Recently I was working with a supervisor who just wasn’t getting it. His people hated working for him, his boss was thinking of firing him or demoting him. He was in our leadership training program and yet he thought the course was stupid and refused to apply the course on the shop floor. He had been made a supervisor because of his technical skills.

Quite frankly after 10 months of trying to teach him I was almost ready to give up on him. And then a miracle happened.

What made him such a bad supervisor?

It was really a combination of some very basic things:
- He believed his employees was dumb and lazy and treated them that way – his people responded by doing as little as possible and constantly bringing him problems and challenges to solve – which stressed him out.
- He only pointed out mistakes – never anything good and as a result people made more mistakes just to get his attention – so he was working against himself
- He never asked anything personal – non work related and so the employees felt he didn’t care
- A lot of those beliefs were based on his own defensiveness – he had trouble with basic reading and writing – and basically treated people like crap so they wouldn’t discover his secret fear.

So what miracle happened to turn him around?

Two main things – one is that I told him he was not meeting expectations and then his manager had a similar discussion and told him that he needed to change in order to keep his job as a supervisor. He faced a consequence and finally decided to change.

- He began spending time talking to each person in his workgroup each day which made the morale and attitude go up.

- He began catching people doing things right – and told them – which made them more open to approaching him with problems because they knew he was less likely to lose his cool.

- He began coaching people – giving them helpful tips to do the job better and gave them positive feedback when they did.

He noticed that his departmental performance went up, the employees were happier and he was less stressed. He even noticed an improvement in his personal life because he was less defensive and more constructive.

What’s important is that it was his behaviour that changed first – then his employees improved – it turned out that he was causing the things that drove him crazy.

How can you become a better leader based on this experience?

Look at your own behaviours – how you treat people, how you talk to them – and looks for ways to become more positive and constructive. Then pay attention to how people treat you. You’ll discover that how to treat people affect how they treat you.

Visit www.LeadershipWizard.com to read more about available resources and to get on the guest list for the Personal, Career and Leadership Success February 20th, 2008.

We spend so much of our time at work that the people we work with are important people in our lives. And just like family they can be annoying sometimes or they can be a pleasure to work with.

From interacting with thousands of people from hundreds of different workplaces, here are some of the characteristics of an effective co-worker:

- A person who is friendly, but not too friendly. It’s great to have someone to talk to, who will listen and show an interest on what’s going on in our life – but not share so much that their excess socializing keeps us from getting our work done.

- We want a co-worker who is positive and upbeat – as opposed to someone who constantly complains – or is the Black Cloud of the workplace. Negative co-workers can be Kryptonite and suck all the energy out of us – so make sure that you smile and focus on positives more than negatives.

- Be perky but not too perky – we like positive people but some co-workers overdo it – they brag about how their life is perfect but it’s quite obvious that it isn’t – often these people are too loud and become annoying.

- We want co-workers who will watch our back – people who will chip in and help out, make sure we know what’s going on – people who won’t gossip about us behind our backs and won’t stab us in the back to the boss in order to make themselves look good.

- We want co-workers who do their share – especially if we are paid the same – we want them to
do their fair share of the work – so don’t waste lots of time on personal stuff and then complain about not having enough time to get your work done.

And now a pre-announcement – A number of listeners have asked if I am going to do a public event in the evening – for those people who can’t come to a seminar during the day. Good news, I am going to be offering a Personal, Career and Leadership Success seminar with AM800 on February 20th in the evening at the Caboto Club in Windsor, Ontario. We are not selling tickets yet but if you are interested in this seminar I want you to visit www.LeadershipWizard.com and register your name and email so you will get priority when tickets do go on sale. I will get more information together in the weeks ahead.

I’m hoping that many listeners have had the pleasure of working for a really great manager or supervisor sometime in their career. We can learn alot from the good manager’s we have worked for.

As you are reading this segment I want you to think back to the best boss you ever had and why they are the best in your mind.

Here are some characteristics that we typically hear from people:

- Proactive and positive – make things happen, are positive and cheerful

- Communicate well – kept people informed, gave clear instructions

- Good listeners – believe there is much to be learned from employees, always open to good ideas and feedback

- Are approachable which we talked about last week

- Delegate effectively

- Lead by example – walks the talk

- Reads situations and people well

- Are good trainers

- Care about people and show it

- Fair honest and consistent

- Know how to correct

- Know how to accept correction

How can a leader develop themselves in these areas?
- take courses, read books
- practice
- find a mentor and ask for help

For information about my services, please visit www.LeadershipWizard.com – If you have a question you would like to see addressed on this segment, send me an email through the website.

An effective leader is a person who is approachable. You want to be the kind of manager and supervisor that employees feel comfortable coming and talking to.

A lot of people have the image of a strong leader being an island unto themselves, tough as nails and someone to be feared. That is an old and redundant image of leadership.

In the short term, or in a crisis you want to have a decisive leader -this is why these types of leaders will sometimes create a crisis so that they can take charge.

The new type of leader is a person who builds strong relationships so that when they need people to give 100%, the people want to follow this leader.

When I say approachable, I do not mean the need to be liked and accepted by people. Having too strong a desire to be everyone’s buddy creates weak leadership – approachability is the fact that a person can feel comfortable bringing either good news or bad news to their boss and the manager will listen to them.

One manager I met recently has a very ominous and stern expression on his face most of the time – his expression is not warm and inviting even though he is a good person, can be kind and funny. I suggested that he smile more often which would make people more comfortable bringing him information.

Being unapproachable is a defense mechanism – it keeps people at a distance.

To become a more approachable leader:

- Show warmth more often – smile and be easy to talk to
- avoid overreacting to bad news
- thank people for bringing information to your attention
- cut down on the sarcasm – be more straightforward
- be consistent in your actions to avoid being seen as moody

Coming up on November 21st, we are holding our Advanced Communication and Persuasion Skills full day workshop in Windsor – for all the info and to register, please visit www.LeadershipWizard.com. And my latest newsletter talks about the High Canadian Dollar and How to Deal with it.