By Andréa Albright
Once an individual has become an authority, their influence is so powerful that they begin to need the help of a team.
Building this team and learning to communicate with your team is the most essential part of growth for a business or entrepreneur. It is so important that leaders must recognize the weight which it holds, looking at it as the foundation for their vision.
When considering the investment of time and energy that having a team entails, one key aspect is that the leader understands Emotional IQ on a meaningful level. Not only will this affect the success of the authority themselves, but it will also affect the success of their newfound partnerships.
Emotional IQ is the ability of an individual to understand and manage their emotions.
This includes how they react to a range of situations and conflicts. When a leader has this knowledge of themselves, they also recognize the influence that their emotions have on others.
To build an authority team, you want to be the guiding light; this includes giving empowerment and passion to your employees. Having emotional intelligence plays an integral role in the way you guide people and provide them with this special and rare energy that will ignite the flame within them. Through doing so, you will begin to create a legacy for your employees and for your vision. The transformation of your team has the power to create exponential impact for eternity.
After a strong, well-rounded team has been established, many leaders wonder how they can create productivity and conflict resolution.
To take your team to the next level and truly establish your ideas as a force of nature; there are a few key areas that I feel all authorities should take note of.
Productivity tips
- Timer:
Productivity tool number one is so simple, and it’s available in any situation at any time. This is the timer on your phone.
There has been a lot of research on how productive someone can be over a period of time. It turns out that if you go for more than 50 minutes, then you actually begin to lose productivity and you are more likely to make mistakes that will actually require more time to go back and fix them. Therefore, by setting a 50-minute timer on your phone and then staying focused for 50 minutes of full productivity, you will find that you achieve way more productivity in faster increments of time, and you also have less breakdowns or mistakes.
- Speed reading:
Speed reading has been around for many years. There is an incredible book that was written in the 1950s called The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program, if you go through that book you will learn how to speed read.
The reason why this is important is that we are creating more and more content and information than ever before. As an authority, you need to be on the cutting edge of your industry, and there’s just simply not enough time in the day to read all of the books and the ideas and the information that is being published. Therefore, by learning how to speed read, you will actually be able to learn faster, and retain the information on a higher level.
- Creating the top three value-creation tasks daily:
As an authority, you are going to be inundated with to-do lists, and you will never get it all done. There is always something more to do, and there are so many people who require your attention and your time that the dream of ever finishing your to-do list is just an illusion. Therefore, by taking five minutes at the beginning of every day and looking at your entire to-do list, then asking yourself, what are the top three tasks that will create the most value today, you will become highly productive.
Start with task number one which has the most value, and then you move on to task number two, et cetera. That way, even if you get distracted, if you have an emergency, or if something comes up, you will know that you have at least moved the ball forward with your top three value creation tasks for that day.
- Schedule:
Now, this may seem obvious, but a schedule is how you keep everyone aligned at the same time, and it also allows you to project into the future to know what’s coming up and what you need to prepare for. I have discovered that the more accurate I am with my schedule, the more productive I am because I can reach a flow state where I can be fully present in the moment knowing that I have scheduled the time to be here and now, and to give this my full attention.
- Project blocking:
When you are an authority, you are going to be creating very important projects that make an impact on humanity. This is what an authority does. Whether it’s through innovation or your products and your services, this level of influence takes time, attention, and a laser-focused intention in order to really create the value that an authority creates. When you are looking at these very complex, large projects, you want to break them down into smaller pieces.
I call this project blocking because you can never take on a project as a whole idea at once. You have to break it down into smaller ideas and then have deadlines and deliverables on each stage of the project.
Conflict Resolution
- Don’t engage in emotional drama:
The most important factor in conflict resolution is to not engage in emotional drama. When there is conflict, it’s because there are unmet expectations and this can bring forth a lot of emotion. It’s very important that you, as the authority, never engage emotionally. Do not allow yourself to be triggered, because if you are making decisions with your emotions, whether it be out of anger, resentment, or frustration, then you will not be in the power position to negotiate clearly.
- Hit things logically, straight on:
The second tip is to hit things logically straight on; don’t avoid it, because it gets worse. There are many people who want to avoid conflict, but as an authority, you need to embrace it and realize that when you are disrupting an industry and challenging the status quo, you are going to experience conflict because you are asking others to evolve and move faster than they most likely have ever gone before. So, when you see that there is conflict, do not run from it, do not hide it, and look at it logically straight on.
- Know your leverage points:
Leverage is about how you have the smallest amount of time, energy, and resources to make the greatest impact. A lever is one stick that has a fulcrum that can lift or move exponentially more weight than if you didn’t have the lever. There is a quote by Archimedes, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I can move the world.” This is defining how important leverage is. Leverage inside of conflict is looking for what moves the needle the farthest, what is going to make the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. Find those leverage points.
- Create a win-win situation:
Don’t be a zero-sum game thinker. Authorities always look for a win-win scenario. You want the other person to win, and you also want to win. Thinking that someone has to lose is called a zero-sum game, and that just creates more and more conflict. So, you want to figure out what the other party really needs and what you really need, and then focus on how you win and the other person wins too.
- Know who you’re negotiating with:
Figure out the person you are negotiating with and what their triggers are. Every individual is unique, and every conflict has unique perspectives and elements. Don’t treat every conflict as if it’s the same. You have to really get involved in what the other person is getting triggered by, and who is the decision maker. Every conflict, just like every business deal, has unique variables, people, and situations. Laser-focus into what makes this conflict unique.
- Future project:
Look into the future. Think about the vision you want to create and then work backward from there. Don’t get focused on the here and the now, because you want to be a long-term visionary thinker. This is what authorities do, and this is why authorities make the greatest impact in humanity.
- Determine the hurdle and build a case for it:
When you have followed the other six steps of conflict resolution, then this will allow you to really focus on what is the biggest obstacle. Know what is the biggest possibility that could take this conflict to the most extreme, negative situation. Then, build a case around it. Make sure you have documentation, support, research, and whatever you need to fully build the case in order to overcome the hurdle.
If an authority follows and implements these basic steps, they will begin to build an unstoppable team to help share their vision. This will scale their impact and success substantially and continue to fulfill themselves and others.
About the author
Andrea Albright is known as a global media disruptor. She is the founder and CEO of Beverly Hills Publishing, which is disrupting the 100 billion dollar publishing industry by being the first marketing firm, publishing firm, PR firm, and Hollywood distribution in one. Her passion to protect authors’ stories, across all forms of media, is unique to publishing and makes the greatest impact to build the author’s authority brand.