Online University has voted this blog a Top Leadership Blog for 2010. Whilst this does not rank in the same league as an endorsement from Harvard Business Review I am pleased that our posts are contributing to leadership, management and coaching practice.
If this is your first time visiting Self Leadership Coaching blog then I suggest you use the search button and look for topics of interest to you. You will find many posts on; leadership, management, coaching, presentation skills, communication and influence.
We welcome your comments and will post them even if they disagree with the post, so feel free to start a discussion. Most of the information posted has come from my experience as a leadership consultant and executive coach, working in Australia, Singapore and across SE Asia and as a life-long learner I am always looking for new ideas and best practice.
I don’t normally refer to myself as a motivational speaker as I prefer the term ‘Inspirational’ but most people don’t make the distinction. For me, motivation can often be external whereas inpiration is alway internal. As I research, write and speak about Self-leadership I know how important it is to know how to influence yourself before you can influence others.
In April 2010, I was asked to speak at the Singapore Leadership Conference on Leadership and Influence.
After my presentation I was interviewed by Dee Allen of Red Mars. You can see a few minutes of the interview and speech in this YouTube video.
in a previous post, How to Influence Your Boss, I explored how to influence upwards, but just as important is how to influence laterally.
When I teach a programs on influence or influence without authority, I ask participants to create a circle of influence like the diagram below.
I then ask them to put ticks or crosses, representing ability or inability to influence, against each circle. Obviously some circles will need sub-circles to represent individual key people. This is a useful exercise to map out where you need to develop or strengthen your influence.
In a modern matix style organisation, your success will be determined not just by what you do, but by what you can influence others to do. The effective manager/leader learns to find out what is important to the people in their circle of influence and communicates to them in terms of what matters them rather than directly stating their own needs.
Another previous post, titled ‘Leadeship is Influence’ expands on finding needs and looks at what are people’s currencies. When you know what is valuable, a currency, to another person you can trade them what they want for what you want.
I have been coaching a senior manager who had a history of antagonising clients and colleagues alike by telling them what he thinks is the right thing to do. We had discussed this and he had commited to stop “telling” and start finding out what’s important to the people in his circle. This week he reported a dramatic improvement in his relationship and that he was getting things done quicker. This result surprised him because he thought it would take longer to ask questions than to tell people what seem to him to be an obvious solution.
Have you drawn a circle of influence? Do you know the currencies of the people you work with? Are you exercising all the influence you could?
We don’t often post sales training information on this site but this article by our Singapore Sales manager, Radu Palamariu, demonstrates self leadership and communication skills.
Ask the tough question
“Send me some more information!”
“Let me think it over!”
These are the two statements that most prospective clients use on sales people. And unfortunately, most of them get away with it.
1) Unfortunate for the sales person, because he or she will need to call again to chase the prospect/client for an answer whilst having no guarantee of the result.
2) Unfortunate for the prospect/client, because they will be called again and will have to spend valuable time either reevaluating or fobbing off the sales person.
Since we all know this happens, why are people still doing it? Continue Reading »
I recently conducted ‘Critical Skills for Leaders and Senior Managers’ in Singapore and Malaysia; during these programs I surveyed the participants for their desired take-aways – 80% of the attendees wanted to know how to influence their boss.
Research has shown that the inability to build a successful relationship with the boss is a significant reason for managers failing or not reaching their full potential.
When I approach this topic I encounter a number of mindsets that lead to an inability to effectively influence, these include:
I have a limited number of complimentary tickets available so if you want to learn about leadership and influence and are in Singapore, contact the organisers and mention this blog and they will have a ticket emailed to you (whilst stocks last).
There are many definitions of leadership but my favourite in terms of its practicality is:
“Leadership is getting work done with and through others, whilst gaining their trust and cooperation.”
In a modern matrixed organisation, the ‘others’ that we need to lead may be our subordinates but just as likely they will be our peers, our bosses and our clients. Continue Reading »
I just got a call from Australia, from James who needed a coach for one his bank’s people in Singapore. The reason I got the call was that James had heard about me from Yuvi who had previously used me for some communication training and the reason he used me is that he had heard about me from Carole who had been introduced to me by Stephanie who I met at a conference in Kuala Lumpur!
The ability to speak effectively to small or large audiences is a vital competency for manager and leaders and yet this competency is often lacking.
As a Certified Professional Speaker myself, I have spoken to thousands of people over the years and experienced the first hand what to do and what not to do with an audience. As an executive coach I have trained and coached hundred’s of managers who were previously tongue tied to connect with the audience and deliver their message effectively; so allow me to share with you a secret of public and professional speaking:
There is no such thing as an audience
The biggest mistake that novice speaker make is to imagine their perspective audience as critical or hostile. Creating this mental picture of a group united in their disapproval of you will create a state of anxiety in even the strongest of heart.
Accomplished speakers realise that an audience, small or large, is made up of individuals just like you. Each individual has needs and wants and can change their state from boredom to curiosity. If you connect to their needs and wants and create a sense of curiosity they will be on the edge of thier seats.
So the first key to successful public or professional speaking is to break down your audience into a group of individuals and preferably know what it is they want before you deliver your topic.
Most of the work in speaking is not the speech itself but the research and preparation before the speech. Only speak “off the cuff” if you know your topic backwards and know exactly who you are talking to.
As you present make eye contact, smile and imagine you are having a conversation with a group of friends or colleagues. Will it still be nerve wracking? Perhaps but the only way to get better at it is to practice at every opportunity. Remember, as we move up through an organisation, we are paid less for what we do an more for what we influence others to do. Speaking in public is a core competency for influence.
If you are interested in professional speaking training or coaching please contact us.
Should is a signpost to our mental maps. When you say, “I should do this or I shouldn’t do that”, you are telling yourself and those who are listening about your personal ‘rules of behaviour’.
What is more interesting however are the ‘unsaid shoulds’. When we get angry or upset it is most probably because somebody else has not complied with our ‘shoulds‘ or ‘shouldn’ts‘.
For example; if somebody pushes in front of you in a queue, do you feel angry? You do? Well that is because you (and me for that matter) believe that they shouldn’t push in.
Customer service is all about anticipating the expectation of should and shouldn’t. Last weekend I was taking my wife and children to see Barney (the pink dinosaur who dances!) at the Singapore Expo. Well firstly the car park was a nightmare, not enough spaces and people parking illegally and blocking traffic. I could feel my stress levels rising as I knew I should get the kids to the show on time and that the expo SHOULD have provided enough parking.
I chose to drop my family at the entrance and go and find another car park, so after jogging back to the venue I was just in time for the show to start. My wife asked me to find two seat boosters for the kids and so I hurriedly set off in search of these only to be told by expo staff that they had run out of boosters and that I SHOULD have been there earlier!
Now I am not proud of my response to this situation because I raised my voice and told the girl that I had paid for the most expensive seats to see the damn dinosaur and I damn well think they SHOULD provide enough boosters! In defense of the Singapore Expo or the organisers of Barney and Friends we were recompensed with two buckets of popcorn but it is another example of reacting to a ‘should’.
I have just stayed at an excellent hotel (The Grand Millennium Bangkok, Thailand) where my every need was anticipated. On check-in I was asked, “Should I need a wake up call and should I need a car to take me to the airport.” This hotel continued to impress me and I was reminded of how wonderful life is when the world meets or exceeds your mental maps.
The reason I was in Bangkok was to conduct a 3-day leadership program for senior managers and during that training I emphasised using the phrase, “what’s important to you about that?” This question uncovers a person’s values including their – ‘shoulds’. Knowing your own and other people’s mental map results in effective communication reduced conflict and increased influence.
There are many definitions of leadership but my favourite in terms of its practicality is:
Should is a signpost to our mental maps. When you say, “I should do this or I shouldn’t do that”, you are telling yourself and those who are listening about your personal ‘rules of behaviour’.