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    Leadership Techniques

  1. Offer Your Employees Flexible Work Arrangements
    2. Many of your employees may want to switch over to a flexible work arrangement (FWA). And if they don’t get it through you, they could be flying the coop to go to another company that’s willing to provide it. Here’s how you can retain your best employees through FWAs, if your company would allow them.
  2. Get Ready to Climb the Corporate Ladder
    3. Do you imagine yourself sitting at your boss’s desk? You aren’t alone! You should think about planning your career, and that often means moving up the ladder.
  3. Adjust Your Management Style for Highly Creative Employees
    4. One of the difficult aspects of managing is that all of your employees are different, and many of them respond better to different management styles. If you supervise a group of highly creative people (that is, right-brain thinkers), there are a few things you can do to adjust your methods so they can fulfill their potentials.
  4. 5 Resources for Managing From Afar
    5. Your expectations as a manager won’t change just because your employees don’t work in the same building, so you should know how to communicate and manage effectively regardless of location.
  5. Keep Your Most Talented Employees On Board
    6. There are some employees you just can’t bear to lose -- but sometimes you don’t miss their talents until they’re gone. Why do your best employees jump ship? Is it money, stress or something else?
  6. 3 Tips for Keeping Criticism Constructive
    7. There’s no way around it -- as a manager, you must give employees constructive criticism so they can grow and improve. No one likes criticsm, but good leaders know how to deliver it so that employees don’t feel crushed or inadequate. Here are a few tips for criticizing staff the right way from Ben Yoskovitz’s article "5 Steps To Providing Good Constructive Criticism".
  7. Deal With Employees Who Are Always Late
    8. There’s one in every office: the employee who strolls in late almost every day. And if you don’t address the issue, employees will start to resent their tardy coworker -- and you for doing nothing.
  8. Stop Harassment Before it Starts
    9. While there’s no fail-safe way to stop harassment in the workplace, there are things you can do as a supervisor to address the problem and lower the chances of a legal predicament.
  9. Are You Strategic?
    10. Until now, looking into someone’s soul is about the only way we’ve had to guess at whether or not someone is "strategic." In many organizations, it is assumed that senior executives are strategic and lower-level employees are not. As you might imagine, strictly using someone’s title to determine their strategic ability is as accurate as using a Hollywood star’s popularity to determine their knowledge of political issues.
  10. You Can Bridge Generation Gaps
    Ever feel like you’ve spent hours trying to get Baby Boomers to relate to Gen Xers or vice versa? You’re not alone."The over-40 crowd wonders why the 25 year old wants to be promoted to manager during his first week of employment (and leave at 4:55 pm each day) while the under-30 group believes a more seasoned co-worker’s computer crashed simply because she’s old," hypothesizes corporate coach and consultant Garrison Wynne.

  11. Coach -- Don't 'Boss' -- Your Staff
    12. You probably spend hours preparing to review your workers’ performance, but the thirty minutes you spend with them during the evaluation isn’t enough.

    Customer Service Skills

  1. Keep a Waiting Customer Patient
    2. When you’re the middle person between your customer and your company’s executive decision-maker, you’ve got to play double duty on the communication front lines. You have to coordinate the problem solving and stay in touch with both parties.

  2. Stage Mock Arguments to Prepare for Customer Disagreements
    3. If you have difficulty thinking quickly on your feet, customer complaints probably catch you off-guard, making you feel uncomfortable and unprepared. Don’t let that happen; stage a dress rehearsal and prepare yourself to handle any customer conflict.

  3. Don't Hassle Your Customers with Inaccessible Service
    4. If you truly want to service your customers’ needs, you need to make your reps accessible to them. Don’t alienate your customers by making them jump through hoops just to talk to someone.
  4. Follow Up with Customers to Reinforce Satisfaction
    5. You’ve helped an angry customer and solved his problem. But your service doesn’t end there. Like the icing on a cake, customer follow-up is essential for ultimate satisfaction.
  5. 5 Ways to Extinguish Customer Fury
    6. Nobody likes dealing with angry customers, but the reality of your job as a customer service rep is that you will at some point in your career.

  6. Set Your Service Soaring to New Heights
    There’s nothing wrong with being a good customer service rep. Unless, of course, you’d rather excel at what you do. So what’s the secret to surpassing status-quo customer service? Follow these tips from Drew Stevens’ article, "Customer Service Cures"

  7. Safeguard Your Customers' Privacy
    8. Your customers depend on you to protect their personal information, but the reality is that protecting your customers’ privacy isn’t totally within your control.
  8. Beef Up Your Product Knowledge to Tailor Custom Solutions
    9. If you want to satisfy your customers, increase your product knowledge. After all, your company’s goods and services are what customers are coming for in the first place.
  9. Strike a Balance Between Call Time and Volume
    10. Being rushed off the phone often leaves the customer with unanswered questions resulting in a call back. Now you’ve got two calls with the same customer when you should strive for one.
  10. Wow Your Customers with Your Website
    11. More people than ever are flocking to the web when they want to make purchases, research companies or simply ask customer service questions. You must ensure that your web presence provides top-notch information and a guaranteed contact method -- or risk losing valuable business.
  11. Calm Customers in 6 Quick Steps
    12. You’ll work nine times harder attracting new business than you will retaining your current client list. That means you can’t afford to anger even one customer.
  12. Slow Down for Elderly Customers
    13. Don’t let your impatience ruin what could be a wonderful relationship, stresses Jennifer Buerk, a customer service rep for Fidelity Communications. Here’s how she turned a potentially irritating experience into a boon for her company:

    Teamwork / Team Leadership

  1. Test Yourself: Is Your Staff Ready to Lead?
    Many of your employees need you to lead them, but some of them may be ready to lead others. Ask those workers to take this quiz to help you evaluate their leadership potential:

  2. Maximize Your Team's Potential
    3. Are you looking for ways to make your team more cohesive and more productive? Try these three steps to boost your team’s motivation and be the most effective team you can be, from Alan Fairweather’s article, “The 3 Secrets Of Team Motivation.”
  3. Your Tough Teammate-Relations Problems -- Solved
    4. Troublesome teammates can make you afraid to come in to work in the morning, but don’t worry -- we’ve got some strategies that you can use to keep their annoying habits at bay.
  4. Be an Effective Leader for Your Team
    5. Do you have what it takes to lead your team to success? If you’re not sure, try these pointers from www.effectivemeetings.com:
  5. Assert More Influence Without Bullying Teammates
    6. If you worry that your attempts at gaining more influence over your team may come across as Machiavellian, keep reading. There are many ways you can increase your rapport with teammates without getting cutthroat.
  6. Lead a Project Kickoff Meeting That Spells Success
    7. You’re about to lead your first team project and it’s time to get it under way. We’ll tell you how to establish a strong leadership presence and project direction during the kickoff meeting.

  7. Salvage a Team That's Sinking Like a Ship
    8. Not every team will be an immediate success. Most teams require hard work and commitment. If your team isn’t living up to the company’s expectations, don’t give up.
  8. Celebrate Productive Team Conflict
    9. Most team members cringe when you mention the word "conflict." But the truth is that conflict often results in the best solutions for your team and your company -- and that’s a good thing.
  9. Recruit a Facilitator to Keep Your Team in Line
    10. Your team is having difficulties that stem from perceived bias, tension or some other internal problem. How can you work through these problems when everyone on the team is personally and emotionally involved?
  10. Hone Your Team's 'Followership' Skills
    11. You’ve definitely heard of leadership; it’s often the flagstone of expert business advice. But you may not realize that followers also play a vital role in the workplace, especially as part of a successful team. Instead of trying to get ahead and shine as your team’s leader, you may be more beneficial to your team if you brush up on your "followership" skills instead.
  11. Expert Advice to Avoid Collaboration Pitfalls
    12. Your office hopes to smooth out its operational wrinkles by centralizing IT and sharing services across the company. The newly-designed Web site will schedule IT jobs based on priority, therefore avoiding conflicts among employees.
  12. Be the Inspiration on Your Team
    13. Rude or irritable teammates can be an extremely negative and distracting presence. The best way to inspire your team? Be a role model and exhibit warmth and friendliness. Use these tips to take charge of your emotions and become everyone’s favorite team player.

  13. Command Your Team's Respect
    You’ve worked hard to master your position, now you need to establish your influence over the team. Try these simple methods to increase your authority over team decisions