If you have been in the workforce for even a moderate amount of time, you likely have an opinion based on a real-life experience of what feedback may sound like when it’s done for show rather than to grow. If I had to guess, it may have been a boss who asked for...
Discover essential tips for effective leadership and empowerment, including taking inventory of your team’s genius, communicating clearly, and investing in recurring assessments. Unlock your team’s talent potential with these strategies.
There are many fantastic books to read to improve your ability to have constructive conversations; however, many of the leaders I’m working with cite “time” as their most pressing constraint. Some of what keeps many from having a thorough and complete discussion with...
Today's 3 tips are about how to improve emotional intelligence. Leaders' main misconception about emotional intelligence is that they excel at it. In fact, most respondents, when asked, will assert that they have better-than-average EQ. There may be someone reading...
Seek to understand before seeking to be understood. We have all heard the trope that if we want to be heard, we must first listen. Or in Covey’s Seven Habits, he tells us to seek to understand before seeking to be understood. Without question, the ability to listen...
When it comes to conflict, the ability to successfully manage conflict within your team is a leadership skill based on effective communication. Managers should understand that a leader’s ability to communicate effectively is the first key to success and is worthy of...
To be successful, your team must be unified in purpose, committed to execution, and have a clear understanding of their role. In other words, you’re looking to earn their buy-in…
When working with leaders that have hired what they believe to be a phenomenal candidate only to find out that they hit peak performance in the interview process, we acknowledge that we…
If you have seen Leader’s Cut Six Keys to building Independent Accountable Teams, then you’ll recall that the Fourth Key is Recruit (Communicate, Delegate, Motivate, Recruit, Collaborate, and Develop). Every one of the keys comes together for effective leadership,...
If you are like many business leaders, your first thought is likely, “I do NOT have TIME to do an MBA-style exercise of developing a theoretic business plan.” You have come to the right place, reader. Because I am adamant about creating power through brevity. Working...
When working with a new client, I often observe that the executive/owner/leader believes that they and their teams are problem solvers. When we dig a little deeper, we find that they are usually question-answerers that look an awful lot like a help desk addressing a stream of symptoms yet never quite crack the code of solving complex business problems. Therefore, let’s get to the heart of problem-solving techniques in business with the following paradigm that you can incorporate into any organization.
What Are Core Values? Defining your Business Core Values involves exploring the heart of your organizational identity. Among the first questions I ask of any Business Leader is, what do you value most? You can likely predict where this conversation is going. As the...
What Is A Mission Statement & Why Is It Important? Simply put, your organization’s mission is its identity that clearly defines what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, why you exist. And while there are plenty of examples of longer statements with all...
If you’re wondering how getting clear about vision can help you and your organization achieves your mission, then it’s time to look at Executive Coaching from Leader’s Cut.
You know your business better than anyone. In the creation and continued growth of your business, you have promoted a great idea that solves a ubiquitous problem uniquely by working your butt off! Now that your business has prospered past the point of individual control, you are in dire need of an organizational system. The following are the three most essential elements of implementing a system at your own pace.
The right coach is the one you trust, believe in, click with, and have the skill set you need to achieve your goals. That sounds like a statement of the obvious, yet many may not pause, take a step back, and become intentional about what they would like to achieve. Ken shares 3 tips on how to find the right coach for you.
A key reason that nearly every one of us coaches uses a profiling tool, whether working with individuals or teams, is that we need to take inventory of different ways of thinking, perspective, and what we call, native genius. Why? If you live in the United States and have traveled to other english-speaking countries, then you’ve experienced speaking to an Australian, for example, knowing that you understand their words, yet cannot seem to understand what they mean.
Whenever I’m contacted by a current or prospective client about “friction” they are confronting in their organization, or I’m feeling “tension” in some of my relationships, chances are we will be able to label it a lack of effective communication. On the surface, we probably have a sense of what is happening, yet upon further reflection, great communication skills have far less to do with speaking well and much more to do with several more important soft skills.
Talent Dynamics is a leading intrapersonal profiling tool used by more than 500,000 leaders and businesspeople around the world to build trust and flow. The Talent Dynamics test was created by Robert James Hamilton and is based on the Chinese I Ching philosophy. This ancient divination text also served as the inspiration for Carl Jung’s personality archetypes developed in the early 20th century.
No. Ne. Nej. Nee. Non. Nein. Na. No matter what language you speak, it can be surprisingly difficult to say “no.” Whether a new entrepreneur, small business owner, or seasoned executive, learning to be more comfortable saying “no” is a crucial skill to practice and, eventually, master.
If you are anything like me, you have read your share of articles, studies, and analytics that quantifiably prove that repeatedly working long hours does not yield bigger, much less better results. Rather, working extended hours for about two weeks seems to be the limit before the detrimental effect of getting less sleep, especially in the context of higher stress, begins to backfire as this HBR article details. And while an important component of effective business coaching to combat burnout is an ongoing effort, the following are both mindset and behavior shifts anyone can adopt, adapt, and apply for immediate improvement.
In your development as a leader, you’ve learned how to get motivated to work. Unless you’re running a company of one, you’ll eventually need to learn the ins and outs of team motivation, as well.
Successfully leading change is possible when leaders put just as much effort into leading their people as they do in building processes. Leadership and change go hand in hand. For an organization to thrive in our fast-changing world, leaders need to navigate strategic change decisively and lead others through it.
In a world where a single tweet can become breaking news, social media influences us all. Whether you enthusiastically engage on every new platform or choose to eschew social media engagement, there’s no denying how much it has changed the ways we live and work. LinkedIn might seem like one more social network on its surface, on par with Facebook and Instagram, but with a professional tilt. While the map of LinkedIn might resemble other social media, the terrain couldn’t be more different. If you’re interested in how to improve your LinkedIn presence, the first step is to check if your methods fit the medium.
Learning how to delegate is an essential aspect of developing your leadership skills. Without it, you may find yourself falling into a trap familiar to countless business leaders and entrepreneurs: after working long, lonely hours for months or even years, they start to see results. And, just beyond those long-anticipated results on the horizon looms something else: the ceiling.
SMART goals – do you have them? The importance of goal setting cannot be overemphasized, but do you ever wonder how it is that you set goals and just cannot seem to achieve them? Do you find yourself constantly pushing your goals back or spinning your wheels feeling stuck like you cannot make progress towards your goals?
Take stock of your current goals and assess whether they are SMART goals
Business owners often recognize they need to become more proactive but struggle with how to be proactive. The good news is that you can make a shift to become more proactive and here are my 3 quick tips on how to be proactive vs reactive.
We have 24 hours each day (168 hours per week), with an ideal work day of 8 hours per day for five days. How often do you wish you had more hours in a day?! Do you know how to get the most out of every minute of your work day? Effective planning and time management is the backbone of productivity for you and your business. Have you investigated where you are losing time? Do a time audit by tracking time to identify time thieves.
Looking for a quick read on how to enhance the effectiveness of your leadership team? You have come to the right place! My name is Ken Kilday of Leader’s Cut, and I have been helping businesses incorporate leadership training to enhance their team effectiveness for years. Here are my 3 Quick Tips to enhance team effectiveness in your business.
