How to Work with a Toxic Boss

In local governments and in private business, having a toxic boss can be a difficult and stressful experience for any employee. Toxic bosses can cause a lot of harm to an employee's career, as well as their emotional and mental well-being. However, sometimes leaving a job or getting the toxic boss fired is not an option. In this post, we will explore ways that employees can work successfully with a toxic boss.

Understand Your Boss's Behavior

The first step in dealing with a toxic boss is to understand their behavior. Recognize that their behavior is not about you, but rather a reflection of their own personal issues. By understanding this, you can avoid taking their behavior personally.  It's also important to have an open and compassionate mind.  Their behavior may be temporary and driven by some crisis outside work that you are not aware of. 

Set Boundaries

One of the best ways to deal with a toxic boss is to set boundaries. You can do this by being clear about...

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New Team Assessment Platform for improving working relationships

Ever wonder why you just don't get along with certain people? 

They rub you the wrong way or they aren't as responsive as you'd like?  

When these people are your employees it's especially important that you have tools to resolve team conflict.  Part of your role is to engage, approach, coach, inspire and lead all sorts of personality types.  But we need to value, understand and know how to support them.

LeaderGov now offers a new system to help you do just that. 

LeaderGov's Team Assessment System is a powerful way to compare personalities on your team and visually see how and where you are different.

Knowing how to modify your approach to others is a key to successful management.   LeaderGov's new system gives you a way to better relate, coach and work cooperatively with your team. 

Below is a sample of how Tim and I compare.  You can use the drop down to select any team member to compare yourself to.

The LeaderGov Team...

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Coaching as a Strategic Development Tool for Cities and Counties

There are some great coaches that have influenced athletes over time.  You probably can think of some examples.    

In local government, you're the coach and the players are your employees.   As with all coaching, it’s the athlete who has to carry out and execute the plans.  You're not "on the field" and shouldn't be….you're on the sidelines encouraging, cheering and directing, just like a coach.   

Coaching is based on the idea that you believe the person is capable of solving their own issue.  Your goal is to help them develop a path to address a need by asking great questions.

Coaching is not a few things….

  • Coaching is not an annual review
  • Coaching is not feedback per se
  • Coaching is not being someone’s friend, although you may like the person
  • Coaching does not rely on your inspiration, but rather the person’s
  • Coaching is not directly telling someone what to do

Coaches facilitate, they don’t offer...

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Leading in Customer Service

Whether you are Director of Finance at a City, a County Manager or a Public Works Manager, providing customer service to other departments or to citizens is everyone’s job and it’s job #1.  As a leader you should be involved in the design, implementation and measurement of a customer service strategy to ensure your department is serving others well. 

Citizens are becoming more and more accustomed to next day delivery and ease of shopping all brought about by customer service innovation at Amazon and other online retailers.   They’ve tried to perfect the experience of shopping and they’ve raised the bar for other providers of services, including cities and counties.

In this blog we want to share six service strategies you can oversee to ensure the delivery of exceptional customer service in your department, city or county.

#1 Define Success

As a leader or manager, you should oversee the successful definition of customer...

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Leverage cohorts to supercharge your training

A city leader recently told me, "I don’t like to delegate because my team isn’t as skilled in the work as I am and they can’t do the task as well as me.  Maybe I’m a perfectionist."
 
He went on to say that he went to training to learn the basics of delegation and the best practices yet he doesn't want to delegate and receive the benefits of doing so.   He's stuck as a leader….he's not learning and growing.   
 
His training was great but he's not adopting the ideas he learned.
 
Learning cohorts are one element you can add to your training to become a city or county that builds a learning culture.   Cohorts are assigned groups of 4-5 people who meet on a regular basis to journey through a training concept together.   Cohorts enable action, questions and adoption of ideas. 
 
Cohorts are about honesty, accountability and vulnerability….they’re about learning and growing...
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