Month: July 2018

A Leader’s Ability to Think and Judge Critically

Believe it or not, a leader that has the ability to think and judge critically is more important than a resume full of accolades. If you want to hire a dynamic individual, then you need to focus on selecting a high-level thinker.

While looking for the next top talent for your company, be sure to place the capacity for judgment and critical thinking as part of the criteria as you make your hiring decision. You’ll make a better and better-rounded hire.

Good, Sound Judgment

One that has good judgment is able to be strategic in their thought processes. They are able to use critical thinking skills in order to make sound decisions as a leader. An individual that has good judgment is equipped to do the following:

* Plan ahead and have forethought

* Organize information and provide it clearly to others

* Understand the power of cause and effect

Critical Thinking

As a critical thinker, you want to be able to foresee the outcome, think about potential consequences and be able to change as needed. Emotions don’t need to get involved here. The truth, facts, and matter at hand must be addressed and thought through. Strong leaders are able to curb emotion and act strategically.

Another skill set that goes along with a critical thinker is that they can compare the past and current situations in a way that provides experience and impact to improve the current matter. With this, a leader should be able to set aside their own pride to bring up things that would help the given situation, even if it reveals past mistakes or room for improvement.

Critical thinking requires the following:

* The skill to take on a problem with an organized approach

* The ability to know what information is needed to be obtained

* The foresight to consider alternative options and ways to think about situations

Leadership Roles

Leaders must be self-aware and must work to focus on critical thinking and sound judgment. If they miss this, they are not able to lead their team and be as sharp and ready to tackle projects.

These two skills, critical thinking, and judgment are skills that set people apart. They are advanced and often a rare find.

When times are difficult and stress is high, leaders will revert to a lower cognitive functioning because they are just human after all. The ability to have this higher level of thinking means that you will be an asset to your team, superiors, and company as a whole.

Your comments are greatly appreciated. Please let us know how we are doing!

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professional.

Leaders Excel With These Different Leadership Styles

Drive, along with effective leadership, allows you to develop a strong robust team and grow your business.  Make sure your decisions meet challenges head-on with these 6 effective leadership styles:

Action-Oriented

This leadership style will feel very comfortable to high potentials on your team. “Getting the job done” is critical for action focus team members facing tight deadlines and specific project guidelines. Quick decision making is imperative and often there is no time to test and tweak to deliver results needed in your organization.

Transformative

Encourage transformative style team members to bring new ideas to the table frequently. As a leader, you need to ask qualifying questions and give time to process and offer options.  When transformative style leaders feel their ideas affect the team positively, it encourages them to keep pushing forward.

Encouraging

Giving your team the confidence to produce ideas will help take the organization to the next level.  Providing them with constructive feedback and reflecting on past successes, will encourage them toward future success.  Often team members lack the confidence to speak up even though they have the right information. Provide an encouraging environment and keep everyone focused.

Empowerment

Build your team’s authority by allowing them to make decisions and execute their ideas. A team that has the ability to make effective decisions will reduce turnover and increase engagement and ultimately can contribute to bottom-line effectiveness.

Reflective

Self-reflection is the key for this leadership style. Analyzing past events, actions, and results will help generate new ideas & solutions.  This allows you to experience insights that may result in better opportunities for the future. This style is powerful, but it can be difficult at time as it requires you to put aside your vision and inspirations to let the team discover its own path forward.

Idealistic

For some, this style comes naturally and for others, it takes work. As an idealistic thinker, it is important to demonstrate the desired outcomes.  Paint a detailed and vivid picture of the desired results. While this style is highly persuasive, use it sparingly; as its power comes in with infrequent and strategic use.

Great leaders know how to leverage natural skills and work on developing individual weaknesses.

It is essential to know which approach is best to use in specific circumstances and know when to avoid overusing one just because you excel at it.

Your comments are greatly appreciated. Please let us know how we are doing!

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professional.

Artificial Intelligence Threat

Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses a threat to eliminate a variety of jobs today through automation. To define, AI makes it possible for machines to learn human-like tasks through experience. Computers can now handle many tasks and process large amounts of information and patterns in data. This is a serious concern to society and how we run business and livelihoods.

The Threat of Mass Unemployment 

If computers replace employees, what would that look like? Research shows that we could have a mass unemployment on our hands. The top positions that could disappear are real estate brokers, sports referees, and insurance claims adjusters because AI would be able to handle these roles well and it would be cheaper.

People would act out in fear if this happened. Lawyers, managers, writers, and other white-collar workers would perhaps be in rebellion out of frustration, fear, and lack of work. They could be replaced by AI.

AI Capabilities

People have thought for years that computers would never be able to replace people for different reasons. A few of them include the ability to: 

* Show empathy

* Be emotional

* Creativity

However, as time passes, these are becoming more and more part of the AI capabilities. Two decades ago, this was unfathomable but it’s clearly possible today. Those that work on the continued development of AI have even begun to show signs of concern for the future and what the capabilities look like.

Potential Revolution

A revolution of white-collar workers could be a potential result of AI taking their jobs in the future. White-collar workers have a sphere of influential people. They are organized. They understand the larger problem and can gain sympathy from others who could potentially lose their jobs too.

The underlying problem of a potential revolt would be a politico-economic system that does not separate wealth and state and focuses on wealth above all else.

AI is something to pay attention to since it is a threat and one that only continues to grow. The job market as we know it today is changing and will look quite different as the years go by.

What should we do as a society to improve this situation?

AI appears to be here to stay and we need to think through what that looks like and how to handle it for the future.

Your comments are greatly appreciated. Please let us know how we are doing!

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professional.