As always, our aim is to produce practical and to-the-point quick action guides, rather than comprehensive tomes that no one has time to read. But I still want to ensure we cover everything YOU want.

So please do me a quick favor and take two minutes now to to tell me exactly what you want to know and I’ll make sure we include it.

All you need to do is reply to this email and let me know things like:
* what challenges you have working with Generation X and Y workers, and
* what you would like included…

If you would also like to share what you find works best or why you need to know about this topic that would be fine too.

Your reply doesn’t need to be long. Just a quick comment will help and then I can be sure you get the most helpful and useful guide we can produce.

Please take a moment now and tell me exactly what you want to know about managing and motivating Generation X and Y workers.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards

Kerrie

PS. Members of the Leadership Coaching Club have recently been discovering things like:
• The Five Fundamental Ways to Please Your Boss
• What Everybody Ought to Know About How to Be Stress Free
• Management Leadership - How to Turn Problems to Profits
• The 4 Hour Work Week
• Achieving Great Results … and more
If you’re not a member yet you can join now at: http://leadershipcoachingclub.com

Once you do sign up, remember you must “Confirm your request for information” to receive the course. (This helps to protect you from someone else using your email address.) All you have to do is click the link in the confirmation message that I sent to you - Don’t skip this step or you will miss out on your information.

In this issue of Leading Well I’ll share one of the best techniques to instantly relieve stress at work. For more great ideas on how to overcome the stress of leading and managing people head on over to http://StressFreeCourse.com and claim your free course.

Kind regards, Kerrie

———–

Beating Stress at Work

Nobody enjoys it when stress gets out of hand at work. In fact unreasonable stress can be one of the main reasons why good staff move on to other jobs. If it’s you that’s under pressure from stress in your workplace you need to know how to relieve stress effectively before you snap - or snap someone’s head off!

After practicing this, you should be able to not only avoid making a stressful work environment worse, but also handle the stressful situations that do arise more effectively.

Your best “instant” technique for relieving stress as soon as it strikes you while you are at work is conscious slow breathing. It can be done without leaving your office or desk, it is easy to learn and it can have almost immediate effects.

All you need to do is to breathe deeply and slowly, so that you are totally focused on your breath and nothing else. Focus on how you breathe in and out, slowly and deliberately. When you do it well, your concerns and tension will disappear after just a few breaths and you will be calmer and more able to deal with the challenges you are facing.

This breathing exercise can also be helpful at other times too, but you will find it instantly eases your tension if the situation is stressful. And you really can practice it easily while you are at work.

More on how to be stress free below:

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.”

Natalie Goldberg

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line

Stress is a central part of the life of every manager and leader and how well you manage stress has a huge impact on your own life, your family’s happiness and the success of your team.

When you can manage stress effectively, not only will you enjoy your life and your role more, you will be able to ‘take charge’ and lead people through situations that others find distressing or even confronting.

Our latest publication from the Leadership Skill Center is ‘Managing Stress - How to Break Free from a Stressful Life‘. In this 50-plus page ebook you will learn:
* What is stress and how it can manifest itself in your life
* How to identify all the stressors in your life
* The right - and wrong - ways to react to stress and control it’s impact
* How to break free from a stressful life.

For more details visit: http://leadershipskillcenter.com/products/

And don’t forget to claim your Be Stress Free Course today at http://StressFreeCourse.com

Stress is a huge part of the life of every manager and leader and how well you manage stress has a dramatic impact on your own life, your family’s happiness and the success of your team.

When you can manage stress effectively, not only will you enjoy your life and your role more, you will be able to ‘take charge’ and lead people through situations that others find distressing or even confronting.

If you can’t cope with the stress, you will struggle to do your job at all, let alone well.

Because it is such a huge issue for so many people I have put together the ‘Be Stress Free’ course to share with you how to get stress under control in your life.

It’s packed with useful ideas, practical tips, bonus ebooks and other resources to help you break free from the tyranny of stress.

It really is $97 in value - and I may well start to charge that for it soon - but if you sign up today it will always remain free for you.

Grab it here now, before I change my mind: http://stressfreecourse.com

= = = = =

If you want more personal assistance than a course, you should consider the Leadership Coaching Club where you will find substantial assistance to manage all aspects of your role as a leader. http://leadershipcoachingclub.com

If you are already a member, don’t forget to visit to see all the new material that has been added recently. Here are some of them:

• The Four Hour Work Week
• Achieving Great Results
• Quick and Easy Tips for Reducing Stress
• Becoming and Innovator
• Involving People in Change… and much more…

If you are a member you can login in to the Leadership Coaching Club at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/members/ using your email address and member’s password.

= = = = =

PRIVATE COACHING

And finally, I currently have a couple of openings for private one-on-one coaching.

I only ever work with a very small number of senior and high potential candidates at any one time, and rarely promote my Executive and Leadership Coaching Services, as the limited places tend to fill up automatically from the waiting list or through requests for me to work with someone else in the same organization.

But, as people finish the programs we design, vacancies can arise and currently I can accept a couple more people. So if you would like to work with me personally, one-on-one in my private leadership coaching program, you might like to Contact Us asking for more details.

Coaching is typically done by phone or Skype, with email and state-of-the-art online facilities for support, making it available to candidates located in a wide range of locations.

= = = = =

That’s all for now, but don’t forget to claim your copy of the “Be Stress Free” course now at http://stressfreecourse.com and Contact Us for more details about my private coaching if you are interested.

In this issue of Leading Well I want to remind you of the power of goals and how much more we can achieve when we set effective goals.

If you are already a member of the Leadership Coaching Club there is a full program to assist you to set and achieve your goals, both at work and at home. Check it out if you haven’t already done so. You can login in to the Leadership Coaching Club at
http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/members/
using your email address and password - or you can join now at
http://leadershipcoachingclub.com

Kind regards, Kerrie

———–

SETTING YOUR GOALS

The fundamental skill of setting a goal is an open secret known by top-caliber athletes, successful businessmen and businesswomen and all the top achievers in every different field.

Setting effective goals gives you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. Goals help you focus on the acquisition of any required knowledge and they help you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Goals are so effective that many organizations require managers and team leaders to set them. Yet many of us still don’t use them to their full potential.

Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met your goals.

Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the stages of completion leading to the actual realization of your goals. This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals. The basics of goal settings will involve deciding what you really want to do with your personal and professional life and what short term and long term goals you need to achieve it. Then you have to break down goals into the smaller and manageable targets that you must complete on your way to achieving your lifetime targets.

Here are seven pointers that should be taken into consideration in setting your goals and achieving them:

Your Attitude

Attitude plays a very big role in setting and achieving your goals. You must ask yourself if any part of your attitude or your mind is holding you back from completing your simplest goals? If there are any parts of your behavior that are being a hindrance to achieving your goals this can cast your plans into disarray. If you do have problems in these areas then the immediate thing to do is to address your attitude.

Manage Your Time

Careers are made by good time management practice. A stalling career is often attributed to bad time management. Successful careers can require a lot of discipline from an individual in how you manage your time, so plan how far you want to go into your career and manage your time to ensure you do what is needed when it is required.

Invest in Yourself

Education is key in achieving your goals. If your goals require you to have a certain kind of degree or require a certain specialization or demand a certain skill to be developed, make plans and take action to get the appropriate education.

Your family

Your family should never be left out of your plans. If you are just starting out then you have to decide what relationships are important to you, if you want to be a parent or when you want to be a parent.

Money

Personal financial situations also play a major role in achieving your goals. Have a realistic goal on how much you really want to earn and what you will have to invest to achieve it. You also must be able to create plans or stages by which you will be able to reach your earning potential.

Sports goals

Physically gifted individuals may be able to achieve sports related goals like playing in the elite Basketball, Tennis or Football association. Determining your physical capabilities should be one of your priorities. Physical limitations may however be conquered with proper planning and training.

Fun goals

As the saying goes - ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ - and this is very true, for hard-working Jills as well as Jacks. Giving yourself a little pleasure should be included into your
plans.

More on how to set effective goals in the Quick Tips below:

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“There are two things to aim at in life; first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946)

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line:

You don’t have to do it all on your own. Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for details.

———–

QUICK TIPS FOR SETTING GOALS

* To start achieving your lifetime goals, set a quarter of a century plan, then break it down to five 5 year plans then break the next five years down again to 1 year plans, then 6 month plans then monthly plans, then weekly, then daily.

* Then create a things-to-do list for the day.

* Always review your plans and prepare for contingencies.

The basics of goal settings should not be so difficult once you get to be familiar with them.

* The Core Training Modules in the Leadership Coaching Club http://leadershipcoachingclub.com take you through a proven process for setting your direction, articulating effective goals and then taking the actions that ensure you achieve them. Join today and tap the power of setting goals that work for you in your personal as well as in your professional life.

———–

“I started with the Leadership Coaching Club when it first became available. My initial reaction was that there was some work that needed to be done. After getting into some of the material however, I’m impressed with the content. It’s practical, useful information that should serve as the foundation of anyone who strives to take on he mantel of leadership. Thank you for your efforts and please continue!”

John Stefanski

Join now

So the answer is Yes!

If you would prefer an annual membership, you can join now for a year and save. Decide whether you would prefer an annual or monthly subscription and join today at
http://kmgsupport.com/2/28vg/order

For more details about the Leadership Coaching Club visit:
http://leadershipcoachingclub.com

(If you are already a monthly member and wish to change over to an annual subscription, just let me know and I will change it over for you.)

Have you ever asked yourself… WHY DON’T PEOPLE JUST LISTEN?

Some things are so obvious you would think people wouldn’t even need to be told them. Or at least you should be able to tell them once and they ‘get it’ immediately!

Of course if you manage people or lead a team you know this is rarely the case… Take wearing their safety equipment in hazardous workplaces. Or taking stretch breaks for keyboard operators… Or lifting things properly… Or finishing one file before starting on the next… Or keeping the tea-room clean… Or whatever that annoying issue is for you…

Not every message you need to get across as a team leader or manager is a big picture or strategic vision one. Not all could be described as inspiring.

Some messages are not even very exciting or interesting ones.

And some are downright obvious.

But even the obvious messages can still be very important.

And as team leader you need to do what ever it takes to make sure everyone acts on any important messages you need to deliver. You are the one who will be held accountable for their mistakes if they don’t do the right thing, after all.

There are four things you need to remember when you are trying to get even obvious messages to stick… Find out what they are at:
http://leadershipskillcenter.com/products/gymacross.html

WHAT’S NEW IN THE Leadership Coaching Club

Recent articles added include:
* Ten top tips for motivating and inspiring through effective
listening
* Why do people resist change
* Making meetings work - and much much more…

Join at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com or login if you are already a member for details.

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line:

You don’t have to do it all on your own. Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for details.

———–

That link again for the four things you need to remember when you are trying to get your messages to stick… READ MORE at
http://leadershipskillcenter.com/products/gymacross.html

Kind regards, Kerrie

To find out who the winners were – and collect your free consolation prize if it wasn’t you – please visit
http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/free/news/and-the-winners-are.html

If you have ever felt life was getting out of control for leaders and managers in organizations today, you will really appreciate your consolation prize - free, for you just for visiting the Leadership Skill Center blog.

That link again: http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/free/news/and-the-winners-are.html

And remember if you haven’t joined the Leadership Coaching Club yet, it is never too late. Every week there is more and more value added. Don’t delay. Join now at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com

Oh, and if you are already a member of the Leadership Coaching Club, you will find this - along with lots of other bonuses - in the Free Ebooks section inside the members area. You can login at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/members/

Second - it’s not too late to join the party! The celebrations continue until the end of this month. Enter the competition for complimentary membership now at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/free and join before the end of the month at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com - for a huge discount!

Third, if you have already joined the Leadership Coaching Club there has been quite a lot of new material added recently, including more ebooks, audios, videos and articles, so make sure you login and collect it all. You can login at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/members/ using your email address and password.

Kind regards, Kerrie

———–

HABITS EVERY TEAM MEMBER ABSOLUTELY HATES IN A LEADER

There are a couple of habits leaders can have that drive team members absolutely crazy.

In this issue of Leading Well I want to look at one of the top two: Micromanagement.

You cannot grow as a leader until you learn to delegate effectively. Delegating means giving away control even though you retain responsibility, which can be daunting at first.

However, as a leader, there is no way you can do everything that needs to be done personally, so you must develop a positive attitude to delegation - and the skills you need to do it effectively.

Your role as a leader is to ensure your people have all the skills, resources and understanding they need to do a task, and then to let them do it. For some leaders that’s the hard bit: letting others get on with doing it!

Don’t micromanage.

Delegating tasks to people makes them feel trusted, wanted and responsible. Good workers like to be given responsibility.

Communicate your objectives and your vision and make them passionate about making it happen!

Guide your people, empower them, and instill confidence in them and they will become your strongest supporters.

More on how to avoid micromanagement and other habits your team leaders hate in the Quick Tips below:

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“The ‘sage on stage’ mode of teaching is being replaced by a new model: ‘the guide on the side’. “

Art Weinstein (American academic)

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line:

You can have your own ‘guide on the side’. Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for details.

———–

QUICK TIPS FOR AVOIDING MICROMANAGEMENT:

• You can become more comfortable with delegating to your team members by being selective about what tasks you assign, particularly initially.

• As you delegate more complex tasks, arrange for regular progress meetings to ensure everything is going smoothly. If you make this an expectation up front - and don’t offer advice unless it is requested - the progress meetings will be focussed on coaching and encouragement rather than micromanaging.

———–

PS. You can find out what the other main habit is that drives team members crazy, at the Leadership Coaching Club. Join before the end of the month at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for special rates.

But now 15 years later things are better than ever and KMG Consulting is still going strong - I think it’s time to celebrate!  

So, this is no joke!  Next Tuesday will be the official launch of the Leadership Coaching Club with special bonuses and even a special price that you can lock in for as long as you remain a member, and more…

I’m just finalizing the sales letter, some extra Core Modules that are yet to be added and a special Bonus Pack now.  So watch out for all the details early next week.  I know you are going to love everything that’s included.  

It will be great value at the regular price, but to celebrate my 15th business birthday, if you are quick you’ll get an unbelievable special deal. 

Some of you have been my clients, friends and supporters since way back then, so I am determined to show you how much I appreciate you.  Watch out for more details soon.  

Kind regards, Kerrie

PS.  If you just can’t wait, you can have a sneak peek here - but remember there’s even more to come soon - http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/earlybird.html 

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“Knowledge and human power are synonymous.”Francis Bacon

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line:  

You don’t have to do it all on your own.  Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/earlybird.html for details of our special early bird offer.  And of course, all our early-bird members will get all the special bonuses when they are ready! 

Well, the answer is quite a lot!  

You see we all have weaknesses, even exceptional leaders.  So as a good leader you need to know your own weaknesses so you can deliberately overcome them.  

We will always have gaps in our knowledge or experience, our understanding of another culture or even our customer’s reality.  We will always have better skills in some areas than others.  Sometimes the very habits or attitudes that have allowed us to succeed in one situation can become a weakness in a different situation.  

Have you given thought to what your personal weaknesses might be?

When we interview an applicant for a new position we often ask them what they consider to be their greatest weakness.  Someone who has considered the question and has a reflective answer that explains how they have overcome it, is likely to be a good employee.   

Similarly, as a leader you need to consider what your weaknesses might be in different situations and how you might overcome them.  

If you have been appointed to a new leadership role, it may be that the skills that won you your promotion are no longer enough for you to succeed in your new role.  You may need to develop a whole new set of leadership and management skills.  

If you are good at some things but have other things that you only do under sufferance, you may neglect the tasks you don’t like when you get busy - unless you ensure someone else on your team has responsibility for them.  

If you are male you will want to ensure that you appoint some women on your leadership team to understand their perspective. If you are selling to people from a different culture you will want to go out of your way to listen to your customers, respect their perspective and include people who share their culture in your team.  

Diversity of background, culture, skills, attitudes and experience in your team will overcome many leadership weaknesses if you value and respect everyone’s input and their strengths.  

As soon as we accept that everyone - even an outstanding leader or manager - has weaknesses, we can begin to look for the strengths that compensate.  

Exceptional leaders recognize and work on their own weaknesses, and they ensure that someone on their team has the strengths that compensate.  

———–

More on how to address weaknesses in the Quick Tips below:

———–

QUOTE OF NOTE

“Leaders are learners.  They learn from their failures as well as their successes.” James M Kouzes and Barry Z Posner, 1995

———–

The Leading Well Bottom Line:  

You don’t have to do it all on your own.  Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for details. 

———–

QUICK TIPS FOR ADDRESSING WEAKNESSES

*   The important thing is not to torture yourself (or anyone else) over weaknesses, but to work out how to address them.  A weakness only becomes a problem if it isn’t addressed.  

*  Weaknesses are often the flip side of our strengths.  So a highly productive creative worker who works best with a ‘Do not disturb’ sign, may never be good at training someone else or talking to your customers. If you force them to do it, you may lose your productive worker and still not gain a good trainer or customer service person.  

*  Even though we can do something, it doesn’t mean we will enjoy it.  When we get busy or face pressure from change or deadlines, we naturally put off the things we like doing least.  Unless we have recognized this weakness already, and worked out how to compensate, a small weakness can quickly become a major problem.   

* Acknowledging our own weaknesses and encouraging others to do the same can help avoid weaknesses becoming problems.  

Today, February 18th 2008 marks exactly ten years since KMG Consulting joined the internet age.  

That first website at http://kmgconsulting.com.au looked very different from what you will see today.  (Maybe you even remember it? - If you do, a big Thank you for your support over the past ten years!)

Nowdays it is expected that any serious business will have a website.  But 1998 was a time when there were only about 2.5 million other websites in the whole world, so it was pretty fancy! 

No one knows how many sites there are today.  Some sources say there may be up to 550,000,000,000 with 7.3 million new pages added every day.  I certainly have many more websites now, as you probably know.  But that one was the first one for me so I wanted to share it’s tenth birthday with you.  

If you’ve been lucky enough to have had holidays we hope you feel refreshed and ready for all of the exciting things we have planned for you this year.  We’re determined to make sure 2008 is just great!

Since the last issue of Leading Well our family has had two new additions … kittens called Smokey and Izzy who are (for the moment anyway) curled up asleep and looking adorable just beside the chaos they created moments ago when they were playing with anything in reach.  The brief moment of peace and quiet gives me a chance to let you know about two important things that really can’t wait:

First: 

The Leadership Coaching Club is just about ready to launch and if you are at all interested in joining, you really must make sure your name is on the advance notification list so you get to hear first when it is launched.  This is the only way you will be able to take advantage of the early-bird special offers.  There’s no obligation, and I’m sure you will regret it if you miss out.  Register here:  http://leadershipcoachingclub.com/

Setting up the Leadership Coaching Club has been a lot of work, but I have to say it is looking great and I think you will be really pleased with the way it helps you each month to become even more effective as a leader and manager.  

Second: 

As well as finalizing the Leadership Coaching Club, we have been hard at work on several other projects that I can’t wait to share with you over the next few weeks.  

And one of them is ready for you right now …

We appreciate that not everyone learns in the same way.  Some people like to read to understand information - and that’s how much leadership information is presented.  However, other people prefer to learn by listening or watching.  So we wanted to help those of you who prefer to learn about leadership and management in this way by offering you some useful videos.  

But not just one or two leadership videos!  

We have drawn together the largest collection of leadership and management videos from all over the internet and added it to the Leadership Skill Center so you can access them easily all in one place at any time.  

It’s an amazing collection, with contributions from a myriad of different sources and freely available for anyone at http://leadershipskillcenter.com/tv right now!  If you can’t find some useful videos here, I’ll be amazed.  

Have a look and let us know what you think.  

Kind regards, Kerrie

PS. Here are those links again: For the Leadership Coaching Club pre-launch registration:   http://leadershipcoachingclub.com 

For the largest collection of leadership and management videos: http://leadershipskillcenter.com/tv 

It’s a busy time of year, and it’s hard not to wonder where the year went!  Here in Australia the days are getting longer and hotter, summer holidays are looming and Santa is struggling to stay cool in his fur trimmed outfit.  It’s hard to believe there have been record cold snaps in other parts of the world.  

But all that means there are a couple of things I want to say to you.  

First, thank you for allowing me to work with you again this year.  Whether I’ve coached or trained you personally or your whole business team, whether I’ve spoken at your leadership conference or facilitated your strategic planning process, or just visited each month via Leading Well, it’s been a privilege and a pleasure to work with you.  We have some really exciting things planned for 2008, so keep an eye out early in the new year for details.  

Last year we offered you some special gifts to download for Christmas to thank you for being a part of our life and they were very popular.  So once again we have gathered together a selection of special Christmas gifts for you and your family. We have added some to help you celebrate the festive season as well as something to help you get off to a great start in 2008. Please accept these Christmas gifts with our compliments.  You will find them here:  http://www.leadershipskillcenter.com/thankyou/xmas.php 

Soon it will be time to take a break to focus on family, fun and festivity for a little while.  We hope, like us, you can look back at lots of good things achieved in 2007, as well as being excited by everything to come in 2008.  

To start the year in mid-January the Leadership Coaching Club will finally open for membership.  Watch for it.  There will be special offers and bonuses for the first people to join as Foundation members, so watch your email from mid-January.  If you want to be the FIRST to know, make sure you sign up for priority notification at

http://www.leadershipcoachingclub.com That way you won’t miss out on getting in early as soon as it is open.  It’s going to be a great program that anyone who is serious about leading and managing people will want to be a part of, so you won’t want to miss it.  

We also have a whole range of other products and programs planned to help you on your path to easy, effective and effortless leadership, that I can’t wait to share with you next year.  

But for now Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at KMG Consulting and the Leadership Skill Center.  

…HO…HO…HO…  And I haven’t forgotten … Here’s that link for your special Christmas gifts again:  http://www.leadershipskillcenter.com/thankyou/xmas.php (because we know you’ve been good this year!)

Kind regards, Kerrie

PS.  It’s Christmas!  Of course you can share that link with anyone who would like to download a gift for Christmas.  Here it is again: 

http://www.leadershipskillcenter.com/thankyou/xmas.php 

And remember, the Leadership Coaching Club is coming soon. If you are at all interested in joining after it is open to the public, make sure you register at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com now, so you will be eligible for the very special offers when it is first launched. It will be worth your while!

Kind regards, Kerrie

PS. It’s my birthday later this month so if you read right to the end of this issue of Leading Well, YOU will get a present!

———–

Doing the Important Stuff

In “First Things First”, the follow-up to Steven Covey’s best-selling self-improvement and motivation book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, he illustrates a highly effective system of time management that can benefit any leader or manager. Covey’s Quadrant method of time management has been adopted throughout the business world: in team building, project management, business meetings, leadership training and seminars to ensure you focus on doing the important stuff.

What Covey has named his Quadrants system is based on the theory that most of us are driven by a consuming sense of urgency. He instructs us to divide all our priorities into the following four quadrants:

Quadrant 1: Important and Urgent – Items in this category are integral to your success and require your immediate attention. They include: situations such as crises, emergencies, appointments, projects that have deadlines, and other pressing problems.

Quadrant 2: Important but Not Urgent – Items in this category are integral to your success but don’t require your immediate attention right now. They include: leadership activities like planning and preparing, preventing future problems, coaching and mentoring staff, building and developing relationships with others, considering new possibilities and opportunities, and balancing activities such as spending time with loved ones, or having fun and creative pursuits.

Quadrant 3: Not Important but Urgent – Items in this category are not integral to your life, but they do demand your immediate attention. They include things that appear pressing on the surface (such as answering an insistent ringing phone or email), but probably don’t have any drastic consequences or repercussions for your success, or that may be able to be done by others or in a different way (someone could take a phone message for example).

Quadrant 4: Not Important and Not Urgent – Items in this category are not integral to your success and don’t need to happen at any particular time (or sometimes at all, for that matter), yet doing them can consume your time and energy. They include: routines, distractions and diversions, time-wasters, and other things you can generally do well without, although sometimes they include things we just like doing that aren’t necessary or important.

What Covey says next about these Quadrants may surprise you.

He warns that the common tendency is for people to get wrapped up in Quadrant 1 & 3 tasks because of their sense of urgency. This typically happens at the expense of the much more important Quadrant 2, which contains many life-enriching and important tasks.

The focus on tasks in Quadrants 1 and 3 is bolstered by the influence of other people’s demands and forces outside yourself, including the impetus of time. Accomplishing urgent tasks in Quadrants 1 & 3 gives us a comforting sense of progress. At least we have achieved something (even if it wasn’t particularly important).

Tasks in Quadrant 4 are what we do to anesthetize ourselves to the stressful effects of an imbalanced concentration of our energy on urgent matters. We often hide in Quadrant 4 tasks, and use them to procrastinate about doing something else, like the more important (and sometimes more difficult) Quadrant 2 tasks.

The paradox is that by spending more time deliberately doing Quadrant 2 tasks, we can avoid many of the crises that fall into the important and urgent tasks of Quadrant 1 and delegate many of the Quadrant 3 and 4 tasks that still need to be done. This frees our time up to focus even more on the leadership tasks in Quadrant 2.

Quadrant 2 is where our true and lasting happiness and our most productive effectiveness resides.

The sorts of tasks that fall into Quadrant 2 are often the ones that we are most likely to procrastinate about or just feel we don’t have time for. But they can be the most important in the longer-term to get your creative juices flowing and achieve significant success.

In addition to the possibilities listed above, Quadrant 2 tasks also include: reading and expanding your mind, developing new skills and abilities, getting physical exercise, engaging in recreation and leisurely activities, devising and implementing systems, preventative activities, and envisioning and shaping your future.

Giving more attention to Quadrant 2 activities will make us more readily able to tackle Quadrant 1 and 3 tasks with ease and efficiency.

Where are you spending your time? Stop for a moment and think about whether you have got the balance right (a Quadrant 2 task) or whether you are letting urgency rule your life.

See QUOTES on ‘Doing the Important Stuff’ below.

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TWO QUOTES OF NOTE:

“I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.”

Marilyn Monroe

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we know what to do with it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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BOOKS WORTH READING -

“First Things First”
by Steven Covey

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
by Stephen R. Covey

Good leaders develop judgment through experience - and sometimes that means making mistakes. You should not be afraid to make mistakes, but if you do make a mistake you must both learn from it and own up to it. This is how you develop the judgment to avoid other mistakes in the future.

It is this judgment that your subordinates will come to rely upon. Therefore, good decision-making is vital to the success of your team and your organization.

Leaders are not do-it-all heroes. You should not claim to know everything, and you should not rely upon your own skills alone.

You should recognize and take advantage of the skills and talents your subordinates have. Only when you come to the realization that the best teams rely on the different skills and experience of all members will you be able to work as one cohesive team.

Remember being a leader takes a good deal of work and time. It is not learned overnight. And leadership is not about just you. It is about you and the people who work with you. You can develop your leadership skills through the special resources of the Leadership Coaching Club, if you join now.

So, do you have the drive and the desire to serve that is required of leaders? Do you have the desire to work cooperatively with other people? Then start now. Take a stand, develop your skills and make your personal contribution as leader today.