Make Waves! subscribe to Marcia Zidle's free enewsletter
 
Lead by Design, Not Chance - Executive Leaders Executive Leaders
Drive Teamwork Up, Down and Around - Mid Level LeadersMid Level Leaders
Manage from the Outside In - Front Line LeadersFront Line Leaders
 
Best Practices: Smart Moves PresentationsPresentations
Coaching for High Impact, High Potential Leaders - Coaching 4 ResultsCoaching 4 Results
Your Career Future - Leaders at All LevelsYour Career Future
 
Articles - Leaders at All LevelsArticles
Handbooks - Leaders at All LevelsHandbooks
Resource to Media - Media CornerMedia Corner
 
About Us - Leaders at All LevelsAbout Us
Contact Us - Leaders at All Levels and Marcia ZidleContact Us
WABC - The Worldwide Association of Business Coaches - Click here to open their site in a new window

 

  

Power Articles

How Well Are You Playing the Teamwork Game?

Whether you love-em or loathe-em, teams are here to stay. As a mid level leader, you need to live with them, value them, and make them productive. You career will depend on it. Here are articles to enhance and improve team performance.

1. Get the Basics Right

  • Building an Effective Team
    Winning teams aren't created by accident. Rather, the team or project leader must provide the light that sparks everyone's' involvement, participation and productivity. Learn the three keys to select, develop, and maintain a winner team.
  • Is Team Conflict Good or Bad?
    Conflict is an inevitable part of life. Conflict is inherent in our differences---in people's differing backgrounds, perspectives, values, needs, goals, expectations, etc. Here are some common, yet erroneous, beliefs about conflict and ways to overcome differences.
  • Leading Meetings: The Top 3 Challenges
    Here are the top three questions that keep on cropping up followed by guidelines, or simple ways, to start meetings on time, keep them on track and moving forward to end on time with a sense of not wasting time.

2. Unleash Team Spirit and Smarts

  • Shake the Idea Tree
    See how to tap your people's brainpower to help your team think "out of the box" and find great ways to solve problems that get in the way of productivity and customer satisfaction.
  • Houston We Have Problem
    An example of how a recent client, a government agency that provides educational resources, played Sherlock Holmes at a recent staff retreat using the 5 "W" questioning to solve customer issues.

    Note: This article can be customized with specific examples and tips for your organization or industry. Contact us to request an article for your publication, newsletter or website.

  • Igniter and Killer Phrases: Which Do You Use?
    Leadership phrases that fire up people's enthusiasm and innovative spirit as well as those that squelch initiative and morale.

3. Get Peak Performance Every Day

Staffing SMART
Hiring the wrong person for the job is like asking a rabbit to swim or a fish to run. It's much wiser to hire the right people for the right job. They will from the start serve the customer better. Here are ways to build your staffing muscles.

Motivating SMART
A paycheck is what helps people get to sleep at night, not what gets them going in the morning. What gets people's juices flowing is letting them know they matter and they will surely make the customer matter. Here are ways to build your motivating muscles.

Performing SMART
By managing performance right to begin with, you will stop fighting fires --- missed deadlines or customer complaints --- and start doing what you're paid to do --- promoting and reinforcing service excellence. Here are ways to build your performance muscles.

Additional resources to drive teamwork up, down and all around:

Take a look at our other 5 Minute Power Bites. These articles offer the best practices in effective leadership, teamwork, customer service and career management.

Make sure you sign up for Make Waves!, our free e-newsletter on how to lead better, faster and smarter. Bonus: 35 page ebook 101 Bite Size Leadership Tips with a BIG Impact!

Note to Editors:

Would you like to reprint any of these articles in your trade journal, newspaper, website, company newsletter or e-zine? If so, here is our reprint policy:

  1. Contact us if you plan to make changes in content, length, or emphasis.
  2. Always include the copyright/credit paragraph that contains copyright and contact information.
  3. If you use the article on a website, please link "LeadersAtAllLevels.com" to "http://www.LeadersAtAllLevels.com" and please use "Leaders At All Levels" as the title attribute of the link.
  4. Drop us a quick e-mail indicating what article you are using and how you're using it. (We like to know which ones are hitting the mark.)