Monthly Archives: mayo 2020

THE FUTURE OF WORK AFTER COVID 19

With so many guessing what will come next after COVID 19, I dare ask you: will you adapt from what you had, or will you challenge yourself to look into entirely new ways of redefining your professional outcomes?

Everyone seems so eager to get back to normal. Yet, having gone through this long crisis, how do we make sure that we learn from this experience?

“The biggest risk we all face is going back to our OLD WAYS.”

After all, we are creatures of habit. Without any premeditated action, we will just fall back into our old ways of thinking, doing, and behaving.
How do we avoid going back to the same old ways? How do we give ourselves a chance to scrap the old and make space for the new?

Don’t wait for anyone else to lead the way. Learning from an experience like this comes from reflection about your own particular circumstances.

Dare to ask yourself challenging, creative questions that foster critical thinking and spark new innovative pathways. Here are 3 of my favourites questions during this time of transition:

1. If work did not exist as of yesterday – what would I create that would allow me to get better results faster?

2. If I could toss my organisational chart in the bin and come up with a new way of assigning work and delivering results, what would I create instead?

3. Who do I need to become next to offer the most value?

To your success,

Isabel

Isabel is an experienced Peak Performance Strategist with over 20 years of international work experience holding senior positions within the hospitality industry in countries around the world, as well as Executive and Leadership coaching, mentoring and training.

She specializes in high performance strategy, leadership development and building organizational culture to help leaders and their teams learn, grow and succeed.

Isabel is passionate about helping empower business leaders with the mindset, performance, skills and strategies that they need to get ahead.

More available on www.isabelvalle.com

DO YOU WANT TO FIND YOUR NEW WAY?

Contact me for a free, no obligation consultation to discuss your own individual needs. Do what it takes. Standout and lead the way.

THE DEATH OF TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT

When it comes to leadership … ARE YOU A DINOSAUR in danger of extinction?
Organisations are as adaptable as their leaders. Leaderhsip is *the* biggest constraint any organisation has – in terms of creativity, flexibility, empowerment and overall performance.

Allow me to be direct and ask you, which type of leader are you: the dinosaur manager or the digital leader?

Leaders walk-the-talk and others follow. A digital leader is always connected, collaborative, disruptive, curious and values and outcomes driven. If the leaders are creative, the organisation will follow, if the leaders are flexible or adaptable, the organisation will be too. If the leaders embody trust and empowerment the organisation will be empowered.

On the flip side; if the leaders are risk adverse, the organisation will be too, if the leaders do not trust, their teams will not be empowered. If the leader is not interested in feedback, input or co-creation, and does not adapt well to technology, the teams will follow that too.

In times of crisis, good leadership is demanded by an organisation, and your teams will demonstrate just how adaptable they are. The problem is not with your team, it is with you, their leader! We get what we give, so if your teams are not delivering, ask yourself, how do I need to take responsibility for the situation? what do I need to change? am I providing the teams with the skills, the mindset and the tools they need to deliver results? am I communicating clearly and transparently? am I connecting often? am I empowering and uplifing my employees? am I trusting my teams to come up with new creative ideas? am I allowing the space for mistakes to happen? am I celebrating lessons learnt from failures?

When you show you care, your employees will bring their best game to work.

If you want your team to accomplish great things, you must first show them that you care.

As leaders we get what we give. So how is that working for you right now?

Take a moment. What do you want from your organisation, or need in today’s uncertain environment?

Look in the mirror.

If you are not getting what you want, or need, take an inventory; How you are showing up as a leader and what impact is that having on your team?What do you need to do differently?

Don’t be a dinosaur. Help your organisation and teams beat extinction.

To your success.

Isabel

Isabel is an experienced Peak Performance Strategist with over 20 years of international work experience holding senior positions within the hospitality industry in countries around the world, as well as Executive and Leadership coaching, mentoring and training.

She specializes in high performance strategy, leadership development and building organizational culture to help leaders and their teams learn, grow and succeed.

Isabel is passionate about helping empower business leaders with the mindset, performance, skills and strategies that they need to get ahead.

More available on www.isabelvalle.com

Are you struggling in adapting to leadership? Would you like to accelerate your leadership skills? This is the best opportunity you have to do it.

Contact me for a free, no obligation consultation to discuss your own individual needs. Do what it takes. Standout and lead the way.

MINIMIZING STRESS TO LEAD A HAPPIER AND MORE PRODUCTIVE LIFE

Leading Under Pressure: 5 Ways Leaders Can Use Stress to Get Better Results

If there’s something that I’ve come to learn having worked as a leader for over 2 decades, working with leaders across a wide variety of industries worldwide, is the fact that leaders are not naturally predisposed to deal with stress any better than most of us.

At a time of crisis, stress and uncertainty can put a heavy burden to carry on all of us. COVID 19 is causing stress to the world at large, yet how you deal with it can determine whether you succeed or not.

The fact is that all stressful events can lead to achievement. Think for a moment of those stressful times in your own life when you overcame stress in order to rise up to something important, like taking exams to get your qualifications, interviewing for the role you knew you deserve, going on a date with your now partner, speaking or presenting in public about your own ideas and opinions, motivating your team or pitching to new clients – didn’t they all require for you to deal with a certain amount of stress?

What many of my clients would say, is that in the absence of pressure or stress, they wouldn’t be able to perform optimally, causing them to get bored or find ways to procrastinate if no pressure exists. So one could argue that pressure demands that we rise up to the challenge and we bring out the best in ourselves, and in doing so, become role models for others to do the same.

Leaders are somehow always aligned with challenges, and must learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable, constantly looking for ways to be challenged to produce outstanding results. There is however a fine balance where too much becomes the tipping point that send us into panic, paralizing our efforts to effectively show up, inhibiting our ability to make good decisions. The key here is handling pressure without panic, so how do we achieve that?

Neuroscience shows that dealing effectively with stressful situations requires the ability to balance our brain chemicals in the best way possible, and there are skills that can easily be taught that do just that. 

One of my favourite phrases is “when emotions run high, logic goes down”. In a heightened emotional state, our default physiological reaction is to go into ‘fight-or-flight’ response, our brain’s way of helping us jump into self-preservation. This is typically the time when in a business situation, we start freezing, micromanaging or start making mistakes.

But fear not, for there are many ways in which you can minimize or avoid the ‘fight-or-flight’ impulse. Leaders have many ways of dealing with stress. Here are five of the most common when facing a stressful situation:

1. Stay calm, remain fearless. See the situation as a challenge, not a crisis. Approach the situation from a place of curiosity, wanting to find out all that’s required to evaluate your response. Being curious will help you approach the topic from a proactive perspective, and your brain won’t have the ability to jump into panic mode. Be realistic and consider the fact that in life, sometimes things do go wrong. When they do, those setbacks will be dealt. Hang onto the lessons learned while maintaining the ability to stay upbeat about the future.
2. Keep it simple. Find order in the chaos and maintain clarity of thought. Work on the things that really count. Don’t get emotional or defensive. If you feel that emotions are getting the best of you, or overwhelm starts creeping in, it is time to take some distance to bring some space and perspective into the matter. At times like these, less is more. Bring it back to the basics, compose yourself, and only then you may come back to addressing the issue. Simplicity under pressure is best.
3. Exercise. Multiple studies have shown that physical exercise not only reduces stress but also improve concentration by reducing anxiety, therefore leading to better decisions. If you are feeling like things are getting on top of you, take a break and go for a walk, do some stretching, of a high intensity activity that allows you to release some endorphins and reset your mental and emotional states.
4. Focus on the goal and take decisive action. Taking the time to reflect on the big picture, why you do what you do, and moving the needle towards your goals will reduce stress, improve clarity and increase your likelihood of resolving the issue; the act of doing something to resolve it will also reduce the pressure. One brain can only think one thought at the time, so when we are being and actively doing, our brain is busy helping us achieve it.
5. Prepare for the unexpected. This is a technique that top athletes use in preparing for extreme quests. They visualize the worst that could happen, then go about considering what they will do when that happens. Going through this experience in your brain allows your mind to quieten up, so you can worry about getting on with things. You’re much less likely to be stressed about something if you were expecting it. The trick is not to worry about everything that might happen, but to be prepared for it if does. A lot easier said than done I know! Just know that your brain knows no difference between real or envisioned scenarios, so help yourself by helping your brain.

For leaders to succeed, they need to understand and embrace the fact hat dealing with stress and pressure is part of being a leader, and learning to cope with it is a necessary step on the path to achievement. Leaders must therefore make the shift from resisting and reacting to pressure to embracing it, making it a necessary part of their role, and equiping themselves to make the most of it.

When leaders break down under pressure, so do their teams. When the heat turns up at work, most of us aren’t at our best. If you haven’t coped with pressure well in the past, be easy on yourself. You may do it again. But don’t be discouraged – or complacent. Ask yourself, “When it matters most, who do I want to be? How do I want to show up?” While it isn’t easy to step up to your best self under pressure, it is incredibly important. These are defining moments for you and for your team.

¡Por tu éxito!

Isabel

Isabel is an experienced Peak Performance Strategist with over 20 years of international work experience holding senior positions within the hospitality industry in countries around the world, as well as Executive and Leadership coaching, mentoring and training.

She specializes in high performance strategy, leadership development and building organizational culture to help leaders and their teams learn, grow and succeed.

Isabel is passionate about closing the gender gap and helping women reach more leadership roles by empowering them in business with the mindset, performance, skills and strategies that they need to get ahead.

More available on www.isabelvalle.com