Being an Impactful Leader

Quantum Leap Global‘s CEO and Founder, Marianne Hynes, discusses some of the ways to become a more impactful leader.

Know yourself:

  • What do you stand for, your values, your motivation, and your purpose? Your actions will reveal what you stand for, so make sure your words align with your actions. It builds trust.

Get the right coach/mentor: 

  • You can’t break through to new levels of success and impact without someone to mirror, reflect and shine a light on your blind spots. When looking for a coach, take the time to find someone suited to your needs and who has the necessary experience/expertise to support your journey.

Be a leader that serves their people:

  • The old paradigm of self-centred leadership, command and control is gone. Be of service to your team and create the right environment for staff to thrive in, an environment where staff want to stay. You will reap dividends in retention, productivity, and more.

And finally, the power is in your people, you will reach new levels of success by igniting both the individual potentials and then the collective potential of your team.

At Quantum Leap Global, we empower Adaptive Leaders with the insights and confidence to build and sustain safe, inclusive, and thriving environments to realise new levels of wellbeing and success. Reach out at info@quantumleap-global.com for coaching or consulting discovery calls.

#psychologicalsafety #inclusion #impactfulleadership #quantumleapglobal

Impactful leadership in lockdown & remote working

 

Connecting requires a more concerted effort when you are not physically together as a team for an extended time. This video series offers practical tips for leaders during a lockdown or in a remote working environment.

Manage your wellbeing: First and foremost, you need to manage your wellbeing. In a COVID impacted world, our leaders are under a new level of pressure to meet business goals, KPIs, client needs, and manage teams while looking out for their wellbeing. So taking care of your wellbeing needs to be a priority, as you can’t give what you don’t have.

Model the behaviours: We must model the behaviours we want to see in our team as leaders. Show your employees that wellbeing is an integral part of life and performance by modelling the behaviour and creating the space for employees to take care of themselves. Self-care is not selfish. It is fundamental to wellbeing and performance.

We are humans: Remote working brings a new level of complexity when leading a team and ensuring people are performing and doing okay. Many people are juggling work demands, home-schooling, home life and more, so we need to remember that we are humans with a range of needs and emotions under a new level of pressure.

Fundamental human skills: Now more than ever, we need to be engaging in our foundational human skills of:

  • Presence: When connecting with a team member, give your undivided attention by turning off your phone, e-mail notifications and have a genuine conversation. 
  • Deep listening: You can’t always see the effects of mental health, or if team members are struggling, you must listen for it. That means listening to understand, not to tell or respond. 
  • Compassion and empathy for others: It is easy to fall into judgements and make assumptions, but you will be amazed at the trust built by coming from a place of understanding, compassion, and empathy. 
  • Compassion and empathy for self: Equally as important is to show compassion and empathy for ourselves. We can be hard on ourselves when we don’t feel we are where we need or want to be.
  • Intentional connection: Carve out specific time to connect with your team, remembering some people are extroverts or more easily able to share where they are at, others more introverted or uncomfortable sharing. Set time aside to connect and genuinely ask how they are doing, how I can support you, and what do you need, particularly if you haven’t heard from them in a while.

At Quantum Leap Global, we empower Adaptive Leaders with the insights and confidence to build and sustain safe, inclusive, and thriving environments to realise new levels of wellbeing and success. 

Reach out at info@quantumleap-global.com for coaching or consulting discovery calls.

 Follow us at Quantum Leap Global to stay up to date on the latest insights.

 

The missing ingredient to impact and success as a leader

Quantum Leap Global’s CEO and Founder, Marianne Hynes, discusses the critical aspects of impactful leadership.

 

Want to improve your team’s success and impact, build psychological safety, teamed with performance standards and accountability and watch the improvements. 

 

Many teams have high-performance standards and accountability, however, without psychological safety, your team’s collaboration and innovation will be lower, and you will see signs of staff burnout, higher attrition and higher absenteeism. 

 

If you want to take the performance of your team or business to new levels of success, then the power is in realising the power of the collective rather than individual high performers. 

 

The vast majority of businesses have not realised the full potential of their teams. A diagnostic can reveal the key levers that can release the whole team’s potential, not just a select few.

 

We work with leaders, as a top-down approach is essential. To build and sustain psychological safety, leaders need to model the behaviours and language required and commit to creating an environment where all people thrive, not a select few.

 

At Quantum Leap Global, we empower Adaptive Leaders with the insights and confidence to build and sustain safe, inclusive, and thriving environments to realise new levels of well-being and success. Reach out at info@quantumleap-global.com for coaching or consulting discovery calls.

 

Follow us at Quantum Leap Global to stay up to date on the latest insights.

 

#psychologicalsafety #inclusion #impactfulleadership #quantumleapglobal 

Building and sustaining thriving environments

Quantum Leap Global’s CEO and Founder, Marianne Hynes discusses her passion for people and their work to support leaders.

 

With a passion for people, we firmly believe that every human has the right to feel safe at work, both physically and psychologically. This means providing a safe environment where they can bring their whole selves to work, speak up against the status quo when needed, and contribute without fear of retribution. Without a safe environment, the impacts on business are significant. 

 

Quantum Leap Global takes a two-prong approach to performance by equipping leaders with skills and understanding to build psychological safety as the foundation to inclusive and thriving environments. And by also addressing the stress component.

 

Most leaders want to create thriving and inclusive environments for their people but don’t know how to. So we partner with leaders to equip them with the behaviours and language to build and sustain psychological safety.

 

Another essential part of what we do is reduce the impact of financial stress on employees, particularly financial stress. We work with businesses to bring a holistic approach to their Employee Wellness Programs. Some employee programs provide financial budgeting and planning support, which is essential; however, they don’t address the underlying behaviours that sabotage these strategies. To have a more significant impact, you need to address the financial behavioural component, which is where our program focuses, complementing existing employee programs.

 

A startling 55% of employees suffer from financial stress, which impacts well-being, with an average cost of $1900 per person per annum. 

 

Improving profit just through just focusing on the numbers is ineffective. Yes, increasing revenue and decreasing costs are essential, but by unleashing the power of your team by creating thriving, safe and inclusive environments for all, you will reach new levels of success for everyone.

 

At Quantum Leap Global, we empower Adaptive Leaders with the insights and confidence to build and sustain safe, inclusive, and thriving environments to realise new levels of well-being and success.

 

Reach out at info@quantumleap-global.com to book a discovery call.

 

Follow us at Quantum Leap Global to stay up to date on the latest insights.

Want to improve your team’s performance?

High performing teams don’t just happen. They take focus and deliberate and specific action. 

I am sure most of us have been part of a team that didn’t work at some point in our career. Where much of the team’s energy was focused internally, working against each other rather than working together, wasting valuable time and resources. 

Throughout my 20 plus years in corporate, I witnessed more times than I care to admit the tremendous untapped potential of people and teams whose skills and experience were largely unutilised. But I have also had the pleasure of being part of and also leading dynamic and powerful teams. 

So what makes a team high performing? 

Besides the obvious of teams meeting or exceeding their targets, high performing teams require ongoing focus and commitment. 

Here are some essential steps to take to build a high performing team.

  • As a foundation, you must build a psychologically safe and inclusive environment. An environment where all people can bring their authentic selves to work. I have written several articles on this topic. Please refer to my website for recent articles.
  • Create a shared team vision and a sense of purpose for your team (for large corporations, this may be different, yet linked, to your company vision).
  • Develop a clear team strategy that connects to the broader business strategy, including objectives and priorities.
  • Ensure all team members understand their role in delivering on the strategy.
  • Agree on what success looks like and track progress regularly, course-correcting as needed. Remembering that accountability is a key component of performance.
  • Be deliberate in building your team’s culture by agreeing on the values and behaviours the team will live by and hold each other (including leaders) accountable.

On a final note, high performing individuals don’t necessarily make a high performing team. It is rare in today’s complex environment where one person alone can solve a complex problem; it takes a group of people. Therefore, ensure that you are hiring team players that align with the values and vision you seek for your business when recruiting for your team.

At Quantum Leap Global, we partner with leaders to equip them with the knowledge and behaviours that build psychologically safe environments as the foundation for high performance, unlocking the collective power of diversity by creating authentically safe and inclusive work environments where all can thrive. 

Teams are more diverse but not necessarily inclusive

We know from a competitive perspective that recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce in an inclusive environment is essential to being a market leader.

But having diversity doesn’t mean there is inclusion. 

We have seen much progress made towards more diverse teams over recent times; however, we are still struggling with inclusion. 

For there to be an inclusive organisation, there needs to be psychological safety. Meaning, all people, particularly minority groups, feel safe to bring their whole selves to work and contribute without fear. There needs to be a sense of belonging for all, not just those that are part of the dominant culture. 

But how do you know if you have inclusion? Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself or your staff to get a sense of your level of inclusion:

  • Have you ever felt you were the target of a negative stereotype?
  • Have you been talked over or ignored in a discussion?
  • Have you ever held back from asking a question out of fear?
  • Have you braved to challenge the status quo only to have that held against you?
  • Have you been made to feel inferior?

Having spent two decades in the corporate world, I can answer yes to all of the above questions throughout my career and regularly hear this from my clients, particularly those from different cultural backgrounds, minority groups and women.

Every person has the right to feel safe both physically and psychologically, and as leaders, we play an essential role in creating safe places for all. The benefits of creating such a space will result in not only a better place where employees want to stay, but you will also see the benefit of better innovation, increased performance and business growth.

As further highlighted by Amy Edmondson’s 20-year study on psychological safety, diverse organisations with psychological safety are more likely to function inclusively because diverse perspectives are more likely to be heard. 

At Quantum Leap Global, we partner with leaders to create psychologically safe environments, which is the foundation for high performance, unlocking the collective power of diversity, by creating authentically safe and inclusive work environments where all can thrive. 

Acknowledgements Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark

 

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