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Should you wait to start a meeting to allow latecomers to arrive or should they start on time? In today’s podcast, I share my thoughts about starting meetings on time along with a list of reasons why. I also share how to best manage latecomers with a list of things NOT to do. Lastly, I share additional “musts” when facilitating meetings.

In today's podcast, I share four reasons I hear leaders say that they are focusing on first-time managers.  I share each of these four reasons and why each is so important to the success of first-time managers and their teams.

You feel like your first-time manager isn’t making it. You aren’t sure why they aren’t more successful leading their team. In today’s podcast are FIVE signs your first-time manager may be failing and what to do. We cover everything from asking for help, inconsistencies in results, and taking responsibility for mistakes, to how first-time managers are spending their time and their descriptions of their priorities.

In my first role as a manager, I couldn’t listen to my manager. I didn’t know it then but I later realized that I didn’t feel qualified to be a manager while at the same time wanted so bad to be a manager. Taking advice/coaching from my boss made me feel inferior and it only proved that I didn’t know what I was doing. This is exactly why I committed more than 25 years ago, to learning all that I could about what it takes to be an effective manager and leader. For almost a decade now, I have been helping managers of first-time managers transform them into leaders of high-performing teams. In this podcast, I share a story from when I taught swim lessons and how it correlates with first-time managers who don’t take advice from their bosses.

A study by Gartner showed that 60% of new managers fail within the first 24 months. In the 10+ years of formally coaching managers (and observation throughout my career), in my professional opinion, that's about right. First-Time managers are not set up to succeed, but not intentionally. The managers of these first-time managers don't have time or a training curriculum to set them up for success. Here are my 10 "whys" The First-Time Managers Summit is like no other. Find out if your first-time manager is a good fit for this summit. Not all first-time managers are a fit for this summit. To find out if your first-time manager is a fit, go to: AuthenticSuccessOnline.com. With only 10 participants, you will want to get your manager's name on the list sooner than later.

The Two Ds for Emerging Leaders of High-Performing Teams Emerging Leaders know that they need to assign work, but many times don’t have a framework for doing so. Emerging Leaders are both frustrated and surprised that managing their team isn’t as easy as they thought it would be. Until they uncover key principles, starter strategies and systems, and tools, these leaders continue to struggle to lead their teams to high performance. Today I’m sharing the connection between some of the key disciplines of Authentic Leaders with how they are applied to effective delegation. In this episode I share: * How having a team direction can be an effective tool when delegating work. * How managers can strategically increase decision-making in their team. * How intentional communication helps to hold your team accountable for their work without conflict. * How feedback needs to be delivered so that the person receiving the feedback can both receive it and take action.

Delegation is a skill that most managers and leaders I work with struggle with most. Most assume delegation success and are often confused when delegation fails. Most managers and leaders are so busy that they don’t make time to debrief and understand what went wrong in their delegation. So they delegate again and wonder why delegation isn’t more successful. I shared 10 Reasons that Delegation Fails in episode 106. It’s about the deeper underlying root causes of delegation failure. I encourage you to listen to that episode too. Today is a higher-level understanding of six simple activities you can do to make your delegation more successful and reduce delegation failure. Listen to today’s episode and go back to listen to episode 106 and see the difference.

Most managers who micromanage their team are unknowingly doing so. Most micromanagers would say that they aren’t micromanagers. You may be micromanaging and not realize it. So, what’s so bad about micromanaging anyway? If you are a micromanager, it can feel like you are taking control and ensuring that your team doesn’t mess something up. If you are the team member being micromanaged, it can feel like your manager is getting in the way of your productivity. It can be suffocating and insulting. It can make you question, “if I am going to be micromanaged like this, why am I even doing this work?” Today's episode is about recognizing if you are unknowingly micromanaging and how to eliminate micromanaging with confidence.

Leaders who attend my Delegation Master workshops learn about delegation so that they can make room for higher-level thinking. But, sometimes these same leaders have gotten overeager and go beyond what they are actually able to delegate. When over delegating key responsibilities that the leader can’t delegate, it creates a real problem for the leader that can be hard to recover from. Because when a leader crosses that line, the leader’s earned credibility and influence erodes. I want to keep you from delegating more than you are able to and ruining your earned influence as a leader. Preventing erosion of your leadership from misguided delegation can be shown through examples. These 6 examples that I am going to share today are not comprehensive. In other words, I’m not saying, “If you don’t delegate these things, you don’t have to worry.” Rather, these examples are to get you thinking about other similar things that you can’t delegate.

Leaders continue to struggle with their delegation strategy. Some may not realize that they even have a strategy, which ends up being haphazard delegation. Some realize that delegation is necessary, but don’t know how to intentionally and strategically delegate. Others, whom I call delegation masters, fully embrace a delegation strategy as a part of their leadership plan. The problem comes when leaders want the immediate results of being a delegation master. Implementing your delegation strategy isn’t immediate. It’s an investment.

Just knowing the top reasons delegation fails can keep your next delegation of work from failing. There is a lot at stake for leaders when delegating work. The ability for leaders to effectively delegate has a direct effect on a leaders ability to lead their team, get high priority work done, increase a team's productivity, identify better ways of getting work done, develop and uncover a team's capabilities, establish a team culture of creativity, innovation, & initiative, increase a team's morale, develop confidence among the team . . . the list goes on and on. But failing to be effective at delegation, prevents everything I just listed from happening.

Leaders don’t understand what delegation really is and what it is not. Many leaders are already delegating without realizing it. Every task completed by your team, every function they perform, and every project that they work on is a task that you delegated to them. If your team wasn’t performing these tasks, functions, or projects, you would be doing them. The real problem comes when delegating new tasks, functions, and projects to your team. Are you delegating authority or accountability? In today’s episode, I share how leaders can go too far when delegating to their technology teams and how to simply determine what you are really delegating. Are you delegating accountability or responsibility?

Delegation not only gets work done, but it's also a strategy to be implemented for leading your team. * Without a delegation strategy, you will drift in your delegation methodology and in your leadership. * Without a delegation strategy, you will delegate to everyone the same way or you won't know how to delegate differently based on skill, experience, and motivation. * Without a delegation strategy, you will miss out on an effective tool to coach your team and increase their skills and experience. In today's episode, I share 3 Delegation Strategies for Leading Technology Teams.

A repeated behavior by technology leaders when delegating work is because they see so many other leaders with this same behavior, feel they don’t have time for this step and have never made time to fix it or they don’t know how to fix it. As a result, technology leaders continue to struggle to consistently delegate work. Less work will get done, as required, and on time. The influence of their team, peers, and others continues to deteriorate. Ultimately, the leader’s career success is impacted. Take a few minutes to pause and think through your next delegation and see how a little planning can increase your delegation success. In today’s episode, I’m going to share the most ignored critical delegation step and how to fix it.

Success-oriented professionals are typically pretty good about annual planning. It feels good to be organized. It can also feel great to think and plan for success. It also creates momentum and energy. But, in January and February, your personal success plan begins to fail for a few key reasons. You miss some key and necessary components to carry your momentum through. You figure out your process for planning as you create your plan. Or, you haven't allocated enough time and attention necessary to create a solid plan. You don't know what you are missing and wonder why you aren't creating the success you planned for. Your plan ends up disorganized and your priorities end up being sacrificed when very urgent and important issues surface in the reality of your work. You may have started your plan but at some point you announce, "this is good enough" not knowing if your plan really is good enough or not. If you've ever had the habit of making annual plans but then honestly look in the mirror and have to say to yourself, "I'm not much farther than I was last year at this time", then this is for you. I said earlier, that planners often miss some key and necessary components when planning for next year. Not everyone misses the same things. Everyone reading this post or listening to this podcast recording probably does one or more of these very well. But, today you will hear at least one or several that will cause you to say, "I need to add or step up my game on that". I don't want you to be lost in January and February when you start losing your momentum. I love working with professionals to not only build their plans but also to continue the momentum that they create. I encourage you to comment below or DM me with your questions, challenges, and obstacles that keep you from realizing your success plan. In today's episode, I'm going to share the seven components you need to successfully plan for next year.

When dealing with a sudden leadership vacancy, many senior leaders will pretend everything is okay "business as usual" or end up having informal conversations with some team members who want to discuss the situation or seclude themselves to avoid having to discuss the leadership issue with the team.   These same senior leaders are frustrated about restarting from the beginning to establish a new leader of the team. They're unsure about what really happened. And, of course, they are considering now how to reassure the team after the upheaval of losing their leader.   The problem for senior leaders is that they can unknowingly hinder the team from moving forward and erode their effectiveness as a leader.

Senior leaders who promote their star performers but end up watching them struggle with leading their technology team are typically doing one of these three things. * They are confused why a star performer is now a low performer as the new leader of their technology team. * They have decided to let their new leader "sink or swim", expecting that they will swim BUT they are drowning. * They are watching their new leader flounder and pretending to have it all together, but the team and even the senior leader can see that they are doing a terrible job pretending and losing credibility at the same time.

What do new leaders in technology need now? How can you prepare your star performer for a leadership role? Senior leaders who are struggling with leading teams of technology managers and leaders typically want to reward their star performers with increased leadership responsibilities and promote them to a team-leading role. The problem with filling the role quickly is that you are making a reactive decision rather than a strategic decision. In today's podcast, I'll share an experience from one of my clients who promoted their star performer too quickly and didn't set their new leader up for success.

Are you uncomfortable with making changes? Do you feel like you can't fit anything more into your day? Without thinking much about it, do you go through your days getting things done, but 6 months later feel like you are where you were 6 months ago? If you are going through your day "without thinking much about it", then you probably feel like you don't have much room for anything else. The problem is that it's harder to achieve your aspirations.

Do you spend a lot of energy making goals fit into a goal-making formula? Are you writing goals to impress your boss, your team, or someone else? People who get burnt out on goals find the S.M.A.R.T. format is hard to meet the requirements of a "good" goal. Or, once carefully crafting the goals, it's time to jump back to the daily urgencies that take priority. Goals end up being put away to look at later. The problem is that you fail to achieve or you are disappointed with the goals you set for yourself. Or, goals that you achieve are really someone else's goals and they don't fulfill you.