Leadership: An Essential Skill

Have you have tried to do something for years but failed because you're not getting anywhere or you have no purpose? Well it might be because you haven't set any goals for yourself. Many people jump from task to task because its either taken them too long to accomplish or because they haven't seen any progress. If you feel this way you need to set yourself a SMART goal. A SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. SMART goals are a great way to know exactly what to do to accomplish the goal, with no questions asked. First, you start with a specific goal in mind. You want it to be specific so it motivates you. You need to figure the who, what, when, where, and why of this specific goal. Next, measurable, pick something you'll be able to track so you can physically see your own progress and keep focused. Then comes attainable. Don't pick something so far out of this world that you physically would be able to do it, make it realisti

It is very hard to make a decision sometimes. For me personally I know I always have a tough time. It's easy when either A: someone makes the decision for you or B: the decision is a group consensus. But, as a manager it will never be this easy and you'll just have to make the decision yourself. The article I found on mind t ools.com talks about the Vroom-Yetton Decision making model. "This model  allows you to bring consistency and order to a process that might otherwise feel idiosyncratic and instinctive." To put it simply it effectively  helps you make a decision. The  Vroom-Yetton offers a several different decision making processes into one model and helps you choose the best one to use for that specific situation. Before using the Vroom-Yetton model you must take three factors into consideration:  decision quality, team commitment, and time constraints. Once you have done this you are ready to go. The picture below is the actual Vroom-Yetton model. It is a ser

Today I came across video on motivation. In the work place it is crucial as a manager to keep you team motivated. We all go trough times where we slack off or just have no motivation to do anything what so ever. This short video shows you in four steps on how to keep your team motivated. The first step is to create a contract with your workers. This contract will be no more than a page and consist of the guidelines and aspirations you expect from each employee at work. Next step is to have short frequent meetings that re-vist the contract and expectations. Studies have shown the farther and farther apart meetings are people tend to get off track and lose motivation. The third step is to have each employee stand up every week and say what they have accomplished. This makes everyone feel that they are important and increases motivation. The final step is to create a line of sight, meaning making sure the employees can see the impact of the end goal and what they are accomplishing. This

I always enjoy watching videos by Simon Sinek. He is a smart guy and I always learn a lot from his talks. This video is on how to begin your presentations. I thought that this would be helpful because sometimes its tough or awkward to get right into a presentation. One great idea Simon mentions right off the bat is start with your end goal. Your end goal is usually to make sure everyone learns something new. The audience cannot predict what you are going to say or do so the structure of your presentation is very important. Simon suggests starting your presentation is a story or an analogy that practices what you will talk about. Starting with a story makes your presentation interesting and easy to talk about. Simon also says in his talk to build a rationale arrangement for your presentation this way you can suck people into the conversation. There are a few other points Simon mentions in the video too but I hope this helps!

There are many ways to define leadership. If I were to define leadership I would say it is when an individual takes charge of a group when no one else will. This may be more of an example but this is what I think of when I am defining leadership. I came across a great article in Business News Daily that listed 11 quotes defining leadership. The quotes were all very different and were from various types of people ranging from CEOs to authors and to founders of business'. What I found interesting was that the majority of the quotes all had a common goal of bettering their team and environment and making sure everyone succeeds. I definitely agree with this. I think leader wants to be apart of something bigger than themselves and looks out for others, which is their team. This is a great little article and below I have added the link. http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3647-leadership-definition.html

As I was searching for a new leadership video to post on my blog I stumbled across this video: 7 Body Language Habits for Effective Leaders. I thought that this would be a good transition into our internships this summer. At our jobs sites we need to look and act professional and to do that we need to work on our body language. We can't just slouch back in our seats at work like we are hanging out and watching TV. Body language plays a huge part in our leadership skills and nearly 80%-90% on how people perceive us. The first habit to be an effective leader is your posture, you don't want to shrink back and look small, sit and stand upright like you are interested. The next habit is your spacital awareness. You don't want to sit or stand right on top of someone. Give people their space but don't sit or stand so far away that you have to yell just to talk to someone. Next is eye contact, I think that we have all learned about this many times, but eye contact is key, it l