The Conscience of a Leader: How to Stay True to Yourself and STILL Achieve Exceptional Results
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Hi!
Here's the August 2011
issue of Psyche-Selling TM eNewsletter, and
leadership is getting increasingly a much more important issue
at all levels, and in all walks of life.
While some may
claim that the world needs a better leader who will help us
navigate through another possible global recession in 2012, it
is just as important and perhaps more urgent to develop leaders
at each level who are able to engage their respective teams and
deliver exceptional results.
Through the
inspiration I get from recent global and local events, it daunt
on me that "conscience" is perhaps the most important attribute
if the leader would like to have sustainable success, AND leave
a legacy for future generations.
Hence, this month's topics:
-
The Conscience of a
Leader: How to Stay True to Yourself and STILL Achieve Exceptional Results; and
-
Remote Employees Want Your Attention, Too
This issue's main article is on "The Conscience of
a Leader: How to Stay True to Yourself and STILL Achieve Exceptional Results", and we look into how a leader who acts according
to her conscience can bring sustainable results for her team,
her boss and of course, herself.
In brief:
-
To lead effectively, leaders will
have to win the commitment, trust and respect of their
followers to achieve exceptional results;
-
At the same time, leaders will also have to address the
needs and meet the demands of their senior management and
bosses;
-
Rather than choosing one over the
other, conscientious leaders are able to find the balance
where the (some time conflicting) needs of the team, the
management and the leader herself are met,
and then achieve results that are exceptional AND
sustainable. Read on... ...
To read the rest of this newsletter, pls.
click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html.
In the meantime, Asia's final session of
Thinking with de Bono
will be held in Beijing and Shanghai in October 2011. Join
us before Dr. Edward de Bono retires from travelling to this
part of the world forever.
Also be sure to catch our complimentary webinar on "Why Should
Anyone be Led by You" on 21 September 2011, where you can learn more about being an
Authentic Leader. e-mail
cjn@blessingwhiteap.com to get your limited seats
now!
The Conscience of a Leader: How to Stay
True to Yourself and STILL Achieve Exceptional Results
by c.j. Ng
Nuraini
has been appointed as the Manager of a Customer Care Centre of a
large multi-national company for the past 3 months. One of
Nuraini's first tasks is to improve the efficiency of the
Customer Care Centre.
The main reason that the company is now focusing on improving
efficiency is that many customers are making requests and
demands that are in direct violation of the company's policies
and procedures. There is also requirement from the
company's management for the Customer Care Centre to share part
of the sales team's workload in servicing existing customers, so
that the sales team can spend more time selling.
Hence,
Nuraini's
key performance objectives will be to ensure that her team
handle requests wiyhin the first phone calls as much as possible.
Even when customers are upset during the call, her team will
have to "educate" customers about the company's policies, and
make customers be compliant. As the same time, the
Customer Care Centre will have to be self-reliant when giving
answers and advice to customers, as any calls to reach out to
other departments (such as Sales) will be deem as inefficient
handling of customers' issues.
After some
weeks of following the company's directives, Nuraini started to
realise that her initial gut feel, while contradicting with what
the company wants, might be right after all.
In her years of experience working as a customer service
professional, Nuraini instinctively knows that no one can reason with upset
customers. When her team tried to "educate" upset
customers on the company's policies and procedures, the
customers got even more upset and sometimes went off to escalate
their complains with senior managers in Nuraini's company.
As her team has been told not to "bother" sales people when
handling customers' requests, a lot of such requests were
actually rejected downright, causing even more customers to
complain to the sales people who serviced them.
Ironically, instead of relieving the sales team off their
workload, sales people will now have to handle their customers'
complains with Customer Care Centre.
Not surprisingly, Nuraini is facing serious stress and pressures
from all corners. Being the leader of her team, Nuraini
gets complaints from the sales
team that her Customer Care Centre is creating more customer
complains than actually being trying to help. Her Customer Care
team members are also now demoralised with the increasingly
number of upset customers they face, and are frustrated by the
inability of their leader to help them deal with such issues. Most importantly, Nuraini's senior management is not happy with the Customer Care
Centre at all, since the efficiency of her department has not
improved at all.
At this moment, Nuraini is faced with a few choices. She
could quit her job, and then bring some of her best people over
to the competition. She could also force her management's
decisions down to her team, and fire anyone who does not comply.
She could request for a transfer. Or she can act on her
conscience and
seek ways to achieve better results and
satisfaction for all.
The Different
Leaders We See
When it
comes to leadership development, many people view it as
developing senior leaders at the top levels.
However, as shown in the above story, leadership development
is needed at all levels to really boost performance and
achieve better results at all levels in an organisation.
Based on some observations of how leaders behave, here are some
ways that we can categorise leaders by their personal values:
- The
top-down Elitist Leader: the one who
drive down instructions from the top, and makes sure his
team executes those orders quickly and perfectly.;
- The
power-grabbing Opportunistic Leader: the one who looks
into how they can optimise their personal gains, be that
better career prospects, greater power or other personal
gains;
- The
populist Antagonistic Leader: the one who is almost
always at loggerheads with senior management, choosing
to affiliate with team members regardless at all times;
- The
authentic Conscientious Leader: the one who is able to
unify common goals of different groups of people by
balancing the diverse needs of different groups, while
staying true to her principles and values.
In most cases, most companies tend to
make top-down decisions, and hence prefer to hire
top-down Elitist Leaders so that such decisions,
instructions and orders are being implemented
effectively.
The teams under these Elitist Leaders usually receive a
lot of support from top management, often getting a lot
of resources and having their status in the organisation
raised. However, Elitist Leaders usually don't
listen to the ground, and when things don't go as
planned, Elitist Leaders tend to blame their team
members for "incompetent execution of instructions" more
so than reviewing if there are flaws in the planning.
After some time, Elitist Leaders will find their staff
disengaged and getting poorer results in spite of their
best efforts in getting things done. In a
fast-changing and highly-demanding world, Elitist
Leaders are finding their teams a lot more difficult to
manage.
The
power-grabbing Opportunistic Leader is sometimes
mistaken as the Elitist Leader as the former usually
would want to impress top management so that he could
gain better career advancement in the organisation.
However, the Opportunistic Leader has other traits that
Elitist Leaders don't. The Opportunistic Leader
can sometimes seek eliminate threats to his position,
whether by stifling promising high-potential team
members or by making decisions that favour the
organisation retaining his employment. The
Opportunistic Leader likes to play politics to maximise
his power and influence in the organisation, and upon
leaving the organisation, likes to take along his team
to his new employer.
The populist Antagonistic Leader is one who is very much
into building morale of the team, so much so that he
neglects the needs of top management, as well as
business realities. Decisions are usually made
based on whether team members will like them, and
management initiatives that are not popular with team
members are either blocked or put on hold.
Although being able to
engage his team to exceptional performances, the
Antagonistic Leader is sometimes being fired for not
complying to company's policies or cultures, despite
delivering great results.
The authentic Conscientious Leader seeks
to identify common goals of different groups and balance the diverse needs of
those groups as well. She works on the basis that
exceptional performances
can only be sustained if everyone in the organisation buys-in and supports her
plans. She seeks not just to lead her team, but also influence others to
her cause. Unlike the Opportunistic Leader, the Conscientious Leader's
purpose is to achieve better results for the greater good. The
Conscientious Leader has her principles, and if the organisation's goals are
irreconcilably contradicting to her principles, she will choose to leave
quietly. After all, there will be other organisations who will appreciate
the Conscientious Leader's personal values, and even if it's not intentional,
the Conscientious Leader leaves a lasting legacy.
The Way of
the Conscientious Leader
In the
earlier story, Nuraini is stuck in a position where she faces
pressure from her management, her colleagues from other departments
and her team.
In most cases, other leaders in her position would have chosen to
leave, or simply implement management's decisions with greater
rigour.
Nuraini decides to do things a little differently. She
has a deep conviction that her role is to make her Customer Care
Centre the bridge between the customer with the other departments of
her company. She would like her team members to be actively
listen to customers' needs and provide alternative solutions to
their problems. In return, her team members will be much
appreciated by customers for being willing to help, and her company
will be able to use less time and resources to improve customer
satisfaction. In addition, she intends to share her team's
customers' insights with her sales colleagues, so that they could
better suggest new products and services to get their customers buy
more from them.
Rather
than blindly obeying orders and following her performance
measurement guidelines, Nuraini asks her team to:
-
Make the soothing the frustrations and anxieties of customers as
the top priority, even when that will mean making follow-up
calls that will reduce efficiency;
-
Provide alternatives and options to customers, rather than to
give a down-right rejection, when customers make requests that
are contradictory to the company's policies and procedures;
and
-
Engage the sales team to
make important decisions about
customers, since upset customers may channel their frustrations
on sales people, while satisfied ones may want to increase their
purchases
Nuraini fully understands that her management will frown at her
new ways of doing things. However, she has the
courage to
implement those changes, because based on her experience, she knows
that in a matter of weeks, her team will help her company achieve:
Nuraini
knows that there is a possible risk that her management may not give
her the chance to prove her ideas are right. However, she has
faith that her management, just like the customers she handles, can
be pacified and be influenced to seek alternatives that will help
them achieve their goals in more effective ways.
How You
Too can be True to Yourself, and Still Deliver Results
A friend used to tell me
that while she definitely does not agree with some of her company
policies, she has chosen to remain silent, rather than to raise
issues to her management. Even when she had found a new job
elsewhere, she feared repercussions even when her views might indeed
help her company achieve better performances.
If you work for a management with a history of psychotic behaviour
(that fired anyone with any hint of differing opinions), then it's
best to keep your job for the time being.
However, while senior management may not take direct criticisms
positively, they usually will appreciate if you can take gentle
steps to make things better.
Unfortunately, since most people are too afraid to
act for all the wrong reasons, they don't become leaders. They
are mere order takers.
To rise to increasingly tough challenges, organisations
(be they companies, government bodies or even entire nations) need
leaders who are willing to take actions. To
create long term exceptional results, we need leaders who act with
conscience.
Need help in developing the
next generation of authentic Conscientious Leaders? Simply e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com or
call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype:
cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All information
shall be kept in confidence.
(The character
Nuraini is dedicated in living memory of Aini,
JJC Class of 91)
Power Breakfast Hour: 29 Sep 2011
The Conscience of a Leader: How to Stay True to Yourself and STILL Achieve Exceptional Results
Join International
sales, leadership and strategic thinking consultant c.j. Ng in this Power
Breakfast Hour in Shanghai where you will find out:
VENUE: Crowne Plaza Shanghai • 400 Panyu Road (near Fahuazhen
Road) • 上海银星皇冠酒店 • 番禺路 400 号 （靠法华镇路）
DATE: Thursday, 29 Sep 2011
TIME: 08:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
PRICE: RMB 300 ONLY!
To make this a more conducive discussion, we are expecting a small
group of about 15 people only. The room can only take in 18, so
please register early to avoid disappointments. Please e-mail your
registrations to sales@directions-consulting.com
You can also download our Power Breakfast Hour video on
Selling to Muggles: How to Make the Sale when
Buyers Have No Idea What You're Talkin' About.
Pls. check out our web sites
www.directions-consulting.com and
www.psycheselling.com/page4.html for more inspiration.
Need a Keynote Speaker for your Annual Conference?
Whether you are holding a conference for your regional staff,
resellers or even customers, we have the right speaker who can help
you deliver the spirit of your conference, and effect positive
changes to meet your goals.
The topics our speakers can
speak on include:
-
Price is NOT the Reason Why You Lost the Deal
-
Achieving Exceptional Customer Satisfaction,
Productivity and Talent Retention by Boosting Your Employee
Engagement
-
Using the Six Thinking Hats® to
Win More Sales and Get More Customers
-
Why Some Sales People Succeed While Others Fail?;
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How to Lure Away Your Competitors' Key Accounts, and Make
Them Buy from You Instead?;
-
Improving Sales Productivity by Motivating the Sales Force;
Simply e-mail your requests
to
info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-21-6219 0021
for enquiries. Sample video and audio recordings available
upon requests.
Practical Tips for Managers:
Remote Employees Want Your Attention, Too
By By Mark Murphy,
CEO of
Leadership IQ
Note to managers: Employees – especially those who work remotely – want a lot more attention and feedback from you, even if it’s sometimes negative.
According to our research, 66% of employees – both in-house and
remote – say that they have too little interaction with their
bosses. But employees don’t just want warm-and-fuzzy interactions.
While 67% of employees say they get too little positive feedback,
51% also say they get too little constructive criticism from their
bosses. Perhaps most troubling is that employees who said they
didn’t get enough feedback were 43% less likely to recommend their
company to others as a great organization to work for.
As bad as that is, in most cases when we study communication
problems in the workplace, we find that issues are magnified between
leaders and employees who work in different locations. And here’s
why…
One of the biggest concerns shared by remote employees is being “out
of sight, out of mind.” Remote employees simply don’t feel that they
have the same exposure to their bosses as do face-to-face employees
(the technical term for those folks is “co-located”). Exposure or
visibility is still seen in many organizations as a critical
component of career success. After all, they think, who’s more
likely to get that next promotion; the employee with lots of
exposure to the boss (like perhaps the day before they choose who
gets the big promotion), or the employee who only sees the boss
every six months?
Now, this may or may not be true in your organization, but it’s a
major concern of remote employees nevertheless. Yes, there are some
employees (like Dilbert) who feel like they’re better off without
seeing the boss. But still, the numbers don’t lie, and the majority
want more exposure and contact.
Many of the leadership techniques you use in the office simply don’t work in remote settings. In our new live webinar, “The Science of Managing Remote Employees,” you'll learn the latest research and best practices about how to be an effective leader in the virtual workplace. If you manage remote employees, you need to attend this webinar, so hurry to reserve your seat now.
Parenthetically, in an ironic twist, while remote employees tend to
be jealous of their co-located colleagues’ visibility and exposure
to the boss, the co-located employees are often jealous of their
remote counterparts’ autonomy. Yes, it’s a catch-22, and it has
frustrated more than a few managers over the years.
Now, it’s not just climbing the career ladder that drives remote
employees’ desire for more contact; it’s also their desire to do the
best possible work. If you’re trying to meet your boss’ expectations
on a particular project, it’s a pretty common assumption that the
person who gets the most exposure to that boss is going to get the
most feedback. And whoever gets the most feedback is most likely to
stay on track and most likely to meet the boss’ exact needs.
All employees are desperate for your feedback. But your remote
employees feel this need even more intensely. And they feel
vulnerable in their careers and on-the-job performance by not
feeling like they’re getting the same feedback as their colleagues
in the face-to-face world.
I need to share one more important point: Don’t try to get more
communication time with your remote employees by making your group
meetings filled with chit-chat. You still need to make your
communications purposeful and meaningful, and that’s especially true
of remote meetings. After all, as short as attention spans are in
face-to-face meetings, they’re about half that in a remote meeting.
And in virtual meetings, when employees’ attention does fade, you
usually don’t have the visual signals that they’re spacing out and
thus you don’t know when you need to bring things back on track.
So what can you do? Simple; schedule some purposeful and meaningful
time to connect individually with your remote employees. You can
catch up with them, find out what’s hampering them, what’s
motivating them, where they’re growing and developing, where they
need some course correction, and more. Trust me, in remote
situations, there’s a ton for managers and employees to talk about.
Ultimately, your goal is to make sure your remote employees succeed.
And to do that, they need lots of feedback from – and connection
with – you, their boss.
Many of the leadership techniques you use in the office simply don’t work in remote settings. In our new live webinar, “The Science of Managing Remote Employees,” you'll learn the latest research and best practices about how to be an effective leader in the virtual workplace. If you manage remote employees, you need to attend this webinar, so hurry to reserve your seat now.
If you would like to get more and better ideas how to manage remote
employees, you can e-mail
info@directions-consulting.com or
call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype:
cydj001 and arrange to buy me a mocha. All information
shall be kept in confidence.
About PsycheSelling.com
Sales... ....the lifeblood of a company, a matter of "life
and death", survival or extinction. Indeed, something that
needs to be studied, applied and re-modified consistently.
Yet today,
-
many companies
still don't have a coherent approach as to how they can generate
more sales and achieve better margins;
-
many sales
people are still lying to their customers so that they can meet
their targets at the end of the month;
-
many customers
are still waiting ethical and professional sales people to help
them find out their real needs, and provide solutions that work
Psyche-Selling TM is set up so that companies and
sales people can make healthy profits and STILL provide genuine
solutions to customers.
Psyche-Selling TM would like to create an
environment where customers can trust sales people to give them what
they want, and NOT be pushed with all kinds of products and
services. In return, customers will become loyal fans of these
ethical and professional sales people, and repay them many fold for
the long-term.
Psyche-Selling TM will not rest, until the above
is achieved. Not just in China. Not just in Asia. But
everywhere where buying and selling takes place.
Psyche-Selling TM is a wholly-owned brand of
Directions Management Consulting Pte
Ltd that specialises in the field of improving
sales performance by enhancing the performance of the entire sales
team. Apart from the regular "selling skills training",
Psyche-Selling ng TM
conducts pre- and post-training analysis, interviews, monitoring and
reviews, working closely with managers and even senior management,
to deliver real improvements in sales leadership and performance.
Hence, Psyche-Selling
TM would like to be known as the preferred choice
of outstanding and remarkable clients, and pride ourselves as such.
We will also be continuing to assist our clients achieve greater
heights in 2009 and beyond.
Enquiries and suggestions, pls. e-mail
info@psycheselling.com or visit
www.psycheselling.com
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