manager was what many people would consider a servant leader. He embodied a lot of the principles which I strive to continue to develop and abide by in my leadership roles to this day. He led by example, he empowered me and the other junior managers to do our jobs as effectively as possible, and he was responsive to our needs. Not all of my peers responded well to his style, but boy, I sure did! He pushed us out of our comfort zones and constantly gave us as much responsibility as he felt we could handle. He would always show us, or ask us for, a better way of doing things. He loudly celebrated our successes, and quietly after-actioned our failures to see where would could turn them into wins the next time around.
I learned better ways of talking with my employees while working for him, as his communication style was always very warm and friendly. He was so consistently positive with every situation, every team member, that I could tell he was sincere about it, and I wanted to be that way, too. Although I’ve never developed the easygoing style that seemed to come so naturally for him, I nevertheless learned to lighten up on my employees and colleagues. I also learned to stay optimistic and think constructively regardless of how frustrating a situation (or subordinate) was getting, and to continually look for, and enjoy, the positive things in my environment. This optimism has carried over into my personal life as well.
Most of all, he removed every obstacle to our success. This absolutely did not mean cutting us a lot of slack or letting us get away with anything we wanted. Instead, he listened to what we had to say and collaborated with us in improving our performance, audit scores, and customer experience. He asked what we wanted out of our time working for him or for the organization, and found creative ways to focus our growth and energy such that it always seemed to fit our business needs.
This particular boss enabled me and others to bring forth the best within ourselves -- for our own good, for each other, and for our customers. I decided I wanted to be like him, even though at that time I didn’t fully appreciate why we were such a high-performing team. The reason our group was was so successful was because all the time we thought we were working for him, he was truly working every day for us.
I sincerely think of that year as a major turning point in my professional development. Up until then, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my life, or even of my upward path at that company. Working for this particular boss changed that. His guidance and mentoring style not only made me a more effective leader, but gave me the confidence in myself to narrow down the direction in which I wanted to take my career.
This senior manager was what many people would consider a servant leader. He embodied a lot of the principles which I strive to continue to develop and abide by in my leadership roles to this day. He led by example, he empowered me and the other junior managers to do our jobs as effectively as possible, and he was responsive to our needs. Not all of my peers responded well to his style, but boy, I sure did! He pushed us out of our comfort zones and constantly gave us as much responsibility as he felt we could handle. He would always show us, or ask us for, a better way of doing things. He loudly celebrated our successes, and quietly after-actioned our failures to see where would could turn them into wins the next time around.
I learned better ways of talking with my employees while working for him, as his communication style was always very warm and friendly. He was so consistently positive with every situation, every team member, that I could tell he was sincere about it, and I wanted to be that way, too. Although I’ve never developed the easygoing style that seemed to come so naturally for him, I nevertheless learned to lighten up on my employees and colleagues. I also learned to stay optimistic and think constructively regardless of how frustrating a situation (or subordinate) was getting, and to continually look for, and enjoy, the positive things in my environment. This optimism has carried over into my personal life as well.
Most of all, he removed every obstacle to our success. This absolutely did not mean cutting us a lot of slack or letting us get away with anything we wanted. Instead, he listened to what we had to say and collaborated with us in improving our performance, audit scores, and customer experience. He asked what we wanted out of our time working for him or for the organization, and found creative ways to focus our growth and energy such that it always seemed to fit our business needs.
This particular boss enabled me and others to bring forth the best within ourselves -- for our own good, for each other, and for our customers. I decided I wanted to be like him, even though at that time I didn’t fully appreciate why we were such a high-performing team. The reason our group was was so successful was because all the time we thought we were working for him, he was truly working every day for us.
Have you ever worked “for” a really amazing boss? Please feel free to contribute to the discussion in the comments section! If you’ve enjoyed spending a few minutes reading “The Boss Perspective,” subscribe and share this site with your friends, Like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter @BossPerspective.
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