Leadership and Triathlons - What Do They Have To Do with Each Other?

By Chris Coward

Last week I completed my first triathlon and although my time was nothing to brag about, the experience was wonderful and I would definitely do it again. As I was cycling around the Philadelphia Art Museum (with hardly anyone around since I was the last wave of women to go), I thought about how the triathlon experience connects really well to leadership skills.

1) An excellent leader works on their weak areas, always looking to improve and at the minimum, not have their weakness be a liability. For me, the swimming was my weakness. As a result I spent most of my training time on improving my swimming, getting tips from anyone who said they swam competitively in high school or college. I'm still not good at it, but my goal was to avoid being rescued and to not be last in the race!

2) A healthy leader seeks balance in their life. For this race I did not go crazy overtraining or becoming obsessed with winning. It was important to me to continue with my life - play music, work, have fun and prioritize important relationships.

3) Another sign of a good leader is that no matter what is going on for them, they still make the time to encourage others and remain positive. If the budget is pessimistic or their knees are killing them in the race, a leader will continue to encourage others and remain optimistic and solution oriented.

4) An excellent leader always does their best, no matter what the circumstances are. Everyone's best is different and a person's best may vary day to day. For me, I can honestly say that I did my best in my first triathlon and of course, I want to do better next time.

5) Finally, a great leader sets and takes action toward their goals. My goal for my first triathlon was to: a) finish b) have fun c) not get rescued during the swim. As all strong leaders do, I will set the bar higher for my next triathlon and seek to be more competitive in my age group.

Did I mention that it is great when a leader can have fun being a leader? Employees gravitate to that "thing" about you that is the human element of your leadership. Don't forget to keep striving for the best while remaining optimistic that you will finish strong.

Chris Coward, MSW, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker and Leadership Coach with over ten years experience supervising, managing and leading people working in non-profit agencies. She has worked with individuals and teams in various organizations, helping them improve their communication and gain clarity around their goals and mission. Chris is an experienced workshop facilitator and also uses adventure- based learning in some of her trainings.

Chris believes that each team member has a set of unique strengths that he or she brings to the group and that a team functions best when there is diversity in strengths versus sameness amongst members. She brings warmth, humor, energy and the ability to give direct feedback to clients working with her.

If you would like to improve your leadership ability or develop your work team, you can contact Chris at (215) 472-1572 or chris@chriscoward.com. The website address is http://www.chriscoward.com

Signup for her FREE monthly e-zine, the Leader's Edge at http://www.chriscoward.com

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5 Essential Attributes in Leading Others

By Duncan Brodie

Leading others brings new demands on individuals and requires them to have or develop new competencies and attributes. People are often promoted into posts where they are required to lead others because they were high performers at doing a task orientated job. Yet leading others does require different skills from doing something yourself. So what are 5 essential attributes in successfully leading others?

Providing feedback

The first essential attribute in leading others is to learn how to provide feedback. People in organisations are looking for feedback, praise and recognition for what they are doing to help you get results. A large proportion of our life is spent at work and we all like to feel valued. If you had to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in terms of providing feedback (10 being excellent) what score would you give yourself? Providing feedback takes little or no time, costs nothing and is one of the biggest contributors to a happy workforce and staff retention levels.

Listening and involving

An autocratic style where people were told what to do and get on with it will not work in the modern business world. People want to be involved in contributing to key decisions and feel that their points of view have been heard. As the leader, you clearly need to take the final decision. Chances are that not everyone will agree with the decision but if you have taken the time to listen to and involve others in the decision process, they are more likely to get behind the decision you reach.

Getting the balance right

One of the challenges in leading others is getting the balance right between delegating to others and keeping track on progress. Too much involvement could result in the other person or team thinking that you don't trust them. Too little involvement could mean that you find out too late that things are off track and deadlines are going to be missed. Making the time at the outset to brief others, check their understanding and agree review points is a simple but effective way of getting the balance right.

Setting objectives

In leading others, it is vitally important to set clear objectives. Leaders sometimes fall into the trap of believing that a long job description with lots of detail about what the employee is required to do serve that purpose. In addition to this, make a point of setting around 6 key objectives for each person. These objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, results orientated and time limited.

Training and developing

When leading others you need to make the time and give the commitment to training people. So often employers put in a lot of effort when it comes to employing people but make no investment of time and/or money in training and developing people. As a leader, you need to make the time to help people grow and get better at what they do.

Successfully leading others is vital to the success of an organisation. You may already be performing outstandingly in this area. If you are the challenge is to keep yourself at this high performance level. If you are still developing as a leader, where do you need to focus on to move towards outstanding performance?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements (G&A) works with professionals and progressive public and private sector organisations who want to develop their management and leadership capability in order to achieve more success. With 25 years business experience in a range of sectors, he understands first hand the real challenges of managing and leading in the demanding business world.

You can learn more about Duncan, Goals and Achievements services and products and sign up for his free e-course and monthly newsletter at http://www.goalsandachievements.co.uk/

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