Category Archives: Developing as a leader

Receiving the gift of feedback

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

Ouch!  I’ve been surprised this week by the responses of colleagues to something I wrote on the Training Journal’s discussion forum, asking one of my colleagues if he intended his posting as self-advertising (which is against the rules of the forum).  Three members of the forum found my posting “patronising” and the person I addressed added that he found my suggestion “offensive” and “narrow”.

It would have been easy to dismiss the feedback or the people giving the feedback.  Even as I write I’m tempted to highlight some of the things I noticed about these responses – and the people who wrote them.  I could point to my in-tray and to the support I have received behind the scenes.  I could, I could, I could… but to do so would be to fall into the trap of believing I am right and failing to ask myself, “is this wise?”

Feedback – a nugget of gold

The more senior we become, the harder it becomes for those we lead to give us feedback.  Who wants to tell the man (or woman) who has the power to decide on your next performance rating, salary increase or promotion that he’s getting something wrong?  It’s possible that our peers will also respond by talking about us rather than to us.  They may think you’re impossible and still, they need you to complete the order for a major client on time and they don’t want to upset you right now or maybe, don’t want the potential drama associated with giving and receiving feedback.

And let’s be clear, your colleagues may fall short in the accuracy of their perceptions.  Perhaps they’re failing to see some positive attribute that you bring to your work – your ability to get things done quietly and invisibly, with little fuss is, by its very nature, a hidden talent.  Perhaps they are expecting something of you that you can’t possibly give – how often do your direct reports expect you to know just what support they want, for example, without ever having to make a request of you?  Perhaps your colleagues are confusing their own judgements and inferences for something that actually happened.  The list goes on…

No matter whether your colleagues’ perceptions are accurate or wholly mistaken, just or unjust, they are nonetheless perceptions.  The map may not be the territory and still, your colleagues may still be navigating using a particular map.  For this reason, I decided that, no matter how I might feel about my colleagues’ feedback or about the way in which they expressed it, I needed to pay attention.  The issue was not “am I patronising?” or even “did I intend to patronise?”  The issue for me is this – did my colleagues see me as patronising?  And what are the implications for me of this perception?

Perhaps there’s a paradox here.  For as long as I see my colleagues’ perceptions as incorrect, I am unlikely to change my behaviour.  Recognising my colleagues’ perceptions, regardless of their accuracy, opens up choices for me, based on a whole range of decisions – what impact do I want to have in a particular situation or with a particular person or people?  How do I need to adapt my style to achieve my desired outcome?  What other considerations do I want to bear in mind?  In short, as a leader, understanding the way you are seen opens up options that can make you more effective.

Asking for feedback in your leadership role

Once, as part of a team of assessors, I interviewed a number of members of a very senior team to assess their capability to handle the challenges ahead.  Their CEO, who commissioned the audit, was concerned that there might be significant gaps in the capabilities of team members – and there were.  In addition, we uncovered some serious concerns amongst team members about the behaviours of the CEO.  As a team, we were able to identify themes and to share them with the CEO, giving him an opportunity to adjust his behaviour.

Asking for feedback from those you lead can give you valuable information about how you’re perceived.  Few leaders do this proactively, however, so that many such opportunities are lost.  One reason for this is the myths associated with authenticity (being yourself) as a leader – as if you have no choice in the strategies you use to lead your team and team members must simply accept you as you are.  More often, though, it simply isn’t on a leader’s agenda to ask.

How can you ask?  In many ways.  If the levels of trust are high between you and those you lead, you have the basis for open and direct conversations about what you’re doing that team members value and what more you could do to help them succeed in their work.  The success of such an open approach probably reflects the levels of trust in your team, your levels of self confidence, and some clear and effective ground rules.

As an alternative, many psychometrics are designed to elicit feedback from others which you can also compare with your own self image.  Some are designed to help you understand your own preferred style and how this may be received by people with other preferences.  Using a psychometric test and/or channelling feedback via a skilled third party can give increased safety both for you and for others who provide feedback, as well as placing it in the context of a useful model.

Taking the learning from the feedback you receive

You may be wondering what I did with the feedback I received from my colleagues and I have to say to you, it’s still a work in progress.  One thing I did do, though, was go back to my Insights profile – Insights is a relatively new psychometric test which draws on a long tradition to identify different types of personality.  Reading through my profile, I asked myself what it could tell me about my style and approach and how it might be received by my colleagues on the forum.

One line in my summary profile reads “She tends to appreciate tradition and is interested in maintaining established rules and procedures”.  I recognise this to be true:  whilst some members of the forum value my concern for the rules of our community, I have decided to speak out less often and trust in the wider membership of the forum to express a view on postings which seem out of line with the agreed rules of the forum.

Other aspects of my profile highlight my preference for straightforward and open communication.  This is expressed in summary in the following way:  “When she turns her highly honed critical appraisal skills on the people around her, honesty may be translated into unintended hurtfulness”.  I recognise the report’s description of me as someone who combines strong thinking skills with strong opinions and a preference for truth and high ideals.

A key area of consideration for me is what happens when these strengths are over-played.  I know my own high standards have earned me my living and, at the same time, I can find it hard to step back and accept lower standards from others.  My profile lists as weaknesses that I “don’t suffer fools gladly” and can get bogged down with tradition and the status quo.

But the most fundamental issue is this:  how can I adapt my style to communicate effectively with those members of the forum who found my posting or see me as patronising?  And do I want to?

Love your colleagues? Expressing affection at work without tripping up

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,

A few months ago, I wrote a posting entitled Avoiding an office affair.  This was a response to a posting by Gretchen Rubin entitled Six Tips for Avoiding an Office Affair.  Before I wrote it, I wrote down the names of people I know who, at some stage, have had an affair at work.  The list was long and, of course, that’s only the people I know about.  Statistics suggest that a significant proportion of the UK working population meet their partners at work:  it seems we all crave love.  At the same time, outside of intimate sexual relationships, we can be a bit “buttoned up” when it comes to expressing our love of colleagues, clients, suppliers and just about anyone we meet at work.  We feel it, but we don’t know how to express it.

In recent weeks, in a discussion on the Training Journal’s on-line forum for trainers and other professionals, colleagues have said that yes, they, too, grapple with this question.  They also highlighted some of the challenges that come with it.  Some are relatively innocuous:  just what is a “friend”, for example, and how do we decide who to say yes to and who to say no to when invited to connect on Facebook or LinkedIn?  Some are designed to make you laugh – the man who, trained by wife and daughter to add a kiss (“x”) at the end of texts included a kiss by mistake in a message to a high-ranking military officer he had only just met and received by return the message that the officer hadn’t expected their relationship to move so quickly to this level of intimacy – also signed with an “x”.  Some pointed to significant challenges.  How, for example, do you transition from the friendly style of communication you use day-to-day to a conversation with someone about their ongoing under-performance?  And how do you handle misunderstandings when a colleague thinks you mean more by your friendly style than you actually do?

Why is all this important?  At one level, it’s an issue of our time – with increasing levels of informality and the use of social media it’s something we need to find our way around.  But there’s more to it than that.  Our growing understanding of how the brain works is tending to confirm something we have all long since suspected – that we show up at our best when we have some sense that we are truly seen.  In the literature of leadership, Daniel Goleman (in his article Leadership That Gets Results) shares figures which suggests that the use of an affiliative style of leadership – i.e. one which places people first – contributes to a positive climate at work, increasing motivation and leading to better work outputs.  Of course it makes sense.  Friendly interactions create emotional bonds and harmony.  What’s more, the more we feel we are seen, understood and cared for, the more we feel safe to try different ways of doing things.  This increased flexibility is often part of what makes us successful.

How then to express the love we have for members of our team?  I don’t have all the answers but offer, instead, just five “top tips” with a nod of gratitude to my colleagues on the Training Journal forum:

Tip 1:  Avoid universal friendliness
It’s not good enough in a leadership role to think your style is “just the way you are”.  As Goleman puts it (in his article Leadership That Gets Results) “many leaders mistakenly assume that leadership style is a function of personality rather than a strategic choice”.  One of the worst mistakes we can make is expressing ourselves in universally friendly ways – the same way with all people all the time.  It’s this mistake that can lead a new colleague to believe we’re interested in a different kind of relationship when we’re not or can cause offence when we sign a message about the under-performance of a member of our team with our usual “x”.

Equally, especially in a leadership role, it’s important to take care not to discriminate.  If you are always friendly with John and never friendly with Sally, both John and Sally will make meaning of your behaviour – and may even be right in their interpretations.  This is unlikely to lead to the good health of the team and of individuals within the team.

Tip 2:  Maintain rapport
You may think that you need to be friendly in order to maintain rapport but sometimes, being friendly will actually have the opposite effect, because it doesn’t sit comfortably with the person with whom you are interacting.  Perhaps your friendly approach has come too soon in the relationship, in which case your team member may feel under pressure to reciprocate or choose to back away.  Perhaps it does not sit comfortably given your team member’s background or culture.

Rather than treating everyone the same way, pace each person and be ready to adjust.  Pacing involves meeting people where they are – matching the level of friendliness they show to you, for example, until you both feel comfortable.  Becoming more friendly becomes a matter of judgement and timing, taking a small step and noting any response to judge how your approach has landed.

Tip 3:  Use friendliness as one style amongst several
Any style you adopt as a leader will meet the needs of some situations but not others.  Think carefully about the needs of the situation and choose an appropriate style.  There will be times, for example, when you need to paint a picture for members of your team of where you want to get to and how you’re going to get there (I described one such time in When it’s time for the big leadership speech).  This is especially important when your team or organisation is adrift and needs direction.  In this case, your staff need to know that your care for them as individuals sits alongside a mission to which you are giving priority.  Equally, there may be times – though rarely – when it really is time to say “do it, and do it now”.  Being friendly when giving an instruction can leave people feeling confused – or able to duck out of doing something which needs, urgently, to be done.

Tip 4:  Be clear about your own motivation
If there is any motivation behind your behaviour of which you are barely or unaware your behaviour will confuse and unsettle others.  If you want to be able to express your love of your colleagues you need, first, to practise a rigorous self-honesty.  What needs are you meeting or hoping to meet by taking a member of your team out to lunch when he or she is upset?  If you’re hoping for a relationship to move beyond the professional and into the personal sphere, then notice this motivation and think about the implications of your choices before you take action.

Tip 5:  Be ready to have conversations to clarify misunderstandings
Don’t be offended when your expressions of deep concern create misunderstandings amongst members of your team.  The more you choose to express your concern, affection, love and care for members of your team or other colleagues at work, the more you risk a misunderstanding.  This need not be a problem, as long as you have the skills to handle the results.

Make sure you’re ready to have the conversations you need to have to acknowledge a misunderstanding and to create clarity for you and your team member.  Perhaps you need to share your perceptions when you think there may be a misunderstanding and to ask, “will you tell me what’s going on for you?”  Perhaps you need to share your own experience, including your own intentions.  There’s no need for blame – but every need for clarity.

Increasingly, the stiff upper lip of the British workplace is giving way to something less formal and with that informality come new challenges.  I wonder what challenges you are discovering – and how you are handling them.

Stop writing rubbish CVs!

Developing as a leader
Looking for a job without success?

Recently, I’ve had a few conversations with highly skilled clients who feel frustrated about the lack of opportunity, as they see it, to progress their career in the current job climate.  I wonder if you can relate to this?  Perhaps you’re yearning for a new challenge – the chance to really use the skills you have and develop some more.  Perhaps you feel frustrated at the lack of opportunity out there in the marketplace.  You’ve updated your CV and you’re putting it out there but you’re not getting much back.  Of course, seniority is a factor – the more senior you become the fewer jobs there are that require someone like you.  But you’re also nervous that the jobs just aren’t there to be had and you’re starting to feel frustrated.

On my side of the fence, the proportion of my work which sits under the heading “executive assessment” has gone up in the last couple of years.  Of course, this partly reflects the fact that coaching – a mainstay of my business – looks like a bit of a luxury right now.  It’s also true that organisations are downsizing (or, hopefully, “rightsizing”) so that, by definition, there must be fewer senior jobs about.  Having said that, when it comes to recruiting leaders into senior roles there’s one complaint I still don’t hear:  no-one ever says to me “We’re struggling to choose from too many perfect candidates.

Now, this is where I get into a bit of a rant – not something I often allow myself to do.  Far too often, the CVs that come to me ahead of an assessment interview are, frankly, rubbish!  Of course, I say this for effect.  To be more precise, I notice how often interviewees rely on headhunters to prepare their CV for them and how often, in my view, these CVs fail to convey essential information in a way which has a positive impact on me as the reader.  They’re too long.  They miss out key information.  I don’t know, from the CV, if I’m dealing with Jo Blogs Mr Average or someone who’s well suited to the role and highly likely to raise levels of performance by his or her presence in the job.  It’s telling that when I complimented one candidate recently on the quality of his CV he revealed that he’d written it himself and felt a bit miffed when the recruitment agency had added their logo and claimed it as their own.

By now, you’re probably wondering what I’d like to see instead so here are a few thoughts from me about what to get right.

Get clear about what you want from a job
It may be self-evident and still, it needs saying.  If you want to find a job that really meets your needs, you need to take responsibility for clarifying what those needs are.  The more you know what you want, the more you can craft your CV to make it more likely that it will stand out to a potential employer.

The purpose of your CV is to get you short-listed for interview
Get clear about what you want your CV to do for you.  I’m guessing you want your to stand out sufficiently that a potential employer – especially one who is the perfect match for you – will notice it amongst the many others and say “yes, let’s interview this person”.  It may play other roles down the line (when someone like me takes a look at it, for example, before interviewing someone who has already been interviewed and short-listed for the job) but please, focus on first things first.  Your CV needs to get you to interview.

Yes, describe your experience – but major on your achievements and skills
Too many CVs provide a lengthy list of dates, job titles and organisations – without giving any sense of how you have performed in each job and what skills you bring at this stage in your career.  It’s worth spending time and getting feedback from others before committing your thoughts to paper in order to get really clear about your main achievements and your core skills – I have noticed that often people take for granted the skills that are most valuable to a potential employer.  You may need certain experience – the job titles etc. – to pass through a first sift of CVs but to get to interview it’s your skills and experience that make you stand out.

Make your CV attractive and easy to read
Cue brevity – but not only this.  Think about how you can present the information you want to include in ways which convey key messages in an attractive and accessible way.  Some clients include a personal statement up front – a summary of their skills, achievements and experience.  This can be a way of capturing the attention so that the reader says, “I want to know more”.  One client recently shaped a two-page CV, in landscape, with summary profile (four lines), experience, capabilities and personal style (most of one page), sample achievements and results (most of second page).  His personal details (name, address etc.) and his career history and education were all there – but the main focus was on the things that would make him stand out from other candidates.

Sort out the fine details
By this I mean use the spell-check or get someone to read your CV who will notice any mistakes.  If you have any difficulties with spelling or grammar you need to make sure you cover this base in another way so that you don’t fall fowl of the assumptions and prejudices of a potential employer (who is, after all, looking for reasons to exclude candidates from the pile of CVs on the desk).

It’s not just about the CV
Perhaps this is a subject for another day – or even for a coaching assignment.  Still, finding a job is not just about the quality of your CV.  Make sure you have the support you need to embark on your job hunt and to see it through to a successful conclusion.  Make sure you know how to find jobs in your sector.  Make sure you know which organisations you’d most like to work with… the list goes on.

But just for starters, stop writing rubbish CVs!

When it’s good to take your work home

Developing as a leader,
Want your family to function effectively?

Once again, the Harvard Business Review’s Morning Advantage has come up trumps, highlighting a blog posting which highlights a growing trend in taking successful approaches from the workplace and applying them at home.  HBR’s Dana Rousmaniere writes:

Take Your Work Solutions Home
Fed up with the chaos that was dominating their household, the Starr family of Hidden Springs, Idaho, decided to start running their family like a business. They turned to a program called agile development, a system of group dynamics where workers are organized into small teams, and hold daily progress sessions and weekly reviews. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Saturday Essay Family Inc, it’s a growing trend among a new generation of parents who are taking workplace solutions — like accountability checklists, branding sessions, mission statements, core values statements, and conflict resolution techniques — home to their families.

Some of the take-home advice? 1.) The most effective teams (and families) aren’t dominated by a single top-down leader; all members must contribute. 2.) Employees (and children) are more self-motivated when they can set weekly goals, plan their own time, and evaluate their own work. 3.) You need to build flexibility into a business, or a family. You can’t anticipate every problem, so you need systems that allow you to adapt to change quickly. Accountability, one of the central tenets of agile development, is also key, making “information radiators” — large, public boards where people mark their progress — essential. 

The article is adapted from a book,  The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More, by Bruce Feiler.  Due out next week, it looks like a great read.

Even if you don’t have children at home with all their attendant challenges, Feiler’s blog posting makes for interesting reading.  To what extent, for example, are you familiar with ‘agile’ practices and the benefits that they bring in the workplace?  Equally, Feiler’s posting highlights an interesting trend away from top-down leadership towards greater involvement of people throughout the organisational hierarchy.  I have mentioned before the work of Alfie Kohn and Daniel Pink – or at least, the way they have summarised research which suggests that the use of extrinsic punishment and rewards to motivate staff has the opposite of its desired effect.  Feiler’s article provides practical alternatives and describes how these worked in one family in practice.

I’d be interested to learn how you respond to Feiler’s article and, if you go on to read it, to his book.  What do you take from his article that you can apply in your work or family life?

Managing the things that matter

About Dorothy, Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

I’ve been following a discussion in recent days on LinkedIn about a blog posting by Jonathan Brown entitled Working late is no excuse.  The title succinctly captures the core message in an e-mail sent by the Managing Partner at a law firm to address lateness by fee earners – that working late in the evening is no excuse for a late start in the morning.  A reflection of our era, the e-mail clearly reached the desk of the author and went on (if Mr Brown is correct) to “go viral”.

It took me back to a time when I worked extensively with one of London’s “big five” law firms, back in the late 80s and early 90s. Many of my contemporaries (including some of my buddies in the London Symphony Chorus – how did they do it?) were young lawyers working their socks off in this and other firms. They knew they would get a partnership or a nice juicy job outside the firm and experienced the long hours as a fair exchange. As the recession bit, though, the “jam tomorrow” become a possibility rather than a certainty so that people began to reconsider their options. Notwithstanding the recession (threat of redundancy etc.) young lawyers started to think twice about putting in so many hours.

One commentator on the LinkedIn thread crisply summed up one point of view:  “This is another example of lazy management – managing what’s easy (the number of hours people are in the building) as opposed to what’s important (what they achieve for the organisation). How many examples have we all witnessed over the years, of managers judging their staff by how long they are sitting at their desks as opposed to by what they actually accomplish while sitting there? It’s sad to think that even in a law firm top management can’t come up with a smarter way of evaluating its staff’s contribution”.

Sometimes, managing time in this way is indeed a proxy for more meaningful management of performance, as if time equals – in the long run – results.  We all know it doesn’t, but what do we do differently if we want to manage performance pending the results?  As it happens, I recently initiated another thread on LinkedIn about the use of a coaching style of leadership.  As I write I think of some of the sales managers I have interviewed over the years – for developmental purposes, assessment or promotion – who have described sitting down with members of their team and asking them in considerable detail about how many calls or visits they are making per day or week and with what outcomes.  This kind of on-the-job coaching gets under the skin of “hours per week” and can give a real boost to staff performance.  In short, it’s possible that our Managing Partner just didn’t stop to think about what’s really important in the workplace and how to manage staff in ways that boost real performance.

It’s also possible that he committed an entirely different error (though, I confess, I doubt it) – the error of failing to explain adequately why an action or expectation is important.  I recognise that this is something I have to remind myself to do – because at times something seems so obvious to me I think it doesn’t need saying.  Often it does.  Reading the Managing Partner’s e-mail it’s not clear how a few minutes’ lateness impacts on performance or why turning up on time really matters.

It certainly seems to be a general view that the tone of the e-mail – familiar to me, I confess, from dipping my toes from time to time into legal waters – is unlikely to raise levels of motivation and engagement across this particular firm.  But this, perhaps, is a topic worth unpacking in another blog posting.  I’ll leave it for another day.

Covey’s third habit: put first things first

About Dorothy, Developing as a leader, ,
I am sitting at my desk today, reflecting on the death of my Uncle Tom following his funeral on Tuesday.  I am still finding it hard to believe that he is no longer with us.
Tom died within hours of our performance of Mozart’s Requiem and since that time we have been rehearsing Brahm’s German Requiem.  Of course, the words of a requiem are evocative.  Especially, I keep hearing denn ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach.  In my copy of the Brahms, the words of the final movement are translated as Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.  Sayeth the spirit, that they rest from their labors, and that their works follow after them.  This phrase – that their works follow after them – touches me deeply.  Tom’s works do indeed follow after him.  The eulogy was a celebration of some of those works and of the man who was so fondly remembered.  They are reflected in the memories which each of us treasures.  They are reflected in the love of so many people towards him.  You could even say that my cousins, themselves much loved and treasured, are amongst Tom’s “works”.
In the midst of everything that accompanies a death, I have also had a small voice reminding me to return to a series of postings I began some months ago, following the death of Stephen Covey in July 2012.  It is time to write about Covey’s third habit, as described in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – put first things first.  In this chapter, Covey describes how highly effective people manage their time.
Covey’s thoughts in this area are beloved of trainers and of other development professionals as well as of readers of his book.  One of his offerings is a two-by-two grid in which to plot the actions on our ‘to do’ lists according to their level of importance (high or low) and urgency ( high or low).  The point is, if we are constantly spending time on things that are urgent but not important, we are unlikely to be highly effective.  Most favoured by Covey is Quadrant II, that is – those activities that are important but not urgent.
But how do we determine what is important?  Covey invites us to look at the various roles in our lives – parent, spouse, leader etc. – and to identify weekly goals against each role.  We can use these goals to schedule activities for the week ahead, taking time each day to adapt our schedule in the light of new developments.  He also includes the idea of “sharpening the saw” about which we shall hear more when we come to Habit Seven.
Now, I must confess that there has been a gap in time between reading Covey’s chapter on putting first things first and writing this posting and this leaves me with something intriguing.  For what I took most to heart when I read this chapter – and now cannot find as I skim through it again – is the idea that effective time management is about knowing what we want in the broadest sense, and taking steps to move towards it.  Coaches sometimes invite people to imagine themselves sitting on a bench in their old age (hence the photo, above) looking back on their lives and to ask themselves – what would they most like to look back on?  This can be a powerful means of connecting with those things that are most important to us.  Many a senior executive has found himself taken aback by the realisation that he (or she) is spending more time on work than on tending precious relationships. 
Covey’s tools and techniques are not, he says, about time management – though he also refers to his approach as the fourth generation of time management.  They are, he says about self management.  Hanging out in Quadrant II requires us to understand what is most important to us and to manage our schedule in line with what is most important to us.  At the end of a life, our commitment to live a life in line with our values is reflected in the myriad memories of those we leave behind, as well as in the feelings they evoke.
To my Uncle Tom I say a loving thank you for these memories.

Friday morning meaning-making

Developing as a leader,

In the aftermath of World War II, Viktor E. Frankl, psychologist, wrote of his experiences in the concentration camps.  His little book was published in Austria under the title Ein Psycholog Erlebt Das Konzentrationslager (“A psychologist experiences the concentration camp”) and subsequently, in English as Man’s Search for Meaning.  If you haven’t read it yet, you’re not too late.  It’s still readily available.

I was reminded of it recently when my friend Kenny Tranquille sent me a link to a six-minute clip of Dan Ariely, author of The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home.  In the clip, entitled The Meaning of Labor, Ariely describes the disappointment of a young man who has worked for three weeks to prepare documentation for a merger, only to be told, simply, that the merger is off.

Ariely goes on to describe an intriguing experiment which explores people’s motivation and productivity at work.  As Ariely himself highlights, the tasks allocated are not deeply imbued with meaning – the subjects are using Lego to build small figures.  Even so, small changes in the conditions of the experiment which reduce meaning for participants, have a big impact on both motivation and behaviour.

Ariely points to two conclusions.  Firstly, he says, we need to think about how to create more meaning at work.  Like Frankl, Ariely recognises that people are naturally inclined to make meaning.  Secondly, he suggests we need to take care not to choke this tendency by our activities as leaders.  He finishes his brief talk with some suggestions for the manager of his young friend.

It’s an intriguing clip – no doubt an invitation to buy his book.  Just six minutes long, it’s worth watching and reflecting on before getting down to the business of the day.  Perhaps a question to reflect on after watching is this:  to what extent, as a line manager, are you invested in helping your staff to find meaning in their work?

Coaching for increased engagement and higher performance

Developing as a leader

I have been sharing an article recently with colleagues and clients.  It’s one I co-authored with Gill How of Buonacorsi Consulting and was published in Training Journal in December, 2012.

It had an interesting genesis.  I don’t quite remember when, but a while back (two years?  …three?  …four?) I heard Gill talk about some work she’d done with Southern Railway and found myself sitting in the audience feeling …well, frankly, jealous.  This was definitely a project to die for in my world.  Gill, and her clients at Southern Railway, had worked together with the aim of developing a coaching style of leadership across the organisation.

This would naturally capture my interest – I am very familiar with the research that underpins Goleman’s article Leadership That Gets Results and his book The New Leaders (which I’ve mentioned before on this blog).  This research tends to demonstrate that leaders are most effective when they (a) adapt their style to meet the needs of situations as they arise and (b) use styles which build motivation and engagement – what you might call a positive climate at work.  A visionary style is one of these (setting out a clear vision for the future and translating it into clear goals for individuals in your team).  A coaching style is another (fostering the learning and development of members of your team).  A participative (or democratic) style is the third (used judiciously – engaging staff in key decisions which affect the team).

Gill’s work with Southern Railway represented – to me – a wonderful opportunity to test the impact of a coaching style of leadership on organisational climate and on business results.  Oh, boy!  The results were compelling.  Gill and her clients provided such a long list of measures for our article that we had to pick out some choice examples.  A key moment was in 2009, for example, when after three years of working with Buonacorsi Consulting to develop a coaching style of leadership in its organisation, a survey by Gallup showed a statistical link between levels of employee engagement and participation in the company’s coaching programme. In other words, those managers who had developed their coaching style were having a strong and positive impact on the climate experienced by their team members and this impact outweighed that of managers who had not participated in the programme.  Other results included increases in participation in employee surveys, reductions in grievances and employee tribunals, the odd award… the list goes on.

Sitting here writing, I wonder how this lands with you.  Perhaps you’re celebrating your own use of a coaching style of leadership and everything that it brings to you.  Maybe you’re struggling to make time for the meetings, paperwork and blah, blah, blah that beset you constantly in your organisation.  How on earth do you begin to take time out to coach members of your team?  In case you’re interested, I came across another case study earlier this week, courtesy of The Harvard Business Review’s wonderful Morning Advantage.  Even without following the link they provide, I think Sarah Green’s commentary speaks for itself:

The purist in me loves this piece from Business Strategy Review out of London Business School. Julian Birkinshaw and Simon Caulkin report on an experiment they did with a sales team at the Stockholm offices of a major insurance company, in which they asked the team’s manager to free up two additional hours a day to, well, manage. She handed off some admin work, excused herself from less-important meetings, and spent the extra time giving more guidance to her team, both as a group and one-on-one (read the full piece for the details). After three weeks, sales were up 5% over the previous three-week period, low performers had greatly improved, and no one — not the manager or her direct reports — wanted to go back to the old ways of working.

But wait! you cry, Surely it can’t be that simple. Indeed, Birkinshaw and Caulkin caution that this way of managing may not be for everyone, and many managers “might be happier dealing with numbers behind a desk.” But, they say, for those who can handle the intensity of “full-on management,” the result can be a much more satisfying job and a much more motivated team. I’d hardly be so charitable; why are you a manager if you don’t want to really manage? 

Building your senior leadership team? You, too, are a member

Developing as a leader

Are you taking measures to build your senior leadership team?  If you are, you need to remember that you, too, are a member of the team.

Over the years, I have worked with a number of senior leadership teams to address various aspects of SLT effectiveness.  I’ve also had many more conversations with leaders who would like to see change in their team.  If you’re leading a senior leadership team, perhaps you can identify with some of the issues that come up, which include:

  • Members of the team work in silos and rarely collaborate.  When we have to discuss a decision, very few of them can think beyond the needs of their area to explore what’s best for the business;
  • One or more of the members of the team is in some way less than fully competent.  Perhaps s/he has strong technical skills but lacks the skills to lead or influence effectively.  Perhaps s/he is a whizz in his or her areas of expertise, but lacks insight into the business more generally.  At times, it can be hard to recruit members to the team who have the level of capability needed to be effective;
  • There is conflict in the team and unhelpful politics which reflects personal agendas.  One or more members of the team are trying to undermine other members of the team – maybe even the leader.  Managing the politics of the team takes valuable time and energy away from the job of working together to run the organisation;
  • Communication amongst team members is poor in some way.  Perhaps there is a lack of the kind of deep thinking amongst team members that is necessary as the basis for effective communication.  Perhaps team members are unwilling to share all the information they have as the basis for effective communication and decision-making. 
As I sit here, I find myself reflecting on the experiences I have had over the years of working with senior teams and on my own learning in this area.  One conclusion I have reached is that, without exception, a dysfunctional senior leadership team is led by someone who has something to learn.  Here are a few examples – with amendments made to protect confidentiality:
  • One CEO complained that members of his team never came up with any good ideas.  Members of his team reported that they’d stopped putting ideas forward because it was always the CEO’s ideas that prevailed.  They also described him as someone who dismissed other people’s ideas without taking any steps to understand them.  This CEO was consciously espousing a desire for his team’s ideas but his behaviours were contrary to his aspirations;
  • One leader was deeply frustrated with his team and asked for help to develop team members.  Yet the same team leader had taken a diagnostic that showed he needed to adapt his leadership style and include more use of the coaching style.  A second diagnostic, 18 months later, showed no change in his behaviour;
  • One CEO commissioned an audit of the leadership capability of team members.  The results for one team member raised concerns – his leadership capability was poor.  It was also apparent that, over time, the CEO had gradually removed any substantive responsibilities from this team member and replaced them with projects which could do no damage to the business.  This had been done without ever holding any conversations with the individual about the fact that his performance wasn’t up to par;
  • One Managing Director was deeply unhappy with his leadership team and seemed to be lurching from crisis to crisis.  Each crisis was deeply distressing for the team as a whole and still, as soon as the crisis was over, the MD went back to business as usual.  He found it terrifying to look at the fundamental causes of these ‘mini-crises’ and even more terrifying to consider that the cause of each crisis – or at least the responsibility for creating the conditions in which further crises would be averted – was his responsibility.
As I write, I notice how much I enjoy working with teams at this level and how much I appreciate the opportunities I have to sit around the table with senior leaders.  Right now, I have a space opening up for a new project of this kind.  At the same time, as I respond to invitations to discuss work with potential clients I am very clear about one thing:  any leader who is not yet ready to be Chief Learner in his or her team is going to struggle to achieve his or her aspirations to develop a high-performing, high-functioning Senior Leadership Team.  

Stepping into the New Year

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence,
One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask,
is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually true,
and whether the opinions we go over every day have any foundation
or are things we repeat to ourselves simply so that we will continue to play the game.
It can be quite disorienting to find that a story we have relied on – is not only not true
– it actually never was true. Not now not ever.
There is another form of obsolescence that can fray at the cocoon we have spun about ourselves,
that is, the story was true at one time, and for an extended period;
the story was even true and good to us,
but now it is no longer true and no longer of any benefit,
in fact our continued retelling of it simply imprisons us.
We are used to the prison however,
we have indeed fitted cushions and armchairs
and made it comfortable
and we have locked the door from the inside.


David Whyte

Christmas is over and we are fast moving towards a new year.  Perhaps, like me, you are enjoying a break.  Perhaps, too, this is a time for reflection for you as one year draws to a close and the next, like a blank page waiting to be populated, sits before us.

One man who knows what it is to step boldly forward is David Whyte, who has carved an extraordinary place for himself in the world, bringing poetry to corporate America, where he lives with his wife and family.  I particularly enjoy his recorded talk on leadership, Life at the frontier:  leadership through courageous conversations.

Being a poet, even David’s marketing materials are a joy to read, like the one from which I have taken the extract above.  More than many people, David is willing to penetrate the surface of life to engage deeply with what lies underneath, as he did in the letter to his followers, from which this excerpt is taken.

The passage above was particularly striking because it speaks to something which can both imprison and release us – the stories we tell about ourselves.  Working as I do in coaching partnership with men and women in leadership roles I find that it is these stories, more than anything else, that create the greatest challenges we face.  These stories of the self are particularly challenging precisely because they pass under the radar, unnoticed and unquestioned.  How would we think to do something differently when we think that the actions we take spring from an immutable, unchangeable self?

Often, our stories of ourself spring from our relationship with the world and with past events which have, we believe, shaped and moulded us.  They include a large measure of familial and societal – even workplace – programming, of which we are largely unaware.  We may look to those we lead to embrace change and feel frustrated by others’ lack of flexibility even whilst being unaware of those areas in which we, too, are unwilling to flex.  And yet it is our job to flex and it is our willingness to flex – even our willingness to flex the stories we tell ourselves about who we really are – that lies at the heart of our effectiveness in the role of leader and the ease with which we fulfil our role.

So, as you reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the year ahead, I invite you to consider the questions David raises in the passage at the top of this posting and to ask yourself what one story you tell about yourself – if you were simply to change your story and live life as if something else were true – would most transform your life?

In his letter David tells readers about a change he made in his own story and how it panned out for him.  I look forward to sharing how it panned out for me and also hearing how it panned out for you, too.