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Be Genuine and Vulnerable – – You aren’t a perfect leader!!
If you have ever been in a leadership position, you may have already realized that you are held to a higher standard...
You are expected to be more.
- More authentic, real.
- More compassionate, empathetic.
- More ethical, morally inclined etc.
There is no such thing as a perfect leader…
Taking on a leadership role is a huge responsibility and the scrutiny of your daily actions is intense. Is it fair? May be NO. But it’s the price of leadership, responsibility of leadership. However, if you want to lead well, set a thriving, healthy culture for your business unit, learning to be a positive role model is essential.
Inspiration…
At the core of every successful team is a leader who knows how to best communicate with their team. Effective leaders will hold open talk with their team, listen, and continue to guide in a clear and effective way.
Follow your footsteps…
You are being watched; your team is watching you act with your peers; handle stress; tackle difficult situations. In short, they see you at your best as well as worst in the office. How you conduct yourself is just as important as what you communicate. Team involvement, constant advise and solution are the ways an inspiring leader performs.
Ways to navigate leadership screw-ups…
Leaders or no leaders, we are all humans, and human sometimes can make mistakes. Here’s few tips for successful navigation out of your leadership mishaps as it relates to the people equation – interpersonal relationships.
- Accept mistake and apologies
You are not perfect and you should celebrate that. As you have made mistakes and you did learn from them. Sharing these stories with your team makes you vulnerable but also relatable.
- Ensure proportionate goof-ups
You cannot screw-up all the time, every time. If you do, you may lose your credibility as a leader. People will doubt your sincerity and find it hard to believe your words.
There are no specific metrics, no magic formula to ensure effectiveness with your team. However, there are definitely correct ways to build a positive, healthy culture with your team…
Making mistakes is not the problem but glossing over them is. The best way to go about achieving the ideal state is to own up to your mistakes and live, follow, and demonstrate your unique values. So, believe that you can do this and successfully lead your team.
You won’t be perfect as nobody is, but with attention and inclination to understanding you can reform your alignment and effectively set a positive example for your team. Inspiration doesn’t have to be a big, grand gesture but focus on small, meaningful things will do the work.
So, what kind of leader are you?
Woman-power…. a continuous struggle!!
Empowering women is not only essential but much needed for the overall health and societal development of the families, communities, and countries.
Safe, nurtured, fulfilled, and productive life makes them realise their full potential, raise healthier and happier children and also contribute their skills to the workforce. All these helps create a sustainable economy and benefits societies and humanity at large.
However, girls and women continue to face significant challenges all around the world. Gender equality is a basic human right, yet they are treated as less valuable than boys, made to do domestic work instead of attending schools, married off early on for a dowry, kept away from power and decision-making roles, paid unequal pay for the same work, forced to face social, legal and many other barriers causing hindrance to their work opportunities.
While some progress is being made in various parts of the world, there is still a great deal left to be done.
How to empower women/girls?
Believe that healthy, educated, and empowered women and girls can contribute to a stronger world.
Workplace, schools, homes, communities, standing with them and investing in women is the most important and crucial to start.
Fertility rates, Literacy rates, participation in the Labour force, and involvement in Political affairs are some of the macro level indicators used to measure women’s empowerment.
Education, is the starting and key point of this journey. An educated girl can take over a meaningful job and most certainly won’t suffer an early marriage/ child marriage fate.
It’s high time, we need to address gender inequality in education so that girls can also fulfill their goal of completing education. All this can only be possible through continuous community awareness with the elders, parents, and community leaders.
Persistence, and Determination are must to lead us though this changes in generations old customs, and behaviour.
Support to such ideas and women at the heart help them with opportunities to seek their right, rise in social standing, advocate for their communities, and eventually pass this to the future generations.
A girl should be two things: Who and what she wants! – COCO channel, Fashion Designer
image credit: lillianna
Every business wants to grow!!
What happens when the same is challenged with low-stagnated sales performance overall?
A number of factors can be responsible for it:
• Company culture
• Sales training
• Cross-functional alignment
• Customer experience management, etc.
To drive revenue, it is important to know how your business operates and ways to improve it.
Must-haves for a Successful Sales team:
• Commitment-company-wide
• Empowerment to sales representatives : Training-content-guidance
• Robust Customer feedback management
• Collaboration with other functions
Now, let’s look at the new normal scenario into the retail segment:
We all know and acknowledge how important sales are to each retailer, however, COVID-19 has dramatically changed the retail business landscape.
So here are a few tested-tried tips-tricks:
1. Ensure customer safety in your store
o Many customers are worried about their health and safety due to the ongoing pandemics. Therefore, one of the best things to do to drive traffic and sales is to instill confidence in your customers.
o To win their confidence, clearly communicate your health and safety measures.
o Inform through various mediums other initiatives if taken by you to maintain safety in your location.
2. Website—email marketing—social media—mobile app • Show-up in online search results
o Now, more than ever, consumers are turning to Google to find stores and products. Therefore, you must ensure that you’re showing up whenever there is a search relevant to your business.
o You can do this by setting up business listings on Google, Facebook, and other platforms.
– Business Name, add, and contact no.
– Business hours
– Reviews, more the merrier
3. Mobile Ordering
o Inventory-based retailers can easily offer this service and grow on.
4. Right Sales target
o i.e., the ones that are challenging yet achievable.
o Set your goals—communicate to then team—keep monitoring
5. Communicate, communicate, communicate
o There is an abundance of platforms to communicate with customers.
o Figure out the channel to connect with the customers (text, email, social, or all) then use them at best to create top-of-the-mind recall.
Pick up the one that suits your business and make it work!
Need more ideas? Connect with Auxano consulting!!
image credit: supermarketnews