Boost Your Leadership Skills and Watch Your Team Soar!

2023-01-05

Are you feeling like you're missing out on what it takes to build a great team? Have you seen a lot of turnover or just in general time clock punching without a lot of productivity?

At one point in my career working for others, during a one week period of time, I had all but one of the team members in the organization I worked for, who were secondary reports for me, come into my office and tell me they were leaving for greener pastures. Not only did it make me realize that I was not leading effectively my direct reports but that incident made me examine me as a leader. It spurred me into action as I realized in that moment what I had been taught about leadership was wrong. My leadership skill set needed to improve if I wanted to build a great direct report team and in turn they built great teams that effectively made for a better culture and grew the company.

I’m here to tell you that it's never too late to take everything you’ve learned from working to lead a team and start pouring into them by developing yourself first.

Leadership skills are an essential part of building a successful team. It takes more than just delegating tasks and providing direction; it takes the ability to motivate, inspire, and empower your team to succeed. So, how do you go about developing your leadership skills?

Here are a few tips to get you started.

Lead by example in how you communicate, treat others, and respect time. Show your team that you are committed to the success of the team and strive to set the tone for a positive, productive environment.
Listen to your team. Taking the time to listen to your team's ideas and feedback is key to fostering a strong team dynamic. This helps create an open dialogue and encourages them to be more involved.
Stay organized. Having an organized plan of action is essential to successful team building. Make sure to communicate tasks clearly and delegate responsibilities appropriately.
Reward and recognize. Don't forget to recognize and reward your team members for their hard work. This will help to create a culture of appreciation.
Be open-minded. Be open to new ideas and be willing to take risks. This will help to create an environment of innovation and creativity.

Building a team is no easy feat. The leadership skills that you take time to personally develop to lead yourself will help you lead your team. Your team will pour into and lead those who report to them, not by title, but by true influence and respect.

Be The Tortoise Not The Hare With Grant Funding

2021-08-05

The story of The Tortoise and The Hare by Aesop teaches the moral of being patient, taking slow and steady actions will get a person to the destination they are aiming for. In the story, the Hare is very confident that he can beat the Tortoise because he is fast and has always won in the past against anyone he has gone up against. He sees the Tortoise as weak and not achieving very much. What he does not see is her ability to continue despite obstacles.

Have you ever thought about how this story applies to getting grant funding?

Many nonprofit organizations and their leaders are under the mistaken impression that grant funding will be the hare. A fast solution to revenue and operations woe that are being experienced or to all start-up costs upon nonprofit corporation launch. However, this is not the case as funders look at many factors including the health and age of the nonprofit business operation for funding. Another mistake many organizations make that are hare like is to not have a grant funding plan, build in the majority of revenue coming from grants for their operations, and utilizing the "spaghetti approach" to grant fundraising by slinging grant applications to anyone and everyone regardless of fit between the organization and the funder.

The better approach is to be like the tortoise. A nonprofit organization needs to develop a systematic plan to bringing in business revenue through grants to fund their programs and operations. This requires the identification of grant funders whose mission is also compatible with the nonprofit mission that is seeking funding. Once those funders are identified, the grant possibilities can be scheduled out across a grant application calendar and programs and amounts of funding can be decided. The nonprofit organization budget projections can be updated as well to account for what the organization thinks it will bring in from grant revenue. This slow and steady course will enable the organization to either begin or to keep grant funding to carry out their mission.

Originally published on September 21, 2019 on LinkedIn by Jocelyn A. Van Coney

Van Coney Business Strategies LLC

Boost Your Leadership Skills and Watch Your Team Soar!

Be The Tortoise Not The Hare With Grant Funding