:: The 4th Era ::

As a leader, your energy has a profound impact on your team. The way you show up in meetings and 1:1s, and even the tone in your emails can influence psychological safety in your workplace--for better or for worse. That's why I often remind myself that words matter when it comes to building a high-performing, engaged, and inclusive team. 

In an effort to be more intentional about the tone I'm setting every day, I've discovered these seven phrases help convey gratitude, vulnerability, and trust. 

Forget slogans and posters. Forget mission statements. Forget culture decks. A survey of over 400,000 people across the U.S. found that when employees believe promotions are managed effectively, they are more than two times as likely to give extra effort at work -- and to plan for having a long-term future with their company.

But wait, there's more: When employees believe promotions are managed effectively, they are more than five times as likely to believe their leaders act with integrity.

The result? At those companies, employee turnover rates are half that of other companies in the same industry. Productivity, innovation, and growth metrics outperform the competition. For public companies, stock returns are almost three times the market average.

Leaders rise or fall at points of execution and completion. 7 levels of leadership: #1. Believe you can make a difference. Roots of belief: Someone saw something in you that inspired you to believe in yourself. Small successes helped you believe you could take on bigger challenges. Belief grows after taking action. Failure and falling…

Communication is an essential life skill for anyone and everyone. It's one of the earliest survival skills we learn as growing children. (How else would we have asked our parents for another cookie?) As we grow and become fully functioning human beings, communication only increases in complexity and importance--especially when you're leading a company.

No matter what industry you're in or what size company you're leading, you're working constantly with different kinds of people. You've got internal team members and employees, clients, prospective clients, recruits, and other industry professionals, each with their own personalities and communication styles.

You even communicate in a lot of different ways: during meetings; via email, phone calls, and group messaging; through thought leadership content published online and on social media; and at industry events.

Teddy Roosevelt did it. Harry Truman did it. Want to be an outstanding leader? Keep a leadership journal. As part of my executive coaching work, one of the most effective tools I recommend that powers up the coaching process is a leadership journal.  The exercise of leadership is not unlike a sport you play. When you review your actions in the field you learn what worked, what didn’t, and adjust along the way. Leadership guru Peter Drucker said: “ Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. ”

Don’t ad lib when emotion is high. Prepare yourself to respond to an angry employee. Develop a plan. How to respond to an angry employee: #1. Emotion comes first. Diffuse hot emotion before solving tough issues.  Hot emotion, like stress, makes people stupid. Show respect. Treat people with courtesy, even if they are discourteous. Listen quietly until…

We might spend days, months, or even years trying to figure someone out. Is he who he says he is? Should I trust her? The wheels in our head spin as we think of all the variables and how they'll play out.

And still, we keep hearing that we should just listen to our instincts. Complicated questions, simple answer. What should we do, and where did this whole idea of the gut instinct come from, anyway?

Intuition isn't some magical, mysterious quality that we carry with us. It actually comes from the knowledge and past experiences that we all carry. Even if we're unable to explain why we feel the way we do, there's a logical explanation behind our gut feelings.

Whenever you encounter anything new, the unconscious side of your brain is constantly making assessments. It takes in certain cues, such as a smile or parts of a story, and then matches it with something similar in our database of memories to come up with a conclusion. Meanwhile, our conscious side remains unaware of this rapid process taking place.

Improving your company culture requires regular work. Just like exercising and eating well leads to good health, constantly investing in your people has th

My work in corporate quality functions in the past involved influencing cross-functional teams (as an internal consultant) on processes and methods when I had no direct reporting relationships with them. I knew that only technical expertise was not enough and I wished I had some guidance on how to.

Learn more:

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=EQ

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=LeaderShip