Latest news with #leadership

The best leaders know how to inspire. Here's how

Fast Company

15 minutes ago

Business
Fast Company

The best leaders know how to inspire. Here's how

The goal for any leader is to build strong and productive relationships with their team and other stakeholders. And the best way to do this is by inspiring their audience every time they speak. This means creating believers with every set of remarks, whether they're having a brief hallway conversation or delivering a keynote speech. But how? To inspire others, embrace these five fundamentals: 1. ADOPT AN INSPIRATIONAL MINDSET The starting point for becoming an inspiring leader is developing the right mindset—one that is focused not on informing but on inspiring. Information, even when it's up-to-date and accurate, lacks the power to move others. Avoid content-rich presentations or conversations full of too many facts. Instead, always be in 'inspire' mode. Inspire mode keeps you away from delivering content-heavy slides or numbing statistics, and instead gets you to engage your audience with your belief or idea. Bring your listeners to the realm of possibilities. 2. LISTEN INTENTLY To inspire others, you need to listen intently. Leaders who fail to listen will not understand their audience's mindset and they won't be able to focus their message so it has maximum impact. There are three ways to listen. First, listen with your body. Face your audience and align your body with the person (or people) to whom you are speaking. Stand or sit up straight. Keep a receptive expression on your face and make strong eye contact. Keep your arms open. This body language will send a message that you care about your audience. Second, listen with your mind. You need to listen for the points the other person is making, and you also need to show that you've heard what they've said. You might interject phrases like 'Oh, that's so true' or 'Yes, that's a good point' or 'I agree' or 'Tell me more about that.' Such responses show that your mind is engaged and responsive. Third, listen with your heart. When you listen with your heart, you show that you are emotionally engaged. Heartfelt responses include being polite, being sensitive, and using expressions like 'I share your feelings' and 'That must have been difficult.' (For a full discussion of these three ways to listen, consult the chapter 'Listen, Listen, Listen' in my book Speaking as a Leader.) 3. SPEAK WITH A MESSAGE If you want to inspire, you need to speak with a message. Without a big, central idea, you can't expect people to follow you. Your message should be stated at the beginning of your remarks and elaborated on by everything else you say. So, after opening your conversation or speech with a bridge or a grabber, get to your point. If you're giving formal remarks, you might say 'My message to you is . . .' If it's a less formal situation, you might say, 'I believe that . . .' Own your message and present it clearly at the beginning. After you state your message, prove it. This requires sharing supporting evidence, usually in two to four points. You'll lift your audience's thinking from 'what is' to 'what can be.' 4. USE STRONG WORDS Inspiring leaders use compelling language. They know that every word testifies to their credibility. A leader's language is confident. They own what they are saying with expressions like 'I believe,' 'I see,' 'I know,' and 'I care.' They avoid tentative language like 'I'm not sure,' 'I don't know,' and 'I can't.' They also avoid filler expressions like 'um' and 'ah.' 5. END WITH ACTION Whether you are giving a formal presentation or offering a comment at a meeting, be sure to end your remarks with a call to action. After a job interview, you might say to the candidate, 'This has been a great meeting. We'll be in touch with you shortly.' You might conclude a more formal presentation with 'If we take the steps I have outlined, we will be a much stronger company. I look forward to your support for these initiatives.' By ending with a call to action, you'll move your audience from the present to the future you envision. You'll inspire your listeners by taking them from 'what is' to 'what can be.'

Enterprise Ireland names Jenny Melia as new CEO

Irish Times

29 minutes ago

Business
Irish Times

Enterprise Ireland names Jenny Melia as new CEO

Enterprise Ireland has announced the appointment of Jenny Melia as its new chief executive. Ms Melia, who has worked with the agency for 29 years, is currently an executive director of the agency, which is responsible for helping Irish companies tap export markets. In her current role, she is chief client officer for the agency. She will take up her new role in July. It is understood the recruitment process attracted huge interest across the public and private sector, both domestically and from abroad. READ MORE Kevin Sherry, who has been interim chief executive since March, will return to his previous position of executive director. Mr Sherry stepped into the breach after Leo Clancy left the organisation to take up the role of chief executive at Ei Electronics in Shannon, Co Clare. Ms Melia, who is a UCD graduate, has held a number of senior leadership roles across Enterprise Ireland, working with client companies of varying scales across all sectors, including food, industrial, and technology. She has also worked with the agency's high potential start-up division, as well as its research and development team. Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke said Ms Melia was 'a dedicated public servant who has spent much of her career supporting and fostering the development of the Irish enterprise base'. Enterprise Ireland chairman Michael Carey said Ms Melia had established 'deep relationships' with key stakeholders, and had played a 'pivotal role' in the group's client base now exporting and employing at record levels. Employment at companies supported by Enterprise Ireland rose to 234,454 earlier this year. The group's five-year plan, which Ms Melia will spearhead, aims to increase exports to €50 billion by 2029. The strategy, which was published earlier this year, is aimed at growing the number of jobs in companies supported by Enterprise Ireland to 275,000 over the same period. The plan, Delivering for Ireland, Leading Globally, is focused on adding 1,700 new Irish-owned exporters, helping them to become more productive, sustainable and innovative. It also aims to support 1,000 new start-ups to help drive long-term sustainable growth and job creation. Among the targets are reducing carbon dioxide emissions at Enterprise Ireland-supported companies by 35 per cent by the end of 2030, and a 3 per cent annual average increase in productivity. That will be supported by a rise in investment in research and development, with Enterprise Ireland companies expected to spend €2.2 billion in 2029 compared to €1.55 billion in 2023.

The best leaders hire people who are smarter than they are

Fast Company

an hour ago

Business
Fast Company

The best leaders hire people who are smarter than they are

Early in my career, I was a loan underwriter at a bank. I was responsible for training a new employee, one with very little banking experience. During the training, she caught something I had missed and asked about it. I was shocked because I considered myself a diligent underwriter. But I quickly realized something: She was better than I was. She had a knack for noticing little abnormalities and was confident enough to point them out. For a moment, I was nervous. We worked at a small bank, and I felt threatened by her skill. But I quickly realized that she was an asset. She could work on the detail-driven parts of underwriting, which freed me up for other work. So I encouraged her to keep learning. Great leaders don't compete with their teams. Instead, they build teams that complement them and recognize that the entire team is stronger with high-performing people. 'No room for ego' A good manager shouldn't be the smartest person in the room. Strong teams are never built on ego, and when you hire smart people, you get a more innovative team and better outcomes. Keep in mind that 'smarter' can mean different things—technical skills, creativity, or subject matter expertise. More than likely, you'll hire someone who may be 'smarter' in one area, which will allow you to shine with different skills. That was my experience with the new loan underwriter; I moved on to compliance work, which required some critical thinking skills I had. AI app-building startup Lovable is known for hiring top-tier talent. The company puts its principles right on its careers page, stating that there is 'no room for ego' and that employees 'amplify each other.' As one of the fastest-growing startups in Europe, Lovable has now reached $17 million in annual recurring revenue—due in part, no doubt, to hiring the best and its approach to teamwork. Ideally, you uncover someone's potential during the hiring process. Ask questions that might help you determine that someone has the skills you don't have, or might be smarter than you in certain aspects of the job. Look for exceptional problem-solving skills or boundless curiosity—signs that a person can take a project and run with it. Let others shine Once you hire them, you have to give your new employees room to do their best work and grow. You should set goals and offer resources, but not micromanage. It will be an ongoing process of giving the employees more responsibility to see how they handle the work. Smart employees will be up to the challenge, and you'll gradually transition your own role to other work. Make sure your talented employees feel appreciated. Give them credit publicly and advocate for their growth. They should know that you know how smart and capable they are. You might fear that if you nurture a smart employee, they might eventually outgrow the role. Maybe they'll move to another team or leave the company altogether. That's a legitimate concern and bound to happen at some point. But you can't hold people back. If employees reach a ceiling within your team, they should move on. Think of yourself as a talent developer, capable of finding and nurturing people in their careers. That's a skill by itself. And when someone moves on, it creates opportunities for others to rise.

Schroders chair Corley to join board of London Stock Exchange-owner

Sky News

2 hours ago

Business
Sky News

Schroders chair Corley to join board of London Stock Exchange-owner

Dame Elizabeth Corley, the chair of asset management giant Schroders, is joining the board of London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) - a move which puts her in a strong position to take the helm there in the coming years. Sky News has learnt that LSEG plans to announce later on Friday that Dame Elizabeth will become a non-executive director of the company. While there is no process underway to find a successor to Don Robert, who has chaired LSEG since May 2019, people close to the exchange-owner speculated that she would be an obvious candidate to do so. One fund manager also suggested that her dual roles on the boards of Schroders and LSEG could raise questions about potential conflicts of interest given that Schroders is itself listed on the LSE and is a significant user of its services. That idea was rejected by insiders at LSEG on Friday morning. The issue of leadership succession at LSEG is coming into sharper focus for investors because David Schwimmer, its chief executive, has led the company since 2018. Leading shareholders are likely to prefer the appointment of a new chair ahead of Mr Schwimmer's eventual departure. LSEG now has a market capitalisation of over £60bn, with the London bourse representing only a small proportion of its income. The exchange is facing searching questions about its ability to attract new flotation candidates, with those doubts likely to be exacerbated by this week's reports that Shein, the Chinese-founded online fashion giant, is switching its focus to a listing in Hong Kong.

Saudi Crown Prince Speaks with Canadian Prime Minister

Asharq Al-Awsat