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Oct 21

The Importance of Prioritizing Your Team’s Mental Health

By Executive Assistant, Industry Trends, Leadership

As a leader in C-level support, the mental health of your team should be a top priority. When employees are overstressed, anxious, or depressed, they can’t perform their best. Fortunately, there is a lot you can do to tend to the mental health of your team. Below we’ll cover the importance of prioritizing your team’s mental health and tips for how to emphasize their well-being.

Why Does Mental Health Matter?

The mental health of an employees affects almost every aspect of their work performance, including the ability to focus, motivation, confidence, and interpersonal relationships. If members of your team are struggling with their mental health, they may feel like they have no sense of purpose, which will inevitably affect engagement. Mental health can also impact sleep habits. If employees aren’t getting a healthy amount of sleep, they will make more mistakes and struggle to focus.

Be Observant

The first thing a manager can do to make the well-being of their team a priority is paying attention. You can often tell if someone is experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns by observing them. For example, they might seem more agitated than usual. Encourage your team members to be open about their mental health without pressuring them. Keep in mind that sometimes the signs of mental illness aren’t so obvious.

Be Supportive

The best thing you can do as a leader to encourage better mental health within your team is to be supportive. When employees are struggling with mental health, they often feel overwhelmed and alone. They need to know that you care about their well-being and that they have your support if they need it. Moreover, an unsupportive work environment can be a trigger for anxiety and other problems.

Be a Source of Motivation

One reason the well-being of your team is so important is the effect it can have on engagement. Employees who feel depressed can have a difficult time motivating themselves and putting the right amount of energy into their work. Almost everyone struggles with motivation from time to time, especially when they’re feeling more stressed than usual. As a leader, you can help by being a source of positive energy. If you stay positive and motivated, you can improve team morale as a whole. You can also encourage team engagement by setting goals for your team members and taking an interest in their career development.

Cultivating the mental well-being of your team members should be a priority at any organization, especially now. When your team is healthy, they are more alert, more engaged, and more productive. You not only will show your team you value them as people, but also that you want to help them perform at their best.

 

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Oct 14

How to Improve Your Negotiation Skills

By Career Guidance, Executive Assistant

Many professionals struggle with negotiation because they don’t want to step on toes or come across as too ambitious. While negotiating can sometimes lead to conflict, it is necessary if you want to succeed in C-level support. The ability to negotiate effectively can help facilitate raises, promotions, and other career milestones, as well as improve your ability to gain new clients and influence decision makers. Below are some tips for how to improve your negotiation skills.

Rethink What Negotiation Means

Many professionals avoid negotiating with management because they equate negotiation with confrontation. Although it is true that the two can sometime go hand in hand, confrontation is not an inherent part of negotiation. Look at negotiation as an opportunity for both parties to come to an agreement in a way that gives everyone what they want. If you walk into a meeting focused on reaching an agreement that benefits you more than the other party, you either won’t receive what you want in the present or you’ll make future negotiations more challenging. Instead, focus on achieving an outcome that favors all parties equally.

Identify Interests and Goals

When negotiating, be aware of what your interests are and what the interests are of the other individuals involved in the conversation. The first step is to take the time to reflect on your goals before you begin negotiations. The clearer you understand your aim, the better. To understand the interests of the people you are negotiating with, you need to practice active listening. Let them talk enough for you to identify what they want and why they want it.

Give Yourself a Pep Talk

If you have consistently struggled with negotiating, you are likely used to receiving less than you deserve. Over time, this can have a negative effect on your confidence. It is important to build yourself up before you walk into a negotiation. You need to believe you deserve what you are asking for from the moment you start talking. If others see hesitation or self-doubt in you, they will be less likely to cooperate with you because they will know it will be easy for them to get you to back down.

Successful negotiation is all about ensuring all parties walk away happy. You can improve your negotiation skills by focusing on creating win-win solutions, clearly identifying your interests, actively listening, and presenting yourself as confident and self-assured. Practicing your negotiation skills will make it easier for you to attain your own goals in a way that is mutually beneficial for everyone involved.

 

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Oct 07

Transforming a Toxic Work Culture

By Executive Assistant, Leadership, Training

Few things can hinder success of an organization more than a toxic work culture. Negative attitudes, interpersonal conflict, and stress can lower the performance of the whole team. Companies often have a few negative members who weigh down the entire team, which speaks to how damaging toxicity can be. However, with strong leadership, you can transform a toxic work culture back into a healthy one.

Acknowledge Toxic Behavior

One reason toxic behavior has the tendency to pervade the entire work culture is that leaders take too long to address the behavior because they want to avoid conflict, or they don’t realize the impact one person can have on team dynamics before it’s too late. It is imperative that leadership call out toxic behavior immediately, so team members can identify the unproductive behaviors they might be unaware of. It is also important to discipline consistently. Employees need to know that toxic behavior will not be tolerated.

Encourage Positive Actions

On the flip side, it is essential to also identify what behaviors and attitudes you do value as an organization and encourage your team members to embrace those characteristics, such as collaboration, humility, and respect. This is how building a positive work culture starts. If everyone treats others with compassion, acts ethically, works together to solve problems, and maintains an optimistic attitude, you can create a work environment that is both productive and enjoyable.

Be Supportive

It takes time to heal from the effects of working in a toxic culture. Employees may have had to deal with unnecessary anxiety, bullying, feelings of inadequacy, and other challenges. It’s not enough to get rid of toxic behaviors in the workplace. You also have to build your team members back up. If employees know they have the support of management and that work culture is a top priority, they can start to feel comfortable in their jobs again.

Use Training and Team Building Exercises

Training and team building exercises can be used to reinforce positive behaviors in the workplace. You can use training activities to show employees how to communicate respectfully with one another and how to deal with conflict in a healthy manner. Team building activities can help rebuild trust between team members and encourage cooperation.

Having a toxic culture will always keep an organization from performing at its best. If employees dread coming to work every day, they aren’t going to be as productive or engaged as they need to be to maximize their potential. Companies can transform toxic cultures into positive ones by firmly addressing negative behaviors, identifying, demonstrating, and encouraging positive behaviors, and creating a supportive work environment.

 

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Sep 30

Sharing Your Leadership Skills in the Job Interview

By Executive Assistant, Leadership, Training

When considering new opportunities in C-level support, it’s important to demonstrate to employers that you have leadership qualities. You may be asked to provide examples of times you showed leadership skills. People applying for managerial positions expect these types of questions. However, it has become common for employers to ask about leadership skills in roles such as chief of staff, family office management, or even executive assistant, which can sometimes throw interviewees for a loop. The following tips will guide you through the process of sharing your leadership skills during the job interview.

Reflect on Your Ideas about Leadership

The first step is to think about what leadership means to you. There isn’t one definition that applies to everyone or every situation. Employers don’t want you to have the exact same understanding of leadership as they do, nor do they want you to share examples they can relate to. What they want to know is that you comprehend why leadership is important and are self-aware enough to understand how you exemplify leadership in a professional setting. Start by thinking about a role model you admire who held a position of authority. This will help you reflect on how your ideal leader behaves. What qualities did they have? How did they approach problems?

Pick an Example that Highlights Your Strengths

Employers are always looking for talent who has the potential to be decisive, take action, and inspire others. Once you have a clear understanding of what you value in a leader, you can reflect on past situations in which you demonstrated the leadership skills and qualities you most admire. It’s also a smart idea to take a second look at the job description, as well as the company website. You may find clues about how your role could require you to lead. You don’t necessarily want to share the story that is the most impressive. Share a story that is relevant to the role you are applying for and genuinely reflects how you perceive strong leadership.

Communicate Your Example Clearly

A good story is meaningless without good storytelling. Start by briefly describing what leadership means to you using a definition that complements your example. Then, describe the scenario in which you demonstrated leadership skills. Provide enough context for the interviewer to comprehend why the situation required that you take charge. Next, identify what actions you took that reflect leadership skills. What role did you play and how did you behave during the scenario? Finally, discuss the outcome. What did your actions achieve and how did the experience inform your opinion about the importance of leadership.

Behavioral questions are often the hardest kind to answer during interviews. Questions about leadership can be particularly challenging because it’s such an important skillset. The key to sharing examples of leadership with prospective employers is to have a firm understanding of what leadership means to you, choose a story that is relevant to the role you have applied for, and structure the story in a way that is clear, concise, and detailed.

 

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