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Tolerating Poor Management Practice: Mistakes Managers Make
By: Christina Lattimer
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Management, Management Development, Personal Development

Poor management practice has been around for years

For years there has been an outcry about poor management practice. Managers are often the most maligned people in an organisation. However, what I don’t understand is most leaders and managers have their own line managers. So those with poor management practice are led and managed by more senior leaders and managers. So, what is happening? Why aren’t they being called to account by those who are senior?

Amazingly enough, quite often those leaders and managers are good at managing the work and so get “good enough” results which frankly keeps the heat off them, The fact the team are unhappy, not enthusing or facilitating great results is not recognised.

Often, they are within budget or meeting targets and, therefore, there is no financial pressure to do something startlingly positive about their poor management practice.

There is no need for organisations to put up with poor management. It only takes an organisation to get clear and get tough and the problem could be gone forever. It is quite unforgivable to let this situation carry on for any length of time.

Effective leaders and managers

Effective leaders and managers, who manage other leaders and managers, simply do not tolerate poor leadership or management practices.

They understand leaders and managers are there to manage the work. Also, they know those leaders and managers have to facilitate results through their team. They know they must have great people skills and have the right amount of knowledge, skill, and expertise to be able to achieve great outcomes. Their people must have a positive experience as a result of their management.

They reward leaders and managers for what their team achieves. While they reward individuals, they realise the biggest impact is through teamwork.

They will call them to account on excessive absence, poor employment feedback surveys or high levels of complaints because they know that these are indicators that the team could be doing better, even if they are doing “just good enough”.

Not Listening to Good Ideas

Not Keeping Promises

Not Saying Thank You

Ignoring Inclusion

Being A People Pleaser

Have One Rule For Them

Not Supplying The Right Equipment

To find out all 50 Mistakes Click Here

Photo by Nicholas Bui on Unsplash

Originally published at https://peopledevelopmentmagazine.com.
Intentional Leadership
By: Xavier Bradley
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Team Collaboration, Leadership Skills, Organizational Leadership

As a leader in an organization many times we are overwhelmed by our laundry list of things todo. With sticky notes plastered all over your monitor and constant reminders of things we forgot it can feel like you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to get things done. You can be tempted to just jump into the flames and put out whatever fires are currently burning your organization down.

While putting out fires is part of your job description if you are constantly the one in the hot seat then it means you truly aren’t delegating enough and trusting your employees. While the job won’t be exactly what you may have done setting expectations and letting your employees/direct reports do their jobs is crucial if you want to advance as a leader. Nobody is ever going to do the job like you, but in setting expectations and then letting your team do their job you are no longer micro-managing and instead, you are now leading intentionally.

A hindrance to any leader’s growth is their lack of ability to delegate. Delegation takes trust and it allows your subordinates to grow in their roles and use their innate creative abilities to problem solve. Not delegating creates a team of robots that only execute the instructions you give them. This will at first ensure that you will achieve the desired results but stagnates your ability for your team to grow as your organization scales.

Your job as the manager is to set the expectations and the vision for the team and then setting reasonable goals to hold them and yourself accountable. You don’t need to know every detail of how it's going to get done just make a decision and trust that the employee will get it done.

Your organization has generals and it has footmen. When you are leading you are a general. Have you noticed that a general never is on the frontlines in a battle, it is always the footmen? The reason is the general was already there yesterday in planning and executing the plan for the battle that was to unfold. If you are constantly fighting on the front lines and not leading you will get lost in the throngs of the hord of to-do list items. So take a step back and allow your team to do their jobs, that why you hired them.

An intentional leader takes time to better himself and get better at his craft. Take time and develop yourself personally, the to-do list can wait but it’s in your quiet moments when the plan to accomplish your goals comes. By taking the time to personally develop you are essentially practicing the skills of being proactive in your leadership instead of being reactive. Learn how to become a better leader, learn how to make hard decisions, plan the coming week, and most of all get a vision for your life and your organizational unit. Set expectations and execute!
Mindful Leadership India
By: Potential Project India
Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development

Potential Project is a leading firm that helps you enhance your innovation, performance, and resilience through authentic leadership training, development programs, and other practices rooted in mindfulness, research, and neuroscience.

At Potential Project, we explicitly cater to the diverse needs of our clients that encompass a vast sphere of mindful leadership training, leadership development programs, etc. Our mavens possess keen expertise to suffice our customers with benefiting services within the committed time frame.
Talk with Geek: the first issue
By: Orekoya Rukhayat
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership Roles, Beginners Guide, Tech, Community

Leadership: The What, The When, The Pros and Cons.

On Monday the 22nd of July, I was able to have a brief, yet lengthy discussion with GeekTutor on the topic ‘Leadership’ .

Akinjobi Sodiq fondly known as the Geek tutor is the chairman of Engineering Career Expo which is the platform where I first met him. He is also the former lead for Developer Students Club UNILAG and is well known for his leadership skills and team building abilities as well as many other laudable achievements. He is also known to be a people person, generally for his tacky yet intelligent humor and his ability to bring people together.

Being put in a leadership position has always been a weighty decision to make as well as manage. In this question and answer session, Geek takes us through how to make this decision and effectively work through it.

Q1: Can you give a brief Narration of your first Leadership role.

Geek : Well my first leadership role would be being the head perfect in my primary school. However if we’re talking about my tech career, I got my first leadership role mid 2018, around September. I was offered the post of IT lead by Mayowa who was then the current Chairman. I was tasked with setting up websites and curriculum building, after which I was also given the post of admin coordinator. Then around 2019, I became a lead organiser for Word press Lagos, at the same time I was offered the position of DSC lead and chairman for Engineering Career Expo(ECX).

(Wow, that must have been overwhelming )

Q2: How do you manage these multiple leadership roles?

Geek : I would start by saying 'my team is the best’. I am opportuned to be able to work with effective teams who are capable of managing and taking proper care of projects, and assigned duties even in my absence.

How I am however able to manage this is :

- I design roles for each member of my team.

- I create roles to fill up whatever service is needed even to the smallest of tasks

- knowing when to discipline and be lenient with them, in his words ‘Fire them’

(Hmm.. Duly noted, an effective team does go along way in having a successful organization or company)

Q3: What factors should you consider when taking a leadership role or when offering the role?

Geek: I think one of the basic things I consider is:

- Are you young enough to fit the job time frame or duration?

- Are you willing to put in your best?

- Can you work outside your role?

One final thing is that you learn on the job, you can’t be fully prepared to take the role.

Personally, I like to take leadership roles as a way to give back.

With that final answer to the question we ended the session with a brief exchange of pleasantries and called it a day.

I really learnt a lot with his explanations and I also figured that being a leader has to do with patience, attention to detail, work and personal time management as well as surrounding yourself with the right set of people. In one sentence, it was a really fun and Insightful discussion.
Racing Towards Learning
By: Marla Weston
Tags: Risk Taking, Challenges And Growth, Leadership, Leadership Development

Have you ever been around a child who has just barely “mastered” walking? Once they figure out how to toddle around, they become completely intrigued by staircases.

Every time they spot a staircase, they race towards the stairs. Let’s be clear — not only are they incapable of going up and down stairs by themselves, they can barely do so while guarded by an adult. Rather than avoid something they are inept at, they walk up, then down, then up, then down staircases for as long as the closest adult would let them.

Of course, part of this attraction is the lack of understanding of how dangerous it could be to climb the stairs with their level of ineptitude. But their attraction is also founded on the recognition of how “interesting” it is — largely because they are not yet good at it! While children race towards something they aren’t good at, we, as adults, do the exact opposite. We tend to avoid things we are not competent at or have not mastered. Or quit before we even have a chance to get good at a new skill.

We all became leaders by being good at our craft. We also became leaders by learning new skills. Yet, for most of us, at some point the risk of looking inept (or foolish) became greater than the excitement of learning. What if we could reawaken this childlike openness to learning in ourselves again — this racing towards learning even while we are not good. To enjoy the learning, to be curious about the process of learning, to even enjoy not being great. To trust that with time and practice we will master new skills. Somehow adapting this perspective on learning makes every challenge a bit more interesting and enjoyable.

What learning have you been avoiding? What learning could you race to today?
Leadership is like a vessel. Alexander Agostini PRSC
By: Max A. Agostini
Tags: Leadership, Self Improvement, Leadership Development, Self-awareness, Leadership Skills

Riding a Bike to the Office

Be the person that you want to be and follow, set momentum.

We will go to place we have not been before, leaders know the importance of getting uncomfortable, leaders are fully aware that nothing will ever grow in our comfort zones, and we are all prepared for the worst case scenario, prepared to rise up and be the person we want to follow.

Leaders know how to lead their own ship, their vessels, into the direction that matters to them, sad but true, there are not many people know or even only dream of where they are going and where they want to be.

To get the best out of you and the people you lead, it is extremely important — or let’s say “essential”, to have burning desire of what we want to achieve and who we want to become.

Recognizing every move and step we do, everyday is also part of such leadership success, we are all writing future, not only read about history. Now imagine you can take a pen and paper to hand and create the picture of who you want to be, usually children do that during their “art-class” — or let’s call is “painting”, we are all gods children and we will never be too young or too old to have some kind of aims or targets in life.

Although most of us can do better, we may have already achieved a lot in our lives, we could do well financially, maybe your health and physical condition is not so great, and your relationships need a bit of work: be honest with your self and try to seek for improvement, we all deserve the better, but we will have to demand and to be intentionally wanting to be great.

It may take days, months, years to achieve the result you have been dreaming of, we may have a few barriers to break, we may all have our challenges, we will get the hang of it and find our way through, that’s for sure.

It is time for you to recognize yourself, your gifts and talents, those marks that we want to leave on this earth.

Do more, do better, let us be better and raise up and give more, we are never good enough and we shall live our greatest life ever!

Healthy eating, exercising gives us energy, if we need to sleep more, we sleep more! Whatever we need, make a plan and live the greatest life ever, and start working on yourself.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

If there are any questions that may arise in the meantime, please feel so free to contact me directly at (86–21) 6157 4954 or drop me an email to max (at) prscenterprises (dot) com.

Kind regards from the very city centre of Shanghai, The People’s Republic of China,

Max

Maximilian-Alexander Agostini

PRSC APAC Procurement Team a division of People’s Republic Sourcing Channel Limited Corp..

Chief Executive Officer

People’s Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Shanghai, CN)

People’s Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Beijing, CN)

People’s Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Dubai, UAE)
What’s your WHY?
By: Kua Book Club
Tags: Leaders, Leadership, Leadership Development

What’s your WHY?

In his absorbing book, Simon Sinek excellently weaves together a six-part book on the importance of starting with WHY. For most of us, we know and are taught to default to the ‘what’ across the different life moments. In any venture, work setting or business, we proudly whip out the ‘what’ when leading teams, starting new projects, etc. We tend to focus on the logic to justify what we are doing. It’s the normal thing to do, right?

Simon shows there is an alternative, a better way to communicate especially if one is in a leadership role where in his words they hold a position of power or influence. The book provides numerous examples of leaders that have applied this principle to achieve immense sustainable success in businesses, organisations and politics! Better still, the author applied this principle in his own life and business and was able to attain similar successes.

From this experience, Simon shares with readers the Golden Circle that has a three thought process pattern — why, how and what. The ‘what’ is what every organization and person knows what they do which is the easy part. The ‘how’ is that organisations know how to carry on their activities. The innermost part, the elusive one is the ‘why’. This is the purpose, the driving motivator, the driving factor, the cause, the belief in why the organization/business exists or why a person goes to their place of work, they work they do or why they are taking on a new task or project. This is where few operate from.

It’s on this basis, that the book recommends a new perspective of applying this golden circle from the inside out starting with WHY. In the author’s words, every single one of the inspired organisations, companies or leaders, regardless of their size acts and communicates from the inside out. He also guides that there are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it. The inspire path is higher authentic ground. Also, Simon backs this up with a bit of science — the ‘WHY’ speaks to the limbic part of the human brain. The limbic brain is powerful enough to drive behavior that sometimes contradicts rational and analytical understanding. The ‘WHY’ isn’t something you can touch, it’s something that you can feel.

This is a great concept that leaders in any setting can use to inspire or influence. At a personal level, this too is a brilliant thought process pattern to use in social settings or when starting a new business or venture. This keeps you going the ups and downs and people react to this positively. Start with WHY — great read!
Meet José Moreno Hernández-The Migrant Farmworker Who Overcame Adversity to Become an Astronaut
Tags: Dreams Come True, Inspiration, Leadership Development, Success Story, Thrive

Born into a family of migrant workers, Jose Moreno Hernandez’s childhood was far from normal. He traveled back and forth between Mexico and the U.S. working on the fields with his family. Because of his nomadic lifestyle, Jose did not learn to speak English until he was 12 years old.

Although his attendance in school was sporadic, he always made sure to take schoolwork with him whenever he had to travel. Education was always stressed by his family. His childhood was deprived of many material things, but full of love.

His first encounter with space happened when he was 10 years old. He recalls witnessing the Apollo 17 Moon landing in 1972 on television as the day that changed his life forever.

“I was amazed to see the astronaut walking on the Moon talking to the Mission Control live,” Hernández said. “That fascinated me and I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

When his dream of becoming an astronaut was born, Jose decided to share it with his father. Though his father had only completed a third-grade education, he did not tone down Jose’s dreams. On the contrary, he thought Jose could do it and provided him with a recipe of five ingredients to follow so Jose could reach his dreams.

His father imparted the following things:

Decide what you want in life Recognize how far you are from your goal. Be realistic Draw yourself a roadmap from where you are to where you want to go. Stay focused on the goals. Education. Have the strength and will to educate yourself. Put the effort into your schoolwork. Always gives more than what people ask

The five ingredients of his father helped Jose through thin and thick.

Getting accepted into NASA was a work of many years. They rejected him more than 10 times but he never gave up.

“There is a negative connotation of losing. If you never attempt things, you will never fail, but you will also never achieve anything,” explained Jose.

Every rejection for Jose was a step closer to his goal. It motivated him to go above and beyond to stand out among the qualified pool of applicants. With that in mind, he studied to be a pilot and even obtained a license to dive. After years of hard work, his persistence paid off. He was accepted into the astronaut NASA program in 2004.

After ending his astronaut candidate training in 2006, he became the first first-generation Mexican American astronaut working for NASA. During his time in NASA, he also became an engineer and served as chief of the Materials and Processes branch of Johnson Space Center.

Jose’s journey is one of perseverance, hard work, and dedication. His story teaches us that no matter how many obstacles we need to overcome, sooner or later, we will achieve our dreams.
The Grit of Holiday Movies
By: Snp Communications
Tags: Grit, Leadership Development, Leadership, Communication, Holidays

By: Eli Shell

In her groundbreaking Ted Talk on Grit, Angela Duckworth says “grit is passion and perseverance toward very long term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out. Not just for the week, not just for a month, but for years. And working really hard to make that future a reality.” Grit is also often tied to a “growth mindset,” the idea that your ability to learn and grow isn’t fixed, that we can not only learn new things as we get older, but we can learn how to learn better.

This got us thinking; what can some of our favorite holiday characters teach us about grit?

The Grinch, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

The Grinch FEELS like a gritty character, but is he really? The idea of stealing The Who’s Christmas appears to be a last-minute idea, not a goal he’s been pursuing for quite some time. While the Grinch doesn’t subscribe to a growth mindset, his heart does end up growing two sizes. Which, all health concerns aside does seem to lead to an increase in empathy and possibly, emotional intelligence. Sounds like growth to us. The Verdict: Somewhat Gritty

Buddy the Elf, “Elf”

After learning the truth about his parents, Buddy decides to look for his father, traveling via floating ice sheet for what must have been hundreds of miles in an elf costume through the frozen tundra in December. At every turn, Buddy has to push past the roadblocks that would have caused others to give up and fail. Each time his biological father tries to get rid of him, Buddy persists, eventually saving Christmas and bonding with his father. All of his failures were lessons and Buddy continued his quest in the face of great adversity. The Verdict: Pretty Gritty

Mary Bailey, “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Sure, everyone knows the story of George Bailey — deaf in one ear after saving his brother, only to watch that same brother travel the world, become a war hero, all while George stayed home to take care of the Savings and Loan. But what about the girl he “lassoed the moon” for? Mary believed in George even when he himself didn’t. She turned down her “plastics” suitor and made George a wonderful home from the dilapidated old mansion he once threw rocks at. In the tearful conclusion of the film, we learn she has spent the entire night knocking on every door in town to keep her husband out of jail. The Verdict: The Grittiest

While we don’t always associate “grit” with this time of year, when you look a little closer, you realize that some of our favorite holiday characters have much to teach us about perseverance, stamina, and a growth mindset. So, pour a cup of cheer, put on your favorite holiday movie, and learn something about the true meaning of the season, girt.

Have a happy and gritty holiday, everyone.
Top Picks- Here’s what you need to know about Leadership
By: Lina Ashar
Tags: Parenting, Leadership, Leadership Development

I am Lina Ashar and I want to jointly explore the power of parenting with you. Join me on my journey to educate our children in unlocking their extraordinary human potential.

How to recognize leadership in every child: [Ted Talk] Yvonne explores what leadership is, and asks the questions: “Why do we wait to teach leadership?” “Is leadership something we can recognize and nurture in children too?”

Best Ways and Activities to Instil Leadership Qualities in Children: [FirstCry] A leader is a person to whom everyone looks up to. All of us come across different kinds of leaders in our walks of life; right from our very home to our workplace, from our surroundings to our country. On reading the biographies of great leaders, you might have noticed the various incidents in their childhood that shaped their attitude towards life.

Similarities Between Leadership And Parenting: [Forbes] It’s no secret that parenting is difficult. As a combat veteran, I’ve even sometimes wondered which is harder; war or raising children? So is managing a team just as hard? Granted, children need more attention and supervision than adults (most of the time), but the similarities between managing and parenting are interesting. Management isn’t for everyone, just like being a parent doesn’t suit us all.

Bringing the science of leadership to the art of parenting: [Penn Today] Parents in today’s fast-paced disorienting world can easily lose track of who they are and what really matters most. But it doesn’t have to be this way, according to Wharton professor Stew Friedman and co-author Alyssa Westring. They say it is possible for parents to harness the powerful science of leadership in order to thrive in all aspects of their lives.

What Parents Can Learn about Leadership: [The Wharton School] One of the toughest jobs in the world is being a parent. It’s a leadership role that calls for the sharp negotiating skills of a chief executive, the flexibility of a scheduling secretary, the nonstop labor of employees on the floor, and even the maintenance expertise of the custodial staff. A new book by Wharton emeritus management professor Stewart Friedman and Alyssa Westring, management professor at DePaul University, explains how parents can harness the power of leadership principles to thrive in the four major domains of their lives — career, family, community and self.

With Gratitude,

Lina Ashar
Tips for a New Leader
By: Hamilton Lindley
Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Management, Work, Management And Leadership

Becoming a leader in any organization is an exciting prospect. After all, many people have experienced poor leadership and would like to prove that they are different. However, once stepping into a leadership role, it can feel overwhelming, and it will come with a learning curve. The following tips will help you do a better job as you grow into your leadership position.

Make a Connection

When starting a new role, it is crucial to become acquainted with everyone you manage. After all, these are people who will be looking to you for support, and if you do not know what sets each of them apart, it will be tough to provide the right kind of help. Connect with your new reports and get to know them not only by their professional achievements but also on a personal level. Find out their strengths and weaknesses, how they communicate best, and what they are passionate about. Taking the time to understand who you are working with will help you down the road as opportunities arise or changes need to be made.

Stay Organized

When becoming a leader, it is easy to fall into a routine of answering questions all day, without taking any notes or following up with necessary paperwork. This is a downfall of many managers, and it is something you should be cautious about. Find a system that works for you early on and stick to it. Do not worry about being available at a moment’s notice, and instead, set reasonable expectations that allow you to help your team and stay on top of your work.

Hold Everyone Accountable

As someone in a management position, you will find that you have people on the team that you like more than others. That is entirely human, and it is not inherently wrong. Yet, when managers give preferential treatment or do not hold their favorites accountable, this can put a bad taste in the entire team’s mouth. Be sure that you are holding everyone accountable equally. If you feel like your personal relationships with your team are getting in the way of your judgment, take a step back from them until you can become objective.

It is not always easy being a leader. People look up to you for the answers whenever there is a problem, and you can quickly find yourself in hot water if you do not adapt well. The tips above will help you on this journey and will allow you to start your management career effectively.

See the original post on https://www.hamiltonlindley.org/tips-for-a-new-leader/Hamilton%20Lindley
What Does Success Look Like?
By: Louie Rahil
Tags: Leadership Development, Who Not How, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Success

What Does Success Look Like?

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Before starting a new project, speech, or business, ask yourself:

What does success look like? Who can help me succeed?

Do not focus on how to get things done, define the finish line, and build a team to help you get there. The possibility of you reaching the finish line improves dramatically when you stop focusing on HOW and focus on WHO.

WHO can be a mentor, an employee, a partner, a friend, and maybe a neighbor who knows one thing you need to learn.

Do the Work
7 Top Leadership Principles
By: Deepak Borole
Tags: Leader, Leadership Principles, Leadership, Leadership Development

1- Embrace the change.

To transform the organization and take it to promoted levels, a leader’s focus to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives is highly important. It could help the organization to transform thoroughly. Every leader needs to have a clear direction that could help them to bring change. By having a certain ambition, one can bring change easily.

2- Accept your mistakes

Making mistakes is humanity’s nature; those leaders who make mistakes and accept them give a positive gesture to the employees working under you. Leaders’ mistakes enable them to understand where they are wrong and how they can get a better understanding through those mistakes. So, those leaders who accept mistakes are often considered in the higher esteems.

3- A good listener

For being an effective leader, one of the essential principles is to listen more than you talk. By listening, you can have sufficient valuable information that may help you to make other respective decisions. A leader doesn’t need to get agreed with everyone’s opinion. But the necessary thing is to listen to others, get their point, understand their point of view, and owe their opinion. As well as it also helps you to understand both the intellectual and emotional abilities of a person. So being a good leader, it is essential to understand both.

4- Endorse diversity

A Leader endorses diversity that could be in the right domains for the organization. By the diverse ranges, you could have different fresh perspectives, and your exposure by analyzing the diversified splendors would also be increased. The diverse workforce and splendor promote innovation and the latest ideas that could increase the organization’s success.

5- Have strong values

Having strong values in a leader helps to inspire the followers to motivate them. By your values, one can understand your credibility. By providing the employees with comfortable work, settings make them happy to fulfill a job requirement. So, people mostly prefer working with individuals who are more close to the values and needs and have certain authentic values to be followed.

6- Use technology and innovation.

Technology is being so widespread these days, and for every leader to cope with it has become a necessity. Technology plays a vital role in increasing productivity and to open new endeavors for businesses. The communication has also been increased by the new technology that helps with collaborations. People living far from the places can work together and can bring their ideas into reality.

7- Ensure alignment

Having the right people or great people are completely two different things. At the same time, the alignment comes when they shared a vision. Strong, effective leaders can work hard enough and choose the right persons in a team that supports team vision. A leader has to ensure that who needs to support who and where they want to be and complete the task activity.
How Fixing A Little Thing In Your Surroundings Is An Act Of Leadership
By: Fatima Imran
Tags: Fixing Stuff Around You, Leaders Without Authority, Leadership Development

Growing up I’ve been told about the archetype of leaders a lot that they make an impact and they have a huge fan following. Leadership seemed to be something so huge and out of reach. Just like a vast majority of people, I have conditioned it with fame, money, and fan following.

Recently, I have been asked to look around myself and pick one thing that I can make better. It could be any small thing. I decided to fix the small study table area in my room because that’s where I spend most of my time. It took me 10 minutes to arrange everything.

before arranging vs after arranging

If I hadn’t asked to fix something in my room, I would have never done it because I love to sit around and waste time doing nothing but, it is often accompanied by regret and guilt.

This small activity made me think about a different aspect of leadership. A person can be a leader without authority. Leadership is not always about having a lot of people following you, or about changing the whole world. It could be about any small thing, a personal win, a thing that helped others through their rough time.

If you are humble, willing to improve yourself, KUDOS TO YOU because you are already a leader and you will inspire others throughout your journey.
Fixing stuff around yourself
By: Fawad Hassan
Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Skills

A leader is a person who knows the way, goes the way and make the way. The thing that separates follower from a leader is that “A leader achieve the tasks with the help of people around him and in process make realize their own abilities and potential”. Being a leader doesn’t require an army to lead, majority in parliament to make change or being a monarch with supreme authority. A person can show leadership without authority in the simplest acts like helping a stranger, feeding a poor, making someone laugh.

The most important factor of leadership is that it ought to begin from a personal level. A person should bring change in his surroundings, in his echo system then move forward to bring change in others life. In accordance with this understanding, I look to my own surroundings that what things around me need improvement and Am I capable of changing it for good?

So, I was in my bedroom and started to observe my bedroom’s setting. I noticed that my bed is in awful shape and not in any perspective is suitable for any decent human being to rest on it. Firstly, I get little ashamed of myself and how can I be this ignorant. But then this shame was quickly overcome by a resolve to make amendment for what I did. And I said to myself imagine the best condition of this bed and make the bed resembles to it in next five minutes.

I got up from my bed. I lift up my quilt and place it on sofa followed pillows. Then I took my laptop and put it in side table. I put my cell on charging. Remove the bed sheet and took the new one from almirah. In process my mom saw me and she was starstruck that what got into me all of sudden. I spread the new bedsheet on bed and then arrange it in a well manner then I place pillows on bed in decent way. Lastly, I place my half-folded quilt on foot side of bed. After doing all that i said that to myself that now it resembles to its good state.

Making my bed with the motivation of everyday leadership feels really good. I has thoughts about making the bed earlier but I didn’t give it any priority over my other tasks but when I read that leadership begins with small acts like such. I said to myself that I had to do it now because, if I am not capable of making a sound and positive change in my own life then how can I inspire a change in others life. Thus, a simple task such as making my bed provokes the leadership qualities in me and at the end I feel great about it.
Fixing Stuff Around Yourself
By: Fahad Gulfraz
Tags: Amaacademy, Leadership Development

I was in my room when I came across this project. So, I had to find something in my room to fix.

I looked around and the only thing which was bothering me was the USB cable sticking out of the cabinet. One it was looking bad plus this was also damaging to the cable.

I opened up the cabinet and put the cable back in it.

The strange thing about it is that it might have been there for months and I never noticed it and once it came under my observation, it really started to bother me, and so putting it back in was very satisfying.

This activity taught me that you don’t have to wait for someone else to do something. Be the one to initiate lead from the front even if you don’t have the authority.
Organizing Your Stuff- A Step Towards Leadership
By: Ammar Ali
Tags: Organizing Your Life, Leadership Development, Amal Academy

There are many steps we can take to make ourselves a leader for tomorrow. This concept will only inspire the people with growth mindsets and who think that the qualities which a leader possesses are acquirable.

“For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.”

A leader is one who organizes things firsthand. This makes him a different person from those who do not see the simple difference between an organized and unorganized environment. Things look a little bit hard at first but believe me, the more you organize the more time you save.

In this blog, I am about to share my experience of cleaning my room with the little help of my cousin. It is good to share positive experiences with people with whom you are close. While learning these beautiful concepts to live life with I started to think about adopting some organizational skills by working and organizing my room.

Here are some of the glimpses of our room before organizing it.

Tidy Room | Before Cleanup

Tidy Room | Before Cleanup

Here you can see an unorganized environment. While sitting in bed we use our laptops, and the cables make a mess with these. All these messy clothes, wires of laptops and mobiles, blankets, used masks, and a lot of other things were silently embossing a negative impact on our mind and body.

We started sorting the things to put them in a pattern. The interesting thing is, the recent reconstruction of our home is taking place, which makes us a bit relaxed along with a messy house. But today we realized that things could take time, this does not mean we should be careless about the environment we can change. So, we took our little time off from gadgets and try to clean and organize the room as much as we can.

Cleaning is itself satisfactory to watch. It took a short time, but the results were worth it. Let us have a look at the room just after a little organization.

Well Organized | After Cleanup

Well Organized | After Cleanup

As you can see the struggle was worth it. Our room gave us a fresh start to work on our things with new energy. Today I realized that before doing these things it seems like the things are overpowered but when we do, we get them done within minutes. But clearly, the impact of these small things is great on our time management, mental health, and physical energy. I am certain that these small steps can lead us to be great leaders of tomorrow.

#AmalFellowship #FixingThingAroundYourself
There are no calm pressure cookers
By: Lizzie Rhodes James
Tags: Leadership Development, Self Improvement, Happiness, Coaching, Health

Image by Dennis Maliepaard on Unsplash

The commitment to getting your next gig / promotion is full.

Its full of

Personal ideas.

Personal perceptions.

Personal thoughts.

Of what

Things that need to get out and done.

Things that need to be allocated elsewhere.

And

Keeping the right side of the best work intensity.

So you hold your emotions.

Mentor others.

And manage up as you go along.

So you don’t go pop.

Hang on in there

By reducing the complexity

Through focused time.

And noticing what pressure is yours.

And what pressure is out of your control.

Find out what is best to do that supports your goal

And

Keeps your pressure cooker intact and safe.

The original is on my website here
Fixing Stuff Around Myself
By: Rana M Danish
Tags: Leadership Development, Living Room, Discipline, Leadership Coaching, Cleaning

I have a strong belief in that we have to just set out anything in our environment which seeks our attention rather than waiting for any Messiah (Leader or well wisher).

Being Leader Without Authority

Actually, it’s the fact that nearly all of us have a mindset that we can’t act like a leader if we don’t have authority, but it’s totally wrong. All of us can become or act like a leader just by taking responsibilities.

It doesn’t matter how smaller or larger our network is, we just have to take responsibility of what’s happening in our environment and take initiative by our own to tackle those things. Doesn’t matter if we have thousands of followers or just 4 to 5 followers on Medium, but what matters is that what we are providing them. We have to just pay our services to the network which we have. This fact will make us leaders even without authority.

Daily Leadership

We can act as a leader even if we are alone in some activity just by taking responsibility for what we couldn’t do right and by taking actions to make that correct. In this way we will be able to get leadership in our daily jobs.

My Activity

Here’s an example from my today’s activities in which I make some difference in my surrounding. To be acted like a leader in myself I just looked in my surroundings to find that what’s wrong there, as it’s siad that change starts from home, that’s why I started from myself.

I found that most of the things in my living room are not in a good manner. I just took the picture to be compared with the situation after my activity.

Here in the above picture, you can see that everything is looking out of order. That’s why I just had to fix that situation.

First of all I kept the things out of my room which were not necessary. Then I cleaned the room by myself and later I arranged the items to be looked in a good manner.

I kept only my laptop and a copy on divider which I needed for study. I kept Rest of the things like laptop’s bag, charger etc. in my cabin.

Here’s the change I got in my room.

After completing this task, I felt very glad as I took initiative for what called being leader in your own which may lead me to be a leader in my network later even without authority.
Resourcing in reflection of 2020.
By: Tui Williams
Tags: Growth, Leadership Development, Reflections, Self Reflection, 2020

2020 has been a big year to say the least. Take some time over the break to connect with nature. As you are with her, allow yourself to sink into her arms, and feel her support, feel your relationship as you breathe and are breathed. You might like to rest against a tree you have a relationship with as you reflect on the year. Here are some journaling prompts:

As I reflect back on this time last year, what has shifted in my external environment? What has shifted in my internal environment?

How has my capacity and resilience been challenged this year? How has it grown?

In moments of fullness how have I responded that I am most proud of?

What am I being nudged to let go of?

What has arisen that has given me greater trust, how do I want to take that trust forward with me into the unknown?

What treasures have I received this year, weather challenging or welcome that I want to honour?
Fixing Things in your surrondings
By: Muhammad Umair
Tags: Fixing Stuff Around You, Leadership, Leadership Development

Fixing Things in your surrondings

I was sitting in my hostel room taking my online course assigned by Amal Academy and then there was I project of fixing stuff in surrondings in which you have to look around yourself and observe which thing needs a change as an act of leadership.

A person dont hesitate to do any work if they have a leadership qualities

Living in a hostel wardrobe is place where we can save our things such as books, clothes, bags and much more that we want. So when I look my hostel room wardrobe that was in worst condition. Books places in different boxes and many useless things that placed in boxes.

Before

So I decided to clean this and arrange books in a proper way. Because the condition of this hostel wardrobe is not so good. So i clean the wardrobe and arrange books in a very orderly way and the wardrobe looks good as you can see in the picture given below

After

After doing this task I feel like we should make ourselves responsible for certain things by taking this task as an example it was my surroundings and I live here and I will be responsible for its cleanliness and arrangement of things
Thanks Raja.
By: Girish Kurup
Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development, Structural Tension, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Skills

Thanks Raja. You have inspired me with your thoughts and leadership when we were working as colleagues.

Thanks for the excellent article on Intention. This article is really inspiring. Pictorial representation of Structural Tension is very realistic.
Fix your surroundings challenge!
By: Amna Sagheer
Tags: Influencing Others, Leadership Development, Influencers, Amal Fellowship

Preparing for my university quiz , an idea popped into my mind that I should check my project work for Amal Academy. I opened the email and got to know that I was instructed to first examine the area I am sitting right now and then to fix one thing around me.

I was sitting in my bedroom and it was already well organized. But from the past few days I was thinking of to set my cupboard but unfortunately due to extremely busy schedule, did not get time or motivation to do that. I knew it will take 1- 2 hours of my whole day. Every time I think of it ,my laziness dominated and I could not achieve my goal. So what I decided was to fix that right now, without thinking of any consequences it would have laid on my quiz tomorrow.

Before

So this was the condition and believe me it only took me one hour to organize it. Organizing it was important , because I myself is an organized sort of a person. Any thing which is not in place where it should be , or any unorganized stuff irritates me. All I did was taking all the clothes out, the one which were to be folded were folded by me . The one which were pressed and were ready to wear , I hanged them on the rod inside the Almirah. Then I just took all the shoes boxes out and arranged them so that they might look presentable. Below is the picture of the Almirah after I have organized it.

After !

After I have done this task I felt a sense of accomplishment in me. I realized that I have put some effort that will be valuable for me and people around me. Also a feeling of relief that this work was needed to be done from past many days and now I have finally accomplished it.

I would have done this task because it was on my mind but not exactly at the same time. I would have rather postponed it to some other day.

This activity incorporated a sense of leadership within me. Leadership is all about influencing and nothing less. I have learnt so much from this activity and also I hope the same, for the people around me and the ones who are reading my blog.
Getting My Life or At least My Surrounding Together
By: Khadija Bushra
Tags: Getting Things Done, Leadership, Leadership Development

#theleaderofmyownlife #fixingstuffaroundmyself

When you think about leadership, it seems like a very fancy term, famous leaders like Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Kennedy, Quaid-e-Azam etc come into your mind who led people and fought for bigger causes. But what if I tell you that you can be a leader right now? Strange, but it’s possible. Yes, we all can become leaders and we don’t need to have any kind of authority to practice leadership, we just need to take responsibility. If you are sitting in your bed reading this, get up, be the leader of your own life and start changing the world around you. Start with your surroundings, take charge, complete tasks that are in pending. I was asked to do the same thing, so I got up, looked around my room and fixed stuff that needed to be fixed. Let me show you what I did and then you can do them yourself. Trust me, you will feel very positive and accomplished.

Starting off with something that seems very unimportant but every famous inspirational figure emphasizes upon and that is making the bed in the morning. It gives you the sense of accomplishment and pride and the feeling that you are in control and you are ready to conquer the world. I made my bed, changed the sheets (you know how amazing freshly washed sheets smell like :P) and after that I felt so productive and ready to face anything. Honestly, I still would have done it and at the same time (in the morning) even if I wasn’t asked to do it. So, small tasks like making your bed helps you in taking the lead and becoming a responsible person.

“If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”- William H. McRaven