Your Behavior

Skills in Communication, Leadership, Coaching

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Leadership & Collaboration Skills

With some diligence, startup founders can quickly develop a more-than-adequate mastery of a set of simple skills in leadership, communication and collaboration. When combined with an adequate mastery of the unconscious ways in which we influence each other, this behavior toolset can make the difference between success and failure in your company.

Setting the Tone for Your Organization

 

The key is to understand that everything you do matters. How you:

  • Pay attention

  • Listen to people

  • Speak to people

  • Reflect on current reality

  • Take the time to structure your team and the tempo and style of your interactions with them

    • really think about, and test, all the activities that make up your leadership of the team

  • Communicate your desires, intentions and reflections

All have an enormous impact on your colleagues. At a very fundamental level, humans derive their cues on how to think and feel from those who they report to. More than you perhaps wish, the leader is responsible for, and can set the tone for, the quality of your partnerships and the culture of your organization.


Communication Skills

 

  • Paying Attention

  • Listening is a talent that can transform relationships. It requires:

    • aligning the brain, behavior and toolbox all at once and

    • focusing your attention on the person in front of you.

      • Subconsciously, your partner can tell if you are really listening or not. Their subconscious will be entrained (aligned physically and mentally) with yours to the degree that you are fully, consciously listening.

  • Rapport and Active Listening

    • ​The right responses and well-tuned questions create both connection with people and stimulate their positive response to you. Also, when they begin to merge with your coaching skill set, they help your colleagues generate solutions and perspectives that increase performance.

  • Staying on your Side of the Net

    • We often find ourselves making assumptions and trying to read the minds of people around us, particularly those we lead.

      • ​We can quickly climb what is often called the ladder of inference, inadvertently assigning meaning to the actions of people around us.

    • Leading effectively often means taking the position of "not knowing," (even when you do have a lot of clues) and being deeply curious about both your effect in people and their reaction to what you are asking.

  • Giving and Receiving Feedback

    • Fostering a feedback-rich environment is a prerequisite for success. (Formal reviews every six months or so are useful, but not at all sufficient to creating a fast-moving and reflective team.)

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