Management Blog

Top 10 Tips For Personal Branding

Choose a style

Style can be the reason people welcome or dismiss you. Before meeting a new client or audience, do an analysis. Should you be traditional and plain vanilla? Would they warm to an informal or artistic touch, or would that brand you an outsider?

If you're not sure about dress, either ring to check or err on the side of conservative. Above all, be comfortable; confidence is an important starting point.

Get fit

Your clothes don’t have to be costly but they do have to fit. A jacket that’s big in the shoulders, an uneven hem, wrong length trousers and sleeves and anything baggy will make you look badly dressed whatever you paid for what you wear. This is true whether you’re suited or smart casual

Make a full length check 

What you see looking down isn’t what others see looking straight at you.

Before leaving for a meeting, look at yourself in a full length mirror. Look with an objective eye. Do you present a smart picture? Is anything amiss?

Eliminate distractions 

Make sure there are no distractions to your appearance. Are there pet hairs in your car? Check your back before entering a meeting. After a salad lunch, check your smile. These small matters have a big impact.

Test your handshake

The limp fish handshake won’t ever do, yet you don’t want to be vigorous. Aim for firm, and while you offer a handshake, make eye contact. The best way to get the balance right is test it out with those who will take you seriously and give you honest feedback

Think posture and smile

Before you enter a room, relax, stand naturally tall – and even if you’re feeling insecure, whistle that happy tune to yourself and try to feel quietly self assured. While a friendly grin may be out of place, a genuine smile can never go amiss.

Breathe easy 

Check out your breath. It’s easy to do by yourself. Lick your wrist, leave it for a moment, and sniff. Or get others to tell you; you’d rather know

Hold your focus

No matter how many people you’d like to meet, give the person you’re talking to your full attention. There’s little more insulting than scanning the rest of the room while pretending to be engaged in conversation. All your hard work in preparation becomes a failed endeavour.

Shine your shoes


Shoes get noticed – especially if they’re scuffed or run down at the heel. Make sure yours don’t let you down. And men, choose shoes with leather soles; it’s the business standard.  

Arrive unfettered

Clutter is unsettling. If you have luggage, laptop, briefcase, coat, umbrella and the rest, leave it in the car or at reception, or ask someone to find a closet where you can store everything but the essentials. Whatever you do, make sure there’s a space around well dressed, confident, immaculate you.

 

Degrees Available for Leadership and Management Programmes

Through its partnerships with Staffordshire and Birmingham City Universities, Call of the Wild is able to offer fully accredited programmes of study at undergraduate and post graduate levels and to meet professional CPD requirements. These accredited programmes, which are supplied as an added service on a client organization’s bespoke academy, are all accomplished by distance learning thus bringing the academic standards and educational expertise of the Universities into the heart of the individual learner’s workplace.

Programmes range from Foundation Degrees in Leadership & Management to Retail Management and also Customer Service. Visit our website for more info

New Leadership Development Programme

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Oct 15, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The Yale School of Management (Yale SOM) has announced a new offering, the Pre-MBA Leadership Program for promising college undergraduates, as well as recent college graduates already in the workforce, who are interested in developing their leadership skills and exploring careers in business.

The annual, two-week summer program will accept up to 50 rising college juniors and seniors of color, other undergraduates who actively support diversity and inclusion in business, and recent college graduates.

The Yale School of Management, which introduced an innovative, integrated MBA curriculum in 2006, is also known for the distinct leadership model it seeks to instill in all of its graduates. This leadership model places an emphasis on developing broadly engaged, inspiring leaders who apply their management training to solve challenging problems in both business and society. In keeping with this, the Pre-MBA Leadership Program will focus on developing the individual leadership skills that will be relevant whether applied in school, in the community, on the athletic field, or in the workplace.

For details of Call of the Wild's Leadership Development Programmes click here

Why It’s Important to Understand the Difference between Learning, Training, Education and Development

Why is it important to understand the difference in terminology between training, education, development and learning? Well its for a number of very important reasons. As we know knowledge is locked up with the employees of a Company and it is this factor which determines how successful a business is. If as a manager you don’t understand this point then the performance of the Company will be jeopardised.

So why is it important to understand the exact definition of these terms. Well its because they are used in an inexact way which is often interchangeable. People do not use them in an exact way or in accordance with their literal definitions. This will cause problems when you come to develop your employees as if you can’t match your training, learning or development objectives with the right programme not only will you be wasting valuable time but also wasting money and undermining your credibility in the eyes of your employees. How often have we come across the serial moaner who comes out with "oh no not another training course to waste my time." You need buy in on the part of staff not barriers in order to maximise the return from your investment.

Call of the Wild Ltd place great emphasis on this issue when we initially meet with clients. It is important to understand what the objectives are and what will be the best programme to meet these objectives using our blended learning approach. We seek to clarify for the clients what the actual terminology means and what form of delivery is required so that they can get best value out of the programme.

Professor Robin Stuart-Kotze Leadership Behavioural Theories

Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard came up to Toronto in the early seventies to attend one of Bill Reddin’s 3-D seminars. They were both junior academics teaching in Michigan or thereabouts. They loved what they saw and took Reddin’s model and introduced what they called a “maturity curve". (They got this idea from Fred Fiedler’s work on what he called the least-preferred co-worker.) Their proposition was that, rather than go through a mildly complex process of analysing a set of situational demands, all you had to do was assess the degree to which subordinates were able and willing to do what they were required to do. If they were both unwilling and unable the manager needed to tell them what to do; if they were unable but willing the manager had to do a selling job on them, etc. Reddin saw this as a direct theft of his model and there was a long file of correspondence threatening various things, none of which ever came to anything.

Hersey and Blanchard’s model is still widely used. It is simple to apply and easy to understand. Ken Blanchard is a very nice chap and is very bright and creative. (You may recall that he wrote The One Minute Manager and an old publishing colleague of mine just told me that Ken sent him an autographed copy of the 7 millionth copy as thanks for his help in publishing his books!)

There really wasn’t a breakthrough with Hersey and Blanchard, but they did bring the idea of the importance of the situation to the attention of practitioners and consultants in leadership.

Management Thinkers

<>

Article taken from our online e-learning website. Contact us for your free trail login.

Amitai, Etzioni

His analysis of power - the power to influence behaviour in organisations - is that it is a function of four factors: position information and access expertise personal qualities. A boss has power because he or she is the boss. Managers have authority to hire and fire, reward and punish, authorise payments and so on. Such power resides in the role and not the person. It may be that such power is diminishing in the modern company as ability to hire and fire (and so on) is gradually taken away from the line manager Access to information provides power and those who control the management information system can use such power. Those who are gatekeepers to information can also use the power to allow access to information. Expertise can give power and the modern organisation cannot function without its specialists - its accountants, lawyers, scientists and so on. The organisation frequently cannot proceed without their opinion or acceptance. Some people are charismatic. They get people to want to follow them. Sometimes this is a natural event and at other times it is the result of understanding what it is that the followers want personally and being the route through which they can achieve it.

Psychometric testing

Psychometric Testing – Dangerous and Unfair or That Little Bit of Objective Edge?

The debate about psychometric testing is polarised and emotional. But what are the real issues? Do tests help you make the right choices? Or, do we rely so heavily on tests we’ve sidelined gut feel and judgment? To help you decide, we offer a wide-ranging set of FAQs and Myths about Tests - along with strong views on the subject at our development academy site.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs motivational model Abraham Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1940-50's USA, and the Hierarchy of Needs theory remains valid today for understanding human motivation, management training, and personal development. Maslow's ideas surrounding the Hierarchy of Needs concern the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables employees to fulfil their own unique potential (self-actualization). 1.

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking per

sonal growth and peak experiences.

Importance of Body Language

• How might body language be interpreted?
• Does it pay to be sensitive to non-verbal cues?

Summary:
Our feet, hands, eyes and heads are moving all the time - our bodies are "talking", communicating what we are thinking and feeling. Awareness of body language helps you find out whether you are being understood, how other people react to you, and what impact you are having on others.  For more about body language visit our development site

Even when we are silent, our bodies are speaking. Posture, gesture and expression communicate things to others whether we want them to or not. Here is an introductory guide to body language.

Our bodies are rarely still. Our feet, hands, eyes and heads are moving all the time. Our expressions change. We pull faces, rub our noses, run our hands through our hair and do all sorts of things which, when taken in isolation, seem very odd. However, what is happening is quite straightforward - our bodies are "talking"! Our movements express and communicate what we are thinking and feeling and people attuned to what is called body language can often read this. Try some examples.

On the bus or the tram, you see someone reading a book. Suddenly, they put the book down on their knees and place their hand over their mouth. What has happened?

John Neal

A big welcome to John Neal who has recently joined our team. John is a psycho-physiologist specialising in exercise physiology and sports psychology working throughout the UK, Europe, US and Australia. John is a faculty member at Ashridge Management College where he presents upon motivation, corporate wellness, coaching, lifestyle planning, team development, and personal performance. 

  John was Fitness Director to Middlesex CCC for nine years, Director of The Middlesex Academy and advisor to the England & West Indies Cricket Boards the M.C.C, I.C.C and H.M.C. John is currently psycho-physiologist at MCC, Lord’s and is coaching the coach’s at Somerset CCC and Wasps RFC. John works with a number of organisations and  companies in the public and private arena on a consultancy basis in the areas of personal and team performance through the medium of Experiential Coaching.