The Learning Oasis

The Leadership Lessons

The Learning Oasis — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:05:10 +0000

Throughout my many years as a leader I have considered, learned and practiced many management and leadership principles. Some worked for me, others did not. In your career you will find the same. There is no magic pill to become a charismatic and respected leader. The best leaders have natural ability. They know their strengths and capitalize on them regularly. Each of the best leaders surrounds themselves with those that have strengths that complement their own.

Below are six principles that guide my ability to influence and guide others. I call them The Leadership Lessons.

Treat People As Individuals

The best managers treat every employee as an individual. Spend time with your best people. Give constant feedback. If you can’t spend an hour every quarter talking to an employee, then you shouldn’t be a manager. People leave their immediate managers, not the companies they work for.

Focus On Strengths

Unfortunately, most of us have little sense of our talents and strengths, much less the ability to build our lives around them. Instead, guided by our parents, by our teachers, by our managers, and by psychology’s fascination with pathology, we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, while our strengths lie dormant and neglected. The best managers never try to fix weaknesses; instead they focus on strengths and talent. Know what can be taught, and what requires a natural talent.

Lead By Example

The best managers know they are on stage every day. They know their people are watching every move they make. Be sure that your intentions are pure and that your actions follow your words before you act. A promise is a promise; keep yours in order to build trust. Practice finding ways to capture and follow-up on the promises you make (put them on your calendar, have your assistant keep track, etc.).

Set Clear Expectations and Follow-Through

If you make accountability your standard operating procedure you may enjoy a relationship that runs more smoothly and more efficiently, your team will be focused, and be ever more willing and able to deliver the results you expect. At the end of the day, you will eliminate the surprises that come with bad news and missed results, and you will not find yourself shaking your head in frustration, wondering “How did that happen?”.

Be Passionate About What You Do

The easiest way to get excited about what you do is to promote it to someone else. That forces you to think about what is important about the work itself, and why it matters. Sit down and develop a compelling 1-minute pitch that highlights the benefits of your contribution and why you are so passionate about it. If you can’t get excited about your own work, neither will anyone else!

Plan For Renewal

Feeling good doesn’t just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew. It’s all up to you. You can renew yourself through relaxation. Or you can totally burn yourself out by overdoing everything. You can pamper yourself mentally and spiritually. Or you can go through life oblivious to your well-being. You can experience vibrant energy. Or you can procrastinate and miss out on the benefits of good health and exercise. You can revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Just remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal–a new opportunity to recharge you instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.

Leadership doesn’t just “happen.” Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Find Your Strongest Life

The Learning Oasis — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 16:05:53 +0000

Women today struggle with questions of direction, purpose, passion, work and family balance, courage to make a change, and the correct definition of success. And all of these deal with one challenge — living a strong life.

In FIND YOUR STRONGEST LIFE, Marcus Buckingham, the world’s leading expert on career success, challenges conventional wisdom by revealing that happiness and success require that you:

Don’t agonize about who you aren’t — accept and act on who you are. Discover the role you were born to play and play it.
Don’t juggle — catch and cradle. Don’t keep things at bay, select a few things and draw them close.
Don’t strive for balance — strive for fullness. Intentionally imbalance life toward moments that make you feel strong.
Always sweat the small stuff — know and act on details that invigorate you and let go of what doesn’t.

You can have it all!
A DIFFERENT KIND OF ALL!

Join me Thursday June 23, 5-6pm pacific to learn more – Register Today!

Dana Bernard gets a Blogging Guest Spot!

The Learning Oasis — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:14:14 +0000

Dana Bernard gets a Blogging Guest Spot! Building a Strengths-Based Culture « The Executive Club http://ow.ly/4oL5y

Careful, Your Professional Etiquette Is Showing!

The Learning Oasis — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:20:26 +0000

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

By Cookie Tuminello

There’s so much buzz going around these days on developing the proper ‘netiquette’ when posting on the worldwide web that I wonder if we’ve overlooked the workplace where real professional etiquette is in danger of going the way of the dinosaur.

Professional etiquette isn’t solely what type of clothing you wear to the office although I do think that it is a very important factor. A favorite saying from my friend, Debbey Ryan, the Queen of Networking is, ‘Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.’

In this past month alone, I have had several requests for coaching and guest speaking on this very topic. Professionals don’t have a clear cut vision of how they’re supposed to act or communicate with co-workers, clients, and team leaders. They struggle with unreal expectations and workloads. And to add to the confusion, we now have 4 generations of folks in the workplace. Most of them are suffering from severe communication breakdowns due to the fact that the majority of communication is being conducted via email and that, my friends, leaves a lot of room for misinterpretations to occur between the lines.

While I think that the internet is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I also think it is one of the most abused areas of professional etiquette. While it may be faster, it is not always the best. That is why it is very important to be very clear about what it is you want to say and how you want to say it before you say it.

Here are 5 simple rules that I think will calm some of the chaos and confusion in the workplace:

Rule #1: Be respectful. If your message is very important, deliver it in person, or at the least via the phone. Do NOT rely on emails or text messages to inform others of crucial pieces of information or worse yet, reprimand them about something they did or did not do, because I can guarantee you that at some point electronic messages will either become lost or be misinterpreted.

Rule #2: Set Boundaries. If you’re not getting your work done during the day then take a look at where your time is going. Yes, I know that this may go against the idea of having an ‘open door’ policy, but that phrase doesn’t mean that people should be able to waltz into your office any time they like. By setting Open Office Hours (Follow Up/Questions/Meetings) and Closed Office Hours (Email/Phone Calls/Paperwork) you will find that you will be both productive and creative.

Rule #3: Learn how to present powerful ideas and handle difficult conversations. If you’re due for a salary increase and it doesn’t happen, don’t sit and stew about it for weeks on end until you’ve worked yourself up into a towering inferno of suppressed anger. Schedule (there’s that word again!) some time to talk to your supervisor and go to the meeting with a clear-cut action plan. And stick to it! Many times we are so angry because we believe that our needs are being overlooked that we fail to maintain our objectivity when discussing our expectations with our boss. Face the issue head on and be ready to justify why you believe you are definitely due for that raise or promotion.

Rule #4: Bypass the office gossip mill. Water cooler chit chat is always going to happen, but you don’t have to be a part of it. If you have a disagreement with someone, have a conversation with that person to clean it up. Remember that the person you cut down with harsh words or make fun of today could very well become your boss tomorrow! Nothing good ever comes out of idle gossip unless your employed by the leading supermarket tabloid publication.

Rule #5: Find a mentor to inspire you. Charles Caleb Colton once said that “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and he was right! If you want to be a great manager or team leader, then observe how your favorite one acts, dresses, and behaves in general. I’m not suggesting that you literally stalk them at work; just take note of how they conduct themselves and try to incorporate their positive actions into your own business demeanor. Ask this person if they would consider becoming your mentor. Believe it or not, most people are flattered when asked this question and usually say yes to the request.

If you follow these 5 simple rules to effectively communicating with your team, leaders, and/or managers, I can guarantee you that you’ll have less confusion, more productivity, and see better results in your relationships and endeavors.

Cookie Tuminello is the ‘go to’ coach for CEO’s, executives, business owners, and organizational leaders who want to unleash their potential, attain big goals, and create productive, powerful, and fulfilling lives. She provides powerful tools and tactics to engage, inspire, and energize them to attain amazing sustainable results. Receive her complimentary ezine and report at www.cookietuminello.com

The Lessons Are in Your Story – Women in Leadership Learning Through Storytelling

The Learning Oasis — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:09:29 +0000

By Consuelo Meux

When I decided to study women’s leadership, I needed to interview women leaders. To do this, I had to design a way to determine what gives a woman her unique leadership ability. When I contacted women leaders and asked them about their leadership skills, many couldn’t find a way to identify exactly what it was that gave her the ability to be a leader.

So I decided to take a different approach. I decided to ask the women to tell me their stories. Having the chance to talk about leadership stories was the key to finding the lessons from women leaders.

The lessons were in the story.

One story was about how a woman had decided to lead the fight for quality education in her community. With a group of other parents, she went to the City Hall to talk to the council-person. When the group got there, everyone turned to her to be the spokesperson. That was her moment of becoming a leader.

Another professional woman related how her workplace needed some innovative ideas to market educational products to an adult population. She knew how to work with this target group because she had taught adult education for years in a past job. Her ideas resulted in a significant increase in sales for the company. This led to her being the leader of a new division in her workplace.

Sometimes it is not easy to describe certain behaviors, such as leadership. But when you hear the stories behind the situation or event, you can find the lessons. Finding lessons in stories can provide a way to mentor others. You can share the steps you took, the insights you’ve gained, and the wisdom that you now put into action. Women are great storytellers. Have you thought about how you can use your storytelling ability to share leadership lessons with others? Think of how effective you could be when you learn how to find the lesson in the story.

The first step to take is to actually find your story. Women have a particularly difficult time talking about the things they’ve done and achieved in life. It seems like bragging to say you’ve done something good. But learning to identify those good times do several things.

1. It lets you build your confidence because you see what you’ve accomplished in life.
2. You become bolder to know that you can share what you’ve accomplished to encourage someone else.
3. It makes you want to try something else and you move to higher steps.

After speaking to one woman about their leadership story, she said that actually hearing the words come out of her mouth gave her a new perspective on her life. She felt proud in a positive way. Some pulled out of feeling like their “time had passed” and started getting involved in their community again. What happened was that after doing a great feat, many were worn out but didn’t recognize this as a natural reaction to doing something powerful. Now, by seeing how a leadership event requires a time of healing and rest, these women can empower others to know this truth too.

Take time to find the lessons in your story. Write out what you’ve accomplished or find something to talk to about it. You will find a power that you failed to recognize before when you acknowledge the lessons in your story.

Don’t miss the Women’s Leadership Conference Online. When was the last time you attended a conference that changed your life and gave you new direction? Learn from other leaders, entrepreneurs and successful business women who have gone beyond boundaries to be successful. Register now for the Women’s Leadership Conference Online !

Consuelo Meux, PhD. owns the Confident Business Women programs for women who are determined to succeed in life and business. Women learn to embrace levels of confidence needed to maximize success and to live an authentic life on purpose. Find out about the upcoming Embracing Confidence Program or join the monthly Confident Women Cafe. Go to the website to find out how at http://www.confidentbusinesswomen.com

Email Communication Tips – Don’t Email Me in That Tone of a Voice!

The Learning Oasis — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:47:07 +0000

By Jurek Leon

Have you noticed just how often people take offense at the tone of an email message?

Whether it’s with suppliers, customers or colleagues more problems in business seem to arise as a result of email than any other form of communication. Why is that?

Email is an informal mode of communication. It’s great advantage is immediacy. These days with remote access, iPhones, Blackberries and the like you can reach someone as they rush to a meeting, from a meeting, and as they catch up on all their messages. Emails are often sent in a rush and read in a rush and therein lies the danger.

In the old days when letters were the most frequent form of written communication, they were written on letterhead, a reminder of business protocol. They were checked for spelling, grammar, punctuation and through this, clarity of the message.

By contrast, emails often include clipped sentences, text style abbreviations, and are rarely set out in paragraphs that assist understanding. And, as I mentioned earlier, they are often read in a rush by the recipient of the email. They do this using their voice. Yes, I know they aren’t reading out loud but they are reading using their internal voice… and this voice has a certain tone.

Just think of how your voice differs on the phone when you are in a rush. Go on, think of it. Do it now. It’s not a pleasant voice, is it?

Communication specialists tell us that around about 84% of the message over the phone is based on interpretation of the vocal communication. And with emails this is the same because we are hearing our voice read the message. And if the words magnify the clipped, potentially uncaring tone the chances of us taking offence have just increased dramatically.

Over the phone, people often spend the first few seconds developing rapport and getting in synch with one another. This is far less likely to happen with emails, and if the receiver has had previous problems with the sender of the message or the organization they represent, there is a high likelihood that they will interpret the tone as being unfriendly.

So, what can you do about this?

1. Before sending any email read it to yourself first. Ensure the sentences flow and the tone is friendly. This small investment of time will help to dramatically reduce misunderstandings and miscommunication. In fact, it will prove to be a great time saver and stress reducer.
2. Check it for spelling, grammar and punctuation.
3. If it is about a delicate issue, don’t put it in writing if there is an opportunity to talk with the person over the phone or face-to-face.
4. If it is about a delicate issue and does need to be in writing, get a colleague to read it first, and take heed of the feedback they give you. If you can’t do this, sleep on it and reread the draft email in the morning before pressing Send.

Jurek Leon is a speaker, trainer and coach. To subscribe to Jurek’s FREE monthly email newsletter go tohttp://www.terrifictrading.com and type in your name and email address. It’s simple and easy. Alternatively, email Jurek at info@terrifictrading.com.

Join HootSuite now! I use it and it make

The Learning Oasis — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:50:03 +0000

Join HootSuite now! I use it and it makes social media a breeze. http://ow.ly/3CuO7

The Superstress Solution

The Learning Oasis — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:42:27 +0000

Stress is a catchword for all types of complaints. Sometimes it means “worried”, sometimes it means “depressed”, and sometimes it means “exhilarated”, because even good events can bring stress. Everyone succumbs occasionally, and this intermittent tension is not all bad. Studies show it can help our immune system recognize threats and improve our memories. It can even increase the skin’s ability to ward off infection.

Dr. Roberta Lee, of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center, however, writes of a different kind of stress. Her concern is “super stress”, which leaves a person exhausted, frazzled and defeated. It is a modern phenomenon that takes its toll on the body and the mind. Many victims don’t recognize it or won’t admit that they are living lives that cause super stress because they have lived with this modern plague for so long , it no longer registers. Some sufferers think that because they never fully relax, they are handling everything that comes their way – they are thriving.

Not so. It turns out that being revved up all the time comes at a big cost. Our bodies cannot take the non-stop onslaught of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that this constant state of alertness triggers. Bad effects inevitably start to show themselves, and auto-immune diseases, heart disease and other conditions are not far behind.

Having identified super stress as a killer, Lee’s program shows how to conquer it. Perhaps the most valuable admonition in the book is one that we professionals are not likely to acknowledge: We do have choices. The stressors come at us from every direction, but we can choose how to handle them. We can use our usual coping mechanisms of losing sleep, overeating, smoking, you name it; or we can take control by letting go, recognizing we can’t do it all and ask for help.

Want to learn more about Dr. Lee’s program? Purchase the book at The Learning Oasis Store . I enjoyed it and I know you will too!

Here is Dr. Lee to tell us about it:

Have a great rest of the day!

Dana Bernard

Founder & CEO

The Learning Oasis

It’s “The Great Pumpkin Photo Contest

The Learning Oasis — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:52:27 +0000

It’s “The Great Pumpkin Photo Contest”! Submit your entry today- win a $75 gift certifcate. http://ow.ly/2YC99

Strengths Based Leadership

The Learning Oasis — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:15:54 +0000

Strengths Based Leadership

Throughout my career I have had the honor of serving under many bosses. I will not call them leaders because they were not effective in their ability to lead and energize others. The fact is, many leaders do not really know their strengths. Not only does this lack of self-awareness bring about unintended consequences to one’s behavior, but also it can lead to disengaged employees and undue stress in the workplace and beyond.

In Strengths Based Leadership , authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie present a new leadership version ofGallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment . The authors of the book had access to over 40,000 personal interviews with leaders, 20,000 interviews with followers, and surveys from nearly one million work teams from around the world. They discovered that teams were most successful when the “Four Leadership Domains” of Relationship Building, Strategic Thinking, Influencing, and Executing were covered. To help you identify your own strengths as a leader, the book comes with a code for a “free” leadership evaluation at www.Strengthsfinder.com .

The leadership evaluation identifies your top 5 leadership strengths and guides you on applying these strengths to meet the four basic needs of your followers (Trust, Compassion, Stability, and Hope).

Trust: Do you keep your word as a leader?

Compassion: Do you have your workers’ best interests in mind?

Stability: Do your employees always know what to expect from you?

Hope: Are your employees inspired about the future?

Strengths-Based Leadership provides inspiring stories and actionable ideas to help reinforce the basis of the book. Not only is the book informative, but it is entertaining to read as well. If you’re looking to advance your ability to lead rather than theorize about it, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the Strengths-Based Leadership book at The Learning Oasis Store . Join us on October 29^th at 11am pacific for “Strengths Based Leadership ” – a free webinar to explore the value of a strengths based leadership approach. Seats are limited- register today!

Have a great rest of the day!
Dana Bernard
Founder & CEO