Should You Offer Unlimited PTO?

After the COVID-19 crisis, many companies are considering switching to an unlimited PTO policy. After the uncertainty of the past few months, it is important to discuss what is best for your employees and your company. There are many advantages to an unlimited PTO policy and some disadvantages. What works best for every company is different, but it is crucial to stay up-to-date with policies in the current job environment.

Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO) plans usually have no given allotted number of days that employees can take off. Employees can take as many vacation, sick, emergency, and mental health days as they need as long as they keep up with their mandatory work and keep up with performance goals. Unlimited PTO plans usually require supervisor approval beforehand, except in cases of sickness or family emergencies.

If you’re worried about your employees taking too much time off, many studies have shown that employees with unlimited PTO still take roughly the same amount of time off as those without it. So why do you need it? Trusting your employees to take time off to take care of themselves allows for a more positive work environment.

There are several advantages to an unlimited PTO plan, as it fosters a trusting relationship between you and your employees and encourages responsibility. Unlimited PTO reduces the likelihood that employees will come to work when sick, something we all have heightened awareness of because of the pandemic. Depending on your state laws, it saves you money because days off are no longer accrued, and you don’t have to pay out vacation time when an employee leaves the company. It also looks like an attractive benefit when recruiting job candidates.

While there are advantages, there are also some disadvantages. If an employee seems to be taking off too much time and is no longer meeting productivity standards, it can be hard to terminate them; they were technically given the time off. Establishing and reviewing performance goals can mitigate this issue. It will also still be necessary to track time to prove that employees are taking time off in compliance with regulations.

Unlimited PTO plans are a great way to increase responsibility and trust within your company. With the ongoing COVID-19 crises, many companies and employees wished they had this plan in place. It’s never too late to switch, but what is best for your company is ultimately up to you.

Identifying Team Weaknesses

Do you know your team’s weakness? What makes your company weak compared to other companies? If you don’t have an answer to either of these questions, it’s time to rethink. That’s the premise behind Lisa Bodell’s exercise “Kill the Company” in her aptly named Kill The Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution. The book may have come out in 2012, but the “Kill the Company” strategy is still an effective one.

 

Many times, when we’re asked to name our strengths and weaknesses, we’re hesitant to point out our weaknesses. Instead we name things the team could maybe work on. The exercise isn’t taken seriously. And because it isn’t taken seriously, those true weaknesses within a company are never improved upon. Those same weaknesses can be easily preyed upon by your competitors. That’s why you need to practice the “Kill the Company” exercise.

 

The “Kill the Company” exercise consists of looking from the outside in. Pretend to be your competitor. How would you see your company? Where are you truly weak and struggling as a company? You have to take yourself out of the equation so that you can determine how to fix your weaknesses, who to partner with, and how to target your competitors. Essentially, you need to flip the script on your business and evaluate all the ways in which competitors could see your team or company as weak. It’s an effective strategy because it helps you gain on your competition.

 

Some of the biggest weaknesses within companies are failure to take risks, complacent culture, and failure to innovate. If you want your team to take risks, but you hold them back, how can you expect your company to be viewed as innovative? The biggest mistake you can make is being complacent. If you’re content where you are, you won’t grow as a company. While you’re happy staying the same—not getting weaker or stronger—other companies are busy sneaking up on you.

 

Corporate change certainly is not easy, but not changing is a bigger problem. Identify your weaknesses, then strategize about how to fix them and how to implement change. Instead of implementing change from the top down, Bodell recommends starting from the middle out. Change doesn’t necessarily have to be a huge change all at once; it’s more important to make consistent, lasting changes. Start with small changes, and do them every day. Even if your weaknesses don’t improve immediately, hold strong. Persevere and implement a new strategy for positive change. Find your weakness before someone else kills your company.

 

If you like these concepts, be sure to pick up Bodell’s book!

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Emotional intelligence is a key part of a successful workplace. Also referred to as emotional quotient (EQ), emotional intelligence is defined as the way an individual understands, communicates with, and handles emotions. Emotional intelligence is not only a popular topic in psychology, but the business world as well. That’s because emotionally intelligent people lead to a stronger team that communicates well.

 

Emotional intelligence isn’t just about recognizing emotions in yourself, but also recognizing and interpreting emotions in other people. Expert researchers on the topics, Psychologists Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, name four levels of emotional intelligence. They include:

 

  • Perceiving emotions
  • Reasoning with emotions
  • Understanding emotions
  • Managing emotions

 

We use these four levels of emotional intelligence to interact effectively with others. They allow us to understand the emotions behind others’ behavior so that we can make sound decisions and solve problems. Some leading researchers even argue that people who are highly emotionally intelligent find more success in life. This may be because emotionally intelligent individuals tend to be stronger leaders and are adept at managing stress. However, emotional intelligence is important whether or not you are a CEO or leader within the company.

 

Emotional intelligence is highly coveted in the workplace because it is a skill that helps you communicate with others effectively, manage stress with ease, and even move up the career ladder. It is a skill that not only helps you problem-solve, but it increases your ability to effectively work with and train others.

 

There are some signs that you have an emotionally intelligent team versus one that is struggling with their emotional intelligence. You will notice that emotionally intelligent employees make good decisions, easily solve problems, work well under pressure, express empathy toward teammates, and easily take constructive criticism. On the other hand, employees that lack emotional intelligence may play the victim, fail to work as a team, criticize others, and fail to communicate effectively.

 

If you want to improve the emotional intelligence of your team as a whole, there are a few strategies you can implement. While many are naturally emotional intelligent due to their upbringing and personality, it can be developed. Training involves improving self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and motivation.

 

Showing Leadership by Taking Care of Your Team

Business Team

Now more than ever, it’s important that you are taking care of your team. After all, they are the people who help take care of you day after day. Some believe that you should prioritize customers, investors, and board members before your employees, but that isn’t necessarily the best method. If you prioritize your team, they will continue to prioritize you and keep your business running effectively.

 

Your Team is Everything

An unhappy team can cause issues aplenty for you and your business. Your team is the foundation of what you do. They take care of the customers, they make the product, they help think of new products, and they market the product. Take all that away, and you only have yourself left. The investors, board, and clients that you’ve been prioritizing will go away very quickly. Simply stated: your team makes everything happen. If you take them for granted, fail to recognize their talents, and don’t prioritize their health, they may be apt to underperform, frequently call in sick, or altogether quit.

 

Team Over Customers

There’s a reason they say the customer is always right, so of course, you want to prioritize them. They’re the people that provide the money that keeps your business going so you can pay your team and continue to grow your business. It can be easy to fall into the trap of overpromising your customers and placing the burden on staff members. This can lead to employee burnout and unmet expectations for the customers. This is a surefire way to sink your business. Make sure you are prioritizing your team first. This will allow them to perform at their best, put out their strongest work, and make customers happy.

 

Team Over Investors/Board Members

Your team is your source of creativity. Listen to them. Help foster that creativity and encourage it. Put value in their ideas. If you’re focusing too much on what the board or investors are telling you to do or the products they want you to make, your team may not buy in as well. Everyone’s opinion is important, and to an extent, your board and investors control some of your decisions but make sure everyone on the team is on board with the decisions being made. Their opinions about the business and products matter, too.

 

 

 

Top 2020 Leadership Books

Are you looking to strengthen your leadership skills in 2020? Whether you want to improve your confidence, build your emotional intelligence, or change your leadership approach, you can take yourself to the next level with these books.

Title: The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
By: Robert Iger

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to run the Walt Disney Company and its 200,000 employees? You won’t have to wonder any longer. This book gives you the full scoop about the leadership skills Iger has embraced in the forty-five years he has been with Disney. If you are looking to embrace innovation in our technological age while leading with curiosity, courage, and optimism, add this book to your shelf.

Title: See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence
By: George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker

This book operates on the idea that vigilance is a coveted trait in the fast-paced business industry. It helps leaders pinpoint weaknesses, respond quickly and strategically, and anticipate threats. This book will teach you how to be a vigilant leader.

Title: The Infinite Game
By: Simon Sinek

Do you often find yourself working toward a goal, achieving it, and then thinking, “Now what?” You aren’t alone. The thrill of the pursuit fades fast. Sinek argues that we need to realize that we are constantly transforming and we should lead with an infinite mindset. The endpoint should be unknown, helping you to building an innovative, inspired organization.

Title: Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth
By: Richard Boyatzis, Melvin L. Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten

If you’re trying to build your emotional intelligence this year, this is the book that can help you do it. Research and true stories come together to provide evidence for how coaching with compassion can help people grow in meaningful ways. Throughout the book, you can expect questions and exercises that will promote self-reflection. Instead of providing an answer to the problem, the authors try to teach leaders how to instead compassionately lead employees to their own solutions.

Head to your favorite local bookstore to pick one of these up!

Raising your Leadership Capabilities

Have you ever heard of the Law of the Lid? The Law of the Lid states that everybody hits a lid, or a ceiling, at some point in their career. Let’s learn more about this.

Whether you’re an athlete or a CEO, this can happen to you. Perhaps you’ve finally reached a specific running goal, but no matter how hard you train, you can’t improve your time. Or, as a leader in a business, you may have accelerated quickly but then stalled out. The same goes for a CEO. You may be great at managing a $5 million company, but you’re stalled when the company grows to $25 million, and you no longer know how to manage. At some point, everybody hits a lid and they are unable to perform at the level they were performing at previously. Hitting your lid is completely normal and understandable. You might have been a great CEO when you started your business, and because you were such great leader, the business took off. At some point, it grew so big that you felt out of your element; the whole situation changed. You feel paralyzed trying to figure out the right move.

Allowing the Law of the Lid to take place in your business is difficult. On the one hand, you don’t want leaders who have reached their lid and stalled out. On the other hand, you want to allow your leaders the chance to break through their lid. The key is to learn to recognize the lid in yourself so you can understand if you are hitting it. You also want to understand the lid in key team players so they don’t keep hitting their lids too. When key people can’t break through, it may be time for the company to make a change and bring someone in with more capacity in that area. The employee who hit their lid should be placed in the area they are strongest in. Oftentimes, once a change like this is made, the business sees accelerated growth in profitability and performance.

Running a business means that you will likely hit numerous lids in completely different areas. The key is to take a step back and figure out what skillsets and capabilities you can use to get past the lid. If you can’t accelerate past it, recognize when it is time to step back. Don’t allow the Law of the Lid to run rampant in your organization, and you will continue to see success.

If you want to hear me talk about this further, listen to my video on the Law of the Lid:

Emphasizing Accountability as a Leader

As a leader, holding yourself accountable, as well as holding the whole team accountable, is extremely important to your bottom line. It takes courage to hold staff members accountable for their good work behavior or their lack thereof, and not every leader can do it. Here are some tips for being a leader in this area and encourage workplace accountability.

 

Make Expectations Clear

Workplace accountability is defined as fulfilling workplace responsibilities. That includes taking care of your daily tasks and doing so in a timely fashion with attention to deadlines. In short, it means completing your job and not cutting corners, thus shortchanging both your customers and your business as a whole. It requires precisely articulated expectations from supervisors; there is no room for ambiguity. Employees shouldn’t be blamed for not meeting workplace standards if they are not clearly articulated; expectations must be clearly defined. Without direction and guidance, employees will do what they think is best, which might not always align with your expectations. When giving direction, also ask for feedback. This allows you to address any misunderstandings, so you can hold them accountable for the work at the end of the day.

 

Provide Resources and Training

In order to emphasize accountability, you need to provide the proper resources, tools, and training. If you give an employee a task, but don’t give them the proper training or resources to complete the task, you can’t exactly hold them accountable for completing the task properly. Again, make sure feedback and communication is part of the conversation. If the employee expresses confusion at the task, they may need some extra training.

 

Make Accountability Part of the Culture

Make accountability part of your workplace culture. As a leader, take the lead on this by not only holding yourself accountable for completing tasks you promise to finish, but by encouraging it in others. Workers can easily tell if they can slack off and get away with doing the minimum. However, if the culture frowns on this practice, employees will get the message. Discuss accountability in reviews as well. This will foster a culture of accountability.

 

Be sure that you are holding yourself accountable before others and setting a good example. Also make sure that you are empowering employees. There are times tasks won’t get completed by certain deadlines, and occasionally that happens. Don’t let one mistake ruin an employee; give them the space to flourish creatively and prove their value to the team.

Motivating a Diverse Team

There is no one-size-fits-all leadership style. Each of your team members is going to be unique in his or her own way—young and old, different areas of expertise, different work styles, different personalities. Finding a way to motivate every unique personality on your team might not be easy, but it will lead to higher output.

 

Before you go about developing a plan for motivation, decide if you need to motivate a few members of the team or the entire team. If attitudes are low for most of the team, you’ll need to work on motivating them as a whole. If it’s just a few employees that are struggling, then it’s time to figure out a way to motivate a select few. Start your plan by talking to team members. Find out what is leading to their lack of teamwork and production. Get to know them; find out what drives them. Don’t single out their unique characteristics. For instance, don’t say anything like, “I notice that you don’t fit in very well because you’re much younger than the other staff members and you’re new to the team.” Talk about a plan of action that includes what will help them be a more productive member of a cohesive team.  

 

It’s important to embrace and reward the unique qualities of your team members. Don’t single anyone out for being different. Embrace their strengths, not their weaknesses. Some team members will be quiet, others will be loud and outgoing. It’s important that everyone knows their opinion and work is valued equally. Bring together these unique personalities and foster collaboration through team bonding events. Fun company events, like a trip to a baseball game or a picnic can improve attitudes and help staff members bond over their shared interests. Be sure that everyone has the chance to voice their opinion on what sorts of group activities they would enjoy. A fun office environment goes a long way toward increasing motivation, relieving stress, and boosting morale and productivity.

 

Remember, understanding your employees and their work style will go a long way in making you a stronger leader.

 

Self-Deception as a Leader

Self-deception is defined as “the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.” Consider this: a business partner repeatedly tells you that he wants to take a step back and decrease his ad buys in the business, but you convince yourself that he is very interested in the business and would like to increase ad buys. As a leader, how often do you self-deceive? While you may not do something specifically like this with the ad buys, you may be deceiving yourself in other ways.

 

How often do you receive feedback that doesn’t seem to line up with how you feel about yourself? If you’re consistently receiving that same feedback, and consistently denying it and failing to see that characteristic in yourself, you could be a self-deceiver. You may be seeing past your faults and choosing to self-justify. Self-deception in the workplace can cause a lot of destruction. It can cause you to spend more time thinking about yourself and your goals than the growth of the business. It can also cause you to treat others as objects.

 

When you are self-deceived as a leader, you may partake in a few detrimental behaviors—one of which is inflating your virtue. When you have an exaggerated sense of self, you begin to undervalue others and draw attention to their flaws. You blame others, and your coworkers become objects, not people. You may think others are challenging you, even if they have presented themselves as allies. It’s a tough mindset to be in, and can cause poor teamwork, lack of trust, and communication issues.

 

Self-deception may make you blind to your own true motivations. After all, the concept of deception is to deceive, or fool someone—even if it’s yourself. In doing so, you may unintentionally sabotage yourself. In lying to yourself, you are blind to the truth and unable to implement effective workplace solutions.

 

There are different levels of self-deception, whether you deceive yourself casually or totally disregard reality. Remedying the problem involves a journey of self-awareness. Learn more about this topic by investing in a copy of Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute. As a note of interest, this book is voted #1 by our CEO Solutions Peer Group members, all of whom are CEOs.

Five of Steve Jobs’ Most Important Leadership Lessons

Steve Jobs, the man who made Apple into one of the largest tech companies today, is renowned as one of the greatest tech leaders in the business. While many consider him a tough leader, there are great lessons to learn from him.

 

Discover Your Passion

If you aren’t passionate about your pursuits, how will you turn fantasy into reality? If you don’t love what you’re doing, you won’t dedicate yourself and the necessary time and resources required to succeed. If you aren’t passionate about your business, how do you expect your staff to be passionate?

 

Find Your Vision

If you don’t have a vision, where are you going? Where is your business going? Without a clear vision, it will be difficult to determine what direction to take. Think about Apple. Where would the company be without Steve Jobs’ expert leadership? You should always be planning for the long-term and thinking about the future.

 

Inspire and Empower

This might go without saying, but you need to inspire and empower your employees. Push them to be the best they can be. Challenge them and push their boundaries. Steve Jobs was great at this. He didn’t order people around or micromanage. He helped them to learn to challenge themselves and explore their potential, which led to increased productivity and of course, innovative thinking. Steve Jobs was known for working his employees night and day before a product launch to get it just right. While we don’t advise pushing your employees to the point of burnout, understand the line between inspiring them and pushing them too far.

 

Don’t Settle

While striving for perfection is often a source of stress and people feel as if they’re never good enough, don’t settle for less. When the first iPod was just days from launching, Steve Jobs had the headphone jacks replaced. As engineers looked on, he noted that the headphones didn’t make a clicking sound when they were inserted into the headphone jack. He insisted that users wouldn’t know if the headphones were fully inserted if there was no click. Even though they were cutting it down to the wire, he insisted it was fixed. You don’t have to be perfect all the time, but don’t settle for second best when you know you can push yourself and your team to do better. 

 

Take Risks

Steve Jobs was a master innovator, always taking risks. If you aren’t taking risks in your business, you must ask yourself if you are growing. Embracing new strategies and solving problems by shaking things up will help you stay one step ahead of the competition and strengthen your brand.