Leadership?

I often wonder about myself as a leader - you see it's hard to analyse your leadership style when you work mostly on your own.

Several years back I took a leadership survey that showed I was a 'coercive' leader. I know precisely why! The band I was in needed coercion to rehearse, to gig, to do anything basically! And though the band was supposedly a collective, I had to take the lead or nothing would have happened.

Interesting, because when I applied my work profile, I came out very differently indeed. I was an affiliative leader - and that makes sense to me. I want people to follow me because they trust me and have faith and confidence in my decision making. I want to lead through example and through good practice.

I've never been that good at being authoritative except when I am very confident about my subject - so as a leader that's probably something I should look at. I may not know the answer, but I am sure I know someone who does, so I should use that resource.

There's lots of writing on leadership, lots of academic study, but the best thing I read on leadership the other day was 'learn from good leaders you know, don't try and copy them'. You have to be authentic, to be the kind of leader you are.

So though I know it would be good to be a stronger leader, like my previous boss, I also know that I cannot copy their methods and be a successful leader. I have to be the leader I am, and be true to myself. Authenticity, surely, deserves the respect of those who would follow you.

I took an Emotional Intelligence test yesterday. It said I had a score of 75 (average is 50, best is 100). I answered some questions the way I genuinely react in a situation, realistically - even though I knew they weren't the best answers on offer. I was, in fact, authentic.

Job hunt? The changing market

A couple of years back I signed up to the Marketing Week job emails - and I still get them. I am not looking for a job, but I haven't unsubscribed from these notifications. And I've noticed something.

In the past there were jobs for 'Marketing Manager' or 'Marketing Director' and details of the job, the company, the product or service, yada yada... now the jobs advertised are far more specific:

'Channel marketing manager with experience in communications software'
'Research marketing manager in pharmaceuticals'

In other words the day of the general job description have gone. It is an employers' market so they can be very specific about the skill set of the people they want. And this is true of all industries and roles, not just marketing. Individuals who are job hunting have to really tailor their CVs and applications to match as closely as possible the requirements for any job they apply for.

For example, I looked quickly on a regional job site and saw an ad for an administrative assistant for a Government scientific department. Applying for that job with outstanding administrative skills will, of course, be the first stage - but what the employer is going to look for is perhaps an administrator with an interst in their area of science, maybe even with specific experience. So the job application should not just extol their talents and virtues as an administrator, but their personal interest in the subject and anything else they can use to make their application more relevant to the role.

Is that expecting too much for an administration job? Not at all. In the town where I live the Somerfield store has been closed with a Morrisons opening in six weeks' time. There were 45 jobs advertised. They had over 400 applicants for those 45 jobs. How would you choose who to appoint?

There are many resources on line for helping individuals to help jobseekers but it can be a bit of a minefield. Watch out for sites that will charge you to improve your CV, many of the services offered on line can in fact be found for free at your local JobCentre in the UK, or from other Government agencies. That doesn't mean you shouldn't employ the services of professionals, but be sure to research all the options before handing over any cash!

Emotional Intelligence

About two years ago I went on a skills update day about Emotional Intelligence. It was very good, and I learned about how it is applied 'scientifically' and how useful it is in recruitment. EI needed to have some sound basis for practical application for me to 'buy in'. Certainly the statistics showing that the US military had a greater success rate when they applied EI to the recruitment process was a pretty good example.

We have a couple of EI books on our site and a free questionnaire to help you get started on the 'road to emotional intelligence'. I always thought I was pretty well self-aware about emotional intelligence, but even filling in this quick questionnaire gave me pause for thought when I reflected on my answers.

The author of the questionnaire and one of our books is Maureen Bowes, and she's done some neat videos - snippets of which you can see on her site. They are long enough to give you something to 'take away', so worth a visit if you get the chance:

www.peopleintelligence.com/coaching.html

Where there's smoke...

In my post about smoking back in February, I mentioned a friend in Ireland who was giving up.

Well, it's now June and she's still not smoking! I'm really proud of her because she has had a very difficult few months.

Did you notice the title of this post? Crafty of me - it's the name of a novel she has written and is currently with Penguin for consideration (they asked for the whole manuscript after seeing a few chapters).

So let's hope that where there's interest, they end up publishing. It would be a nice (to say the least!) bonus for her and a superb reward for her giving up smoking.

Incidentally she wrote a short story a couple of years back called 'Wicked Weed' and it won a competition in Belfast. Got published and read on the radio. It was about someone who gave up smoking!

Stress!

I've recently had a few experiences that you could say caused a little stress! But the thing is - I think I've learned a lot. Not about the experiences per se (there's lots of learning going on there constantly, as anyone with teenage kids will agree I'm sure), but more about how I manage my stress.

The other night I was feeling pretty tense and my husband asked me 'Are you OK?'. 'I'm a little stressed', I replied. His immediate reaction (because he always wants to help) was

'Why are you stressed? What's wrong?' and it was a sort of 'leap down your throat' response which, funnily enough, actually caused me more stress!

I was just a bit stressed, OK? Life, the universe... everything! So by sharing my stress and with someone wanting to help, I in fact ended up more stressed. Was that his fault? My fault? Well, thing is with stress there is no fault or blame - it's the circumstance.

I deal with my stress by keeping it lidded - bottled up! Now some say that's dangerous, that one day I will explode and make an awful mess, and perhaps that is true. But I find that as situations slowly resolve (or are unchangeable and so have to be accepted), my stress dissipates.

The stress leaks away - well, the stress over that particular issue anyway. I have learned to try and accept what cannot be changed and, and I think this one is missed out in lots of 'advice' pages, accept that some things (people) don't want to be change. So it's not accepting that it can't change, but that it won't.

What's my point? I think it's just a little 'blow out' on stress. I keep it quiet, lidded, because that's how I deal with it. When I 'share', the benefit is not always there for me. Sometimes sharing (for me) makes things worse. But I wouldn't recommend everyone keeping it bottled up, no. See - I'm sort of vinegar and water, when other people may be water and oil or even vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Shake it up, oil and water still won't mix. And if you bottle-stop vinegar and bicarb.... watch out!

Deal with your stress the way you feel most comfortable. Whether its the recommended resolution or not, whether you can share with one person or not with another - deal with it how best suits you.