Taking your leadership to the next level

Episode 36 - Developing a Growth Mindset

June 18, 2020 by Lou Quinto

By fostering a growth mindset, leaders allow individuals and teams' mindsets which don’t limit actions, productivity, and success. Leaders have to instill a belief in people that they can grow and do things differently from how they have done it before. “That’s the way I always do things” represent a fixed mindset. Companies are now starting to realize that the difference between fixed and growth mindsets in employees can significantly impact workplace performance. In addition to the personal development benefits, a growth mindset also makes employees better team players. With a growth mindset, people are: • Motivated to learn and improve with feedback • Able to change and adapt skills, behaviors, and attitudes faster • Inspired by their teammates’ achievements • Willing to share knowledge and help others succeed In thisepisode of Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership, Lou Quinto and Craig Anderson discuss the benefits of a growth mindset in three areas: cultivating a growth mindset; providing formative feedback, and creating space for a new idea.

Episode 35 - Reimagining Business in a Post-Pandemic World

May 21, 2020 by Lou Quinto

As we get closer to going back to work, we're going to have to reimagine what that means in a post-COVID world. In this episode of @Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership, Lou Quinto and Craig P. Anderson break it down into three areas for discussion. The first is reimaging the workplace, what do leaders need to do to make workplaces safe, if they need to get their workplace ready at all. The second is reimagining service delivery. How do we deliver our services to the customer? How do we sell to them? Finally, we look at reimagining technology. It's said the adoption of remote work technology accelerated ten years in 2 months. What do we need to do to continue that trajectory?

Episode 34 - Shake Up Your Status Meetings

May 14, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Your status update meetings may have been spiced up a bit during the pandemic with dog and child appearances, but what happens after that? Back to the dull routine of "this happened" and "that happened," while the rest of the team checks their email. How can you make your status meetings not only interesting but time well spent. In today's episode, Lou and Craig discuss three ways to improve status update meetings. First, spend time on what is going right. It's not all "what problems do we need to fix." Second, if you want to get the team talking, ask, "what stupid stuff are we doing?" Finally, ask the team, "what's changed?" These three simple questions can turn your staff meeting from a waste of time to a strategic discussion on how to move your business forward.

Episode 33 - How Leaders Can Keep an Open Mind

May 14, 2020 by Lou Quinto

In this episode of Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership, Craig P. Anderson and Lou Quinto discuss the importance of leaders keeping an open mind. Prejudices and preconceived notions can dramatically impact a leader's effectiveness. In an ever-changing business environment and world, leaders must take in new information and use critical thinking skills to process that information to the best advantage of the company, the team, and their customers. The guys break down how you can keep and maintain an open mind by focusing on three areas. The first is to think positive before negative. It's harder than you think because our brains are wired to protect us. The second is to keep learning. The worst thing you can do is succumb to the "I've seen it all" fallacy. Chances are, you haven't. And finally, third, why it's so important to start listening. Don't make up your mind until you have heard the input you need to make the best decision possible. As always, if you like our content, please subscribe and share it with your colleagues. You can also find this episode and more on your favorite podcasting platform or our website qaleadership.com

Episode 32 - What have we learned after six weeks of remote work?

April 30, 2020 by Lou Quinto

In this episode Craig and Lou react to the Corona Virus trends report issues by Bond Capital on April 17th. They focus on three areas: 1) What's the impact on productivity? 2) How has work/life balance been impacted? 3) How are companies leveraging technology?

Episode 31 - Seize The Opportunity: Changes to Weather the Storm

April 17, 2020 by Lou Quinto

How can business owners and executives manage their business through such a different environment due to COVID-19? Surprisingly, they need to do things that always drive success. You start by talking to your customers and understand what they're thinking. Then you adjust your business plan accordingly. It's not a sacred document with this much change going on, and it's OK to open it back up. Finally, once you have your new plan in place communicate it to your employees, get their buy-in and support. What are you doing to seize the opportunity right now? Share it in the comments below.

Episode 30 - How will leaders manage remote work after The COVID-19 crisis?

April 09, 2020 by Lou Quinto

For many leaders, this is the first time remote workers has been the rule, not the exception. The acceptance of remote work has grown dramatically over the last ten years, but it is still not the norm. The COVID 19 crisis has shown that the technical barriers of work from home are few. What remains are the cultural and leadership issues it creates. In this episode, we’re going to discuss how a leader can think through a new world of remote work when this crisis has passed. The issue of remote work isn’t going away. A recent study from Upwork projects that over a third of full-time employees will work remotely in the next ten years. And 63% of companies have at least some remote workers but no unifying policy around it. Lou and Craig break the issue down in three areas: 1) Leadership Mindset; 2) Employee Mindset; and 3) How to get started working through the question.

Episode 29 - Getting Things Done Through Others

April 03, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Great leaders find ways to get things done through other people and that process begins early in your tenure as a leader. To grow your business faster and not exhaust yourself, it’s crucial to get the right people on your team, get comfortable with delegation, and be intentional about follow up praise and correction. Proactive leaders have this in place, and, as a result, crucial projects will stay on track during this time of increased remote work. In this episode, Louis Quinto and Craig P. Anderson discuss how leaders can improve in this area or how to make that pivot if you are already behind.

Episode 28 - Do I Need a Professional Mentor

March 26, 2020 by Lou Quinto in Coaching

How can a mentor improve your business and career advancement? A mentor can guide you, take you under their wing and teach you new skills. Research has shown that mentoring relationships succeed and are satisfying for both parties when both the mentor and the person being mentored take an active role in developing the relationship.

Episode 27 - How to Work from Home Effectively

March 19, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Congratulations! You are a remote employee, now! Up until this pandemic-imposed work situation you may have thought working from home, meant sleeping in late, lounging around in your pajamas and long leisurely lunches. But what people need to realize is that even though working from home offers a great amount of flexibility, it is still a professional job and it needs to be treated as such Individuals need to learn best work at home practices, like setting office hours, having a dedicated office space, avoiding home-bound distractions, and actually dressing as if you were going to an office. This will help keep your mindset sharp and focused. it’s sometimes difficult to stay focused with so many distractions and temptations around me. It’s not for everyone, though, and some do it more successfully than others. If you are finding yourself working remotely and struggling this episode is for you!

Episode 26 - Great Leaders Help Their Teams Develop Effective Strategies

March 13, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Delegating work is an effective strategy for business leaders. For it to be effective, great leaders make the intentional effort to teach employees how to develop great strategies for completing work. In this episode of Q&A on Breakthrough leadership, Lou and Craig cover three topics that will help leaders enable their teams to succeed.

1) How to evaluate issues

2) Clarify where the business is at today and where they want it to be at completion

3) How to build plans and projects to bridge that gap.

Please like and share today’s video and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Episode 25 - How to effectively coach your team to grow your business faster and have more success.

March 05, 2020 by Lou Quinto

A key role of the leader is to coach their team to success. Unfortunately, leaders rarely get the training they need to help them be an effective coach to their team. In this episode of Q&A on Breakthrough leadership, Lou Quinto of Quintessential Management and Craig P. Anderson of Clear Path Coaching and Consulting give you what you need to be an effective coach for your team. First, they clarify what effective coaching is by defining what it is not. Then they explain how to have a coaching conversation with your employees. Finally, they share that in a coaching conversation, you want to control the flow of the discussion, but not the outcome.

Episode 24 - Do I need to find an Executive Coach?

February 27, 2020 by Lou Quinto

The most successful CEOs and Business Owners look for ways to be more successful, faster. And when they hit a plateau, they look for help. Executive coaches are an important resource, helping you to look at issues and opportunities in a different light. They can help you clarify your thinking, set more aggressive goals and are an accountability partner throughout the process.

In this episode Lou Quinto and Craig P. Anderson help you understand what a coach is, how you find one and what you should expect as you enter a coaching relationship.

Episode 23 - How to leverage creativity and innovation to grow your business.

February 20, 2020 by Lou Quinto

How can creativity and innovation improve your business? First, understand people confuse those two words or are they use them interchangeably. They’re not the same things. This episode covers three things to know about leveraging creativity and innovation to improve your business. Number one: what is creativity? Number two: what is innovation? And third: how do you create a culture that fosters both creativity and innovation?

Episode 22 - How to Become More Effective at Problem Solving in Your Business

February 13, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Business leaders and owners work to solve problems. Solving business problems is a process and like any other process it can be done more or less effectively depending on your approach. In this episode Craig P. Anderson and Lou Quinto discuss how executives and teams can be more effective at problem solving by defining the problem, asking the right questions and separating the problem into smaller issues.

Episode 21 - Critical Thinking

February 06, 2020 by Lou Quinto

In this episode of Q&A on Breakthrough Leadership Lou Quinto and Craig P. Anderson discuss critical thinking and why it's so important for owners, executives and other business leaders. As always we break it down into three key areas:

1) What is Critical Thinking?

2) Why it is a much needed competency in business?

3) What are the benefits of critical thinking? Finally we will provide key takeaways you can use to grow your business faster and more effectively.

Finally we will provide key takeaways you can use to grow your business faster and more effectively.

Episode 20 - Improving Communications at Work

January 30, 2020 by Lou Quinto

What's the best way to communicate at work? In this episode Lou Quinto and Craig P. Anderson break down key strategies for getting your ideas across the organization effectively. The three areas we cover are: 1) Keep your communications brief; 2) Use messaging applications other than email; and 3) incorporate media in to your communications. This episode will help business leaders and teams improve efficiency, streamline workplace communication and increase organizational effectiveness.

Episode 19 - Communicating with Your Remote Employees

January 23, 2020 by Lou Quinto

Episode 18 - How to Engage Your Remote Employees

January 16, 2020 by Lou Quinto

As the millennial workforce grows, remote work has increasingly become the norm in business. How can CEOs and Business Owners communicate more effectively with their remote workforce? In this episode, Craig P. Anderson and Louis Quinto identify three critical tips for engaging a remote workforce.

Episode 17 - Facilitating Meetings

January 09, 2020 by Lou Quinto

It's not business meetings that make employees crazy, it's poorly planned and facilitated meetings. In this episode, Craig and Lou discuss how being intentional about facilitation will make meetings better. As always, they cover three topics in the video:

Why you need a Facilitator
How to design a good agenda
The importance of using a variety of facilitation tools

If you want to improve your meetings, quit wasting employees' time, and have better outcomes watch this video. If you have questions, leave comments here. If you'd like help implementing them, reach out to Lou (lou@qaleadership.com) or Craig (craig@qaleadership.com) to discuss how they can work with your team to have better meetings through better facilitation.