Posts Tagged ‘employee performance’

Leaders Who Build Team Trust and Great Cultures

Thursday, February 27th, 2020

When working with company leaders to build high-performing teams, I share my mantra, “Culture is created by default or by design.” This means that either a culture’s values and expectations are clearly defined, designed, lived and reinforced daily or the culture just sort of bubbles up from the depths of who-knows-where, creating itself. As leaders and managers I think that we can all agree that defining what we want our organization’s culture to be and then taking steps to achieve and reinforce that design is a much better alternative than leaving it up to chance. It is hard to manage chance.

In our capitalistic society where we have seen a trend of greed-fueled profits being created at all costs, it is now more important than ever to deliberately add the value of trust to our teams. We have good teams but we want to make them really great high-performing teams. What makes the difference between good and great? In a word, it’s Trust. It is hard for people to perform at their very best when there is an absence of trust and a feeling of always looking over your shoulder while working with team mates.

Teams that lack trust tend to exhibit these behaviors:

  • Spreading gossip as truths with the intention of hurting others
  • Creating a scapegoat: someone to take the blame for the team problems
  • Creating a scapegoat: someone who becomes the center of team jokes
  • Deliberately hiding or misconstruing information
  • Showing a lack of respect for others demonstrated through words, actions or both

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Making the most of Performance Improvement Plans

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016

PIPRita Perea is president and CEO of Rita Perea Leadership Coaching and Consulting, specializing in working with senior leaders to successfully engage employees, lead teams, manage change and balance work and life.

Do you remember playing the“Chutes and Ladders” board game as a child? Squeals of delight ensued as we moved our pawns ahead the number of squares indicated by the spinner. Bad luck if your game piece landed on a chute; you had to move backward on the game board and lose precious momentum in getting ahead. Good luck was landing on the first step of a ladder. Your game piece was rewarded by automatically advancing to the top of the ladder and getting ahead on the game board. Landing on a ladder meant that you had a good shot at winning. Everyone wanted to land on a ladder. But landing on a chute meant that you most likely would lose the game and walk away from your friends in disgrace. It was a tough and powerful life lesson. And not one that you wanted to repeat.

Sometimes it can feel as if our careers are one big game of chutes and ladders. Except that life is not a game, and being blindsided and sent backward in our careers can have serious economic and social consequences for us.

Moving up the career ladder in a sequential fashion is the stuff that corporate dreams are made of. Career advancement is what every American is taught to strive for. And some even feel entitled to it. Move forward. Get ahead. Be a success and a winner.

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