Jeff McManus's Blog, page 7

The Power of Observation

I asked a group of landscape leaders how observation had played a role in their success today. Here is what they said:

Intentional and deliberate communication: “I learned to slow down when I spoke to my bosses and team. I observed how my bosses took time to communicate deliberately and intentionally each time they spoke to me. That is powerful.” Leaders lose the opportunity to instruct others when they fail to thoughtfully and exactly communicate – be it goals, instructions, praise or corre...

Find What You’re Looking For

A few weeks ago, I was speaking to an audience of high-end landscape owners and leaders focusing on leadership growth and personal development. I discussed how each of us define our world by what we look for and expect to see. We can all learn something new and valuable, simply by watching/listening to someone other than ourselves.

As an example, I used Chick-fil-A. They do not compare themselves with other quick service companies. The CFA experience is different, so the founder, Truett Cathy...

Mentoring = Growing

I have been working on a course about mentoring for our team. I am designing the course to assist our current team members in developing new employees and student workers, while increasing growth and engagement for our existing front-line employees and supervisors.

One staff member told me that he sees his mentoring role as his main contribution to our team. When asked “Why?” he said, “I may be training someone who goes on to change the world. You never know who you are training and where the...

5 Ways to Grow Your Leadership Credibility

Credibility: the quality or power of inspiring belief

All humans have a hardwired survival instinct and how we determine who or what to
trust is basic survival. When we take on a leadership role, we earn credibility over time.
Actions speak louder than words; people are influenced by what you do, not just what
you say.
Here are five ways to grow your credibility with your team:

Lead by example. You can’t get around this one. Model what you want more of.Be honest. Don’t make promises in fr...

When Your Hard Work is Not Being Recognized What Do YOU Do?

It’s difficult when your boss does not recognize your hard work or, worse yet, they purposely ignore your good work. Some bosses will actively try to bring you and your efforts down. But why? Do they think it will somehow help the organization? When this happens, the most important question you need to ask is “How do I respond to this behavior?”

Recently, I was at a leadership conference when the speaker mentioned an Australian term, the tall poppy syndrome used to describe the act of critici...

Growing Relationships

Last week I attended a 4-day leadership training session at Ole Miss. At the end of the training, we were asked to talk about a take-away; something we got out of the four full days we had spent together. For me it was the opening 15-minute ice breaker where we interacted with almost all 30+ participants. I didn’t know many of the leaders in the room, so the ice breaker was an opportunity for me to get to know a bit about them.

“Our rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to the am...

Lessons That Stick

I had to be around 5 or 6 years old, my job, each Saturday was to dust the furniture and empty the trash. I really hated dusting, but at the trash detail I was good. I could see it, grab it, and remove it. Not so much with the dust. At such an early age, I rarely, if ever, noticed dust on the furniture.

So, for the longest time, what I remembered most from those chores was that I just wanted to finish so I could go play. The quality of the job was not the goal. My mom, on the other hand, was ...

Freedom Can Make Your Team Players Amazing

I rarely use the word freedom in the workplace. It is a 4th of July word.  It works well when I talk about our founding fathers, not so much in the workplace. If you have a weak team player, freedom may mean they will goof off, not work or, worse yet, hide. I have a friend who often jokes about weak team players in this way:

 “Why aren’t you working?” 

“Because I didn’t see you coming.”

But autonomy (a.k.a. freedom) will foster creativity and initiative among good team members. It is a ...

Speak Less and Act More

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

Have you ever had to teach one of your up-and-coming leaders to be quiet instead of talking all the time? Over the years, I have experienced leaders who are amazing chatterers. I have often set up a meeting to visit them with my 2-3 meeting items to cover. Much chattering happened, but I left the meetings with my items undiscussed. Missed opportunities that I let happen.

Quick tip: ...

How Do I Get Buy-In?

Buy-In: To Own it

When teams distrust their leader and can’t get on board with the instructions they give, people feel that it’s time to get another leader. When the leader talks too much and promises this-and-that and doesn’t deliver, it’s very hard to get buy-in. Why?

John C. Maxwell writes, “Every message that people receive is filtered through the messenger who delivers it. If you consider the messenger to be credible, then you believe the message has value.”

James Kouzes and Barry ...