Posted in Blog, Business Inspiration, Career Inspiration, Leadership Inspiration, Personal Inspiration, Polls

A Workplace Phenomenon – the Narcissistic Manager

A while back, I was on a weekend camping trip with some friends. The trip was great. We were at Apache Lake, Arizona, and camped on the beach. The mountain views, sunsets, and beautiful night skies were amazing.

One evening, we were getting ready to play a card game, and my friend starting telling me about his thoughts regarding hard-working employees and narcissistic managers.

 A Workplace Phenomenon:

The hard-working individuals who give their all at work are not recognized or promoted for all their efforts and good work performance.

Then, the narcissistic managers who get promoted, do not give their all, do minimal work, are aggressive, know it alls, braggers, and life pleasures seem to be handed to them quickly and easily. They charm the higher-ups and belittle the others around them with sarcastic and rude comments. Everything is about them, and however upper management has no clue about their lack of work performance, integrity, or inappropriate behavior. They are cunning and use others to do all their work. They act like they are working and tell everyone how busy they are, but they sit on the phone all day gossiping about others. They take credit for their employee’s work and boost about how wonderful they are.

What are the warning signs that someone in leadership is a Narcissistic Manager?

  • They lack empathy and compassion.
  • They are always right.
  • They have poor listening skills and only want to listen to what they want to hear.
  • They are all about titles and status.
  • They don’t believe in coaching or mentoring.
  • They control and dominate group meetings.
  • They are very competitive.
  • They get rid of employees who don’t agree with them or are independent thinkers. They want “yes” people in their inter-circle.
  • They are terrible at sustaining relationships.
  • As they move up the corporate ladder, these characteristics become more and more apparent.

Someday all the Narcissistic Leaders will eventually be found out it, however what about all the damage they cause along the way? With the Narcissistic Managers continually moving up the corporate ladder and the ongoing damage to the hard-working, loyal employees keep escalating. When will organizations wake up and realize why losing good employees and Narcissistic Managers are causing a huge negative impact on their bottom line? ~ Patti

What are your thoughts about this topic?  Have you ever worked with a Narcissistic Manager as your leader?  What impact did the Narcissistic Leader have on you and your career?  

Does this resonate with you?  If so, please share your comments below and/or take the poll.

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Posted in Blog, Business Inspiration, Personal Inspiration

How Not to Lose Vision While Moving Fast and Forward in Business [Guest Blogger]

 

How Not to Lose Vision While Moving Fast and Forward in Business

When businesses start operating, they try their very best to work hard and put in the optimum effort. But when they get disappointed, they can easily lose sight of their vision and they just stop trying to achieve their business goals.

To efficiently run a successful business, it is very crucial to keep your vision alive.

8 Tips for Keeping Your Business Vision Alive

1. Develop a Clear Vision Statement

Keeping your business vision alive begins when you’ve developed a clear vision statement. If you don’t have such yet, sit down and write a clear vision statement for your business. Take into account the reasons why you started your business and what you hope to attain.

Apart from planning goals, always keep your vision in your mind. Knowing what you want won’t matter if you just throw it in a drawer and just think about it once every six months. Write it down where you can see it often or post it somewhere visible in your office.

2. Turn Your Vision Statement Into an Image

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, consider using this to your great advantage. Instead of just posting your vision statement, find pictures that will make you think of what your business goals are, and position them in places where you can easily see. For instance, you can place the picture in a frame and hang it on your wall. This will constantly remind you of what you are working toward.

3. Be Optimistic

You may be surrounded by negative people, but do your best to avoid thinking negatively as well. As much as you possibly can, minimize your exposure to these negative individuals. Attitude can permeate your immediate environment, so make sure that you are keeping your vision on track and surround your business with positive people.

Why? Because when you get discouraged or disappointed, these individuals will help you get back on track once again. Choose those who are honestly concerned with your vision’s success and those who can push you to always do your very best.

4. Let Your Work Reflect Your Vision

This means not just working toward achieving your goals but also associating with those who are feeling the same. Try to contact or partner with businesses that have a similar vision and beliefs as yours. These people will definitely help you in sticking with what you want and in achieving success.

5. Be Organized

Get organized by developing processes and checklists that will help you stay on track. You can ask help from a personal business coach to make sure that these structures and processes will keep you from deviating or falling off the path.

For instance, create a daily or weekly planning agenda, monitor your progress, and be reminded of your tasks and deadlines. You can also meet with your stakeholders or partners to ensure that they support your vision and the specific efforts you are doing to achieve it.

6. Track and Measure

By constantly tracking and measuring your progress, you motivate yourself and you become aware of how you are advancing toward achieving your business goal. Today, there are plenty of tools you can use to do this. These include a simple checklist, project management software, spreadsheet, or any software meant for goal tracking.

Tracking is very important. As you are measuring your progress, you gain greater insight into your journey, enabling you to adjust and alter your plans.

7. Set Up Rewards

Setting up rewards for reaching certain milestones and achieving your vision is an excellent way of keeping yourself motivated to progress to the end.

8. Review and Revise Your Vision Statement

When you’re having a hard time focusing on your vision statement, perhaps it does not reflect what you want anymore. As such, you must review and revise it. This revision can help your organization capitalize on emerging markets, new trends, and situational opportunities. Keep in mind, though, that you should not revise your vision statement over and over again, or you will not accomplish anything at all.

These tips will help you transform your vision into reality. The journey won’t be easy, but the reward will definitely be worth it. You must never lose faith in yourself and in your business.

 

Salma El-Shurafa is an experienced Executive Coach and founder of The Pathway Project. She is a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach from The Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and a graduate of CTI’s Co-Active Leadership program.

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 7 – Get Inspired!

Day 7 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  Being outdoors and taking the road less traveled. Today, is the last day of “Get Inspired”.  I hope you enjoyed this inspirational journey.  I know I did!  It was fun sharing all the different inspirations.  ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 6 – Get Inspired!

Day 6 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  Sliding down a playground slide.  When was the last time you did this?  ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 5 – Get Inspired!

Day 5 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  A summer walk on the beach. ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 4 – Get Inspired!

 

Day 4 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  Being silly on a rolling chair. ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 3 – Get Inspired!

Day 3 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  An evening campfire with my family and good friends. ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 2 – Get Inspired!

 

What is inspiring to me?  A beautiful hike along a creek.

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!

Posted in Blog, Personal Inspiration

Day 1 – Get Inspired!

Day 1 – Get Inspired! 

What makes me feel inspired?  A beautiful sunset. ~ Patti

What made you feel inspired today?

Reminiscence on what made you smile, laugh or just plain happy and share it on my Facebook page.   Like the page.   Leave your inspiration in the comments for all 7 days and you could be a winner of  Live Your Best Life! 21 Days to Optimal Work/Life Balance workshop.

Spread the joy and share this post with your colleagues, friends, family and on your social networks for others to get inspired!