Jenni Sciacca

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to know your personnel. Strengths, weaknesses, motivations, communication styles etc. and help bring the best out of each one of your team members. This may include shifting responsibilities to those that excel in specific areas and removing responsibilities that may not come as easily to some. By doing so, this will empower your team to work more efficiently and effectively together as one.

In my experience as a Manager, there were company R&R programs and individualized R&R programs for my team. As manager, I found out what was important to each individual on the team and built out incentives that would motivate them to do better. For some, it was earning an extra day off of work, for others it was a Dunkin’ Gift Card. As individuals on the team hit their benchmarks, they were able to choose a reward of choice from their own lists. In addition, they could choose whether they wanted to be recognized quietly or in front of the entire organization. If the latter, I included a success slide sharing individual successes along with the team’s successes in the global HR team Quarterly meetings.

When reading these frameworks, take note of how different cultures use their own unique ways to communicate and build strong relationships with you, then, tailor your own communication style accordingly to build that connection of trust for the future.

When preparing your stories and answering panel interview behavioral questions with more concise detail through the STAR method, add what you would do differently the next time the situation arose. This will show your reflection on the situation and your willingness to adapt and change your methods in the future to ensure greater success. This will, also, make you stand out above the rest of those interviewing.

I've always been a "Big Picture" person. I can listen to ideas and know whetherl can play through to the end result. I can't always explain how I know. What I can share is this: 1. Work backward from a project, idea etc. that is presented to you. 2. What is the problem they are trying to solve for? 3. What are they looking to achieve when the project/idea is completed? Goals? Results? 4. Is this a company need, team need or individual need....OR is this a "WANT"? 5. As a leader can I tie this back to strategic vision or is it results driven and is it (what's)measurable? 6. Moving forward, what do I put in place to hold team accountable and achieve the agreed upon results?

I've always been an early adopter of technology and created teams that are highly adaptable to change. As a leader, its really important to ask the right questions to ensure technology is efficient and will perform the functions necessary for your team to get their jobs done successfully with high efficiency and minimal manual effort. Scalability, customizations, configurations, enhancements, "real time" reporting - all provide an opportunity to set up technology the way your team needs it to be set up: sharing a high level visual story around your team's successes and challenges without having to go into multiple systems to generate one report to determine revenue generation, cost savings and reduction in time/effort.