Dear leaders, there are three themes for what makes leaders letters newsletters popular:
(1st) The most popular are my free frameworks and templates (from clicks, downloads and replies to leaders letters)
(2nd) Company culture advice (often I receive email replies months later suggesting the company culture articles helped a few months later when they can be rolled out or approved)
(3rd) The most important theme from newsletter shares is; snackable leadership advice you can copy and paste.
Today I wanted to provide a blend of the three and offer extremely simple advice:
Visible Note Taking: Always have a notepad and pen where you can show you are taking notes and proving you are listening (the more basic the notepad the less you worry about writing in it)
Lessons You’ve Learnt: Keep a record of 1:2:1’s and the lessons you have learnt from your team and feedback these, this is a great feedback loop and offers ways to show you are listening and offering group development from their peers
Effective Over Convenient: Always communicate on the most effective channels, not just the convenient channel for you (your audiences consumptions has to shape your comms)
Use: Draft - Don’t Send: Draft that reply, draft that long team email then revisit the next morning and work out if you should hit send
Focus Your Time: Create slots in your calendar that are for you not for others to take away. Your time to focus, recover from poor meetings and planning is essential as a leader
Hand Write Letters: Write a quarterly letter to the team, hand write it and send it out via email or print and hand/send it out to the team.
Say Thank You: Manners cost nothing, saying thank you is often enough for people and works more effectively than many other methods
Ask The Stupid Questions: Very often you have to ask the stupid aka the clarifying questions for everyone involved. Ask them or pose them about the project or department's success. Many team members won’t ask it. If need be create a template with the stupid question called out at the top
Two Eyes, Two Ears, One Mouth: Probably the most frustrating thing any manager can do is speak more than listen, especially when performance is down or people are struggling with morale. You have two eyes, two ears and one mouth, follow this
Give, Give, Gain: Teach your team how to present and bring them into leadership meetings to present their area of expertise - give lessons, give opportunities, gain personal development through others
Seek Reserve Mentors: Enable reserve mentorships with 4-6 skip meetings per month - speak to the team, go two levels “below you” or two around you. Learn from the team, keep you up to date and evolving
Over To You: Hit reply and let me know the simple but highly effective piece of advice, I will share them in a follow-up leaders letter.
Have a great week and I’ll land in your inbox next week.
Thanks,
Danny Denhard