Jo Jeffries

As a result of the market shifts, global crises and challenges resulting from the disruptive events of recent years it has been necessary to look for multifaceted solutions. It is important for organisations who are looking to be resilient, innovative, and adaptive to make sure they have good team collaboration. Effective collaboration needs a good foundation of trust. and a trust deficit can all too often be the cause of failure. For any leader who want to be build a collaborative, strong team then it is important to demonstrate this vulnerability, even though it might seem counterproductive. When they embrace vulnerabilities, leaders can create deep connections. This can increase engagement and can drive better productivity.

Trust and vulnerability – the link

Trust is essential for successful teamwork. It allows team members to rely on each other, share ideas comfortably and address any issues without worrying about judgement. When trust is lacking, then a team can fall into a pattern where competition, designment and miscommunication occur. This make collaboration difficult.

One of the best ways to build trust is through vulnerability. Whilst a traditional leadership model my suggest promoting authority and strength, the modern work environment benefits when a leader shows openness. When a leader shows some of their own uncertainties and challenges they can model trust. This helps establish a norm where trust and collaboration can grow.

Vulnerability as a leadership skill

Vulnerability doesn’t mean oversharing to undermine your own authority. Rather, it means a strategic, conscious approach to humility and honesty. There are some key steps a leader can adopt to help encourage openness amongst their team.

Acknowledge emotional triggers and reactions

Leaders need to recognise their emotional triggers. Rather than impulsively reacting they should practise stopping for a moment to look at their emotions. When they are calm and measured in their response to a challenge this can help a team see that setbacks are a normal part of the growth of a project rather than a problem.

Shift from a mindset of ‘Prove Yourself’ to ‘Improve Yourself’

In settings of high-performance there can be a pressure to appear very competent all the time. But when leaders focus on constant image management, it can result in a culture where others feel the need to prove themselves, often at the expense of learning and collaboration. It is important that growth is prioritised over perfection.  

Admit mistakes and uncertainties

One of the most powerful things a leader can do to show their vulnerability is admit when they have made mistakes, this level of transparency can make it easier for employees to also admit to their struggles.

Encourage feedback then act on it

When you embrace feedback it sends the message that everyone has an opinion that matters. It reinforces the idea that insights and knowledge are things that should be shared.

Be consistent

This type of trust is built by being consistent rather than from single moments. Consistently act on the same values and this will show your commitment to your team and result in much higher levels of engagement.

Limiting beliefs are often not only ingrained but can really hold you back when it comes to personal and professional development. Whether these beliefs stem from past experience or cultural conditioning, they can often leave a person believing negative things. “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t deserve success” are common thoughts. These beliefs can create a barrier that makes it difficult to reach their full potential. 

Limiting beliefs go beyond simple frustration. They affect how people feel about their own abilities and how they perceive themselves. It is important to be able to recognise these beliefs. By knowing your inner critic, you can overcome them in order to find personal and professional growth. 

Common Limiting beliefs

Unfortunately, there are a number of negative beliefs, and at one point or another most people will have struggled with at least one of them. These include:

• I am not good enough: This points to a fear of failure and oftens stops someone from taking risks or pursuing their dreams. This could be true whether this is a belief that you are not good enough for something that is work related or something more personal. 

• I am too young/old: Age should not be a barrier for anyone, but we often have self-doubt that age hampers us from succeeding in life or when it comes to changing careers
• I am not smart enough: Underestimating how smart you might be, an inability to learn new skills or obtain and retain new knowledge is common, it is important to have the confidence to work through this. 
• Money is the root of all evil: This sort of belief can often hold you back from being financially successful and can result in a financial struggle

How do limiting beliefs impact on personal growth?

When it comes to personal growth, limiting beliefs has various impacts. They can create an unfortunate fixed mindset. It is often all too easy to muddle along in your comfort zone. It’s simpler keeping everything the same and not rocking the boat by trying anything new, learning a new skill, or even making a few simple changes. This can stop your personal development. It keeps you stuck in a rut where you are permanently in a state of self-imposed limitations. 

How do limiting Beliefs impact on professional growth

With professional growth, limiting beliefs can also be incredibly damaging. Beliefs such as “I’m not smart enough” or “I am too old/young” can be detrimental. They can stop you from pursuing potential new career opportunities. You will miss out on valuable opportunities that could help with career growth and a sense of professional fulfilment. 

How to break free from limiting beliefs

It is easier than you might think to break away from these limiting beliefs that can hold you back. Self-awareness can be incredibly important. Therefore you need to find time in your busy routine to identify those negative self-limiting beliefs that might be holding you back. 

You should also challenge your limiting beliefs. Are they true or are they based on unfounded assumptions? Remind yourself what you are capable of and what you have already achieved. 

There are a great many things that you should be doing to ensure that you overcome you limiting beliefs so that you can improve your personal and professional growth.

AI has made significant steps in recent years. It is now even able to generate information in a more conversational manner. In fact, some of the AI-generated chat programs that you will find out there are incredibly good at what they do. In some cases, it is often impossible to work out if you are speaking to a real person of not. When it comes to business, this offers fantastic potential. However, it also invites some difficult questions. Is AI also capable of replacing social institutions, friendships or peer-to-peer interactions? Worse still is, it possible that it could be used to replace mentorship?

There are certainly many things that AI can do but it cannot yet replace the more intangible aspects that are associated with human interaction. With this in mind, we explore why AI fails at mentoring.

What AI is good at

Before we consider why AI fails at mentoring lets take a very brief look at what it is really good at:

·       Finding patterns – AI can sort through large amounts of information and data and find patterns to make predictions.

·       Automating lists that are repetitive – Because it’s good at finding patterns, it is also great when it comes to creating commands for repetitive activities.

What can’t AI do?

AI is however not very good when it comes to generating new information. When it comes to interacting with humans it can really struggle. Furthermore, it can’t really respond all that well to a prompt where it simply doesn’t have the information necessary to hand.

The lack of human element

To put it simply, if you were looking for advice from a mentor in areas which you were struggling in and wanted advice, support and a little guidance, AI simply doesn’t have the capacity to give you this. It would be more likely to give you some random information that it was able to find that it believed would fit what you were looking for. Unfortunately, this usually would be way off the mark.

A mentor is there to guide you and no matter what the problem send you in the right direction. It may not be with the full answer that you need but rather the right guidance to find that answer or the information that would lead you to the solutions. This requires a significant amount of knowledge and often the ability to think outside the box. Essentially this is something that AI has yet to master.

When you choose a mentor, you do so for many reasons. One of these is that you want someone you can learn from, who has been in the position you are in themselves, and so understands. This is simply not something that AI will have any knowledge of. Therefore, any answers that it gives you will be based on guess work and probability.

A mentor is also someone who can help you when it comes to networking. Again, this is something that AI simply has no real knowledge of. It might be able to suggest ways in which you can network, but it does not have the human connections to help you.

There are many ways in which AI is a great and incredibly valuable tool. However, when it comes to mentoring, the human touch is essential and this is not a bad thing.

In the modern business world, effective leadership is crucial. This is true not only for large organisation, but for small businesses. As SMEs strive to stay ahead of the curve throughout their growth, a robust leadership pipeline becomes imperative. Here, we look at the essential components of building a leadership pipeline in a small business.

What Is A Leadership Pipeline?

Simply put, creating a leadership pipeline means proactively identifying and grooming those who could be future leaders within your SME. There are certain useful rules to follow when it comes to creating a robust pipeline in order to secure the future of your business, even after you no longer work in it. 

Rule 1 – Identify Leadership Potential

The first thing to do is to identify those within your business that have leadership potential early on. Going through a  thorough assessment of employees’ skills, competencies, and aspirations will help you identify potential candidates, but it is important to look beyond their current job performance and consider abilities such as strategic thinking, adaptability, and interpersonal skills.

Rule 2 – Building a Framework

When you have identified potential leaders, you will need to create a framework to support their development. Providing them with a mix of experiences that broaden their skill set and allow them to operate in different parts of the business will be extremely beneficial. On-the-job learning, mentoring, and formal training can be combined to help create well-rounded leaders.

Rule 3 – Mentorship

Mentorship has a pivotal role in leadership development. Pairing your identified candidates with experienced mentors/leaders who can provide guidance, share insights, and offer constructive feedback can accelerate their development. It can also provide useful proof to other employees that you are working on their behalf.

Rule 4 – Succession Planning

A robust leadership pipeline needs to include succession planning. An SME that has identified which roles are critical and prepared those who want to step into these positions when the time comes is a business that will not fall when a member of staff retires or leaves or throughout periods of change.. 

Rule 5 – Creating a Leadership Culture

It is essential that a business that wants to succeed embodies a culture that values and prioritizss leadership development. This can not only  encourage employees at all levels to aspire to leadership roles, but can help improve the diversity within your business.  Diverse teams can bring a huge range of benefits to an SME, and could help to identify areas for future development that may not have been previously considered.

Evaluating Leadership Development

While setting up a leadership pipeline is a job that might take some time, you will need to return to your framework to make adjustments sometimes. Carefully establish metrics for measuring progress, early on, and this will allow you to make changes if something isn’t working quite so well as it should. 

Investing in leadership isn’t just a strategy. Developing a leadership pipeline means you have put in long-term investment to secure the success and sustainability of your business.