The best way to bust a rut: Grow as a leader

An overwhelming sense of "been there, done that" in your job is a sign that you need to actively grow your skills, writes Jason Evanish, CEO of Get Lighthouse. Evanish recommends "supercharging" your growth in seven different ways, such as becoming a force multiplier for your team as well as reflecting on and learning from past failures.

Put it into practice: Becoming the master of your time management also can help smooth your rut into a groove, Evanish writes. The first step is a meeting audit, followed by managing and eliminating distractions, staying focused and ensuring a sustainable pace.

Leadership confidence is about improving yourself, but not on the backs of others. Confidence comes from within and is "an unshakeable sense of self, which requires consistent and continued dedication to your values, goals and personal self-worth," writes executive coach Joel Garfinkle, who offers five ways to build your confidence without throwing your weight around.

Put it into practice: Understand that doubts and mistakes are normal, even for seasoned leaders. Look for places you can grow, focus on motivating others and "stay true to who you are as a person" to grow your confidence, Garfinkle suggests.

True, servant leadership is about giving, not taking -- but taking in a colleague's perspective before giving your own is the best gift for you both, writes Leadership Freak blogger Dan Rockwell. Silence your desire as a leader to fix things so you don't disempower colleagues, Rockwell suggests, while people skills coach Kate Nasser says that in order to connect, you must engage, inspire, manage and lead.

Put it into practice: Connect and hear their perspective by finding out how they learn (visual, auditory, written), how they handle stress and how they act when leadership is absent, Nasser writes. Ask questions to learn more about their views on the issue at hand, such as "What are you trying to accomplish when you…?" or "What do you want me to understand?" Rockwell advises.

Pay attention to the burn. If your team is burned out, it can destroy productivity, morale and ultimately lead to attrition when they leave to find less stressful jobs.

It doesn't take much to check in on their well-being. Pay attention to what they're saying and not saying. If all they talk about is deadlines, projects and pressures but you never hear about relationships, colleagues, friends and family, they might be overly-consumed by their work.

Watch their hours. Evaluate their physical presence and energy. It's not hard to pick up on burnout when you actually look for it. Help them prioritize and get low-value work off their plates. They may have a hard time saying "no" to work but you're in a position to help them do that.

Investing a little time and effort into taking care of their stress levels is good for them, good for you and good for the organization.

-- Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, which includes TITAN -- the firm's e-learning platform. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a West Point graduate and author of three leadership books: "One Piece of Paper," "Lead Inside the Box" and "The Elegant Pitch."

Amazon sees generative AI as a major tech innovation that could fuel the company's next era of growth, building on its past accomplishments in creating the ecommerce Marketplace and Amazon Web Services, CEO Andy Jassy said in his annual letter to shareholders. "There has never been a time in Amazon's history where we've felt there is so much opportunity to make our customers' lives better and easier," Jassy noted.

A school of seven fish can be as quiet as a single fish if the animals flap their fins at alternate times rather than in unison, a behavior that also lets them use less energy and swim faster. "A predator, such as a shark, may perceive it as hearing a lone fish instead of a group," says mechanical engineer Rajat Mittal, an author of the study in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics that used 3D models of swimming mackerel.

A study of futurists from TATA Consultancy Services shows that 90% are optimistic about forthcoming AI changes, and 72% envision significant contributions to employee well-being. What does this mean for job loss? Remote work? Get TATA futurist Bill Quinn's insights about work experience transformations -- from potentially shorter workweeks to who owns AI's work -- and participate in an audience Q&A during SmartBrief's April 18 "AI Redefining the Work Experience " webinar. Register now for the free event.

I am an information junkie. I love to learn new things. I love to read books, listen to podcasts, go to lectures and watch YouTube videos. If you've got new and exciting things to teach, I'm there. That's a good trait for a leader.

However, learning is just the first step. Once you have all that information, the next step is to put it into practice. This is where I'm not so strong.

This is where Jason Evanish's advice can come in handy. You can learn from your "invisible council" and study the leadership chops of those you admire, but when it comes to adapting those skills into your own leadership game, it can be challenging. The one thing that helped me when I needed to move forward was getting a coach or a mentor -- someone who could show me how to put my new knowledge to work and hold me accountable.

Coaches and mentors are all around us -- it just takes a moment to reach out to someone you admire and ask them to coffee. The times when I have done just this simple step I have found ways to implement newfound ideas. Who can you reach out today?

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