Management Consulting Archives - Leadership Development Institute

How to Help Your Employees Stay Positive Through Layoffs and Downsizing

You never want to see someone lose their job, and as an executive, it is challenging to see beloved employees go through the process. However, layoffs and downsizing are often necessary in today's business climate, so it's best to prepare for this scenario. One issue you'll encounter during a period of layoffs is declining employee morale. After all, your workers are friends with the people being laid off and don't want to see them go. They might also believe they could be next, making it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand. Providing executive coaching for your managerial staff to develop the necessary skills to deal with employee layoffs and their aftermath is vital if you want your company to survive. Here are some tips for motivating employees and improving morale as your company downsizes. 1) Interact With Everyone Your employees are looking for a bit of security during a period of layoffs, so interacting and speaking with them as much as possible is vital. If you aren't around to interact with them, they may feel like they're the next to go and could struggle to stay motivated. Executives and managers must be visible during this period to put employee concerns to rest and get everyone back on the same page. You'll also want to ensure you treat everyone equally because employees worried about job security could be extra sensitive and quick to pick up on any signs of favoritism. 2) Listen to Employee Concerns As you interact with…

September 28, 2023

Jeff Lugerner Management Consulting, Team Building

The Business Benefits Of Leadership Development

In today’s business world of ever increasing change, it is always easier to justify focusing on the immediate needs of the bottom line or latest crisis; and pay less attention to the underlying issues that ultimately drive long-term success. One of top underlying issues for most organizations is leadership development. Companies that develop effective and adaptable leaders are those that stay ahead of the change curve, learn to adapt and consequently grow and prosper. Are today’s employers confident that they are producing managers and leaders they need for the future? According to a Harvard Business Publishing Survey of Global Executives in September, 2013: “leaders lack the skills to achieve strategic goals, and the need to develop stronger leadership capability extends to middle managers, who are being asked to do more than ever before.” Only 32% of the 800+ respondents believe that their organizations have the right leadership talent and skills to achieve their organizations’ strategic goals, according to the survey results There is little doubt that today’s management believe in principal that there is a clear connection between the quality of an organization’s leadership practices, and subsequent intentions by employees to stay with an organization, perform at a high level, and apply discretionary effort. Let’s take a look at what Leadership Skills and Development Practices are needed in today’s business environment. Leadership Skills to Have and to Develop: Commitment, Resolve and Perseverance – driving every aspect of the organization towards a singular unified purpose. Risk Taking – breaking conventions and…

August 23, 2014

Jeff Lugerner Leadership Development, Management Consulting

Best Practices: Enhancing the Manager/Direct Report Relationship

We have noticed a trending in the last 5 years between managers and their direct reports that concerns us a great deal. Managers have become less accessible, conduct fewer staff meetings, schedule infrequent one-on-ones and communicate downward less and less. We believe this growing trend is being driven by three particular things: managers being asked to manage and be individual contributors, more matrixed organizations that require significant cross functional collaboration and thus a greater time allotment and managers not being acknowledged or rewarded enough for developing their people. This is not an attempt to bash managers but rather an explanation for what has distracted them away from best practices for the manager/direct report relationship. Managers are literally in the middle between the demands being placed on them by their leaders and the responsibility of managing a team. So what outcomes do we see due to this dilemma? In our executive coaching and team development work we see less “bench strength” being developed in organizations, fewer career path discussions taking place and diminishing morale as people begin to feel more like worker bees than employees who are making a contribution that has an impact on the organization. The only way managers can get back to enhancing their relationships with their team members is too make a greater commitment to making development a priority. Carve out the time on your calendar and don’t cancel time with your people/ team unless the building is burning down or you have a million dollar deal…

May 30, 2014

Jeff Lugerner Executive Coaching, Management Consulting

What Is Leadership Versatility?

In our earlier post we mentioned our work with Kaplan and Kaiser the authors of the book The Versatile Leader. Today we would like to open up for discussion the concept of leadership versatility. From our perspective leadership versatility is the capability to flex as needed on a pair of opposing leadership virtues. We work with leaders to aspire to versatility in a two-sided sense. For example being direct and respectful of people's feelings or if you are a team leader who doesn't hesitate to provide direction can you remember to perform the complementary function of asking for other's input? All of us over time develop a bias and hence a preferred behavior or mindset that would impact the examples above. We tend to then either over-use and/or under-utilize those leadership behaviors. This translates to leaders getting out of balance and in some cases "lopsided". "Lopsidedness" occurs when a leader combines extreme over-use of one strength in combination with the complete disregard for it's leadership opposite. The classic example is someone who is very strategic/visionary and on the flip side pays no attention to how their vision will get operationalized. In a very real sense the dominant preference crowds out the weaker side. So here is an exercise to try on right now. Think about your very preferred ways of leading...a list of one word adjectives. Follow that up with identifying the complementary opposite of each of those preferred behaviors. Take note of how long/hard it is for you to come up with the…

February 22, 2014