The Latest from Kristy-Lee

As a leader and manager, someone who employs people and is building a team, the ability to successfully delegate tasks, responsibilities and authority is, or will become, critical to your ability to grow and develop your business.

However, it’s a skill that often we struggle with. Even those who can delegate, often don’t do it as effectively as they could, and for those who own their own businesses, and are building their own team, this can be a really tough art to master, because it involves letting go, and releasing control.

Put simply, delegation is the action of assigning responsibility for the completion of a task to another person. Typically, you as the delegator maintain the responsibility for the task being completed, although you may, depending on the circumstances, delegate the authority up to a certain level as well. So, you delegate the ‘doing’ but still need to ensure the doing gets done.

As your business grows, delegation becomes critical, you will ultimately become a ...

I was once asked what the #1 thing was I stood for when it came to how I show up and serve my clients in my business. What was my north star that I always without doubt did without question?

Without much thought I answered, ‘I tell people what they need to know, not what they want to hear’, in fact I honestly and openly tell business owners that when we start working together. I let them know that sometimes I might need to have discussions with them which they may not want to hear, but it’s what they need to know in order to move their business forward. I honestly feel as though I have an obligation, a moral obligation to do this – because anything else just isn’t honest and without honesty, I can’t possibly give them the support they are seeking in their business.

I was considering this recently and was reflecting on how this behaviour shows up in business owners and managers. I know from my own experience that it’s a whole lot easier to show this kind of unapologetic honesty ...

One of the key frustrations and pain points I hear about from business owners, leaders and managers is around an employee not performing. Either very directly simply failing to get their job done, or more covertly just not quite meeting the mark, or frustratingly just walking the line of getting things done – just – it’s constant frustration.

Quite often we feel frustrated because our Industrial Relations landscape is quite firmly focused on employees, and protecting their rights, leaving businesses with a whole lot of tricky red tape to deal with in managing underperformance, especially when termination may be on the cards. However, what might be really causing our frustration is the fact that we don’t really understand why on earth they can’t just do their job.

If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to bang your head against a wall wondering why they aren’t just doing what you need them to – you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Instead of getting frustrated, which will ultimat...

• where we are headed
• what we want to convey to the world
• what our next step is

Ever heard the saying ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’? If you have, how much attention have you paid to it? If you’re like me, and many other business owners and entrepreneurs I know, you’re pretty good at putting your head in the sand on this one, think it doesn’t apply to you, and, most likely, think it’s extraordinarily selfish to even consider the fact that perhaps looking after yourself needs to be a priority.

Here’s the thing, like many of you, I spent my career, and my life, looking after everyone else first. Squeezing in time to replenish my mind, look after my health or do anything for my mental wellness was at best just that – squeezing it in around everything else. And by the most part that was a pretty successful approach. I had a thriving, fast growing and successful business, everyone was well looked after and life was good. I was juggling all of the things, working all the hours and truly thought I was smashing it – I building my empire (yes literally that was my man...

• Remember the power of a pause;
• Communicate clearly, openly, transparently and regularly;
• Act swiftly and promptly in a considered and measured way;
• Keep your team connected;
• Be future focused.

There is this common misconception in leadership books, amongst leadership gurus and in the advice we hear – and that is that when you’re a leader, you aren’t allowed to have a bad day. You can’t be off your game, you can’t be feeling blah and you certainly can’t let anyone in on that.

I call BS on that.

We’re human, whether we run a business, or lead a team within a business, you have days when you’d to be honest, rather just not have to deal with people. Of course most of us don’t have that luxury – we have to show up for our team and get some work done. However, that doesn’t mean that you need to put on an act, pretend that you’re fine when you’re not or not acknowledge that you’re just not having the best day – for whatever reason.

In fact, doing this sets the wrong example for our team. If someone on your team is feeling a little off, or is otherwise distracted, for any reason, as a leader you want to know. Having this knowledge helps you to know what to task them with...