January 13, 2015
I am an advocate of continuous learning because it is the process of learning that allows each of us to create a habit of excellence. As such, by continually developing, updating and refining your management skills, you can create that habit of management excellence. While this is useful at work it is equally effective an empowering in the community and in your personal life. Here are a few skills that you can add to your repertoire to create effective leadership and manage your team well.
Planning
Without a doubt, a plan is critical to have in place. This will serve as your map for future possible actions and possible contingencies that may need to be in place for project success.
Chunking
Chunking is related to the idea of the “one thing”. This states that by taking a single action in the present moment, you preclude any other action that you could have taken. In your body, at any moment, you can only do one thing. When used together with the skill of planning above, you can use chunking to focus on the “one thing” that you can be doing at the present moment.
Communication
An effective communication strategy is to know why you are talking and this is helped by understanding the speech acts. According to Wikipedia, any communication we do, written or verbal “is an utterance that has performative function in language and communication.” This is important because of the tendencies to make assumptions during our communications especially in email, on our mobile devices and on the go. Mastering effective communication and adding this to your repertoire of management skills will make you indispensable.
Commitment Management
In my previous roles and experiences, I used to think that when I talked, I was communicating. I also thought I was a good listener. What I found out—sometimes in unexpected ways—was that I didn’t understand the skill of effective communication. Knowing what the speech acts were helped to clarify and create an intelligent framework which allowed me to be more mindful of what I was committing / promising / agreeing to in my interactions with colleagues and peers. At times, this meant a lot more back-and-forth over emails, coffees, meetings etc. However, what this created was clarity around the requirements that were asked of me and the requirements that I asked of others. When each party was sure about what it took for satisfaction, commitments were easily made and re-negotiated as needed.
Trust = Decisions & Delegation
What drives you? What drives your staff? What drives the individuals that you choose to be around? Each of us, you and me, have things that we love to do, that we love to commit to! Are these serving the goals of the project? Are these creating new relationships and building trust? Only you know the effectiveness of your communications and interactions with others.
Trust is the growth which comes as the result of making “crisp” and clear decisions through effective requests and commitments. Through asking and delegating another individual to help you in your capacity as a leader, you are emboldening them to act from a place of strength. This lends you to be perceived as an effective leader who knows the strengths of each member of the team.
Continually learning and practicing these management skills above are but a few ways to develop your leadership qualities. They may serve you well in all of the domains of your life: at work, in the community, with your family.