The body language of collaborative leaders

The body language of collaborative leadersThe body language of collaborative leadersDuring a break in my seminar on collaborative leadership, a man from the audience told this story My wife is an attorney, and I have always been a supporter of women in the workplace. I also believe in collaboration and try to make everyone feel included and appreciated. So I was totally taken aback when a woman on my management team said that I didnt value herbeibei opinion. I assured her that I valued and relied on her insights and had often told her so. But then I got curious and asked her what I was doing that made the opposite impression. She said, In meetings, you dont look at me when I speak. Then, he said My question to you is, how could this one small nonverbal cue have had such a powerful impact?His inquiry was well timed because the topic I was about to cover after break was the body language of collaborative leaders.Our brains are hardwired to respond instantly to certain nonverbal cues, a nd that circuitry was put in place a long time ago when our ancient ancestors faced threats and challenges very different from those we face in todays modern society.For example, in our prehistory, it may have been vitally important to see an approaching persons hands in order to evaluate his intent. If hands were concealed they could very well be holding a rock, a club, or other means of doing us harm. In interactions today, with no logical reason to do so, you will instinctively mistrust me if my hands stay out of sight shoved in my pockets or clasped behind my back.The world has changed, but our body-reading processes are still based on a primitive emotional reaction. Today, the vermgen threats (and our brains are always on the alert for potential threats) are to our ego, our self-esteem, our identity. We are especially vulnerable in our desire to be included, to feel valued, to belong. This is why collaborative leaders need to be aware of their body language.Think of it this w ay In any interaction, you are communicating over two channels verbal and nonverbal resulting in two distinct conversations going on at the same time. What my audience member underestimated was the power of alignment - that is, the spoken word needs to be aligned with body language that supports it. When this alignment doesnt occur, the other person has to choose between the words and the body language. Almost always, she will believe the nonverbal message.There are two sets of body-language cues that people instinctively look for in leaders. One set projects warmth and caring and the other signals power and status. Both are necessary for leaders today but, for a chief collaborator, the warmer side of nonverbal communication (which has been undervalued and underutilized by leaders more concerned with projecting strength, status, and authority), becomes central to creating the most collaborative workforce relationships.When you use warm, pro-social body language with all team memb ers, you create an emotionally rich environment that supports collaboration and high performance. Here are some examples of what I meanA genuine smile not only stimulates your own sense of well-being, it also tells those around you that you are approachable, cooperative, and trustworthy. A genuine smile comes on slowly, crinkles the eyes, lights up the face, and fades away slowly. By way of contrast, a counterfeit or polite smile comes on quickly and never reaches the eyes.And since collaboration depends on participants willingness to speak up and share ideas and insights, try using your head literally. Research shows that you can increase participation by nodding your head with clusters of three nods at regular intervals.Head tilting is also a signal that you are interested, curious, and involved. The head tilt is a universal gesture of giving the other person an ear. As such, head tilts can be very positive cues when you want to encourage people to expand on their comments.And, a s the man in my audience found out, one of the most powerful motivators to encourage participation is eye contact, because people feel that they have your attention and interest as long as you are looking at them. As a leader, you set the tone for the meeting. If you want people to speak up, focus on whomever is talking to make sure that he or she feels you are listening.When talking with someone we like or are interested in, we subconsciously switch our body posture to match that of the other person mirroring his or her nonverbal behavior. When you synchronize your body language with members of your team, you signal that you are connected and engaged.You look more receptive when you uncross your legs and hold your arms comfortably away from your body (not folded across your chest or tight into your waist) with palms exposed or hands resting on the desk or conference table.Positive attitudes toward others tend to be accompanied by leaning forward especially when sitting down. When two people like each other, youll see them both lean in. Research also shows that individuals who lean forward tend to increase the verbal output of the person theyre speaking with. Also, face people directly. Even a quarter turn away creates a barrier (the cold shoulder), signaling a lack of interest and causing the speaker to shut down.Physical obstructions are especially detrimental to the effective exchange of ideas. Take away anything that blocks your view or forms a barrier between you and the rest of the team. Close your laptop, turn off your cell phone, put your purse or briefcase to the side.If you think it makes you look more efficient (or important) to be continually checking a laptop or cell phone for messages, Id advise you to think again. As one member of a management team recently told me, Theres this senior exec in our department who has a reputation of being totally addicted to his smartphone which is especially distracting during internal meetings. When he finall y focuses on others, peers make jokes about his coming back to earth. The result is that when he does contribute, he has little credibility.The bottom line is If you really want to foster collaboration, make sure you look and act like you doCarol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an zwischenstaatlich keynote speaker and leadership presence coach. Shes the author of The Silent Language of Leaders How Body Language Can Help or Hurt How You Lead and creator of LinkedInLearnings video series Body Language for Leaders. For more information, visithttps//CarolKinseyGoman.com.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to take long paternity leave

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to take long paternity leaveFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to take long paternity leaveOn Monday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his personal Facebook that he and his wife Priscilla Chan had welcomed a new baby girl, achter monat des jahres.(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)0 if (d.getElementById(id)) return js = d.createElement(s) js.id = id js.src = https//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.jsxfbml=1version=v3.1 fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs)(document, script, facebook-jssdk))In his open letter to his second daughter, Zuckerberg painted a rosy picture of the world she and her sister Maxima, Max, would grow up in - with the help of Zuckerbergs social media company and the familys billion-dollar philanthropy, of course.With all the advances in science and technology, your generation should live dramatically better lives than ours, and we have a responsibility to do our part to make that happen, he wrote. W ere optimists about your generation and the future.Leaders set the tone for parental leaveZuckerberg said that he will take two months of paternity leave for the birth of his new daughter. By doing so, he sets the tone for the rest of his company that it is okay to do so, even at the highest levels of executive leadership.At Facebook, we offer four months of maternity and paternity leave because studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, its good for the entire family, Zuckerberg wrote in his explanation of why he was taking time off.Studies back Zuckerberg up. Researchshows that paid parental leave gives children more-involved fathers, keeps women in the workforce, and increases middle-class family incomes. And it helps companies bottom-lines too. Paid parental leave improves employee retention and increases workers productivity.So when Zuckerberg says he is taking paternity leave, he is doing it for the family benefit of bonding with our new little one, as he has said. But hes also doing it as a public example for the rest of the tech industry too.Zuckerberg set the same example when he had his first daughter, creating a reputation for himself as a doting father.Powerful babiesZuckerberg also doesnt shy away from helping his babies have strong personal brands. Although Zuckerberg has previously confirmed that his first daughter Max was named after family members, people on Twitter have speculated that the names Maxima and August were also chosen for their classical ties. Zuckerberg, a self-professed classics lover, has said that he originally planned on studying classics in college and that he loved Roman culture so much that he went there on his honeymoon.August and Maxima are fitting names for the daughters of the leader of a social media empire. Maximus is a Roman family name that is derived from the Latin wordmaximus, orgreatest. Augustus was the first Roman emperor and legend has it, he boasted this achievement by procla iming, I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.

I Resolve To...Lower Hiring Costs and Deliver Better Applicants

I Resolve To...Lower Hiring Costs and Deliver Better ApplicantsI Resolve To...Lower Hiring Costs and Deliver Better ApplicantsEveryone loves a good New Years resolution. Its an accepted fact that the arbitrary flipping of a calendar year makes a great opportunity to aspire to do and be better whether at home or in the office. If youre a hiring professional, recruiter, or otherwise involved in talent acquisition for your company, the New Year often marks the start of a new hiring spree to meet demands for future growth and fill gaps in your current workforce.This uptick in hiring comes with an increased need for resources to help locate, interview, and eventually onboard your new employees. Its well accepted that employers make the largest investment in their new additions during the first months to a year of employment. While this is unlikely to change given the dynamics of training a new person to fit a specific role and inevitable employee turnover, as a hiring manager you can reso lve to help improve the process. Here are a few suggestions to help you lower hiring costs and deliver better applicants to help meet your companys needs in the New Year, and beyond.Lower CostsWhen it comes to lowering the costs associated with employee hiring, the first thing to consider is efficiencies in your process. Many companies without built-in hiring departments often rely on outside recruitment agencies or pre-screening firms to send a select group of candidates for review. While this can save time when it comes to weeding through unqualified candidates, these services also cost a great deal of money in the form of referral and finders fees.One of the keys to reducing costs is access to a source of high-quality candidates or a platform that brings these individuals to your door with pre-screening in place. A Forrester study found that Simply Hired delivered the lowest cost per hire (CPH) among two leading job boards and one job search aggregator. Advertising on Simply Hire d cost 58% less than the leading job boards, and 7% less than the job search aggregator. Simply Hireds pay per click model means that employers pay only when candidates click on their listings, not when those listings show up in a mass search result. In addition, Simply Hired provides a host of guidance when it comes to crafting concise, targetted job listings to help ensure your open position gets in front of the right candidates. In short, Simply Hireds platform not only delivers quality candidates, but it also does so at a fraction of the cost of using a placement service or similar job board listings.In addition, as the popular saying goes, time is money and this is especially true when it comes to hiring new employees. Each day a position goes vacant is lost revenue and productivity for a company. Leveraging tools offered by Simply Hireds job search and listing platform can help employers recruit and hire faster, thus reducing the overall onboarding costs.Deliver Better Applica ntsLowering costs is a useful strategy for a business, but for full effectiveness, quality must remain the same in order to achieve maximum value from a hiring program. As it turns out, Simply Hired also comes to the rescue in this regard. With keyword targeting for employers and industry-leading search features for prospective candidates, Simply Hired has made an art form out of connecting qualified candidates with their ideal open job positions. Prospective employees can search job openings by location, industry, salary and more, ensuring that your final applicants are better matched with the specifics of your listing.When comparing to other major job boards, Forrester looked at year over year data from a large recruitment agency and found the CPH of the other three large vendors increased at varying rates while the CPH for Simply Hired gradually decreased. This trend may be partly explained by the ethos of Simply Hireds engineering team. When Forrester interviewed these engineers , we found that they regard Simply Hired primarily as search engine technology and dedicate the bulk of their resources to improving the job search experience for users.A positive job search experience allows Simply Hired to match candidates to more relevant job openings and improve the overall experience leading to a positive word of mouth and a corresponding increase of quality candidates on the platform.In short, if one of your resolutions for the New Year was to reduce costs and deliver better candidates for your available positions, Simply Hired is your partner to help meet your goals.Read Related ArticlesYour katechese or Theirs? Take Control of Your Employer BrandCharm Candidates With an Irresistible Company CultureHow to Leave a Positive Impression With Rejected Candidates