Leadership Solutions Newsletter Jan 2010

Chambers Consulting Group, Ltd.

Leadership Solutions eZine

Volume 3 Issue 3

February 2010

Deborah Chambers Chima

Taking Control of the Situation

Dear Friend,

Are you guilty of subtly avoiding your career reality? Does it often seem easier to put your head down and work as hard as you can, and hope no one notices that you are just going through the motions? You show up for work each day knowing there is so much more you can contribute. Yet, you hold back your insight or knowledge. Why? Too often it just seems easier to close your eyes and block out your seemingly non-supportive environment and just wait until things get better.

Here is a reality check: When times get tough, leaders understand their future success very much depends on demonstrating resiliency behaviors and striving to be even more focused and productive. After all, the alternative is to simply give up on all the hard work you have accomplished over the years building your leadership brand. Attempting to do just enough to stay under the radar is a passive behavior. This type of "barely existing" style of working will only yield limited results.

If you are in this race for the long term, I encourage you to seek strategic opportunities to turn your situation around. How? I am a big believer that now is the time for all good leaders to step up and demonstrate the knowledge and influence that can help your organization dominate the marketplace. So what are you waiting for? Get back to work with a sense of purpose. There is still time to get in control of your destiny!

If you would like to have a 30 minute complimentary call to discuss your next plan of action, please contact me.

Leadership Solutions - Coaching

Leadership Solutions Coaching Corner

Each month we will ask a relevant question and provide coaching tips you can consider to solve the featured challenge.

Let's explore Part I of the need for leaders to always have a keen "Awareness of Self & Others" as one of the key elements of the Leadership Solutions A-C-S© Coaching Model.

The Leadership Solutions A-C-S Coaching Model© consists of three main components and their subsets which are:

Awareness - Understanding yourself and others and the environment to effectively solve business challenges

Awareness of Self & Others (Behaviors)
Awareness of the Environment

Communication - Developing the skills needed to create greater collaboration

Communication Skills that Invite Collaboration
Communication of Your Vision

Support - Learning to build a support base that is focused on your career and business success

Support Framework for Career and Business Success
Support Strategies to Embrace Change

Question of the Month

How can you remain productive at work each and every day regardless of the challenging environment?

Let's first talk about why you get distracted. Situations often appear out of nowhere which can steer you away from your daily plan. Sometimes it is the demanding boss who keeps asking for more even though the boss knows your plate is already overflowing. Sometimes it is the competitive peer who decides to take you on for no apparent reason. Perhaps they are threatened by you or the peer is stressed and you just happen to be the outlet.

Also, recognizing that there is so much to get done, you can easily get lost in all the details. Whatever the reason for the lack of focus, as your stress grows, you can find yourself demonstrating non-productive behaviors, such as non-execution, without even being aware that you are doing so.

Coaching Moment:

You must always have awareness of your behaviors and thoughts. There is never a time when you can defer responsibility of how you react to a situation or a person. You have a choice every time on how you respond to a distraction. Yes, even when it is the boss who wants what they want right now. Your behavior toward the request will impact your success factor.

Here is the Challenge:

It is very easy to criticize the behaviors of others when the pressure is on and people don't approach you in the manner you would prefer them to. You find yourself thinking, for example, why doesn't the boss at least acknowledge I am already overloaded? In today's tough environment most people are wary of vocalizing these type of thoughts given the number of unemployed people who would be happy to do whatever the boss asks. Yet, you must step up and take ownership over how you will respond to the distraction. Your thoughts have permeated your psyche and you are now more susceptible to getting off track whether you want to admit it or not.

The more awareness you have of your thoughts and how they impact your behaviors, the less likely you are to react or respond in a manner that negatively impacts your leadership brand.

If you find yourself stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, impatient, or overreacting to someone or a situation, your productivity definitely will be impacted. You must quickly get control over these non-productive behaviors.

The more aware you are of your behaviors and thoughts, the greater chance you will have of stopping the non-productive cycle. One strategy you can use is to reframe the conversation so that you strategically transition more into a negotiation discussion versus a dictated one.

Awareness of your behaviors is a necessary element you must quickly master in order to get to your next level of performance. If you desire to learn more about this dynamic, contact me to set up a complimentary 30-minute coaching consultation by phone.

Next month we will explore Part II of "Awareness of Self & Others" (Behaviors) Leadership Solutions A-C-S© Coaching Model, so stay tuned.

Call to Action

What steps will you take to improve awareness of your non-productive behaviors in the next 30 days? Remember, the goal is to catch yourself before you respond inappropriately to someone or to the situation. Feel free to contact me for a complimentary conversation on how you can show up stronger in this area.

In This Issue

A Note from Deborah Chambers Chima, CMP

Leadership Solutions Coaching Corner

Transformational Leadership is the Key to Success

"A great leader's courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position."

~John Maxwell

What does it take to achieve career success and demonstrate the type of transformational and collaborative leadership that is so needed? It used to be that you came to work motivated to demonstrate your leadership and make a difference. Now you find yourself checking the clock more than you ever have throughout the morning just waiting for the lunch period. What happened?

Let's be honest. You are experiencing one of the most challenging work environments of your career. Organizations are experiencing an unprecedented rapid pace of change and the uncertainty about the future seems to linger like a dark cloud over most people within the organization. As a result, some leaders feel you are in the fight of your life to hold on to all that you have worked so hard to achieve.

You are still doing your best, despite the often negative environment to create opportunities for success for you and those you may lead. Yet, it can be difficult to implement a plan of success when you don't know from one day to the next what unknown situation may surface that will cause you to shift your plan. If you are not careful, it can become easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom of not knowing if your efforts are having the desired effect.

So what steps can you take to transform your mind and your actions to ensure you remain focused and successful? First, you must always remember the reason you were initially so passionate about taking on the responsibility you now hold.

What did you want to transform when you first got your current assignment or role? In order to get to the next level of your success you must identify what you initially hoped to accomplish and then measure the gap. Where are you now with those original leadership goals?