When was the last time you read a book or attended a training session on Situation Awareness (SA)? Unless you work around the military, aviation, or in crisis management situations, chances are the answer is never. That's a mistake. Increasingly, I see what I interpret as the skills to assess, understand, project, and act based on that analysis as a critical set of behaviors for leaders at all levels.
How many conversations at work have you participated in or observed that went nowhere? Chances are, you can think of more than a few. The best workplace communicators understand these situations offer ripe opportunities to level-up discussion quality and improve outcomes. Here are ideas to help you do the same in your workplace:
Why is it some people fail to talk about anything but themselves? Resist the temptation to regale others with your "I" monolog, and instead, focus on creating healthy dialog. If it doesn't work, move on before your ears metaphorically melt.
There will be bad days, tough situations or pivotal debates on key issues with colleagues that will trip your trigger and stimulate your fight (as in argue) or flight reflex. For some of us who never met a good knock-down argument we didn’t love, the situation will tempt our fight or fight-harder reflexes. And for those who tend to operate on the quiet side of the equation, sometimes you just need to be heard. Learning to match just the right level of emotion or passion to each situation is important in gaining support for your initiatives and gaining much needed credibility with team members and your firm’s senior leaders. Here are 7 ideas to help your cause:
Most of us have very little real understanding of how our behaviors impact others. We cruise through our days secure in our view of our importance and convinced that our presence lights up every room, enlightens our colleagues and brings joy and prosperity to our teams and organization. Just in case you happen to be the Office Overbearing Smarty Pants, here are 5 tips to help you reform your ways:
Understanding how big your “perception gap” is and working to close this gap is an important part of your professional development program, regardless of your role. And like everything else in life worth pursuing, measuring and managing your “perception gap” takes time, effort and the willingness to do something about the problem-areas. Here are 11 Actions that will help you measure and manage your perception gap.
Intuitively, it makes sense that leaders that are more engaged and engaging tend to elicit better responses and better results from their teams. Perhaps nice people can finish first. Now, the father of the concept of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (What Makes A Leader), along with Richard Boyatiz are pushing the envelope by integrating new research in social neuroscience with their studies of effective leaders. Their recent Harvard Business Review article, Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership, is fascinating reading for anyone intrigued by the role that our biological makeup plays in our leadership abilities.
