Dear Madeleine,

I am at a crossroads and don’t know which way to go. During Covid, I got a great idea and started a very cool online business. I did so well that a few people invested in my little company, and for a while it grew like gangbusters. I hired some people to help out and we’ve had a great team for a few years now. We have all made decent money and had a lot of fun.

Over the last year, it’s been hard to compete with all the new entrants into the same space—most have more investment funds than I do. I’ve been approached to sell to a competitor who talks a big game but really just wants me out of the way. If I sold, I would have enough cash to pay back the investors, call it a day, and move on. Alternatively, I could raise more money and try to compete by upgrading our technology, hiring more people, etc.

Over the last year, I’ve been stuck in front of my computer 18 hours a day because of this business. There are so many other things I want to do. I was able to prove my concept and keep myself entertained, but now I’ve really lost interest.

My problem is my employees. I really like all of them and worry that they will feel betrayed if I sell out and walk away. There is no guarantee that anyone I sell to will keep them on, and they are all perfectly capable of finding new jobs, but I don’t want them to hate me. I am starting to feel trapped.

I have made a pros and cons list and discussed this with my nearest and dearest, but can’t seem to make a decision. I am interested to hear what you might suggest.

At a Crossroads

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Dear At a Crossroads,

I deeply appreciate how much you care about your people, but let us remember that you started your business as something fun and interesting to do. It sounds like at no point did you think “I am going to start a business so I can provide employment to people for the rest of their lives.”

I learned something that has turned out to be true from reading The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber decades ago. He said there are three kinds of people who start businesses: the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician.

The Entrepreneur is the dreamer—the person who spots a need or opportunity in the marketplace and creates something new to fulfill that need. This sounds a lot like you. You created something cool, and are now ready to move on to other things.

The Manager is the person who craves order and is good at creating the systems and processes that will ensure seamless running of the business. They are good at spotting problems and solving them for good. These are the people who tend to buy franchises because they come with a proven concept and systems. Creativity is not required.

The Technician is the person who is very good at a technical skill or expert at delivering a specialized service. Think massage therapist or, as the example Gerber used in his book, someone who makes extraordinary pies.

To create a business that thrives long-term, the person who starts it needs to understand which of these is their type, and find partners or employees who are the other two types. Both Entrepreneurs and Technicians desperately need Managers because there will always be tension that needs to managed. It is extremely rare that a person who starts a business is equally gifted in all three of these required areas.

These distinctions have been extremely useful to me personally, helping me to see that I am a Technician with an entrepreneurial spirit. Essentially, I realized quickly that trying to remain a Manager in a business that is up and running is a terrible idea for me. So I have had a career of starting things (sometimes successfully, other times not so much) and then handing them over to Managers.

This is a lot of detail to explain that, if your entrepreneurial bent were strong enough to keep you interested in solving problems and truly scaling your business, it would make sense for you to stay with it. But it is eminently clear that you have already lost interest. And you have an opportunity to sell what you created to someone who is enough of a Manager to scale and compete.

It sounds like you have a deep core need for variety. Core needs must get met or they will wreak havoc on your life and your business. Why would you saddle yourself with something you are already bored with? In this case, it would be for sentimental reasons—to deliver on a promise that you never even made. That, my friend, is a recipe for disaster.

There are steps you can take to care for your people as best you can. The first step would be to have a chat with each of them, explain your reasoning, and listen to their thoughts. You can express your care and concerns while still sharing what is real for you.

You can, of course, do your best to encourage your buyer to hang on to as many current employees as possible, which I am sure you will do anyway.

Finally, you can put your money where your mouth is. You might consider sharing a portion of the sale price with your people so that they each have a little nest egg, or enough to tide them over until their next opportunity presents itself. Once you have paid off your investors, you can do the math and figure out what makes sense to share with your employees. I think this would demonstrate your commitment and go a long way toward mitigating the pain of the loss and change.

Nothing lasts forever, At a Crossroads. You must honor your own needs and your strong instinct that it is time to move on. You can do that while also respecting your people’s hard work, the fun you all had, and how fond you are of them. You can close this chapter of your life honorably and without regret.

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 had a big job and got a lot of manager training early in my working life. Then a series of events (I had a child with special needs, then another one, parents needing care, husband making enough to sustain the family) conspired to make me leave the workforce for about a decade.

I recently took what I intended to be a sales associate job in a large retail store. I wanted something that wouldn’t be too taxing and would bring in a little extra cash while my kids were in school. I was quickly promoted to a manager position.

I enjoy the work. It is low stress in that I don’t take work home with me. My problem is this: there is a rotating cast of characters in hourly positions who all report to me. The store offers a lot of flexibility, so we attract college kids on their summer break, young moms, retirees, etc. I have regular one-on-one meetings with each of them.

I have found the more I listen to people (something I am good at), the more they will talk. They tell me so much more than I need to hear. People call me at all hours to ask for advice, update me on a situation, or sometimes share good news.

My husband teases me and calls me the Doctor (based on Lucy in the Charlie Brown comics) and rolls his eyes at the number of calls and texts that come in my off hours.

I love these people, but I feel like they are eating at my life and I don’t know how to stop them. I don’t really even want to stop it, so much as control it. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this.

The Doctor Is In

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Dear The Doctor Is In,

I understand your frustration. As problems go, this is a good one. Having listening as a superpower is indeed a gift—but like most gifts, it can be a double-edged sword. This means your gift has a dark side and you have found it.

When I was training to become a coach and developing my own listening skills, I experienced the exact same thing. The more we listen, the more people talk. It is so rare to find someone who really listens—without interrupting, hijacking the conversation, making it about themselves, or outlining a solution—that once the floodgates open, it can be hard to close them. You have inadvertently stumbled over a universal law: the more you listen with empathy and compassion, the more people will talk.

I know the Doctor thing is a joke—but the fact is, you have been placing yourself in service to others. To be heard and listened to is extremely healing. It is no accident that millions of people make a profession of listening.

The question: how to control it.

The answer: ground rules and boundaries.

You are a manager, so it is fair to set the expectation that all conversations between you and your direct reports have a time limit and should revolve around work. Keep your questions focused on the job and the work environment and keep any curiosity you may have about the person’s life in check. Topics could revolve around these themes:

• Do people have what they need to do the job?
• How is their schedule working; do they need to make changes?
• Is there anything you can do to make their time at work more engaging or pleasant?

When issues begin to stray, gently redirect back to work topics.

It may be tricky to curtail your entanglement with people you already have a relatively personal relationship with, so focus first on new employees and getting the newest manager/employee relationships off on the right foot. Set your ground rules as expectations in the beginning when you explain what a 1×1 is. It will probably feel weird to you because you’ll have some habits to break, but a little discipline will go a long way.

Setting boundaries may take some practice. In your case, though, it is surprisingly simple. You took the job specifically because you wanted to leave work at work and spend your personal time doing other things (in your case, taking care of your family). I think it is supremely reasonable to reply to anyone from work who contacts you off hours with a polite and firm text message such as: “I am at home focused on my family right now, and look forward to speaking with you tomorrow when we are at work.”

For the people who are used to having after-hours access to you, it may help to speak to them about the impending change. For new people, you will set the expectation up front. For more on boundaries, I am a fan of the work of Dr. Henry Cloud.

It might be useful to think about what core need you are getting met that has gotten you into this pickle. Allowing your needs to drive your behavior isn’t a bad thing, until it starts interfering with how you function or how you want to design your life. The key is to find a way to get needs met that doesn’t cost you more than you want to pay. In your case, it is probably a deep need for connection and/or to help others. This is a classic psychological driver—and, as many people in the helping professions will tell you, the need for help out there is infinite. So if you don’t manage your own needs and set boundaries for how much you are willing and able to give, people will take and take until there is nothing left of you.

You have a big and loving heart, Doctor. The world could use a lot more people like you. Only you can take the required steps to treat that heart with the respect and care it deserves. That way you can keep on giving and still have enough left for yourself and your family for the rest of your life.

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 am a regional president for a global financial services company. About five years ago, I hired a whiz kid to inject some creativity and innovation into our use of technology and how we approach our regional customer acquisition. He is technically a genius in terms of IQ, and he excels at grasping key ideas and creating plans to execute them. When he started, he was also very good at creating relationships and influencing people to try new things with a minimum of drama. He quickly rose to be invited to join the leadership team. The projects he has spearheaded have significantly improved our business (which has historically trailed behind other, larger regions), and some of his ideas have been selected to be applied globally. I truly give him full credit for all of the success, and he has been well compensated for his efforts.

However.

I heard through the grapevine that at the last big leadership team meeting, Whiz Kid behaved very badly. (This was the meeting where the business unit leaders were tasked with aligning their goals with the strategy designed by the executive team, which includes other regional presidents.) He was heard by multiple people saying that he is the only strategic person in the entire global organization, including our CEO (who is world famous). He was negative about our strategic initiatives.

In our last one-on-one, WK told me he was insulted that he hasn’t been invited to join the executive team and he thinks he should be paid twice what he is making. In addition, he has abdicated from execution efforts on many of his recent projects, claiming that they aren’t a good use of his time.

I can’t help but feel that I have created a monster. How do I reel WK back in and get him to see that, as valuable as he is, he still has a lot to learn about leading others?

Created a Monster

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Dear Created a Monster,

This is a classic. It is easy for a young person who comes into an organization and adds a ton of value to miss the memo that they don’t know what they don’t know—yet. When someone is a genius and can do things no one else can do, what incentive do they have to slow down and assess the value of rounding out their edges and making an effort to acquire skills they don’t have?

It sounds like you might have strong opinions about what good leadership looks like, as do I. But I also know those opinions are based on our experiences, and Whiz Kid hasn’t had those experiences. You and I may believe he has a lot to learn (and he probably does), but he is only going to learn those things by hitting the ceiling that stops his success—unless what he knows and does well is so valuable that nothing stops him. There are plenty of examples of that in the news.

Look. You can absolutely have a conversation with Whiz Kid where you share your thoughts about leadership skills and what it means to be a good organizational citizen. He may or may not get it. He may or may not care. You don’t have much control over that. So you must be prepared to give him what he wants, reach some kind of compromise, or risk losing him to another opportunity.

Possibly you can find a way to create some kind of consulting contract so he can work part-time with your group and find other opportunities with other businesses to do the things he does best. Many geniuses who can’t or won’t play nice in the sandbox with others end up being lone wolf consultants.

This means you will have a decision to make. Hopefully, you can find a creative way to leverage his genius without giving him free reign to wreak havoc with your people.

By all means, do try to share your wisdom on topics such as paying dues, humility, and what makes a person successful in the long term. You may be able to “reel him in,” as you say. I suspect, however, that it won’t work. In my experience, the only thing that catalyzes people to change is when the pain or cost of not changing is greater than the pain or cost of changing.

You didn’t create the monster; the monster was always there. All you can do is try to engineer things so that you can continue to leverage the best from him—and, for as long as you can, mitigate the damage he might do until he jumps ship to test his wits elsewhere. He will find his limits eventually. Everyone does.

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 am an HR generalist working at a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). Our CEO started the company about eight years ago, and I have been his right hand since the beginning. He is a genius in many ways—high IQ, a deep intuitive understanding of the real estate markets, a complete whiz with spreadsheets and how money works. He has a dazzling intellect and charismatic personality.

When I first started working with my CEO, I thought he had a flair for hiring. He spots talent and goes to a lot of trouble to pursue people and persuade them to come and work with us. He now has an executive team that he has hand-picked over time, and he depends on them.

The problem is that he falls in love with these people and can’t see any of their flaws. He refuses to hear anything negative about anyone he’s hired (although he can be ruthless with everyone else).

We have a chief financial officer who started out amazing, but is now wildly inconsistent. She comes in looking like a million bucks, prepared, and brilliant one day, and disheveled and semi-coherent the next. I suspect a serious substance abuse problem or possibly a mental health issue. Our industry is highly regulated and having our books in order is critical. I believe our CFO’s erratic behavior is going to cause some real headaches in the future.

Our chief revenue officer clearly has something shady going on. He disappears for days at a time and his direct reports must either wait for him to show up to make pricing decisions or make decisions on their own. They are often frustrated because they are held accountable for closing deals, and, in many cases, they can’t move forward without him. This is now impacting our numbers—and when troubleshooting conversations happen, the fact that our CRO is AWOL most of the time never seems to come up. His direct reports come to me to ask if I know where he is, and I never do. I swear he has another full-time job.

Our head of IT has multiple personalities. He is amazing at what he does, but all of his people are terrified of him. I am also afraid of him. You never know who you are going to get—sometimes he is perfectly normal and other times he is downright mean. It is only a matter of time before someone files a hostile work environment claim.

There’s more, but you get the idea.

I have tried to raise these issues with the CEO. I have shared my observations in writing and set meetings with him to brainstorm how to approach these problems. He is now skipping our regular one-on-one people review meetings, not opening my emails, and essentially ignoring me.

I truly care about my boss. We built this company together and he has always trusted my input. I know he doesn’t want to hear what I am saying, but I am afraid at this point that he actually may be risking everything he has worked so hard to build.

How can I get through to him? I feel like a train is coming at us and he refuses to get off the tracks.

My warnings are falling on—

Deaf Ears

__________________________________________________________________

Dear Deaf Ears,

Well, this sure sounds frustrating. The Curse of Cassandra, familiar to anyone who is paying attention, describes the frustration experienced by someone seeing disaster ahead and not being able to influence those who need to heed the warning to listen.

I think many are also familiar with the personality profile of your CEO. I have worked with many executives like this.

At the risk of offending you, I am hearing that you have a fantasy that you should simply be able to walk into your CEO’s office and dump all these problems on his desk for him to deal with. Part of what is happening is that he doesn’t want to see what is in front of his nose because he already has too much going on. I suspect he also doesn’t want to face the unpleasantness of having to hold people accountable—especially if he is still operating under his initial impression of them, which no doubt didn’t include the reality that everyone, no matter how great, has flaws and frailties.

You have been with your guy from the beginning, and yet you call yourself an HR generalist. I wonder why you aren’t CHRO? Are you not a member of the executive team? If you’ve been there since the beginning, do you not have equity in the business? If not, why not? You didn’t ask me about this, but it might be part of the problem. If you haven’t earned the CEO’s respect after all the work you have done together, it might explain why he is ghosting you at this point.

I’m really not trying to make you feel bad, just trying to get to what is really going on here. If what I’m saying resonates with you, and you can spot the pattern of letting your CEO overlook your contribution, it may be time to cut your losses and find a new environment where your experience and smarts are appreciated and properly rewarded.

If I am way off on this, please forgive me, and let’s try another angle.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a senior executive say “Don’t bring me problems without some ideas for solutions.” I would be able to pay for a two-week vacation in the Caribbean. This leads me to suggest that you send your boss an email with the subject line: Some Problems I See and What I Think We Should Do About Them. Volunteer to do most of what you think needs to be done; e.g., the hard conversations that go something like “This is what I am seeing; what is going on here?” And if he doesn’t respond to that, it may be time to decide that someone must be an adult—and tackle the bad behavior yourself.

The question is: how much power do you have? If key employees are having problems, especially problems that are going to impact the organization, aren’t they in your wheelhouse? Are you not taking responsibility for what is going on because these people don’t technically report to you?

• If the CFO is acting strange, what is getting in the way of your sitting down with her and pointing out what you see and how it concerns you? Wouldn’t you say something if you smelled alcohol on an employee?
• If the CRO is AWOL and his people are coming to you, what keeps you from calling him and saying, “Where on earth are you and what the heck is going on?”
• If your CIO is awful, especially to you, where are your boundaries? As the head of HR and the employee with the longest tenure, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that you would say “You are acting kind of scary, and I request that you cut it out—and, for that matter, that you do not behave this way with anyone else in the company.”

Are you afraid these people will all go running to the CEO to have him provide cover? If that’s the case, it is time for you to leave him at the mercy of the train.

It sounds like you have given up all of your power. This has probably happened slowly over time. You have had your common sense and authority overridden for so long, you have gotten used it.

Oh. Oops. We’re back here again.

This is not the answer you wanted. I’m sorry. But somehow you have lost your power to influence your CEO. Either you have lost his respect (and because he is obviously loathe to confront anyone, he has not shared that with you), or perhaps he is waiting to see what you will do. Maybe he thinks it is your job to confront these people.

If your CEO won’t give you the time of day, you have to confront that. If you make yourself impossible to avoid, you will probably get a straight answer. Then at least you’ll know.

You have some big decisions to make. They aren’t fun or easy ones. But at least you are smart enough to get off the train tracks yourself. So, if all of your efforts fail, please do that.

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 was recently promoted to executive vice president in a company where I started as an entry level coordinator right out of college. I took advantage of the company’s training and generous education reimbursements, got an MBA, and rose steadily. I never dreamed I would get this far, and I am thrilled about it.

Until I am not.

I have excellent mentors and feel very good about my plan in my new role, but in the quiet hours of the night I have serious doubts. I worry that someone will do a double take and ask “What is she doing here?” I worry that someone will look at my college record and realize I did two years at a community college (to save money and live at home) before going to University. I worry that someone will find out I didn’t get a 4.0 average in my MBA program. I worry that I am the emperor with no clothes and that someone will realize it.

My partner laughs at me, telling me I am being irrational, but I just can’t shake this feeling. Is something wrong with me?

Feel Like a Fraud

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Dear Feel Like a Fraud,

Every so often, a topic flares up everywhere I look. In a week’s period, I heard the same theme from a colleague, a couple of clients, and an old friend. The theme is imposter syndrome.

That, my friend, is what you are suffering from.

Imposter syndrome might be defined as being dogged by a feeling that you aren’t quite as good or quite as smart as others think you are. It shows up exactly the way you describe: feeling like a fraud and worrying that someday people are going to figure out you didn’t deserve to get the award or the promotion or to have your book published.

I first encountered it decades ago, in my early twenties, when my then-husband was working as an actor in a new play by a very successful songwriter and playwright. They were hanging around together during the endless tech rehearsals and got to talking and she admitted she felt like a fraud and had no idea why she had been so lucky as to have received so much recognition. She said she worried that one day soon everyone would collectively wake up and realize she had no talent at all. I was struck at the time by how horrible that must feel and worried what it meant for people who hadn’t achieved any success or recognition at all. I mean, if someone that successful felt that way, was there any hope for the rest of us?

Around that time, someone shared this Winston Churchill quote with me: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

That quote kept me going, striving through crappy job after crappy job, and it sustains me to this day.

Much later, when I became a coach, I learned how common imposter syndrome is among very successful people. In my experience, it is remarkably common among folks who have undeniable achievements. It is not a sign of a mental health issue or even low self-esteem—rather, it’s a sign of impossibly high standards and of big dreams and ambitions.

Here is a little video that might be useful if this resonates with you.

The strategy that seems to work best when imposter syndrome rears its head is to talk about it with people you trust. Your partner laughing at you isn’t helpful, so find others. I suspect you will find that others share a similar feeling—people you think of as brilliant, hardworking, and wonderful! So it kind of reflects back that if others who are crushing it feel that way, absurdly, it is probably okay that you do, too. It will almost certainly give you what you need in terms of perspective.

Ultimately, I think it is probably healthy for us to sometimes wonder Am I doing my very best or am I phoning it in? Are we challenging ourselves to go the extra mile or are we coasting? Did we really work for the last stellar performance or did we get lucky? Maybe a little of both? There is no shame in any of it, as long as we are telling ourselves the truth.

I do think some feelings that come with imposter syndrome are mixed up with the confusing concept of who is deserving. Good things happen to terrible people. Terrible things happen to good people. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. For folks who have a strong religious grounding or spiritual practice, what we do and don’t deserve can seem pretty straightforward. But even those folks can have a strong “why me?” response to any event, good or bad. There is no way to establish what anyone really deserves. Personally, I have given up on the whole idea of what I do or don’t deserve because it ultimately seems subjective.

Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism, affords some useful insight on this. Seligman’s theory is that we learn to interpret events from our parents. Natural or adapted optimists tend to interpret bad events as random or the fault of someone else and good events as a result of their own hard work or good decisions. Pessimists tend to do the opposite. An example of this is someone coming out of the grocery store to find that a shopping cart has rolled into their new car and dented it. An optimistic person might think, “Wow, what is it with people who can’t put their carts away? What a bother!” while a pessimist might think, “Oh no, I should never have parked here, this is all my fault!”

I am not advocating we all blame others for our misfortunes, but there is probably a middle ground in which we can look at, and learn from, the part we might have played in what happens to us. It is true that people should put their shopping carts away, and it is also true that it probably makes sense to be vigilant about where we park when we care a lot about our car.

Which brings us to our collective confusion about luck. What is luck? Why are some people so lucky and others not at all? There is no law that defines who gets to be lucky. But I can share this observation about luck: to get lucky, you must at least have goals. Everyone who has goals attempts and fails. Everyone who has goals is wrong sometimes. Everyone gets lucky sometimes and everyone has strokes of terrible luck. So here is the other quote that has always stayed with me: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” (This one is widely attributed, so I am going with Seneca.)

As far as I am concerned, the only answer is to keep plugging away, keep your eye on the goal, do your best, and pray for good luck and the stars to align. And when they do, try to enjoy it. Don’t second guess it. Just say “thank you” and strive to be worthy of your good fortune.

So go ahead and enjoy your new role, knowing that you got it because you impressed enough people with your smarts, your work ethic, and your effectiveness as a leader. And go ahead and be grateful for the recognition. And keep doing your best, not because you are afraid of being found out but because it is simply what you do. A little self-doubt can be healthy. You should worry if the feeling of being not quite good enough keeps you from trying to do something you want to do and think you might be able to do. If you find it holding you back in your new role, it might be something to work on with a therapist.

Honestly—in my experience, anyway—the people who never feel any self-doubt are the ones who should be worried.

Finally, here are a few things I know for sure:

1. No one cares that you did two years at community college. Anyone with a brain knows that is just smart. You graduated with your undergraduate degree. Period.
2. No one cares what your GPA was in your MBA program. You got yourself a graduate degree. Period.
3. All anyone cares about is that you bring your education, smarts, and work ethic to the job at hand, and that you take your leadership position seriously.
4. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. I promise.

Okay?

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.

People want an empathetic leader. Many managers strive to be one. But ask someone to define the term, and you’re likely to be met with silence.

Let’s start with the definition. According to Merriam-Webster, empathy means “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”

The logical question is: why is being empathetic an important quality of a leader? It seems to have nothing in common with achieving tasks or succeeding in the workplace.

The importance of being an empathetic leader starts with the simple truth that leadership is about people. If you’re going to lead effectively, you must be attuned to your people’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. This translates into creating real partnerships rather than exerting power. It means walking alongside your team members and guiding them in the direction you need them to go.

Why Empathetic Leaders Are Needed Now

The topic of empathetic leadership has been getting a lot of press lately, mostly due to the adverse effects of the pandemic. COVID has bruised people in many ways: losing a loved one, losing a job, pay cuts, health problems, and on and on.

People are reevaluating their relationship with work in the wake of the pandemic. Some are deciding life’s too short to leave their spirit at the door and endure long workdays just to bring home a paycheck. They want an environment that nourishes them in a profound way.

The Empathy Deficit

Forbes says empathy is the most important leadership skill, but only 40% of people rate their leaders as being empathetic. It’s tricky to single out one skill as being the most important—anyone can argue that other skills deserve top billing. That qualifier aside, this statistic reveals a huge disconnect between what people want and what their leaders are providing.

But leading with empathy isn’t easy. If empathetic leadership were part of a college curriculum, it would be a 200-level class. It presumes that people have all the basics down—and many leaders don’t.

Leaders are often promoted to their roles based on their success as an individual contributor. But being a first-time manager requires a whole new set of skills—for example, emotional intelligence—that are more important than technical expertise. Many managers either haven’t had the opportunity to develop these skills, are resistant to doing so, or don’t have an interest in them.

When you add up all these reasons, it’s easy to see why we have an empathy deficit among leaders and their people.

Know Thyself

Becoming an empathetic leader starts with having excellent self-awareness. This requires doing inner work on understanding your motivators, your temperament, and your personality style. It also includes knowing your communication style, your reaction to feedback, and how your values shape your behavior.

The first step in your journey is investing in your own development. Once you are more self-aware, you can begin to adjust your leadership style to the needs of your people.

Senior executives play a pivotal role in this. They must put organizational resources behind self-awareness initiatives to show they are serious about developing empathetic leaders. Investing in training is an example. Just as important, they need to model the behaviors they want the organization’s leaders to demonstrate. They also should have caring conversations with managers who don’t appear to be growing into empathetic leaders.

Understand Others

The second part of empathetic leadership is striving for a good understanding of your team members. This includes improving your communication skills, such as being curious in conversations instead of being defensive or aggressive. It also includes learning how to eliminate fear in your interactions with your people—trust cannot survive if there is fear in a relationship.

Building trust with your people is essential if you’re to be an empathetic leader. They must know you are on their side and you mean them no harm. You must show them your role as a leader is to help them succeed. The better you understand your people, the better you’ll be able to serve them in a meaningful way.

Be Helpful

Finding practical ways to serve others is a concrete example of empathetic leadership. Our Self Leadership course teaches five points of power you can use to help your people succeed:

• Position Power: Having the title or authority to make certain decisions
• Task Power: Having control over a task or particular job
• Personal Power: Having interpersonal and leadership skills, passion, inspiration, or a personal vision of the future
• Relationship Power: Being connected or friendly with other people who have power
• Knowledge Power: Having relevant experience, expertise, or credentials

Empathetic leaders use these points of power to build up their people, help them feel safe and secure, and increase their confidence. When leaders do this, their people know they care about them. This opens many doors of possibility.

Be Compassionate

Empathetic leaders are compassionate and extend grace to others. They know how to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. But remember: organizations have goals that must be accomplished. Leaders must balance compassion with clear expectations that are understood by every team member.

Leaders who are empathetic place great importance on creating psychological safety—an environment where a person feels free to speak their mind, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of being punished or reprimanded.

Empathetic leaders also balance great relationships with great results. Ken Blanchard and I share how to navigate this tricky intersection in our new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. 

Simple Truth #1 in our book is “Servant leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships.” Many people have an either/or mindset when it comes to leadership—they focus on either achieving results or developing relationships. You can get both if you set a clear vision and direction for your people, then work side by side serving them in ways that help them accomplish their goals.

Set Boundaries

Empathetic leaders know how to set clear boundaries that benefit everyone, such as letting people know how many hours a day they’re supposed to work or that sending late-night emails is inappropriate.

When everyone has clarity on work boundaries—including rules and expectations—there is tremendous safety and freedom. Boundaries create a guardrail so people don’t unduly sacrifice themselves to accomplish something. Boundaries also promote autonomy. They let people know what they can and can’t do. 

An Empathetic Leader in Action

Seeing an empathetic leader in action turns philosophy into concrete reality. Try to imagine yourself as an empathetic leader who practices the following behaviors on a daily basis.

An empathetic leader:

• Asks rather than tells
• Listens rather than speaks
• Serves rather than commands
• Cares about people’s concerns
• Is receptive to feedback
• Doesn’t overact to people’s questions or concerns
• Doesn’t interpret concerns as resistance

When you demonstrate these behaviors, your people will be loyal to you. They’ll be engaged. They’ll give their best effort. They’ll be more innovative. And they’ll speak highly about your organization to their friends and colleagues.

Call to Action

At its core, empathetic leadership is about being an others-focused leader. It’s about leaders being in tune with the needs of their people and responding in tangible ways that demonstrate their care and concern. And how do people respond when their leaders act this way? They pledge their loyalty, trust, and commitment to that leader, which results in greater productivity, innovation, and creativity. Who wouldn’t want that?

Effective leadership is an influence process where leaders implement everyday, commonsense approaches that help people and organizations thrive. Yet somehow, many of these fundamental principles are still missing from most workplaces.

In their new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, legendary servant leadership expert Ken Blanchard, whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and his colleague Randy Conley, known and recognized for his many years of thought leadership and expertise in the field of trust, share fifty-two Simple Truths about leadership that will help leaders everywhere make commonsense leadership common practice.

The book covers a wide-ranging list of leadership skills certain to bring out the best in people. One of the things that make Blanchard and Conley’s approach different is the down-to-earth practicality of what they recommend. Instead of outcome or trait statements, the authors share leadership behaviors that get results.

How about you? What day-to-day leadership behaviors have made a big difference in your effectiveness as a leader?

Below are five examples from Blanchard and Conley. Are any of these on your list of simple leadership truths? Which of these have been powerful in your life as a leader? Which do you wish you would have learned earlier? What else would you include?

1. See Feedback as a Gift

Giving feedback to the boss doesn’t come naturally to most people, so getting honest feedback from your team members may be difficult. They may fear being the messenger bearing bad news, so they hesitate to be candid.

If you are lucky enough to receive feedback from one of your team members, remember—they’re giving you a gift. Limit yourself to three responses. Make sure the first thing you say is “Thank you!” Then follow up with “This is so helpful,” and “Is there anything else you think I should know?”

2. Help People Win

It’s hard for people to feel good about themselves if they are constantly falling short of their goals. That’s why it’s so important for you as a leader to do everything you can to help people win—accomplish their goals—by ensuring the following:

• Make sure your people’s goals are clear, observable, and measurable.
• As their leader, work together with your people to track progress.
• When performance is going well or falling short of expectations, give them appropriate praising, redirecting, or coaching—or reexamine whether your leadership style matches the person’s development level on a specific goal.

3. Admit Your Mistakes

If you make a mistake, own it. Admit what you did, apologize if necessary, and then put a plan in place to not repeat the mistake. Here are some best practices you can follow:

• Be prompt. Address the mistake as soon as possible. Delay can make it appear you’re trying to avoid or cover up the issue.
• Accept responsibility. Own your behavior and any damage it caused.
• Highlight the learning. Let your team know what you’ve learned and what you’ll do differently next time.
• Be brief. Don’t over-apologize or beat yourself up. Mistakes happen.

4. Extend Trust

Many leaders are afraid to give up too much control for fear that something will come back to bite them. They think it isn’t worth the risk to give up control. Are you willing to give up control and trust others? If you struggle to relinquish control and trust others, start with baby steps:

• Identify low-risk situations where you feel comfortable extending trust.
• Assess a person’s trustworthiness by gauging their competence to handle the task, integrity to do the right thing, and commitment to follow through.
• As you become more comfortable giving up control and learn that others can be trusted, extend more trust as situations allow.

5. Rebuild Trust When Broken

Leaders inevitably do something to erode trust—and when that happens, it’s good to have a process to follow to rebuild it. Trust can usually be restored if both parties are willing to work at it. If you have eroded trust in a relationship, follow this process to begin restoring it:

• Acknowledge. The first step in restoring trust is to acknowledge there is a problem. Identify the cause of low trust and what behaviors you need to change.
• Apologize. Take ownership of your role in eroding trust and express remorse for the harm it has caused.
• Act. Commit to not repeating the behavior and act in a more trustworthy way in the future.

Blanchard and Conley’s new book is being released on February 1. Would you like a sneak peek? Download this eBook summary of Simple Truths of Leadership.

Interested in learning more? Join Blanchard and Conley for a special webinar on January 26 where the authors will be highlighting key concepts from their book. The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Use this link to register.

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.

Dear Madeleine,

I run a small not for profit.  We are past the startup phase and we were hitting a stride, but then we had some big setbacks before our big summer season and all my people are melting down. I spend my day moving from crisis to crisis (in between talking people off the ledge).

I have been super busy getting us more help, but the new people need to get up to speed and it takes time.  I find myself snapping at colleagues and family members, and some days I just feel like walking away. 

I keep thinking, “I just have to get through this week,” but then the hard weeks just keep on coming.

How do other leaders do it?  There must be a way to manage this much stress. 

Burnt to a Crisp

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear Burnt to a Crisp,

When my daughter was in high school, she was talking with one her teachers about “getting through” a difficult patch and her teacher said, “Don’t wish your life away.” That really stayed with both of us. We still bring it up and remind ourselves when one of us is in the state you are describing. 

There always seems to be a fantasy that it’s going to get better—conditions will lighten up, things will go more smoothly, and problems will become easier to solve. 

But life just doesn’t work that way.  Okay, to be fair, I do know some people who have retired and do, as they like to quote, “whatever they want, whenever they want, all the time.”  But it isn’t going to help you to just try to hold your breath until you retire.  Anyone who is focused on achieving a goal—and yours sounds like a big one—is going to find themselves up against it on a regular basis.  It goes with the territory. And don’t think I am going to advise you about work/life balance. Forget about work/life balance. There is no such thing. That’s just another weapon for overachievers to beat themselves up with. 

What you need is your own Personal Sustainability Program. To build your own personal program, you can choose from some of these options, and any others that our readers might share in the comments.

• Cry Uncle: When there is simply too much to do—on your own list or one of your people’s—decide what isn’t as urgent as all the other stuff.  What can wait until tomorrow or next week? Defer tasks that can be deferred, even it inconveniences or disappoints someone.  Make sure to communicate if a commitment is being broken, to manage expectations.  People—all people, including you—can only do so much and no more. 
• Get Support: Talk to your family and ask for grace when you are snappy.  Ask for more help from them if they can give it.  Hire a coach, call a board member, and hit up your best friends so you can vent and problem solve in a safe space. 
• Take Care of Yourself First: Find the one thing that you know will keep you on an even keel and do it come hell or high water.  Your dance class, yoga, meditation, walking, listening to music, playing golf, whatever it is that will keep your head from blowing off.  Experiment with how much of it you need to stay stable—maybe it is two times a week, maybe it is seven times.  Whatever it is, make it non-negotiable.  I learned early on that hardcore exercise was my antidote to anxiety and I never don’t do it.  When my son was about three, he would stand at the window with tears streaming down his face every time I left the house to go my exercise class.  I felt like a terrible mother but also knew I would actually be a terrible mother without the class.  So off I went.  He is 29 today and doesn’t appear to have sustained too much psychological damage.  One of the industry’s finest coaches, Shirley Anderson—who was my coach for four critical years when I was getting my first coaching business off the ground—coined the term “extreme self-care.”  It is extreme not because it takes so much time or involves anything crazy, but because just the concept of taking care of oneself so one can take proper care of others can feel so extremely counterintuitive.
• Practice Mindfulness: Stress is a habit.  Treating everything like a crisis becomes habitual.  Cut it out.  Practicing mindfulness can help. It isn’t that complicated. It just means being curious and paying attention to our own thoughts and emotions without judgment.  For example, when you are feeling spun up, you might notice it and think, Hmm, isn’t that interesting, I am getting more and more anxious. I wonder what is going on.  Noticing when you are reacting to something in a way that doesn’t really make sense is a good first step toward mindfulness. 
• Breathe: There is amazing new research that shows that just taking deep breaths may feel good, but it doesn’t actually calm the nervous system down.  There is a very straightforward, simple way to do that with breathing, though.  It is called Two to One Breathing. You simply breathe in for three counts, hold for one count, and release the breath on a six count.  Repeat.  Or you can do two and four counts—whatever works for you.  I have been experimenting with it, and it really works!  One client mentioned that one of her regular meetings starts with that kind of breathing. Everyone feels better, and the meetings are more productive as a result. You might try doing it with your people when they are stressing out.
• Get Perspective: When all else fails, you can remind yourself that this too shall pass, things will calm down, people will stabilize, and no one will die today because you didn’t get to everything on your list. 

I am pretty sure I am not telling you anything you don’t already know, but, as with many things, there can be a big gap between knowing and doing. A wonderful coaching question to ask yourself might be: whose permission do you need to do what you need to do to take care of yourself?  I hope the question makes you smile, because you know who the boss is, and whose permission you need.

So, give yourself permission to be a human being and choose one thing—just one—to commit to, and do it.  I guarantee that you will notice a big difference in your ability to manage the stress, the crisis, and the constant busyness. 

Breathe. Three counts in, hold one, six counts out. 

You’ve got this.

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 was recently promoted to director of contracts and compliance at a global staffing organization. I have a great team, I seem to be well regarded in the organization, and I get along well with my direct boss and his boss, who is the regional CEO.

I am often tapped to lead or be part of special projects and am often consulted on issues that aren’t part of my remit. I never say “no” to anything because I worry that I will be seen as not contributing enough. I am haunted by the feeling that I just lucked into this position, and one day someone is going to realize I am really not that smart and I will be summarily fired.

My wife—a child psychologist, who you would think would be more helpful—laughs at me and tells me I have this fear because I never graduated university.

I know I need to get better at saying “no” to things so I can concentrate on my job, but I just can’t seem to get over this feeling of dread. What do you recommend?

Never Enough

__________________________________________________________________

Dear Never Enough,

You, my friend, have a classic case of Imposter Syndrome. I estimate that 7 out of 10 extraordinarily successful people I have coached have suffered the same way, so you are definitely not alone. The official research statistics are all over the place—but there has been plenty of research. I have noticed this condition can be particularly acute among people who don’t tick every box on the “expected achievements” list for the position they occupy—so your lack of an advanced degree is probably exacerbating your paranoia.

Here is a short TED talk that describes what Imposter Syndrome is and how to combat it.

The way I have always worked on IS with clients is to ask them to do a reality check. The first step is to ask yourself:

• Have I received an official notice from my boss that I am not meeting performance expectations?
• Have I ever lied about my qualifications and been afraid of being found out? (This one is a doozy—I once worked with a client who had lied about graduating from college and was, in fact, found out. It was embarrassing, but she kept her job.)
• Have I received performance feedback that leads me to think I am failing at my job in some way?
• Can I point to evidence that leads me to think others suspect I am not worthy of the job I have?

I suspect the answer to all of the above questions is no. If so, then, as I always say, stay focused on reality and let it go.

I recently came across a piece in a book that I think is worth sharing: My Friend Fear by Meera Lee Patel. Patel defines IS: “The imposter syndrome is the fear that our achievements aren’t deserved, that underneath our progress and success we’re actually fraudulent and unworthy. When we receive a raise or promotion at work, we believe we simply got lucky—it couldn’t be that our efforts and determination finally paid off.”

But Patel said something else I have never heard or read before:

“While this particular fear will do everything in its power to dismiss your successes, it also highlights your most intimate wish: to be a caring parent, a successful writer, or a trusted friend. The imposter syndrome affects those of us who wish to be of value—not because we are ego-driven, but because we want to believe we have something to offer.

Our doubt comes from our desire.

When you feel the imposter syndrome coming on, invite it to sit beside you. Close your eyes and feel the waves of self-doubt vibrate through your bones. Slowly, let them soften and subside. Watch carefully as the guilt your feel outlines the things you care about most in this world, and feel gratitude for your ability to discern what makes you feel alive. This is not easy work, but it is essential. Like all other fears, the imposter syndrome has two faces: one that can help and one that can harm. Which you choose to see is up to you.” (Pg. 87)

 I agree. Fear is data, and we can let it control us or we can interpret the data and choose what to do with it. It is amazing how common this syndrome is. The key is to not let it stop you. Fear is always there—you can depend on it. So you might as well make friends with it and take the gifts it gives not as truth but as an indication of what is most important to you. You can notice the fear, seek to understand what it has to offer you, be grateful for it, and put it in its place. I worked with one client who kept a small box in her briefcase . When she felt overwhelmed by her IS, especially before big presentations, she would take the box out, put her fear in it for safe keeping for the duration of her big moment, then take it out again and thank it for its attentive patience. It 100% worked for her.

Right now you are letting your fear—which is fueled by your desire to be a great manager and corporate citizen—control you. You are allowing it to push you to say “yes” when you know you need to be saying “no.” It is costing you; and if you allow it to continue, it could cause you to be so overextended that your job performance suffers and voilà: self-fulfilling prophecy.

Please don’t let that happen.

I am not saying you shouldn’t take on cool value-add projects that are interesting to you—it’s just that you can’t accept everything simply because your fear is saying you must. Again, a little dose of reality can be useful. Some questions to ask yourself when invited to a new project:

• Is this irresistibly interesting to me?
• Is there something important for me to learn by joining this team?
• Do I have something to add that nobody else can bring?
• Will I meet new and interesting people that will expand my network in the organization?
• Will joining this team attract the positive attention of people who can be advocates for me in the organization?
• Will I really have the time to devote myself to this project without my actual job performance suffering?

I would submit that you will want to be able to answer each of those questions with an unequivocal YES before allowing yourself to even consider accepting another invitation. I mean, seriously, I suspect your job is full-time enough. And even then, consider limiting your projects to a low number—like 2. A year. Max. Or better yet, take some time off and use that time to sit with your fear, make friends with it, and convince it that it is not the boss of you.

And tell your wife to be nicer. Your suffering isn’t funny, and she could at least try to empathize. Just saying.

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 manage an IT group—12 people—that does the tech stack for all supply chain management for a national chain of service providers. We also sell some product, but not a lot. I report directly to the CTO and have a good relationship with him.

At the beginning of the year, after much discussion and review by my boss, I presented my strategic plan to the executive team. They practically yawned. It was so obvious to me that none of them really care—they just want things to go smoothly. Afterwards, my boss told me he needs me to be more innovative in my thinking and planning. This is the first time I have ever received that kind of feedback. I asked for more detail, but he didn’t have much to say to expand on it.

I try to keep up with the constant change in technology, but supply chain management is a not generally thought of as a place to get super creative. I have been walking around thinking about it, and I have no idea what to make of it.

How to Innovate?

______________________________________________________________

Dear How to Innovate,

Well, at least this is kind of fun—I mean, not a pressing problem that needs fixing right this minute, which is nice. First things first: I do think you need to get your boss to provide a little more context for the feedback. Perhaps he wasn’t prepared the first time you asked, or he didn’t have the language to describe quite what he meant. I will say this: Senior executives in all sectors are experiencing the need for their organizations to be more agile, more responsive, and more creative to stay competitive. So it might be as simple as that—a general directive for everyone as opposed to something specific to you and your work.

The way around this is to ask questions that will help him to put his thinking into words. Here are some that might make his mind pop:

• What are you not seeing in my current plans that you would like to see?
• Is it that you need me to cut time or cost out the systems?
• Can you point me to examples of innovation in supply chains that look interesting to you?
• If we were more innovative, what would we have that we don’t have now?
• Do you want to see me express myself more creatively? Or jazz up my presentations?
• A definition of innovation is “the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process, or service, with the aim of improving efficiency, effectiveness, or competitive advantage.” Which of those dimensions do you think needs the most attention?
• What would a good job—me being more innovative—look like?

Once you get a little more detail, you will be able to make a plan. Of course, it’s possible your boss still may not have much for you. It simply may have been his reaction to the executive team’s chilly response to your presentation—he hopes you can make your future reports a bit more interesting. (For ideas on how to tell a great story to evoke interest and emotion with presentations, check out Nancy Duarte’s work.)

If you do decide to up your innovation, I have two approaches for you to consider. One is to increase new ways of thinking among your team, and the other is to focus on yourself. I suggest you start with one and see where it leads you.

Ideas to encourage innovation in your team:

• Explain the objective to team members. If you get some clear direction from your boss, you can use that. If you don’t, you will have to articulate it yourself.
• Ask your team to practice beginner’s mind. For you, this might mean looking at your entire strategy (which you are probably sick to death of) with a new lens. Ask yourselves:
  • What have we done the same way for a long time?
  • What could we do better, faster, with less effort?
  • What are we doing that we really don’t need to do?
  • What are we not doing that I suspect we should be doing?
  • What did we try once, fail at, and perhaps quit too soon?

• Start with existing problems or pinch points and decide which to tackle first. There are two ways to do that:
  • Start with the low hanging fruit—little stuff you haven’t gotten around to fixing that has a straightforward solution.
    • Decide to address a big, complicated, systemic issue that has been frustrating your team for a while.
• Run a design thinking hackathon. Design thinking traditionally has five steps:
  • Empathize (understand the pain point of users or customers)
  • Define (the problem)
  • Ideate (brainstorm ideas)
  • Prototype (map out a solution or a couple of solutions)
  • Test (pick one and test it out)

I guarantee you will hear things from your team you have never heard before.

Assuming your team is mostly virtual these days, if you don’t already use a white board app, there is a free one called scrublr. I have used it with a few teams. It works well and is fun.

• Run a contest to generate ideas.
• Create an idea board for your team, either on a Teams site or a shared drive, where people can post ideas—none of which will be judged as dumb or farfetched.
• Find a fun way to reward the ideas you end up using. Or the funniest ideas. Or the most out-there ideas. Or based on sheer volume. Or all of the above! Use Starbucks cards or get creative—even badges seem to motivate people.

Ideas to encourage innovation in yourself:

• Walk. Research shows that creative thinking and problem solving is vastly improved while walking, and for some time after. It is real, and it makes a huge difference for some people.
• Spend time with people who inspire you. Or read about them. Or watch movies about them.
• Learn something new that is completely unrelated to your job—a new body of knowledge or skill. Have you always wanted to learn to play the banjo? All about dinosaurs? Baking bread? Bird watching? Take an improvisation class? It may feel counterintuitive, but it will force your brain to create new neural pathways and increase the chance of an aha moment.
• Sign up for an advanced class on supply chain. Get more comfortable with being a little uncomfortable and out of your depth.
• Find an undisputed supply chain master and ask that person to mentor you.
• Keep a log of your ideas; perhaps in a notebook by your bed. (Don’t look at your phone in the middle of the night—it is the thief of sleep.)
• Question everything you have already done, everything you take for granted, and anything you spend time on that isn’t mission critical.
• Expand your horizons. Take a trip (if feasible) somewhere you have never been. Get out into nature. Take a walk on the beach or by a lake or river. Look out at an actual horizon. Go to a museum, or your local aquarium, or an art installation. Do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. (This idea, called an Artist’s Date, comes from Julia Cameron’s book and program The Artist’s Way, which I highly recommend for anyone who feels like they have lost their creative spark.)
• Eliminate time-filling habits—mainly: get off your phone! Stop checking the news, scrolling social media, playing addictive games. And delete TicToc, right this minute.
• Change up your work environment. Rearrange your furniture, get rid of ancient files that are taking up space and collecting dust, take all the old crud off your bulletin board, repaint a wall in a beautiful color, get a stand-up desk, get a little Zen garden and make designs with the mini rake, get a small fountain.
• Listen to music if you haven’t been, or different music if you have been.

The watchword to engineer a shift toward innovation is curiosity, which can be defined as a strong drive to know or learn something. So get curious. Even if you get absolutely nothing from your boss, making the decision to be more innovative will almost certainly make your work more fun and your life more interesting. Ultimately, it will only add value. And who knows what it could do for your career? Probably good things. You say supply management isn’t known as an area where people are super creative, but you may change your mind about that!

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a manager at a fairly new and fast growing software-as-a-service company. I have been managing people forever and nothing like this has ever happened to me.

I recently gave some feedback to a new employee I’ll call LK. Despite having received step-by-step directions on a certain task, she had done it completely wrong. The feedback was standard and simple—specifics on how to do the task: “Do it this way, not that way, for these reasons.”  She seemed to take it fine.

The next day I received a call from HR saying LK had complained that I am micromanaging and mean. It was like she had been part of a completely different conversation. I am a big user of SLII®, so after she was hired I let her know I would be giving her lots of specific direction and re-direction over the first few months until she got the hang of the job. Also, I made it clear if she ever has an issue she should come to me right away.

I am just blown away that instead of coming to me to talk about it, she went straight to HR. Is this a generational thing? I have always received good feedback from my people and have never had a complaint. I feel like she must be nuts, or maybe she has some kind of vendetta against me. What should I do now? If I try to talk to her, who knows what she might do? This has left me shaken.

Thrown for a Loop

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(Note: For the uninitiated, SLII® is my company’s flagship management model that helps managers figure out what combination of direction and support an employee needs to competently achieve a specific goal or task.)

Dear Thrown for a Loop,

Wow. I can see how this would be upsetting. I am not going to give you a primer on giving feedback—it sounds like you know what you are doing. But somehow, things have gone sideways.

It is always my job to ask what part you might have played in creating this situation. It is easy to think someone might be “nuts” when they experience a shared event differently from the way we do. And I guess that is possible—there are, in fact, people with mental health problems who wreak havoc in the workplace. I have had a front row seat to some spectacular wreckage myself. But that isn’t going to be helpful as a starting place for you. Assumptions can be such a trap. You might assume that you look and sound like LK’s Mean Aunt Mabel and she got triggered. Or maybe she’s having issues at home, wasn’t sleeping well, and the conversation was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Or maybe she was just having a spectacularly bad day. It happens. Is it possible that you missed some signs? Did you, in fact, ask “Hey LK, is now a good time to go over the process for …”? I know sometimes I get so task focused that I blow right by the signs that now is not the moment to offer a re-direction.

It is also true that some people simply have a really hard time receiving feedback. People who are perfectionists and expect themselves to do everything perfectly right out of the gate can really suffer when getting feedback. Younger people who are entering the workplace and are used to getting straight As in school may experience any feedback as a personal attack. Be sure when you do re-direct, the critique is of the actions, not the person; for example, “This way of doing it can cause inaccuracies” vs. “You are causing inaccuracies.”

Before you do anything, you probably need to loop back with HR to find out exactly what LK’s complaint was and what they think you should do about it. But, in the long run, if you are going to salvage the working relationship, you are going to have to have the hard conversation. I am a fan of our Conversational Capacity program, and you can also check out this book by Craig Weber. The whole idea is that you have to balance candor with curiosity. And remember, the person who has the power (you) has to create the safe environment.

Prepare for the conversation by parking your defensiveness and assumptions. Make sure you have privacy and enough time for the conversation. Get grounded however you can: take a walk, do some deep breathing, pray. Prepare to listen—and by listen, I mean NO TALKING. You can say your initial piece to set up the conversation, ask a few questions, and then just listen.

Start with candor:

My job is to do everything possible to help you be terrific at your new job. That’s what is important here.

• I am sorry you were so upset.
• I am sorry you didn’t feel comfortable coming to me to tell me you were upset.
• I really care about you and your success.

And then move to curiosity:

• Help me understand what I did that made you so upset.
• Please tell me what would make it easier for you to accept necessary direction from me in the future.
• What can I do to make it easier for you to trust me?

Make sure to share what you hear LK saying—not only so that she knows you are really listening, but also to make sure you are getting it right. Hopefully, you can both commit to some shared practices moving forward.

If you don’t feel safe, if she doesn’t feel safe, or if you believe there may be some underlying issue, you can certainly ask someone from HR to sit in on the meeting. You will need to take the high road at every possible choice point. If she truly is unbalanced and emotionally unable to function at work, it will reveal itself. Or—best case scenario—if it is all a big misunderstanding, you and LK could end up with a great working relationship and laugh about this someday.

Don’t you just love being a manager? Just when you think you know what you are doing—BAM, it turns out there are new adventures to learn from.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been reflecting on 2020 and have just read the document with my goals for the year. I may laugh someday, but right now I am sad and demoralized. I accomplished literally not one single goal I had set for myself in 2020.

I wanted to lose some weight and get in shape. Nope. I joined a gym around the time of the shutdown and was so gung-ho that I paid for the whole year up front. Who knows what happened to that money?

A couple of my goals required money, which I am making a lot less of now than I was a year ago.

I had some developmental activity goals for my kids, but now I am just glad they are still alive after being quarantined at home, with me trying to work and them doing online school.

My partner and I had big plans for a romantic vacation—that’s off the table now.

I am thinking of just letting myself off the hook for 2021. Do you think that is a bad idea? Or is it smart? I really feel like just…

Giving In             

__________________________________________________________

Dear Giving In,

I found my goals, too! But I did laugh, because I am in pretty much the same boat as you and I have already cried a lot.

So here’s the thing, Giving In. Think about all the stuff you did accomplish that you hadn’t planned on achieving at all: You still have a job! You haven’t hurt your children! You and your partner are still together! These are all massive wins, my friend. If you had seen what was coming and your only goal had been to survive it, you would be feeling pretty great about your goal setting right now. So I think you must let yourself off the hook for 2020—you and the rest of the world.

Now, what about 2021? I say don’t give in, because here is what we know about goals: under normal circumstances people who set goals and write them down simply achieve more than those who don’t.

But the wisdom of good goal setting also tells us that our goals have to be realistic. I’ve always seen good results—for myself, my teams, and my clients—when goals are a bit of a stretch, but not ridiculous. We never really know what the future will bring, so you can only set goals with your current reality in mind. Ask yourself: what does my heart long for that I could take some steps toward right now? Find something you can actually do with just a little focus and the support of your partner, friends, colleagues, and kids. Maybe it’s a fitness routine you can do at home. I got through this year using Aaptive, an app that offers all kinds of workouts for folks at all levels. Maybe it’s walking around the block three times every day. Or maybe there’s something you could do with your kids at the end of online school every day. Given that nothing will be all that different for a while yet, setting an achievable goal will undoubtedly make you feel more optimistic and hopeful.

I would recommend this, however: Set one goal. Only one—but one you can crush. Leave the long list for another time. Or never. The biggest reason people don’t achieve their goals is that they have too many of them. There isn’t much research to support that assertion, but I am 100% convinced it is true based on my experience. Let’s tell the truth about what it takes to just get through the day, adulting and behaving yourself, paying the bills on time, showing up for work and speaking in complete sentences, and making sure dinner will happen somehow (cereal counts). Then let’s throw a pandemic on top of it and all bets are off.

You will probably need to mourn the dreams you had for 2020. It’s okay to be sad. But making some headway on a new dream, a dream that makes sense in light of our current reality, will give you a sense of control, autonomy, and mastery that will set you up to be ready when the world shifts back toward what we once thought of as normal. And history does teach us that it will shift.

So make a list of what you accomplished that you hadn’t planned to. I’ll bet it is really long, and something to be proud of. Be as sad as you need to be for the losses of 2020. And then get moving toward something you really care about that has deep meaning for you. Enlist help from anyone who can help you. It will make you feel better, I promise.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I just read your column Feeling Overwhelmed in a New Role and I find myself in the exact same position. I recently took a role as manager, and on week one I started getting emails expecting deliverables. I came with enthusiasm wanting to bring positive impact, and of course my seven years of experience. But now on week four I already feel like I am a failure—like I am letting everyone down.

I have a to-do list the size of Africa and can’t seem to complete anything. I try to meditate and be patient with myself, but then an avalanche drops in. I am expected to make budget decisions and hiring decisions, and I am on my first month! And I feel that if I am honest and say “I need time to get it together—I can’t deliver on all these tasks,” that it’s some kind of cop-out.

I should also add that I have always had a sinking suspicion I am in the wrong career. But I don’t have a clue as to what the right career might be for me.

I am only 32 and already have early signs of hypertension. I am afraid this stress will either kill me or leave me with lifetime stress-related illnesses. Then I get so mad at myself and think, “Just quit!” But I have a dream of owning a farm and living in a tiny house. I am flustered and confused, overwhelmed, unhappy, and stressed. I feel like a failure. And I feel like I’m the only one dying in silence. PLEASE HELP.

Dying in Silence

________________________________________________________

Dear Dying in Silence,

I am so sorry you are feeling so terrible. It sounds like you have a nasty negative spiral going on, and every little thing just piles on and makes things worse. Hypertension at 32 is worrisome. Your concern that your stress level over your job might kill you is even more worrisome. Your sympathetic nervous system is on high alert, so you are in a constant state of panic 24/7.

Job one is to calm down. You have dug yourself a hole in which your anxiety has gotten the best of you. If there is any way you can work with a therapist very quickly, I suggest you do it. If you can’t, you might watch this really smart video that describes exactly how anxiety works and how to reverse the anxiety cycle you are in.

Essentially, you need to change your thinking. All your stress seems to be caused by your own expectations. My first clue was “dying in silence.” So, for the love of all that is good, speak up. Get a coach, get a therapist, talk to your boss, go to HR. SPEAK UP.

The second clue in your letter was “And I feel like if I am honest and say ‘I need time to get it together, I can’t deliver on all these tasks,’ that’s some kind of cop out.” That is a made-up story that you have to change, right this minute. And I mean right this minute. Honestly, if we were speaking on the phone, I would be raising my voice right now.

Who knows where you got that story—maybe your family of origin or a former boss. Or you came from a role/job where you were actually able to get everything done. It doesn’t even matter. All that matters is that is that story that will kill you.

You need a new story that goes something like this: “I need some time to get it together. I can absolutely do all of this, just not all at the same time, and not this week.”

One of the biggest leaps from being an individual contributor to a manager is that you never, ever get to the end of the list. EVER. The list just grows, reforms, and gets re-prioritized. Some things you will never get to, and it will be because they weren’t important enough or the person you were doing it for forgot. Either way, nobody will die—except, of course, you if you don’t get hold of yourself.

Part of what employers expect when they hire someone in a management position is that the person will have enough experience to structure their time and manage expectations given all of the demands placed upon them. So all of these crazy demands are being made of you. It is up to you to create a plan for what you can accomplish by when, and to communicate this plan to whoever needs to know. You don’t mention a boss. Presumably you have one who is not helping you prioritize—or perhaps you are not communicating your lack of clarity about priorities, timelines and expectations. If you haven’t asked your boss for help, they are going to be awfully surprised when you drop dead of a heart attack because for some reason you thought you had to be superwoman.

 It isn’t copping out to stop, think, plan, prioritize, and communicate on timelines—it is being a responsible human being. You are 32. There is a good chance that up until now you have been a “good girl” your whole life. You lived up to everyone’s expectations of you, got good grades, got a good a job in which you crushed it—which is why you got promoted into a situation where you now have to let go of that good-girl persona and stop trying to be all things to all people and perfect at all times. One of the hardest things to learn at your stage of adult development is that you will absolutely, positively disappoint people. I promise it won’t kill you. But you can also disappoint people less by properly managing their expectations and not making promises you can’t keep.

So. It’s time to take a step back and get a grip. Make a mind map of the avalanche—everything that needs to be done, everything others ask of you, everything you think you need to do. Get it all out of your head and on a piece of flip chart paper. Then organize it: break down each thing into the smallest possible tasks and create a timeline for each one. Decide what you think needs to be done first, and if you aren’t sure, ask the person who is waiting for the deliverable. Once you have your list, send it to your boss with a note that says: “This is everything that needs to be done, in priority order. If you disagree with my plan please let me know; otherwise I will proceed according to this plan.” Any new deliverables asked of you get put into the plan. If someone tells you something is urgent, ask your boss if you can bump something else. Or better yet, just say no. People will happily fob off their late requests or emergencies of their own making on to you if you let them. And, because you are the new kid, there is a good chance that people around you are testing to see to what extent they can push you around to get what they want when they want it. It isn’t their job to know how much you have on your plate and what you can and can’t do. It is yours.

Once you have calmed down and brought your new job into some kind of perspective, you can think about the fact that you may be in the wrong career. You may very well be—but I guarantee you have a better chance of figuring that out while you have a job and can pay your bills. If you up and quit, it will create a whole host of new problems that will cause new kinds of anxiety. And once you can think straight, maybe you will see how you can get to where you want to be from where you are.

It is hard to be creative when you feel like you are dying. One of my dearest coach friends, Laura Berman Fortgang, has a terrific system called Now What? to help people who suspect they are on the wrong road find the one that is right for them. You have plenty of time. I know you don’t feel that way, but truly, you do. And if you don’t face your demons head on in the situation you’re in right now, you will simply take them with you to your next situation.

Your dream of owning a farm and living in a tiny house is beautiful, and there is no reason that you can’t make a long-term plan to achieve it. But. I know some farmers, and the workload is never ending and backbreaking. And then, of course, there are massive forces out of your control to contend with, like weather. You can’t risk having a heart attack because there is too much rain. You will enjoy your dream a lot more if, when you do realize it, you have done the hard work of learning to manage priorities, getting the right kind of help, and devising standards for yourself that you can live with.

Next steps:

1. Calm down. Understand how your brain works and how to interrupt the downward anxiety spiral you are in.
2. Speak up. Get some help, any way you can. Now. You will not get fired because people around you realize you are a regular (albeit super competent) human being.
3. Change your story about what a cop-out is. Please. Please. Please.
4. Once you have settled down, start doing some career exploration.
5. Then, and only then, create your long-term plan to be a tiny house dweller with a charming farm.

My heart aches for you, Dying in Silence. I only wish your situation weren’t so common. The suffering is rampant. But the power is in your hands and you must use it to save yourself. You must.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been on sick leave for the last few months. Before that, I worked as an essential medical worker—administrative, not patient care—in a big city. It was intense. We had big refrigerated morgue trucks in the parking lot, and it felt like no one who was not in medicine understood quite how crazy things were.

I did, in fact, contract COVID and was sick, but I recovered fairly quickly. I am now on sick leave because of a chronic condition that I now realize was very much exacerbated by the stress of my job—and by the fact that my former boss was really, really mean.

I was told before I went on sick leave that I was being let go from the job that I had, but would be eligible to apply for other jobs in the hospital. I am not worried about finding a job. I am really good at a very narrow specialty and there are few people who can do what I do. But now that I’ve had some time to step back a little, I realize how awful my boss was to me. He was a bully who believed that my condition was all in my head and I just used it as a ploy to get sympathy. He even made fun of me in staff meetings. I laughed it off at the time, but now I see how wildly inappropriate his behavior was.

Now I’m wondering about myself. What on earth is it about me that allowed that ugliness? Am I just a victim? And how do I prevent that in my next job? Should I even try to go back to the hospital? Should I confront the bully? I keep going in circles and not getting anywhere. Any ideas you might have would be welcome.

At a Crossroads

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear At a Crossroads,

Well, wow. I am always amazed at what people are capable of. Look at what you have been through, At a Crossroads, and yet here you are picking yourself up off the floor and getting ready to fling yourself back out there. My hat is off to you: your resilience, your courage, your clarity about what happened, and your self-awareness and willingness to wonder what part you might have played in how things went down.

Let’s get you out of circles and moving toward some action, shall we? I’ll address your excellent questions in order:

What on earth is it about you that allowed that ugliness? Are you just a victim? I ask: Indeed. Are you? Only you can tell, since you would have to look at your history. Has this ever happened before? If yes, is it a pattern? If yes, then you definitely will want to find a good therapist and take a good hard look at what is going on and how you can break the pattern. If no, this is an isolated incident, it’s possible you never really noticed how messed up things were because there was so much other crazy stuff going on.

Adults who are targets for bullies tend to be people who stand out because they are super competent, nice, and a little isolated. But most important, they don’t draw boundaries or fight back. You can read about another situation here. Many bullies will cease and desist when the person they are picking on simply says something like, “Are you serious right now?” or “That really hurts my feelings,” or “Wow, that is just mean. Are you trying to be mean?” Some people who are perceived as bullies are, in fact, bad people—but some are simply oblivious and have no idea how their behavior impacts others until someone calls it out.

How do you prevent this kind of thing in the future? If this isn’t a pattern, you are probably going to be fine. You will have your spidey sense up in the future and it will never happen again. You can certainly vet your next boss by asking questions about their leadership style and what is important to them. And you can also not accept a new position until after you have interviewed others who work for the potential boss.

Should you try to go back to the hospital? If you think you can stay out of Mr. Meanie’s way, sure. But think about the big picture. If you start from scratch, you will be able to research culture, training programs, and leadership development programs of different hospitals to find a place where leadership matters. Also, you can check out things like location, pay, benefits, and opportunity for advancement. Why not go for your perfect job? Or, if everything at your last position was perfect except for your boss, why not go back?

Should you confront the bully? Maybe. You would have to decide what you want to get out of it. Most fantasy scenarios never play out in real life. If you think your bully might be open to hearing feedback on how his behavior impacted you, it might be useful. But you will want to prepare really well. Some thoughts on that here. But honestly—why bother? It isn’t your problem anymore, and it doesn’t sound like you owe the bully anything. Giving feedback is a gift. I will only do it if it’s my job. No good deed goes unpunished—and, in this case, that will almost certainly be true. Perhaps you want an apology? You would need to ask for one directly, and even then, it is a long shot. If it is closure you want, you might consider writing a letter outlining your experience. Write it out point by point—what happened and how it made you feel. Then you can decide if you want to send it. Just writing it will help you get it out of your head, and hopefully let it go. The carefully crafted, heartfelt letter that is never sent is a beautiful recovery tool.

One note about your condition. Is it possible you would qualify as someone with a disability so that you would have protections in the future? It might be worth looking into. And if your condition is brought on by stress, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that you would be well served to explore stress management skills; meditation, mindfulness, prayer, yoga, exercise, getting a pet. All proven to help people reduce stress.

Sail on, At a Crossroads. Take care of yourself and go forth and find your perfect spot where you can do your special job beautifully for a nice boss who appreciates you.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Over the years, I’ve talked with thousands of people about servant leadership. Every so often somebody will come up to me after a speech and say to me, “You know, Ken, the style of leadership you just talked about is exactly the way I’ve been leading people for years—I just didn’t know there was a name for it! I’m a servant leader!”

Are you one of those people who think they might be a servant leader but aren’t sure? Let’s find out.

What Is Servant Leadership?

Robert Greenleaf first coined the term servant leadership in 1970 and published widely on the concept for the next twenty years. Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela are examples of great leaders who practiced this philosophy. If you think you couldn’t be in that kind of company, read on!

When some people hear the phrase servant leadership, they are confused. They think it means managers should be working for their people, who would make all the decisions. If that’s what servant leadership is all about, it doesn’t sound like leadership to them at all. It sounds more like the inmates running the prison, or trying to please everyone.

The problem is that these folks don’t think you can lead and serve at the same time. But you can, if you understand that servant leadership has two parts: vision/direction and implementation. In the visionary role, the traditional hierarchical pyramid is in place. Leaders are responsible for communicating what the organization stands for and what it wants to accomplish. While these leaders should involve experienced people in shaping direction, the ultimate responsibility cannot be delegated to others. This visionary role is the leadership aspect of servant leadership.

Implementation is where the servant aspect of servant leadership comes into play. Once people are clear on where they are going, the role of an organizational leader shifts to a service mindset for implementation. If you are a servant leader, you now philosophically turn the traditional pyramid upside-down and you work for your people. Your purpose is to help them accomplish established goals, solve problems, and live according to the vision.

Sound familiar yet?

Two Examples of Servant Leadership

To me, servant leadership is the only way to guarantee great relationships and great results. That became even more clear when I realized that the two leadership approaches I am best known for around the world—The One Minute Manager^® and SLII^®—are both examples of servant leadership in action.

If you’re familiar with the book The One Minute Manager, you may remember that his First Secret is One Minute Goals. All good performance starts with clear goals—part of the leadership aspect of servant leadership. Once people are clear on goals, an effective One Minute Manager wanders around, trying to catch people doing something right and deliver the Second Secret: One Minute Praisings. If someone is not performing as well as agreed upon, a One Minute Re-Direct—the Third Secret—is appropriate. When an effective One Minute Manager delivers praisings and re-directs, they are engaging in the servant aspect of servant leadership—working for their people to help them accomplish their goals.

SLII^® also has three keys that lead to great relationships and great results: goal setting, diagnosis, and matching. Once clear goals are set, an effective SLII^® leader works situationally with each direct report to diagnose that person’s development level (competence and commitment) on each specific task or goal. Then the two work together to determine the leadership style (amount of directive and supportive behavior) that matches the direct report’s development level so that the person can accomplish their goals. The key here is for managers to remember they must use different strokes for different folks and also different strokes for the same folks, depending on the goal and the person’s development level.

Why are the concepts of The One Minute Manager and SLII^® so widely used around the world? Because they exemplify servant leadership in action. Both concepts recognize that the leadership aspect of servant leadership—vision/direction—is the responsibility of the traditional hierarchy, and the servant aspect of servant leadership—implementation—is all about turning the hierarchy upside down and helping people achieve their goals. If you think about how many people have learned and put into practice the leadership lessons from The One Minute Manager or from SLII^® training, it’s easy to envision innumerable servant leaders serving people all over the world—and many of them still unfamiliar with the term.

Are You a Servant Leader?

If you’re still on the fence about your status, here’s a quick and fun way to determine whether you have been unconsciously practicing some of a servant leader’s qualities and behaviors.

You might be a servant leader—IF you…

• listen more than you talk
• think more about other people’s success than your own
• know all the brains aren’t in your office
• ask others for feedback on a regular basis
• empower others to make decisions without you
• love to catch people doing things right
• share information about yourself with others
• love to celebrate success
• empathize when things get tough
• consider mistakes to be learning opportunities
• wouldn’t ask your people to do something you wouldn’t do yourself

If you had a few “aha” moments while reading this blog post, it’s likely you are already a servant leader or well on your way to becoming one. Welcome! As you can see, servant leadership is not just another management technique. I call it an “inside-out job” because it is a way of life for people with servant hearts. In organizations run by servant leaders, servant leadership becomes a mandate, not a choice—and the byproducts are better leadership, engaged employees, raving fan customers, and a high performing organization. In other words, servant leadership is the best way to get both great relationships and great results.

Want to learn more about our people-centered approach to leadership? Download a free 60-page summary of Leading at a Higher Level. It’s available for free on The Ken Blanchard Companies’ website and it contains the best thinking from the founding associates and consulting partners of our company.

Use this link to access the summary.

Hi Madeleine,

I just got off the phone and immediately realized that I need some help. I spoke to an employee in a way I am ashamed of. I didn’t yell or flip my lid, but I was curt, demanding, and unsympathetic, and I interrupted him several times.

I have some things going on in my life that have me down in the dumps. I’m beginning to get impatient with my employees because they ask so many questions and eat up so much of my time. This is not me. I consider myself a very supportive manager and a happy person under normal circumstances.

I’m hoping you can give me some advice on how to leave my personal issues at the door so that I can avoid speaking to my employees in a way I will regret.

Need to Nip it in the Bud

Dear Need to Nip,

Thank you for this beautiful letter. I am sorry you are having such a hard time. I hate it when I am not my best self! Of course, it is a 24/7 job to stay on my game—as it is for most people.

You are only human. Please cut yourself some slack. These are hard times: pandemic, civil unrest, election, fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes. Anything extra going on in your personal life can tip the scale.

Before you do anything else, contact your employee and apologize for having a bad moment. It doesn’t have to be a big deal—but a little apology can go a long way. Just send an email or a card. I have a small supply of cards that I use for apologies. This could relieve your remorse in the short term.

In the long term, though, it is important to get to the crux of what has put you so off center. I think there are two sides to consider here. One is that your employees are asking too many questions and taking up too much of your time. The other is that you want to be better at compartmentalization so that you are able to leave your irritation at the door.

Your employees. It might be true that you had a bad day, your employee just needed to vent and whine, and it was an isolated incident. I always thought my whole team melted down on my worst days. But it is also possible that your employees are actually annoying and when you are feeling on top of your game you don’t notice it. As a resilient, high energy person, it can be easy to let bad behavior slide off your back. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Your bad days can be the gift that helps you see that maybe you shouldn’t be so easy going. You may actually be tolerating and allowing behaviors that you shouldn’t.

Ask yourself: How have I allowed my employees to become so dependent? What could I do to get them going in the opposite direction?

Perhaps you could invest some time in making sure that each employee knows exactly what their tasks are, and exactly what a good job looks like. It works really well when you have employees set up regular 1×1 meetings with you. The 1×1 is their meeting time with you and they can do whatever they want with it. Make sure they drive the scheduling of it and send you a brief agenda before the meeting. They must understand that this is their time—if they squander it by not preparing, they will have to wait until the next meeting.

If your employees are asking too many questions, it may be because they are looking for certainty. You may want to have a Q & A with the whole team about whatever is uncertain, using a team chat or email.

You. What are “normal circumstances”? What is keeping you from being your happy self? It’s one thing to leave your personal life at the door; it’s another to put it into perspective. If you are pushed so far off center, it is probably one—or a combination—of these three things:

Your needs aren’t being met. You were getting a core need met in your personal life, and something has changed and that need is no longer being met. A core psychological need is one that must be fulfilled for you to feel 100% functional. The current theory on needs is that we all share three: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Additional theories hold that every individual has needs that are specific to them as part of their temperament or their individual makeup. From a coaching standpoint, the more you set up your life to get your needs met, the more energy you have to fling yourself at your goals. Needs can be tricky. It’s hard to notice a need when it is being met, and that’s why people who have mastered getting their needs met seem so even keeled. Your meltdown moment provides an opportunity to examine what need wasn’t getting met leading up to it. You may know exactly what it is, or it may be news to you. If you do identify it as a needs issue, ask yourself how you could get it met in a new way. Ask your friends and loved ones for help. Getting your needs properly met is not really optional; it is something you must do as a prerequisite for being the person you want to be and having the life you want.

You have too many tolerations. You are tolerating entirely too much in your personal life. Ask yourself: What am I putting up with? If each toleration is a marble in your pocket, one or two is easy. Twenty-five is a problem. (You can read about how we allow tolerations to accumulate here). Make a list of everything you are putting up with and figure out what you can fix, delegate to someone else to fix, or shift to make it more tolerable. More detail on how to eliminate tolerations here.

Your self-care is out of whack. Your normal self-care routine has been disrupted. Self-regulation is 100% dependent on our pre-frontal cortex (PFC). This part of your brain is located right behind your forehead, and is the seat of judgment, choice, analytical thinking, strategic thinking, and our ability to inhibit undesirable behaviors. Neuroscientists call the PFC a resource hog. At the very least, it needs you to:

• provide it with a constant supply of glucose from high quality foods;
• stay hydrated;
• allow it to rest and sleep (two different things); and
• do physical exercise.

Now ask yourself: What can I do—even as I get my personal life under control by getting my needs met and eliminating tolerations—to take care of my PFC and thereby enhance my ability to self-regulate at work? Some ideas:

• Take more breaks
• Make sure you are drinking water
• Take a walk around the block when you feel yourself getting irritable
• Bring snacks and plan time for lunch
• Review what has helped you in the past: Meditation? Four deep breaths? Stretching?

Good luck to you. Know that you are in very good company. There is much required of all of us to stay on an even keel these days.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a division leader for a family-owned manufacturing company. The family members have somewhat antiquated views and are not particularly socially sensitive. My challenge is how to respond to the pronouns I’m seeing on recent email. For example, I am now seeing She/Her or He/Him on email signatures and video conference meetings with people outside of our company. One of my peers in our industry in another company just put xe/xem on xer email (which is correct usage).

My question is this: as a manager, should I add pronouns on my communications to make it safe for my team members to do so also? I have one person on my team who I think would appreciate it, but what about other people who might roll their eyes and see it as a political statement?

What is my responsibility with this issue?

She, He, Xe, Ze, What?

Dear She, He, Xe, Ze, What?

I appreciate your sensitivity to something that seems like a new wrinkle for you. People who are members of or who know and love members of the LGBTQ community have a head start on this trend. And it is very much a work in progress, as is all human evolution.

Your responsibility is to your own leadership values and to your organization’s values, in that order. (If you’ve never thought about your leadership values, a process to do that can be found here.) It is possible that, antiquated as it may be, your company does have stated values. If your desire to role model inclusion flies directly in the face of your company’s stated values, you are going to be in for some pushback. You may even already know that the stated values are pure lip service and that the real but implicit values are another thing altogether. Eye rolling notwithstanding, the real challenge will come when you get a cease-and-desist order from above. I hate to say that you might find yourself well served by dusting off your LinkedIn profile and resume. You will know based on your experience in the organization.

If you feel that it is part of your job as a leader to role model fairness and inclusion, then that is where your responsibility lies. But let’s not kid ourselves—it takes an awful lot of courage to stand by your values and standards for yourself. Not everyone is cut out for the fight. You need to make a conscious choice about just what you are signing up for. Maybe your answer is “Yes, that is what I need to do, but not right this minute; I will get my ducks in a row, educate myself, make a plan, and go for it at some future date.” Or you may decide it is not your fight to fight. I am not judging, but that doesn’t mean that others aren’t.

Some thoughts if you do decide to take the next step:

• Would you be comfortable contacting your peer who is already using the pronouns to ask if they might be willing to talk to you about their experience and point of view on the topic? Call me crazy, but I think if people are putting it out there, they are probably open to talking about it.
• You could speak with each of your team members individually or as a group. Maybe start with just introducing the topic, sharing some questions, and inviting conversation. Not everyone will want to speak up, and that’s okay. Focus on creating an environment of curiosity and openness vs. driving for definitive answers and positions. Many folks are in the exploration stage of this topic, so if your team can explore together, wouldn’t that be grand!
• One of my colleagues puts her pronouns on her email signature and provides a link to information for people who are mystified right next to it, like this: Pronouns: She/Her (learn more). This is a cool way to join the conversation while also inviting others to be curious.

It seems that pretty much everything can be interpreted as a political statement these days. We could allow the current climate to shut us down and crawl into a safe little hole—and again, I wouldn’t blame you; things are complex enough. But because you care enough to ask, I suspect you are a person who also cares about the experience that others not like you are having in the world. All I can say is that you will have to let your heart be your guide.

It is quite a can of worms, isn’t it? But you are clearly aware and thoughtful. I trust you will find your way to the right thing for you, right now.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I get no feedback. I have done well in my career. I have some big goals and I think I am doing OK at my job. My manager is a big-picture person who is constantly on the move and is only interested in my results, not in me. I think if I asked her about my long-term prospects here, she would roll her eyes at me. (She rolls her eyes any time anyone digresses from the numbers and the key results.)

Recently, my spouse went through a program with her company where they sent out a questionnaire to the people she interacted with at work. She got a ton of insight into how she is perceived. There weren’t a lot of surprises, but she learned some useful info.

They don’t do that kind of thing in my company—but I was thinking it might be a good idea to ask some key folks I work with for some feedback, just to see if I might be missing something. Could it be risky? Would people tell me the truth? What if I find out something I wish I hadn’t?

If you think it might be a good idea, how would you suggest I go about it?

In the Dark

Dear In the Dark,

There is a school of thought that says “no news is good news.” Then again, Ken Blanchard says “feedback is the breakfast of champions.” I say that it never hurts to really see the full landscape—your playing field, if you will—to make sure you understand the exact game being played, the rules of the game, and how to win it. Too many folks who don’t pay attention are surprised when they find out they were playing the wrong game or they missed the memo about the rules changing.

I don’t think ignorance is bliss; I think it is a naïve choice. So, short answer: Yes.

• Yes, I think it is a good idea to make the effort to get some insight.
• Yes, it can be risky, but there are ways to mitigate the risk.
• Some people will tell you the truth and some won’t, and that’s OK.
• You will almost certainly find out some things that will make you uncomfortable.
• And yes, I have some ideas about how to go about it.

Long answer:

Why feedback? It sounds like you think it may be useful to simply get the lay of land so that you have the information you need to move toward your big goals. You’ll want to assess for yourself where you think insight would be helpful. Is it something specific, or are you going for a more general picture? It’s a good idea to clarify your own intent and motives, such as:

• Are you seeking insights to help you achieve your goals? Asking for feedback can help you build support for your long-term goals.
• Do you want to build or protect your ego? There’s nothing wrong with that; just be ready to hear some things you wish you hadn’t.
• Do you want to enhance or defend your self-image and your image in the organization? Again, information on how you are perceived is fine and often useful.

Getting clear on your intent will help you to shape what you decide to do with the feedback you get. Remember—feedback says more about the person giving it than it does about you. So understanding someone else’s perspective is a useful window into where they stand and what they see from that vantage point. It also tells you what is important to them, which may be the most illuminating insights of all.

The whole mission to get feedback can also be an opportunity to create an environment in which you signal that you are accessible and open to feedback, which will increase the likelihood that people will offer it without your having to ask all the time. This also means you will get feedback you don’t necessarily want—but if you know how to deal with it, that’s OK.

Who to get it from? You’ll want to decide who to ask. 360 degrees is upward, sideways with functional peers, and downward with your direct reports, if you have any. The more thorough you are, the clearer a picture you can get of your whole landscape. You might also consider approaching customers, internal and external, who depend on you. You can approach your boss via email—not to discuss your brilliant career (which she doesn’t seem to care about) but to give her the opportunity to provide input should she choose to do it. What you don’t want is for her to hear that you are asking around for feedback and didn’t include her!

Method: My favorite cut-to-the-chase method of asking for feedback is to ask for a meeting. Clearly state that you are seeking intel on how to improve all of your working relationships and that you want answers to the following questions:

In your opinion,

• What should/could I do more of?
• What should/could I do less of?
• What should I start doing?
• What should I stop doing?
• Is there anything else you think I should know?

This gives some direction without too many guard rails. My big beef with the exhaustive online multi-rater 360s is that they are so in-depth that respondents are mentally exhausted before they get halfway through it. Provide the questions prior to the meeting—it gives people time to think over their answers. It is always nice to have these kinds of meetings over a coffee or a beer, but these days it will probably be web conference.

Risks: You only really make yourself vulnerable if you signal your intent—which you don’t need to do. All you have to say is that you want to be as effective as you can be in all of your working relationships, which is probably the truth and totally plausible. But yes, you do make yourself vulnerable, because you will expose yourself to anyone who has an axe to grind and takes advantage of the moment to give it to you right between the eyes. But my experience is that is much more common when people can hide behind a screen of anonymity.

How to receive feedback? This may be the hardest part. The whole exercise will absolutely backfire if you get defensive or attempt to explain or justify your position. Doing so will guarantee that the person will never give you feedback again. You must absolutely, positively practice almost superhuman self-regulation in response to all feedback.

You have a choice of the following responses. (Do not deviate from this plan.)

• Thank you.
• Tell me more.
• I understand.

Do: If you hear about behavior or an event in which someone’s feelings were hurt or the apple cart was upset in some way, you can apologize for your part in it. Just say “Wow, I am sorry. I didn’t know and I am so glad you told me.” THAT’S IT. Don’t explain, don’t fall apart, don’t make a big deal out of it.

Don’t: make promises about changing. You are going to want to collect all of the feedback before deciding what you want to do with it. Making promises without really thinking through what you are willing to commit to will box you in. Only make promises you are certain you want to keep and can keep.

Will there be moments of discomfort? You bet there will, and that’s OK. You won’t die from it. You are going to need to be tough to achieve your big goals, and the key to toughness is practicing not taking things personally. Take notice of what makes you defensive—it gives you information about your own secret vanities and insecurities. That’s OK, too. We all have them, and the more aware you are of your own, the less they will drive your behavior and sabotage you when you least expect it.

What to do with feedback: You have to think of feedback as data, not the truth about you. Ask yourself: what does this tell me about this person that is useful? What does it tell me about our systems and processes that I hadn’t considered? What does it tell me about myself that is valuable? What might be true and worth taking under advisement?

Only after some deliberation and analysis will you decide what to do; and even then, you will want to choose only two or three things to focus on. Start small, with one thing—something you can do without getting a personality transplant—one thing you think will make a real difference. Maybe it is to stop interrupting. Or to start consulting others when making decisions. Something simple and doable.

Still up for it? I applaud your courage. It will be quite a journey, but one I think you will find worthwhile.

Love, Madeleine

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.

As an antidote to the negative consequences of personality-based leadership theories, new generations of leadership, learning, and talent development professionals are rediscovering servant leadership. That’s great news for those of us who believe that simply focusing on acting like a leader is a poor substitute for developing the character and behaviors of someone who truly believes that people lead best when they serve first.

As the Head of Learning & Organizational Development at The Ken Blanchard Companies in the Asia Pacific region, most of my professional career has been spent studying leadership from every angle. Having taught servant leadership for several years, I find myself continually returning to three key servant leadership principles—standing back, authenticity, and humility. My hope is that these principles will help you not only in your own leadership studies but also as you consider servant leadership for your organization.

Standing Back

Standing back means serving with a mindset of observing an individual’s needs. The servant leader becomes involved only when they can clearly see a way to add value to the process for the other person. The leader sees themselves as coach or facilitator of an environment or a project. They watch and respond as needed. From this mindset flows a host of skills to be developed and applied such as listening, asking questions, providing feedback, and many others. We have captured a comprehensive list of these skills by asking L&D professionals in our workshops what servant leadership looks like to them. Use this link to see what skills L&D professionals identified most often.

Authenticity

Authenticity as a servant leadership characteristic is often misunderstood. It’s not about leaders saying what they mean without a filter—it’s about them knowing who they are as both a leader and a person, and being comfortable in both roles.

In my work with clients, I call this leadership principle “being grounded.” Authentic servant leaders speak respectfully, when it’s appropriate. They are aware of their core values and don’t have a need to boast. They openly appreciate others for their merits in a genuine and meaningful manner. When a leader acknowledges their team members’ successes and supports them in realigning their goals after failures, it promotes learning and growth. A servant leader demonstrates authentic leadership through behaviors that are based on their values. They have a clear, centered sense of self and communicate in a way that serves others.

Humility

Some might say that leaders with humility know how much they don’t know. When they work with people who have more expertise than they do, they are confidently humble. They may even ask “Could you teach me? Could you help me? Could you facilitate my learning?” They are also proactive in asking their direct reports for feedback on their leadership style; e.g., “How do you feel about the way I’ve been working with you and leading the team?”

The humble servant leader is confident in their own capabilities and personality. They believe in serving others through continuous self-improvement, communicating openly, and proactively seeking feedback.

All Three Principles Are Interrelated

In practice, these three principles are interrelated. When a leader is authentic, they are also humble. Because they are humble, they are confident in standing back. They are centered, grounded, and comfortable with their values, who they are, and how they present themselves. This is the place from which they will always make their best decisions and be of the most service to others.

Robert Greenleaf, the universally recognized father of servant leadership, wrote forty years ago that servant leadership begins “…with the natural feeling that one wants to serve. A servant leader focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of the people and communities to which they belong.”

If this serving spirit is in your heart, I encourage you to consider how standing back, authenticity, and humility can help you and your organization along the journey.

Looking for more information on how servant leadership principles are being applied in today’s organizations? Check out servant leadership resources on The Ken Blanchard Companies website.

About the Author

Maria Pressentin is the Head of Learning & Organizational Development for Asia Pacific at The Ken Blanchard Companies. Maria is an award-winning coach and leadership development professional, as recognized by the HRD World Congress and has served for four years as the vice president of the International Coach Federation, Singapore. Maria holds Master’s degrees in Strategic Management and Organizational Research, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Dear Readers,

This week I am using this space to address my own questions—questions that have been on many people’s minds:

How can I help? What can I do? What actions might count?

We can no longer look away. The time has come to challenge ourselves to be better humans. It is hard to know what to do. We are intimidated into shutting up—the risk of saying the wrong thing and being mocked and humiliated on social media is real. I lost sleep over the possible hazards of writing this column. I am sure I will offend someone who disagrees with me. And probably someone who agrees with what I say, but has a quibble with how I say it. It is a lose-lose. I would much prefer to be answering a work-related question.

But if not now, when?

I went to our Diversity and Inclusion expert, La’Wana Harris, and asked her for guidance. This is what she sent me. I think it is a great starting place.

How to Talk to Black People Right Now

Don’t—unless you’re willing to do your own self-work, educate yourself, and follow through with meaningful action.

The often well-meaning, but superficial, version of allyship for traumatized black people as they grieve another senseless death of an unarmed black man is counterproductive. As a society, we have demonstrated a tragically inept capacity for addressing social issues. It’s not from a lack of capable individuals and organizations. Social heroes have tried for centuries to lead us, hand in hand, out of the abyss of historical and present-day crimes with extreme grace, temperance, and sacrifice. The books have been written, the workshops facilitated, and the artwork displayed. We have dedicated physical space, digital space, mental space, and spiritual space to the thankless work of guiding the community out of the clutches of systemic oppression and its toxic impacts. But now is not the time to open up a dialogue unless you are fully vested in moving beyond lip service. There’s a lot of energy around what needs to be said and not enough focus on what needs to be done.

People opposed to injustice and bigotry are tired. Black people are the focus, but we don’t own this issue. We aren’t the only people suffering from our dehumanization. Make the decision to make this personal. Take this problem on. Do your research, discuss it first with the non-black people around you, and come ready to mobilize. Be intentional about being on the right side of history during this time of unrest.

If you feel lost and don’t understand the deep historical and systemic aspects of what’s happening right now, you should commit to studying long enough to catch up. The enlightenment of white people is an inside-out job. Check out some of these resources and know that this is not the time to make a request of black people to take responsibility for something that you can do for yourself.

Are you willing to correct inappropriate statements among your friends? Are you willing to be uncomfortable and push through the awkward moments for the sake of meaningful progress? Are you ready to face the harsh realities of power, privilege, and systemic racism in America? If so, let’s talk.

Madeleine again. So: First, get educated. If you have had your head down, paying attention to other things, look up and look around. Read. Print out the resources, order the books, and read them. Watch the documentaries with your family. Identify the sticking points in your own thinking—and possibly speech—that reveal your own unconscious bias. Everyone is biased. It is almost impossible not to be. Ms. Harris says:

You shouldn’t feel guilty about having biases. Everyone has bias as part of our cognitive response system to help protect us from danger. We need cognitive shortcuts to know when to heed our fight/flight instincts. Bias becomes problematic when it’s based on erroneous thinking. Awareness is a good first step.

The next step is to pay attention to what you may have thought, done, or said that triggered the behavior that betrays your bias. That way, you can build on your awareness to understand what triggers your bias reaction. Then, ask yourself ‘How does this affect how I show up? How does it keep me from being my best self?’ Finally, you can build some practices, habits, or rituals to support your best intentions.

Identify what you think is important to you and use those principles to make decisions about what you are willing to commit to.

Examine Ms. Harris’s questions: Are you willing to correct inappropriate statements among your friends? Are you willing to be uncomfortable and push through the awkward moments for the sake of meaningful progress?

I know this about myself: I am a big conflict avoider. It is rarely an issue with friends but in business and family gatherings, it can get sticky. I get worried about being perceived as too serious or too political. Who am I, after all, to censure others? But now more than ever before, it is clear that I am no longer allowed to be gutless. I have to say something in the moment. It is appropriate to censure the unacceptable. And I know to be ready to do that, I need to have language and I need to practice saying things out loud so I am ready.

I did a little digging on potentially what to say, and the long and short of it is that we have to call it out when we hear it. No blame—no judgment even—just nope. Not acceptable. “That’s racist, and we don’t allow that kind of talk in our home” or “I think what you’re saying is biased and mean—please don’t use that kind of language around me.” Maybe we won’t be brave enough or ready the first time we need it, but if we stay focused, we will get there.

Discomfort is unpleasant. I have arranged my life very specifically to be comfortable, and I like it a lot. But I know I need to get a lot more uncomfortable. And look what I found for inspiration. Luvvie Ajayi defines herself as a troublemaker, and, well, wow. She challenges us to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said. Her rules for speaking up in ways that you won’t regret are:

• Do you mean it?
• Can you defend it?
• Can you say it with love?

I can live with these rules. Bet you can, too.

Courage is required. Most difficult situations require us to do hard things. Angeles Arrien, the author of The Four Fold Way; Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary says this about courage: “Where we are not strong hearted is where we lack the courage to be authentic or to say what is true for us. Strong heartedness is where have the courage to be all of who we are in our life. The word courage is derived from the French word for heart, coeur, and etymologically it means ‘the ability to stand by one’s heart or to stand by one’s core.’ Whenever we exhibit courage, we demonstrate the healing power of paying attention to what has heart and meaning for us.”

I expect my reading and watching will reveal what meaningful action makes sense for me. I am ready to commit at least as much time to educating myself, making a plan, and following through on that plan as I do to every other thing that is important to me.

So can you. Stand by your heart.

If not now, when?

Love, Madeleine

I had an upsetting experience yesterday. Amid our current environment of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, I find that people are generally behaving pretty well. I’ve noticed this at the grocery store, which I now visit only about once every ten days. Social distancing is in effect, with dots or X’s every six feet marking where customers should stand—and yet, there is still a great deal of humanity to be found. One shopper helps another reach something on a high shelf; a woman encourages the person behind her with fewer items to go ahead of her in the line; friendly clerks smile behind masks and plexiglass in spite of working long hours.

So what was the epic failure that was so upsetting? A clerk who stuck to the rules—and I mean stuck!

A shopper with 19 items inadvertently stepped into the “15 items or fewer” line. Upon discovering this, the clerk refused to ring up the last four items and told the customer she would have to put everything back in her cart and go to a different line. The woman apologized for her mistake and politely asked the clerk to make an exception (meanwhile, the lines were getting longer). He again flatly refused—rules, after all, are rules—and repeated that she could not be rung up in his lane and would have to move. No other solution was possible; he was entrenched in upholding the 15-item rule.

The woman burst into tears. The stone-faced clerk still wouldn’t budge. Finally, the frazzled customer turned to the lines of captive shoppers witnessing the scene and cried, “Does anyone think this is right?”

A solution suddenly appeared in the form of a fellow customer who took the four offending items, paid for them in her lane, and handed them back. The total? A whopping $4.32. The woman walked out crying, leaving the customers around her dumbfounded that the clerk couldn’t or wouldn’t find a reasonable solution. In fact, he seemed a bit grumpy that another customer had stepped in!

Now you may be thinking: “Rules are rules, and they are in place for the common good.” Well, yes, that’s true. But think about the purpose of the rule—in this case, customer convenience and speed. Did it make sense to upset a customer? To hold up the people in line behind her? To harm the reputation of the store, lose that customer for life, and generally anger everyone else within 30 feet of the woman? Of course not.

Would it have been a better decision to keep the line moving, thus letting people exit the store and speeding up the experience for the 20 people waiting outside to get in? Of course. Wouldn’t it also have been better for the clerk to say “I see, you made a simple mistake and I’ll ring you up—but in the future, please pay attention to the 15 item rule,” thereby meeting the underlying purpose of the rule? Yes, that would have been better.

When someone bursts into tears, empathy is certainly better than hidebound insistence on following an arbitrary rule meant to keep things speedy. That transaction took 14 minutes. The customer could have been happily out in seven, if a bit chagrined at her miscount. Now the store has lost at least two customers—I doubt she will be back, and I’m done. For good.

What’s the culture like in your organization? If customer-focused decision making on an issue this simple is absent like it was in this woman’s experience, then innovation, adaptation, creativity, and customer service are in real jeopardy. Don’t let this happen in your organization. Rules, yes—but use a little common sense and compassion, please. Especially during these trying times.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with 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.

Dear Madeleine,

I am biased. I thought for the longest time that I wasn’t, but it has become clear to me that I am. I realize I am biased against certain types of people.

My biases are not traditional ones like race, gender, or age. I think I am mostly conscious and appropriate. What I recently realized is that I tend to discount people whom I see as overly invested in feelings and worried about how other people are going to feel. They just seem stupid to me, because all I see is what needs to be done. I just want to get on with things and let people get over themselves.

This bias has been pointed out to me—and as much as it galls me, I think it is true. I guess I’m going to have to do something about it. What would you recommend?

Biased

Dear Biased,

You’re not alone. We’re all biased. We can’t help it. Forget the biases we have against people who are different from us—get a load of some of the other unconscious biases we are dealing with:

Confirmation Bias. We seek evidence that supports what we already believe and ignore or discount evidence that does not fit. This goes a long way toward explaining political divides.

Temporal Discounting. We sacrifice long-term future outcomes for more immediate gains. We are driven by two asymmetries: more by negative vs. positive, and we value things that are close vs. far away. People are loss-averse—they are more likely to act to avert a loss or escape pain than to achieve a gain.

Illusion of Control. This is the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events; for example, to feel a sense of control over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence.

Planning Fallacy. This is a tendency for people and organizations to underestimate how long they will need to complete a task, even when they have experience of similar tasks over-running.

Anchoring Bias. We rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. When we are in the midst of decision-making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Once an anchor is set, other judgments are made by adjusting away from that anchor, and there is a bias toward interpreting other information around the anchor.

This is a very brief list, and each of these can happen before we even meet or need to work with people who are very different from us. So whatever work you have already done on being aware of and managing your own biases is a good thing.

I sought out La’Wana Harris, our resident expert on diversity and inclusion and author of many books including Diversity Beyond Lip Service, for her insights on this situation. Ms. Harris says: “You shouldn’t feel guilty about having biases. Everyone has bias as part of our cognitive response system to help protect us from danger. We need cognitive shortcuts to know when to heed our fight/flight instincts. Bias becomes problematic when based on erroneous thinking. Awareness is a good first step.

“The next step is to pay attention to what you may have thought, done, or said that triggered the behavior that betrays your bias. That way, you can build on your awareness to understand what triggers your bias reaction. Then, ask yourself ‘How does this affect how I show up? How does it keep me from being my best self?’ Finally, you can build some practices, habits, or rituals to support your best intentions.”

Sounds like good advice to me. La’Wana is a fellow coach as well, so it makes sense that she would have you ask yourself some good questions!

You say you are able to be conscious and appropriate with more traditional biases, so it might serve you to examine how you have done that. What habits or practices have you used in the past to help you? Here are a few ideas for creating potentially new habits:

Put yourself in a feeling person’s shoes. The commitment you have to being logical and forging ahead is just like a feeling person’s commitment to recognizing the emotional impact of decisions. You might be able to find some appreciation for how different the world looks to that person. To help, here are Brené Brown’s “Four Attributes of Empathy”:

1. To be able to see the world as others see it
2. To be non-judgmental
3. To understand another’s person’s feelings
4. To communicate the understanding of that person’s feelings

For more on this, watch this lovely 3-minute video.

Consider a few things you feel strongly about. I guarantee there is something—what might it be? Then imagine what it would be like to apply that kind of energy to things that don’t seem to impact you.

Notice what happens to you physically when you get triggered—perhaps your muscles tense, you hold your breath, or your breathing becomes more shallow. Maybe you literally get hot under the collar. Once you recognize the signs, you can put yourself in a short “time out,” take deep breaths, and make a choice about how to respond. It’s much better to wait a moment and think things through than to watch yourself from the ceiling creating a problem.

Do you know anyone who is like you who is good at empathizing with those folks who are not? You might ask them how they manage themselves. Nothing like learning from a role model you respect!

Ask the people who have pointed out your bias for more detailed feedback on what you do that isn’t working, and for suggestions on what might work better. Outside perspective can almost always show you little things you hadn’t seen before.

Remember that all types of people bring value to the job of achieving big goals. Research shows that companies with the most diversity on their boards are the most profitable. The world is big, complicated place—and as Ken Blanchard likes to say, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” The combined wisdom of a diverse group will always be more powerful than just you alone.

I so appreciate that you are not only aware of your bias, but also willing to try to do something about it. Honestly, this is half the battle. You clearly have the intelligence and wherewithal to be a great leader for all types of people.

Finally, know that you are going to try—and fail—more than once. That’s okay. Do a personal after-action review and note where things started going wrong; then vow to do better next time.

Don’t give up, Biased. We need you as a force for good in the world!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

We’ve just celebrated the fifth anniversary of this blog. My goal has been to host an advice column for you, the well-intentioned manager. Over the past five years we’ve looked at over 200 different questions from people working to lead at a higher level.

As a coach for the past 30 years I have seen many methods used to help clients identify what they need to work on to be more effective leaders. I have found that almost all focus areas fit into one of three main categories – deciding who we are as a leader, being a good strategic leader, and being a good operational leader. Most issues leaders face like time management, managing up, dealing with “problem” employees, and decision making can be placed into these three critical areas.

As we move into our sixth year together, I thought it would be a good idea to share the framework that I use to contextualize the questions I get and the advice I give on a regular basis.

Self Concept as a Leader

Each leader has to define for herself who she will be as a leader, and what leadership means to her. Almost every client I have ever worked with talks about character and integrity and the question is always begged: how are character and integrity defined? Each leader is personally stronger when that person understands self and what leadership means within the framework of self. In future columns we will be exploring “Who are you as a leader?” and “Who do you want to be in this situation?”

Strategic Leadership Skills

This includes vision, culture and strategic imperatives. We’ll discuss how leaders can articulate the vision for the organization and paint a clear picture of the future that everyone in the company can visualize and work toward. We’ll also discuss how the strategic leader defines and builds the culture of an organization, and how leaders create a specific yet compatible culture within the larger one. Finally, we’ll look at how a leader ensures that all resources are being deployed to help achieve the strategic imperatives of the organization.

Operational Leadership Skills

Operational Leadership covers management practices that drive policy, procedures, and systems. Leaders at the operational level are responsible for knowing the strategies that are driving operations. We’ll look at how managers set policies, put procedures in place to communicate, make decisions, manage conflict, escalate emergencies, and solve problems. In this section we’ll also look at how leaders help the group state norms and roles and then hold people accountable to the agreements made.

3 Big Buckets—A World of Questions

Almost every work issue that a client brings to a coaching session can be anchored in one of these three areas, and shedding light and achieving clarity can always help. Where do you get stuck? Write to me and perhaps I can help. I look forward to hearing from you!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

In my role as an organizational coach, leadership presence is a frequent topic of discussion with executive clients and leaders who are striving to reach a desired position within their companies. I find it interesting that many of my clients who are seeking to improve their leadership presence have difficulty defining it.

In their book Leadership Presence, Belle Linda Halpern and Kathy Lubar define this competency as “the ability to connect authentically with the thoughts and feelings of others in order to motivate and inspire them toward a desired outcome.”

Here are some benefits to developing leadership presence:

• Building trusting and lasting relationships with work colleagues and clients
• Inspiring work colleagues to produce their best work product
• Acting as a coach for a reluctant new employee who lacks confidence
• Presenting a new product to a client
• Acting as a change agent in your organization
• Nurturing a healthy, positive, and fun work culture

For some leaders, seeking leadership presence can be both a career-long struggle and a career staller. Hard-driving individuals often spend a significant amount of time focusing on the bottom line and completing tasks rather than developing themselves or building relationships with colleagues and direct reports. I have coached many of these leaders who, later in their career, regret some of their earlier choices. They may have been bypassed for a promotion due to a lack of emotional intelligence or inability to relate well with others—and they often receive this feedback in a 360° assessment. Many organizations choose to provide executive coaching for these individuals due to their considerable talents and successful careers.

Most leaders come to executive coaching hungry to learn about themselves, improve their ability to build and sustain meaningful relationships, and enjoy their colleagues and direct reports. They will confess that something has been missing in their work lives. I would suggest that what’s lacking is self-knowledge and defining how they want to show up as a leader.

A great place to start when seeking to improve leadership presence is to think of a leader you admire—one who is inspiring, is able to command a room, possesses self-confidence, shows empathy and caring for others, and who consistently builds relationships and makes heart connections. I have my clients write about a person they admire so that they may capture the person’s desired qualities and traits. I often ask “Which of these qualities would you like to enhance within yourself?”

• P stands for Being Present—the ability to be completely in the moment, and flexible enough to handle the unexpected.

• R stands for Reaching Out—the ability to build relationships with others through empathy, listening, and authentic connection.

• E stands for Expressiveness—the ability to express feelings and emotions, appropriately by using all available means—words, voice, body, face—to deliver one congruent message.

• S stands for Self-Knowing—the ability to accept yourself, to be authentic, and to reflect your values in your decisions and actions.

When we are with someone who possesses leadership presence, we feel it, know it, admire it, and want it for ourselves. Leadership presence is more than the sum of the four PRES elements. It includes interior knowledge and exterior behaviors. It demands that we do the work of examining our values, identifying our personal brand, and correcting outward behaviors that may be pushing others away.

Think about a leader you admire. Observe this individual and jot down specific behaviors that you would like to develop within yourself. Perhaps it is their communication style or how others react when they enter a room. Which of their qualities could you emulate?

Best wishes in building your leadership presence in the new year!

About the Author

Patricia Sauer is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world.

Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I am uber conscientious and a perfectionist—and I can’t seem to stop. I was promoted a year ago and have a very professional and trustworthy team, but I am addicted to reviewing everyone’s work and making small edits and changes. I am staying way too late at the office and my husband is getting really annoyed with me. I know I’m overworking—but maybe more critically, I’m focused on the wrong things. I’m not paying enough attention to the tasks that are going to advance me professionally.

I know intellectually that I can’t dot every I and cross every T, but I just don’t know how to change. I keep telling myself I’m going to do things differently, but I just continue these compulsive behaviors. I’ve never found myself in this kind of situation. I used to be much more adaptable.

What do you suggest?

Stuck

Dear Stuck,

It sounds like you’re in a hard place where your behavior is causing you real suffering. The good news is that your self-awareness is breathtaking, so you have that going for you. One of two things is going on here: you are simply stuck in a big fat rut that you can succeed in blasting yourself out of, or you’re going to need some professional help to get back on an even keel.

There’s no shame in getting help. If your company has an employee assistance program, I’d highly recommend that you take advantage of it. Just a couple of sessions with a trained therapist might do you a lot of good. I’m not implying there is anything wrong with you—but you sound overwhelmed and unhappy. I don’t think it would hurt to talk things through and get some perspective.

On your own, you can do a few things immediately to shift your situation.

First, stop. Just stop. Your brain has gotten into the habit of being on an endless loop, and you have to interrupt it. Neuroscientists have a saying: “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This means you have well-worn neural pathways that make it easy for your brain to simply default to your usual way of operating. So STOP. Change your routine, change the scene, change it all up. Take a couple of vacation days and go for walks. Look at a horizon. Spend some time in nature. These aren’t just nice-to-haves—they all have been proven to change brain chemistry.

Next, make a list of all the habits you have created (most of which have made you successful, by the way) that need to change. It feels counterintuitive, but it is critical. You have to stop doing things that don’t serve you, so you can start doing things that do serve you. This sounds shockingly obvious, right? And yet—not everything that is simple is easy. If you want to learn more about the way we create and undo habits, you can read up on it here.

As you look to undo habits that aren’t serving you, remember that you can’t change everything at once. Prioritize the one or two things you want to stop or start that will make the biggest impact on your work processes. Maybe it is simply making a commitment to stop checking your people’s work. For example, you could announce that you will no longer be checking certain kinds of work. You can tell your team that you realize you have been overdoing the control thing, and it’s time to stop. Make sure they all understand your standards for what a good job looks like. (Please note: I don’t mean this has to be the first thing you do; it is just an example.)

Be sure to enlist others. You’ll need some support to make the changes you want to make. Discuss the situation with your manager if you can. Ask for a coach if that is possible. Enlist the help of a good friend you trust who knows you. It can be hard, but you should ask for exactly what you want and need.

Remember your past success. You know you have changed and have been adaptable in the past—you might think about looking back on what has helped you before. Self-awareness is the first step and you have that. Don’t stop there. You can do this, Stuck. You have done it before, and you can do it again. Take a step back, take a deep breath, get some perspective, set your goals, decide what to change, enlist others, and get help where you can. Help is available to you, and help is good.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am trying to make something of myself. I am in Nigeria and have little access to opportunity.

I struggle with not having a role model to look up to because of my environs and the kind of people within my sphere. I have a desire to stand out as a woman, but I feel trapped like one going in a circle.

I love teaching and making an impact with people I come in contact with. But in my case, circumstances have kept me from getting the necessary education and skills for my dreams. I want to polish what I have and grow in it, but I need someone I can look up to who can help me be a better leader.

Any advice you have for me would be appreciated.

Looking for a Role Model

Dear Looking for a Role Model,

I have thought a lot about your situation, and I keep coming back to the same thoughts. I understand that your circumstances have prevented you from getting the education you need to pursue your dreams, but it does seem that you are in a decent situation now. It is natural to want to find someone to look up to, but if you can’t, you are just going to have to invent your own special brand of being a successful you.

I think it will serve you well to look within for your polish and to grow yourself as a leader. You have to decide what you think is important in a leader and then assess whether or not you have those qualities. If you do, you can build on them. If you don’t you can begin to cultivate them. Try to look at yourself through others’ eyes and ask yourself: Where do I have rough edges? Where might I shift my behaviors to be the leader I wish to be? In terms of finding role models, it might be hard to find one person who is everything that you hope to be. But you can identify one trait or skill that you find appealing in a person and emulate just that one thing.

I have always relied on books for the knowledge I lacked, and it has served me well. Of course, there are a million leadership books, so where to start? Naturally, I am going to recommend you start with two of my favorites by my father-in-law, the great leadership guru Ken Blanchard: Leading at a Higher Level and Servant Leadership in Action. You might also think about taking the Values in Action Character Strengths assessment. It is free online and can be accessed here. This assessment will help you to see yourself and what is already wonderful about you.

It sounds like you are on your own, my dear, so you get to make it up by yourself. No one is going to tell you what to do or how to do it. This is lonely, yes—but also liberating. Trust yourself, trust your instincts, and keep moving toward your goals and what interests you. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. And don’t give up.

Love,

Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a ruminator. I second-guess everything I do. My wife is tired of me spending hours every night going over and over the events of the day.

I work in finance and have a lot of technical expertise in my field. My organization counts on me for their reports, budgets, etc. I’m comfortable with generating the numbers, but when people want to talk about forecasting I get really anxious. I’m so afraid of making a mistake and causing some future disaster that I go over every interaction with a fine-tooth comb and think it into the ground.

This thing is getting worse, not better. I have to find a way to change because it’s getting harder and harder to be me. I have never met anyone who has this problem—where should I start?

Ruminator

Dear Ruminator,

It does indeed sound like it is very hard to be you. I’m so sorry. Self-awareness is always a big plus, so articulating your unpleasant work life is a great start. Now that you recognize just how uncomfortable you are, there is a chance you might do something about it.

Rumination is normal. We all do it. When it becomes a habit, though, it can be thought of as obsessive. It’s easy for thinking patterns to become habits because, as a neuroscientist might say, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” In other words, the more you use a certain mental pathway, the more it becomes a rut for your thoughts to get trapped in.

I want to avoid getting into the neuroscience weeds, but research shows that when a person gets regularly trapped in constant negative rumination, it can be a sign of depression. I highly encourage you to take advantage of your Employee Assistance Program to get some therapy and explore if you think that might be the case with you.

In the meantime, here are two things you can do that will make an immediate difference.

• Exercise. It’s proven that exercise can alleviate anxiety and interrupt undesirable thinking patterns. You don’t need to join a gym, hire a trainer, or anything fancy or expensive. Just get outside for a walk in the middle of the workday or after work. The closer to nature you can get, the better—so if you can drive to a park, do it.

• Choose what happens in your head. When you’re not thinking about anything in particular, choose to be mindful instead of letting your mind wander in what is known as the “default network.” Mindfulness is defined as “(1) Self-regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience, thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment; (2) Adopting a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment—an orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance.”

By practicing mindfulness, you can choose to pay attention to sensory information coming in. What you pay attention to is what you are conscious of. Again, you don’t need to take a class (although that may help). Just pay attention to what you’re paying attention to, and consciously change it if it isn’t useful. A ton of websites are available that can teach you more about this and offer tips. This one might be a good place to start.

There is plenty of credible research about how both exercise and mindfulness can help you re-wire your brain and stop your downward spiral. You really have nothing to lose by trying both of them.

Finally, I offer what I have found to be a very interesting perspective. For years, I was often struck by how habitual time orientation affected the mental well-being of my clients. In 2008 (an oldie but goodie) Philip Zimbardo* wrote a book called The Time Paradox, which specifically reflected what I had observed. In the book, Zimbardo makes the case for how our personal time orientation influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions for better and for worse. I think you might benefit from understanding and shifting your own time orientation. The Time Paradox website has a quick self-assessment you can use to get started. Fun, interesting—and again, you really have nothing to lose except how hard it is to be you right now.

And your wife will be so happy!

Love, Madeleine

*Psychology wonks will recognize the name—Zimbardo conducted the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have a long-time employee who is very smart, understands his job, and gets things done. He manages a small but powerful team of individual contributors and his people really like and respect him.

We recently invited him to join an elite group in the company to do visioning and strategy work. It was believed his experience would give him valuable perspective.

He is not doing well. He starts talking and we can’t shut him up—and worse, no one can follow what he is saying half the time. He does not seem to notice when people’s eyes glaze over. He talks in circles and repeats himself. It’s almost like once he gets the floor, he is afraid to give it up.

I have never seen this side of him. He is not impressing anyone and I am worried that this opportunity will backfire for him. I am not quite sure how to help him without shutting him down completely.

Stymied

_______________________________________________________________________

Dear Stymied,

I am so sorry that your protégé is not rising to the occasion. It is amazing that a person can be so good at so many things and then—well, not at all good at others.

My guess is that he is nervous and inexperienced with these kinds of meetings. As his manager, it is your job to intervene, unfortunately; but better to shut him down completely now than to let him continue to alienate people and possibly do irreparable damage to his reputation.

I think you need to just tell him. Be brief and to the point. You can open the conversation with a warning that you need to share an observation that might be hard to hear. Then tell him exactly what you told me. “You are talking in circles, you are repeating yourself, your points are unclear, and you are not adding value to these meetings. I need you to take a step back and stop speaking in the meetings until you can do it effectively.”

Yes, this is harsh—but you aren’t doing him any favors by letting him ramble on. Ask him to hold off on speaking until he can develop some self-awareness and restraint. That will be the first step. Next, he will have to experiment with participating appropriately.

Most of us are not born being able to do this—it takes experience and lots of practice. I spend literally days in meetings like the ones you describe, and I am often at a loss for how to make points I think will matter, when to make them, and how to be concise and impactful. It is fiendishly difficult. Writing is so much easier because you can back up and delete the ten sentences it took to get you to a clear thought! But it will be a big favor to your rambler if you give him an alternative to try. Perhaps you can work on a signal to share with him when he goes off track?

I recently learned a model that is part of our new Teams program—it’s called Conversational Capacity and it has rocked my world a little bit. I’ve been using it and it’s making a big difference in my own confidence and, I hope, my effectiveness.

The idea behind the Conversational Capacity model (which is nicely laid out by Craig Weber, a contributor to the program, in his book Conversational Capacity) is that when communicating, there is a sweet spot between candor and curiosity.

When using candor, one must:

• State a clear position
• Be direct and to the point
• Explain the thinking that supports your position
• Use a relaxed tone and body language

In my experience, even excellent communicators have a hard time stating a clear position—most people need to speak their ideas aloud to even have a clue about what they are thinking. I use note taking and mind mapping to try to figure out what my position is so I can be clear. Stating a clear position briefly and then explaining the two or three points that show how you got to the position will hold and keep people’s attention and move the conversation forward.

When practicing curiosity, one must:

• Ask thoughtful questions
• Listen attentively
• Consider other perspectives openly
• Have an attentive, non-defensive body posture

People can be big contributors to meetings simply by listening well and asking questions that reveal more insights. We don’t all have to have strong positions all the time to add value.

Contributing effectively in big meetings where abstract ideas are being discussed is a skill that can be developed. Self-awareness is the first step—and, uncomfortable as it may be, you will be doing your employee a real favor by helping him take that first step.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am what’s called a “people leader”—I lead individual contributors at a global software giant. I am also a technical contributor as a subject matter expert in a specific application.

I don’t love managing people. I am quite reserved and I find it tiring—but it is the only way to get ahead in this company. I’ve always thought I would stay here forever and rise through the ranks. But there has been so much change over the last 18 months that I have had three different bosses. The last one barely seems to know I am alive and has no idea about my technical expertise.

The person who runs the team on which I am an SME disagrees with the strategic direction of the organization and is planning to leave. He wants to take me with him. He is convincing me that if I went, I would make a lot more money and be able to focus on my technical expertise. I am single and could move, although I would be leaving my family and friends.

I have gotten myself into a state and have no idea what I should I do. Thoughts?

Stay or Go?

Dear Stay or Go,

Ah, these big life decisions. Of course, I can’t recommend a course of action one way or the other. I personally have a bias toward action, which has brought me enormous joy and probably more than my fair share of really bad mistakes. But I can help you review the situation as you have laid it out.

You enjoy the technical part of your job, but you have been pressured into managing people. The company you work for is unstable and you get no attention or support from management. The one senior person who seems to grasp and appreciate your value is leaving the company and wants to take you with him. So far, he has made promises, but as yet you have received no official offer. If you were to agree to an attractive offer, you would have to move and leave a settled life with an established community.

Essentially, you just don’t have enough information yet. I think before you do anything rash, you have to get a solid offer that includes a substantial raise, a clear job description, and your moving expenses covered. Until then, it is all pure speculation.

But this event is a bit of a wake-up call that everything is not quite right in your current position. And it’s an opportunity for you to define for yourself what would be better for you. To make these big life decisions, it is helpful for you to understand your core psychological needs and your values.

Values are important. What makes you smile? What do you gravitate to naturally? What gives you energy and pleasure? Ask yourself: Will I be more aligned with my values in this new situation?

Your needs are even more critical. They are what you have to have. To figure out your needs, think about what you must have to be fully functional. It sounds like you might have a need to pursue your mastery of your technical expertise, but you have no need to be in charge of other people.

Some needs don’t really become apparent until they aren’t met. One of the best ways to identify your needs is to think about a time when you behaved badly or became almost sick with unhappiness. Chances are some fundamental need wasn’t being met. What was it?

Do you like to be appreciated or do you need it? Do you like having a close community near you, or do you need it? If you get a reasonable offer, you will want to ask yourself Will I be able to rebuild a life in a new place where I can get what I need to be stable?

If I could be so bold, I’d like to recommend my book Leverage Your Best in this column. It has some great detail on needs and values and it might be worth your while. The more you understand about yourself, the easier it will be to make these big life choices.

If in the passage of time and events you decide to stay where you are, this exploration will still be useful and will help you shape your career path and inform the requests you make of your current management.

I hope you do a little self-reflection and learn more about who you are and what you really want out of life. The more thought you put into it now, the more likely you will be able to create an extraordinary life with few regrets.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I really messed up—and I’m so embarrassed I’m thinking of quitting my job. I yelled at one of my direct reports during a team meeting.

I was very tired because I had been up all night with a sick kid, and I was super stressed because several of my own deadlines were looming. She just kept pushing and pushing her own point of view about a decision that already had been made two weeks earlier.

At first I tried to be diplomatic by saying, “Okay, we need to move on.” But she just kept going: “I think this is going to cause big problems for us; you should reconsider; blah blah blah.” I finally interrupted her and let her have it. In front of everyone. I don’t even remember what I said, but I know I raised my voice. All of the faces on the web conference just looked shocked.

My boss is in Thailand on vacation, so I can’t talk to him. I am beside myself and really need some input.

Lost It

Dear Lost It,

Geez, don’t quit. There really is no need for that. That would be short-sighted and would really hurt your career, not to mention ruin your boss’s vacation. Just the fact that everyone was so shocked makes it clear to me that this is not a habitual thing. So get a grip.

You have clearly broken trust. Here is a great blog post by our trust expert Randy Conley that will give you step-by-step directions on how to rebuild it.

The first order of business is an apology. This will be time consuming, but you need to apologize to each member of the team individually. Ask someone you trust on your team about what you actually said so that you can apologize properly. With any luck, you didn’t call Pushy McPush Push any names, and you didn’t use profanity or obscenities—but you do need to find out just how bad the damage is.

Once you know exactly what you did that was so awful, go to the object of your ire and tell her you are sorry. No excuses, no ifs, no buts. Just “I am sorry. I am really sorry. Please forgive me.” You can promise that you will work hard to do better in the future.

Then do the same with each person who was on the call. You obviously take your job very seriously and are very chagrined that this happened, so I am guessing your people will cut you some slack. We are all only human. Sometimes our pre-frontal cortex, which is in charge of self-regulation, just gives out. On top of being short of sleep and concerned about your workload, I’ll bet your blood sugar was low or maybe you were dehydrated. This might be a good time to review your own self care routine so that you can stay more balanced in the future. You might be able to make some small changes to ensure you never go ballistic at work again.

Once you have properly apologized, you will want to review what made your team member engage in the behavior that put you over the edge. Did you not properly hear everyone out before the decision was made? Or is there an expectation that once decisions are made it is okay to revisit them? This may be an opportunity to discuss team norms around decision making—it sounds like everyone may not be on the same page.

You are going to be fine, Lost It, I promise. Everybody behaves badly sometimes. It’s okay. Apologize, make a few changes so that it doesn’t happen again, and move on.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Hi Madeleine,

I work in a membership organization with a very old-fashioned outlook and a hierarchical structure. I am not a manager, but I did have one direct report at a previous employer. I am very interested in management and leadership and intend to have other management roles in the future.

Management practices here, although not toxic, are very poor. A couple of examples: beyond the broadest headline results, no one is allowed to know the decisions made at the monthly senior management meeting, even if you submit a topic for consideration. You certainly can’t attend in person to present. Offices are in an open plan that is set apart from the senior managers, who never venture out of their areas to engage with their teams.

I’m not planning to remain here very long, but I need to gain some specific skills and knowledge before I move on. My question is this: do you have any suggestions on how to deal with poor management, apart from sucking it up and learning more about how not to do things? I feel very much alone in delivering my objectives, although my manager fondly believes she is supporting me.

I know I can’t singlehandedly change this organization’s culture. I do my best to be professional and positive, but I am often seething inside. I’d be very grateful for your perspective.

Seething

Dear Seething,

I think in some organizations, your point of view might be sought out and welcomed—but probably not in yours. The passionate experts of best management and leadership practices will all tell you that the people and organizations who most need improvement are the ones who are the most oblivious and the most resistant to it. It is the way of the world, sadly.

It is possible your organization would be open to hearing your opinions during your exit interview, especially if you are an exemplary employee. And, of course, you can always write a review on Glass Door, or leave some of your favorite management books lying around the office. If your manager actually seems to care about supporting you, clueless though she may be, take the opportunity to ask her questions and seek to understand her experience, approach, and point of view. Understanding and walking in another’s shoes may help you manage your rage.

Which brings me to the seething thing, which is cause for concern. Anger can be useful. It can help you identify your own needs and values, which in this case is clearly happening. However, unexpressed anger can literally make you sick or cause you to blow up at work in a way that will tank any chance of getting a glowing recommendation. So I encourage you to find a way to simmer the seething. How, you might ask? The most obvious way is to get out of there as soon as possible—but you know that. You say you have some specific knowledge and skills to gain before moving on, but I wonder if those are worth the cost. You have made the decision, though, so you may have blinders on to the possibility that you could acquire those skills someplace more aligned with your values.

If you insist on sticking with your plan, here are some other ideas:

• Pay attention to what is working at your organization. They can’t all be total buffoons. The more you obsess about what management does wrong, the more evidence you will find to support your case. We all do this. It is a form of confirmation bias, and it is worth noticing in yourself. Flip what you pay attention to and start to notice what they do well, or even half decently.

• Meditate. Ten minutes of meditation has been shown to lower blood pressure—significantly—and keep it down for the whole day. Google it. There a million apps that will help you.

• Get more exercise. A couple of extra kickboxing classes a week wouldn’t hurt. Just calm down some of that adrenaline.

• Find the humor. Create a stand-up routine for your group of friends. Start a funny anti-bad-manager blog. Where do you think Dilbert came from?

• Vent with a friend who doesn’t mind it. Set a timer for seven minutes and just let ‘er rip. Then stop and move on.

Ultimately, if you really can’t change a situation, your only choice is to change how you respond to it. You have an opportunity right now to make the decision to choose a different response. Until you can get out, your best bet is to challenge yourself to do that. Treat this like the AFGO (Another Freaking Growth Opportunity) it is. AFGO’s are never particularly welcome or fun, but they sure are valuable.

Sorry.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

A common topic in my coaching sessions is work/life balance. Heavy workloads, daily abundance of emails, competing deadlines, required meetings, and other concerns can be so overwhelming that work can become the focal point and main priority in life. As a result, we can feel obligated to dedicate long hours to our work. We struggle with setting and honoring boundaries that could give us a more balanced life. Many of us know the benefits of a work/life balance, but fall short in achieving it.

The definition of work/life balance is different for each individual. For one person, it’s working a set number of hours in a day or week. For another person, it’s scheduling some longer days for more intense work and some shorter days that are easier. And some people prefer a compressed work schedule—such as four ten-hour days—so that they have an extra day off every week.

So how can you achieve much-needed balance between your work and home life? It’s usually a combination of priorities, boundaries, and structure.

Identify your priorities. Depending on where you are in life, your priorities may be different than they used to be. What is most important in your life right now? Think of what work/life balance means to you, based on those priorities. It could be something as simple as not taking work home or checking email on the weekends so that you can be fully present with your family. Or dedicating Wednesday nights to bowling with friends to keep your relationships close.

Set your boundaries. What boundaries might help you achieve work/life balance? It may be getting to work no earlier than 9:00 a.m. on Mondays and going home no later than 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.

Create some structure. What kind of structure needs to be in place for work/life balance? It could be having weekly one-on-one meetings with each staff member to ensure that you delegate more effectively.

Think before you commit. Do you sometimes say yes because you want to be seen as a team player—and instantly regret it? I’ll never forget a thought-provoking edict from my coach training: “Whenever you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else.” Pause to think about the potential impact of your answer before you respond to a request.

Honor yourself by applying any or all of these steps. You will instantly feel more in control of your daily life as you move toward the balance you need to succeed—both at home and at work.

I’ve been coaching executives for about six years now. Recently I was working with a leader who proudly identified himself as a perfectionist. He considered it a badge of honor that he routinely works ten to twelve hours each day. Even now, in his sixties, he has his company cellphone on him at all times and feels he needs to respond to emails, texts, and calls right away. When I asked him if he could set a lower expectation—such as replying within 24 hours—it seemed like a foreign concept to him.

This leader told me, unsolicited, that working so much meant he had missed many of his daughters’ milestones growing up. When they were kids, he told his daughters nothing was acceptable but A+ effort. He is proud that he set such high standards and believes his kids are successful because of those standards. I wonder whether he imposed his standards on his daughters to the degree that they, too, will miss out on parts of their lives trying to be perfect.

Over the years, I’ve heard many renditions of perfectionistic tendencies from my clients. This tends to show up most often when I’m debriefing a 360 or other assessment with them. It surprises and saddens me that many with the highest assessment scores—obviously very qualified people—don’t believe they are doing all that well. Inevitably, most of these people are perfectionists. Their perfectionism distorts their thinking.

Most of us believe it’s good to have high standard. Working hard and performing well are positive qualities. But there’s a difference between having a strong work ethic and striving for perfection.

When I Googled perfectionism, I found a quote from my old friend Wikipedia that sums up the definition well: “Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness AND setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”

Perfectionism is a huge, complex subject. My intention here is to touch on just a few simple but effective ways people can begin to combat their perfectionistic tendencies.

• Recognize your own perfectionistic tendencies. Increasing your self-awareness of perfectionistic thinking patterns and/or behavioral tendencies is very enlightening.
• Notice your critical internal dialogue (which is usually hard to miss). An effective way to disrupt those self-critical thoughts is to replace them with more realistic and helpful statements—often called affirmations. Every time the internal critic surfaces, silence it with an affirmation. One I like is “I’m okay just as I am.”
• Try living by a “done is better than perfect” philosophy. I first heard this statement from my boss. It’s a good one. As a recovering perfectionist myself, this thought has stopped me many times when I’ve found myself working to make something perfect. Of course, for most perfectionists, their “done” is usually much better than their non-perfectionistic colleagues’ best efforts.

Why should organizations care about helping their perfectionistic employees, you ask? Because perfectionism is linked to accident-related disabilities, absenteeism, burnout, and turnover.

Do you, or someone you know, tend to be perfectionistic? Try these first steps and let us know how they work for you. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

We all have those times when we feel out of focus or off track. When this happens to you, do you ever consider that it could be due to poor self-management practices? For example, perhaps you were so intent on achieving the next level of your career that you sacrificed your health and well-being. Or maybe you felt stuck in a relationship that you found suddenly unfulfilling.

During my 15 years of being a professional coach, I have witnessed many clients struggling with similar circumstances. One tool I have used successfully and also suggested to clients is a values identification process. It is a powerful tool that helps people facilitate wise choices, strategize action steps that move them forward, and recognize situations in which their values are being compromised.

A useful online resource is this values assessment from mindtools.com. This site provides a list of common values to choose from and challenging questions to help you identify personal values. Here is a simple method to complete the exercise:

• Review a list of 30 to 40 values that appeal to you.
• Choose 10 to 15 that resonate – values you currently honor.
• Review the 10 to 15 once again. Notice that some can be sub-categories of others.
• After close review, select 5 values that are most important to you from that group.
• Review those once again. Which ones do you not want to live without?
• Choose the top 3 values you feel are critical to who you are and what you stand for.
• Prioritize those 3 according to your personal preference.

If you need more help in clarifying your core values, answer these 4 questions:

1. What values must you have in your life to feel fulfilled?
2. What types of values keep showing up in your life?
3. What are the values that are core to the way you do your job, maintain your relationships, parent your children, and/or lead others?
4. What values challenge or stretch you the most?

One of the ways I help clients refocus and get back on track is to have them identify their top three values according to personal priority. We discuss the questions listed above and determine the values that need to be enhanced or maintained. Often, the reason a client feels out of sync or off track has to do with their unconsciously setting aside an important value. Some clients are in a work environment where they feel compromised because their values don’t match the company’s values.

In nearly every values discussion, the question of what is most important to the client emerges. At that point, it is helpful to identify action steps to realign the client with their top values. These might include setting personal boundaries, letting go of perfection, seeking a new job, or building new friendships.

Our values are a gauge that measures how close we are to our true selves. If we stray too far away, life can feel as though we are in constant conflict. Although it is worthwhile to identify personal values, it is critical to perform an occasional self-check. Are you living, working, and leading others in a manner that brings you fulfillment? Our values often change depending on our circumstances and life experiences.

Values identification is the foundation of self-management. It creates a level of self-awareness that helps us make wise decisions and become aligned with what truly matters.

 About the Author

Patricia Sauer is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world.

Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a subject matter expert in an engineering company and, well, a technical genius. I am aware it isn’t politically correct to put it that way, but it is the truth—I have an unusually high IQ and people who come to me for help literally call me “The Genius.”

Our whole team recently did a 360° feedback online. I received my report, which was okay. My direct reports have no complaints with me.  I am a good boss because I studied how to be a good boss and do all that is required. Even though I find it tedious and dull, I do what it takes. My boss also thinks I am great.

The problem is with my peers. It isn’t so much that they said negative or judgmental things; it’s that for many of the questions they mostly responded “N/A,” meaning they didn’t have enough experience with me to credibly respond. The number of N/A’s from my peers made me realize how little they know about me.

I am a quiet person. People tire me out. After work, I really just want to go home, hang out with my cat, and test new levels of video games—which I do for fun for a gaming company run by an old friend. I am generally not included in social events, probably because I consistently decline any invitations I get. I am not just an introvert, I am a turbo introvert.

So, here is my question: Does it matter? Is it important? Is there a compelling reason for me to make the effort to be more social with my peers?

Would Rather be Alone

______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Would Rather Be Alone,

Well, it all depends on your work and career goals. I am a little surprised that the success of your team isn’t affected by the fact that you barely interact with your peers. It sounds like regular interaction and cooperation with other teams is simply not required for you to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. That may or may not be true as your company grows and changes. There might be a chance that you will be OK with keeping to yourself for the foreseeable future; however, you might consider the following points.

The higher people go in organizations, the more they need to be connected to their peers to share ideas and ensure collaboration between functions. Research about emotional intelligence reveals that IQ only takes people so far—and that people who have not developed emotional intelligence (EQ) will hit a career ceiling. There might be some value in discussing with your boss your vision for your future in the organization and asking who among your peers might be most critical for you to get to know. Another thought is that one of your peers could easily be your boss someday—and wouldn’t it be easier for you if they had some sense of who you are?

I understand that people tire you out, so I encourage you to start seeing it as part of your job to create relationships with people in the organization who matter to your success. You can study how to do that the same way you studied how to be a good manager. You don’t have to be super social—just an occasional coffee will do it. Don’t try to be anyone but yourself, but don’t make it about you. When you are around people, find a couple of open-ended questions that get them talking. Make it about work by asking things like “What do you like best about your job?” “Is there anything my team could be doing to make things better for your team?” and “Is there anything that you think I should know?”

Then you can reward yourself by going home to your cat knowing you have gone the extra mile. Apply that high intelligence to doing at least the minimum. It won’t hurt you—and it will probably help you in the long run.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have a high-stress technical job serving the sales department of a professional services company. I have one direct report I am struggling with.

Everything is an emotional event with him. He takes everything personally and even finds ways to get offended by positive feedback. He is always melting down and getting sick. I am doing more and more of his job myself, and I spend inordinate amounts of time talking him off the ledge.

In his defense, our sales people move fast—and it’s true they have dumped extra work on him, and even some work he shouldn’t be doing. I have talked to my boss about getting more help, but my boss tends to stay out of things like this as long as the work is getting done. In this case, he just smiles and tells me I can do it!

I am at my breaking point. I just don’t know what to do. Help?

At Wit’s End

___________________________________________________________________

Dear At Wit’s End,

You are clearly kind, compassionate, competent, and over-functioning for everyone else. It will feel mean when I point out that you are role modeling perfectly how to allow yourself to be taken advantage of. So, stop it. Right now.

Your battle is on two fronts: 1) the problem with your direct report 2) the problem with getting what you need from your boss.  Decide which to tackle first and then get up on your horse and charge. Remember, you say you are at your wit’s end, so at this point you have nothing to lose.

Regarding your direct report: first go to HR and get yourself some help. You need to put your direct report on a performance plan and hold him accountable for his share of the work. You can provide him with information about what the company offers in terms of psychological support. Many Employee Assistance Programs offer at least six sessions with a qualified therapist and it would at least be a start for him to address his emotional instability.

A manager can only provide so much support, and it sounds like you crossed that line a while back. The guy must get professional help or risk losing his job. I know it sounds harsh, but honestly—he is not going to have a successful career without some real help, so you are doing him a favor. The longer you cover for him and spend critical work time providing amateur psych services for him, the deeper you are digging your hole. Heck, get some of that psych support yourself—talk things through with someone and develop a strategy to protect yourself from your own niceness in the future.

In terms of your boss: it’s hard to tell, but because you are so nice, I’m guessing you aren’t being direct about all aspects of this situation. Get super clear about what you need. If necessary, use a spreadsheet to show the amount of work coming in and how many hours go into different tasks. That will paint the picture of how out of whack things are.

You may have to threaten to quit if you can’t get the support you need, which means you should be answering calls from headhunters, trolling job sites, brushing up your LinkedIn profile, and preparing to make your move. Be prepared for the possibility that you might have to go, it will strengthen your position. But don’t think you can run away from your own inability to set boundaries and stand up for yourself – if you don’t really work on this now, you will get yourself right back into a similar pinch in your next job. Use this opportunity. It will be really uncomfortable, but worth it. I promise, you will never look back.

You can do it. Apply the same fierce analytical skills and high-level competence to this situation that you use in the technical parts of your job. Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Delegation and control are common topics with my coaching clients. They recognize the importance of delegation and how it can serve them, but some still struggle with letting go.

In order to free up space to be more strategic, have a greater impact, be more efficient, and achieve work/life balance, delegating appropriate tasks to others is necessary and even required for managers today. This can feel risky—especially if the leader is high controlling, is a perfectionist, or has a heavy workload. Effective leaders who climb the corporate ladder are skilled at delegating and developing people.

When delegating, room must be made for learners to try and fail, which takes extra time. Similar to Blanchard’s SLII® model, extra time is required in Style 1 (Directing) to provide details, show and tell how, monitor frequently, and give feedback to develop a team member on a new task. As the learner develops, the leader can eventually move to Style 4 (Delegating) and devote less time to the team member.

It takes time and planning to effectively develop others, but it’s worth it. Delegation and the development of others are linked together!

If internal issues are standing in the way of delegating, leaders must ask themselves what is causing the need for control. Why do I fear letting go and trusting others to do it correctly? Do I really believe I am the only one who can do it? Do I just want attention? Some managers simply enjoy the sense of accomplishment because they can complete the tasks quickly and accurately with no heavy brain power (cognitive strain).

Ready to start letting go? Here are seven tactics that will help you be more successful.

1. Create a detailed plan for transferring the task.
2. Be clear of the objectives and outcomes of the task.
3. Create a timeline.
4. Establish how and when you will monitor progress.
5. Do not make assumptions.
6. Create a safe space for learning and failures.
7. Provide timely feedback.

Many times, what stands in the way of managerial success is control. The leader’s need to remain in control of a task or project will eventually cause both leader and direct report to fall short of expectations. Delegating more will allow for growth opportunities and professional development for both you and your people. Use these suggestions, take a deep breath, and give it a try today!

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

What is your opinion about New Year’s resolutions? I have a list of goals as long as my arm for the New Year, and I realize I am probably overdoing it. How do I know how much is enough, and how much is too much?

Feeling Ambitious

________________________________________________________________________

Dear Feeling Ambitious,

There is something so inspiring about the feeling of a fresh start, isn’t there? But we know good intentions alone aren’t going to get us where we want to go. A ton of research has been done on the topic of goal setting and achievement. The newest entry to the field is from Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. His most recent book, Smarter, Faster, Better, is a fairly standard take on the topic but fresh for today. To be fair, though, he stands on the shoulders of Steven Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) and Hyrum Smith (The 10 Natural Laws of Time and Life Management). These two books caused me to radically change my life twenty-five years ago. Both Covey and Smith insist that every choice you make must be rooted in your deepest values in order for you to be successful. For example, losing weight won’t work if you are doing it to please someone else. A goal must be important to you or you are not likely to accomplish it.  

Here are a few quick tips if you aren’t up for a stack of books—although a little Googling will uncover many good summaries!

• Pick one big thing. Probably the main reason people don’t achieve their goals—other
  than lack of deep personal commitment—is that they have set too many. So your angst
  that you may be loading up on goals is probably spot on. As you swing back to
  normal after a big holiday season, you are already behind, so you must manage
  your own expectations. Choose one big thing and let the rest go.
• Get Support. Lots of it. Change is hard, no matter what it is—and if you’re
  trying to break an addiction like nicotine or sugar, it is doubly hard. The
  brain craves anything that causes a predictable release of dopamine, so you’ll
  need more support than you think you do. Tapering off can help, as can support
  groups, a buddy, keeping a journal, daily acknowledgment, or asking for help
  from your guardian angel or whatever you know to be your higher power.
• Break it Down. You have one big goal. Break it down into small sub-goals or daily
  commitments. Ask yourself: What can I do,
  every day, to keep myself on track? Make a chart and check off something every
  day. (I’m sure there’s an app for this, but I’m committed to reducing my screen
  time, so I go with paper.)
• Be Clear.
  You may have heard of the SMART model—it’s been around for years and still offers
  good guidelines for goal setting. Here’s the way I learned it: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timebound. Other interpretations for the model exist but I won’t go into a long analysis here, because so many have done it so well. Again, Google can shed more light on this if you’re interested.

I mention the SMART model because I have observed in myself and in my coaching clients that specificity has tremendous power, and so does a timeline. It’s fairly easy to set a SMART goal with something like losing weight, because we can use numbers. With other things, it can get foggy. So specificity and clarity are key. For example, “I want to get better at my job” is not going to help you. “I am going to achieve ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on the following three competencies at my job” will take you much further.

Note: before you start, you must ask yourself: How will I know I am successful in the end? You can only really celebrate your success if you have answered this question in the beginning.

• Make it Compelling: Now let’s loop back to my first point, which is that you really
  have to care about doing the work to
  achieve your goal. You can’t do it for your spouse, your kids, your dad, or
  anyone else, no matter how much you care about them. So, choose something you really, really want. It doesn’t matter
  if it isn’t a big deal to anyone else, or if it isn’t going to make you a
  better person. If you really care, there is a chance you will succeed.

I will leave you now so that I can decide how to be nicer, more productive, a more patient mom, a more inspiring boss, thinner, healthier, and a more committed recycler. I only wish I were kidding.

Here’s to miracles for all of us in the New Year!

Love, Madeleine

PS. I was kidding. Kind of. But seriously, my big goal in 2019 is for this “Ask Madeleine” column to be more widely read. So I am asking for your support. If you like my column, please share it every week with three (3) other people whom you think would like it. Thank you so much!

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I always get a little overwhelmed during the holiday season, but this year I am at the brink. I have a big team at work and I usually try to create some kind of fun event for us—but this year it just isn’t happening. There is a massive problem with our technology and my team and I are having a hard time doing our jobs. My printer stopped working and so did the key card I use to go from building to building. Two of my people are out sick and another needs to be talked off the ledge every hour on the hour. 

In my personal life, my car’s check engine light is on and my mechanic won’t return my calls. My dryer at home is broken, and I have two kids coming home from college with suitcases full of laundry. Our Christmas tree is up, but it isn’t decorated, and I usually have the house all ready for the kids. I haven’t even ordered Christmas cards, let alone sent any! The dog is limping for some unknown reason and the cat keeps throwing up on my bed.

I just got off the phone with a colleague who told me that one of my direct reports dropped a big ball and really screwed up. I am this close to picking up the phone and letting my direct report have it, but I know it wasn’t really his fault. So I am writing you instead.

I feel like everyone and everything is letting me down and I am pushing a huge rock uphill by myself. I can’t even think anymore. Help?

Melting Down

______________________________________________________________

Dear Melting Down,

Oh my dear, this sounds hard. And so familiar. When you start feeling sorry for yourself, it is time to stop. Just stop. Take a deep breath. Say out loud: “This is not neurosurgery, no one is dying.” Repeat three times.

Then, take action.

Make a list of everything you are tolerating. You can read about tolerations in one of my old posts here. Essentially, a toleration* is every little thing you are putting up with. When the list gets too long, one tiny straw can break the camel’s back. This is where you are right now.

Once you have your lists—one for work and one for home—look at each item one by one. Decide whether you are going to deal with it, dump (ignore) it, or delegate it. Some things are simply outside of your control and you will just have to suck them up. Others you can either do something about yourself or get others to handle.

Before you get to it, though, you need to consider your standards—your expectations of yourself and others based on both what you think is important and marks you have hit in the past. Remember: standards are not laws. Gravity is a law. I must have the tree decorated by the time the kids come home is not. Do you see the difference? You have made up that some of the standards you hold yourself to are a priority—when, in fact, your reality is making them impossible. For right now, as you go over your list of tolerations, ask yourself where can I lower my standards, just for this year? I remember one year when I was similarly overextended, I just didn’t do Christmas cards. My sister-in-law was horrified—but you know what? Nobody died.

So lower your standards and your expectations of how things should be. Deal with the real problems—like your car—the ones that won’t resolve themselves and will probably turn into bigger, more expensive problems. Find a new mechanic. If the dog is still limping, make a vet appointment. Assuming the cat is feeling better, close the door to your bedroom just in case.

Let the kids decorate the tree when they get home and take their clothes to the laundromat. Send them a warm text to explain your situation and to warn them so they aren’t surprised. They may moan, but they will also probably rise to the occasion—especially if you manage their expectations. Send a nice email to your work team thanking them for their hard work and promising a fun event in February—which, honestly, is when people really need one. The technology problems will resolve themselves eventually, and you aren’t going to get fired.

Tom Magliozzi, one of the co-hosts of NPR’s Car Talk show, says: “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” Deal with the incontrovertible reality, and remember the rest is all made up. Be the model of grace, humor, generosity, and patience you know yourself to be, especially with your team. Keep breathing. Your kids and you will be fine.

I wish you great peace, healthy pets, a functioning car, and upgraded technology in the New Year.

Love, Madeleine

* Thomas Leonard, a pioneer of the coaching profession and the founder of Coach University, the ICF, and Coachville, coined the term tolerations in the late 1980s.

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I have a good relationship with my boss. We communicate well and I admire him a lot. Over the last two years, he’s the one who has helped me learn the job and tackle problems.

This great connection has caused all kinds of issues I hadn’t anticipated, however. My coworkers seem to think that he supports me in every situation. People say my success is due exclusively to my relationship with the boss, and no one recognizes my hard work.

To add to my troubles, I am a little bit brash. I tend to be loud and probably a little too direct. I speak out when I feel something isn’t right.

I have resigned from my current employer and am moving on to a new opportunity. I don’t want to leave on a bad note and I definitely don’t want to recreate the same situation in my next job.

Teacher’s Pet

Dear Teacher’s Pet,

Congratulations for being able to build such a great relationship with your boss. That is a useful skill. The trick, of course, is to have a great relationship with your boss, your peers, and—as you eventually get promoted—your own direct reports.

The concept that will be helpful for you right now is Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence refers to the extent to which you are aware of yourself, aware of others, and able to regulate your own behavior to work more effectively with others. Some wonderful books have been written on the topic, including Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, and Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.

Here is a great video summary of the main concepts that essentially lays out the importance of possessing these five personal qualities:

• Self-awareness
• Managing emotions
• Self-motivation
• Empathy for others
• Handling relationships

You will benefit a great deal from applying your ambition and desire toward successfully increasing all the above. Otherwise, you are going to continue to crash around and turn people off, which will hurt you professionally.

I can totally relate, by the way—having spent most of my life being described as a bull in a china shop. Brash, loud, direct, and straightforward describes me to a T. I have worked relentlessly to learn to self-regulate. After forty years in the workforce, I still have to put a lot of attention into moderating my natural way of being. It is difficult and sometimes tiring but my efforts have paid off.

Take it from me—honing your Emotional Intelligence is worth it, primarily because you really won’t be able to make a true impact all by yourself. To make a difference in the world you need to be able to work with others and inspire others to do their best. All the research on successful people shows that the ability to build and nurture relationships with people at all levels of the organization is the key to success.

This notion is often challenged by examples of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk—not exactly Emotional Intelligence role models. If you are as big a genius as those guys, then go ahead and ignore me. But if you are just a regular, smart, hardworking, fundamentally decent person who wants a great career, your Emotional Intelligence will matter as much as your intellectual intelligence.

I know you are already on your way—you at least noticed that your way of being hasn’t been working. So as your start your new gig, keep your ears open and your mouth shut until you get to know people a little bit.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am serious person. I was a serious child, raised by very thoughtful and serious immigrant parents. I have always had high expectations and standards for myself.

I am now a manager of a large group of people and I am continually frustrated that almost none of them live up to my expectations. The typos in people’s emails make me tense and it is almost impossible for me to point out the mistakes without being mean.

I am in a constant state of agitation, with an equal amount of energy going into self-regulation. I know I should let people be themselves and be more accepting, and that most errors ultimately don’t really matter.

I am trying to be more at peace, and in fact, I have started a mindfulness program. But I keep circling back to taking it personally when my people turn in substandard work or miss deadlines.

How can I stop being so rigid?

Too Serious

Dear Too Serious,

You are who you are. It’s a combination of nature and nurture—and no matter how hard you try, you are not going to achieve a personality transplant. I know. I have been trying my entire conscious life.

Your foray into mindfulness training is an excellent step. Mindfulness is defined by researchers as “self-regulation of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment,” and “adopting a particular orientation toward one’s experiences in the present moment, an orientation that is characterized by curiosity, openness, and acceptance.” *

The practice of curiosity, openness, and acceptance will help you to relax a little bit. However, you are still going to wake up tomorrow and be yourself. So here is another idea.

Clearly, thoroughly, and honestly, share with your people who you are, what you expect from them, and what they can expect from you.

At our company we call this sharing your Leadership Point of View (LPoV). In essence, it is an examination of your leadership values—the values that inform your standards for yourself and others. These often come from your parent role models, but also from the observation of leaders you admire and from your own life experiences.

In your LPoV you tell the very human stories that explain and give context for your leadership standards. This information will help your people to understand you better and to know what your rules are. Almost everybody wants to make their boss happy, so giving them the very clear roadmap of how to do that is usually appreciated.

The act of creating your Leadership Point of View will help you to define, for yourself and others, what you will insist on and where you are willing to let things slide. You already know which battles aren’t worth fighting. Making it explicit for yourself will help you choose when to give feedback and when it just doesn’t matter.

When you present your LPoV, you share these expectations explicitly. Right now, your expectations are probably mostly implicit, and you are hoping your people will read your mind.

Instead, spell it out. For example, as surmised from your message to me, you could share:

• I expect all written communication to be well organized and free of errors.
• I expect all team members to meet deadlines, or, if this is not possible, to re-negotiate deadlines before the actual deadline.

Our coaches and I have worked on LPoV with countless clients and it makes a big difference for them. I use it myself and I share it in writing whenever I onboard a new employee. It will feel very risky to you, but do it.

On the topic of taking things personally, I am reminded of a book by Don Miguel Ruiz titled The Four Agreements. It is essentially a code of conduct based on ancient Toltec wisdom that can help to unwind deep seated self-limiting beliefs. In short, the Four Agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

You are probably already impeccable with your word, and clearly doing your best. However, you are taking too much personally, and you are almost certainly making assumptions.

Mr. Ruiz’s prescription for not taking things personally starts with a reminder that nothing is actually about you. You might share this book with your team and encourage discussion about it. A lot could change if everyone on the team agreed to use the Four Agreements as a guide.

In the meantime, keep up that mindfulness training, and breathe. Next time you are annoyed at someone around you acting like the human being they are, just take a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

Craft and share your LPoV. Let your people in on how hard it is to be you. Be clear about your standards. Be persistent with holding them to your standards but also be curious, generous, and kind. They will come around.

Love, Madeleine

*Bishop, S.R., et al; “Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition”; Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, V11 N3, 2004, pp. 232

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I work for the tax collector’s office at my local county tax agency. The bulk of my efforts go to facilitating change into that environment. I am a career-driven person and I am finding it very difficult to influence others.

My job is under the umbrella of a state agency and I recently have been voted to be on a leadership board for my county. This organization has been plagued with old traditions and scandals of misuse of power. I’m optimistic and believe that I can change the environment—but at times it exhausts me.

When the HR department selected me for a grievance board committee recently, my boss asked me “Why don’t you let someone else win for a change?” I don’t know how to interpret that. What should I do differently?

Trying to Make Change

Dear Trying to Make Change,

The good news here is that it sounds like you are having quite a bit of success—but it also sounds like you are stepping on some toes to achieve it. Although a little toe stepping is probably inevitable, there might be some ways to soften your approach and make more friends than enemies.

Forgive me for generalizing, but in my experience people who have worked in local government a long time don’t love change. Government work tends to attract folks who seek predictability and stability. Even if they start out with the best of intentions—and of course, many do—if a system is in place that protects their job and benefits them in specific ways, they are loath to give that up.

You have stepped into the role of change agent, which will immediately cause others to suspect you if not outright hate you. You must realize that the role of change agent requires some advanced skills. If your boss is experiencing you as wanting to win at all costs, causing others to lose, somehow it appears that you are engineering things as win/lose.

To ease your path, you are going to have to develop more diplomacy. You’ll need to have conversations that will help people see the changes as a win/win. It is relentless, hard, and, yes, exhausting work. You sound like a logical person, so it is probably difficult for you to see why someone wouldn’t automatically understand why a change might be needed. Because it is so obvious to you, there is a good chance you may not be sharing all of the detail that might help others see things the way you do.

It wouldn’t hurt for you to be aware of Blanchard’s change model. At its core, it breaks down the kinds of concerns people have when change is needed and imminent, and it helps leaders understand the approach they need to use with each individual affected by change. In this recent blog post are ideas for some steps you might consider.

You also might be interested in Angeles Arrien’s work on change agents. In her book The Four-Fold Way; Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary, Arrien researched leaders and change agents in indigenous cultures. She found that, despite radical differences in culture and customs, they all did four things in common.

1. Show up and choose to be present
2. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning
3. Tell the truth without blame or judgment
4. Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome

This alone is worth the price of the book. However, Arrien also provides some excellent ideas on how to develop oneself if one identifies with any of the roles in the title. I would say you probably at the very least are a warrior and a visionary. These are extremely difficult roles to play in the world, and you will need to create a long-term personal development program to sustain your efforts.

In the meantime, work on developing and deepening your relationships, gathering input from stakeholders, listening, overcommunicating, and being kind. I am sure you are right about the old traditions and the bad behavior, but no one likes to feel judged. The past is the past. You represent the new. Let the new be characterized by drawing on what is best in people and what people are doing right.

And, I am sorry to say it, you’ll need to develop a thick skin because no matter how hard you try, some people are still going to hate you. It just goes with the job.

Fight on, change warrior!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I’ve had my eye on a position that might be opening in my company. It would be a big step for me, but I think this is the job I have always wanted.

My problem is that the minute I start even thinking about applying, I feel overcome with anxiety and literally break into a cold sweat. Then I hear a voice in my head saying, “Who the heck do you think you are?”

How do I get up the nerve to pursue this? I am not even sure I want the job, but how will I ever know if I get so anxious I can’t even think about it? Help!

Riddled with Doubt

Dear Riddled,

It is rare to have so many topics covered in such a short question, so I will take them in turn, in order of priority.

1. You need to get some help with your anxiety before you do anything else. We all deal with some anxiety, but yours is interfering with your life. This is the definition of an emotional or psychological condition that needs to be addressed. Anxiety is tricky. It creeps up on you slowly and backs you into a corner before you even realize what is happening. So I am telling you, point blank, you are in a corner and you need to get some help. There are some excellent tools available to help you tame your anxiety. If those don’t work…well, a professional can help you.
2. You have had your eye on this job, so clearly you can see yourself in it. Do you think you have the skills and competencies required to apply and be taken seriously? More important, do you trust yourself to be able to learn quickly and grow into the job in a reasonable amount of time?

In another part of your email you stated you are a female. As a woman, your social conditioning does leave you at a disadvantage when it comes to putting yourself out there. The statistics are varied, but the one I see most consistently says that men tend to apply for opportunities when they have just 60 percent of the qualifications, while women generally don’t apply unless they are 100 percent qualified. The various reasons for this are outlined in this article that might interest you.

Ultimately, the rules that make someone successful in school don’t really apply to working in large systems. The way to get ahead and continually find challenges for yourself will require you to take risks. You will fail, but you will also succeed. As many have said, if you don’t ask, the answer will always be “no.”

3. I was struck by your use of the language “Who do you think you are?” This is language we hear from people in childhood designed to keep us in our place. It is cruel and demeaning. And here you are, using it on yourself! Cut it out. Honestly. It isn’t as if you are proposing to perform brain surgery with no training. You are simply thinking about maybe trying for a new and different job that may be interesting.

I would ask you to answer that question realistically. Who do you think you are? What are your skills and strengths? What experience do you have? What do you bring to the table that maybe no other applicant has? To get a new perspective on this, you might try taking that Values in Action Strengths Assessment—it’s free and fun. It will help you answer that question more positively than you otherwise might.

This is kind of old news, but I love it so much and it has not lost its power—and you may never have seen it. It is from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love and it was quoted by Nelson Mandela in his inauguration speech:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone—and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Finally, Riddled, get your friends and family on board here. Ask anyone for support that you know loves you and wants the best for you. Get a handle on the anxiety, stop playing small, get support, and go for it. Start with some deep breathing. Breathing never hurts, and always helps.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

A total of twelve characteristics were identified, five of which were agreed upon by all of the scholars polled. These five most prominent servant leadership characteristics were:

1. Valuing People. Servant leaders value people for who they are, not just for what they give to the organization. Servant leaders are committed first and foremost to people—particularly, their followers.
2. Humility. Servant leaders do not promote themselves; they put other people first. They are actually humble, not humble as an act. Servant leaders know leadership is not all about them—things are accomplished through others.
3. Listening. Servant leaders listen receptively and nonjudgmentally. They are willing to listen because they truly want to learn from other people—and to understand the people they serve, they must listen deeply. Servant leaders seek first to understand, and then to be understood. This discernment enables the servant leader to know when their service is needed.
4. Trust. Servant leaders give trust to others. They willingly take this risk for the people they serve. Servant leaders are trusted because they are authentic and dependable.
5. Caring. Servant leaders have people and purpose in their heart. They display a kindness and concern for others. As the term servant leadership implies, servant leaders are here to serve, not to be served. Servant leaders truly care for the people they serve.

To a large degree, these findings mimic the results of polling that The Ken Blanchard Companies conducted with 130 leadership, learning, and talent development professionals who attended a series of servant leadership executive briefings in cities across North America in 2018. Topping the list was empathy, closely followed by selflessness and humility. Also mentioned multiple times were being authentic, caring, collaborative, compassionate, honest, open-minded, patient, and self-aware.

Both lists can serve as good starting points for HR and L&D executives looking to bring an others-focused culture into their organizations. What’s been your experience?  Feel free to enter additional characteristics of a servant leader in the comments section below.

Interested in learning more about bringing servant leadership principles into your organization? Join us for a free webinar on November 15!

Dr. Vicki Halsey, vice president of applied learning for The Ken Blanchard Companies and author of Brilliance By Design, will conduct a presentation for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals on 3 Keys to Building a Servant Leadership Curriculum.

In this enlightening webinar, Dr. Halsey will connect servant leadership characteristics to competencies and share best practices on how to design a comprehensive curriculum for your organization. You can learn more here. The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

I’ve noticed a trend when doing these debriefs. A client’s self rating is often noticeably lower in several areas than ratings from other people such as their direct reports or their boss. Most clients aren’t surprised at this; in fact, many laugh and chalk it up to their being a perfectionist. They often say they know they set a high bar for themselves and put lots of pressure on themselves—but they seem to accept this as the way they are wired. But is it?

Most people agree that striving to continually grow and develop and to achieve one’s goals is a desirable trait. Perfectionism, on the other hand, can be a different story. A perfectionist is often defined as someone who strives for flawlessness.

Many of my clients who label themselves perfectionists push themselves harder than anyone asks them to. They tend to work more than they need to. They fear making a mistake because they are afraid others will see their imperfection. These behaviors and beliefs can make them inauthentic in their interactions with others because they don’t like to reveal what I call their “soft underbelly.”

Full disclosure here: I have perfectionist tendencies. But seeing this characteristic often in my clients has caused me to look at my own perfectionism and make efforts to throttle back these inclinations.

I like what Dr. David Burns, author of the highly regarded book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, said about perfectionism:

“Perfection is man’s ultimate illusion. It simply doesn’t exist in the universe. There is no perfection. It’s really the world’s greatest con game; it promises riches and delivers misery. The harder you strive for perfection, the worse your disappointment will become because it’s only an abstraction, a concept that doesn’t fit reality. Everything can be improved if you look at it closely and critically enough—every person, every idea, every work of art, every experience, everything.”

Most perfectionists have been that way all their lives and often have underlying beliefs that drive their perfectionism. That said, greater self awareness and a commitment to lighten up on oneself can be a start. Thanks to the internet, there is much information at our fingertips regarding the pros and cons of perfectionism as well as techniques for lessening its negative effects. Here are a few:

• Realize that we are often our own worst critic. Most people are not rating and judging us to the degree we are rating and judging ourselves. Interesting fact: people often feel uncomfortable around perfectionists.
• Don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides. Most people tend to put their best “Facebook” image out there—one that is different from how they actually feel inside. So don’t compare yourself to others.
• Try to keep in mind what author Brené Brown says: “Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.”

I often ask my perfectionistic clients if they could “dare to be average.” They usually groan—because to them, average is tantamount to failure. Some, however, do work to unclench their jaw and not operate at full throttle all the time. So far, none of them has died, and several have reported feeling more at ease then they have in a long time.

Might you benefit from examining whether perfectionism is having a negative influence on your life? Please let me know what you discover!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a few years in, working on Wall Street.  I am a financial analyst and am pretty good at my job.

At my recent performance review my boss told me that I need to “build my brand.”  

What the heck? I tried to get some detail out of him but didn’t get much. He said to get ahead here, I need to find ways to stand out and get noticed. I was figuring if I aced my advanced finance exams and did great work, the rest would take care of itself.

Can you shed some light on this?

In the Dark

Dear In the Dark,

The first thing I can tell you is that nothing ever takes care of itself. There is no fairness, no justice, and no reward for working hard. Doing great work is the ante that keeps you in a job and gets you one thing: more work. It doesn’t get you noticed or promoted—especially in the shark tank that is Wall Street.

You’re going to want to be clear about your career goals, develop relationships with anyone who can help you achieve them, and be memorable to anyone who matters. If you’re committed enough to your own success to study for and ace those fiendish exams, then you might be able to devote a little brain space and energy toward thinking about your brand.

I first heard about the concept of personal branding from Tom Peters back in the 90s. What I thought at the time would be a fad has really stuck. Essentially, it means thinking of yourself as a product that you need to keep top of mind with potential consumers.

This means you have to apply fundamental marketing theory to yourself. What are the features and benefits of you? Who might be interested in them? How do you differentiate yourself from other people like you? What real or perceived value do you bring to anyone who might work with you?

I can see your face right now, all scrunched up with distaste. I get it. I do. But you are an analytical thinker and obviously smart enough, so you can do this.

The key is to start with what is true. Those who try to build a brand based on lies can’t keep it up long term. Think about:

• Who are you? I worked with one client who called himself a Hoosier—which essentially means being from the state of Indiana, but also stands for being straightforward and honest. Early in his career he hid it because he thought it made him seem unsophisticated, but eventually he built a very successful persona based on this and it always felt authentic because it was.
• What is important to you? These are your values—what matters to you. You can develop a reputation for being a stickler for accuracy, being a data junkie, or being able to synthesize numbers into a narrative that is interesting to non-numbers types. Maybe you’re a super sharp dresser? Always into the latest hair styles? Keep it up, be consistent, and make it a signature.
• What makes you unique? What odd combination of skills do you have that nobody else has?
• What are your signature strengths? (If you don’t know, you can take a free assessment here).
• What do people get from hanging out with you? If you really have no idea, ask your friends. They will tell you if you’re funny, or if you always ask the odd question that nobody else thinks of, or if you’re the person who knows every microbrewery in the tri-state area.

From the list of what is important to you, you can build standards for your own behavior and appearance that will always be consistent. You can make choices to reveal certain aspects of yourself, when, and to whom. This is what makes you special and memorable to people and this is what your boss is trying to tell you. Just doing good work and keeping your head down is not going to get you anywhere.

There is a whole social media aspect to this as well—you can use your self-discoveries to curate a compelling representation of yourself on social media. I personally would rather have dental work, and I suspect you feel the same way. But you are at the beginning of your career, so I don’t know that you will be able to avoid it. I found a recent article that may help you with more specifics on this. I like the way the author focuses on how you add value.

Finally, part of your brand is going to be defined by who you know and hang out with. Find people you like, are interested in, and can learn from based on what how you answer the questions above. Join committees at work that are focused on things that are important to you. Environmental issues? Saving Australian Shepherds? Whatever it is, find your tribe and hang out with them.

Identify the folks who have the job you want to be doing within the next three years and ask one of them to be your mentor. The first one may turn you down, but keep trying. You’re probably thinking “Oh no, I’m an introvert, I can’t do that!” Yes, you can—and if your career is important to you, you will. You can be as shy and introverted as you want in your personal life, but you’re going to have to move out of your comfort zone at work.

I know this is a lot of extra stuff to think about, so take it step by step. Slow and steady wins the race. Apply that work ethic and that considerable intelligence to this problem, and you will be just fine.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

“Are you here to serve or to be served?”

Ken believes the way you answer that question determines how you approach leading others.

If you’re here to be served, you think leadership is all about you. You expect people to follow and obey, you don’t see any need for feedback or discussion, and you believe it’s your job to keep people accountable.

But if you’re here to serve, you take the time to listen, you invest in developing people, you seek out others’ opinions, and you enjoy catching people doing things right and cheering them on.

When Ken asks that question, almost everyone responds that they want to be seen as a serving leader. But what specific characteristics do servant leaders demonstrate to demonstrate this mindset?

In a series of executive briefings held in Houston, Ft. Lauderdale, and New York, we asked 130 leadership, learning, and talent development professionals to identify the attitudes, skills, and behaviors of a servant leader. We researched the answers and identified more than sixty attributes.

Wondering what personal qualities people look for when they think about servant leadership? Topping the list was empathy, closely followed by selflessness and humility. Also mentioned multiple times were being authentic, caring, collaborative, compassionate, honest, open-minded, patient, and self-aware.

Would people see you as a serving leader or a self-serving leader? Score yourself on each of these eleven servant leader attributes by answering yes, no, or somewhat, based on what you think people might say.

1. My people would say I am empathetic.
2. My people would say I am selfless.
3. My people would say I am humble.
4. My people would say I am authentic.
5. My people would say I am caring.
6. My people would say I am collaborative.
7. My people would say I am compassionate.
8. My people would say I am honest.
9. My people would say I am open-minded.
10. My people would say I am patient.
11. My people would say I am self-aware.

How did you do? Don’t feel bad if you can’t give yourself a perfect score. Most people—even those considered very good leaders—fall short in at least a couple of these areas.

Looking for a way to improve? You can start with becoming proficient at what our professionals see as the top three skills of a servant leader:

1. Become a better listener.
2. Ask, instead of tell.
3. Focus on developing people.

One thing all of these behaviors have in common is your willingness to set aside your own agenda and focus instead on what’s happening in the lives of people who report to you. Centering less on your needs and more on the needs of others will help you build the additional strengths that make people want to follow you.

Servant leadership is a better way to lead—and one that leads to higher levels of engagement, performance, and human satisfaction.

Interested in exploring servant leadership at an organizational level? Don’t miss two great opportunities coming up from The Ken Blanchard Companies!

Join Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on September 12! Ken will present on the topic Servant Leadership: 4 Keys to Leading at a Higher Level. Learn more here. (Over 1,500 people are registered but still room for others—up to 2,000.)

Beginning September 25, you can join The Ken Blanchard Companies for a live, face-to-face servant leadership networking event in one of 13 cities in the US and Canada! Explore servant leadership concepts together with other leadership, learning, and talent development professionals in your metropolitan area. See which city is closest to you here.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a new manager. I have twelve folks reporting to me and it is going perfectly, except for one person (I will call him “A”). There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between how he sees his own performance (superior) and how others see his performance (subpar).  I am continually confused by this disparity because it is so obvious to everyone but A. 

For example, we just had a performance review cycle where A’s peers identified that he submits work for group projects that is not well thought through, is loaded with errors, and, in some cases, is not even the piece he was supposed to be working on. A’s own self-assessment was that he is way ahead of everyone else and that he should get both a bonus and a promotion! 

I don’t so much want advice on what to do; my company has provided good training and I know how to have the right conversations with A.  I just don’t understand how a person can be so oblivious to their own faults and deluded about their own capabilities.  How does this happen? 

Need an Explanation

Dear Need an Explanation,

Oh, if only I could explain this!  This is one of those questions that has stumped countless philosophers through the ages. This personality quirk has been a great source of entertainment, not the least of which is exemplified in the character of Michael Scott in the TV show “The Office.” I agree it is confounding—and it also makes me constantly worried that others might think this about me!  Self-awareness is just so tricky.

What we are talking about here is known in my business as Emotional Intelligence, which comprises awareness of self, awareness of others, and the ability to modulate or regulate oneself to be successful with others.  The research shows that high emotional intelligence is a success indicator—and that the kind of obliviousness A demonstrates will eventually curtail his ambitions.

In our book Leverage Your Best—Ditch the Rest, Scott Blanchard and I offer the Three Perspectives, which are:

• How do see myself?
• How do others see me?
• How do I need to be seen to be successful in this situation?

Once a person has a sense of how to answer those questions, they can figure out what to do about them.  In the meantime, I cannot explain how someone can be as oblivious as A seems to be.  We can speculate—and goodness knows I do, all the time.  Maybe it is all an act and A is worried sick about measuring up, so he is overcompensating.  Maybe he had parents who raised him to believe he could do no wrong.  Who knows?  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.  I think the better question may be this: how can you help A?  You may simply want to present the disconnect and ask him what he thinks about it.  He may have something interesting to say.

Good luck,

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Researchers from The Ken Blanchard Companies teamed up with Training magazine to poll 456 human resource and talent-management professionals. The purpose was to determine whether established best practices were being leveraged effectively.

The survey found gaps of 20-30 percent between what employees wanted from their leaders and what they were experiencing in four key areas: Performance Planning (setting clear goals), Day-to-Day Coaching (helping people reach their targets), Performance Evaluation (reviewing results), and Job and Career Development (learning and growing.)

Use this link to download a PDF version of a new infographic that shows the four key communication gaps broken down into ten specific conversations leaders should be having with their team members.

Are your leaders having the performance management conversations they should be? If you find similar gaps, address them for higher levels of employee work passion and performance.

You can read more about the survey (and see the Blanchard recommendations for closing communication gaps) by accessing the original article, 10 Performance Management Process Gaps, at the Training magazine website.

Would you like to learn more about improving the quality of management conversations in your organization? Join Ann Phillips for a complimentary webinar on Performance Management 101: 3 Conversations All Managers Need to Master. The event is free courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can learn more and register using this link.

“Part of effective communication between manager and direct report is a mindset and part is a skillset. Both are required,” says Phillips. “It’s easy for managers to convince themselves they don’t have time for quality conversations, especially when they aren’t particularly interested in having them and don’t really know how to do it.

“Every manager I’ve worked with has so much of their own work to do all day, every day, that some can’t see their way clear to spending time with the folks who work for them—other than performance reviews, rushed interactions, or crises,” explains Phillips. “Conversations between these managers and their people are mostly manager-led directives of ‘this is what I want you to do; here’s how to do it.’ The manager is focused on getting stuff done and on what needs to happen—not on their direct reports’ career growth or needs.

“Unfortunately, when individual contributors in this scenario become managers, they treat people exactly the way they were treated. Sub-quality conversations become a cultural norm.”

The good news, according to Phillips, is that managers can learn to be more effective in their work conversations.

“If a manager has the right mindset and training, it’ll drive the right behavior,” says Phillips. She recommends focusing on three specific conversations to get started.

The Goal-Setting Conversation

“All good performance begins with clear goals. Effective goal-setting conversations begin with clarity—what to do, by when, and what a good job looks like,” says Phillips. “Be specific—and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s critically important to take the time to make sure both parties are interpreting the same words in the same way to avoid misunderstandings.

“Conversations and relationships can go sideways when people interpret things differently but don’t have a conversation about that interpretation. Never assume!”

This leads to the second important conversation at which managers need to excel—giving feedback.

The Feedback Conversation

“A friend of mine recently told me I tend to hijack conversations,” says Phillips. “The funny thing is, I was just about to tell her she does the same thing! We discovered that what I interpret as hijacking and what she interprets as hijacking are two different things.

“We talked about how, when she’s talking and pauses to think, I rush in to fill the empty space.  It goes back to my experience at home. In my family, you talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and there are no pauses. So when my friend goes silent, I fill in the gap and start talking about something.

“Then I explained to her that I feel she hijacks the conversation when I tell her about something happening in my life and she immediately turns it into a discussion about something that’s happening in her life. It’s related, but it still feels to me like she is making it about her.

“Because we are committed to our friendship, we’re willing to discuss things that are uncomfortable and to consider each other’s point of view. That’s important at work, too. Managers and direct reports need to have the type of relationship where they can talk honestly. When a manager cares about a direct report as a human being—and vice versa—they build up an emotional bank account they can draw from.  That allows them to have difficult conversations when they need to.”

Sadly, the word feedback has a negative connotation in business today, says Phillips.

“People seldom think of feedback as praise or recognition. When people hear that word, they think at best it’s going to be constructive criticism. But it rarely feels constructive—it just feels like criticism.

“It’s another area where most managers don’t have the skills they need—especially feedback around performance improvement and redirection. Managers are so concerned about how someone might respond to feedback, they tend to avoid it altogether.”

One way managers can be more successful when preparing to give feedback is to make sure they are coming at it from the right place.

“Your feedback can’t be based on your own personal agenda,” says Phillips. “It has to be about helping other people be successful or otherwise improving the team. If you come from a personal agenda, your feedback will come across poorly.

“In my conversation with my friend, she gave me the feedback about the way I hijack conversations because she wanted our conversations to be better.  I knew that, and it gave me a chance to think about my behavior and run it over in my mind. That was a good learning for me—to recognize that behavior I picked up from my family might be misinterpreted when I’m dealing with other people.”

The One-on-One Conversation

Listening and focusing on the other person’s agenda is especially important when managers conduct one-on-one conversations with their direct reports, says Phillips.

“It’s easy to fall into the manager’s agenda, where one-on-ones can turn into a review of how the direct report is doing on each of their goals. At The Ken Blanchard Companies, we teach managers to schedule semi-monthly one-on-ones, where the agenda is driven by the individual contributor and what they need.”

The manager’s primary role is to listen and provide support, says Phillips.  Senior leaders are generally better at this than are new managers.

“At the senior levels of an organization, a VP typically will have more experience asking a direct report how things are going and finding out what the direct report needs to succeed. As you move down to the frontlines of an organization, managers are less experienced at taking the lead in a conversation like that.”

Especially at the frontlines, Phillips observes, managers and supervisors need training in how to have effective one-on-one conversations. Otherwise, the direct report is likely to default to the manager and ask the manager what they want talk about.

“It’s important to teach managers to ask open-ended questions about what an individual contributor’s needs are. Suppose the direct report comes into the meeting with a blank piece of paper and says, ‘What do you want talk about?’ The manager should take that opening and say, ‘Let’s talk about some things you are working on. Let’s list the three or four tasks, discuss your development level, and talk about how I can help you.’ Eventually, that direct report will become more proactive and learn to take the lead in those conversations.”

It’s a process and a joint responsibility—one where everybody benefits, says Phillips.

“Leaders influence through the power of their conversations. Train your managers—and your individual contributors—in the skills they need for more effective conversations at work. It’s one of the best ways to improve performance and satisfaction.”

Would you like to learn more about improving the quality and frequency of conversations in your organization?  Then join us for a free webinar!

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 101: 3 CONVERSATIONS ALL MANAGERS NEED TO MASTER

Wednesday, August 1, 2018, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Managers influence and lead through the words they use and the communication skills they apply. In this webinar, Blanchard senior consulting partner Ann Phillips will share the three types of conversations managers must know how to conduct.

1. The Goal-Setting Conversation—how to set goals collaboratively with a focus on motivation.
2. The Feedback Conversation—how to praise performance when it is aligned and how to redirect performance when it is off track.
3. The One-on-One Conversation—how to set aside time to hear from direct reports using high levels of inquiry and listening.

Don’t miss this opportunity to evaluate how your organization is currently addressing performance management. Learn the elements of masterful performance management and how to apply these principles in your own organization. Ann will share tips and strategies you can put into practice immediately. The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Register today!

Topping the list of servant leader attributes was empathy, closely followed by being selfless and humble.  Also mentioned multiple times were being authentic, caring, collaborative, compassionate, honest, open-minded, patient, and self-aware. The word cloud pictured above features all of the attributes that were identified.

When it came to the top three behaviors servant leaders demonstrate, the leadership and learning professionals identified listening, followed by asking questions and developing others.

For leaders looking for ways to be more others-focused in their work conversations with direct reports, coaching experts Madeleine Homan Blanchard and Linda Miller suggest taking a LITE approach by learning four essential communication skills that form the acronym LITE.

Skill 1: Listen to Learn

Listening is one of the most essential skills any manager can have. Good listeners focus on what the other person is saying and respond in ways that make others feel heard and valued. In any interaction, managers should:

• Listen with the intent of understanding the other person
• Set aside distractions
• Focus on the person and give their undivided attention

Skill 2: Inquire for Insight

Great managers draw their people out. They ask questions that allow employees to share insights and ideas that can benefit projects, tasks, and the team as a whole. And it helps the manager to understand the underlying motivations in regard to what drives behavior. Managers should:

• Ask open-ended questions
• Emphasize what and how rather than why
• Encourage the direct report, once the conversation comes to an end, to recap in order to check for understanding

Skill 3: Tell Your Truth

Being honest builds trust and authenticity; it allows managers to share information that’s needed to help their employee move forward. Many managers are afraid being honest will hurt others’ feelings, but in all actuality, a truthful exchange can empower others. When telling their truth, managers need to:

• Be brave, honest, and respectful
• Be open to other perspectives
• Avoid blame or judgment while they focus on forward movement

Skill 4: Express Confidence

When managers express confidence in their people, it builds employees’ self-assurance and enthusiasm. In conversations with others, managers should:

• Highlight relevant qualities or skills
• Point out previous successes
• Offer support as needed

If you want your managers to deepen their leadership skills, you must teach them to use coaching skills and encourage a strong coaching culture within your organization. Help your managers develop the mindset of an effective coach by familiarizing them with the coaching process and providing effective coaching skills that will help their teams accelerate their performance.

Madeleine Homan Blanchard explains, “When you take the LITE approach, people walk away from the conversation feeling heard, validated, and ready to take action on what was discussed. These skills will help managers interact with their people more effectively and promote clarity and positivity.”

Interested in learning more about adding a servant leadership skillset into your existing leadership development program?  Join The Ken Blanchard Companies for a free webinar on June 20.  Use this link to learn more about Creating A Servant Leadership Curriculum.  The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

*Special thanks to research interns Casey McKee and Hunter Young for compiling data and creating the word cloud graphic which accompanies this post.

In his book The Inner Game of Tennis, author W. Timothy Gallwey states “Quieting the mind means less thinking, calculating, judging, worrying, fearing, hoping, trying, regretting, controlling, jittering, or distracting.” This familiar spinning, spinning, spinning of thoughts is the opposite of mindfulness. In fact, to quote Phil Jackson, former coach of the Chicago Bulls, you might call it jabbering.

As I’ve started to pay more attention to my thinking, I’ve found that I definitely engage in mental jabbering. Most of my jabber involves things that either happened in the past or may happen in the future. I must admit that when my mind jabbers I’m not paying attention to my experience from moment to moment.

As a coach, I’ve begun to notice that my clients also engage in lots of jabber. When I sense this is happening, I ask them questions to bring them into the present moment—which in reality is the only one they have.

So what’s the big deal about us calculating, planning, or reminiscing much of the time? When we jabber, we are missing many of the moments we have to live. We are on automatic pilot and not fully aware of what we are doing or experiencing. We eat without really tasting, look without really seeing, listen without really hearing, and touch without really feeling. In other words, we miss out on the texture of our life experience.

To stop jabbering means to quiet the mind and strive to be in the here and now. It means to gently bring yourself—or possibly a coaching client—back to the present moment. Of course, that’s easier said than done. So here’s some incentive.

When we quiet our mind, we are better able to:

• Fully experience the actual moment in front of us

• Maintain focus

• Manage our reactions/responses

• Reduce stress and anxiety

The list of the benefits of mindfulness could go on and on.

I’d like to encourage you to spend some time noticing where your thoughts are. Their location may just surprise you!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Maybe it is the CEO of your company, the principal of your local high school, or the president of your alma mater.

If I asked you about the specific qualities that made them successful, you’d probably tell me about their hard skills—teachable abilities such as vision and strategic thinking.

But I’ll bet you’d also tell me about their soft skills—interpersonal abilities such as listening, collaborating, and endorsing others.

Yes, the hard skills matter, but in my experience it is soft skills that make a leader memorable—more than their title, degree, acquisitions, or accomplishments. Let me give you an example.

Twenty five years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I attended a presentation by the famous Boston Children’s Hospital pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton. After delivering his speech to a packed house, Dr. Brazelton took questions from the audience. One woman had a question about breastfeeding her three-year-old child.

A sizeable number of audience members started to murmur regarding the woman’s choice to nurse a child that age. The negative energy unsettled the mother and she paused in the middle of her question. The silence seemed to last forever, but Dr. Brazelton kept his compassionate gaze upon her. It was as if they were the only two people in the room. He nodded for her to continue and she tentatively resumed speaking. When she finished her question, he answered her. He then took the next question.

Why has this stayed with me for twenty-five years? In that moment, I saw Dr. Brazelton as an awesome leader because he didn’t do anything. He cared enough to wait. He held the space for her. The woman at the microphone felt his connection—and I did, too, as an observer. He didn’t play to the audience. He didn’t diminish the woman or her question. And by doing so, Dr. Brazelton allowed me to observe the transformational power of caring by truly listening. That evening, I learned so much from him—far beyond the topic of his speech.

Obviously, listening, caring, and creating a connection are important to me as a coach. It was not Dr. Brazelton’s education or professorships or thirty-page resume that affected me the evening I heard his speech. I was transformed by seeing a self-aware individual care to hear the question of another. It was powerful—and it remains powerful all these years later.

As the years have passed, I recall that night often and use it as a calibration in my own work by asking myself: In what ways am I creating connections like that?

How about you? Taking the opportunity to continually improve is essential to becoming a better, more self-aware leader. Unlike a hard skill, we’re never finished when it comes to improving our ability to listen, to be present, and to validate others. Consider how you can model both the hard and soft sides of leadership in your conversations. You’ll help yourself and others in working together more effectively—and isn’t that wonderful!

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared in LeaderChat in 2017. Dr. T. Berry Brazelton died in March this year just shy of his 100th birthday. Hospitals and research institutions, together with all of the people touched by Dr. Brazelton’s work, will be honoring his impact and legacy on the anniversary of his one hundredth birthday on May 10.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

There is a person on my team—a peer of mine—who rubs me the wrong way. Frankly, I just can’t stand her. She is a know-it-all, she talks incessantly, and she’s way too loud. She is constantly on the phone (not really required for the job), cracking her gum and throwing out commentary on what she is doing. Behind her back, the rest of us roll our eyes at her—which is kind of fun—but she really is annoying.

The reason this is a problem is that I know I am being promoted to team lead soon and this person will report to me. I just have no idea how to manage someone I hold in such contempt. Can I give her this feedback? Won’t she hate me? Or am I just …

Too Critical?

Dear Too Critical,

You might be. Perhaps you could use this as an opportunity to develop yourself to be more generous and kind. Or, if she is truly insufferable to everyone, you may be able to use your critical nature to help the gum snapper be more professional.

Let’s start with the ways this situation could be a spiritual development program for you. Has this happened to you before? Do you tend to judge others harshly and find them wanting? Or is this a one-off? Ask your nearest and dearest to give you an honest assessment—they are the ones who know you. If you are indeed judgmental, you’ll have your answer when your BFF laughs when you ask about it.

If it turns out you really are too critical, it is probably because you—like most humans—think everyone should be like you. Even though you are aware of how absurd this is, it is still a factor in how you frame your opinions. It might help you to understand implicit bias and the ways your brain works so that you can increase your awareness. You may also want to familiarize yourself with temperament theory—the ways in which people are different, why it matters, and how to use the knowledge to tailor your communication with others. These things are good to know even if you aren’t normally judgmental, especially if you are going to be leading a team.

Once you are team lead, the big question will be this: does gum snapper deliver what is required of her or not? Your assessment would be strictly on performance and you can give feedback based on that. If any given behavior is getting in the way of her doing her job, give feedback on that as well. If her behavior is keeping other team members from getting their jobs done, you can request that she cut it out. If you have reservations about giving feedback (and who doesn’t), you can refer to a past post here.

If she does her job consistently well, keep your opinions to yourself and keep developing trust by being in service and doing everything in your power to help her succeed. Find what is working—what she does well—and focus on that. Then over time, if things work out and if she asks, you can give her feedback about the ways she turns people off—in the service of her professional development and career growth. She probably won’t ever ask and that’s okay. By then, who knows? She might even have grown on you.

If she doesn’t perform well, and doesn’t respond to requests for changes, then presumably she won’t last in the organization and your problem is solved.

Be kind. Be fair. Be grateful she isn’t your boss. Cut her a little slack. If necessary, walk away or breathe deep and look away. Remember, she is just a person trying to get through the day like everybody else.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

It is so rewarding to coach clients who want to be amazing and who dare to rise!  They are fully aware of their current reality of operating in the normal status quo and are now ready to shake it up.  Other clients gain the desire to rise during a few coaching sessions after self-reflecting and uncovering their goals and who they want to be.

Only YOU know what being amazing looks like for YOU!  It may involve taking baby steps in accomplishing smaller goals. Or it may be making a bigger leap to a larger goal. In both cases, stepping outside of the norm to “Rise to be Amazing” involves the following 4 elements:

1. Self-Reflection – Take the time to think about what you want to achieve and who you want to be in order to be amazing. Define what amazing means to you.

2. Self-Awareness – Recognize your normal mode of operation, behaviors, and thoughts.

3. Courage – Be willing to take a risk, to be uncomfortable, and to challenge yourself.

4. Believe in Yourself – This is huge: envision yourself being amazing! Personally, this helped me achieve completing my first marathon in 2016.  Wow—what a feeling!  After doubting myself and not taking control of my life/work circumstances for years, I chose to Rise to be Amazing!

Being amazing works in your personal life and also in your professional life.  For example, I have worked with many clients whose professional goal was to be an amazing leader.  For these clients, a focus on better goal setting, diagnosing a direct report’s development level, or becoming better at providing direction and support defined being a master at management.  Communication is another common topic where many clients want to become more effective.  This, too, involves self-awareness, self-discipline, and the willingness to adapt one’s communication style and approach.

Who knows what you might achieve if you rise beyond being normal. I challenge you to Rise to be Amazing!!

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Our company recently instituted an internal survey designed to measure employee experience and asked business units and departments to give feedback on each other. Our business unit got the results from the first survey and the news was pretty good. We got a total score of 4.4 out of 5, which means that on average everyone who interacts with our team is more than satisfied with us.

One thing my team and I did get marked low on was being “slow to respond.” My people were upset about this and I am, too. We often need to research, think about, and discuss our responses when we are asked for help, so it is rare that we can just fire off a solution right away.

I didn’t think the survey was the place to call out individuals and I feel embarrassed and exposed. I have no way of knowing who said what or defending myself and my team.

What do you think I should do?

Got Dinged

Dear Got Dinged,
Nothing. Don’t do anything right now. You can do something once you have had a chance to cool off, calm down, and notice how defensive you feel. Feedback that makes us feel judged and found wanting can cause the release of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, which generate the “fight or flight” response. No one is thinking clearly when that is happening.

Once you are feeling rational again, ask yourself the question that will help you to stay open and curious about the topic: “What if this feedback were true?”

The truth is that even if you could explain yourself, nobody is really interested in why you are slow to respond. The better place to focus your energy is to ask yourself a second question: “How important is this to my success and the success of my team?”

If your organization has a norm where everyone must respond within 24 hours, you’re going against company norms—which may or may not be OK with you. If you’re going to march to your own drummer, you will need to be OK taking a little flack for it. If you’re not OK with taking flack, you can make a commitment to changing your ways. The one thing to consider is that even if you can’t get a full answer to someone, you can respond by saying, “Got your request, need to do a little footwork and think it through. Expect an answer by ____.” That is a response, and it only takes four seconds to do it.

Then check in with your team. Say, “We can see in the survey that some folks experience us as slow to respond. Are there instances where you can see that they might have a point?” Discuss. Walk through the same progression you already put yourself through. Decide how important it is to the team to change the perception. If it seems to be important, let the team brainstorm solutions toward that outcome.

The survey was a jolt from left field. Take the data and decide how it may be useful to you. Decide what, if anything, you might want to do about it. If you decide to do something, make a plan and commit to it. Otherwise, let it go.

Love, Madeleine

PS: You might also want to consider giving feedback directly to anyone you might have dinged on the survey to ensure you don’t perpetuate the behavior that has made you so unhappy. Just because technology makes it easier to give feedback anonymously, doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

Just sayin’.

About the author

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 here next week!

How do you decide when to take on a new task or a new job? Could we thrive with a little bit more intentional thought? According to best-selling business author Dan Pink, there is a large and growing amount of research that gives clear guidance on how to get systematically better and smarter about making decisions on when to do things.

“We all experience Peak moments, Trough moments, and Recovery moments.  The key is to schedule the right type of work for each of these times. Our cognitive abilities change throughout the day. Do your analytic work during the Peak, administrative work during the Trough, and creative work during Recovery.”

Simply following this pattern can result in a 20 percent improvement in how people perform a job, says Pink.

Peak times should be used for analytic tasks and those that require head-down, focused attention and energy—for example, writing a report or analyzing data.  Save Trough time—which usually occurs later in the day—for routine administrative work.

“That’s when we should answer routine emails, fill out expense reports, or do the kinds of things that don’t require a heavy cognitive load,” says Pink.

Recovery time is best suited for certain types of insight work or brainstorming.

“Our mood is higher, but at the same time we tend to be less vigilant.”

Pink also shares insight on research that highlights the importance of taking breaks throughout the day. He offers a couple of best practice guidelines.

1. Something beats nothing. “Even a one- or two-minute break can restore energy and mental acuity.”
2. Moving is better than stationary. “Get up and move around—don’t sit at your desk and look at your phone.”
3. Social beats solo. “Breaks with other people are more replenishing than breaks on our own—even for introverts.”
4. Outside beats inside. “Nature has incredible replenishing benefits on our mental acuity and on our well-being.”
5. Fully detached beats semi-detached. “When you take a break, leave your phone at your desk.”

Finally, Pink shares timing recommendations for starting new projects and keeping teams performing at their best, and also discusses how to be intentional when setting up the beginning, midpoint, and ending of projects.

Be sure to listen through to the very end of the session, where Ken Blanchard shares his key takeaways from the interview!

1. If you believe others control your future
2. If you hate to learn new things—especially about yourself
3. If you believe you have all the answers
4. If you believe feedback is a waste of time
5. If you believe the coach is there to give you advice (that you wouldn’t want to take anyway)
6. If you have been greatly successful without help from anyone else

However, if you are open to new ideas, are willing to try new things, and have an unshakeable belief in your ability to get better, a coach can help you take your first steps in a new direction. If this describes you—or someone you know—then don’t waste a minute. Find a coach who can help you along the way. A bigger life awaits you!

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Servant Leadership: 20 Tips & Strategies from Today’s Top Leaders

In a recent Servant Leadership in Action Livecast, over 3,200 leadership, learning, and talent development professionals had an opportunity to hear from 20 of the contributing authors in a new book co-edited by Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell. The book, Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results features 44 short articles that take a fresh look at servant leadership principles and how they can be applied in today’s organizations.

You can check out the entire March issue here. Want Ignite delivered to your InBox each month?  You can subscribe for free using this link.

For the leaders I coach, much of their workday moments are spent in email, in meetings, or tap, tap, tapping on their cellphones. Also competing for their attention are one-on-one interactions with clients, colleagues, and direct reports. It’s easy for them to be anything but focused in the present moment.

That said, I think most people will agree that being as present as possible, in the here and now, is valuable. We’ve all experienced having someone be fully present with us, really focused on what we had to say. It’s quite energizing. When we strive to be more in the present we give a gift not only to people we interact with, but also ourselves.

How about you? Could a little more mindfulness help in your interactions with others? Here are a few points to keep in mind.

• Knowing about mindfulness is not practicing mindfulness. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Oh, mindfulness, sure, I know what that is.” Then they dismiss it like it’s old news. But in reality, they may have never tried practicing mindfulness.

• Mindfulness is a learned habit anyone can acquire. Just wanting to be more mindful doesn’t make it so. Instead, we have to be intentional and we have to practice. The good news is that absolutely anything we do can be an opportunity to practice greater awareness.

• If at first you don’t succeed… If you commit to practice mindfulness, you will notice that the mind definitely seems to have a will of its own. What to do? Every time your mind starts to leak away, bring it gently back. Bring your consciousness back to what is taking place in the moment.

• Focus on the present—not the past or future. As we work to be more in the present, we often find ourselves thinking about things that happened in the past or something that may or may not happen in the future. This causes us to unproductively spin our wheels. Mindfulness is about focused attention in the present moment.

It’s not always easy to remember to be mindful. Trust me, I know from experience! But the rewards from being in the here and now—in the present time and in the present space—are plentiful. Any movement toward more mindfulness is better than not trying. If you are interested in learning to be more mindful, the internet is loaded with more information. Give it a try. I would love to hear about your mindfulness experiences.

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

That’s a lot of people!

I think the event is popular because people recognize we are in desperate need of a new leadership model—one that recognizes that people lead best when they serve first.

(For more information about the Livecast, keep reading.)

We have all seen the negative impact of self-serving leader behaviors. So why does this type of leadership continue to be so prevalent in today’s organizations?

In my experience, self-focused leadership is always caused by an overactive ego—one that is driven by comparative feelings of being either more than or less than others. Once you fall into one of these traps, you spend your time trying to either prove how smart you are or win the favor and approval of others.

One of my favorite books on this topic is Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith. They identify four warning signs of an overactive ego that could undermine an executive’s career.

Seeking acceptance: These leaders become overly concerned with what others think, which keeps them from being true to themselves. They tend to play it safe, swim with the current, and restate others’ ideas instead of coming up with their own.

Showcasing brilliance: These leaders go beyond sharing their thoughts—they want their intellect to be the center of attention. When showcasing is allowed or encouraged, the casualty is collective wisdom. Paradoxically, the more leaders show off their brilliance, the less likely people are to listen.

Being comparative: Instead of focusing on their own personal best, these leaders feel a need to compare themselves with others. Excessive comparison turns colleagues into competitors—and competitors are not effective collaborators. Comparing strengths to weaknesses leads to either excessive self-confidence or feelings of inadequacy.

Being defensive: Instead of defending an idea, these leaders behave as if they are defending themselves personally. They focus on proving their case and deflecting alternative points of view. These leaders resist feedback and brush off mistakes to the degree that conversations with them become superficial.

The goal is not to remove ego from the equation completely—it is to keep it in balance. Marcum and Smith recommend that leaders develop their humility, curiosity, and veracity. The objective is to achieve and maintain an intelligent self-respect and genuine confidence.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies another way leaders can keep their ego in check: focus on something bigger than themselves. Collins suggests a special type of leader who builds enduring greatness through a combination of personal humility and professional will. He describes this type of leader as a Level 5. Of special note is the underlying principle Collins sets forward—leaders at all levels need to put organizational, department, and team goals ahead of their personal agenda.

Don’t let your ego get in the way of your good intentions. Practice humility and self-acceptance. When you are able to love and accept yourself with all of your imperfections, you can do the same for others. You’ll be surprised at how well people will respond when you get your ego out of the way. People already know you’re not perfect—it’s when you become vulnerable enough to admit it that the magic will happen in both your personal and professional relationships. As Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines and servant leader extraordinaire, says, “People will admire your strengths, but they will respect your honesty regarding your vulnerability.”

PS: Interested in learning more about servant leadership? Join us for the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28. The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Twenty servant leadership experts—authors, CEOs, and thought leaders—will share how servant leadership concepts work in their organizations and how you can be a servant leader in your workplace. You can learn more here!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a university student who moved to the U.S. from India about 7 years ago. I recently completed an internship for a 1500-person company in which the CEO wanted to have more diversity.

In retrospect, I can see the company offered me the internship in part to show that they were focused on being more diverse.

The problem is, from the beginning my boss didn’t seem interested in utilizing me at all, and I was given only a few tasks that I completed quickly.

When I asked for more work, my boss told me I was too pushy. Then, after letting me sit at my desk with nothing to do for a few days, she told me I didn’t have enough drive.

I thought about leaving, but I stuck it out because I wanted a recommendation. But at the end of the internship my boss told me she couldn’t write me a recommendation because I hadn’t actually done any real work.

I’m trying to figure out what happened and what I could have done differently, but I also feel that the cards were stacked against me from the start.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Rejected

Dear Rejected,

Well, that sounds horrible. I am so sorry this happened to you. It does sound a little like you were hired to be the diversity poster child and that possibly you were foisted on your boss.

As a boss myself, it is my experience that managing interns is time consuming and often unproductive. Managers who do well with interns have usually asked for one to complete specific projects and are natural teachers who have a desire to nurture and mentor. Being a great boss for interns requires the willingness to take the time and an unusual generosity of spirit.

It sounds as if the person who was your boss didn’t sign up for an intern in the first place and was not interested in teaching, mentoring, or showing generosity of any kind. This may be the root of the problem.

She may also have had an aversion to your differences. It is entirely possible that you have been the object of conscious or unconscious bias. When people are not like ourselves—people of different religions, socio-economic backgrounds, race, etc.—it is easy to view them negatively without even realizing it. This is often called in-group bias.

There are so many different kinds of unconscious biases. It is fascinating and we are all susceptible to some, if not all, of them. You can read more about it here. It might not even be this complicated—it’s possible that your boss just didn’t like you. It happens. Even so, she should have been enough of a grownup to be civil and professional.

I am surprised you didn’t have a contact in HR you could have talked to. Even a small company should have had someone for you to go to. You may feel it is too late now. But ultimately, there are a couple of big things to take away here:

• You should not, and cannot, take any of what happened personally. It is always the leader’s job to adapt to the temperament of the employee and meet them where they are to help them succeed. Your boss wasted your time and left you feeling left out and confused. Her behavior was unconscionable and is absolutely on her.
• You must learn from your experience. Next time make sure the person you are going to be working for truly wants an employee and has a hand in hiring you. Never take a job unless you have a job description with clear tasks and goals. Make sure there is agreement up front about what a good job looks like so that you can do a good job! This helps avoid being at the mercy of a boss who isn’t on your side. Do your homework about the company beforehand—especially their efforts at diversity—so you aren’t an unwitting pioneer trying to blaze a new trail.
• Pay attention to your own biases. We all have them. The more you are aware of your own, the more effective you will be as you move forward in your career.

You are still a student, so you have time on your side. Best to chalk this up to experience, take what you can as learning, and move on. Most of us learn a lot about what not to do from terrible bosses, so there is value in that: you will never do to some poor kid what was done to you!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Basically, skill acquisition of the new and the better is expected by the sponsoring organization.

But what executive coaches have always known is what Ken Blanchard and Renee Broadwell zero in on in their new book, Servant Leadership in Action: leaders need support to look at what they need to eliminate from their behavior. This radical assessment is a critical first thing to address on the path to effective leadership.

In examining the impediments to true leadership, Blanchard states that the essential problem is the leader’s ego, and a preoccupation with how one is perceived. Specifically, he identifies the leadership-limiting implications for leaders as either over-promoting or over-protecting themselves.

Executive coaches resoundingly agree with you, Ken Blanchard!

Truly effective leaders are focused on the needs of those they are leading, which is what Ken calls servant leadership. Working with a coach can expand a leader’s focus from narrow and self-centered to include and, in fact, prioritize a focus on the needs of others. This requires a priority step in the coaching process of the leader’s honest assessment of the extent to which they are over-promoting or over-protecting themselves.

A great coach will “hold the mirror” for the leader, and ask them to honestly answer questions such as:

• What have you learned about yourself recently that was surprising?
• What other surprises could be waiting for you?
• What do you do when you hear something new about yourself that you do not like?
• What do you most fear people will discover about you?
• What do you most want people to know about you?
• What does it cost you when you behave in ways that you do not understand and cannot control?
• What is the significance of a leader in the life of an employee?
• If you were exactly the leader you wanted to be, what would be the difference between that image and who you are right now?

Coaching questions like this ask executives to consider the role of ego in their behaviors. With honest self-assessment, the leader can see where false pride or self-doubt have derailed their effectiveness.

With increased knowledge of self, the mirror can be replaced by a window and the gaze of the leader can confidently focus on the needs of others. Expanding skills and leveraging underused strengths is possible now, as the leader’s focus is off of their ego maintenance and on to meeting the needs of their followers and the organization.

Editor’s Note: Would you like to learn more about implementing a servant leadership mindset and skill set in your organization? Join Ken Blanchard for a free online Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28!

Blanchard will host 20 authors, CEOs, and thought leaders from all walks of life as they discuss strategies and offer encouragement for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals interested in discovering more about servant leadership concepts.

The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here! 

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

Can you clear something up for me? I have been told by a former coach and others that I need to be more “authentic.” But I have also just received feedback in a performance review that I am too brusque, condescending, and cold. And if one more person tells me they are intimidated by me, I am going to scream.

True, I’m not warm and fuzzy—I never have been and never will be. I am extremely analytical and I do tend to cut to the chase whenever possible. I get an amazing amount of work done, I always hit my goals, and people come to me for answers. And yet, it appears that my direct reports and some peers want me to be nicer.

So which is it? Should I just go ahead and be authentic? Or should I try harder to be nice?

Confused and Fed Up

Dear Confused and Fed Up,

Oh, how I loathe the exhortation to be authentic. There are simply too many individual interpretations of what that word actually means.

All kinds of agendas are behind the call for authenticity, but the only one I agree with is that we all need to avoid trying to be something we’re not at the risk of being seen as fake or insincere.

I completely understand your confusion, so let’s clear this up: You should be as much yourself as possible—but the best possible version of it—and never totally yourself. And in your case, smile a lot more than is natural.

The key is to observe yourself. Reflect on what your true self really is and what behaviors are most natural to you. Then pay attention to what others are most comfortable with and regulate your natural behavior to the extent possible to increase their comfort level. This is called Emotional Intelligence—and the more you practice, the better you will get at it.

For a little more depth, I recommend a deep dive into understanding personality types so that you can figure out how you are different from other people, why it matters, and what to do about it. Here are a few resources:

David Keirsey on personality types

Linda Berens’ work on Temperament Theory

Jim Harden and Brad Dude’s What Makes You Tick

For example, I suspect you will find you have a dominant temperament that Keirsey calls Rational. It is driven by core psychological needs to achieve mastery, self-control, knowledge, and competence.

Your gifts of being an excellent systems thinker, a natural problem solver, and someone generally unaffected by regular conventions have a shadow side. People who are not like you (approximately 93 percent of the world) may perceive you as cold, unemotional, and condescending.

It would indeed be very inauthentic for you to try to be warm and fuzzy, but there is an argument to be made for being polite, which is simply a discipline, and kind, which may be more of a stretch and will require fairly intense self-regulation.

To avoid being fake, use your analytical skills to investigate each of your colleagues and pinpoint something to admire and thus a reason to respect them. Find something to care about for each person you work with by using your considerable intellect to put yourself in their shoes. And remember, it takes all kinds.

Do tell the truth as you see it—just not the way you are hearing it in your head. You will have to translate your thoughts; e.g.: “Good grief, that is the stupidest idea I have ever heard,” to something like “another idea might be to…”.

The good news is that you can leverage your drive for mastery and competence to become easier to get along with, without having to fundamentally change who you are—which is good, because that isn’t possible. The bad news is that it will require some effort on your part. And the other bad news is that we are all going to have to hear more about authenticity in the future.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

“The mindset is to recognize that there are two parts of servant leadership, says Blanchard. “There is the vision, direction, and goals—that’s the leadership part. Everybody needs to know where you’re going and what you’re trying to accomplish.

“The servant leadership skill set is turning that vision into action. Now you are looking at the day-today management behaviors people need from their leader to succeed.”

Blanchard shares some examples:

Developing Others: “Servant leaders are always preparing people to be their own boss by helping them own their job and be in charge. This means identifying a direct report’s development level and providing the direction and support they need to grow and develop.”

Delegating: “Servant leaders first make sure that people know what the goals are. Then they turn the organizational pyramid and the reporting relationships upside down. They ask questions like How can I help? and What can I do to make a difference to help you accomplish your goals?

Directing Others: “It’s not really about directing them,” says Blanchard. “It’s about helping them. Sometimes when people are new they need clear direction—it is a temporary leadership behavior to help someone take ownership of their job and get to where they want to go.”

Servant leadership is a journey, says Blanchard. It’s both a mindset and a skill set. Once you get it right on the inside you can begin to develop the skills related to goal setting and performance management. Blanchard points to two of his company’s flagship programs as examples of how servant leadership principles can be taught as a part of a larger leadership development curriculum.

“In many ways, servant leadership is the overarching theme that covers the concepts of two of our most popular programs: Situational Leadership® II and First-time Manager.

“For example, Situational Leadership® II has three skills that generate both great relationships and results: goal setting, diagnosis, and matching. Notice that the first skill is goal setting. All good performance starts with clear goals—which, for a manager, are clearly part of the leadership aspect of servant leadership.

“Once clear goals are set, an effective situational leader works with their direct report to diagnose the direct report’s development level—competence and commitment—on each specific goal. Then together they determine the appropriate leadership style—the amount of directive and supportive behavior—that will match the person’s development level on each goal. That way the manager can help them accomplish their goals—the servant aspect of servant leadership. The key here is for managers to remember they must use different strokes for different folks but also different strokes for the same folks, depending on the goal and the person’s development level.

“In our First-time Manager program we teach the concepts of One Minute Management. The First Secret of The One Minute Manager is setting One Minute Goals—which for a manager is part of the leadership aspect of servant leadership. Once employees are clear on goals, an effective One Minute Manager tries to catch people doing something right so that they can deliver a One Minute Praising—the Second Secret. If the person is doing something wrong or not performing as well as agreed upon, a One Minute Re-Direct is appropriate—the Third Secret. When effective One Minute Managers are praising or redirecting their employees, they are engaging in the servant aspect of servant leadership—working for their employees to help them win.

“Why are the concepts of Situational Leadership® II and The One Minute Manager so widely used around the world? I think it’s because they are clear examples of servant leadership in action. Both concepts recognize that vision and direction—the leadership aspect of servant leadership—are the responsibility of the traditional hierarchy. People need to be clear on their goals. Implementation—the servant aspect of servant leadership—is all about turning the hierarchy upside down and helping employees accomplish their agreed-upon goals.”

Mindset and Skill Set

“Saying you’re a servant leader is a good start, but it is your behavior that makes it real for people,” says Blanchard. “Servant leadership is a combination of mindset and skill set that focuses on serving others first so that organizations develop great relationships, achieve great results, and delight their customers.”

Would you like to learn more about implementing a servant leadership mindset and skill set in your organization? Join Ken Blanchard for a free online Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28!

Blanchard will host 20 authors, CEOs, and thought leaders from all walks of life as they discuss strategies and offer encouragement for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals interested in discovering more about servant leadership concepts.

The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here!

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a large team in Silicon Valley. My peers and I recently went through a 360 degree feedback process and I received a big report with everyone’s opinion about how I can be more effective. The feedback was fine; nothing too negative.

Here’s my problem.

I know I need to work on some areas, but I am completely overwhelmed by this report. How do I choose what to focus on? We have internal coaches in the company, but it takes weeks to get an appointment. And how will they even know how to help me? Right now I am just kind of stuck.

What do you think?

Stuck

Dear Stuck,

Those reports are indeed overwhelming. Many organizations provide 360 recipients with a coach to help process and debrief the reports and build an action plan for exactly this reason. You didn’t mention which assessment was used so I can’t give you detailed instructions, but I do have a few ideas.

Does your report provide you with any information on how to read and interpret the results? Some competencies are more critical than others for your particular job role, and the report should point those out to you. You might have to read through the report a couple of times and get used to how the data is laid out. Here are some key places to look:

• Blind spots: The areas where you rate yourself higher than everyone else may indicate a blind spot where you may think you are more effective than anyone else does. The bigger the difference in how you see yourself and how others see you, the more attention you may want to pay to narrowing the gap.
• Hidden strengths: Similarly, the areas where you rate yourself lower than all of the other raters may indicate hidden strengths. These are areas where you are doing well and aren’t that aware of it. Hidden strengths are good to understand—these are areas to lean on and possibly build on for your future career.
• Trust your gut: I would submit to you that before you did the 360, you already knew where you might need to focus to be more effective. Most of us know what we need help with and are hoping nobody notices, and a 360 feedback report will confirm what we probably already knew.
• Low hanging fruit: Perhaps there is one area you could work on immediately that wouldn’t be that difficult. The one thing I know for sure is that no one succeeds at giving themselves a personality transplant no matter how hard they might try, so I suggest you choose something to work on that you can actually do. To figure out what that might be, make a short list of things you know you should be doing or you should stop doing and then choose one of those things you can commit to. Maybe it is as simple as stop interrupting people, or more complicated like spend 15 minutes of dedicated time per week with each direct report.
• Ask your boss: Put a short list of all the different things you could work on and ask your boss which of those things he or she thinks is most important.

As you read through your report again—slowly, while breathing—one or two things will present themselves as possibilities to you. If you stay calm you will notice them. Don’t choose more than three things to work on; that’s about the limit of what you will be able to do. Ultimately, no matter how much help you get, you will have to be the one who decides where to put your focus and energy.

Finally, don’t worry too much about it. Take what you can from the experience and leave the rest. A person can only do so much.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

When leaders allow their ego to go unchecked it can erode their effectiveness, says Ken Blanchard, co-editor of the new book, Servant Leadership in Action. “When that happens, leaders see themselves as the center of the universe and they put their own agenda, safety, status, and gratification ahead of people who are affected by their thoughts and actions.

Blanchard explains that when a leader’s sense of self-worth is tied up in their achievements and the perceptions of others, “their self-worth is up for grabs on a daily basis.”

“It becomes increasingly difficult for a leader with this mindset to maintain a healthy and centered self-determined image. Since their performance varies from day to day, they shift back and forth between feelings of fear and false pride.

“Leaders dominated by false pride are often seen as controlling. Even when they don’t know what they are doing, they have a high need for power and control. They tend to insist they are right even when it’s clear to everyone else they are wrong.

“Fear-driven leaders are often characterized as do-nothing bosses. Their people say they are seldom around, always avoiding conflict and not very helpful. Their fear of making a mistake and feelings of inadequacy keep them from taking action when they should.”

Practice Shining a Light on Others

For better ego balance, Blanchard recommends keeping things in perspective and looking for opportunities to catch people doing things right.

“The best leaders know it’s not about you—it’s about the people you serve. You finally become an adult when you realize that life is about what you give rather than what you get. Don’t let an overactive ego keep you from being your best self or bringing out the best in others.”

PS: You can learn more from Blanchard and 20 other authors, CEOs, and thought leaders who have contributed to the Servant Leadership in Action book at a free online webcast on February 28.  Blanchard is hosting the event to help spread the word about an others-focused approach to leadership.

Register for this event at the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast registration page.  The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“It begins by asking yourself a tough question: ‘Am I here to serve or be served?’” he says. According to Blanchard, the answer to this question will reveal your fundamental approach to leadership.

“If you believe leadership is all about you, where you want to go, and what you want to attain, then your leadership by default will be more self-focused and self-centered. On the other hand, if your leadership revolves around meeting the needs of the organization and the people working for it, you will make different choices that will reveal a more others-focused approach.”

Blanchard believes the best leaders have a servant leadership philosophy. He explains that servant leadership requires a two-pronged approach that combines strategic leadership—vision and direction—with operational leadership—strong day-to-day management practices.

“At its core, servant leadership means that once vision and direction are set, the organizational pyramid is turned upside-down and leaders work for their people.”

There are two huge challenges to being a successful servant leader, according to Blanchard.

“One is false pride—when you think more of yourself than you should. When this occurs, leaders spend most of their time looking for ways to promote themselves. The other is fear and self-doubt—when you think less of yourself than you should. These leaders spend their time constantly trying to protect themselves.”

Surprisingly, the root cause of both behaviors is the same, explains Blanchard: “The ego. It’s just part of the human condition. Any time I hear someone say that their ego has never gotten in their way, that they are never prideful and never experience self-doubt, I usually say, half-jokingly, ‘I’ll bet you lie about other things, too.’ We all have times when we get off track.”

To help executives identify ways that ego may impact their leadership, Blanchard often incorporates an “Egos Anonymous” exercise into some of his work with clients.

“The Egos Anonymous session begins with each person standing up and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Ken, and I’m an egomaniac. The last time my ego got in the way was …’ And then they share a false pride or self-doubt moment or example.”

Egos Anonymous sessions have become so popular with executives that some use the technique to kick off meetings back at their workplace.

“They find it really helps their teams operate more freely,” says Blanchard. “It’s very powerful when people can share their vulnerability and be more authentic and transparent with one another.”

For leaders looking to get started with an inside-out approach to addressing and improving their leadership abilities, Blanchard has one final question: “What are you doing on a daily basis to recalibrate who you want to be in the world?

“Most people don’t think about that. This could include how you enter your day, what you read, what you study—everything that contributes in a positive sense to who you are.

“Consider your daily habits and their impact on your life. Take time to explore who you are, who you want to be, and what steps you can take on a daily basis to get closer to becoming your best self. Your leadership journey begins on the inside—but, ultimately, it will have a tremendous impact on the people around you.”

PS: Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a free online event February 28.  The Servant Leadership in Action Livecast will feature more than 20 thought leaders and business executives sharing how they have successfully implemented servant leadership principles in their organizations.  The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Learn more here!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been described as a high achiever—and a lone wolf—for much of my career. After more than 20 years as an individual contributor, I finally succumbed to the pressure to become a people manager.

Here’s my problem. Most of my people are fewer than five years away from retirement and not very interested in growing and developing. It is clear to me that not everyone is as driven as I am or as willing to put the time in to produce the quality of work I expect. Am I too demanding?

Driven

Dear Driven

I understand your frustration. Of course, I wonder what leeway you might have to replace a couple of your worst offenders. You don’t mention that as an option but I have never, not once, experienced a client having regret after letting go of a low performer. Jim Collins, in his research of companies who do well over decades talks about getting the right people on the bus, which sounds simple, but it is in fact really hard. So, shaking up your team and adding a little new blood might be an option. You will probably have to document substandard performance over a period of time to do this which means performance expectations would need to be crystal clear.

You might benefit from understanding temperament theory. It outlines the way in which people are different, why it matters, and what to do about it. I suspect you are a very specific personality type and your employees are not like you at all. Understanding how you approach work and communication—and how you are perceived by others—will almost certainly clarify things for you.

Your people might be roused by a compelling goal. Do they know how they are contributing the greater good? How important their hard work is? Do they know the why? It’s possible they are not in touch with the bigger picture—in which case, you might share it. Bear in mind if this is what’s missing, you will have to share it on a regular basis. It’s human nature to forget the long term in favor of focusing on short-term rewards.

You also might consider articulating and sharing your Leadership Point of View, in which you outline your values and what you expect of your people. In it you can state your standards—perhaps they have not been made explicit?

Finally, maybe you do need to chill out. I have worked with many perfectionist clients who have had to ratchet back their standards because they were causing themselves (and everybody else) unnecessary pain without adding any value. Are you too demanding? Very possibly. The person who might be able to help you with this is your boss. You might as well ask and see what he or she says about it.

You may not be able to stand being a manager for long unless you can inspire your people to be the best they can be. But if you can harness your drive to do just that, what a win that would be!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

That surprises some people who might expect him to point to his company’s flagship leadership program, Situational Leadership® II, or his best-selling business book, The One Minute Manager®.

Blanchard explains he is proud of the concepts within those products and how they have been widely accepted around the world. But over the last decade, he’s realized that the reason the concepts are well recognized is that they are examples of servant leadership in action—which he believes is the only way to achieve great relationships and great results.

“The world is in desperate need of a new leadership model,” explains Blanchard. “Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading.”

In a new book, Servant Leadership in Action, coming out in March, Blanchard has invited more than 40 leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries to share their experiences with servant leadership. Here are a few of their stories.

Southwest Airlines

Colleen Barrett, president emeritus, Southwest Airlines, explains how servant leadership has been a key principle of success since the airline’s founding.

“For more than 40 years all of the leaders at Southwest Airlines have tried to model servant leadership. Herb Kelleher, our founder, led the way clearly—although I don’t think he knew what the expression servant leadership meant until we told him. Herb and I have always said that our purpose in life as senior leaders with Southwest Airlines was to support our people. At Southwest, our entire philosophy of leadership is still quite simple: treat your people right and good things will happen.

“We try in every way to let our employees know they are important and empowered to make a positive difference on a daily basis. Servant leadership isn’t soft management—it’s simply the right thing to do.”

That level of support manifests itself in many different ways at Southwest.  Barrett tells a heartwarming story of servant leadership in action that happened at Southwest a few years ago when a grandfather had to make last-minute reservations to be with a dying grandchild.

“The man was away from home in an unfamiliar city when he learned his grandson was dying and had only a couple of hours to live. The grandfather was desperately trying to get to him.

“Without any managerial intervention, our reservation agent directed the grandfather to head to the airport while she started working to clear obstacles from her end,” Barrett said. “She called the ground ops station at the airport, got hold of a ticket agent, and explained what the situation was. The ticket agent bought the grandfather a ticket with her own money, then went to the TSA checkpoint and told them she would be escorting a passenger who needed to make a flight. She then contacted the gate and explained the situation. The gate attendant, in turn, notified the captain on the flight.

“When it was time to push back, the pilot asked the ticket agent how close the grandfather was to arriving and learned the man was still about ten minutes away. The captain thought about it for a moment, then walked out of the cockpit to the front of the airplane and explained the situation to the passengers. He said, ‘We are going to wait for this gentleman. I think it’s the right thing to do.’ After listening to the captain’s explanation for the delay, the passengers broke into applause. When the grandfather arrived ten minutes later, he couldn’t believe the captain had held the plane for him. The captain’s response was, ‘Sir, this airplane wasn’t going anyplace without me—and I wasn’t going anyplace without you.’”

Synovus Financial

James Blanchard (no relation to Ken Blanchard) is the former CEO of Synovus Financial—a company whose servant leadership culture goes all the way back to 1888 when the founders of Columbus Bank and Trust Company were in the cotton mill business.

One day when a woman was working on a loom in the mill, her skirt got caught on the machine. The hem ripped and her life savings came spilling out on the floor. The hem of her skirt was the safest place she knew to keep her money. That day, the founders decided they could do better for their employees—so they started a bank that would serve as a trusted place for their workers’ life savings. The Synovus culture of service began the moment that woman’s savings spilled onto the floor.

“Over the years our name changed and we grew,” says Blanchard, “but our servant leadership culture endured and became even stronger. A few criticized us, saying the approach was too soft and permissive. So we had to prove it was the exact opposite—that people who were loved, respected, and prepared would perform better. Servant leadership led to higher performance and there was nothing permissive about it. We loved our people and we expected high performance. I believe when you truly care about someone, you not only love them but also expect the best from them and hold them to it.”

That approach has paid off for Synovus. In 1999, the company was named Fortune’s No. 1 Best Place to Work in America. They were on the list so often, in fact, the magazine asked them to stop entering and made them the first inductee into the Best Places to Work Hall of Fame.

“It was a great validation of our aspirations and our actions,” says CEO Blanchard. “I have been retired from Synovus for years but the pursuit of a servant leadership culture at Synovus was my greatest and most favorite satisfaction.”

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

When Cheryl Bachelder accepted the role of Popeyes CEO in November 2007, the company had been struggling.  Relationships with franchisees were not at the level they needed to be. Even so, a comment from a veteran franchisee caught her by surprise: “Don’t expect us to trust you anytime soon.”

Bachelder and her team decided to focus on servant leadership principles for turning around business performance.

“We began calling the franchisees our ‘number one customer.’ More important, as servant leaders, we began treating them that way. Our first principle was to respect and admire our owners’ passion for their work. Next, we listened to their needs and we accepted our roles and responsibilities in making things right. Finally, we put our owners’ interests above our own.”

The approach was a huge success. Relationships and business outcomes flourished. During the period from 2007 to 2016, under Bachelder’s leadership, Popeyes became a prosperous enterprise again. Franchise owners were served well: 95 percent rated their satisfaction with the Popeyes system at good or very good and 90 percent said they would recommend Popeyes to another franchisee.

“When we started, we didn’t know servant leadership would drive our success. We didn’t have a plaque in the office that stated our purpose and principles. What we did have was a team of leaders who were willing to put the success of the people and the enterprise before their own interests.”

The Power of Love, Not the Love of Power

A few years ago, Ken Blanchard received a letter from a man in New Zealand with a line that he believes sums up his leadership philosophy. The man said, “Ken, you are in the business of teaching people the power of love rather than the love of power.”

Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and to live according to their organization’s vision. Rather than wanting employees to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees’ lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and show they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

Blanchard says, “We need servant leadership advocates and I nominate you. Go forth and spread the word to everyone who will listen. And remember: your job is to teach people the power of love rather than the love of power. After all, servant leadership is love in action.”

Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your own organization?  Then join us for a free livecast on February 28!

Servant Leadership in Action Livecast

February 28, 2018 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join best-selling business author Ken Blanchard and 20 other successful leaders for an in-depth look into the concept of servant leadership and how it can transform the culture and performance of your organization.  You’ll explore:

• What is servant leadership?
• How does it work in today’s organizations?
• The role leaders play
• How to get started
• How to keep it growing

You’ll hear personal and powerful stories from 20 of today’s most inspiring servant leaders. You’ll be motivated to act after seeing how others have achieved great relationships and results in their organizations through servant leadership.

Attend this online event to:

• Gain a clear understanding of this proven leadership model
• Learn the fundamentals of servant leadership
• Discover how other companies have achieved results
• Acquire ideas of how servant leadership could look in your organization

People lead best when they serve first.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how servant leadership principles can take your organization’s performance to the next level.

The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. To learn more, visit the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast registration page.

For Blanchard, servant leadership isn’t just a book or a nice-to-have management concept.  Instead, he sees it as a movement—a shift from leadership that is self-focused to one that is others-focused.

“The world is in desperate need of a new leadership model. Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading.”

For this new book, Servant Leadership In Action, Blanchard invited more than 40 leaders from all types of organizations to share their experiences putting servant leadership concepts to work.

Blanchard points to companies like Southwest Airlines, Synovus Financial, WD-40 Company, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen as companies who have used servant leadership principles to build strong internal cultures that bring out the best in people in service to customers.

Blanchard also shares stories of his own servant leadership journey, tracing it back to a meeting with Robert K. Greenleaf, who first coined the term “servant leadership” back in the early 1970s.

Blanchard believes that servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and to live according to their organization’s vision. Rather than wanting people to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees’ lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and showing they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

New Hire Is Dressing Inappropriately? A manager writes, “Her taste in work clothing is wildly inappropriate. She dressed perfectly for the interview phase, but now the heels are sky high, the skirts are too short and tight, and the necklines are way too low. People’s eyes literally go wide when she walks by.”

Burned Out But Don’t Know Why? A reader writes, “I really like the challenge of being a manager—but something has begun to worry me. I start at 7 a.m. and by 2 p.m. I am exhausted, even though I work from home most days. I’m on the phone in endless meetings dealing with strategy, budget, and gnarly personnel issues—and by the middle of the afternoon I’ve got nothing left.”

Direct Report Won’t Stop Talking During One on Ones?  A manager writes, “I have one direct report who is very good at her job—but during her one on one meetings with me, she literally never stops talking. I can’t get a word in edgewise. It is a one-hour wall of words. In fact, she often can’t stop so the meeting goes late. Worst of all, she doesn’t seem to leave these meetings the better for having had them.”

Mindless Work Killing Your Soul? A reader writes, “I hate my job. I am just bored to tears. When I completed graduate school, I was recruited into what I thought was the perfect job for me—the job description was exactly what I was looking for. A year later, I am doing a ton of mindless administrative work and almost none of what was in the original job description.”

People Think You’re Having an Affair at Work? A manager writes, “About a year ago we got a new boss.  He is a few years older than me and very smart and creative. We had an immediate connection because we went to the same school for undergraduate and are both huge fans of our school’s sports teams.  We became instant BFFs. The problem is that everybody thinks we are having an affair.”

ABOUT MADELEINE

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a Master Certified Coach and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. She is coauthor of Blanchard’s Coaching Essentials training program, and several books including Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest, Coaching in Organizations, and Coaching for Leadership.

Do you have a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Below are a few key skills and techniques that coaches use when working with others. Each of these skills will help your managers adopt more of a coaching approach in their interactions. If you are interested in a more extensive and detailed look, check out Coaching in Organizations – Best Coaching Practices by Madeleine Homan and Linda Miller. Also, the International Coach Federation’s list of Core Competencies for coaches are listed on the federation’s website: www.coachfederation.org

• Take a service-partnership approach. It’s not about you. The focus is on helping leaders be effective and develop.
• Be fully present. This can be a challenge even for experienced coaches—there are so many distractions in today’s world. Constantly reengage yourself. During the coaching session, nothing else matters other than the person you are working with.
• Be a sounding board. Practice active listening. Many people just need a neutral partner to listen to them so they can work it out for themselves vocally.
• Inquire for insight: Ask open-ended questions. Clarifying questions help get to the heart of the topic. Focus questions set the direction for the coaching session. Discovery questions lead to increased awareness. Challenging questions lead to new insight and action.

This list is only a highlight of what is needed to have a productive, valuable, and rewarding coaching session from the client and coach perspective. Give it a try. I’m sure that even with this exploratory approach, your managers will experience the thrill of hearing and watching their people have aha moments as they come up with their own solutions.

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

• We know our coaches—their strengths, their style, and who fits the profile for their ideal client.
• We consider geography as one of many factors, but not necessarily the first factor.
• We explore the needs of the client. What do they want to achieve? Who do they like to work with? The more we know about the client, the better we can match them to a coach.
• We explore the needs of the client’s organization. What does the boss think? What are desired outcomes? How will the organization know that outcomes have been achieved?
• We ask the client to put some skin in the game, often in the form of a chemistry call with one or more prospective coaches.

And we rematch if we get it wrong.

We want the client to have the right coach. Relationship and rapport are of the utmost importance in coaching—and not every coach fits every client. Although it rarely happens, in the seventeen years we’ve been doing coaching there have been times we’ve had to rematch a client with a different coach. Here are some examples of what happened and what we learned.

• A coach missed her first session with the client. It was a simple time zone issue, but the coach just couldn’t recover trust. We swapped to a new coach and the client is now deeply engaged in his own development. He appreciated the quick response and the high touch recovery.
• A coach worked with a client for several sessions but wasn’t seeing the high impact we expect. He talked to his Coaching Solutions Partner (head coach) and we then reached out to the client. We explained that we wanted the client to have a phenomenal experience. The client agreed to try a new coach. His feedback was that it was the “best decision ever.”
• A coach made an error during a second coaching session, confusing one client with another. The client in the coaching session felt marginalized and asked for a new coach. We learned that feedback from a client is a powerful learning and development opportunity for our coaches. The coach in question now has a better system in place for herself: she consistently takes a break between coaching sessions to allow herself to properly prepare.

3 Signs a Rematch Might Be Necessary

Our experience as a business-to-business organization with more than 143 coaches worldwide has given us good insight into some of the early warning signs that the client and coach match isn’t what it should be.  These signs should be monitored as part of any internal organizational coaching you might be managing. If you are a human resources business partner tasked with managing the coaching of others in your organization, here are three signs to look for:

1. Clients are rescheduling frequently.
2. Clients are not looking forward to their scheduled coaching sessions.
3. Learning is not occurring.

If you see any of these signs, what do you do?  A frank conversation with the client is a great place to start. Have a backup plan in place—and another coach who can step in as a better fit.

Ultimately, trust and rapport are key elements to a great match. Our goal is to serve clients in achieving their desired outcomes.  If that’s not happening, we won’t hesitate to suggest a better fit.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

The challenge is knowing when each conversation is most appropriate. Without clear distinctions it is easy for these conversations to blend together and overlap. And once that happens, managers may find themselves attempting to play all three roles—manager, coach, and mentor— simultaneously, and that rarely (if ever) turns out well.

Here are the distinctions that can help leaders and managers identify the best conversation to use based on the questions people ask.

The Management Conversation—for questions about what the job is, how to do it, and how to produce the best results. The management conversation is most appropriate when the goal or task is clear and when manager and direct report have shared responsibility for results. Management conversations solve problems and produce results, with and through others, that benefit the organization.

The Coaching Conversation—for questions about things that are affecting a direct report but aren’t necessarily related to their job or their performance. The coaching conversation works best for creating clarity when goals are not crystal clear. It is also used when the direct report has higher interest than the manager in the outcome or when the manager does not have enough expertise to provide optimal benefit to the employee. Coaching conversations promote discovery, generate insights, and clarify purposeful action for the employee in ways that may or may not benefit the organization.

The Mentoring Conversation—for questions about professional development and career support. The mentoring conversation is used when a mentee—whether or not they are a direct report—is seeking advice and willing to assume responsibility for a mentor/mentee relationship. The mentor must have suitable experience and useful advice to provide about the company or industry.  The mentor also must be willing to invest time and energy in ways that go above and beyond the requirements of their regular job. Mentoring conversations enable the sharing of expertise based on personal experience, which may or may not benefit the organization.

Being all things to all people is impossible. The manager who knows exactly where they are and what role they are playing at any given moment will be able to serve their people best.

In upcoming posts, I’ll share ways to be more effective with each of these conversations. For now, consider these three distinctions. What types of conversations are you and your leaders most often engaging in?  Are you identifying different outcomes—or are you trying to be everything to everyone?

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 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I am fairly new to managing a large team in the property management industry. I was a team member for a long time. One of the reasons I was promoted was because I was a work horse. I have a lot of energy and was used to putting in ten- and twelve-hour days on a regular basis. I raced around in my truck going from task to task at different properties, helping people solve problems.

I really like the challenge of being a manager—but something has begun to worry me. I start at 7 a.m. and by 2 p.m. I am exhausted, even though I work from home most days. I’m on the phone in endless meetings dealing with strategy, budget, and gnarly personnel issues—and by the middle of the afternoon I’ve got nothing left.

What is happening to me? I am worried that my boss is going to think I am a slacker. Maybe I am not cut out for management? Help!

Out of Battery Power

Dear Out of Battery Power,

Okay, let’s review. You had a job that had constant variety, allowed you some nice mental breaks while driving around, and let you win several times a day because you knew what you were doing and got to interact with nice people who were grateful you showed up. Now you have a job that requires you to sit at a desk at home by yourself, engage in creative visualization of an uncertain future, crunch massive amounts of numbers and translate reality from them, and ponder and try to solve problems regarding the most complicated thing there is: people. What could possibly be wrong?

Your brain is tired, as well it should be. In your old job you got breaks, you spent time with people, and you got to solve solvable problems—which was fun! Now you probably get no breaks at all, you spend time alone, and you have to try to solve unsolvable problems. Also, you are new in the job so the learning curve feels brutal.

Cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a little time to get your head around the job. And try these strategies to take better care of yourself and your brain.

• Get some exercise before you start for the day. You used to be in constant motion, which was clearly energizing for you. Even a walk around the block will improve the blood flow to your brain and increase your creative problem solving.
• Get a good headset so you can pace while on conference calls. You used to be on your feet a lot. Now you are an extension of your desk chair and it’s killing you slowly.
• Remember to eat breakfast and lunch. People who work from home seem to either eat constantly or forget to eat.
• Remember to stay hydrated. Research shows that dehydration can cause lightheadedness and confusion.
• Get out of the house during your workday. Going to a nearby park would be ideal, but at least sit on your front step. When you do this, don’t look at a screen—look at faraway things; a horizon line if at all possible. Gazing at a horizon releases a very specific kind of endorphin which increases our feelings of well-being. Try to have lunch with a friend or colleague at least twice a week. You will have to resist thinking about work, but it will make you more effective in the long run. Can you work from the office a couple of days a week? Do it if you can.
• Take tiny mental breaks throughout the day. You may not realize how many breaks were built into your day in your old job—moments when you were operating on auto pilot and your brain was essentially at rest. If you are in constant meetings from 7:00 to 2:00 with no breaks built in, your brain goes on tilt.
• If possible, do your more difficult tasks before 2 p.m. and leave everything that’s easy to deal with until later in the day. I once heard a senior executive say out loud that she didn’t schedule anything hard after 2 p.m. and I was impressed with her self-awareness and honesty. Her afternoons were reserved for reading, responding to email, and administrative tasks that she could do in her sleep.

I have yet to work with a manager or leader who gets the amount of “white space” they need to just think about everything that needs thinking about. Welcome to management! You may be fried by 2 p.m., but I would bet a paycheck that you never, ever stop thinking about your job now. Before, when you finished your shift, you were done for the day. Now your job is 24/7—so you need to learn how to pace yourself and settle in for the long haul.

Until you get actual feedback from your boss about your performance, stop wasting valuable mental energy judging yourself. Devote that energy to taking better care of yourself and I’m certain you’ll notice an increase in your mental stamina.

Give yourself a break—literally.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I am a VP of international sales in technology. We are a fast-paced and very lean startup, so we barely have any HR department and no employee manual yet—certainly no one who can help me with this.

I recently hired a young woman who is just great. She is smart, quick, she goes the extra mile, and she’s crushing her numbers and making friends in the organization. She is quickly becoming my secret weapon. But she has no idea how to dress.

Her taste in work clothing is wildly inappropriate. She dressed perfectly for the interview phase, but now the heels are sky high, the skirts are too short and tight, and the necklines are way too low. People’s eyes literally go wide when she walks by.

I am no fuddy-duddy. I don’t care how she dresses on her personal time. I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea about her. She is so smart and talented and I want to keep her from hurting herself professionally. But I feel the need to reel her in before clients start judging us for her lack of judgment.

What can I say and how can I say it without hurting her feelings or having her think I am somehow judging her or harassing her? I know people in the company have begun to talk about her. I need to do something about this fast.

Victoria’s Secret Not Welcome Here!

Dear Victoria’s Secret Not Welcome Here,

Well, there is some good news: she dressed appropriately for the interview, so you know she has some sense about what is suitable. You have that going for you.

You absolutely must give her feedback and make a clear request. Be clear, direct, and nonjudgmental, make a direct request, and give her a timeline for compliance. Let her know you think her work is terrific and this is not a reflection on her overall professionalism. If you have enough of a relationship, you might go so far as to note that you are partially motivated by your desire to see her succeed and grow as a professional and that you don’t want her choice of clothing to undermine others’ perceptions of her credibility and competence.

You have to have someone else with you in the meeting—preferably someone from HR, even if they are in benefits. If you really don’t have anyone, try to find a trustworthy female peer. This conversation needs to be private, but not hidden.

Your new star may very well have only one or two appropriate outfits and may be trying to get by with her regular wardrobe. Clothes are expensive, and it is time consuming to shop. You may consider offering her a wardrobe allowance so that she can get herself up to snuff quickly.

She may also be trying to express herself and build a brand, which is a thing these days. In this case you can acknowledge her strong sense of style, but say that you need to ask her to channel it. It is hard to get it right for women, but there are excellent sources for guidelines.

If you Google images of “professional attire for young women” you will find lots of helpful photos. You can suggest she find a couple of looks that suit her and build from there. You might also suggest a role model in your organization—a woman who dresses appropriately—if there is one.

Timeless rules of thumb exist for women who want to look impeccable at work. When I was first starting to work in the corporate environment, I had almost no professional clothes and I got feedback from my boss. “Your blouse has to have sleeves; your skirt needs to be no higher than 2 inches above the knee and your heels no higher than 2 inches.” I still remember it because it was so specific, and I have used it ever since. My boss was kind and nonjudgmental. I was embarrassed but I was grateful because I just didn’t know.

She may get defensive and that’s okay—just let her vent. Don’t get caught up in any drama. But you must be clear, direct, and neutral. Remind her that you are on her side and want nothing but success for her. Decide exactly what you are going to say in advance—and do not fall into the trap of discussing it. You will only get yourself into trouble. Tell her you are only going to give her this feedback once and you aren’t going to be the wardrobe police because you didn’t sign up for that job—but you expect to see some changes.

I expect this will do the trick. I sure hope so.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I know I am supposed to have regular one on one meetings with my employees and I have been doing it for a long time. It works well—I feel more connected to each of them and they are all doing really well.

Except one.

I have one direct report who is very good at her job—but during her one on one meetings with me, she literally never stops talking. I can’t get a word in edgewise. It is a one-hour wall of words. In fact, she often can’t stop so the meeting goes late. Worst of all, she doesn’t seem to leave these meetings the better for having had them.

Not surprisingly, I have begun to dread our one on ones. She repeats herself and goes in circles and it is just so tedious. Every meeting with her feels like a colossal waste of time for both of us. How can I fix this?

Swamped by Words

Dear Swamped by Words,

Congratulations on doing one on ones—this process will serve you well for the rest of your professional life.

It is important to remember that a key differentiator of a one on one meeting is that it is the employee’s agenda. So in the end, if that is how she wants to use her time, it really is up to her. But you can try to help her get more out of the time.

You will need to be patient at this point, however—because by allowing this behavior, you have accidently trained it. And you will now have to un-train it.

The first step is to tell your direct report you are concerned she is not getting as much value from her one on ones as she might. Ask her if she would be interested in making them more valuable. If she says no, well, there you have it. If she says yes, you can ask her to prepare for them by thinking about the following questions:

• What have you accomplished?
• What did you want to accomplish that you didn’t?
• What are you proud of?
• What could you use help with?

Share that the people who get the most of out their one on ones keep a running list of topics throughout the week and submit a short, written agenda prior to their meeting, which keeps them on track.

Also, during the meeting you can gently stop your employee when she is ranting by asking her “What is most important for you to express right now?” This can help with prioritization.

When she repeats herself, one strategy you can use is to repeat back what she has said so she knows that you have fully heard her. If speed and flow of words continue to increase, you can help calm her brain down by literally saying, gently: “Stop. Let’s take a breath here.”

The key—and this requires discipline—is to stay calm, be kind, park your judgment, and stay neutral.

Finally, I have to ask if this employee does this elsewhere at work. Is she driving her coworkers crazy? Are her clients avoiding her? Because if this is the case, you have a whole other problem and you need to give her direct feedback and possibly even recommend some help.

But let’s stick with this first step for now. One on ones are an important communication tool and it’s important to get this right.

Good luck,

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

In some places, coaching is still perceived as remedial help but I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that no organization is investing in that anymore. Coaching today is for the high potentials and the most valuable players.

At Blanchard Coaching Services, we coach people in organizations. The people we coach are capable, highly intelligent, and endowed with a remarkable work ethic and a drive to succeed.

Coaching works for these folks because each of our clients sees themselves as a hero or heroine of their own fantastic journey. Their coach is a reminder of who they are and where they are going.  Each of our clients is like Luke Skywalker and their coach is their Yoda.  Anyone up to something truly worthwhile could use a Yoda. Thomas Leonard, one of my many mentors and coaches, once said something that has become a mantra for me: “Anything worth doing is worth getting help with.”

And yet, as a one of the founding members of the International Coach Federation, I am deep in the conversation about how to train Yodas and how to regulate the practice of being Yoda for people.  It is complicated. The public needs to be protected from people without the skills or mindset of an accredited coach. Coaching skills alone are not enough, however, and assessing the competence of coaches is inexact at best.

In an article for Choice magazine entitled Avoiding the Iceberg, my pal Terrie Lupberger writes about the rules that can help a coach do just that.

David Goldsmith, who was my coach at a critical moment in my career, believes that soon, “good enough” coaches will be replaced by artificial intelligence.  He is worried that there is no one teaching good coaches how be great coaches.  Unlike Yoda, we don’t have the option of the benefit of 700 years of experience. Goldsmith defines the masterful coach as someone who has the discernment and judgment to choose the right tool from their massive toolbox to share with the client.

In his article Do Great Coaches Break the Rules? Goldsmith writes: “Most long-standing coaches not only fluidly and fluently dance between the distinctions of coaching, consulting, counseling, and training, they also are constantly customizing solutions and approaches for their clients from an eclectic and deep repertoire of methods, processes, and skills.   The current ‘rules’ don’t include this behavior in the usual definitions of coaching.”

In my own article, What Are We So Afraid of? I outline the polarity between asking and telling that a coach needs to navigate to be of true service to the client.

Food for thought for anyone interested in this ongoing philosophical debate.

As Yoda would say, “Invited are your insights!”

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 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I have been part of a large team of great people for a few years. About a year ago we got a new boss.  He is a few years older than me and very smart and creative. We had an immediate connection because we went to the same school for undergraduate and are both huge fans of our school’s sports teams.  We became instant BFFs and have continued to get along great. 

The problem is that everybody thinks we are having an affair. I really don’t know how the rumor got started, but it didn’t occur to me to worry about it—it was just so nice to get along so well with the boss.  We are both married—he has two little kids—and it just isn’t the case. 

One of my pals on the team also told me there is a lot of gossip with people thinking I am getting special treatment, which isn’t true, either.

I am so bummed about this. I hate being judged for something I haven’t even done. How can I stop the gossip?

Unfairly Judged

Dear Unfairly Judged,

You can’t stop the gossip but you can wait it out.

You are just the entertainment du jour right now, and this too shall pass—unless you actually are having an emotional affair, in which case, you are going to need to make some changes.

Just because you are both married to other people doesn’t mean for one second that you couldn’t be having an affair.  It happens all the time.  And even if you aren’t having a physical affair, you may very well be having an emotional one. An emotional affair is when you click so well with someone that there is a level of intimacy that rivals or even eclipses what you have in your marriage.  I would challenge you to be brutally honest with yourself and tell the truth about whether or not you are flirting with this new BFF.

Ask yourself:  Do you go out of your way to spend time with your boss?  Do you think about him all the time? Do you spend time together without others around?  Do you spend time with each other outside of work?  Do you email or text constantly about non-work stuff?   If you are saying yes to any of this, you need to stop kidding yourself and get off the slippery slope.  Emotional affairs often slide into full affairs, and even when they don’t, they will impact how your boss treats you as well as both marriages.

If that is what is happening here, I highly recommend that you cut it out.  Discuss it with your boss.  Come clean with your husband and discuss what needs are being met in the BFF relationship that could be met in your marriage.  Talk to your best friends; they will also help you to get your feet back on the ground.  The more light you shine on this, the more quickly it will fade.

If the answer is no, and you are truly just friends and co-workers, great.  Take very good care and start managing the heck out of appearances, because they matter. Pay attention to the way the two of you behave, through the eyes of the others, when you are together. This will also give you much needed intel.

Do not communicate electronically about anything that is not work related.  I would even say to back off the sports talk except when you happen to see each other.  Do not—ever—be in the same room together alone unless you are visible to others—a glass conference room, for example.  Don’t ever talk about your friendship with others at work. Just pay attention, don’t give the gossips any fodder for the flames, and the whole thing will die down as soon as the next rumor comes along.

You may be getting stuck on how unfair that is.  It is unfair, but you have to remember that being good friends with the boss raises your status in the eyes of your co-workers, which makes them feel jealous and threatened.  “We are adults,” you might be thinking, “that is ridiculous!” Well, yes—and social neuroscience research shows that when it comes to status and fairness, our brains don’t know how old we are. They simply react as if we were all four years old and the kid sitting next us got a bigger piece of birthday cake.  So don’t blame your co-workers for being human. Their behavior is utterly predictable.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Greene shares some of the key points from his book, beginning with the importance of self awareness—getting a clear sense of who you are, where you are going, and what motivates you.

From there, Greene discusses the importance of acquiring skills. He makes a strong case for an apprenticeship approach, where you focus on skill development above all else in your early years on the job. The goal is to develop the type of skill mastery needed in today’s specialized world.

Finally, Greene recommends developing a plan to fully leverage the skills you’ve developed.  Planning can be self-guided, though he does recommend finding a mentor as a great way to shorten the process.  The key is to take action, overcome fear and inertia, and learn how to experience failure and learn from it.

Overall, Greene provides an inspiring look at how to become the person you know you can be!

Be sure to listen to the very end of the interview, where Ken Blanchard shares his thoughts and takeaways.

The same can be said for a person with integrity. I like to define integrity as a unifying way of being. It integrates all of the aspects of a person.

But many work cultures promote a compartmentalized view of life—for example, an expectation that you use only your brain (your head) at work and save emotions (your heart) for what is going on at home. Such an expectation is unrealistic, unhealthy, and exhausting. When you compartmentalize, you lose the integration and integrity needed to make wise choices.

Instead of compartmentalizing, I ask my clients to consider integrating their brain and their emotions more fully and to use both in a complementary fashion as they make decisions.  By removing the blinders of compartmentalizing, they can become more aware of what is going on inside themselves. This increased self-awareness creates new choices and opportunities.

Have you been trying to compartmentalize your heart from your head? How would your life be different if you checked in with all of yourself instead?

Select a few of the following activities to expand the use of all aspects of yourself—not just your head or just your heart—to see where else you can open yourself and better access your integrity.

• Write in a journal, seeking to address thoughts, feelings, and sensations
• Practice meditation
• Discuss what you’re learning with a caring colleague, friend, or family member
• Adopt a new physical activity and let your mind wander in this kinesthetic experience

Create the opportunity for greater integrity in your life. Rather than using your mind to have the last say in all your decisions, allow yourself to check in with your heart, your body, and your soul.

By reinforcing your awareness that your heart, mind, body, and soul are integrated, you will expand your ability to benefit from all aspects of yourself—and you will fully benefit from being in integrity instead of just having it.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Eventually people get there—but it comes with a cost, says Ann Phillips, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“It’s one of the toughest types of issue to address because on the surface everyone’s putting on a brave face and pretending that everything is okay. But if you scratch a little underneath you’ll see the level of dissatisfaction that’s costing organizations billions of dollars in untapped productivity, creativity, and innovation.

The biggest problem getting in the way of managers delivering the direction and support people need is an overestimation of their current skills.  As Phillips explains, “Leaders often believe they are providing direction when they tell people to ‘Do this, and then do that, and be sure to get it done by this date,’ but that is only part of providing direction—and probably the lowest form of the behavior.”

The same is true when it comes to supportive behavior, says Phillips. “Managers feel as if they know what supportive behavior is and usually have their own ideas about what it looks like. But without instruction, most people default to behavior that consists mainly of encouragement.

“People are good at encouraging others with phrases such as, ‘You can do it. We’re glad you’re here. We believe in you. Use your best judgment.’ But they miss out on all of the other supportive behaviors that are just as important such as listening, sharing information, and facilitating self-directed problem solving.”

“So folks are good at telling people what to do and then cheerleading them on to accomplish the task. And that is the one-two, ‘I want you to do this, and I know you can handle it’ combination that most people are getting in terms of direction and support from their managers. On the surface this may seem reasonable, but it is a style that only works well for direct reports who are already accomplished at the task. For people who are new to a task or are running into problems or are unsure of themselves, it’s a style that actually hinders progress—and can be damaging to overall growth and development.”

For managers looking to increase their ability to offer direction and support for their people, Phillips has three key recommendations.

Recognize your own default settings. Most leaders are unaware that they have a default setting when it comes to leadership even though assessments show that 54% of managers use only one style when it comes to providing direction and support for their people—either Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating. Each of these styles is great if it is a match for what a direct report needs. Each is also a hindrance if it is the wrong style for the situation. 

Expand your repertoire of directive behaviors. Leaders need to think beyond just issuing directives and holding people accountable. Phillips encourages leaders to become more skillful at goal setting and putting in the time to provide day-to-day coaching as needed..

Expand your repertoire of supportive behaviors.   Leaders need to improve listening skills and be willing to share information to facilitate self-directed problem solving. This includes listening with the intent to learn, to be influenced, and to understand—not just respond. People recognize that information is power, yet many managers still try to maintain control by keeping information to themselves even though it undermines employee development.

Start today

Phillips notes that, “Managers have the ability to bring out so much more from their people. Find out where your people are at with their tasks. What do they need from you in terms of direction and support? Improve your skills in both of these areas and see what a difference it makes.”

You can learn more in the new Blanchard eBook, Why It’s Crucial for Your Leaders to Take a Situational Approach to Management. It’s available as a part of the Blanchard resource library for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals.

Hi Madeleine,

I just started a new position with an organization that is pretty young in the association world. I accepted the job because everyone gets along really well and works as a team to accomplish yearly goals.

This type of culture is something I didn’t experience at my previous place of employment, but I was intensely craving it.  

I am in a leadership role and am responsible for creation and development of programs. My position is fairly new and the person who held it before me is still with the company. 

Here are my questions: 

• I love the close bond everyone has with each other, but it’s hard to see where I fit in with the team. Everyone has strengthened their bond over time and there is no way I can catch up. We have fewer than 10 people in the office. How do I develop relationships with everyone when it appears cliques are already established? 
• There is a ton of ambiguity in my position since it’s fairly new. What questions should I ask to get a clear understanding of expectations? 
• When is too soon to make organization recommendations? From an outsider’s perspective, I see a couple of things that if changed would benefit the organization. However, I’ve been on board for less than four months.  

Looking for Friends 

Dear Looking for Friends,

First, congratulations on finding the culture you’ve been looking for. It sounds like you have a terrific opportunity to thrive and make an impact. Now to your excellent questions.

Don’t worry about making friends—instead, seek to create amicable and productive working relationships. This will take the pressure off you and everyone else. The people who will end up being your friends will emerge as a byproduct of you being yourself and producing great results over time. You can’t force it.

Since it is such a small office, I’d suggest asking each person for a one-on-one meeting—either an official in-office meeting, or a coffee or a beer. Start with each person by asking about them, their role, and their goals, which will help you understand how to support others in achieving their goals while you pursue your own. Then ask them what they love about their jobs and what they think their strengths are. This will help you know who to go to for help in ways they will appreciate. This part of the meeting will endear you to just about everyone—because you can’t underestimate how delighted people are to talk about themselves!

After that, to find out about their expectations of you, ask simple questions like:

• If I am successful in this role, what will we have in six to nine months that we don’t have yet?
• What do you think a home run would look like?
• Is there anything I should not be focusing on?
• What can I do to make your job easier?
• What do you think I need to know?

Listen carefully, take notes, don’t argue with what you think are terrible ideas, and don’t make any promises. Do brainstorm around ideas you think have merit, ask questions, and say thank you.

You should definitely spend some time with the person who previously had your job—and make sure you understand what their hopes and dreams are for the role.

Now let be me clear: I am not suggesting you actually have to do everything people think you should do. You may decide to do some things based on these conversations, and you can give credit to whoever’s idea it was, but mainly you are getting to know people, developing relationships, and acquiring a bird’s eye perspective of how you can add value to the organization.

While you are at it, let each person know they can always feel free to come to you with further ideas or feedback. So now you have opened a door and made sure people know it will stay open.

Presumably, your boss has given you some clue as to what is expected of you. If not, after all of your interviews, you can formulate your own thoughts about priorities and run them by your boss to make sure you are on the same page. Then you will have a plan you can feel good about.

Regarding how soon is too soon to make recommendations, now is definitely too soon. There is nothing like fresh eyes for uncovering inefficiencies or outmoded processes. That’s what makes it so hard to keep your mouth shut. But if you are smart, you will do exactly that. Over time—and there is no rule of thumb about how much time—you will understand why things are done in certain ways. You will be right about some of the potential changes, but you will have to earn the right to voice a strong opinion. How? By keeping your head down, being easy to work with, and doing excellent work. When you begin adding unquestioned value to the organization, people will ask you for your opinion and you won’t have to worry if it is welcome or not!

As you move forward to craft your action plan and launch yourself into execution, make sure you include many people in your plans and activities. Before you know it, people will be coming to you to share ideas and get input on their projects, good things will start happening, and you will be “in.” Stay focused on your work and you won’t even notice it happening—you will just wake up one day and realize that it has.

So happy for you. I am sure you will be brilliant and have as many friends as you need.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Bungay Stanier, a top executive coach and consultant, shares how time-pressed managers can effectively coach direct reports by asking instead of telling, being a little more curious, and engaging a little more often.

“The biggest barrier to managers coaching,” says Bungay Stanier, “is that managers believe they don’t have the time.  As a result, coaching as a leadership skill is rarely employed.”

Bungay Stanier discusses the benefit of silence—the importance of being a manager who asks questions instead of jumping in and always giving advice. As he explains, “We are all advice-giving maniacs. Sometimes the best way to channel that energy is to ask questions.”

He shares seven essential questions that can help managers elevate their capabilities to coach others.

The first question, which Bungay Stanier calls the Kick-Start Question, is: “What’s on your mind?” This question opens up the door to more interesting and helpful questions.

The last question, which, when paired with the first, forms what Bungay Stanier calls the Coaching Bookends, is the Learning Question: “What was most useful or most valuable for you?” This question helps people become more masterful and competent.

As Bungay Stanier explains, “People don’t learn when you tell them stuff.  Learning occurs when people have an opportunity to stop and reflect.”

Be sure to listen to the very end of the interview, when Ken Blanchard shares what was most useful for him!

What good is building character only to have it erode due to a lack of maintenance?  Coaching enables people to gain clarity about who they are, what they are doing, why they are doing it, and where they want to go.

In a recent coaching call, a client described a situation where during weekly staff meetings, a leader had been allowing one of her team members to speak negatively about people in another department.  The leader saw team meetings as a place to vent—but over the weeks they had begun to morph into weekly gossip fests.

My client was concerned about the situation. I listened and probed to help illuminate the source of her concern.  Affording her the time and space to discuss the topic moved the issue from being someone else’s problem to solve to being an opportunity to assess her own character and maintain it.

A coach will challenge clients to conduct themselves according to who and what they say they are. The coach does this by listening, asking focused questions, reflecting, challenging, and acknowledging the client.

The business case for coaching is that it supports the development of self leadership—but coaching accomplishes much more than that.  I’d say the personal case for coaching is that it is “customized maintenance for a leader’s character.”

What have you noticed in others that could be a good reminder to you?  What’s your maintenance plan for the leaders in your organization? Consider how a coach could help!

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a young, new manager at a large health food grocery. I love the company, I love the job, and I am really learning a lot about being a new manager.  Here is my problem: when I joined the company as a cashier, I told one of my friends about my new job and she was hired about two weeks after me. 

I got along really well with my manager and she started moving me around the store to work in different departments. Six months later I was asked to manage a team. 

My friend is still at the cash register and seems to be quite angry with me.  When I first started getting moved around the store for training, she made snarky comments about my being a brown-noser, etc. Now she has stopped speaking to me and looks the other way any time I come near her. I am crushed.  I don’t know how to fix this and I think I am losing my friend.

Sad to Lose a Friend

Dear Sad,

Interestingly, I received a letter from a person who is in something like your friend’s position, watching her friend who was hired roughly at the same time rise to meteoric success in her company. In her case, she watched her friend shamelessly kiss up to management and actually sabotage other colleagues to make herself look better.

So, even though my knee-jerk reaction to your letter is “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” I must ask whether it is possible that you played a part in your friend’s turning away from you.  In your self-examination, ask yourself a couple of hard questions and be brutally honest:

• Have I been disingenuous with my boss and others to make myself more appealing?
• Have I ever thrown others under the bus to make myself look better?
• Do I gossip—divulge confidential information to people who have no business knowing?

If you find that you do have something to be sorry for, go to your friend and apologize and tell her that you want to do whatever it takes to make things right.

Even if you can’t think of something you have done wrong, you can ask your friend to help you understand why she is turning away from you.  She may actually tell you, and you can discuss it.  If she is not willing to work things out, however, she is no friend to you and you are going to have to chalk up your losses and move on.

Without a realistic motive for her rather extreme behavior, I think of this as “small town syndrome.” Most cultures have a name for this phenomenon where people feel confused, threatened, and alienated when someone else has success and perhaps grows into someone different from who they used to be.  It is lonely and very sad.

But at least acknowledging the truth will allow you to make new friends who are confident enough in their own abilities that they can be supportive of yours. Ultimately, your quality of life will depend on surrounding yourself with friends who love you and are rooting for your success at every turn. Go find some of those.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Here are the top three (with Madeleine’s advice) in ascending order.

Click the title or picture to see the complete question and response.

#3 Don’t Really Like People? Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “You made me laugh out loud with your concern. People are tough; there is no question. However, you can’t be in business without them—so you are going to have to extend yourself just a touch….”

#2 Afraid You Might Be a Wimp as a Manager?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Here’s the thing. You have trained your people to think they can get away with making a commitment and not following through. The result is, when you give out work assignments, your team members know there isn’t much of a consequence for shoddy planning, so they plan shoddily. This needs to be corrected or you will just keep repeating the same pattern….”

#1 Co-Worker Won’t Shut Up?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Generally, people who are that oblivious to social cues are in the grip of some huge need that they are not able to get met. You are the one who’s going to have to either do something or risk losing the respect of your team. It stinks. I think you need to go at it head on—don’t soft-pedal or pull any punches….”

About Ask 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 here next week!

This new capability has given learning, leadership, and talent development professionals added insight into ways to bring out the best in people by identifying what lights up different areas of the brain.

Ready to take the plunge and learn more about this fascinating new field? Here’s a short list of books that will help you get up to speed.

The Owner’s Manual for the Brain by Pierce J. Howard

This book provides a great overview and is an encyclopedia on all things having to do with your brain. It is very well organized, super clear, and chock full of resources including additional reading and websites. Content includes nice coverage of brain basics, human development, wellness, learning, creativity, and more. If you only have one book on the brain, this should be the one.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky

More than just a charming cover with cavorting zebras, this book focuses on the toll that modern-day stressors are taking on our brains and our bodies. We all know about the fight-or-flight response—but what we don’t know is that our brains can’t tell the difference between a grizzly bear charging toward us and a cranky boss. As a result, many people in today’s organizations are in a constant state of alarm. Sapolsky is down to earth, funny, and gifted at helping the layperson understand the ins and outs of managing our own brains under stress.

The Mind and The Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley

An early entrant into the neuroscience fray, this book is a valiant attempt to help us understand how we can harness the power of our brains to improve our quality of life. Schwartz, a UCLA psychiatrist, and Begley, a Wall Street Journal science columnist, look at new treatments being developed for brain trauma and dysfunctions and what it teaches us about the brain’s ability to adapt.

Your Brain and Business by Srinivasan Pillay

I had the great good fortune to meet Dr. Pillay, and there simply isn’t a more interesting or kinder person. He has about 90 irons in the fire at any given moment but has somehow found time to write several books. This one, focused on leadership and workplace issues, explains how brain processes affect behavior and how knowing this is helpful to leaders. Dr. Pillay is often—if not always—able to express complex concepts in a way that a person with a normal IQ can get them.

Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney

I stumbled over Baumeister and Tierney’s writing in The New York Times Sunday magazine and it rocked my world. They explore and explain the notion of decision fatigue, which is extremely important to know about because when our ability to think properly is exhausted, we are unaware of it. When our muscles give out, it is obvious to us—but when our brains give out, it is less apparent. When that happens, we can unwittingly make terrible decisions, lose self-control, and do things we regret simply because we are tired. This book will help you understand the fundamentals of self-management.

Your Brain at Work by David Rock

Rock is a pioneer in the area of putting neuroscience discoveries together with leadership research. He claims the coining of the term neuroleadership and has a training and coaching organization devoted to same. His book is a fun read if not an entirely easy one—he uses a theatre metaphor with different parts of the brain represented by The Director or Actors. This metaphor is especially relatable to some (like me, a former actor) and not so much to others. Rock’s most notable contribution to the field is his acronym SCARF, which represents dimensions that the brain is particularly sensitive to: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

Social by Matthew Lieberman

Lieberman is extremely accessible in person. His book is somewhat less so. Written by and for people with advanced degrees, it can be a slog—but his research is important. He and his wife, Naomi Eisenberger, have focused on the science of why humans are so dependent on each other for their well-being. The two have proposed the scientific underpinnings for the truth that “no man is an island.” For a quick taste of their critical work on why rejection hurts so much, click here. Lieberman’s book is for the nitty gritty reader.

That’s my list—what would you add? What have been your favorites? Please do share in the comments section below.

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 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Since I almost always ponder life through the filter of coaching, this brings to mind three of my recent clients:

–A leader who could feel herself heading toward overwhelm—not sleeping well, having to work hard in order to stay focused, feeling off her normal game and generally unbalanced.

–A client who felt stuck and frustrated—spinning his wheels on a project and going nowhere fast.

–A colleague who referred to her days as inefficient—bouncing from one thing to another and not getting anything fully completed.

As I thought about how to help these people, I was reminded again of something we as professional coaches often experience.  When common themes start showing up in our clients, it’s a signal to investigate the same theme in our own lives. “Know thyself” is a great piece of advice. Where was I feeling stuck? Where was I working hard but not getting results? How balanced did I feel?

This is something you may have experienced as well.  What trends have you been noticing in others that may be an internal signal for yourself?

Here are three ways to know when to grab for the mask:

1. You find yourself coaching everyone on the same focus topic
2. You feel off—not at your best—over time
3. You aren’t sleeping well

And here are three ways to begin a course correction:

1. Be aware—notice it. Claim it.
2. Breathe deeply—it is one of the best ways to reconnect brain and body, and can be done anywhere and anytime.
3. Practice the three Ps: Pause, Pray, and Ponder (or meditate)

Know when to reach for the oxygen mask. Take care of yourself so that you can continue to serve others. And don’t forget to breathe!

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I supervise five people in a global logistics company. I am three years out of school with an accounting degree, and I really like the job.

Here’s my problem: My boss just came to me and asked if I can do a presentation to the senior leadership at their offsite retreat this summer. I have some time to prepare, but I am stricken with terror just thinking about this.

I am quiet person and have never been much of a performer. I don’t want to decline— I don’t think that would be a good idea for my career here. But I honestly am afraid that I will faint or throw up.

How can I step up to this opportunity when just thinking about it puts me in such a state? I don’t even know where to start. Help please.

Terrified

Dear Terrified,

You are in good company, my friend. Speaking in front of a group is up there with death and big furry bugs on most people’s list of fears. I will tell you what you need to do to rise to this occasion; then you can decide whether or not to decline.

I agree with you that declining would send the wrong message. It would also deprive you of an amazing opportunity to develop yourself. I suspect, because you have been tapped for leadership at such a young age, that you have a lot going for you—so developing this skill really matters.

I know you want be perfect out of the gate, but no one will expect perfection. Your first move is to find someone to coach you. Trying to go it alone is simply a mistake, so please hear me on this. Your coach will help you shape your material to draw out the key points and help you get rid of the fluff. Your coach will make you practice. Your coach will make you eliminate all of the evil filler words or phrases that signal a rookie.

Now let’s talk about fear. Many people think if they wait long enough, the fear will go away and then they’ll be able to do the things that scare them. They will wait a long time—because in my experience, the fear never goes away. People who do things in spite of the fear simply keep finding new ways to scare themselves. They keep upping the ante. Others think that if they find the right formula, they can move through the fear. This is also not a good strategy, because—let me reiterate—the fear never goes away. The only thing to do with fear is get used to it. Befriend it. Welcome fear as the messenger who tells you that you are really trying. Let fear walk with you on your path. Hold its hand, put it in your pocket, let it sit on your shoulder—whatever image works for you.

You can also try one of my favorites—the worst case scenario: walk through, preferably out loud, the worst possible thing that could happen around your presentation.

• I could throw up on the CEO
• I could pass out
• I could wet my pants
• I could forget my whole presentation
• I could forget my name and how to speak altogether and they will call the psych EMT’s and cart me away.

You get the picture. The nutty part is, I know people who have experienced each of these things—and worse. And guess what? Nobody actually ever died or got fired.

With your fear properly managed and your coach to help you, make an outline of the key points you need to cover and then write out your initial speech. As you shape your material, keep in mind this question: What do you want your audience to know, think, feel and do as a result of your presentation?

Now you will want to refine and practice your presentation. When I’ve worked with clients on their first-time presentations, here is the protocol for practicing that I have seen work for most people.

1. Read your speech word for word and make corrections until it is right.
2. Reduce your speech to key points with bullets, except for your opening and your close.
3. Create your slide presentation if you are using slides. Use slides only to provide visual support and inspiration, not to express reams of data. If you need to share reams of data, get help to turn the data into something visually compelling and informative. Use handouts for details.
4. Practice until all you need is your key points on one piece of paper. Practice in front of someone—your coach, if possible, but anyone will do. Make sure a total stranger understands and can keep up with what you are saying.
5. Practice your speech three times the night before, just before bed.
6. Right before your presentation, run through your opening three times.

This sounds like an awful lot of work because it is. But this is what it takes for you to feel over-prepared and to deliver really well in spite of your terror. And if you do even half of this, you will be a rock star.

Finally, when it’s time to stand and deliver, remember to:

• Breathe. When you feel yourself panicking, breathe. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Three times. It always helps and never hurts. If you lose your place, breathe. The next point will come to you on the breath. If it doesn’t come in on the first breath, it will come in on the second. I promise.
• Feel your feet. I got this tip from an autobiography by Lawrence Olivier, who was the Brad Pitt of British theatre in the mid twentieth century. At the peak of his fame, he was struck with paralyzing stage fright. The thing that finally allowed him to function was to feel the soles of his feet connected to the ground. I have used this myself for decades, and everyone who has ever tried it swears by it.
• Control your eyes. Look at one person, then another, then another. Make a point to one person, then move to someone else for the next point. Don’t look down.
• Speak up. Talk a little louder than feels natural. Don’t try to hide or pretend you aren’t there.
• Find your light. Figure out where the light is going to be best and stand in it. Your instinct will be to find the shadow, so work against that.
• Speak to your supporters. Your tendency will be to find the people who look like they are bored or annoyed and try to change their minds. Don’t do it. Find the people who are engaged, smiling, and with you. Speak to them and let your appreciation show—and pretend the other people are not there.

So are you going to do it? I hope so. Let me know how it goes.

Love, Madeleine

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 here next week!

Here are five of the most important techniques coaches use in their conversations with clients.

Consider how these techniques could help the managers in your organization be more coach-like in their communication style.

• Be fully present. Practice being fully present in your conversations with people. Avoid distractions, give undivided attention, and show you care. Of course, we all know this is easier said than done—but this alone can go a long way toward building trust.

• Get, and keep, the conversation focused. It is easier to help a direct report move forward, faster, if they are the one who declares a specific focus for the discussion. Having them establish a focus creates a more deliberate and intentional conversation. Keep in mind there will be times when the conversation goes off topic. When it does, the manager is expected to get the conversation back on track.

• Ask mostly open-ended questions, especially those starting with what and how. Open-ended questions promote discovery for the other person. The most essential questions coaches ask are what and how questions that help direct reports discover their own answers or course of action.

• Stay action focused. Help the direct report create a plan of action that will move them forward. Share coaching questions such as “What do you think you need to do now?” As much as possible, keep the ownership of the plan, and any actions, in the direct report’s court. Actions they take may turn out to be excellent growth opportunities. Keeping the ball in the other court allows managers to get on to other things on their to-do list.

• Follow up. Check in with direct reports on their progress, their learnings, and any challenges they might be facing. Doing this helps them keep what they said they would do top of mind. It also shows them again that you care—which is never a bad thing.

There are many ways for managers to incorporate a coaching style to help people develop more competence and confidence. The ideas above are in no way a complete list, but I encourage you to have the managers in your organization give them a try. Practicing coach-like behaviors in your conversations creates a learning environment not only for those you coach, but for you as well.

Let me know how it goes!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Maybe it is the CEO of your company, the principal of your local high school, or the president of your alma mater.

If I asked you about the specific qualities that made them successful, you’d probably tell me about their hard skills—teachable abilities such as vision and strategic thinking.

But I’ll bet you’d also tell me about their soft skills—interpersonal abilities such as listening, collaborating, and endorsing others.

Yes, the hard skills matter, but in my experience it is soft skills that make a leader memorable—more than their title, degree, acquisitions, or accomplishments. Let me give you an example.

Twenty five years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I attended a presentation by the famous Boston Children’s Hospital pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton. After delivering his speech to a packed house, Dr. Brazelton took questions from the audience. One woman had a question about breastfeeding her three-year-old child.

A sizeable number of audience members started to murmur regarding the woman’s choice to nurse a child that age. The negative energy unsettled the mother and she paused in the middle of her question. The silence seemed to last forever, but Dr. Brazelton kept his compassionate gaze upon her. It was as if they were the only two people in the room. He nodded for her to continue and she tentatively resumed speaking. When she finished her question, he answered her. He then took the next question.

Why has this stayed with me for twenty-five years? In that moment, I saw Dr. Brazelton as an awesome leader because he didn’t do anything. He cared enough to wait. He held the space for her. The woman at the microphone felt his connection—and I did, too, as an observer. He didn’t play to the audience. He didn’t diminish the woman or her question. And by doing so, Dr. Brazelton allowed me to observe the transformational power of caring by truly listening. That evening, I learned so much from him—far beyond the topic of his speech.

Obviously, listening, caring, and creating a connection are important to me as a coach. It was not Dr. Brazelton’s education or professorships or thirty-page resume that affected me the evening I heard his speech. I was transformed by seeing a self-aware individual care to hear the question of another. It was powerful—and it remains powerful all these years later.

As the years have passed, I recall that night often and use it as a calibration in my own work by asking myself: In what ways am I creating connections like that?

How about you? Taking the opportunity to continually improve is essential to becoming a better, more self-aware leader. Unlike a hard skill, we’re never finished when it comes to improving our ability to listen, to be present, and to validate others. Consider how you can model both the hard and soft sides of leadership in your conversations. You’ll help yourself and others in working together more effectively—and isn’t that wonderful!

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

“No. It’s not a panacea,” says coaching expert Patricia Overland in an article for Chief Learning Officer. “Determining when coaching is a good investment can be challenging.”

Overland shares a couple of examples from her experience when a leader may not be ready to learn and apply coaching skills. Overland explains that offering coaching without addressing these underlying beliefs is usually a recipe for failure.

• If they prefer command and control: They just want people to do their jobs.
• If they don’t value innovation: They just want people to do things the way they’ve done them before.
• If they have a negative attitude about people: They believe that people only do what they have to.
• If they have a negative attitude toward coaching: They know all the answers and think coaching is a flavor-of-the-month methodology.

For those leaders ready for coaching, Overland points to a research study conducted by Human Capital Institute and The International Coach Federation which found, “A strong coaching culture positively correlates with employee engagement and financial performance. Nearly two-thirds of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures rate their employees as being highly engaged, compared to only half from organizations without strong coaching cultures. In terms of financial impact, 51 percent of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures report their 2015 revenue to be above that of their industry peer group, compared to 38 percent from all other organizations.”

To be successful at coaching, Overland identifies five must-haves that need to be in place:

Environment: Before coaching, managers should let direct reports know they’ll be doing things a bit differently. Set the stage, get permission to coach and check in frequently to ensure this new way of leading is hitting the mark.

Trust: Trust is a foundation for any coaching relationship. The manager’s role can be especially hard because they have both perceived and real power over direct reports. Getting people to talk openly and honestly about their needs, motivations and skill level takes patience, practice and trust.

Intent: It is important to begin by being very clear about objectives and goals. If a manager notices that coaching is going off track, they should examine their own motivations and beliefs. It can be powerful to say, “That didn’t go the way I intended” and start again, working to be more supportive and encouraging.

Action: Development is good. Development with focused action is better. The purpose behind great coaching is to influence some kind of change in mindset and behavior. Encourage others to take specific actions that are focused on achieving a desired outcome. This moves coaching beyond much disdained navel gazing to a strategy with real bottom-line impact.

Accountability: Leaders who use coaching skills help others commit to behavior change. Even with the best of intentions, people get sidetracked, work gets reprioritized, and sometimes life just gets in the way.

Coaching effectively supports long-term and sustained employee development encourages Overland. “Consider the higher engagement levels, trusting relationships and financial health to be gained from a shift to a coaching culture — and say yes!”

To read the complete article at Chief Learning Officer, click here.

The International Coach Federation describes presence as the “ability to be fully conscious and create spontaneous relationship with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible, and confident.”

Being present is about being in the moment with a laser focus on the client. To do this, eliminate any potential distractions and filters—including your own preconceived thoughts and judgments. Being fully present means listening to understand and asking open-ended questions to help your client explore himself or herself more deeply.

Here are a couple of tips that can help you be more present in your coaching conversations.

Remember, it’s not about you. I like to say to my clients “It is not about me as a coach; it is all about YOU!” The coach is confident about not knowing or identifying the solution—their focus is on shifting perspective and exploring possibilities. The client is in the lead with the coach as a solid support partner.

Silence is okay. Often we feel the need to fill in the gaps during a conversation. But truly being present may involve periods of silence, which a coach will often do intentionally. This allows clients more space to share what’s on their mind.

Listen to understand. Too often, people listen only enough to respond. Instead of really hearing what the other person is saying, energy is spent preparing an answer or response. Effective coaches practice active listening—listening with the expectation of hearing something new or surprising.

Tell your truth. Coaching presence means the coach calls out what they are observing and trusts their intuition to support the client in gaining clarity, increasing self-awareness, and finding the right solutions.

I have learned over the years that the most important thing I can do in my coaching relationships as well as my personal relationships is to be fully present and in the moment. It is about showing I care, listening to understand, and controlling my thoughts, judgments, and responses.

Imagine being fully present with your spouse, partner, kids, family members, friends, and co-workers. Consider listening to truly understand the other person’s perspective—what they are saying and feeling—without quickly forming a judgment or jumping to share your thoughts. How would your relationships change?

If you haven’t tried coaching presence, try it!

About the Author
Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

I am an EVP of strategy and shareholder value for a billion dollar global conglomerate. I have been working with a coach for the last six months and she has made a huge difference in terms of helping me prioritize, focus, and develop more powerful relationships. Things have been going so well that I am now seriously being considered to replace the CFO when he retires, which will be soon. Also in the running is our comptroller, who is a very bright and very powerful person.

I just found out the coach I am working with has been tapped to also work with this comptroller—essentially my competition. I feel that my secret weapon has been stolen from me and my coach has betrayed me by agreeing to take on the job. I am so mad that I’m thinking of firing my coach—but I really like her and trust her, so I worry that I am being childish. What do you think?

Betrayed

Dear Betrayed,

You may be being childish, but from a social neuroscience standpoint, when something feels unfair we are all reduced to acting like four-year-olds. So you are not to be blamed, honestly. However, let’s make sure you can experience your feelings, get back to your very rational self, and proceed like the grownup you actually are.

The only thing for you to do is to have a conversation with your coach. Does your coach know you perceive the comptroller as your competition? You will want to know what the coach’s rationale is for her decision to work with both of you. Presumably she is well trained and thoughtful and has given this some thought either way. I do know that for most coaches, the practice of working with both a boss and a direct report is frowned upon as it is very difficult to keep out of the mix. But we often work with peers, many of whom have the same goals for advancement and promotion. It really doesn’t make a difference, though, because coaching is always focused on the person being coached: leveraging their strengths, their needs, what is in their way, etc. We share the just-in-time concepts that are going to support the client at the moment they need it. No decent coach would ever use any knowledge of others they are working with to help another client get the upper hand. The coach will always hold the truth that the only person you are competing with at any given moment is yourself. You can certainly share how you feel with your coach and see what she has to say.

As you have the conversation with your coach, check your gut. Ask yourself, “Do I still trust this person to have my best interests at heart?” If the answer is yes, then carry on with her. If the answer is I don’t know, have one more session with that question top of mind and then decide. If the answer is no, then fire your coach and ask for another one to work with. I am sure your coach is great, but frankly, any trained and certified coach who has been vetted by your company will be totally competent and able to continue where the last coach left off. Who knows, you might find someone even better!

Clients do get attached to their coaches, but here is one thing to keep in mind: The coach is only as good as the client. What clients get attached to, really, is how competent and brilliant they feel with just a teeny bit of good coaching. So the thing for you to know is that the person who is doing so well in this situation is you. Help is useful only to people who know how to ask for it and avail themselves of it. So don’t worry, Betrayed, there are plenty of secret weapons out there because you know how to use them. You have everything at your disposal that you need to compete.

Go get that job, if that is what you really want—with your current coach, a new coach, or no coach at all.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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 here next week!

Drawing on some of the key points from the new revised and updated edition of her acclaimed Wall Street Journal bestseller, Wiseman explores why some leaders, whom she calls diminishers, drain capability and intelligence from their teams while others, multipliers, amplify it to produce better results.

Wiseman explains that leading others begins by leading self.  She shares stories from her early work career where she learned that she did her best work when she was being challenged and felt she was a little bit in over her head.

Wiseman also shares some of the top questions she has been asked since the initial release of the first edition of Multipliers. She discusses some of the ways to bring out the best in others—while avoiding diminishers—and especially how to avoid being an accidental diminisher yourself.

Wiseman’s advice to leaders is to be a multiplier of people by seeing your job as helping to bring out the potential in each person.  Accidental diminishing happens when well-meaning managers unknowingly micromanage or rescue their people and deprive them of a chance to learn and grow.

Be sure to listen to the very end of the interview to hear Ken Blanchard’s takeaways—what he learned and will remember from the interview.

Her email back to me: You clicked the correct links to respond. I checked the links as well, and I also logged into your profile to look for the comment notification. It appears that he deleted his comment!

She had come to a plausible conclusion that I hadn’t even considered! I am supposed to be a subject matter expert on self leadership, yet I fell prey to an assumed constraint. I held an assumption that I was woefully ignorant when it comes to social media and incapable of solving the problem. I let that belief limit my openness to another possibility—such as, the man deleted his comment.

We fall prey to insidious assumed constraints every day. The way we internalize facts influences our beliefs that shape our intentions, which ultimately leads to our behavior.

Virtually raise your hand if your manager makes more money than you do. Nod your head knowingly if your manager has more position power than you do. Now consider how these facts influence your beliefs about the workplace, shape your intentions, and ultimately determine your behavior—and your relationship with your manager.

• Comparing my manager’s power and income to my own, I may conclude: I don’t have the power or ability to affect change. This belief leads me to watch painfully as changes happen to me without my input or participation.
• I may believe that my manager should know when I need more direction for achieving my goal. This belief causes me to wait for her to provide me with an action plan and the resources I need.
• Even sadder, maybe I believe my boss should know what I need, but is so self-absorbed, she doesn’t even notice. This belief leads me to resent my manager and sabotage the relationship because I don’t trust she has my best interests at heart.

Assumed constraints are beliefs that limit our experience. Self leadership demands the acknowledgement, exploration, and reframing of assumed constraints.

Challenging assumed constraints by flipping them into statements that lead to positive action is an essential mindset of a self leader. For example, what if I took the assumed constraint about power and flipped it? I believe I have the power and ability to affect change. This statement is more likely to lead to productive behavior, such as proactive problem solving or selling my solutions.

The flipped assumed constraint also leads to an exploration of power: What types of power do I have and how can I use my points of power to proactively achieve my goals and make greater contributions to others?

Research provides evidence that self leadership competencies can be learned—and that organizations would be better served by focusing budgets and training employees on self leadership. But learning the skillset also requires cultivating a mindset to challenge assumed constraints, activate your points of power, and be proactive.

Thinking about my assumed constraint for responding to comments on LinkedIn, I take heart that I proactively reached out to a subject matter expert using my relationship power. I feel confident that the next time I find myself frustrated over social media (probably sometime within the next hour or so), I will challenge my assumed constraints by mindfully exploring solutions I wouldn’t have considered before receiving Kristin’s insight. Then, if I really am stymied, I will reach out for direction and support.

Self Leadership is having the mindset and skillset for getting what you need to succeed. For true self leaders, accepting responsibility and taking initiative for the quality of your work and life experience is a continuous pursuit of learning, growing, and achieving. It is the saga that never ends.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies and the coauthor of Blanchard’s new Self Leadership program.  You can learn more about Susan and The Ken Blanchard Companies at http://www.kenblanchard.com

Your Leadership Point of View

Clarifying what you expect of yourself and of others and then sharing this information as your Leadership Point of View helps you and your team succeed together. It accelerates the process of helping people learn what makes you tick and brings about greater alignment faster. Creating an intentional vision also allows leaders to demonstrate consistency between their values, their words, and their actions.

In a post entitled Leadership Transparency: 3 Ways to Be More Open with Your People, Ken Blanchard shares three ways sharing their Leadership Point of View (LPOV) helps leaders connect with their direct reports.

1. Your LPOV identifies your beliefs about leading and managing people. Who are the people that have influenced you in your life? Most people think about traditional leaders first, but the reality is that parents, teachers, and other important people in our lives are the ones who have usually influenced our thinking the most. Given what you’ve learned from these influencers and your core values, what are your beliefs about leading and motivating people?
2. Your LPOV reveals what motivates you. How can you communicate what you believe and how it influences your behavior? When you share your LPOV with your direct reports, they will have the benefit of understanding where you’re coming from, what you expect from them, and what they can expect from you.
3. Your LPOV helps you lead by example. Your Leadership Point of View lets people know how you will set an example for the values and behaviors you are encouraging. We all know from personal experience that people learn from behaviors, not from words. Leaders must walk their talk. Developing a Leadership Point of View creates a clear path for you to follow.

A Coach Can Help

In working with leaders going through our Leadership Point of View program, we’ve found it requires courage and vulnerability to really think through past events that have contributed to the person you are today. A coach can guide a leader through this process—for example, to assess which stories to share and how to share them.

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of coaching a leader in the aeronautics industry. This engineer shared with me her story of being a child refugee—memories of her family leaving their communist country via airplane to start a new life in Australia. As a little girl she saw the airplane as a symbol of hope, opportunity, and the future. Until our coaching, this woman hadn’t realized the powerful connection her mind had made between airplanes and her family’s freedom! We used that metaphor throughout her LPOV, and it was extremely powerful. Her team had always seen her as a competent and capable engineer, but by sharing the story of her youth, they could see that what propelled her work was optimism and hope.

Developing and sharing your Leadership Point of View is a powerful process for creating connection. As the leader, you are sharing with your direct reports the key people, events, and beliefs that illustrate what you truly value. Consider how a coach can help you share what makes you you.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.