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Our Most Popular Leadership Articles
- Qualities of a Great Manager
I think the face of business has entered an era of global mobility and flexibility. To be a successful manager in today’s business world you have to be able to shift gears and cope with change effectively. You have to be able to make decisions without knowing all of the details or be able to see the big picture. Today’s managers have to be able to function in an atmosphere of ambiguity in order to be successful.
- The power of Ask
The traditional managerial role within the Call Center may point to the reason behind this lack of asking employees for their feedback. Typically, it is the manager’s responsibility to answer questions. Employees ask the manager how to handle a customer, where to locate information, and the interpretation of policy. For the manager who is used to providing the answers, asking questions of others is a seldom-used skill.
- The Leadership Theory of Donald Trump
Donald Trump is a real-estate mogul who represents true New York City hustle. He has been known as vicious, cutthroat, and has a no mercy attitude towards his competitors. He is tough, crass, and could really care less what people think of him.
- Accountability
Accountability and a basic fundamental understanding of Performance Management serve as two of the most power tools a Call Center manager has at his/her disposal. Specifically, accountability when used properly with practical down to earth communication can change the way a group performs and takes responsibility for their performance.
- Building Effective Workteams
How can you turn your functioning work group into a dynamic, cohesive team who communicates well, meets performance goals on time, and completes tasks efficiently? You might think it's a pipe dream that requires more time and energy than it is worth, after all, the work in your department IS getting done.
- How PRIDE Teams Changed Our Performance
Several years ago I took an assignment as a Manager in an outsourcing Call Center. Shortly after I started it became clear that several areas within the department needed improvement; absenteeism was high (19%), call takers lacked the enthusiasm about the programs to deliver quality customer service and seemed unconnected to the goals and metrics.
- Improving Attendance
Of all Call Center performance metrics, the easiest one to improve is attendance. Unfortunately, it is also the one that can do the most harm to customer satisfaction, department morale, and can cost the company a lot of money. There are three basic steps to improving attendance in any Call Center environment.
- Improving Quality Through Coaching
What do these companies have in common? They are all known for their quality. Merriam-Webster defines quality as a degree or grade of excellence and an inherent or distinguishing characteristic or trait.
- One Minute Feedback
Like team leaders in any industry, Call Center managers must accomplish countless tasks in a given day. From presiding over call allocations and reading and responding to e-mails, to responding to supervisors’ requests, reviewing resumes and setting up interviews and meetings, it’s a wonder that they are able to walk the Call Center floor to oversee regular operations. This makes delivering one-minute feedback crucial to a manager’s skill set.
- Partnering for Performance
Merriam-Webster states that a boss is someone who exercises control or supervision; someone who dictates policies. A leader is someone who guides or directs operations, activities, or performance; someone who goes at the head or goes first.
- Creating SMART Goals
Goals need to be designed to facilitate producing results. Effective goals have several characteristics. These characteristics are summarized by the acronym S.M.A.R.T.
- Theodore Roosevelt- The Original Rough Rider
Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most remarkable men in the history of the world. As a boy, he wanted the boldness of his father, as a child he wanted to be a naturalist, as a teenager he wanted to get into politics, in politics he wanted power, and once in power he would change the world forever.
- Time Management and the to do list
I recently did a web search on time management and received 50,500,000 hits. In reality probably only two to three hundred of them were really about time management, but the prevalence of such sites indicates how important the concept is to all of us.
- What are your Best Practices?
These studies can be defined as inquiries into the skills and methods of your high performers to recognize their achievements, document their methods and skills and then share this information with team members to improve overall performance. The responses generated from your study may hold the solutions to a variety of team challenges in the Call Center . As a team leader, you can approach these studies by conducting short, one-on-one interviews, focus groups, or surveys.
- What do trainers do when they are not training?
In the new corporate environments where everyone wears more than one hat, trainers are often responsible for a myriad of duties beyond just facilitating new training classes. Their job is often that of Maintenance, IT Guru, Subject Matter Expert, Coach, Instructional designer and Copy clerk. There is an incredible amount of work that has to happen for a training event to occur. Let’s look a little closer at the process.
- Workplace Character Profiles via Star Trek Voyager
What really matters are the lessons in management, teamwork, ethics, problem solving, decision making, and relationships that we can gain from this show. While its main goal was to entertain, Voyager proves to be a useful, though unorthodox, resource for any Call Center team member and or leader.
- Sun Tzu- The Art of War
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese text on strategy and warfare written by a Sun Wu, a brilliant military general more than two thousand years ago. It is considered one of the oldest attempts at analyzing and documenting the specific components of strategic warfare, with wisdom that is as applicable today as it was thousands of years ago.
- Pure Discipline
General George S. Patton was born on November 11, 1885 on his fathers ranch and vineyard in Los Angeles County over what is today the city of Pasadena and much of the UCLA campus. Early in life he was small and weak, but raw determination and drive built up body day-by-day, piece-by-piece.
- Rotten to the Core: The Story of our best and brightest and how they were ruined
The objective of an incentive is to incite action within an organization using a device or mechanism that that allows the rewarding or recognition of desirable behaviors. This can be accomplished by offering preferential treatment, money, privileges, promotions, verbal praise, or complements. Understanding that, I suggest that the answer to the above is yes, yes, and yes.
- Fighting the Gravitational Pull of Positional Leadership
Many people enter the leadership world through a position and a title, but we must understand that just owning a title doesn’t make you a leader. Being a leader is about influence.
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