5 Supervisor Mistakes That Can Breed Employee Backlash

Supervision is a game of chance. Winning or losing often depends on how you treat your employees. Are you:

• Fair or double-dealing
• Honest or hypocritical
• Aware or clueless
• Self-serving or an advocate

Attract too many negative labels and you may breed employee backlash–often the death knell of a supervisor’s career.

Emerging signs  

Managing the range of employee expectations is a daunting challenge. Supervisors who tune out employees will soon find themselves dealing with unwanted and unexpected behavior.

Suddenly, some or all employees:

• Stop giving input at meetings
• Grumble consistently about assignments
• Become de-energized and less productive
• Challenge policies
• Complain to others about you
• Resist your direction, overtly or covertly

You know the situation is serious when you observe these signs in your best employees.

Supervisors often unknowingly generate backlash when they see their management style through their lens only. A supervisor’s job is a juggling act. Upper management, customers, and suppliers often create an engulfing noise can make a supervisor deaf to the voices and needs of their employees.

Sadly, there are also many supervisors who, for some reason, are uneasy with their own employees. When that’s the case, they tend to go into hiding, in a sense.  They may stay in their offices, quote policy instead of owning their decisions, and/or take inflexible positions on the way work is done.

Communicate without fear.

Supervisors make their own trouble with employees when they don’t communicate what they do and why.

Many feel that if they say the wrong thing, they’ll get themselves cornered with employees down the road. But saying nothing only plants the seed for future conflict and backlash.

Here are six typical mistakes that supervisors make and how to avoid them:

1. Making a knee-jerk decision. Just because an employee wants an immediate decision doesn’t mean that you must give one, especially when you have several implications to consider. Instead, say that you want to give the request more thought with a decision forthcoming at a specific time. Then make sure you deliver it.
2. Taking a defensive position when challenged. Employees who question your decisions give you an opportunity to educate them about the needs and direction of the business. Your logic and insights help to expand theirs. If their questions cause you to rethink your position, then they’ve done you a favor and have created a special professional bond.
3. Being dismissive about employee input–Your employees are your team; they make or break your ability to succeed as a supervisor. Treating their input as insignificant builds a wall that can create animosity. Employee input is gold. It helps you understand expectations that you need to manage and can provide ideas that can lead to important improvements that everyone benefits from.
4. Avoiding face-to-face conversation–There is nothing more alienating to employees than a supervisor who is invisible, distant, and unapproachable. When employees feel disconnected from their bosses, their loyalty bond is likely to be weak. Supervisors need to be real by being present, eyeball-to-eyeball–not text-to-text.
5. Continuously quoting policies and procedures–Supervisors need to own their decisions to engender respect. Too many supervisors don’t want to make decisions that they may need to defend, so they quote a policy instead Policies and procedures set foundations and parameters but they aren’t recipes. Supervisors need to apply policies in ways that meet their intent. Employees expect you to take actions that deliver the right results in ways that support them..

Be there.

Being upfront puts supervisors in a position to create respect and confidence in employees. No employee believes that their boss will be right all the time. They just need to feel connected.

Supervisors who communicate with their employees, who are honest about what they do and don’t know, and who can be trusted to do what they say, will create the kind of relationship employees need–one that will hold up in good times and rough ones.

Photo from gever tulley via Flickr

Sleeping with Failure? There’s Success Under the Covers. | Undaunted Leadership

Failure happens in spite of our best efforts to avert it.

Fear of impending failure can be haunting, even crippling. It can drain our self-confidence, crush our optimism, and stress our every move. It can also ignite us to fight the good fight, motivating us to do whatever it takes to stop it.

But failure will come anyway. When it does, we often feel defeated, believing our personal brand is forever tarnished and our career promise dashed.

That thinking would be wrong-headed.

Failure is an enigmatic bedfellow.

The reality is: Lots of success generally precedes failure. Companies don’t get to failure unless they’ve had a string of earlier successes that ultimately can’t bear the weight of the missteps. The same is true for us, as employees.

Leaders are the linchpin between success and failure. They are expected to take on business challenges and overcome them, facing potentially failure-laden problems like:

• Turning an underachieving work group into a productive one
• Achieving profitability from an existing or new product
• Influencing financial analysts to upgrade company ratings
• Attracting more investors/donors or winning grants to stay afloat
• Reducing costs to remain competitive
• Changing the operating model to increase efficiency
• Restoring lost customer loyalty and/or confidence

Each of these challenges has the potential to tank the organization and the leader spearheading it.

In truth, not facing these challenges will ultimately guarantee failure. Neglect  begets failure. Taking on risk is your most important career-enhancing opportunity.

Impending failure showcases the leader’s ability to lead in times of trial. The steps s/he takes essentially buy time, stave off the inevitable, provide opportunities for repositioning, and create more elegant transitions.

Success is between the sheets.

Organizational failures, whether large or small, are often for the best.

When a business ends up closing or a work group gets eliminated, it means that what they were offering wasn’t what the times required.

Business failures are generally the by-product of decisions that took place before you became the leader.  Failures are set up well in advance through a variety of causes like:

• A series of weak leaders
• Low accountability and productivity
• Unreliable revenue streams and poor expense management
• Technology deficiencies and ineffective processes
• A weak economy and the inability to compete

Business “failures” are basically transitions. Successfully leading an organization through the fallout from failure is a significant leadership achievement. It’s the most effective way to recast yourself and your professional brand as you move on.

The road to an unwanted business outcome is paved with an array of leadership initiatives that deliver, albeit temporarily, promising results like:

• Redesigned survival strategies
• Redirected resources (people, equipment, dollars)
• New or enriched programs
• Reduced costs and enhanced revenue
• Performance and process improvements
• Expanded partnerships and collaborative relationships
• Improved communication initiatives
• Broader outreach to community and public officials

As you look under the covers after a career-based failure, remember that the story line is about   the leadership initiatives you demonstrated. The culmination of those efforts likely:

• Created an effective transition to a new direction or to endings
• Demonstrated leadership decisiveness and courage
• Provided valuable lessons learned for future ventures
• Convinced stakeholders of hard-to-swallow business realities
• Revealed the leader’s capabilities to face adversity effectively

We don’t like the feeling of failure and shouldn’t. But we can appreciate its value and the courageous actions it extracts from us.

Lead undaunted.

It’s easy to lead when everything is rosy. However, it’s the leader who gets us through a ship wreck with minimal casualties who earns our esteem.

Too often leaders blame themselves when things start to go south, as though all the decisions that set that course came from their desks. That’s rarely the case.

When potential failure becomes your reality, it’s your opportunity to step up and take the reins. Your actions may or may not turn things around, but your efforts will reveal a leader’s heart.

Photo from arkworld via Flickr

Insensitive, Divisive, or Self-Serving? Taking on Problem Behaviors | “You” Power

You experience them. You may even mention them–things that are done and said at work that aren’t right.

We don’t do our jobs in a vacuum. We have to interact with others. The attitudes and behaviors of our bosses, coworkers, and customers contribute to the culture of the workplace. They make it  consistently positive, negative, or a bit of both.

So what happens when you see and hear insensitive, divisive, or self-serving words and actions that don’t sit well with you? Do you:

• Keep silent (a signal of consensus)?
• Report it to the boss or HR for action?
• Complain to coworkers who feel as you do?
• Take action in your own way?

The power to affect change comes from within you. It takes a plan and committed, sustained action. The power of “you” can be formidable.

“You” Power

We often think that only management can fix what’s wrong with a company’s culture, even  when they’re a part of the problem.

We may think that sexism, bullying, antagonism between labor and management, and an everyone-for-themselves performance mentality are behaviors we have to learn to live with.

Sadly, that’s why these behaviors continue and escalate.

We all have positive role models we try to emulate. Now it’s our turn to be that positive example at work,  one day at a time.

We can each contribute to turning negative behaviors around by:

• Becoming a conscience for what is right
• Setting an example by what we say and do

It’s not for us to get on a soapbox necessarily, but simply to intervene, one-on-one in most cases, to call attention to a more positive way to communicate and act.

Consider personal objectives like these:

1. ) Increase awareness of language and actions that have overtones

When you hear language that’s sexist or ethnically insensitive, suggest a more appropriate  choice of words to the individual speaking or writing. Suggest that certain assignments be balanced between women and men.

In the hurry of the workplace, some coworkers may not be aware of the stereotypes they are promoting through their speech and assignments. Serving as a conscience has real power.

2.) Refuse to gossip

There’s always news that spreads throughout the workplace, but much of it can be hearsay, personal, undermining, and counterproductive. When we listen to or contribute to gossip, we become its agent.

Each time we decline to participate and offer our rationale for why, we influence one or more coworkers. That may lead to some to gossip about us, but it sets the right example, furthers your cause, and may also counteract some bullying.

3.) Discourage “us” v. “them” attitudes

Blaming can become rampant in organizations. It can target employees (us) versus management (them), employees in one group versus those in another, or you versus someone who, you believe, has made you look bad. Nothing good comes from blaming.

If you  believe in personal accountability, as I do, then you can wield personal power by always owning the outcomes of your work, being unwilling to enter into the blame game, and expecting others to also own their work. When they don’t, that’s an opportunity for you to raise their awareness.

4.) Quell complaining and venting

If coworkers know you will listen to their complaints, they will continue to unload on you. If, when they start, you say you’re too pressed for time to listen or call attention to what they did to create the issue, they will likely stop.

A great many complainers fill their days dumping their load on anyone who will listen. If you reduce their audience by one, others may follow suit.

A matter of time

 Making a difference takes time. The more ingrained the insensitive, divisive, and self-serving behavior, the more difficult it is to change. You have it in your power to influence other people. Whether it’s one or many, it just matters that you do what you can to have an affect.

Every action you take has the potential to inspire someone else to follow your lead or tap into their own “you” power. What could be better?

Photo from F-2 via Flickr

 

Career Not Going Your Way? Try Relaxing Your Grip. | Words from the Wise

Feeling stuck? Frustrated? Just plain mad?

Choosing a career and getting the chance to pursuit it doesn’t always happen the way we’d like.

Careers are unpredictable beasts. They come with promise but no guarantees. While they seem to be about us, they’re actually more about others giving us the opportunity to make their organizations successful.

We often start out believing our careers are within our control. Then reality sets in and we hear ourselves saying:

• “I’m knocking on every door and still don’t get even an interview. Why?”
• “I’ve been performing at a high level in this job for three years and still no promotion. Why?”
• “I never thought the work I do would frustrate me like this. What can I do?”

Too often, we can’t answer these questions. They’re too big, too encompassing, and too far beyond our understanding of the conditions that drive them.

So we keep pressing, driving ourselves forward, dragging our frustrations with us. Some just curl up in a ball and do nothing. Sadly, this doesn’t fix anything.

Words from the Wise

Struggles with career choices and direction have gone on for centuries. Human beings generally want to do work that will support them and bring some satisfaction.

Especially in modern times, the hardest part is figuring out what we like and want to do, given our skills. Once that’s somewhat figured out, we set out to find the right employment.

This figuring-out process requires introspection, which many fail to do. It also requires owning what you know about yourself and the career you want, so that  you can set your direction with an uncluttered mind.

I’ve  worked for many years with job and promotion seekers who have been battered by rejection when they’ve pursued job titles, salary levels, and big name companies rather than the work they enjoy. They’ve held on so tight to their preconceived career must-haves that they have tuned out other opportunities.

I use this quote from Robin Fisher Roffer’s book, Make a Name for Yourself: 8 Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success, to help clients (both men and women) get free of themselves:

The universe is waiting for you to say what you want…Everything that you are seeking is also seeking you.

Then I add these wise words from Henry David Thoreau in Walden:

 Men (and women, right Thoreau?) are born to succeed, not to fail.

Just think about how complex it is to get all the parts  aligned just right so that you and anyone else can intersect your objectives at the same time.

That means: The job you want has to present itself when your skills and experience are seen as the right fit for the company and when the political forces see you as having the right nature to meet expectations. Whew!

Your successful career starts with your willingness to “put out there” what you sincerely want and then to allow your conscious and subconscious thinking to work together to connect the dots. Your prospective or current employer is doing the same thing.

Relax your grip.

Lots of good things happen when you take that chokehold off your career pursuits and replace it with a realization that what you are seeking is also seeking you.

The benefits can be palpable:

• Less self-imposed pressure, negative self-talk, and energy-sapping stress
• A refreshed ability to see and hear snippets of ideas you might otherwise have missed
• An openness and excitement that blunts feelings of frustration and isolation
• A renewed belief that you will get there and commitment to the effort
• Recognition that your attitude and effort are what you control; success will follow

Your career path is a function of the work you’ve done to offer value to an employer and the initiatives you take to get hired/promoted. Your biggest challenge is to be authentic in the process and prepared to act effectively when opportunities present themselves. Taking your hand off the throttle can help you make a nice smooth turn.

Photo from ladybugrock via Flickr

Feeling Thankful or Resentful? 5 Attitudes to Fuel Job Happiness

A job is a relationship. When we sign on, we marry its requirements and the family that comes with it–a boss, coworkers, and customers.

A job can bring bliss or frustration on any given day. The only constant in our jobs is us. The skills we bring, our attitudes, and the actions we take make an indelible impact on our job happiness.

So, what’s your take?

Call it chemistry or culture, every workplace has a vibe. It may be upbeat, sour, defensive, or exciting. Whatever the tone, we are prone to be affected by it.

For some reason, it’s easier to see the bleak side of things, especially when those around us are harping about the:

• unfair workload
• self-serving boss
• crumby equipment
• frustrating customer complaints

Where we work isn’t supposed to be paradise. A workplace is more like a laboratory where we experiment and test new ideas, applications, and improvements. It’s a place where change, challenge, and disruption are the rule rather than the exception.

This realization can help us recalibrate our expectations about the swirl of things around us. Instead of resenting them, there’s reason to be thankful.

The gratitude edge

Getting happy at work means reconfiguring the way we see things and recognizing the asset value of the challenges and personalities that make up our surroundings. Gratitude for the opportunity to be in the mix is actually good for us.

Mary MacVean of the Tribune Newspapers, wrote in a December 31, 2012 article:

…if we developed the discipline [of gratitude] on a regular basis, year-round, research shows we’d be happier and suffer less depression and stress. We’d sleep better and be better able to face our problems.”

Then she quotes Robert Emmons, a University of California at Davis professor who has been studying gratitude since 1998:

…it’s one of the few things that ‘can measurably change people’s lives. Gratitude implies humility–a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contributions of others.’

The issue of humility is a big one: It’s about recognizing that we have the job we’re in because, along the way and even now, other people:

• encouraged us
• gave us training
• attested to our abilities
• had our backs
• gave us opportunity
• lent a hand

Our successes are not just about us–our deeds, our smarts, and our promise. They also comes through others.

5 Strategies

We all have down days at work, days when we’re not sure we’re in the right job. That’s just reality.

In total, though, our progress comes from the series of tests that we overcome with the help of bosses and colleagues who give us a shot, promote our capabilities, and help us move forward.

Attitudes of gratefulness need to be practiced. To increase your job happiness, you can start by being thankful for:

1. The comfort of a paycheck, even if it’s less than what you may need or want. It’s predictability is a secure foundation for the financial and career choices you make going forward.
2. Essential job duties that help you master or expand your skills while learning how they impact the business and insights that can position you for another job within or outside your company
3. A difficult boss who requires you to become more assertive, a better negotiator, more thick skinned, a better performer, or a more strategic thinker
4. Trusted workmates who encourage you, teach you tricks of the trade, help you get out of your shell, walk you through disappointments, offer friendship
5. Good working conditions with current technologies, safe equipment, comfortable facilities, and benefits

Seek thankfulness

Every job doesn’t meet our every need, but there are always good features we can be thankful for. The grass is not always greener, so we need to feed and water the grass we have under our feet.

The more you can grasp and internalize the reasons you have to be grateful in your job, the happier you will be. Smile…that helps too!

Photo from from Ateupamateur via Flickr

(No) Thanks for (Not) Giving at the Office | Selflessness at Work

“I gave at the office! ” That’s the put-off line used by many when asked for yet another donation to a charity, special cause, or fund-raiser. It’s a kind of cop out to stop the asking, whether we gave or not.

The reality is: There are many truly compelling reasons why we’re asked to contribute time and money to help people in dire trouble, some we may know and many we don’t.

We witnessed it in the 2012 devastation and loss of life caused by:

• Hurricane Sandy on the east coast
• Raging forest fires out west
• Tornados in the mid-west
• Relentless drought across the country

The news coverage connects us with the human misery, the disruption to people’s lives, and the unfathomable monetary and material loss. “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” we say to ourselves.

Many of us look for some way to help. We may send money through organizations like the American Red Cross or Salvation Army. We may hop on buses or get in our cars and go to lend a hand.

In a dramatic crisis, something in our hearts motivates us to help however we can.

Pain at the office

Our jobs can become increasingly demanding, so it’s easy to become absorbed in our own daily grind. We’re engrossed in meeting performance expectations, dealing the boss’s idiosyncrasies, struggling with changing work methods, and managing our time.

The truth is: Crises find their way into our offices. They may affect your work unit, the department, the company, or simply the coworker you sit next to.

It’s things like:

• A new employee who 1.) no one talks to; 2.) is mistreated, 3.) makes mistakes, or 4.) struggles to master the work
• A persistent conflict among coworkers who can’t find common ground on a work issue
• A boss who alienates certain team members because s/he doesn’t understand how the work is done
• A failed work process that caused customer outrage
• A workplace accident resulting in the serious injury of several employees
• An unexpected workload that must be completed asap to meet customer deadlines

The big question is: What are you prepared to do?

• Will you wait until someone asks you to pitch in?
• Will you lay low because you “don’t want to get your hands dirty?”
• Will you  step up and offer your ideas, expertise, time, and/or leadership?

When trouble comes to your office, there’s an opportunity to “give” of yourself because it’s the right thing to do.

Selflessness is part courage.

Crises are relative. A crisis to you may or may not be a crisis to me. It just matters that when people feel that the situations they’re in are more than they can handle, you have an opportunity to offer help.

Crises manifest confusion. Leadership promises to restore order. Your selfless entry into a crisis of any dimension is a willingness to address that confusion and quell some of it.

As with any disaster, we need to give what we know we can. It’s not about over-extending or over-reaching.

At work you can:

• Help that struggling coworker by showing them how to avoid errors or helping them build friendships
• Offer an idea that will help conflicting parties reach a compromise
• Talk to the boss about his/her work knowledge if you have the right kind of relationship with him/her
• Provide an idea that will help fix that failed customer process
• Suggest a change in safety procedures
• Work extra hours to meet that surprise workload

That’s how you “give at the office” when things get dicey. It’s about you thinking more about someone else than about yourself.

Thanks giving

Getting in the habit of giving selflessly at work and in the community enriches us. It’s a habit that builds on itself. The more we do, the easier it gets.

When we recognize the value of those opportunities to give, the “thanks giving” comes from within us. In many cases, “ thanks getting” will follow.

Photo from paperbacklou via Flickr

Craving the Secret to Success? Words from the Wise Break the Code | Howard’s Gift

I’m on a constant quest for answers to big questions about the direction of my life and my work. When I was asked to blog about Eric C. Sinoway’s new book, Howard’s Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your Life’s Work, I hesitated. I didn’t know anything about Howard Stevenson, the focus of the book. But I said “yes” anyway. I wish it had been written decades ago, when its insights would have spared me so many doubt-plagued hours as I struggled to figure things out for my career path. Fortunately, it’s now here for you.

The secret to success hinges on making the right choices at the right time. Our challenge is to understand the effect our choices will have on us should we pursue them.

If only we had someone to ask, someone with the experience and wisdom to help us see the big picture, someone who can clear away the fog so we can chart the right course.

Enter Howard Stevenson, whose wisdom is the focus of Eric C. Sinoway’s book, Howard’s Gift: Uncommon Wisdom to Inspire Your Life’s Work.

Howard spent 40 years as a highly respected professor at Harvard Business School, where his MBA  students included world leaders, corporate CEO’s, and entrepreneurs. He is also an innovator and entrepreneur in his own right, contributing to his distinction, according to Sinoway, as “the father of entrepreneurship at HBS….”

Howard’s books and teachings have created a following of “students” like Sinoway who committed to write this book after Howard’s heart attack, ensuring that Howard’s priceless wisdom would never be lost.

Antennas up

Our career and life choices involve our “inflection points.” We need to be keenly aware of them when they occur and committed to taking the right course of action.

So what is an inflection point? Sinoway writes:

It is a moment when–by choice or not–we pivot from the path down which we were traveling and head in an entirely different direction.

It’s easy to miss or ignore an inflection point, especially when it may not line up with the way we’d planned our course.

Sinoway shares Howard’s explanation:

Inflection points come in all forms: positive, negative, easy, hard, obvious, and subtle. The way you respond–whether you grab hold of a inflection point and leverage it for all it’s worth or just let it carry you along–is as important as the event itself.

In hot pursuit of success, we are frequently faced with inflection points that cause us inner conflict. Howard impresses on his students that “…success doesn’t always equal happiness….” I’ve certainly witnessed examples of that and suspect you have too.

Howard suggests approaching your career by thinking about it from a legacy perspective:

Starting at the end means investing time up front to develop an aspirational picture of your future–a guide for the decisions you make throughout your life.

Knowing what we value in a satisfying career and acting on it are often very different things. What we need to get a firm grip on is the way our notions of success and failure help us or get in our way.

Befriending success and failure

We tend to look at success as reward and failure as punishment for, well, just not being good enough. Our self-confidence, courage, optimism, and sense of self-worth are often held hostage by them both.

Howard removes the weight of success and failure when he says in the book:

You know, people throw around words like success and failure assuming they mean exactly the same thing to everyone–and they don’t….

Have you fallen into that trap?

He adds:

There is no standard metric for evaluating success or failure, in large part because our assessments are heavily affected by the expectations we bring into a situation…our definitions of success and failure change based on personal circumstance; they’re colored by what’s happening around us….

The next time someone tries to detract from your achievements based upon their own measure of success, think of Howard’s words:

 For me, the bottom line is: don’t put yourself in a definitional straitjacket, and don’t allow others to do it to you, either.

It’s inevitable that, from the time we’re very young, we are “shown the way” to success as defined by people around us and the media. No wonder finding our own way can feel confusing, particularly when things don’t go as expected.

Howard offers this perspective:

I prefer to expend my energy only on things that I can affect. What’s past is only useful to me insofar as it offers information to using going forward. ..What other people might call failures I simply see as situations laden with meaning–full of new data and new opportunities for assessing and recalibrating a strategy.

Breaking the code

If you need wise counsel on building your skills, finding mentors, facing your personal truths, attracting the right professional relationships, or achieving life-work balance, you’ll find invaluable perspectives from Howard.

This book reads like a conversation, where we get to listen in. We read about the trials and missteps of others, including Sinoway’s, and how Howard untangles complex career situations, just like the ones you’re facing, bringing important next steps into focus.

The secret to success lies within us. Words from the wise help us break the code.

Still Searching for Self-Confidence? Try Looking Outward.

Self-confidence is both deal-maker and deal-breaker. Just look around. You’ll see:

• Enormously talented people with low self-confidence who never made it
• Bumblers with over-flowing self-confidence who succeed beyond belief

When we doubt, question, and criticize our abilities, we self-sabotage. The more negative feedback we give ourselves, the more we believe it must be true.

We says things like:

• “Since I don’t have an MBA, my ideas will never be heard.”
• “I couldn’t possibly be considered for a supervisory job without formal training.”
• “No one will hire me since I’ve been out of work so long.”
• “Introverts like me can’t become successful speakers.”

It’s time to reboot.

Reprogram your head.

Low self-confidence can be physically painful. When those feelings start to set in, they disturb the way we feel and how we behave.

That means we need to take steps to minimize the chance that our shaky self-confidence will rear its ugly head.

Although it’s never too late, it’s helpful when we learn how to do this when we’re young.

Meet Sophia Grace (now age 9) and  Rosie (6). They are cousins from England who were discovered by Ellen DeGeneres who saw their YouTube video singing rapper Nicki Minaj’s song, Super Bass.

The two girls have become an international sensation because of their repeated appearances on the Ellen show, their captivating personalities (Sophia Grace’s singing talent and exuberance; Rosie’s adorable look and understated manner), their love of pink tutus, and their wide-eyed innocence.

The Super Bass lyrics (which, fortunately, they admit they don’t understand) are enormously complicated but took them only two days to learn. Sophia Grace does the singing and Rosie mostly mouths the words.

During one of their interviews with Ellen, the outgoing Sophia Grace was asked about her relationship on stage with Rosie. She answered:

“Rosie makes me feel more confident.”

When the girls were treated on Ellen to a surprise meeting with their idol Nicki Minaj, Nicki lauded Sophia Grace’s singing and praised Rosie as being her “hype” girl.

Together Sophia Grace and Rosie are a true team.

The formula

The foundation for self-confidence starts with:

• Loving what you do and then doing it with great energy, enthusiasm, and commitment whether you are great at it or not. (Greatness will come eventually if you want it enough.)
• Feeling inspired to press on to keep getting better
• Support from others–friends, family, mentors, bosses, anyone
• Courage to take chances, reach out, and ask for the support you need

Here’s how the steps in the formula worked for the little girls in pink:

• Sophia Grace and Rosie started with the joy of singing together.
• They were inspired by their singing idol and learned that complex song.
• They had supportive parents who made and posted the YouTube video and they had each other.
• They took advantage of the chance to go to the Ellen show and all the experiences that followed.

There are examples like this everywhere. Listen to those contestants on the TV show, The Voice, who, when asked by judges like Cee Lo Green, what kind of help they’re looking for from a coach, the answer from many is: “My self-confidence isn’t the best.”

Listen to interviews with athletes who struggle to break through to the next level, and they will talk about “not believing” in themselves and “struggling with self-confidence” in the big matches or games.

Take charge

It doesn’t matter how accomplished we are, self-confidence is always the deal-maker or deal- breaker going forward.

So what are you going to do to break through the barriers of your own self-confidence to:

• Perform better
• Expand your capabilities
• Build a stronger personal brand
• Achieve that promotion or new job

You need to surround yourself with the right people who will provide the encouragement, insights, knowledge, and feedback you need to sustain positive self-confidence along the way. Then you need to keep working and striving.

We’re not expected to succeed alone. Actually, I don’t think we can.  It’s essential to reach out.

Photo from Ariana fan via Flickr

Failure–Who Needs It? | You Do

We just don’t like it. We often fear it, dread it, struggle to avoid it, and sometimes succumb to it. Failure tests us. It makes us face up to what we’re made of.

Failure and fear are ominous bedfellows. They feed each other and us too in ways that can be crushing.

Embracing failure

If we want to succeed, we need to welcome failure. It’s our greatest teacher.

If it weren’t, we wouldn’t remember our failures more keenly than our successes.

Our failures have a habit of sticking, and because they do, they become the essential reference point that we need to grasp.

Failures in our careers come in all shapes and sizes:

• the blown interview
• unmet performance goals
• a failed project, product, or software application
• an ineffective presentation or rejected proposal
• job loss or business failure

Faced with any of these, you might choose to:

• give up, become inconsolably disgruntled or retaliatory
• blame others, the company, or some policy
• berate yourself, lose all confidence, or backslide

But, if you’re smart, you’ll stop and say, “I need to figure out what I need to do to get better, so I can avoid failures like this in the future.”

Tune in

No matter how great they are, professional athletes continuously experience failure. Every contest does not end up in a win and they know it.

Pro baseball players fail at bat more than they succeed. Pro golfers can compete for years and never win a tournament. (They may get a paycheck, but their ultimate measure of success is wins.)

As a result, athletes use every failure to learn something about themselves, ways to improve their skills, and insights to sharpen their game sense.

Lolo Jones is an American track and field athlete. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she was favored to win the 100 meter hurdles, but she tripped on the second to last hurdle, finishing seventh. It was a crushing failure for a competitor who had overcome a life of poverty through hard work and determination to reach such a pinnacle moment.

Lolo is competing in the 2012 Olympics in London where she will pursue gold in the same race. After four years learning from  her 2008 failure, she sees that by fighting her way back to the Olympics, she has already won. She said on NBC’s Today Show (8/7/12), “For me, it will be like facing my fears.” Facing them means she has already overcome that old failure.

Kerri Strug, retired American gymnast and member of the Magnificent Seven gold medal team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, is famous for her performance on the vault to win the all-around, despite having severely injured her ankle. Early on, as a gymnast, she was considered mentally and emotionally frail in her performances during times of competitive stress. So with everything on the line in 1996, Kerri demonstrated what she has now come to realize: “It’s your failures that catapult you forward” (from a 2012 interview on NBC).

Exploit your failures

It’s time to take hold of your failures and exploit them for your own success. Face them. Embrace them. That’s how you will free yourself from the hold they may have on you and turn them into an asset.

Make those failures clear by writing them down. State what you see as the failure and make sure you’ve got it right. Then start listing what the failure has taught you about:

• your skills and knowledge
• your attitude, point of view, understanding of the situation
• your commitment, standards, work ethic, courage
• confidence, relationships, honesty

Then write an action plan for yourself. What are you going to do to be better prepared to minimize the chances of failure next time. Find someone you trust to help you. Then get on with it. The only one who can overcome failure is you. So please make failure your friend!

Photo from nataliebehring.com via Flicker

Pulling Your Weight? A Pro Always Knows.

Look around. Who do you and your coworkers depend on at work to always get things done right? Is that you?  Shouldn’t  it be?

It doesn’t matter whether we’re the boss, an individual contributor, or the owner. We each have real work to do that counts.

Sometimes that work involves solving problems using our heads and then mobilizing others to implement it. Other times it’s about rolling up our sleeves and putting muscle into a task that makes us sweat, literally or figuratively.

The way we work, not just our results, brands us.

Tap the pro in you.

Each of us brings our own set of personal work standards to our jobs. Our attitudes about work drive the way we perform, whether or not someone’s watching.

Our work ethic is cultivated throughout our lives and is tested in every new job and by every new boss.

We all know coworkers and supervisors who are:

• slackers,  doing the minimum to keep their jobs
• side-steppers, dodging work they don’t like
• manipulators, taking credit for the work of others

We also know real professionals whose personal performance standards never waiver. There are the:

• grinders who won’t abandon a job until it is completed to their satisfaction
• risk-takers who are the first to step forward to tackle a difficult problem
• innovators who are determined to always find a better way to get the work done

The pros “are” the work they produce. It becomes a reflection of who they are. Achieving to their own standard trumps recognition from anyone else. It’s personal.

Sometimes we get lost  in the drama, vagaries, and gear-shifting typical in offices. We need to cut through the clutter and distractions, so we can get our work done like the pros we are.

Revere the heavy lifting.

The “players” generally just participate in the game while the pros own it.

Every employee and supervisor needs to know what is expected of them. Then they need to commit to meeting or exceeding those expectations.

Recently, I contracted with ProFence to replace 1,270 feet of old four-board fence at my farm. A crew of four men between the ages of 22 and 34 did the job in three days.

This task required:

• loading and hauling nearly a mile of fence boards and poles
• transporting and operating heavy equipment
• removing the old fence and taking it away
• positioning and setting the poles
• measuring, leveling, and nailing the  boards
• hanging 10 gates

Setting poles

Each man was a trained professional in commercial trucking, heavy equipment operation, and/or fence construction. They worked as a team, clearly understanding their individual and often shifting role assignments, as well as standards of quality operation.

Setting boards

They  were:

• crossed-trained in their jobs and work methods
• focused on execution and problem solving
• effective communicators with each other and me, always taking time to answer my questions patiently and with eye contact
• committed to safety and respect for my property
• good-humored, even in the scorching heat

The crew worked with its own unique rhythm perfectly aligned to the demands of the work. It was beautiful to watch them work and see the artistry behind the product they were creating.

Every man pulled his own weight, lightening the load for everyone else.

Pulling your weight

It doesn’t matter whether the jobs we have require us to work in the elements or at a desk. Work is work and our willingness to do what we know is our best job comes only from within.

Everyone knows when we aren’t pulling our weight and they often know why. We may   unable or unwilling, frustrated or afraid, resentful or discouraged.

That’s why it’s important to do what it takes to be a pro. Remember, it’s your job. While you have it, you own it, so treat it like a prized possession and give it your all. By fortifying your work ethic and capabilities, your job satisfaction and career will expand.

A job well done!

Thanks to Vern, Lester (the foreman), Josh, Gene, and Keith at ProFence for their fine example of what a pro knows and does.