GRATITUDE, EMPLOYEES AND WORKPLACE

 The most important thing in gratitude leadership is giving thanks.  This matters because it will improve sense of wellbeing, have higher self esteem, will decrease depression and anxiety, helps sleep better, improve overall life satisfaction.  Being grateful is an expectation in one’s personal lives, yet gratitude in the workplace is especially critical.

Gratitude is the positive emotion felt after receiving something valuable.  It is a feeling of thankfulness or acknowledgement for receiving something.  Appreciation is not gratitude; nor is acceptance.  The difference with appreciation is that appreciation is about recognising and enjoying the good qualities of someone, acknowledging value and worth.

Gratitude is a complex social emotion where actions may simply be based on the sense of social worth and feeling valued by others.  Studies shown that many employees say they’d be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss (Glassdoor Survey).  Gratitude is something that will motivate the team, creates a sense of purpose, helps drive behaviour change and it will also lowers stress and anxiety.

Showing kindness in the workplace can improve organisational culture.  Workplace are build on relationships.  Thus interactions will shape our work experience.  But we must not forget that connections fulfills the fundamental human needs which is the need to feel valued and appreciated.

No matter how good the gratitude culture is, there exist the so call gratitude gap because people don’t like to admit they need help at work, and thanking someone means admitting it.

Most management takes things for granted i.e. expect employees to perform, depends on teams to exceed expectations, and also trust leaders and managers to lead with courage.

There are many ways to show more gratitude at work like sending a note expressing gratitude, keeping a gratitude journal, and taking time out for reflection.  Gratitude at work can also be encouraged by,

- offering thank you cards

- creating space for gratitude, be it physically or virtually 

- counting blessings when things go wrong (find the silver lining)

- being grateful to the people not the performance 

- learn to notice each person’s accomplishments 

- tailoring the gratitude accordingly 

- being specific in giving gratitude 

- being sincere, do not fake it 

Typically we are not taught to be grateful, especially at work.  Showing gratitude is actually understanding vulnerability.  In order to be grateful, we need to see people for who they really are; consciously connect work with a sense of higher purpose, and to always express gratitude.  Expressing gratitude conveys genuine delight in a way that illuminates the unique value of its recipient.  Saying thanks is a platitude whereas gratitude is an orientation towards life.  

Reference 

ccl.org (Gratitude at work, Cathleen Clerkin PhD, Nov 17, 2024)

carpedia.com (Gratitude as management skill, Jacques Gauthier)

2040digital.com (Mindful Management: The Power of Gratitude and Building Trust)

thesavageleader.com (Why leaders need to practice gratitude)

linkedin.com (The case for management by gratitude, Lily Garcia Walton)

RESPECT: THE NEW ELEMENT IN LEADERSHIP

 Do not chase respect, walk with dignity and it will follow you 

Rare life lessons by a Chinese monk

Respect, in simple understanding, is the act of holding another person in high regard and treating them with decency and consideration.  Respect seems to be the cohesive element in caring and understanding for someone.  One must recognise respect when it’s there as it comes in many guises such as 

- respect of an individual, society, institution or government 

- respect of the laws, family, school or work conditions 

- respect at work of fellow employees, superiors, and subordinates 

- respect of minorities, the weak, the disable

- respect for everyone and everything 

- respect can build bridges not dreamed of before 

- more importantly, respect for ourselves 

Respect yourself and others will respect you (Confucious)

Respecting others and ourselves, and also seeking respect for ourselves is also important because it shows that a person has been acknowledged, valued, and accepted.  Respect elevates our sense of significance.  How we are perceived by others actually matters much more than we think.

Most often than not, showing respect for others always seems to go missing in action, often being overlooked because we’re always too busy to notice or hear clearly ‘good morning’ from colleagues.  Most of the time too disengaged to really sense the intensity of the pain of a friend; or too tired to care that our snappy and dismissive response was hurtful and unwarranted.

Respect a man and he will do more (James Howell)

A culture of respect must be intentionally build by an organisation.  This can attract, retain and leverage the contributions of all their talents, and create a climate of psychological safety at work.  In many culture, respect is closely intertwined with the concept of leadership where mutual respect creates a strong bond between leaders and followers.

The few indicators of existence of respect are:

- Listening - when they’ve been heard and understood; be genuinely interested and open to others; actively listen to understand; you don’t need to agree or like their viewpoint.

- The absence of disrespect - eliminate rudeness, insulting others, and devaluing words or behaviour.

- Actions of respect - understand how identities affect the way they lead, how respect is given and received in cultures and groups.  In short, just understanding and acknowledging.

5 reasons you need to lead with respect:

1. breeds trust 

2. builds engagement 

3. improves communication and results (respect each other)

4. promotes psychological safety

5. cultivates culture that leads to lower turnover rates 

6. culture in workplace attracts top talent 

7. diverse perspective strengthens innovation 

8. provides the freedom to be you

To cultivate the respect culture, one must 

- Exhibit interest, and appreciation for others’ perspectives, knowledge, skills and abilities.

- Express recognition and show sincere gratitude for efforts and contributions.

- Communicate information openly.

- Communicate maximum respect for people 

- Active exchange of ideas and opinions.

- Clarify decision-making processes.

- Seek input into those processes, when appropriate.

- Understand allyship.

- Take concerns seriously.

- Show sincere empathy.

- Seek to better understand the said perspective.

- Pay attention to people.

- Try to relate to others.

- Open up to others.

- Avoid making assumptions and judgments 

- Have dialogues.

- Regularly practice respect.

Respect is difficult to foster and maintain.  It is the engine that supports human behaviour, without it civilisation would crumble.  But respect has not always been well practiced.

Respect is also something that is being individually defined for each person through personal experience.  Our personal definition of respect are influenced by our personality, emotions, preferences, and cultural context.  

Reference 

ccl.org (The Power of Respect, Kelly Hannum, PhD)

forbes.com

thinkers360.com

tandfonline.com

linkedin.com

c-q-l.org

CHALLENGES AND THE POSSIBILITY OF FAILURE

 We sometimes face tough challenges in life and work.  Persistence is very important when dealing with challenge.  Every obstacle you get past will teach you something new and helps you grow.

Change the way we think about these challenges and we can see them differently.  To succeed we must change our way of thinking.  Bravely facing challenges means:

- probability of encountering failure, but in every failure there lies an important lesson that helps us do better in future 

- looking and seeking for unique solutions to achieve things that might not have been possible 

- learning to bounce back from hard times, thus not letting set-backs defeat us

- admitting the need for networking and teaming up to make solving problems easier and gaining new viewpoints and chances

- having a positive mindset where it helps thinking become more clearly 

- making strategic plan that guides through tough times 

- embracing diversity in the workplace in order to have various perspectives and ideas 

- keep learning new things all the time where it will help grow in personal lives and jobs 

There are many ways to embrace challenges and emerge stronger, wiser and more capable.

1. Pause and Reframe 

2. Break Problem into Manageable Steps 

3. Ask Better Questions 

4. Think Differently 

5. Identify Blind Spots 

6. Approach with Clarity and Focus 

7. Seek Inputs 

8. Reflect on Lessons Learned 

9. Develope Abilities and Intelligence through Effort

10. Surround yourself with Optimistic Thinkers w

11. Identity Risks as Springboard 

12. Brainstorm Solutions 

13. Break,Challenges into Small, Manageable Pieces 

14. Learn from Mistakes 

15. Encourage Creative Problem Solving 

See challenges as opportunities in disguise and not roadblocks.  The shift in mindset will change your life.  This will help you turn challenges into opportunities:

1. Prepare to face challenges and the possibilities of disaster 

2. Develop technical skills 

3. Stay calm under pressure; maintain a calm mindset 

4. Invest time in building trust 

5. Assessing current and actively improving 

6. Adapting to changing landscape is necessary

 

Reference 

linked.com

kerrysiggins.com

psychologytoday.com

lasonde.utah.edu

JUDGE WITH KINDNESS, FOR EVERYONE IS FIGHTING A BATTLE

 People will always judge you, even your loved ones

The Fame Game, Netflix 

Judging others is something of the basic of human behaviour.  We were taught since childhood to never judge others, instilling the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.  In most cases, it’s the feeling of insecurity that makes us judge others. Judging others can sometimes linked to the instinctual drive to evaluate threats.

People are judged based on their character or inherent traits rather than the situation itself.  This will almost always leads to unfair judgments.

People also tend to judge what they don’t understand.  Judgment can also stem from a person’s background, cultural environment, and past experiences.  These type of judgments are often bias and dangerous because they happen automatically and can influence our actions and attitudes, reinforcing stereotypes and discrimination.

So, it’s important to understand why we judge others:

- it provides a path towards more empathetic and less anxious living 

- it’s about refining the judgment processes to be more mindful and informed 

- able to enhance interactions and emotional landscape 

Some people can be quite judgmental and therefore it’s crucial to distinguish between making value judgments and being judgmental.  Value judgments reflect our discernment based on our values and priorities.  Being judgmental is us thinking that our opinions and values are ‘right’ and judging others as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’.  That’s us being arrogantly thinking that we’re better than others.

To break the judgments habits, we need to:

1. take a moment to understand the person’s background 

2. recognise your own insecurities 

3. work on building yourself up instead of tearing others down 

4. learn to create more self awareness 

5. examine your friendships and associations 

6. Focus on building connections based on positivity and mutual respect 

7. create and be the best version of yourself 

Judging is an easy process that doesn’t require much thinking or reasoning, whereas understanding is harder as it requires deep thinking, patience, compassion, and an open mind.  

Judging others is actually a natural cognitive process, influenced by social norms, personal experiences and psychological biases.  Judging others does not define who the others are, but it defines who we are.  It’s just like the story of a woman who judged the washings of her neighbour as not that clean when actually she’s looking through her dirty windows and therefore sees the neighbour’s washings as not clean.

So we can see that judging shut us down and prevent us from understanding the full situation or the new truth that is not known yet.  There are a few recommended steps to escape this judging loop:

1. Be judging, seek to understand with an open mind 

2. Know that there may be something about the situation that is not fully understood 

3. Be empathetic and give the benefit of the doubt 

4. Try to understand the situation or circumstances 

5. Practice self awareness 

6. Understand ourselves 

7. Learn to be more self aware when judging 

8. Move on to adopt more interesting thought patterns 

9. Be more appreciative and compassionate of the world 

10. Avoid fitting the world into our optics

11. Be kind, for everyone is fighting a battle.

Reference 

catharicspacecounselling.com

mike-robins.com

arcadiancounseling.com

times of India.indiatimes.com

SKILLS LIES IN THE HAND, NOT THE TOOLS

We often hear that skills are the key to success.  But tool is actually just a means to an end.  The actual skills lies in the analytical mindset that is able to turn information/data into valuable insights.

A tool without skills is like having a hammer but not knowing how to build.  Whereas a skill without tool is like having a project but no bricks.  Tools doesn’t matter when it comes to creativity.  It’s important to learn the why and how in order to gain the fundamentals that makes a professional.

It’s an illusion to believe that tools are everything just because tools can make us look cool in the process to success.  It’s good to remember that tools are just part of what it takes to make something happen.  Mostly it’s creativity, problem solving, and passion that matters.

Tools are useless in the hands of an untrained person, even if it’s the best tools.  Ultimately, it’s the skills of the person using the tool is what creates a functional, and productive result.  The skills will amplify the power of the tools, turning them into instruments of progress and innovation.  This is the reason why people always confuse between knowing how to use a tool and actually having an excellent skill.

Tools are for execution whereas skills are strategy and value.  So it’s actually okay not to be great on the tools.  There will be a point in time when tools really do matter.  Just like the saying ‘The camera doesn’t make the photographer, but without good quality camera, the photographer won’t be able to capture a good photo’.

Do not get caught up in learning the tools when it’s the skills that will help us the most.  Tools come and go, whereas skills develop if you nurture them.

Reference 

https://medium.com

https://stratco.nz

https://linkedin.com

https://brndnsmth.medium.com

https://buenatura.org

https://ellenrohr.com

https://cambelldatascience.com

podcast.stugyabroadacademy.in

LEADERSHIP IS AN INFLUENCE RELATIONSHIP

 The managing style of leaders is essential to the team’s success.  The leaders need to provide compelling directions for team members to achieve objectives.  It is said that leadership style may affect the team’s effectiveness.

Organisation today need effective leaders who understand the complexities and challenges of the rapidly changing global environment.  It’s considered important because leadership styles can affect the quality of work life.

It’s important to know that leadership is not a person nor is it a management.  Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers.

Professor Joseph Rost (1991) said leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purpose.  It no doubt is true that leadership includes the discipline of top-down management, but it actually extends far beyond that.

Everyone in every organisation is in a leadership role.  Leadership is gifted, not claimed.  Followers determine leaders, leaders do not determine followers.  Ultimately, leadership is a social process that depends on contingent needs of followers and the capacity of the individual to realise their leadership potential.

Dr. John C Maxwell writes about the Law of Influence in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  He said that the accurate measure of leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.  He measured influence in 7 areas I.e. character, relationships,knowledge,intuitions,experience, past successes, and ability.  Dr. Maxwell outlined 5 myths about leadership:

1. The management myth where management and leadership are 2 equal terms.

2. The entrepreneur myth where the assumption is all entrepreneurs are leaders.

3. The knowledge myth with the assumption is knowledgable people will be a good leader.

4. The pioneer myth 

5. The position myth 

The 21 Laws of John Maxwell 

1. The Law of the Lid - there’s a limit to our potential.

2. The Law of Influence - refers to the power or capacity to produce desired results 

3. The Law of Process - leaders are learners have the capacity to develop and improve skills 

4. The Law of Navigation - charts the course, carefully seeing where they want to go 

5. The Law of Addition - focuses on advancing others

6. The Law of Solid Ground - a solid character, with integrity, authenticity and discipline 

7. The Law of Respect - must be strong and worthy of respect 

8. The Law of Intuition - the power to discern the true nature of a person or situation 

9. The Law of Magnetism - constantly attracting followers and new leaders 

10. The Law of Connection - bring or join one thing to another 

11. The Law of Inner Circle - those closest to us will determine our potential 

12. The Law of Empowerment - give the means, power or opportunity to do 

13. The Law of the Picture - lead by example 

14. The Law of Buy-In - getting support for ideas, visions, and strategies 

15. The Law of Victory - find a way for the team to win 

16. The Law of Big Mo - Mo (momentum) is a close friend of effective leaders 

17. The Law of Priorities - focussing on what is most important is so much more effective than being busy 

18. The Law of Sacrifice - the need to be willing to give up 

19. The Law of Timing - must know when to seize the moment, when to move forward, and when to back off, what to improve and how radical those improvements should be 

20. The Law of Explosive Growth - recognises developing leaders around them 

21. The Law of Legacy - make an impact on the world; leave a legacy of succession, create leadership culture, assure lasting success, value team leadership above individual leadership, choose a life of sacrifice not a life of success.

Some may say that leadership is transient and discontinuous.  Windows of leadership will come and go.  Remember, leaders lasting values can only be judged based on how well the organisation did after the leader is gone.

Reference 

https://trainingindustry.com

https://daveshoenbeck.com

https://trinitasadvisors.com

linkendin.com

Articles 

Leadership Styles and Job Performance: A Literature Review (Mohammad Al-Maliki, Wang Juan, School of Economics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan China)

Leadership Styles (Nanjundeswarasamy T.S., Swany D.R., Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, JSS Academy of Technical Education, Bangalore, India)

Leadership Definitions Application for Lecturers’s Leadership Development (Reni Rosari, Faculty of Economies and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia)

SHORT NOTES: Leadership Themes and Styles

 LEADERSHIP THEORIES 

1. Great Men Theory 

- Thomas Carlyle (1847) claimed that leaders are born 

2. Traits Theory 

- Born leaders were endowed with certain physical traits and personality characteristics 

- Jenkins identified 2 traits; (a) emergent traits (heavily dependent upon heredity), (b) effectiveness traits (based on experience or learning)

3. Contingency Theories (Situational)

- recommended that no leadership style is precise 

- no single right way to lead 

- leaders have to adapt to the particular situation 

4. Style and Behaviour Theory 

- acknowledge the significance of certain necessary leadership skills 

- Yuhl (1989) introduces 3 leadership styles: (a) democratic leaders, (b) autocratic leaders, (c) laissez-faire leaders 

- Fiedler and House (1994) identified 2 additional leadership styles; (a) consideration structure, (b) commencing (initiating) structure 

5. Process Leadership Theory 

- Greenleaf 1970s) focuses include: (a) servant leadership, (b) learning organisation, (c) principal centred leadership, (d) charismatic leadership

6. Transactional Theory 

7. Transformational Theory 

LEADERSHIP STYLES 

1, Transformational Leadership Style

- comprises of 3 components:

- (a) contingent reward - focuses on achieving results 

- (b) management by acception (active) - have inherent trust in their workers to end the job to a satisfactory standard and avoid rocking the boat 

- (c) management by exception (passive) - avoid specific agreements, failure to provide goals and standards to achieve by staffs; waits for things to go wrong before taking action (Bass and Avolio, 2004)

2. Transformational Leadership Style

- (a) Idealised Influence (Charismatic) - attribute of a leader which inspires followers to take their leader as a role model 

- (b) Inspirational Motivation - encourages the employees in the organisational pursuit drawing the best out of them 

- (c) Intellectual Stimulation - measure the mentoring, coaching, morale, building strengths of individualise consideration i.e. display concern for their workers needs, and are equipped to boost and coach development of desired workplace 

Conclusion 

Leaders with essential traits will have the ability to take certain actions to be successful.  4 styles of leadership are established under optimal style of leadership:

- participating 

- delegating 

- selling 

- telling 

Reference 

Journal of resource development and management, vol. 16, 2016 - Zakeer Ahmed Khan Phd, Dr Allah Nawaz Irfanullah Khan Phd, Department of Public Administration, Gomel University, Deva Ismail Khan.