Curiosity & Experimentation Mindset
How can you, as a front line leader, develop a mindset of curiosity and experimentation? Do you think in terms of curiousness and experimentation, or do you tend to be rigid and narrow in your thinking? One of the expressions I like is, “be curious, not furious” because being curious opens one up to possibilities […]
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Cooling Off Heated Conflicts
How do you as a front line leader, cool people down when they’re having an emotional or heated argument? Sometimes front line leaders struggle with knowing how to deal with two employees or team members who are having a heated argument. Being in a hot work environment, where people are working long hours and doing […]
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Own Management’s Messages
As a front line leader, do you blame senior management or HR when you make an announcement to your team? It’s so important that you own the message you deliver to your team. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be liked by your team by just saying, “You know what, […]
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Use Projects To Make Improvements
Do you think in terms of projects when making improvements in your department? You, as a leader, can embrace the concept of projects to move your department closer and closer to your vision of excellence. But before creating a project, leaders should have a vision first. Most, if not all, leaders can list all the […]
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Avoid Standard Work Stagnation
Is your organization suffering from standard work stagnation? Standard work and operating procedures can sometimes get out of hand. As a leader, you can put so much emphasis on them that it takes away some of the innovation and flexibility in your work group. Standardizing work is important in an operational environment. Organizations put a […]
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Triage Employee Behaviour Problems
How should you as a front line leader triage employee behaviour problems? As a leader, when determining the consequences to apply to a behavior or performance issue, you’re going to do the same thing that a nurse does in the emergency department – triage. Triage in a hospital means the nurse assesses the severity of […]
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Serve Colleagues Like Your Boss
Most of us know you should work hard to keep your boss happy. Happy boss, happy career. But have you considered putting the same level of attention into keeping your colleagues happy? Some leaders avoid being helpful to their colleagues, thinking that their only job is to keep their boss happy. Some might even think, […]
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Supporting Behavior Change
When you give an employee feedback you have to always follow up. As a leader, how do you follow up on a corrective conversation to sustain the positive changes that you’ve asked an employee or team member to make? If they make the change, but you don’t recognize it, there is a chance they might […]
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Doing Nothing Is An Option
Not everything needs your immediate reaction. When do you know it’s the right time to do nothing? Most front line leaders are action oriented. They want to jump in, they want to fix things, they want to make a decision or solve a problem. However, sometimes being action oriented can cause unintended consequences. Remember, doing […]
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Are You A Creator Or A Victim?
How you react to the challenges you face says a lot about you as a leader. I’ve noticed over the years that some leaders play the victim card while other leaders create a future that is very magnetic and causes people to want to follow them. You can either be that creator, that entrepreneurial leader […]
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