LeaderSharp Group Producer (Part-time, Contract)

We are looking for a part-time Producer to support our facilitators and coaches in creating an engaging and enjoyable experience for our clients. As a Producer, you will act as the technical support for our facilitators during our online training sessions. By handling the technical requirements of the session, the facilitators can focus more on the client, providing a smoother and more valuable learning experience.

This is a part-time, contract-based role. We are looking for someone who can accommodate occasional producing shifts to support the LeaderSharp team.

You will be expected to be available for the length of the session (between 2 -5 hours in duration), and potentially for debrief meetings before/after with the client or facilitator.

Some key responsibilities include:
• Providing live technical support to facilitators & clients in the case of an issue
• Hosting sessions on Zoom & other video conferencing systems
• Operating breakout rooms, polls, annotations, and other advanced features of Zoom
• Monitoring session chat
• Working with the facilitator to keep track of session timing, breaks, and overall flow

Key skills/competencies:
• Extensive knowledge of Zoom & other video conferencing systems
• Strong computer skills & technical literacy
• Comfortable interacting directly with clients including executive and senior leadership
• Maintaining a calm demeanor under pressure
• Flexible schedule to work during standard business hours
• Knowledge of other collaborative working software is a plus! (Mentimeter, Mural, Whiteboard, Padlet, etc.)
• Knowledge & passion for leadership development or personal growth is a plus!

If you are interested in this role, please send a resume & cover letter to: [email protected] and [email protected].

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The New Water Cooler: Strategies to Build A Cohesive Team in a Virtual World

Leaders and team members are struggling to maintain cohesion and synergy with their team members in this virtual world. We continue to adapt, but many team members are reporting greater degrees of disconnection with each passing week. We could not have anticipated the loss of the proverbial “water cooler” conversations that created the opportunity for organic conversations, ideas and connections between team members- in hallways, elevators, lunch rooms and on coffee breaks. It’s time we acknowledge how much this has impacted our productivity and most importantly our connection to our team.

In this session we will look at strategies to increase connection, collaboration and cohesion in a virtual world; ensuring our teams feel cohesive and supported when working from home.

YOUR RESOURCES

Download “Virtual Water Cooler Presentation”

Download “Strategies to Build a Cohesive Virtual Team”

Download Poll Results “How do you want to be supported by your Team/Leader?”

To help teams work more effectively with others, we’ve released a three-part experience this month, ‘The Five Behaviours® for Virtual Teams Experience”. Join Lisa Scott, President and COO of LeaderSharp Group on December 3rd at 1:00 pm MT, for a 90 minute training session.

The need for strong teamwork skills has never been greater. Watch this message from Patrick Lencioni, author of Five Dysfunctions of a Team™.

We’d like to offer you $70 off the retail price for your interest in LeaderSharp Group for visiting our page. Please ensure you enter your PROMO CODE LSCTrust on the checkout page! If you have any questions regarding this event, please email Kara Rowan at [email protected].

For more information and details:

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Trust: The New Super-Power of Leading Virtual Teams

Trust is an essential ingredient for teams to work effectively together. Many of the great thought leaders of our time have pointed to trust when describing effective team performance.

Now more than ever, in our virtual work reality, trust can be your team’s superpower. Discovering what wins trust and what breaks it can strengthen your leadership and enable you to bring out the best in your team.

Join us in exploring how trust has changed in the context of our work today, and how we can more easily build it in our virtual work environment.

Success in any field requires a clear understanding of the most effective ways to communicate with others. Poor communication skills can not only damage your reputation, but also cause your company to lose business.

Forbes asked their Forbes Coaches Council to share some less-than-ideal communication habits that could hinder your chances of finding the success you seek in your career. Here are 14 common practices they believe every professional should avoid, and what to do instead.

As Featured in Forbes

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We’ll be discussing the need for great leadership and why Leadership Development was broken. We’ll explore the top 6 trends and how these current trends (including “The COVID Effect”) are changing the world of leadership in a significant and positive way.

LEADERSHIP RESOURCE

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Leadership is evolving, and leaders have greater responsibilities than ever for workplace wellness. Never has this been more critical -and simultaneously more difficult! -than in recent months. Join us, and leaders just like you, on June 24th to remove the weight of responsibility in ensuring workplace wellness.

Follow Up from Event

On June 24th, participants who attended “A Leader’s Responsibility in Workplace Wellness” observed a live demo presented by LeaderSharp Collective coaches Tara Larkin and Clint White, role-playing ‘5 Steps for Wellness Conversations’ :

1. Creating Awareness

2. Gathering Information – Active Listening

3. Acknowledgement

4. Action Planning

5. Follow-Up

Download Wellness Resources

Coaching Matters by Michéle Roy

Today, I would like to explore how leaders experience possibility, and use it to guide their teams. Leaders spend much of their thinking time in the realm of possibility, thinking about and asking themselves what is possible? “If we achieve this, what will be possible?” Creating possibility, asks leaders to travel through uncertainty, to get to possibility. Leaders coach and facilitate their team to think beyond the current reality and anticipate the future, in order to sustain and grow their business. For some, the risk of uncertainty is too great and the potential that lies in possibility is missed, or at least not encouraged. The uncertainty is often represented by doubt in people’s capabilities, available resources and a leader’s own capacity to sustain the resiliency, while they travel the road of uncertainty to possibility. They often ask themselves “I can’t do that, what will my team think?” “What if I’m wrong?” “How will it impact me and the people I care about?” These are all valid questions and are naturally asked as we pass through uncertainty. However, these questions point to self–doubt, internal resistance and fear. The responses to these questions are important, however if we dwell too long in analysis, the potential of possibility is lost and the opportunity quickly shrinks, followed by a fixed mindset of control.

Our brains like, and seek out predictability, and to create a better future requires us to overcome the mind’s tendency to live in certainty, and to become uncomfortable, moving beyond the known into the unknown. This is why leaders who can create compelling and collective reasons to step into the future, inspire others to take the risk into possibility.

Coaching leaders through uncertainty and supporting them in realizing the possibility they see for themselves and their teams, is inspiring. We can’t deny the feeling of risk is lively when moving towards possibility. I have never had a leader say to me “I shouldn’t have started down this path”, or “I wished I hadn’t taken that step”. Inevitably they say, “I wish I had done this earlier”, or “I would never have thought this was possible”.

Yes, it feels vulnerable when we take a risk, we feel exposed to other’s judgement’s and to our own. Remembering that we can’t do it alone is critical to our success. There were many times in my own life when I was challenged to live into possibility, vulnerability and not resist the dynamism of life – when I traveled across the country to a new career, when our daughter left the house at 14, and saying goodbye to my mother a few days before the end of her life of 97 years.

I believe vulnerability is a key leadership skill, and when you add discipline to vulnerability, you get resiliency. Vulnerability touches into our humanity, and when revealed, reminds us all of who we are, what we have lived, and confirms our capacity to live with uncertainty. When our daughter left us at that early age, we imagined the worst, and instead of keeping the worst in our minds, we kept in constant contact with her. We took on a disciplined approach in reaching out to her. Not the kind of discipline that forces obedience to a rule or standard. The less common meaning of discipline, which is the spiritual meaning of discipline, where your actions become a conscious practice in expressing your values. Living from spiritual discipline and sharing our vulnerability with others, reminds us we are in community and builds our awareness of our true capacity to act even when uncertain. The spiritual discipline to take action, and the vulnerability to live a life with great meaning, enables and inspires us to lead others into possibility.

Some coaching questions to ask yourself and your team:

Given what has happened, what is possible now?
What can we do together, that we can’t do alone?
What will things look like, after we have been successful?

Coaching Matters by Michéle Roy

Today, I would like to share a couple of examples of how you can work more effectively with difficult people. One example is with a narcissistic boss, the other is when working with complaining and critical peers.

The Narcissistic – Boss

My clients who work for, or with narcissists, are having to manage themselves to the extreme, causing them to over-think their actions and undermine their leadership effectiveness. For instance, trying to plan meetings with a boss who is a narcissist can be problematic. They can agree to your role in the meeting and the information you will share at the meeting, only to change plans during the meeting and reveal information that was not agreed to. It creates many opportunities for miscommunication and unproductive performance, as my client’s find they try to stay under the radar of their boss. The behaviour of a narcissist is unpredictable and unnerving. They point to you as if you are an idiot (usually in public) one minute, and treat you like gold the next minute. The narcissist leader is most often thinking, ” none of these workers would be anywhere without me”, or ” if people cross the line with me they deserve to be ridiculed”. One thing to remember is narcissist’s lack confidence, and will lash out at you if you make them look bad, as they are very concerned with how they look in the eyes of others. They are quick to blame and rarely take responsibility for their reactions. This is demoralizing to say the least, what can you do?

Respect yourself: Speak up without being reactive or emotionally charged. State the facts, and the impact their behaviors are having on you.

Clarify expectations: Always leave the conversation by clarifying your boss’s expectations and follow up with an email paper trail.

Keep the organization top of mind: Highlight the organization’s and team priorities. Have your performance reflect the priorities of the organization and team. Voice the common goals that you both want to achieve.

Complaining & Critical Peers

When peers are continuously critical of you, your leader and stakeholders, they also bring down the team morale. People who come to meetings and are continuously critical of other’s accomplishments or ideas, reduce the team’s capacity for solutions and innovative thinking. Their communication style keep others in a defensive frame of mind. These folks often refer to themselves as providers of valuable insights, but fail to recognize the negative contribution and impact of their communication style in “real time”. Looking at situations or events critically is important to making improvements, however, when these complainers and fault finders point their criticism at peers and individuals, this becomes toxic.

They seem to want their peers to admit their decisions/actions were wrong, making their accusations personal. They also are unable to listen while being supportive, making it difficult to foster relationships. They not only point out your faults, but your colleague’s faults as well. This can kill team motivation and performance, and reduce productivity substantially. What can you do?

Review your intentions: Question whether you have contributed to this situation and what might be some assumptions you are making about the situation. Example: perhaps these are folks that require more information to feel prepared before a meeting. How can you prepare your team effectively for meetings, so they can have relevant input vs. negative input into meetings.

Call out bad behaviours: Share the impact of their criticism on you and the team, help them become aware of their impact on others and suggest a new way for them to communicate with you that would be more effective.

Involve them earlier on in work conversations: Ask for their input early and create an agreement on how they will support you and the team going forward.

Don’t give them so much air time: As a leader, limit yours and the team’s toleration of their endless complaints by confronting them and challenging them to offer up solutions. Say to them ” A complaint is an unexpressed request. What is the request you would like to make of the team?”

Difficult people are often unaware of their negative impact and must rely on their peers to give them feedback. If peers hold back on the constructive feedback required, everyone suffers and no one takes responsibility. It becomes a liability to the organization and your more talented employees leave or even worse, reduce their efforts at work. Either way, the organization is missing out on the opportunity to build a stronger and healthier culture at work.

If you are in a situation that is impacting your effectiveness at work, talk to a coach and get the support you need to address your tolerations at work. Tolerations can zap your energy, motivation and undermine your team’s performance.