leadership Archives - Page 8 of 10 - Smart Coaching and Training | Business Support, Consultancy, Mentoring

23/05/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Men vs Women in the Workplace – Gender equality?

What is really going on in the workplace?

Sheryl Sandberg wrote in the Times in 2016 about ‘an entire segment of the population that is vastly underrepresented in the small business economy”. At the time she was writing some recent research estimated that 2.7 million women in the UK were thinking of starting a business. Phew! That’s a lot. But….most of them don’t get going and the main thing stopping them is a lack of confidence.

The CMI Women campaign which surveyed 851 managers found that 50% of managers had observed gender bias in recruitment/promotion decisions, 42% had observed inequality in pay and awards and 69% had seen women having a hard time in board meetings.

So what to do?

It isn’t just women that need to initiate change, men need to be involved as well and have an equally important role to play in promoting gender equality, to initiate and drive change. The CMI survey demonstrated that 84% of men wanted an equal balanced workplace and that 75% of them agreed that they needed to play a part and take responsibility for supporting women to progress in the workplace. The next stage in the CMI research ‘Men as Role Models’ is working on this positive approach by doing what it says on the tin, finding men to be role models and champion women.

And remember – gender equality works both ways

And an interesting case in the USA in 2015 had Gregory Anderson, an erstwhile Yahoo employee accusing the company, of discriminating in favour or women saying they “intentionally hired and promoted women because of their gender, while terminating, demoting or laying off male employees because of their gender”. (That despite the fact that at the time 75% of Yahoo’s leaders were men.)

We invite you to read the second part of Women at the Top Leadership Research – 2; more fascinating insights on Women at the Top’s reflections on leadership by Halina Jaroszewska.

Halina’s research is an ongoing project and a valuable contribution to this dynamic subject; if you feel you have something to contribute or you know of a woman who does, please get in touch with Halina.

28/04/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Women at the Top

Wow! So much in the media about women’s place at work!

Greg Hurst in the Times pointed out that female leaders are better than their male counterparts.

……The Wall Street Journal last year reported on how men won more promotions and women felt that gender issues contributed to them not getting promotions.

……Last year the Fawcett Society called for more action to tackle the gender pay gap.

……The Guardian reported that despite the increase in the number of women in UK boardrooms, they still tend to hold non-executive and non-CEO or Chair positions.

……According to a report from Coutts and the Centre for Entrepreneurs 38%of serial entrepreneurs under 35 are women.

……And Royal Bank of Scotland’s research showed that in 2015 businesses led by women contributed £3.51bn to the UK economy and created 77,000 jobs in 2015.

Wow indeed. And so the big questions:

1. Are women getting the same opportunities in the workplace and in setting up businesses?

2. Are women being treated equally in the business world to men?

3. What do we need to do to make sure this happens?

Sorry, we don’t have the answers all neatly packaged here for you now. But we are going to explore this issue in the coming months so we encourage you to visit our news page and have a look at our newsletter to get some answers and create some actions in the right direction.

Starting off, please read the first part of Women at the Top Leadership Research; fascinating insights on Women at the Top’s reflections on leadership by Halina Jaroszewska.

12/04/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Seeing inside your business self with C-me Colour Profiling

Have you ever asked yourself “how can I build on my strengths? How can I make better decisions with greater confidence?” Or wish you had a deeper insight into your behaviours? Try C-me Colour Profiling!

Anita Jaynes of The Business Exchange, had first hand experience of how C-me Colour Profiling can give insights to behaviours and what might be changed to enhance performance and create better relationships.

Effective, efficient and easy to apply – quick to do and quick to get your personal report. What better way to discover your strengths and become more self-aware? And for businesses it is a boon! To be successful, business leaders need to be effective. They need to know what they do best, what they should get others to do, and how best to communicate objectives in a way that engages everyone in the organisation.

As a successful business leader herself, Anita was eager to explore how C-me could benefit her business, through doing her own profile and then taking it deeper in a Debrief session with Halina Jaroszewska, one of our C-me experts.

Read more about Anita’s C-me experience.

31/01/2017 By Isla Baliszewska

Leadership – ‘C-me’ Style

Leadership C-me style

It is so easy to slot into ‘this must be me’, to believe in the stereotype, to accept the personality type designated, default to what is expected, to become the mistress or master of illusion with ‘Once I …. then I will’ ….. rather than to survey the landscape and what lives there and ask

What will suit this best?

What is working well?

What could work even better?

How can I, as a leader, work with the actual material rather than wish it were different?

How to create the climate to significantly improve the landscape?

How willing am I as a leader to put ‘me’ on one side and step into the shoes of the other – to discover what the landscape of the organisation / team / board / department looks like from that perspective?

How willing am I to listen?

How willing am I to use my preferences to understand others preferences?’

C-me Colour profiling describes characteristics of the 4 colour preferences as follows:

Logical and analytical – Enjoys problem solving – Needs time for reflection – Realistic – Sorts out the details – Strong sense of duty – Structured and disciplined

Bold and determined – Confident and optimistic – Enjoys stretching goals – Leads from the front – Sets a winning mentality – Thinks big – Direct and to the point

Considerate and caring – Genuine concern for colleagues –Avoids conflict -Involves others in decisions – Respects others values – Supportive and loyal – Works for a democratic solution

Free spirited – Friendly and optimistic – Generous and open-minded – Inspirational and visionary – Looks on the bright side – Positive outlook – Spontaneous and imaginative

Each colour has its positive and least positive attributes. Each colour is perfect for whatever one wants to achieve providing one is prepared to shift perspective in order to see or recognise it.

For example, every leader needs to be able, agile, appreciative of when to call on the strength of a particular colour preference. Within C-me’s repertoire, which provides the natural and adapted or learned personas, the savvy leader has all the information at their finger-tips to decide or choose which preference or combination of preferences to use in a particular situation.

Coming clean about most effective and least effective ways to communicate is a great place to start. Want to find out more about C-me? Click here.

The elegance, the beauty, the magic of a personality profile is this: you are telling you who, what, how, why you are you? This is especially so if C-me Colour Profiling is used as it reveals preferences, gives insights into one’s natural and adapted or learned persona, provides clarity, challenges assumptions and provokes development potential.

C-me also highlights hidden potential – perfect for identifying routes to succession planning. It alludes to unique pairings of traits not usually recognised. C-me gives leaders both valuable information for their leadership development potential as well as that of colleagues and the competitive edge when dealing with clients and stakeholders, internal and external. Simply it is because knowing oneself better enables one to be more perceptive and insightful around others.

C-me gives an exclusive gift of vulnerability by virtue of the wealth of information it provides enabling a deeper level of honesty and trust to develop and engage with.

It sets the scene for high standards.

It’s a disruptor of the status quo.

Try It!

Halina Jaroszewska

04/11/2016 By Isla Baliszewska

We all know that this is the rule most of us live upside down – instead of getting 80% of results for our 20% of effort, we generally expend 80% of our time getting 20% of what we want. Derived from the Pareto Principle where Vilfredo Pareto noted at the beginning of the 20^th century that 20% of the population received 80% of income in Italy, this translates in number terms to meaning 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your inputs.

An interesting study carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry for Hewlett Packard in 2005 found that productivity was impaired by excessive checking of emails – employees distracted by emails and phone calls suffered a fall in IQ that doubled that found in marijuana smokers. This doesn’t seem like a productive use of time so a tip – set your email checking to once every 2 hours so you maintain focus on the tasks that make that 20% really productive.

If we think about this in terms of give and take, we want to give 20% and take 80%. This sounds a bit selfish really. So let’s turn it around for a minute. If you’re taking 80% you need to get someone to give it to you. They need to be seeing the value of giving it to you. So spreading the value is a good start.

An example in business terms; at Smart Coaching & Training we produce a great many resources for our customers. We will give these to you, and you, and you, and you…….. We will then receive from one or two of ‘you’ enough interest in what we do to start having a conversation about doing business together.

But! It is not that easy. Our resources have to be worthwhile, useful, insightful, valuable, compelling, so that you and you and you and you…. will WANT to have them. That requires us to be thoughtful and creative about what we put in to our resources. We need to make those 20% inputs work for us.

How does that work for leaders? How do leaders implement an effective 80/20 rule?

Here are some tips:

Focus on the activities that give you the best outcomes. 80% of your time should be spent on the important stuff, not the panic things or the diverting things or the stuff that someone else could do better. Determine your priorities, delegate appropriately and define your leadership focus.

Spend 80% of your time on gathering the information you need and 20% of the time in making the decision. (Most good decisions don’t need to be 100% proof in terms of data collection – there is inevitably going to be the element of ‘unknown’ and ‘instinct’).

Listen for 80% of the time. Listening gets you the information and knowledge you need to take the right actions. Keep the talking to 20%, learn to be concise, authoritative and commanding.

The thing to remember about the 80/20 rule and the Pareto Principle is its value in reminding us that we truly need to focus on the 20% that will make the difference.

Next time you have a leadership challenge, try a Pareto Chart. Don’t know how and want some help? Get in touch with us and we’ll give you a hand!

https://www.smartcoachingtraining.com/1594-2

Men vs Women in the Workplace – Gender equality?

What is really going on in the workplace?

So what to do?

And remember – gender equality works both ways

Women at the Top

Wow! So much in the media about women’s place at work!

Wow indeed. And so the big questions:

Seeing inside your business self with C-me Colour Profiling

Leadership – ‘C-me’ Style

Leadership C-me style

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