What Happens When You Can’t Be Present?

As a leader, you can not be physically present all the time. Sometimes you have to be elsewhere or you want to take time off. It is important to take the steps to prepare for a leadership absence. 

In order to avoid unmet expectations, it is important to outline availability.  If not you, you can outline who they can talk to in your absence. 

Every great leader knows they are only as good as their team. This is a great time to share responsibility with your team. This lets you know that you trust them. Learning to let go and trust in your team is key to being able to run your business. This is a great opportunity to document your process and make sure they are up to date. 

This does a few things, it grows trust and you can build a leadership team. Leaders who develop a leadership team are adding value in three ways. They are sustaining their effectiveness, for the team will continue advancing shared goals despite their absence. They are diversifying their strengths by tapping diverse perspectives and experiences, and they are scaling their impact by developing leaders and achieving more with and through others than they could achieve alone.

Effective leaders empower others to make decisions. Otherwise, power is centralized and scaling your leadership is impossible. To empower others, help them understand how you make decisions. Is there a framework you use? What values drive your consideration? Teach them what you do. 

Letting go of perfectionism will help you and your team grow faster. Effective leaders empower others to make decisions. Otherwise, power is centralized and scaling your leadership is impossible. To empower others, help them understand how you make decisions. Is there a framework you use? What values drive your consideration?

Be absent in your absence. When you are not really gone, the team can not step in and do their best. Trust them to do a good job. This will allow you to be physically present where you are at.

Enjoy your time away.

Best,

Manal

Communicating Effectively is the Job of a Leader

Leaders set the pace and the standard for how everyone else should communicate. 

In studying human communication and how genders communicate, there is a wide variety of things to consider. For example, you have heard people say that men/women communicate differently. And you have certainly experienced those literal communicators and those indirect communicators.

Direct communication happens when a speaker's true intentions are communicated in his/her verbal message. It expresses the speaker's/sender's needs and desires explicitly. Indirect communication happens when a speaker's true intentions are hidden.

When you mix up gender and communication types, there can be a lot of miscommunication between parties. Then when you mix in generational factors, communication can get just downright messy. 

As a leader, having good communication skills is all about being able to convey information to people clearly and simply, in a way that means things are understood and get done. It's about transmitting and receiving messages clearly, and being able to read your audience.

Good communication skills are essential to allow others and yourself to understand information more accurately and quickly. In contrast, poor communication skills lead to frequent misunderstanding and frustration.

A leader must master the ability to understand and manage  emotions so as to communicate effectively, avoid stress, overcome challenges and empathize with others.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Oh I said the wrong thing?”. That happens to us all. Good communication is much more than saying the right thing; it is about communicating messages clearly and concisely.

The right words aren’t alway the magic to solid communication. You can say the right thing but in the wrong tone and everything can go haywire. In any type of communication, make sure that you set the right tone. A friendly tone will always encourage others to communicate with you.

Good communication takes practice. This is why it is important to be around others and master the skill.

Your followers, customers, clients and tribe (along with your friends and family) will appreciate your effort towards mastery. 

Best, 

Manal

How Strong Is Your Influence?

 

Do you want to be a better leader in the workplace? Do you envision yourself refining the skills needed to lead yourself through life in a more effective, deliberate way?

Imagine if you could grow enough in your own personal skill set to be able to discover the driving forces and reasons behind people’s actions and behavior, and learn how to influence their choices and help them overcome any obstacle.

This is generally done by learning some skills used by top leaders. 

Here are 5 of them:

The science of Neuro-Associative Conditioning is a system that – according to Tony Robbins - can create changes in human emotions and behavior based upon the premise that there are two determining reasons for human behavior: (1) the need to avoid pain and/or (2) the desire to gain pleasure. You are generally one or the other when it comes to motivation. 

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a psychological approach that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.

Persuasion is the act of causing people to do or believe something: the act or activity of persuading people. formal : a particular type of belief or way of thinking. 

Non-verbal communication includes facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, gestures displayed through body language (kinesics) and the physical distance between the communicators (proxemics)

Motivational Coaching to help you work through problems in life and offer their encouragement along the way.  

Have you had any experience with any of these tools? I know they have helped me grow into who I am today! 

Remember, not every great leader is born – often great leaders are made.

I believe in you and your growing leadership. 

Best, 

Manal

How You Show Up Matters

 Some people are of the opinion and adage that how you show up matters. I am one of those people. 

If you want to be taken seriously, I believe you should dress the part. 

In a world where working at home is the new thing, it can also be easy to dress more casually. Though many people are still meeting in person, there is something to be said for looking great and feeling great in your clothes. It gives the wearer confidence and others believe that you care about your appearance. 

What I have found in talking to many professionals is that when you dress with confidence,  you also do a few other things. You keep your weight in balance. You will know if your best clothes are getting tight sooner than if you wear your more comfortable clothes. 

You walk and speak with confidence. There is nothing like a well groomed, well dressed professional who makes their presence known just by being who they are. 

You have that power too. So put aside the flip flops, shorts, tshirts, stretchy yoga pants. I am not saying get rid of those as all of those have their time and place too but in the professional part of your life in 2021, get gussied up. 

Gals put on your dresses, blouses, dress pants, skirts, dress up shoes and jewelry. Gents, iron your trousers, shirts, pull on your socks and buff up your shoes. 

I always feel great about myself when I do my self-care routine, fix my hair, and then dress for the day. 

You never know who you’ll run into and you always want to make a great first impression. Other people aside, you want to feel amazing every single day. 

You are worth the energy of showing up as your most powerful self.

Best,

Manal

Culturally Responsive Teaching

When I think about education today and the role the teacher or mentor plays, they have a lot to deal with to ensure everyone feels safe, heard, understood and respected.

In the classroom today, there are varying norms, beliefs and behaviors passed down from generations of family members and societies. 

For example, a student may answer in a certain way, not give eye contact or behave a certain way that may seem disrespectful but in their culture may be a way of showing respect and honor. 

What we want is for all our students to succeed. 

In the book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond writes that “by third grade, many culturally and linguistically diverse students are one or more years behind in reading.” 

Leaders and educators must be willing to take a look at what is and how that is impacting the education of our students. This could be done in a variety of ways, perhaps a brainstorming session to look at the experiences that have formed stereotypes which have overtime turned to implicit bias. These may be conscious or unconscious to us now. 

Perhaps the unintentional, unconscious attitudes might be impacting how students are related to. In turn this affects everything else about the educational system we have now to include students, parents, educators, curriculum, parents, and how learning is planned and assessed. 

Here is a test online that can be taken to find out your implicit bias: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Are you operating from a place of critical care? Is your learning environment a place that marries high expectations with empathy and compassion?  Are your students, regardless of socioeconomic status or background, being held to high standards? Has your past interaction with a particular race of people impacted your ability to communicate with parents? Identify those places in your instructional planning where you might have allowed your implicit biases to prevent you from pushing your students to achieve at optimal levels. 

I believe as we look at our bias and answer hard questions, we can find the answers together that result in an educational system that works for all. 

Best, 

Manal