What’s the value of asking the right questions?

How about getting to the right answers???

“5o Questions That Will Change Your Life…          plus 5 That Will Save It”

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A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to survey over 100 business leaders across numerous industries. I asked one question: “As a leader, what is your greatest leadership challenge?”

How would you answer this question? There are so many possibilities. Organizational leaders have responsibilities that extend well beyond simply getting their own job done. Leaders must motivate, problem-solve, inspire, reward, deliver bad news, oversee results yet delegate control, handle conflicts, and much more. All in addition to managing their own problems and emotions!

Three key findings emerged from the survey:

1. Employees are a huge challenge. Managing employees came in as the #1 leadership challenge, with over 1/3 of the responses related to handling employee situations. Motivational challenges topped this list with 15% of the responses. Handling conflicts and problem employees earned 11%. Delegation and control concerns received 8%. Clearly, leaders could use more help learning to deal with employees.

2. Personal Lack of Confidence is #2. A distinct personal challenge was actually the largest singular issue at 21% -  a concern about confidence, style, courage, poise, self-assurance and self-acceptance. Is it disconcerting that a fifth of our leaders lack confidence in themselves as leaders? I thought so. Attention leaders out there: You need to understand how good you truly are! Attention organizations out there: your leaders need to understand how good they truly are!

3. The Dysfunctional Organization is a problem. The third largest category of responses involved the organization itself, with over 10% of respondents indicating that working with the executive team is their major challenge. Managing “up,” communicating effectively across organizational lines, and getting the entire management team aligned were all indicated as problem areas.

Put these all together, and we have a hesitant leader uncomfortably handling employee issues within an unsteady, uncommunicative organization. Yikes!

Don’t we want our leaders focused on vision, strategy, customers, new product development and other profitable pursuits? What can be done?

As distressing as these survey results are, there are solutions.

The Employee Solution: Get Skills Training. Handling employees is a learned talent, comprised mostly of “people skills.” Effective communication skills, some basic psychology, and a method for setting expectations and accountability are tools that can be learned and applied to make dealing with employees a lot easier.

The Leadership Solution: Get Personal Development. Individual self confidence building involves more than learning typical presentation or “meet and greet” skills. While a Dale Carnegie course will absolutely improve your exterior presence, it may not address your inner uncertainty. For that, leaders need absolute self-trust in their own strengths as well as the ability to be comfortably authentic. This emotional intelligence comes from developing the right mindset, one that supports continual forward momentum and thwarts self-doubt.

The Executive Team Solution: Get On With It! Leaders at the executive level need to stay focused on the future. Discussions need to be visionary and high-minded. People need to commit to move in the same direction and be held accountable for progress or lack thereof. There really is no excuse for a bunch of leaders working together but not actually leading anything anywhere.

What are the greatest leadership challenges you face? No matter what they are, solutions are available. Just don’t “do nothing.”

For a complete detailed breakdown of all of the survey responses, click here.

photo credit: www.lumaxart.com

Ahhhh, balance. That coveted, seductive, elusive combination of a thriving career that satisfies your intellectual curiosity and financial needs (then gloriously steps aside weekdays from 6 pm to 8 am and weekends in their entirety) along with an idyllic home life where you stretch and exercise daily, read The New York Times, lovingly prepare gourmet meals for the family, help with homework, serve on three volunteer committees (and Chair two of them), sing in the choir, schedule the plumber and the painter and the window-washers, read the latest business books, host dinner parties on Saturday nights, attend to aging parents, coach your kid’s travel soccer team, plan the next family vacation, care for the lawn and garden, schedule everyone’s doctor’s appointments and haircuts, read the current bestselling bookclub novels, plan birthday parties, take the pets to the vet, look like a million bucks, and romance your spouse nightly.

Overwhelming just reading about it, isn’t it?

The truth is, even if you could find time to fit all of that in, you would not feel balanced. Because balance is not dependent upon better scheduling of your time. That’s just the first of the five biggest myths about finding balance.

Myth # 1. Time Management.

Time management seems a simple solution on its face, but balance is not about time or scheduling.  Balance is about the experiential quality of the time spent. Ten minutes doing something you adore will make your entire day feel more balanced than carefully scheduling in a time slot for everything on your to-do list.

Myth # 2. Separation of work life from personal life.

The truth is that our work is imbedded in us. We rely on it not only for the paycheck, but also for the sensation of accomplishment, the workplace comaraderie, our external identity, and much more. Work/Life balance depends not on separating the two, but actually learning to incorporate the two in a balanced way. When you stop fighting the urge to separate one part of your life from the other, and simply allow the two to peacefully coexist, you will feel more in balance.

Myth # 3. Multi-tasking.

Remember the overcrowded cabin scene in “A Night at the Opera”? When we try to fit more and more into the singular space in the brain called “my ability to concentrate and perform well” we simply overload it to the point of failure. Balance comes from a sense of having control, not inviting overwhelm.  Immerse in one thing at a time, extract everything you can from it, then move on to the next thing. Stay focused.

Myth # 4. Delegation.

Delegation shifts an activity to someone else, but not the responsibility. In order to truly get something off your plate, you have to totally and completely give it away to the extent that you no longer are invested in the outcome. Try it first with little things (does it really matter which way your son folds his shirts, or if he even folds them at all?). Stop investing in outcomes that don’t matter.

Myth # 5. Simplification.

Stripping away extraneous activities, possessions and demands is a terrific idea, but it doesn’t lead to balance. In fact, it might expose a greater imbalance than you realized you had! And some people absolutely thrive on complexity – it brings them great joy. Instead of stripping down, consider stepping up. When you decide to play at a higher level, view things from a different perspective, and intentionally take on broader challenges, you immediately find a new balance point. Perhaps it’s the one you’ve been looking for.

Are you suffering from “Defeat Retreat”? Hiding out in a safe place, licking your wounds? How much time has been wasted, how many opportunities missed, and how much deeper entrenched in regret and loss have you become? Sometimes Defeat Retreat lasts for years: look at all of the high-potential rising stars that end up stuck in dead-end jobs, or all of the wanna-be entrepreneurs with a great idea but not enough confidence to share the idea with the right people who could have helped.

Even worse, how much self-respect and self-trust do you lose while continuing to hide out?

As described in the original post of this series For Men Only: Are You Feeling VADA (Vulnerable, Angry, Defeated or All-of-the-Above), feeling defeated hands over your personal power and control to someone else.

How long are you willing to let this go on? If you are ready to stop feeling defeated, come out of hiding and take charge of your life once again, try these steps:

1. Decide – Change begins with a decision to change. The decision alone returns your personal power to where it belongs: with you.

2. Take Inventory – Take stock of your remaining assets. Like a soldier, gather up your ammunition in preparation for the charge. In this case, if your brain and your heart are functioning, you have enough assets to come out of hiding.

3. Have a Target – Get specific about where you want to go when you leave the cave.

4. Be Nimble – When you reach a roadblock, try another route. Bob and weave your way through minefields, still moving forward. Do not retrench back into hiding!

5. Feed Yourself – During a retreat, you had to conserve resources. During an advance, consume resources. Feast on strength-building fare. Do you need inspiration? Motivation? Mindset tools? Consume as much as you can find.

6. Enlist Others – There is strength in numbers. If you have been withdrawn during your retreat, it is time to rebuild your team. Polish up your leadership skills and recruit other go-getters.

7. Celebrate Victory – Break the “Better safe than sorry” retreat habit by developing a “Success is better than safety” mindset. Celebrations are a lot more fun than retreating. If you celebrate small victories often, you won’t want to slip backwards into a retreat mindset. Practice makes perfect!

Most defeats are self-imposed. Losing does not make you a loser; only you can do that to yourself! And the wonderful flipside is: you can turn yourself around. Start with the Decision, and move forward from there.