For many leaders, our toolboxes seem quite filled to the brim. In fact adding another instrument may feel completely unnecessary. Yet as we all know, the key to our continued leadership success is staying open to trying a few new tools. The changes we are facing in all of our jobs are just coming at us at a quicker than ever pace and that requires retooling.
While working with the leaders in an organization facing mega changes this past year, it became clear that the old toolbox needed updating. Their clients were becoming more demanding and asking for quicker turnaround time for deliverables. Departments were becoming more focused on their individual needs. The workflow felt unmanageable and team spirit made a nosedive.
What could be done for these leaders to gain some control in their workplace?
Four Can’t Be Without Leadership Tools:
1. Prioritize The Workload Together
Time Management 101 teaches us to prioritize our daily tasks so that we can tackle our most important projects first. Leaders go through their To Do lists with gusto hoping to see how they can reconfigure their day or week workload. The thing that is missing is sometimes we need to partner with other team members or departments in determining the true priorities. These partnerships are key to getting the work out in a timely way with no one team feeling they didn’t have a part in the prioritizing process. Including all the departments will lead to far greater outcomes.
2. Work On Authentic Communication
If the communication across a team or between different departments isn’t at its best, deadlines will be missed and projects will suffer. For leaders this means being an authentic communicator.
- Be honest in what needs to be shared, even if others may not want to hear it.
- Make sure your facial expressions and body language are consistent with the message.
- Never use a sarcastic or condescending tone as that will only confuse others.
- Offer specific explanations in a genuine and respectful way. Generalities only lead to miscommunication.
3. Adjust Customer Expectations
As with my client, many organizations are also extremely customer centric. Customers rule a company’s workflow and can ask us to jump higher than our abilities. So another important tool to add to the leadership toolbox is managing customer expectations. We want to delight our customers but not at the cost of destroying our internal teams. That means getting a true reading on what a team can and cannot deliver within a particular timeframe. Then a senior leader needs to help the customer feel comfortable about having the deliverables rolled out in stages.
4. Cultivate Department Relationships
The final element to add to the leadership toolbox is spending energy creating deeper connections with team members in other departments. It is a waste for one team to set plans and deadlines if several departments are involved in a deliverable. A representative from each area should be part of the decision-making. To be able to count on one another depends on the depth of the relationships. Leaders will grow their networks and support systems when they invest in getting to know others.
When leaders build bonds with colleagues they create deeper support systems. Click To TweetWhat additional leadership tools are essential for your toolbox today?
This is a great reminder that we all find techniques and tools that worked for us in the past and continue to use them today…even when they’ve become outmoded or ineffective. We tend to stay with what we know, what is comfortable, and what has proven reliable in the past. As you point out, the changes we are facing in all of our jobs are just coming at us at a quicker than ever pace and that requires retooling. I like how you mentioned that our customers are changing as well, thus placing more urgency on our need to rethink our toolbox. Millennials are now aging and Generation Z is coming onto the scene with an entirely different mindset. Leadership needs to be prepared….
Leadership toolboxes need to be re-evaluated continually to meet all of our workplace and customer changes. It is great that when leaders can be more flexible and willing to adapt to different strategies they will be more influential with internal and external customers. I had to laugh when you shared the fact that Millennials are now aging. But it’s true and our organizations need to adjust and leverage the talents of Gen Z.
Thanks LaRae for chiming in and sharing your insights!
It’s interesting to think about managing customer expectations as a tool. A few years ago I went into an org to work with their sales team. The sales team was invented to sell (no surprise) but there was a disconnect between what they were promising and what the project managers and their teams could deliver. We worked on communication skills and customer management skills specifically for the sales team. The project managers could manage their client relationships only if the sales team did the same. They too often forgot that they were not on the side of the client and against the managers, but everyone was on the same side. The client wanted work delivered of high quality and that’s what everyone wanted to deliver. We think tools are tricks that we can pull out, like a hammer to hit on a nail that’s come loose, but in truth, as you’ve pointed out, it’s building strength in key areas including communication and customer expectation management.
Alli
Thank you for sharing your empowering story with us! I really do see managing customer expectations as a key skill for leaders. As you showed us in your story, communication is important for all the stakeholders involved in a customer project. Being clear, honest and respectful for both internal team members and external customers is essential. I would also add that realigning deadlines and work deliverables is important to keep everyone updated and in the loop for meeting expectations.
Thanks for your story and thoughts Alli!