Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior analyst at an insurance company. I want to start building my leadership influence.

I know my position is not at manager level yet, but I think leadership can happen at all levels. I am also very young compared to my colleagues who are at the same level in the company. I used to think influence meant popularity (e.g., numbers of likes and comments on my LinkedIn posts), but I am starting to feel that this is not true.

I read in a book that leadership influence means how many people would follow a leader and change their behaviors after interaction with the leader. Do you agree? Do you have any advice on how I can begin developing influence at my position?

Future Influencer

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Dear Future Influencer,

This is a great question, and the topic could be a whole book. There are, in fact, plenty of books on the topic, most of which focus on communication skills. So I will try to hit some highlights, and maybe share a perspective you might not get elsewhere.

I agree that leadership can happen at all levels, starting with the self. I think the definition you share sounds right. Influence isn’t the same as popularity, and it is definitely not something that can be measured by interaction with others on social media.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary says influence is “the power to change or affect someone or something—especially the power to cause changes without directly forcing those changes to happen. Influence can also refer to a person or thing that affects someone or something in an important way.”

To boil it down, I think it means being able to get people to support you and your ideas or do stuff you need them to do, especially if it is inconvenient or isn’t really their job.

You might start by zooming in on three areas:

1. You: Who are you, and how do you add value to any situation? Get clarity on your own personality and core needs. Understanding others is much easier when you understand yourself because you can figure out how you are different from others, why it matters, and what you can do about it.

A great way to discover more about yourself is with our content on Essential Motivators. Watch this webinar to get going: Developing a Deeper Understanding of Yourself and Others. You will also want to understand what combination of traits, experience, and skills add up to being your superpowers. What are you naturally great at and what do you love to do that might be useful to others? You can use this knowledge to get involved with projects or committees in your organization that will help you find ways to contribute while vastly increasing your network.

2. Your Dreams: What do you dream of accomplishing (not job title or salary)? What kind of culture do you want to create around you? What kind of impact do you want to make in the world? What kinds of changes do you want to see in your industry? What is your vision for yourself, your team, your company? Do you know your values well enough to use them to make decisions? Do you have a personal mission?

All of these dimensions will help you begin to build a personal brand. All of these will provide you with a clear drive that people will recognize and be attracted to—because it is compelling to support others who are up to fun and interesting things. It’s great to be goal-oriented, but you want to aim for something more than just a title or salary band. As you aspire to leadership, ask yourself what will make you a leader others choose to follow.

3. Relationships: Connections on social media are rarely real relationships. Having a relationship with someone means that person knows who you are and will include you if they believe you have something useful to add to a project. You’ve heard the complaint about successful people, that “It is always who you know.” Well, it is true—maybe unfair, but true—because people can’t help you if they don’t know you. And they won’t know you unless you make sure they do.

The best way to increase the number of people you have relationships with is to create a Relationship Map:

• Identify the people you need to know—they might be senior to you, peers, or newbies. You never know what assistants might be able to help you if they feel inclined.
• Analyze each person. What are their goals? How might they benefit from knowing you?
• Make a plan to form a connection with each person. And I don’t mean on social media. If a person is very senior to you, maybe ask for a short meeting to interview them about their job—what they love about it, what skills it requires, what advice they have for you. People love to give advice!

If you find someone super interesting, ask them to mentor you. With others, try to find a common interest. This is where social media may come in handy. Talk about leadership books or baking. Get together for coffee or cocktails, or do something you both enjoy—hiking, taking your dogs to the dog park.

For more on this topic, you can find an articles on Relationship Mapping here and here.

You are well on your way, Future Influencer. The fact that you are reading books on leadership is already a great start. Warren Bennis wrote “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It’s precisely that simple, and it’s also that difficult.” You might want to put his book On Becoming a Leader on your list.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine, 

What advice can you provide about how one can develop more confidence as an aspiring leader? 

Aspiring 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

Dear Aspiring, 

This is such a great question. I have been thinking about it all week. The answer could be an entire book—and, in fact, there are countless books on the topic. But of all the good advice out there, what to cherry pick?

Probably the biggest thing to remember is that becoming a great leader is synonymous with becoming the best possible version of yourself. It will be a lifelong quest. There is no finish line, because the approaches and details will change as you grow. You will take on more responsibility and face new challenges that will test whatever certainty you think you have acquired.

Being a leader is mostly lonely, always difficult, and usually thankless. For all the people who appreciate your efforts, you will have double that number thinking they could do a better job than you. That is just the way it is. And it is a worthy pursuit. 

Here are some ideas for you: 

Learn from past experience. Ask yourself how you have built confidence the past when trying something new. You will notice a pattern of trying and failing, learning from mistakes, and trying again. For example, think about when you learned to drive. You started slow and small because mistakes when driving a car can be catastrophic. So, to start with, choose small challenges that won’t tank the whole enterprise if mistakes are made. The more you can develop a growth mindset, stay curious, and recognize that you are on a journey of discovery, the better off you will be.

Make a study of leadership models and theories. Build a library for yourself. It is amazing what you can find used online that won’t break the bank. You might start with Level 5 Leadership from Jim Collins’s book Good to Great—but there are plenty to choose from, including Transformational Leadership (Burns), Servant Leadership (Greenleaf), the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® (Kouzes and Posner), The Social Change Model of Leadership, the Relational Leadership Model (Komives, Lucas, and McMahon), the Connective Leadership Model (Lipman and Blumen), Conscious Leadership – my current passion – (Dethmer, Chapman & Klemp), and, of course, SLII® (Blanchard).

One of the finest resources that outlines leadership competencies and how to build them is a book titled FYI—For Your Improvement. It is based on the work of Eichinger and Lombardo that is now known as the Korn Ferry Leadership Architect. The newest version is expensive but you can find earlier versions at a much lower price. It is invaluable. It goes on and on; but with a little Googling, you can find them all and just dig in.

Sign up for any and all training your company offers. Take notes and commit to trying things that make sense to you. If and when you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount there is to learn, keep this past article of mine, “Overwhelmed with Leadership Training Content?”, handy. 

Define what leadership means to you. What are your attitudes and beliefs about leadership? What do you think is most important for a leader to be and do? We call this process of articulating your leadership values and expectations your Leadership Point of View. Creating one is a big job, and I can assure you it will be a work in progress as long as you lead people. But now is a good time to start. Think about the best and worst leaders you have had and make a list of what they did that you might choose to replicate or avoid. To learn more about this, listen to an interview with leadership expert Pat Zigarmi. 

Build self-awareness. Because becoming a great leader means becoming the best version of your authentic self, you must understand yourself. Well. What are you naturally good at? What are your frailties? What can you get better at that won’t require a personality transplant? How will you need to practice self-regulation to protect yourself and others from your weaknesses? Become a feedback junkie—ask for and listen to feedback, all the while asking yourself What if this were true? Remember, also, that feedback always says as much or more about the person giving it than it does about you. Therefore, all feedback is useful, if only to help you understand how you are perceived and experienced by others. The more you are able to understand what people say about you, learn from it, and take what is useful and what isn’t without taking it personally, the more you will thrive. If you succumb to taking anything personally, your confidence will be impacted.

Have compassion for yourself. You will make mistakes. It is the only way to learn. Share what you are learning with your team, ask them to forgive you, and explain how you will strive to be better. Ken Blanchard always says “Leadership is something you do with people, not to people.” So the more you can partner with people to be a leader whom others choose to follow, the more effective you will be. 

I am often asked if I think leaders are born or made. And my answer is always “Both.” You have clearly heard the call to serve as a leader, which is always the first step. If you end up being a great leader, it won’t be because of luck. It will be because of lots of hard work, research, trial and error, and self-reflection. There is ultimately no one right way to do it. There is a lot of guidance, but you will have to craft your own way. 

Cheers to you as you embark on your leadership journey. It will be fraught with danger, filled with learning, and, ultimately, if you don’t let yourself be discouraged, extremely rewarding.

Love, Madeleine 

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I have been managing people for years. All the companies I have worked for have provided solid training. I’ve always felt like I knew what I was doing—until now.

The last training course I completed was packed with great content, but it ended up making me feel totally overwhelmed. I agreed, in theory, with everything that was being taught, but I just don’t know how I can do everything I learned. I have a huge job and was doing it well, but now I am doubting and second-guessing myself.

Can you please help me to figure out—

 Where to Begin?

_____________________________________________________________________

Dear Where to Begin,

The biggest requirements for continual growth are a desire to learn and a growth mindset, both of which you seem to have in spades. So you have that going for you. Everything else is figure-out-able.

There are a couple of rules of thumb around how to change. Keep these in mind as you decide what to focus on.

1. One of the top reasons people don’t achieve goals is that they have too many of them.
2. Anything you decide to stop doing, start doing, or modify will require sustained attention—so choose no more than three things to work on at a time.
3. Find a way to track your changes so you know objectively that you are making progress. You might take a look at James Clear’s article on the benefits of tracking your habits. He is trying to sell you a journal, but you can use an app or make your own.
4. Get support for any changes you are trying to make. Tell people you trust—maybe your manager or a friend at work. The more you talk about it, the more top of mind it will be for you.

Now for what to change. I recommend you take a big step back and schedule some time to think, maybe outside of working hours so you aren’t interrupted. Sit down with your course materials and follow this process.

Before starting your review:

• Jot down some notes on how you have grown in the past.
• Ask yourself: Are there any areas where I have grown in the past that could use a little more attention?
• Also: Before I started the course, were there things I did, or habits I had, that I knew were keeping me from being as effective as I could be? What were they?
• Consider asking your boss or your direct reports for feedback on what they think might make you more effective as a manager or leader. This, of course, can be a can of worms—and in my experience, most managers already know what people will say. It is also true that feedback says more about the person giving it than the person getting it.

Now begin your review of your course materials. Look for answers to these questions:

• Did I learn anything that might help me with behaviors or habits I hadn’t been aware of going into the course? Start a list.
• Of all of things I learned, which felt the most relevant and/or pressing? Add these to the list.
• Did I formulate any clear intentions at different junctures of the course? If so, which still feel pertinent?

Once you have your list, it is time to choose. Some things will feel much more doable than others. I recently debriefed a 360° feedback report with a client and at one point he said, “Yeah, that’s never going to change.” I laughed, because, well, that kind of clarity is useful. And it may or may not be true in the long term, but it is definitely true right now.

Here is what you want to look for: What can I do that will make a difference and won’t require a personality transplant or heroic efforts?

I call these things “low hanging fruit,” and there is no shame in starting here. Most high achievers think they need to tackle the hardest things first; but in the case of professional development, this is simply not true.

Keep your list to revisit when you have made enough headway with your initial choices. The items on your list may or may not feel relevant to you in the future.

So give it some thought, make some choices, start with the low hanging fruit.

Tell others, get support, track your efforts. Be kind to yourself and give yourself credit for effort.

Remember: You can do it all—just not at the same time.

Good luck!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Tis the season for lists, and we offer ours: The five must-read blogs of 2021.

But our list is a little different. It shines a little light for L&D professionals trying to find their way in 2022. That’s valuable, considering that the past year has been filled with numerous challenges. Everyone is struggling to stay balanced and informed in the whipsaw environment of the pandemic.

Our five illuminating reads will leave you better prepared for the days ahead.

1. Designing Engaging Learning for a Hybrid Work Environment: Our 2022 L&D Trends Survey found that 53% of L&D professionals felt their virtual designs were not as effective as their face-to-face offerings. Ann Rollins, a solutions architect for The Ken Blanchard Companies, offers specific recommendations to lure learners and keep them engaged.
2. Keeping Your Best People from Resigning During the Great Resignation: The pandemic has unleashed a tidal wave of resignations. The cost to companies is unsustainable. Dr. Vicki Halsey shares six strategies to stem the tide of departures. One client found this post so valuable, senior leadership requested a deeper dive on the topic.
3. Does Your Team Know Who You Are as a Leader? Our chief spiritual officer, Ken Blanchard, shares what happens when people work for a Jekyll and Hyde boss. Then, in his inimitable way, he explains how creating a Leadership Point of View^TM  can bring positive results to a tricky situation. A worthwhile read no matter how your leaders are perceived.
4. Real Talk About Leading Hybrid Teams: Leading a hybrid/virtual team is different from leading an in-person one. Ask a leader now in this position. In this blog, Blanchard’s trust practice leader, Randy Conley, shares his 15 years of experience leading his own hybrid team. A timely read as the pandemic continues its unpredictable path.
5. 3 Prerequisites for Earning the Right to Coach Others: The ability to coach is what separates highly effective managers from average ones, according to the Harvard Business Review. Madeleine Homan Blanchard, master certified coach and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services, elaborates on the three mindsets leaders must have before they can become an inspiring leader/coach.

Dear Madeleine,

I recently had a situation that I now see I handled very badly with one of my second-line reports in India. Sandeep (name changed for confidentiality) had gone completely AWOL. This coincided with his direct supervisor (my direct report) going on maternity leave early. Her back-up person wasn’t in place yet, so it escalated to me. Sandeep had been totally inaccessible and had missed deadlines with no communication. His team was short staffed and the service was suffering. His team was in an uproar, people were mad at Sandeep, and things were going downhill fast.

I got Sandeep on the phone and read him the riot act. I have always been direct and focused on performance, which has always worked for me. Plus, I was stressed because that wasn’t the only crisis landing on my desk at the time.

Months went by and I thought nothing of it until my direct report returned from her leave.

As it turns out, Sandeep’s mother and father suffered life-changing impacts resulting from a critical COVID infection and hospitalization. I knew India had been particularly hard hit by the Covid situation, but the area where our office was had yet to be affected. Sandeep had been sending texts and emails to his direct supervisor, but of course she was having her own crisis with her pregnancy and was radio silent.

I have just learned about all of this, and I feel terrible about it. My reputation has suffered and I am being viewed as a heartless task master. How do I recover from this? How can I restore my reputation? Yes, I am performance focused, but I am really not a monster.

Recriminating

______________________________________________________________________

Dear Recriminating,

Clearly you are not a monster. I acknowledge your self-awareness and your willingness to take responsibility for causing someone pain and hardship. So many would just shrug it off and get on with things.

There is one short-term action you might take, and other longer-term ones to consider.

Let’s start with the short term, as in, do now: Apologize. Why is it so hard for people to say “I’m sorry”? It is a bit of a mystery to me. In The Fourth Secret of The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride share that people who can’t apologize derive their own self-worth from their performance and the opinion of others. Is it the fear of appearing vulnerable? Probably. Mostly, I think people don’t know how to do it. Or they know it will be super uncomfortable, so they just choose to avoid it.

Ken and Margret outline some key points to keep in mind when it has come to your attention that you probably should apologize:

• Apologize as soon as possible after you recognize your error.
• Be scrupulously honest and specific about what you did wrong and how you would correct it if you could.
• Let go of any ideas you have about the outcome or results of your apologizing. You can’t go in with an authentic apology hoping for a quid pro quo.
• Create a plan for how you might fix the situation you caused and share it with the appropriate people.

Long-term action is going to involve your taking some time to reflect on how your belief systems or attitudes about leadership and people influenced the way events played out. What might need to change to prevent such behavior in the future? Essentially, you have broken trust with your people. It might be helpful for you to take a look at our Trust Model to assess the specific areas that may apply to you. I love the way this model takes something that can seem very abstract and makes it crystal clear and tangible. Our model breaks trust down into four components: Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable.

It sounds like the area you could focus on is Connected, which means you care about others. This is the trust area I personally struggle with the most. When there is a lot at stake and a ton to do, the first thing that flies out the window for me is Connection, so I really empathize with you.

This area breaks down into these three dimensions: Benevolence, Communication, and Rapport.

Some questions might be:

• Are you perceived as generally kind and decent?
• Do you actually care about others’ well being?
• Are you capable of demonstrating empathy?
• Do your people feel that you have their backs?
• Do you schedule time and spend time simply connecting and conversing with your people?
• Do you communicate enough with each of your people to feel like you know them and they know you?
• Have you made appropriate efforts to develop rapport with everyone on your team?
• Do you look for opportunities to acknowledge, encourage, praise, and advocate for others?

If you really do care—and it sounds like you do—the next step is to take concrete steps to show it. (If you really don’t care, well, that is a different problem and I would recommend you examine that point of view.)

Start with your immediate team and then branch out to peers and your skip-level folks. Concrete steps could be regular one-on-one meetings and group coffee chats. I understand nobody wants more meetings, but getting together is a basic human need. Our CEO used to have a monthly lunch with everyone who had their birthday in that month. Our company got too big, and we had too many folks in the field, and then, of course, COVID. But it lasted a long time and made a big difference for people. Something—anything—you can do to simply spend time getting to know people will help.

Work relationships are like all relationships—they just require a little attention. Nobody wants a lot of friends who only call when they need something. You don’t want your team to automatically assume they are about to get yelled at when they see your name on their phone.

A couple of rules of thumb to consider:

• Unless you have previous evidence the person doesn’t deserve it, give them the benefit of the doubt. If you really can’t do that, your hiring practices might need some revising.
• There is always time to read people the riot act after you have ascertained that is what’s needed.
• When in doubt, ask questions first. What’s going on? is a always a good place to start.

All of your natural tendencies to be direct and to focus on performance will still be there, don’t worry. No one is going to think you’ve gone soft. People might actually perceive you as someone who cares—and honestly, how can that be a bad thing?

As solutions architect Ann Rollins, my colleague and friend, recently wrote in an email: “Tomorrow is a new day indeed, and we own our script. What are the things you have been thinking about that you can choose to do differently? We’re only here for a short time, friend. Let’s make the seconds, hours, and days add up!”

Well said, I think.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

The rapid onset of COVID-19 forced all of us in the leadership and talent development space to quickly create new ways of thinking, learning, and working; it affected every fiber of our world. In essence, the pandemic has forced the birth of new ways of doing just about everything, from parenting to schooling to working.

On the work front, organizations are being called upon to reimagine the way they do business, care for their employees, grow, and more. But rising tensions and stress cause people to withdraw from true dialogue or try to dominate it. The consequences are costly: Some 77% of employees say poor communication hinders their company’s ability to compete.¹

As a result, leaders became learners again, rediscovering how to build trust, manage in a remote setting, and engage in authentic, straightforward dialogue. Along the way we’ve gained more clarity around what’s truly important, found the ability to quickly change course, and become skilled at doing things that were once uncomfortable. We’ve also discovered new ways of building and fortifying human connections for living, learning, and leading in a time of unprecedented upheaval.

This experience has helped The Ken Blanchard Companies develop and refine a fresh, modern approach to effective, human-centered leadership development experiences at a time when effective leadership matters more than ever. Just like you, we’ve had to ramp up quickly to meet the changing needs of learners—and what a change it’s been, as we are now averaging over 500 virtual sessions per month! We’ve also accelerated our time to launch exciting new modalities designed to extend our ability to reach more leaders more effectively with human connections woven in. As industry has made the rapid-fire shift to virtual, in many organizations the human connection is diminished or completely missing. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to reach more leaders, to democratize leadership development, and to leverage what we’re best known for: building the most productive relationships between people at work using our timeless, enduring content that is beloved the world over.

It’s been a great opportunity to partner with clients to design new ways to reach individuals and leaders, distributed across locations and time zones, with the helping hand of smart technologies. The result has been learning experiences that are deeply rooted to our clients’ leaders and learners: who they are, what they do and when, and how they work. Together we’ve created experiences that improve awareness and capability, and move their businesses forward by imparting the skills their leaders need right now—not to survive, but to thrive.

I am a Solutions Architect, part of our Solutions Architecture Center of Excellence. We partner with our clients to co-create the perfect experience for your scale, timeline, technology needs, and budget. We begin our engagements with a design session that is collaborative and co-creative and incorporates the tenets of design thinking (specifically, Empathize, Define, and Ideate) to clearly understand your audience—in other words, who we are solving for. That who drives each set of decisions we make as we define the goals, craft the learning experiences for your various target groups, and determine how we will prove the value of our work together. Focusing on your audience early and often allows our design team to connect closely with the learner, develop relevant content, create context, and build world-class experiences for all levels of leaders.

We’ve been using this approach successfully with all of our content including our flagship offering, SLII^®, plus other core offerings such as Self Leadership, Blanchard Management Essentials^®, Building Trust, Leading People Through Change^®, Conversational Capacity^®, and Team Leadership. This approach allows us to create a common language and provide frameworks that are easy to apply from one level of leadership to another.

And we’ve packaged the content in ways that meet the demands of different learner groups:

• For small cohort groups up to 20 people, we’ve been suggesting Virtual Instructor Led Training experiences that will leave your leaders feeling as though they, well, went to class! Click here for a close-in view of how we “do” virtual learning at Blanchard.
• For larger audiences that need to learn new skills in a way that scales broadly and quickly:
  • We’ve developed a Collaborative Online experience that unfolds over time, usually six weeks, combining self-driven learning with the hallmarks of the best the classroom has to offer: peer discussions, application, and reflection, guided by a Blanchard expert. Click here to learn about our Self Leadership Collaborative Online experience and its impact on our most recent cohort.
  • Our new Interactive Keynote Collections target core concepts in a way that allows you to reach a large number of learners quickly.
• For more in-depth experiences, our Digital Learning Journeys provide a turnkey way for you to deliver leadership-level-specific learning, quickly. Many of our core programs are available in this format now and can be used individually or with intact teams.
• And to keep the learning at the forefront after the formal learning moments end, we’ve been layering in our sustainment offerings such as our multi-week SLII^® chatbot, called Kenbot^®, that extends the learning from the classroom into the flow of work. There is no easier way to reconnect and recommit than offering the chatbot as a performance support tool for your leaders.
• Blanchard’s Coaching Solutions provide additional rigor to all our offerings and turn newly formed skills into new habits and ways of working. Designs range from a peer coaching model that aligns to the journeys of different levels of leaders, to group coaching in groups of 8 to 12, to individual One on One coaching and executive coaching.

As we look to the future, it’s only natural to ask, “Will the classroom make a comeback?” That’s a question we all are asking. Our answer is, “Yes, in some form,” but what comes next will undoubtedly look different than it did prior to COVID-19.

We envision a leadership development experience that blends every modality, curated specifically to address the needs of your various audiences.

Perhaps it’s Building Trust in Virtual Instructor Led Training in small cohorts for your people in EMEA, the same content served up in Digital Learning Journeys with live group coaching sessions in the Americas, and again, the same content served up in face-to-face sessions in Asia.

Reaching further out into the flow of work, picture Interactive Keynote Sessions for your large, synchronous, global audiences on critical topics that resonate around the globe—or envision Blanchard’s digital licensed content served up in journeys your L&D team creates and presents on your LMS or LXP platform.

No matter what your learning platform, LXP, or LMS is, Blanchard can help you leverage your investment. We’ve incorporated much of our digital content and experiences in mainstream LXPs that scale the leadership development experience instantly. And for those of you with an LMS platform, we have a public API that can be used to integrate our content into your platform.

Learn more about offering our programs in plans and pathways on your instance. Together we can create a blueprint to build communities of connected, inspired leaders speaking the same language, as part of a unified approach to leading your people forward.

Our Solutions Architect team members are some of the most accomplished professionals in the industry. They can help you:

• Co-create a learning experience that meets your timeline, technology needs, and budget
• Develop à la carte options to fill in the gaps in your leadership development curriculum
• Create a leadership development journey that unfolds over time and incorporates Blanchard content, your custom content, and content from other providers
• Deploy a new leadership development experience on a learning management system, a learning experience platform, or other innovative learning technologies

I am ready to help. There’s a bright future of leadership development ahead of us. Schedule an initial design consultation with me or one of the other Solutions Architects to explore what the future of leadership development could look like in your organization. Or download our new Solutions Brochure. We’d love to share designs we’ve created for other clients and explore what your organization’s leadership development experience could look like.

About the Author

Ann Rollins is a solutions architect with The Ken Blanchard Companies. A modern learning champion with more than 25 years of industry experience helping form and execute learning strategy for Fortune and Global 500 companies, Ann always has her eyes on the technology horizon. Her passion lies in helping clients sort out the learning angles and attainability of technology in workforce learning and performance to build future-forward, human-centered experiences.

_{^1. Dynamic Signal, The Cost of Poor Employee Communication, 2018.}

We are often asked how managers can support direct reports who are going through a learning and development or coaching journey. As it happens, manager support is the most overlooked leverageable asset for ensuring the success of any development activity. Many organizations have “Develops Others” as a competency—and supporting people who are engaged in learning provides an often disregarded opportunity for managers.

It is an accepted truth that training is more effective when the manager is involved when their employees are going through a learning or development process. No one disagrees in principle. But managers already have so much on their plates, it can be a challenge to add one more thing. And what exactly can a manager do? Most end up being only tangentially involved, if at all.

Here are some ideas. If managers committed to only a few of these, employees would not only take the development opportunity more seriously, they would also pay closer attention to the content they are learning and be more likely to share their learning with others and apply it to their jobs.

It all starts with the Executive Sponsors—business leaders and OD/LD professionals. Ideally, they would:

• Craft and share the criteria for who is invited to training/coaching and involve managers in those decisions.
• Provide the business case for training/coaching along with expected outcomes and impact on business results.
• Articulate specific connections between learning outcomes, career paths, and job role aspirations.
• Attend an executive overview of the content with managers so everyone has a solid understanding of what their people are learning.
• Share examples of how managers can model behaviors expected from those who go through training/coaching. There is nothing so demotivating to employees as the suspicion that their managers have not learned what they are learning. We have lost count of the times we have heard “Is my manager getting this training?”

Managers whose employees commit valuable time to learning/coaching should also dedicate ample attention and time to demonstrating their support. They could:

• Make sure they have had conversations with each of their people about their current tasks and goals, satisfaction in their current role, and career aspirations. If the organization has defined job role/career paths, discuss objectives and manage expectations.
• Inquire with each employee at the beginning of a learning/coaching journey what their preliminary learning objectives might be, both personally and in light of job roles and aspirations for future.
• (For coaching) Provide frank feedback directly to the participant as well as in any interviews or online multi-rater 360s. Managers should be prepared to support any feedback they give and to provide more detail and rationale should the employee want to discuss this. It is not fair for the manager to hide behind anonymous feedback or hope that what is said won’t be taken to heart.
• Share what they learn in an executive overview and ask for feedback on their own behaviors/practices and how they do or don’t align with new content. Leaders must at the very least try to be role models for the behaviors they expect.
• Dedicate time in each one on one meeting to what the individual is learning and how it can be applied to their daily work.
• If all employees are going through training or coaching together, spend some time debriefing in team meetings.
• If only a few employees are going through training or coaching, ask each participant to share one learning tidbit per team meeting.
• Recognize and reward completion of development journeys and allow time in team meetings for each participant to share any takeaways.

Managers are responsible for creating a safe learning environment in which all employees can practice a growth mindset. People want to be seen and heard. They need to experience that their manager has their back, in terms of enabling both best results and professional growth. A little bit of extra attention to what people are learning and how they can apply it will go a long way toward ensuring strong return on investment of time, money and effort.

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 16,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

“Managers need to know how to set clear goals, diagnose development levels, and determine the correct leadership style to bring out the best in people. That’s a foundational management framework,” Blanchard says.

“But after that, managers need to take a deeper dive into the leadership styles we identify as Coaching and Supporting.  We’ve found through our research that 75 percent of the time, these two leadership styles are needed most to match the development level of a direct report on a task.”

“Most experienced managers are comfortable with setting goals and holding people accountable for achieving them, but they still need to work on providing direction and support along the way.”

Blanchard recommends that learning and development professionals add a coaching module into their leadership training curriculum. In his experience, a coaching module provides managers with enhanced skills in three key areas: day-to-day coaching, conversations beyond performance management, and conversations that focus on career growth.

“A manager who uses the coaching process can better guide a direct report in identifying a problem and looking at options. A coaching mindset is also helpful in areas that aren’t specifically related to a task, such as conversations between manager and direct report that focus on career or personal development. Managers have to get the work done, but there is an implied expectation that a manager will also be ready to help an employee see the bigger picture regarding their development—both personally and professionally within the organization.”

Trust as a Foundation

Blanchard recommends that L&D professionals also look at adding a trust module into their curriculum. He highlights the four pillars of interpersonal trust taught in his company’s Building Trust program—being perceived as Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable. Blanchard highlights the word perceived because trust is ultimately determined by each direct report’s perceptions and experiences of the manager’s behavior.

“Managers need to know how they stand in their employees’ eyes against these four components of trust. Good management starts with the realization that leadership is a partnership.  From there, you learn a mindset of service—because leadership is all about serving others in pursuit of common goals. Finally, you make sure your behaviors match your intentions. By participating in a curriculum that includes trust and coaching skills, you can learn to be the type of leader who always provides the right amount of direction and support and helps everyone win.”

To learn more about Blanchard’s recommendations for creating a complete leadership development curriculum, check out his full interview in the March issue of Ignite. Looking to learn more about bringing trust and coaching skills into your leadership development program? Join Blanchard for a free webinar he is hosting on March 29—Creating an Integrated Curriculum: Coaching, Trust, and Situational Leadership® II.