Dear Madeleine,

I thought you might weigh in on an ongoing debate I have with a friend. We met in college, have been working at different companies, and were promoted to management at about the same time.

He believes his direct reports are lazy and will do the bare minimum if he isn’t constantly breathing down their necks. He (a millennial) frequently complains about how entitled Gen Z’ers are. I am having a totally different experience. I see the people on my team as amazingly smart. They go the extra mile and sometimes they work even harder than they need to.

My company provides a lot of training to managers and unlimited access to tons of resources on management and leadership. My buddy’s company provides no training at all. I am pretty sure there is a connection here.

I don’t want to lord it over my friend, but I do think learning basic leadership techniques has helped me to get things off on the right foot and get the best from my people. I am convinced my friend’s negative attitude is part of the problem, but I hesitate to point that out to him. I am finding him less and less fun to hang out with and am getting tired of biting my tongue. I don’t want to become just one more thing he complains about.

He wasn’t always so doom and gloom. Maybe his direct reports really are awful. I just can’t help thinking he at least partially to blame for his predicament. But what do you think?

Biting My Tongue

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Dear Biting My Tongue,

I think I hear a couple of different topics in your letter. The least direct one is “how does this happen?”, another is “do leaders affect workers motivation” and finally, “should I try to influence my friend?”

So—how does this happen? I think your friend’s attitude is the result of a combination of personal outlook, lack of curiosity, and working in an impoverished company culture. Research supports two arguments: a company that invests in its leadership will end up with better leaders, which results in an empowered, motivated workforce; and a company that promotes people because they are solid individual contributors (a standard, if misguided, norm)—without training them to be at least technically proficient managers—is going to end up with, well, people like your friend.

A culture in which people adopt a growth mindset and thrive doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a great deal of intention and relentless work. So the lack of training isn’t your friend’s fault—but neither is there anything keeping him from taking responsibility and seeking help on his own. I would submit that he has been ground down enough to invest in being a victim of circumstances, which, in turn, has contributed to the reality he is experiencing.

Which brings us to your friend’s general outlook. Most likely, your attitude about workers was fairly optimistic to begin with and has been further developed by good training. It is entirely possible that your friend might stick to his original attitude regardless of training opportunities. This difference in your attitudes is beautifully described in the work called Theory X and Theory Y. These contrasting theories, postulated by Douglas McGregor, represent different assumptions about employee motivation. 

Theory X holds that employees dislike work and need strict supervision, while Theory Y assumes that employees are intrinsically motivated and seek responsibility, preferring a more participative approach. Anyone who takes on the responsibility of managing people will either consciously or unconsciously subscribe to one of these theories or the other and will treat their direct reports accordingly.

This is an old pair of theories, and many others have refuted or built on them since this work was first published. I only mention it because you seem to be a student of leadership, and it appears that you and your friend are operating on these exact diametrically opposed theories. You can enjoy a deep dive on this topic here.

You asked my opinion, so here it is: I don’t think anything involving human beings is ever that black or white, because each individual is different and will be motivated by vastly different things. I also know—because research shows it and I have observed evidence over 35 years of managing people—that a leader’s attitude toward their people 100% affects employee engagement.

So is your friend part of the problem? You know it. Is it common sense that if you believe people are untrustworthy, and treat them as if they are, they will know it and won’t even bother trying to prove you wrong? I think so. Your friend has produced a self-fulfilling prophecy and suffers from confirmation bias, which is when humans seek evidence for what they already think is true.

One theory I have been testing for over twenty years is one of Ken Blanchard’s most enduring ideas: everything will go better if we catch each other doing things right. Not that as the person in charge we shouldn’t re-direct when something isn’t right, but that the more we focus on what is working, the greater the chance people will be inclined to repeat the winning behavior. This is true of animals and people. The more we focus on the positive and expect the best from people, the more positive things will come to our attention. I am sure you have been seeing this as you continue to have success with your folks.

Should you try to influence your friend? I appreciate that you are tempted to show your friend the error of his ways, but also that (so far) you have the wisdom not to. My experience is that most people are not willing to change a mindset they have committed to—at least not until the misery they are causing themselves becomes unbearable. And, even then, many aren’t willing.

The more salient point may be hard to hear: you are going to have to either influence your friend or stop hanging out with him. Fond as you may be of your friend, being around him has become a bummer. You can suffer his company or you can tell him the truth: he is no fun, all he does is complain, and you don’t enjoy being around him. He will no doubt be insulted to the core and maybe won’t speak to you again. If, however, he trusts you and has the wherewithal to listen, you can ask him some questions:

• What if there were a way to shift things so that work weren’t such a misery for you?
• Do you really think your people are so different from you? Are you lazy, unmotivated, and entitled?
• Do you remember how much the boomers complained about the millennials? How is Gen Z so different from us, and how might we capitalize on their strengths?

Maybe asking some decent questions—in essence, planting seeds for him to consider—will be just the ticket to get your friend to shift. Maybe not. Not all friendships last forever, and that’s okay.

I hope this provides food for thought.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. 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 the COO and founder of what is now being called a “mature” startup. We have been around for 12 years but have not yet exceeded 100 employees or reached our revenue or valuation goals. The company still feels like a startup because we have been experimenting with our business model and the pace of innovation, and the constant pivots are relentless.

Some of our business leaders are tired of it. They are expressing attitudes that are not helpful, such as “If we were going to make it, we’d have made it by now,” or “What’s wrong with things the way they are? We seem to be doing fine.”

We are fine, but we have not achieved our full potential—nor are we as profitable as we need to be to attract investors. My original business partner, who is our CEO, has recently taken a leave of absence to deal with a family matter. He was exhausted. The last few years have been a slog and Covid was a massive setback for us. It seemed like the right time for him to take a break.

I am covering for him and struggling with the Eeyore-like outlook among some of my key people. I’ve been working on finding ways to inspire them. We put a lot more focus on self-care than any other startup I know. I’ve given feedback to some who are resistant to change and to what feels (to them) like risky ideas. It does not seem to be making a difference.

I still know in my heart that we are going to figure things out and break through, but I need everyone to be all in for this last push. How do I get my leaders on board?

Just About There

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Dear Just About There,

I’m a battle-worn veteran of a couple of startups myself—and now that I am nearing the last phase of my own career, your situation only confirms to me that startups are best suited for the young. I say this not to discriminate, but simply to point out that when the slog goes on for longer than anyone wants or expects, it can be hard to hold on to the giddy, cockeyed optimism required to stay in the game. The relentless pace of change can be exhausting, and you are going to need to find a way to tap into some of that initial startup energy you had at the beginning if you want to reach your goals.

I have a couple of ideas for you.

• Pay attention. Ask your people what specific concerns they have and listen in a way that makes them feel heard. I recently heard someone say “Clear communication is the oil that reduces the friction of living.” If your key people are turning into Eeyores (for the uninitiated, Eeyore is a character in the Winnie the Pooh stories who is depicted as having a bleak outlook on life), they probably need some attention. You may remember that Eeyore’s catch phrase is “Thanks for noticing me.” I wonder sometimes if leaders are afraid that listening and acknowledging people’s concerns means you have to do something about those concerns, when, in fact, simply listening often can make all the difference. You may think you are a good listener, and you probably are when you aren’t worn down by resistance. So if you want some technical tips on how to listen, you can find some here. For tips on managing constant innovation and change, you can access an excellent webinar here.
• Tap into personal motivations. It sounds like your leaders have run out of steam. There were specific things that drove them at the beginning, and anything you can do to help them get back in touch with those drivers will help. Maybe it was the promise of a big payout, or the ability to make an impact in the world, or the desire to be part of something cool and sexy. Whatever it was, help them remember it. Or maybe what matters to them has changed. If they are not going to be able to find it in their current role, it could be time for them to find another place that suits them better.
• Reclarify and rearticulate the vision. You and your partner had a big vision when you started. It is normal to assume that everyone has heard it and doesn’t need to hear it again, but that is incorrect. People need to be reminded of the big fat WHY all the time. It gets buried under the rough and tumble of the day-to-day slog. So dig for buried treasure, find the stories that will inspire, and tell them a lot more than you think you need to. This will undoubtedly bore you, because the vision is still so clear to you that you forget it is not as clear to others. Do it anyway.
• Stop giving feedback and start making clear requests. Feedback is tricky. We think if we do everything right when we give feedback, people will hear it, internalize it, and do something about it. That simply is not true. If you want your leaders to do things differently, you have to make a direct request. It needs to be crystal clear so that you don’t run the risk of it sounding like a suggestion. It is a request. For example: “Even if you disagree with the strategy, I need you to commit to supporting it and to make sure your team knows that you support it—even if you have your doubts.” You can point out specific dos and don’ts if you have examples. The kind of clarity you achieve with a direct request will help your leaders decide if they can commit or if they need to leave. This, of course, means some people may leave. But all you have is your people, and if your leaders aren’t with you, you need to replace them with leaders who are. This is harsh, I know. But it is true.
• Catch people doing things right. This is a classic bit of genius from Ken Blanchard and there is literally no situation in which it doesn’t apply. At the end of a long, grueling journey, it can be easy to pounce on every little thing that isn’t perfect. This can lead to an over-focus on pointing out what’s going wrong at the costly expense of directing focus on what is going right. You must make everyone feel that they are winning, even if it isn’t as fast or as evident as you would like.

It really does all rest on your shoulders, my friend. That is what leadership is. If it all goes sideways, everyone will blame you. And if you pull it off, you won’t get nearly the credit you deserve. If everyone could do it, everyone would be doing it, but it is the rare soul who has what it takes.

Put on your listening ears, share the inspiration, find and call out the best in people, and pray the gods will smile upon your efforts. Good luck to you.

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 Intern,

What do today’s interns want out of a summer internship? My company—like many others—hosts six to eight summer interns every year. I’ve been participating in the program for over fifteen years and during that time I’ve had one, two, or sometimes three interns working for several weeks in our marketing department. It’s been a good experience, and I think the interns have learned something along the way.

I’ve always tried to create an experience that does four things:

1. Provides each intern with a project they can call their own and refer to on their résumé
2. Gives them a chance to work together with other interns both in our department and across other departments
3. Introduces them to corporate culture through regular employee training or all-hands meetings, for example
4. Includes very proactive management, with high levels of direction and support from me as needed

I’ve received good feedback from the interns I’ve worked with using this approach, but I’m afraid I may be stuck with an old-fashioned sense of what an internship should look like. (Full disclosure: I’m in my early 60s.)

Could you give me some feedback on what interns are looking for these days? Where am I on track, and where do I possibly need some fresh thinking? I’d appreciate your viewpoint.

 Thanks,

Always Learning

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Dear Always Learning,

Thank you for reaching out! It’s amazing to see how much effort you put into the internship program in your marketing department. You clearly value your interns and the experience you want to create for them.

Centering interns’ experience around a project they can call their own is such a great way to get them involved and keep them motivated! Speaking from experience, I believe interns want something hands-on and fulfilling. For example, I love supporting other people, so Blanchard granted me a multitude of projects that allowed me to put my passion into practice. My only feedback for you would be to ensure each intern’s project caters to their specific professional journey. They are more likely to feel valued when their contributions are aligned with their strengths, goals, and interests. Interns are excited about and proud of their work!

You can also help your interns feel valued by seeking updates about their projects and asking how you can support them. And when they reach an obstacle (because that will happen), help support and problem-solve to get them back on track. Making them feel like an asset to the company is a great way to build up their confidence in a corporate setting and help them stay motivated.

If your interns are anything like me, they are likely worried about the next ten steps in their career. Interns want to help the company, but the experience they gain is also a driver. As you mentioned in your first point, the résumé they are trying to build is very important. An internship often is the first corporate experience someone will have. Helping your interns build their résumé with something they are enthusiastic about will improve their luck during future interviews—and increase the likelihood that they will want to continue working for your company!

I love how you encourage your interns to network and collaborate with one another! Frustration and confusion are part of the learning process, so letting them get acquainted is an amazing way to embed a support system within the company. Also, having them explore other departments is a great idea! Allowing them to see what their peers are doing and possibly assist them establishes those relationships and helps them adapt to the corporate setting.

Going off that, exposing interns to the corporate culture is such an important process. I’m glad you actively introduce them to it, because I think it’s often assumed that Gen Z is opposed to traditional corporate culture. While there are certainly aspects we seek to change, we also respect the systems in place and want to learn how to facilitate change from within them. Sometimes this means giving us opportunities to go all in! I would just make completely sure your interns feel supported during these new experiences. For instance, you might provide them with low-stakes opportunities to spend time with high performers in your department. Your interns might feel uncomfortable or nervous at first, but with your encouragement these kinds of meetings can be a great learning and networking opportunity for them!

High support and high guidance are so important! As interns (and people in general) are introduced to a brand-new set of tasks, they can sometimes get lost or discouraged. Providing guidance during this season is key for a productive environment and experience. It’s great if your interns are highly motivated, but it’s not a deal-breaker if they aren’t. A rough patch of confusion and low confidence is bound to happen, but usually people can work past it. Encouraging open communication without fear of punishment is crucial in this regard. How can someone help if they aren’t aware that something is wrong?

All this to say, I think your “old-fashioned” approach is still valid! If you want to level-up your internship program, my best advice would be to meet your interns where they are—from the beginning to the end of the program. Start by setting expectations about what the experience is going to be like, making sure to consider their personal strengths, goals, and interests. Wrap up the program by asking for candid feedback about their experience. These practices will ensure that your internship program is always evolving to meet the needs of the next round of interns!

It’s great that you and your company recognize the importance of the internship experience. The effort you are putting into the program is outstanding and sets a great example for your interns. Thank you again for reaching out and valuing their experience!

Best wishes,

Addison the Intern

Editor’s Note: While Madeleine enjoys a well-deserved summer break for the next several weeks, instead of “Ask Madeleine,” we will “Ask the Intern.” We will field questions like yours and present ideas and solutions from several of our Blanchard interns and their peers in other companies. 

This week’s response is from Addison Dixon, Producer Intern for Blanchard Institute.

Dear Madeleine,

I’m a tech founder and have developed a tool called “burnout tracker,” which is embedded into our 1:1 tool. Without going into too much detail, the tracker is able to predict when a support conversation between manager and employee is needed.

Here’s my challenge: What is common sense to me seems to be a foreign language to many of the managers using our tool; for example, that during a support conversation, the leader listens to the direct report and provides help where they can.

Yes, the phrase “support conversation” is a bit vague. But to me, that’s where the gold is. By simply asking “How can I best support you at the moment?” the leader can get the team member to provide insights into what they need. Unfortunately, this isn’t happening.

I think the managers feel ill-equipped to have support conversations. It feels strange to them—they mistakenly believe they need to play the role of therapist. 

So, if the employee says they are burned out, what should the manager do next? My natural response would be to first ask the employee more questions. Sort their answers into two buckets: (1) things I can help with; and (2) things I can’t. Then help with the things I can, empathize with the things I can’t, and find resources that may be able to assist. 

Is there a framework or model I can share that would help managers feel more confident going into a support conversation?

With gratitude,

Burnout Support

P.S. Thank you for your blog. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a huge fan of your work and am a better leader because of you and your insights.

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Dear Burnout Support,

First, thanks for your kind words. They mean the world to me!

Now, to your question. I love the idea of a burnout tracker. If only we humans had a handy gauge on our forearm—like a gas gauge—that could alert us to an empty tank while we still have time to do something about it.

This is a big can of worms, partially because you are right—managers are terrified of conversations about the complexities of being people. It is sad that smart people think they need an advanced degree and a credential to do that. When I taught coaching skills to managers and leaders, I heard the question “Wait, are you telling us we need to be therapists?” a million times.

So the first order of business is to train all of your managers in simply being a human being who can have conversations with other human beings about being a human being. To be fair, this is a big ask in the tech industry, since many who end up working in it would much prefer to not have to interact with humans. Am I biased? Maybe. But this is what being a manager means, so it would be good if managers understand that from the get-go. I know you can’t go back in time, but it’s never too late.

The average manager doesn’t receive manager training until they have been managing for ten years. So you are not alone. Here is a white paper—Core Skills Every Manager Should Master—that outlines the core skills every manager needs as well as the elements that help, or prevent, the building of trust.

Trying to track burnout is also a can of worms because, in my opinion, once symptoms of burnout appear, things are already so far gone that it’s hard to turn them around. It’s best to catch the problem early before it causes real trouble.

Christina Maslach, coauthor of the book The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationship with Their Jobs, says helping people cope with stressors is a good step. But it is far preferable to address the origin of the stressors that cause burnout in the first place. You might check out how she recommends your managers do that.

Finally, I propose that individuals who are feeling chronically overwhelmed, cynical, and hostile about the organization, and also losing faith in their own effectiveness, are probably not going to be willing to make themselves vulnerable to their manager. The manager can ask questions all day long, but if they are hoping their people will spill the beans about what is really going on, that will only happen if the relationship was properly set up at the beginning.

You have to remember that many employees, no matter where they were raised, internalize the story that work is a contact sport. It is a Darwinian fight to the death out there, and only the strong will survive. The age of managers being the agent of a harsh organization is not that far behind us. People need to have evidence that their managers see them, hear them, and have their backs. Managers need to nip the “Hunger Games” story in the bud by seeking to understand their employees’ strengths, development areas, and dreams. They need to do their utmost to tailor the job to the best of each employee and monitor each person carefully to make sure that the job is actually doable for each person.

So, the question “What do you need?” should be asked at every 1:1 meeting. Having a manager ask questions and identify how they can help is best done weekly. Address the small obstacles and blockers early and often, and escalate the large organizational ones before they get out of hand.

Burnout is just a modern word for the despair experienced by humans who are stuck doing jobs that can’t be done. The condition is universal and ancient. The best way to avoid it is to build support into the manager/employee relationship early, and weave in support every step of the way. That way, when people need it the most, they will be much more likely to avail themselves of it.

Your instincts are right on. It is inspiring to know that at least one tech founder out there cares enough to create a tool and ask the question. Keep going!!!

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 senior manager and have managed people for decades. I am a student of leadership and work every day to be a better leader. Here is something I am having trouble putting into words, but I hope you have some inspiration for me.

I make a big effort to help my people develop their skills so they can achieve their career goals. I put a lot of time in, most of it listening and offering guidance. Many of my team members have gone on to great things, both in my own company and elsewhere. But just as many, if not more, have not. It is frustrating to see so much potential wasted. Everyone has their reasons for not taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them. Sometimes I know what the reasons are, sometimes I don’t.

It didn’t dawn on me until recently, as I watched a brilliant and gifted young person self-sabotage despite my best efforts, that I am tired of being disappointed. It is making me second guess the value of the investments I make in people. I wonder if I should bother.

Appreciate any thoughts you have.

Disappointed

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Dear Disappointed,

Well, you did a good enough job of putting your thoughts into words to make my heart ache. I have heard this kind of vague sadness from others, and have felt it myself, but I think you hit the nail on the head. This is one of the reasons managing people is hard. And the more you care, the harder it is.

Disappointment literally makes our brains hurt. The research reveals that disappointment produces a significant chemical response in the brain that makes us feel terrible. The brain stops releasing dopamine and serotonin suddenly and the result feels intense. The higher the expectation—and thus the extent of the disappointment—the more dramatic the yuck. You are not imagining it.

It kind of makes you want to tell people when they first start working with you, “Look kid, I am going to give you all I’ve got, so don’t disappoint me, okay?” But you won’t. And you shouldn’t, because it wouldn’t work. Why? Because it is your own expectations that are setting you up for the letdown.

There is no blame or shame in having expectations, but if they continue to cause you so much pain, you might think about finding ways to temper them. Some ways to temper your expectations:

• Gain clarity. Spell out for yourself what your expectations are. Perhaps have conversations with your people in which you find out what their own expectations of themselves are. There may be gaps in both your and their expectations that will help you to modify your outlook.
• Ponder a distinction. There is a difference between having a big hopeful vision for someone else and expecting something of them. Sharing a big hopeful vision—what you see as possible for someone—can be a huge gift. It can shift how someone sees themselves in a transformational way. But it is simply a gift, given with no expectation or pressure. If someone requires pressure to achieve what is possible for them, that needs to come from within.
• Work on your attachment. It might help you to reframe your call to go the extra mile for your people as a mitzvah. Mitzvah is a Hebrew word that means “good deed” or acts of empathy and kindness. Right now it seems you are expecting something in return for your generosity—which, don’t get me wrong, is totally normal. It just isn’t making you happy. Take something Nelson Mandela said as a guide: “There is no greater gift than that of giving one’s time and energy to others without expecting anything in return.”
• Remember that everyone has choice. Ultimately, no matter how valuable the gift of your time and attention, every person on whom you bestow your gift is going to choose what they do with it. In the end, it is completely out of your hands and out of your control. You are letting yourself get really upset about things that are entirely uncontrollable. You, too, have a choice.

Your conundrum reminds of a wonderful poem, “On Children,” from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. I know you are not a parent, but many see the parallels between managing and parenting. I hope this excerpt might resonate for you:

“You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

This may provide the perspective you need to sustain your kindness. Your other option is for you to just give up and decide to not bother anymore. That would be cynical and it sounds like you are no cynic.

So take pleasure in the wins, but remember they are really other people’s wins. You may mourn the losses as well, briefly, but remember that they also belong to others.

Love, Madeleine

PS: I will take this opportunity to encourage anyone who reads this and is reminded of a manager who made a big difference in their life to reach out and say thanks. Just a brief note on LinkedIn would do the trick—or, of course, a handwritten note is always welcome if you have the address. I know—so retro.

About Madeleine

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

What do I do if I just can’t connect with one of my direct reports?

I was recently promoted and inherited a whole new team in addition to the one I had before. The team is good and was well led (the leader left for another opportunity).

I get along really well with everyone on the team—except for one person. She never smiles. In my efforts to get to know her better, she has offered monosyllabic answers to questions. For example, when I asked her what she does for fun, or to relax, she literally said “nothing.” When we do our social connection stuff on team calls, she never contributes.

I have never encountered this kind of thing before. I am thinking maybe she doesn’t like me or maybe just doesn’t like men. (Her former boss was female.)

I find myself avoiding having one on ones with her and not thinking of her when it comes to giving out assignments, which I know isn’t fair. I am supposed to have career development conversations with all of my people, and I am dreading trying to do that with her.

Any thoughts on this?

Shut Out

________________________________________________________________________

Dear Shut Out,

There are any number of things potentially going on here. But no matter what, there is one rule of thumb that will help you as you sort through it:

Do. Not. Take. Anything. Personally. Ever.

Especially other people’s personalities or behavior. Especially anything your direct reports do.

OK. Now we are clear on that.

There are a couple of ideas you might consider. Get in touch with her former leader and ask if there is anything you should know. If that isn’t an option, call your HR business partner and ask if there is anything you need to know about the folks on your new team. If your employee who is making you uncomfortable is in fact Neurodivergent, someone in HR probably knows about it and possibly forgot to give you a heads up. If that is the case, there may be some recommendations or guidelines for you there. If that is not the case, you may very well be dealing with someone who is exceptionally introverted and/or shy. Maybe both. I know many introverts for whom the social aspect of team calls is a nightmare. I know many introverts who take a very long time to trust and warm up to new people. When people are introverts, it is simply a personality trait. It is not about you.

The question is: how is this person’s work—is it up to par? Does she meet deadlines? Does she work cooperatively with others? You don’t mention this, so I am assuming the answer to all of the questions is yes. It doesn’t sound like anyone on the team has complained about her. If this is the case, there is no reason to dread having a career conversation with her.

You can ask the questions, maybe provide them to her in writing before the conversation so she doesn’t feel put on the spot. Perhaps even give her the option of providing her answers in writing so she doesn’t have to deal with the discomfort of a video call. The questions might be something like:

• Are you engaged and satisfied in your current job?
• Do you think you are able to use your skills and strengths in your job?
• Do you see yourself moving or changing jobs in the company? If so, where?
• What/who is going to slow you down or stop you from getting there?
• What/who is needed to facilitate your getting there?
• Is there anything about you that you think I should know?
• Is there anything else you want me to know?

Possibly your company has given you a format for career conversations—you can certainly use that.

In the end, you don’t need your employee to like you, to smile, or to be friendly. You just need to build trust so she respects you, and let her get on with doing her job. I suspect the harder you try to get her to conform to the kind of behavior that makes you feel good, the more she will resist.

So relax. Let her be herself. Trust that she won’t attend the office bowling party and that it doesn’t have to mean anything, and be okay with it. Remember: the way people behave is not about you, it is about them.

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 senior leader who reports to an SVP. I lead a business unit for a region. I recently had a one-on-one with my boss—a rare thing—and she gave me some feedback I am grappling with.

My company recently started doing pulse surveys, so I thought she might want to talk about the scores from my business unit that made it seem people’s morale was low. I was right.

She said I was very good at processes and systems and she was pleased with my unit’s results. Then she told me she thought I needed to work on being more inspirational. She asked me what my vision is for my business unit and I had to admit, beyond hitting our numbers and deliverables, I don’t really have one. Then before I could get more detail, she was called away and that was that.

I don’t even know where to begin on how to create a vision—or what to do with it once I have it. Any insight would be useful.

Feeling Blind

_______________________________________________________________________

Dear Feeling Blind,

This is a very common predicament for people who are straddling senior management and executive management positions. You have been consistently promoted because you are great at setting up processes and systems, holding people accountable, and executing results. But until someone points out that you need to start developing your ability to inspire and motivate people, it just doesn’t occur to you. So here you are.

It’s okay; you can do this. It might be uncomfortable but getting good at it at this point in your leadership journey will serve you very well.

The first step is to remember a leader you had in the past who did inspiration and motivation well. Try to remember what that leader did that worked. You can also ask your SVP for her vision so that you have an example of what she means—but the fact that you are drawing a blank on this leads me to think your boss may not have a vision either. Or if she does, she hasn’t shared it or it is unremarkable.

For guidance, I turned to the book FULL STEAM AHEAD! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Company and Your Life. Authors Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner define vision as “knowing who you are, where you are going, and what will guide your journey.”

Essentially, it means you are providing the why—the context and meaning of the work your people are doing. You are painting a compelling picture of a job well done that will Be motivating for your team.

People often talk about creating a vision—but I would argue that you probably have one already. It’s clear that you are super motivated, which is probably because you have a strong sense of what is possible and how the success of your team connects to the success of the organization. So your job is to articulate those things as simply as possible. My experience is that many leaders think these ideas are obvious to others because they are obvious to them. And this is never the case. You have to spell it out, and then you have to repeat it like you are broken record.

Blanchard and Stoner lay out the elements of a Compelling Vision. The questions and comments below each element are mine:

• It helps us understand what business we are really in.

You know what results you are after. But what will those results do the for the company? The world? What does your team do that no other team does? A great example is Disney, who we all know is in the theme park business but they say they are in the business of making memories.

• It provides a picture of the desired future that we can actually see.

What is possible for your BU if you continue to do well? Maybe you could grow? Attract top talent? Be a role model for other BUs?

• It provides guidelines that help us make daily decisions.

What values do you use to make decisions? Have you shared those? What behaviors do you expect from your people? Do they know?

• It is enduring.

What makes your team great? What makes it special?

• It is about being great, not just about beating the competition (or in your case, hitting the numbers.)

You and your team are doing a lot of the right things. What do you do? How do you do it? How can these things be replicated? How are you different from other teams or business units?

• It is inspiring, which is not expressed solely in numbers.

A vision is different from a goal, which can usually be expressed in measurable terms.

• It touches the heart and spirit of everyone.

It may feel too arrogant or touchy-feely to express possibility or highest ideals and use language that it isn’t brass tacks. This can be what makes it so uncomfortable for many. It took me twenty-two years to get the courage to include the word love in the vision for Blanchard Coaching Services. 

• It helps each person see how they can contribute.

More than ever before, employees are seeking meaning and connection. When people can see how what they do connects with the bigger picture, it makes their job much more compelling.

Once you have your answers to some of these questions, you are ready to get a draft vision down on paper. Don’t worry about getting it right the first time—just get it all down. Then revise, word craft, and keep at it until you have something simple. Short and sweet is much easier to remember.

You might want to follow your vision statement with a mission statement. The vision is what is possible, and the mission is why you do what you do, and for whom. A mission statement structure could look like this:

Our mission is to __________ (do something) for __________(what people?) so that __________(those people can have something, do something, and feel some way).

There is no reason you can’t involve your team at this point. Let them poke at it and provide further input.

Then share it. With everyone. Start meetings by restating the vision. Ask people to print it out and put it over their desks. If you are all in the office, have posters made. In the rough and tumble of the workday, it is easy to lose sight of the vision. You should take any opportunity you can to remind your people what it is.

This will undoubtedly feel downright weird and risky to you. Feel free to share your discomfort with your people so you aren’t trying to pretend to be someone you aren’t or be good at something you are doing for the first time. You can also share that the whole exercise is a work in progress and that you are open to reworking it.

The key is to start. Examine what drives you, what makes what you do matter. Get all of your thoughts down on paper and then start shaping them. Take your time. Be prepared to have things sound hokey, or high minded, or farfetched. It will all come into focus.

I have no idea if this is what your boss meant. But I can promise that the work you do on this will not be wasted time. It will give you new insight into your team and yourself as a leader—and it almost certainly will be inspirational.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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

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

The business world is only going to keep moving faster, which is forcing leaders to become increasingly adept at managing their team’s priorities and delegating tasks. But that can be a tricky undertaking.

The way leaders manage their team’s priorities and delegate runs the spectrum. On one end are leaders who don’t know what their people are working on, can’t set priorities, and have delegated to the point of abdicating their responsibility. This style is obviously dysfunctional. On the other end are leaders who are doing the work of their employees, micromanaging them, and disempowering them. This style denies people the chance to learn and grow on the job. It makes employees dependent on their managers.

You want to be in the sweet spot when managing your team’s priorities and delegating, adjusting the direction and support each person needs in each case. That will balance performance with learning while helping your people develop and be successful. It’s a place where your people truly work as a team and you provide inspiring leadership.

Here are some tips for getting there.

Define Priorities and Goals

Defining goals and objectives with your people is the first step. This might sound obvious until you consider that only 50% of employees strongly agree that they understand what is expected of them at work.

A useful practice is to ask your people to listen to the goals you verbalize and restate them in their own words. It sounds simple, but there are many layers of interpretation, storage, recall, and reinterpretation that can change the meaning of even simple goals. How well can you expect someone to fulfill a goal if they don’t even start out on the same page as you?

Defining goals and objectives shouldn’t be done just at the start of a project. For most of us, goals will evolve along the way as new information becomes available. That means revisiting the goals regularly to keep people on track.

Collaboration is Key

Prioritization should be done collaboratively. Great managers treat their people as intellectual peers, discussing tricky choices with them and debating tradeoffs. This includes empowering them to make their own decisions. Even if people don’t have answers at the ready, they feel highly respected when their leaders treat them as equals.                                                                                         

The key is to make your people real partners when setting priorities. When you do this, you show you care what they think. This inspires them to be more invested in their work. These exchanges also give you an opportunity to emphasize timelines and stakeholder needs.

Delegation Depends on Follow-Up

Delegation isn’t a one-and-done affair. Assigning a job and not following up on the task isn’t a successful strategy. The better practice is for the leader to check in on the assignment and offer support when needed. Your goal is not to hover or micromanage but to show you are still aware and interested about the assignment. If your people know something is important to you, it will be more important to them.

Praise Regularly

Praising people when they do a good job is one of my favorite practices Ken teaches. It makes the receiver feel good, drives engagement, and brings a host of other benefits. It also plays an important part in delegation.

When you’ve delegated a big project, praising is a great way to sustain a person’s enthusiasm. Think of praising as a way of locking in the best behaviors of your staff to leverage in every future task they take on. You’ll help them be more successful in the future if you recognize praiseworthy behaviors now.

Delegation and Trust

As a leader, delegating a task requires a certain amount of trust on your part. You are trusting people to complete a project without much oversight. But what can you do when your trust level is moderate or variable?

It helps to view trust as an analog variable—ask yourself “how much can I trust them?” rather than “Do I trust them?” 

For most tasks and projects, delegation doesn’t have to be a black or white request. For instance, if the project is to create a final report, you can ask people to complete tasks ranging from small (e.g., pull together some talking points) to medium (e.g., draft some slides) to large (e.g., deliver the final presentation on your own).

It’s also helpful to consider the stakes. Does this task have a high-risk profile? Are the consequences significant? If the stakes of a task are low, little trust is required to delegate. You might decide to hand the task off and make it a learning opportunity for the individual. If the stakes are high, you would more likely need to have considerable trust in the person and may want to check in regularly.

Leading from the Sweet Spot

Managing your team’s priorities and delegating work requires skilled leadership. If you do it well, you’ll empower your people with new skills and confidence. And you’ll have more time to work on other projects.

It might be challenging, but the rewards are worth it.

Feeling psychologically safe in the workplace has never been more important. The storm of the past two years has generated tidal waves of competing priorities and pressing demands, all vying for urgent attention. Hurricane-force winds of unrelenting and pervasive change continue to swirl around us. Without the critical lifeline of psychological safety, employees can feel as though they are drowning.

Leaders who create an environment of psychological safety do more than toss their people a life raft—they hop in alongside them and grab an oar of their own.

The Benefits of Psychological Safety

Cultivating a bedrock of psychological safety allows for honest communication. It creates a space where team members can feel safe enough to speak up—to share concerns, challenges, and questions with their leader and to voice when they are overwhelmed or burned out.

Conversely, an atmosphere depleted of psychological safety will foster secrecy and shame while the team member reports everything is fine—until they cannot pretend any longer. And who is usually left cleaning up the ensuing mess? The leader. Creating an environment where team members are secure enough to be candid can save the massive pain of rework, dropped balls, and valued employees leaving the organization.

Psychological safety is a requirement for innovation. When someone feels secure in their role with their team, and especially with their leader, it will translate into a greater willingness to take risks, think outside the box, expand beyond their comfort zone, and share creative ideas. In today’s fast-moving business world, this type of innovative ideation can be a game changer. It gives one permission to—in the words of Brené Brown—“dare greatly.”

Psychological safety is paramount to fostering a sense of community. We all know isolation is a pervasive and destructive force that can be especially acute in remote or hybrid teams. People need psychological safety to support one another and band together in solidarity and spirit. Deep-rooted connections with colleagues can act as a powerfully stabilizing force to protect morale and solidify loyalty across the team.

Best of all, psychological safety lets people be their best selves. When your team members feel safe, they can flourish—boldly sharing their most creative ideas, courageously and candidly talking about their workloads, and taking care of themselves and their teammates.

Model Psychological Safety

One of the most powerful ways to cultivate psychological safety with your people is to model it. A leader is like a master clock by which everyone else sets their watch. Your people listen to what you say, but, more importantly, they watch what you do. And what you do as a leader will be the single greatest determining factor of the level of psychological safety experienced by your team.

A critical aspect of this practice is to volunteer your own struggles, frustrations, fears, and failures. Talk about the experiences that shaped you as a leader. Tell people how you’ve grown from your challenges. Let them know what you’ve learned from your battles and what you’re still learning today.

Remember that trust can be counterintuitive; as a leader, you’ll often need to bravely gift it to someone before receiving it from them. Harness your own vulnerability as a superpower and watch it infuse every member of your team with safety, empowerment, and trust.

Have Regular Check-Ins

Another vital habit to promote psychological safety in the workplace is to check in regularly with your people. Make it a priority—and make it real. Don’t ask, “How are you doing?” Instead, ask, “How are you really doing?” Be willing to dive beneath the waterline to talk about their emotional climate. The depth of feelings shared will likely vary from person to person, and that’s okay. Meet people where they are. Allow your actions to intentionally communicate that you care about them as a person first; that you don’t see them as a human doing, but as a human being.

There’s a myriad of ways to do this other than in one-on-one meetings. For example, you can start a meeting with a slide that asks people to share how they are currently faring—kind of like an internal weather forecast. If people aren’t comfortable talking, they can share how they are feeling by picking an emoji. Cracking the door to meaningful dialogue can make all the difference in strengthening psychological safety.

Promote Wellness

Wellness and performance at work are closely linked—and a sense of well-being depends on psychological safety. That’s why, again, it is critical that you first model wellness behaviors in your own practices. A simple tactic is to start meetings five minutes past the hour and end them early, which gives people the permission to do this with their own schedules.

Remember that what you do is so much more important than what you preach. Don’t just tell people to take care of themselves; show them how you take care of yourself. Consider sharing a picture of yourself walking your dog in the middle of the day or eating lunch with your family.

Are you good about reminding your team members to unplug after work hours or during vacations? Here’s a harder one: do you send emails during off hours or on PTO days? Remember the master clock: everyone is watching you set the tone. Your people are going to imitate the example you set. Make it a sacred priority to share your wellness practices and witness how it liberates your team to do the same.

A Final Thought

Consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goal may be self-actualization—ascending the pyramid—but you can’t grab that elevator without first building out the lower levels. Psychological safety is the vital foundation of the entire structure, allowing for transformative growth, rich team connections, and powerful self-awareness.

As a leader, if you architect an environment of psychological safety, you are giving your people a spectacular gift. This gift will manifest in their attitude, sense of camaraderie, effectiveness, commitment to the team, and spirit of innovation. The world could certainly use more psychological safety these days, and it starts with leaders like you.

Our mental health has deteriorated during the pandemic, demanding the attention of leaders and businesses.

Under normal circumstances, one in ten adults in the U.S. have symptoms of depression or anxiety. That number has jumped to four in ten during the pandemic—and that might be conservative. Our data show much higher numbers. In our research surveying over 1,900 people across the globe, more than 60% of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety during the pandemic.

The trouble is, emotions can be contagious. If someone is sad or anxious, we’re likely to catch the feeling and pass it on to others. That’s because our autonomic nervous system—which controls whether we are alert, anxious, or calm—interacts with the same systems in others around us. If you’re close with someone, you may experience a sort of empathic matching, where you automatically pick up on and mimic their emotional state. How sensitive you are to this is often determined by your childhood experiences and the mother-child bond. Consider the above statistics in the context of emotional contagion, and it is easy to conclude that we all have experienced a traumatic event and are experiencing collective grief.

Considering what is happening in the world right now, there’s a good chance that someone on your team is struggling. Here’s how you can help them.

Spot the Warning Signs

If you’ve ever had a mental health challenge or experienced burnout, you’re likely more attuned to the warning signs. People seem more anxious, frustrated, and angry. They may look sad. Or be quiet at work. Or be unable to focus. Or send emails far outside normal business hours.

I remember when one of my managers, someone I cared for very much, sent me an email at 2:00 a.m. I reached out to him to find out if everything was okay. I’ll stop my story here, but the point is that a caring relationship between leaders and their people is mutual. No one wants to feel isolated, regardless of their seniority or place in the food chain. And it can be very isolating to be a leader with a lot of responsibility during a difficult time.

According to Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic, warning signs that someone is experiencing chronic stress and mental illness typically fall into four categories:

1. Changes in work habits such as lack of motivation, errors, difficulty concentrating, or lower productivity
2. Behavior changes including mood volatility, worry, irritability, or restlessness
3. Increased absences from work from someone who is normally punctual
4. Recurring complaints of physical symptoms such as fatigue, headache, abdominal distress, or weight change

Look for the Root Cause

If your employees are experiencing burnout, chances are it’s not their fault. In fact, it may be time to take a hard look at your organization’s culture, practices, and expectations to see if they unintentionally might be adding fuel the fire. The results of this inquiry may humble you.

According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), there are six primary causes of burnout:

1. Workload
2. Perceived lack of control
3. Lack of reward or recognition
4. Poor relationships
5. Lack of fairness
6. Values mismatch

How does your company fare in each of these categories? Which of these deficiencies could be affecting your team members? Once you have identified them, determine areas for growth or change. Then take responsibility as a leader and see what you can do to move the needle toward a healthier work environment.

Be a Role Model

One of the first things you can do as a leader is to model behaviors you want your people to adopt. We naturally imitate those in power. You can take advantage of your widespread influence by taking care of yourself and sharing this with your people. By doing this, you give them permission to care for themselves. And that is a wonderful gift.

Be Empathetic

The pandemic has taken a toll on everyone. We have lost loved ones, jobs, income, a sense of community, freedoms, hobbies that gave us joy, and on and on. The list is long and significant. Everyone is hurting to some degree.

Being empathetic at a time like this is powerful. Show genuine concern and forget about achieving an outcome. If someone chooses to share, remember they are bearing their soul and speaking from a place of vulnerability. It’s always essential to treat people with respect, but especially at these moments.

What can you do as a leader? Create safe spaces for your people. Let them know that you’ll keep their confidence and they will always have your respect. We conduct well-being conversations in our Building Resilience program. When people return from their breakout groups, they always say how good it felt to share. They also say it was uplifting to listen and be of service. You can be of great help just by listening.

Create a Safe Environment

People need to feel safe before they will share. That means creating a judgment-free environment. You can do this by first sharing how you are feeling in a team meeting. Your courageous leadership will create a path that others know they can then follow.

You may also want to consider these tips for verbal and non-verbal communication from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health when initiating conversations around mental health and well-being:  

VERBAL TIPS

• Speak calmly, quietly, and confidently.
• Be aware of how you are delivering your words.
• Focus your attention on the other person to let them know you are interested in what they have to say.
• Use common words. Do not use official language, jargon, or complex terminology.
• Listen carefully. Do not interrupt with unsolicited advice or criticism.

NONVERBAL TIPS

• Use calm body language. Have a relaxed posture with unclenched hands and an attentive expression.
• Position yourself at a right angle to the person, rather than directly in front of them.
• Give the person enough physical space. This distance varies by culture, but normally two to four feet is considered an adequate distance.
• Get on the person’s physical level. If they are seated, try sitting, kneeling, or bending rather than standing over them.
• Pay attention to the person. Do not do anything else at the same time, such as answer phone calls or read e-mails.

Some people may be reluctant to share. My inspiring colleague John Hester has created a list of questions to help get the conversation started. Use these when checking in with someone who looks like they may be struggling.

• How are things going for you?
• How is your family?
• How are you feeling?
• What are you excited about?
• What concerns you?
• How is your connection to the team?
• What do you need more of or less of?
• How can I help?

Whether it’s children, spouses, or parents, everyone has family members they care about and love. Having loved ones is a common denominator that allows you to connect with your people. For example, if you were to ask me how I’m doing, I’d tell you that I’m struggling because my grandfather passed away. I have to process my grief while also supporting my mother, who is mourning the loss of her father.

One trust-building strategy is to start conversations with questions about the person’s family. Then, as they become more comfortable talking, ask them questions about how they are doing. By asking open-ended questions, the person may reveal something important. This also includes positive answers such as something they find inspiring.

Use the Right Style of Leadership

Effective leaders are situational—they provide the right amount of direction or support when a person needs it. Consider the alternatives: micromanaging (which destroys engagement) or hands-off management (which destroys morale).

SLII® is an easy-to-understand, practical framework that enables your managers to diagnose the development level of an employee for a task: D1—Enthusiastic Beginner; D2—Disillusioned Learner; D3—Capable, but Cautious, Contributor; and D4—Self-Reliant Achiever. Managers then use the appropriate directive and supportive behaviors to help them succeed: S1—Directing; S2—Coaching; S3—Supporting; and S4—Delegating.

My students in the Master’s in Executive Leadership program at the University of San Diego come to me elated when they’re able to get on the same page with their people and build a meaningful connection by applying the matching leadership style. Not only does their job as a leader become easier, but their people feel heard and supported, which leads to better engagement, productivity, and progress for the organization.

A good default position is to ask “How can I help?” Such a sincere question will always win the goodwill of the listener.

Leadership in the New Normal

The pandemic has changed us all in some way. We are different as individuals and as a society. We cannot and will not return to old models.

Prevention is better than cure for any well-being challenge—and especially burnout. It is much easier to recognize the warning signs of burnout and take care of ourselves than to recover from it. The key is to build trust with your people and help them thrive again. And that day will come.

The hybrid/virtual work world presents many challenges for leaders. One of them is creating a culture of accountability.

Some leaders still think accountability equals “butts in seats.” But that outdated belief has become completely antiquated during the pandemic. People have proven they can succeed in a remote work environment.

Considering how quickly the workplace is evolving, creating a culture of accountability requires leaders to develop a new skill set. Here are things you can do to achieve this.

Psychological Safety is Essential

Accountability starts with psychological safety. People need to feel comfortable telling their leaders that they are struggling with an assignment without fear of being reprimanded. An atmosphere of trust is essential.

An environment that isn’t psychologically safe undermines a culture of accountability. If leaders don’t trust their people, they’ll micromanage them. If people don’t trust their leaders, they won’t share.

Leaders lay the groundwork for accountability by extending trust. This can be more difficult in a virtual environment where they may not be able to see someone’s body language. Then there are some leaders who are habitually cautious. They won’t trust their team members until their leaders demonstrate that they are trustworthy.

Considering our times, leaders must take extra steps to ensure their people feel psychologically safe.

Praise Often. Redirect Judiciously.

Accountability and engagement are interdependent. One way to create engagement is to praise your people when they do something well.

Most leaders believe they give their people plenty of praise. But research shows the opposite—people don’t think their leaders praise them enough. The ideal praise-to-criticism ratio is 5:1. We’ve evolved as a species to identify danger, so we are wired to dwell on the negative. When leaders criticize, it stings more than they might think. A generous amount of praise is needed to counteract this natural tendency.

How we give feedback should be even more nuanced. I recommend leaders use our SLII® leadership development model to determine what kind of praise will be most impactful.

When someone is new to a task and either an Enthusiastic Beginner or a Disillusioned Learner, it’s your job as a leader to recognize any progress the person is making. Celebrate progress. Praise them in front of the team. Confidence is a prerequisite for mastery, and by recognizing people’s victories you’ll help them develop the self-confidence needed to tackle even more difficult projects.

When someone has demonstratable skills and is either a Capable but Cautious Contributor or a Self-Reliant Achiever, giving them increasing autonomy will deepen accountability. The person has proven they can do the task and you want to recognize and reward their achievements. As they become more experienced, your job is to ask open-ended questions and listen to their responses. Be explicit about how proud you are that they have reached this level of expertise.

No matter who you are sharing feedback with, your mindset as a leader is critical. Never act in a way that can be interpreted as punitive or demeaning. Make sure your people know that your purpose is to help them win. This helps to maintain a culture of accountability.

SMART Goals Create Accountability

Everyone is more accountable when they have SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound). People need to know what is expected of them and SMART goals can keep them on track. You can help your people attain their goals by showing them what success looks like for a specific job. This is particularly critical when you’re not in a face-to-face setting.

Regular check-ins are also a part of helping people achieve their SMART goals. If you and your team members are in the same place, you should have one-on-one check-ins at least once every two weeks. If your team is virtual, check in with each person more often—at least once a week. People working in a virtual environment need this. It ensures alignment, prevents feelings of isolation, and creates accountability.

Know Your Digital Body Language

Our digital body language, which is revealed in all our communications, affects accountability. The words we use reveal our intentions, our attitudes, and our feelings. But we often don’t take enough time to make sure we are understood. In fact, emotions in emails are misunderstood a great deal of the time. We need to be much more intentional about what we say and how we say it.

Try to make sure your communications aren’t just transactional if you want to drive accountability. Every communication should have a human element to it to demonstrate that you care for your people.

Here’s a tip I learned from experience. Don’t ever send a text message or an email without reading it through several times. Ask yourself, “Am I clearly saying what I want to say? Am I sharing my position and the thinking behind that position?” Doing these things helps ensure you have effective digital body language, which creates the psychological safety needed for accountability.

Be Available

Your availability and responsiveness are key to creating an environment of accountability. They are even more important in a virtual or hybrid environment than in a face-to-face workplace. People can see what you’re doing when you share a workspace, so they know when you’re busy. In a virtual environment, we don’t have this information and can come to any conclusion. For example, if you don’t respond to an email in three or four hours, the trust people have in you may take a hit, which can affect accountability.

One way to prevent these kinds of miscommunications is to set norms with your team. For example, discuss what constitutes a timely response. Get clear agreement and have everyone abide by it.

Good Leaders Create Accountability

Our changing workplace requires new ways of creating a culture of accountability—especially when so many leaders and their people are no longer in the same workspace. But the use of good leadership skills will inspire people to be accountable. And when that happens, your team will reach new heights of success!

Dear Madeleine,

I read your column on an employee who is too emotional. I have a similar problem, with some big differences. I don’t know why everyone says it is women who tend to be too emotional. I have a male colleague who is constantly melting down.

I’m not sure where he got the idea that everything he says or does should be met with 100% enthusiasm and support, but whenever he gets any kind of critique or has an idea that gets turned down, he just loses it. Anytime he is treated as anything less than a total star, his response is anger. And when he gets angry, he refuses to respond to emails and drops any number of balls that others depend on his catching so they can move forward. When I or any of several other team members have brought up this ridiculous behavior to our team lead, she acts as if she’s powerless.

I’ve kind of figured out how to work around him, which sometimes means doing tasks he should be doing. My biggest frustration is that he sits next to me, so I hear about his perceived injustices all day long. I also have to listen to him whining to his wife on the phone. I can’t fathom how she puts up with it.

It is a miracle that I haven’t told him to suck it up and stop griping. I am so sick of it I am actively looking for another job, even though I really like my company, my team, and my job. I would really like to stay but I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from doing or saying something I regret.

How do I get this guy to grow up and stop acting like a big whiny baby?

Sick to Death of a Colleague

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear Sick to Death of a Colleague

Oh dear. This is a pickle indeed. It would be tragic for you to leave your job because of one annoying colleague. So right now, let’s think about just lowering the level of your frustration. It sounds as if you are almost looking for reasons to hate Big Whiny Baby (BWB) by letting his conversations into your consciousness—so first you need to tune him out. Get an excellent pair of headphones to wear so you can listen to music and put your attention on your work.

Then you’ll need a longer-term plan. I see a few possibilities here:

Option 1: Start with Yourself

This is your safest bet, because this is where you have the most control. Something about this person has triggered you and there might be some value in asking yourself what exactly is at the root of that. The more you can own the size—and frankly, the emotional quality (sorry)—of your reaction to BWB, the less of an impact his shenanigans will have on you. Maybe he reminds you of an annoying sibling. Maybe you take on too much and resent others who shirk. Maybe you grew up in a family where complaining was forbidden. What is it that has you lighting up instead of shaking your head and chuckling at the absurdity of BWB?

Once you pinpoint the source of your reaction, you can manage it. Choose to decide that you just don’t care enough to try to fix the situation. Tune BWB out; ignore him completely. Let this all just roll off your back and get on with things that really matter to you.

One crazy thought here: you might consider showing some true compassion to BWB by asking him if he would allow you to help him manage his frustration and take things less personally. This would be a sort of spiritual development program for you that would require you to somehow shelve your judgment and put yourself in service to him. I think this is a long shot, but I’ll add more on this topic as a part two, next week.

Option 2: Take a Stand with Your Manager

Go to your team lead and clearly lay out the extent of your frustration, focusing on BWB’s inability to do his job which forces you to work around him or sometimes even do his job. Make it clear that if you have to tolerate the situation much longer, you will be looking elsewhere for opportunities—but do not, under any circumstances, pull that card unless you truly intend to follow through.

If your direct supervisor refuses to do anything (it really is her job) or is simply incapable of doing anything, you might go up a level—but, of course, this is tricky. It could be a political faux pas in your company’s culture, or it could damage the relationship between you and your supervisor (although it sounds like you have already lost respect for her). However, if you do end up leaving, the reason would probably come out in the exit interview, so either way it will be a bit of a ding for her. It all depends on your level of relationship with your boss’s boss and your confidence that your own excellent work carries enough weight to make this feasible.

Option 3: Make a Direct Request of Your Coworker

Have a wildly uncomfortable but courageous conversation with BWB. If this option seems doable, use these guidelines:

DO:

• Ask if you can share your observations about what it is like to work with him, and ask if you can be frank.
• Keep your tone neutral. Stay, calm, cool and collected.
• Start all of your sentence steps with “I” vs. “you,” which can seem accusatory
• Stick with direct observations of his behavior and how they impact you; e.g., when he allows his emotions to distract him, it keeps him from completing critical tasks that you depend on; when he complains to you or to his wife on the phone, you get frustrated because it distracts you from your work.
• Make clear requests for how he might change his behaviors—but only the ones that directly affect you.
• Frame it that you find your working relationship with him suffering and that you are asking for changes to make it go more smoothly.
• Be sure to keep your judgment about gender or maturity out of it.
• Prepare by practicing clear statements that you simply repeat.

DON’T:

• Fall for his attempts to get you to say more.
• Reveal that “everybody feels the same way.”
• Let yourself get dragged into an argument—it will not go well.

Make your observations and/or requests and then clam up. You can literally say, “I have shared my requests with you and I am not saying anything else about it. I hope we can find a smoother way of working together.” And walk away. BWB will almost certainly want to turn it into another drama about him, so be stoic and strong.

As I write this, it is feeling like a terrible idea, because this would be an example of advanced boundary setting. If you don’t think you can keep your wits about you and stay composed, it probably won’t go as planned. I am not even sure that I would be able to do this—not that I am some boundary black belt, but I have been managing people for 30+ years and have raised four kids, so I do have some experience. It will help if you are first able to defuse your own anger and your attachment to your appraisal of BWB (which I guess I must share, since I keep calling him BWB). Either way, do not attempt it off the cuff. Only try it if you can prepare extensively.

The argument for this approach is that sometimes people have no idea whatsoever of the impact their behavior has on others. It sounds like BWB lives in his own little world and gets caught up in his own drama and is oblivious. Possibly a little straight talk will be a gift to him. Possibly not. There really is no way of knowing. Part of me even wonders if things could shift by you simply saying what you want to say: “Oh stop complaining; no one wants to hear it; suck it up, bub,” and be done with it. It’s not really mean, just straight and to the point. Clearly, his wife isn’t going to do this.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that finding a way to shift your own attitude about this situation seems, at the very least, the best first step. Water off a duck’s back. This won’t be the last coworker who drives you mad. It’s just part of life, so learning to let people be who they are without letting it bug you will be a skill that will serve you well.

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.

Quitting your job for a new one is the new normal.

Almost 4 million Americans resigned from their positions in June 2021.[1] More turnover is on the horizon: Some 40% of the global workforce is “considering leaving their employer in the current year,”[2] while “95% of workers are contemplating a job change.”[3]

This amount of turnover is historic. A record-breaking 10.9 million jobs were open at the end of July 2021.[4]

The pandemic is driving the turmoil. Americans are reassessing their priorities because of it, and they’re looking for jobs that offer remote work possibilities, greater fulfilment, career advancement, and flexibility.

The High Cost of Turnover

Turnover­ always demands your attention—and especially so at this unprecedented moment. To start, turnover is incredibly costly for a company: 30% to 40% of the annual salary for entry-level employees; 150% for mid-level employees; and up to 400% for highly skilled employees.[5]

What about the unquantifiable cost of turnover?

When a high performer leaves, so do their expertise, brilliant ideas, and contribution to the cultural fabric. An even more worrisome trend is high performers leaving with their colleagues for greener pastures.[6]

Tips for Keeping Your High Performers Happy

Keeping top performers at your company in this time of extraordinary change is critical. Here are some tips your managers can use to help them stay. 

Give high performers the spotlight: This is your time as a manager to flip the script. Instead of you telling your high performer what they should do, ask them how they accomplished something so impressive.

Let them talk. Let them share. Let them teach their colleagues.

When people share the strategy behind their successes, they feel energized and appreciated. It also increases their confidence, giving them the courage to take on even more strategic projects.

Let them choose new challenges: A high performer has earned the right to explore. Encourage them to pursue projects that are interesting. Don’t pigeon-hole them even though they are an expert at an important task.

Ask your high performer, “What interests you? How would you like to contribute?” Give them the opportunity to use their talents.

When your high performer takes on a different kind of challenge, they’ll be an enthusiastic beginner at the start of the project—the honeymoon phase, when we’re filled with excitement and enthusiasm. That state drives retention: When people love their work, they’re 50% more likely to stay at their jobs.[7]

Show appreciation: Let your people know that you’re grateful for their contributions. They’ll be even more engaged and productive. Make your words of praise specific if you want them to have the most impact.[8]

Don’t assume your people know that you appreciate them. Research shows that leaders believe their people know how they feel about their work, when in fact, they don’t.[9] And when people feel unappreciated, they start looking for another job.

Since the brain stores data in images, not words, saying things like, “Good job! Way to go! Nice work!” goes in one ear and out the other. 

For appreciation to stick, you need to share what they did, the effect it had, how it made you feel, and your gratitude for their partnership and efforts. For example: “When you stayed after the meeting to address the client’s hesitation, you deepened her trust and showed that we want to exceed customer expectations. I’m so grateful for your dedication, empathy, and desire to help everyone be successful. Thanks so much.”

Help your people take care of themselves: Just because someone is a high performer doesn’t mean they’re immune to stress. They can be so busy doing fantastic work that they forget to take care of themselves. Then one day, they wake up and say, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Your job is to remind your team that self-care is their top priority. Here are best practices you can use to keep your high performers happy:

• Hold walking meetings—even when they’re virtual. Instead of sitting in front of a monitor, everyone calls from their cell phones, pops ear buds in, and meets while moving.
• Offer to buy those interested an exercycle or treadmill.  Sounds expensive? Not compared to hiring someone new.
• Give people a brain break in meetings. Ask your team to stand up and have someone lead them in exercises for five to ten minutes. Most teams usually have someone who can do this. If you don’t, you’ll find plenty of free online fitness videos.
• Let people know when you are taking care of you. Share, “Today I am doing my run from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.” Be the example. Help people celebrate self-care.
• Oh, Won’t you stay? You’ve heard a high performer wants to leave. Why not ask, “What would it take to make you stay?” You’ve nothing to lose at this point and may be pleasantly surprised that you meet their demand.

The Great Resignation is causing a flood of resignations. Now you know how to stop the surge and keep your best people.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/24/success/how-to-quit-your-job/index.html

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work#:~:text=Today%2C%20our%20research%20shows%20that,major%20pivot%20or%20career%20transition

[3].https://www.yahoo.com/now/youre-not-only-one-whos-102605650.html

[4] https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=dailyalert_actsubs&utm_content=signinnudge&deliveryName=DM150635

[5] https://www.clickboarding.com/employee-turnover-what-is-it/

[6] https://hbr.org/2021/01/your-star-employee-just-quit-will-others-follow

[7] https://www.fastcompany.com/90679528/i-spoke-to-5000-people-and-these-are-the-real-reasons-theyre-quitting?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner&cid=eem524:524:s00:09/23/2021_fc&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=Compass&utm_campaign=eem524:524:s00:09/23/2021_fc

[8] https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-little-things-that-make-employees-feel-appreciated

[9] https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-little-things-that-make-employees-feel-appreciated

Engagement expert Heather Younger understands the positive impact a caring leader can have on both individuals and entire organizations. In her latest book, The Art of Caring Leadership: How Leading with Heart Uplifts Teams and Organizations, she shares nine behaviors that leaders need to practice to truly care for their people.

Younger’s research has proven that people who know that their leader truly cares about them and their success will go above and beyond to perform. This leads to increased productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. Although many leaders believe they are caring leaders, many are not. Employees will judge this for themselves, not based on their leader’s intentions but on their actions—actions that are easily cultivated and put into practice.

Younger interviewed more than 80 leaders to identify the nine daily actions required for someone to become a caring leader. In each chapter she defines one action in detail, offers a tip for putting the action into practice, and includes a personal story from a leader who has implemented their learning. The Art of Caring Leadership is an inspiring guidebook for leaders who wish to immediately start their journey toward becoming a caring leader.

Younger takes an often nebulous, subjective concept and makes it concrete and actionable. Leaders have the power to literally change the lives of those they lead by demonstrating how much they care. They shouldn’t just want to care; they should see the act of caring as imperative to the success of their employees and their organization.

For more information about Heather Younger, go to theartofcaringleadership.com or follow her on LinkedIn.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Heather Younger, listen to the Leaderchat podcast and subscribe today.

Robert “Bo” Brabo learned early in his military career that values drive results. Committing fully to admirable organizational values up, down, and across the organization, every day and in every way, is a powerful formula for success. In his latest book, From the Battlefield to the White House to the Boardroom, Brabo shares examples of how values-based leadership in the military, government, for-profit, and not-for-profit sectors has led to success.  

The book is full of practical lessons and inspiring case studies to help leaders and aspiring leaders develop, embrace, and strengthen a values-based approach to leading people, projects, and organizations. The keys are to make sure your behaviors are in alignment with your values and to focus on your team members and colleagues. Brabo believes when you help people tackle their problems as if they were your own, you form a partnership that creates a culture of trust and leads to success. This level of commitment to helping people reach their goals is the ultimate example of servant leadership.

Brabo challenges you to have the courage it takes to be a values-based leader—and introduces steps you can follow to make values-based leadership a reality.

For more information about Robert “Bo” Brabo, visit www.robertbrabo.com

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Bo Brabo, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today.

With his first two books, Never Eat Alone and Who’s got Your Back, Keith Ferrazzi taught us the importance of building collaborative relationships. In his latest book, Leading Without Authority, Ferrazzi reinvents the art of collaboration to break down silos, transform teams, and improve overall performance of individuals. He explains that in a world of constant innovation and the unrelenting need for agility, dealing with a complex chain of command can be paralyzing.

The new world of work requires new rules, says Ferrazzi, and proposes a new workplace operating system he calls co-elevation. He argues that you don’t need a formal title and direct reports to be a true leader; you just need to learn how to turn colleagues into teammates who will work with you toward a shared mission. The main idea is to care about other people’s success and development as much as you care about your own. The beauty lies in being able to work outside traditional org chart structures to get the right people on the team and to co-elevate—go higher together.

Here are Ferrazzi’s eight new work rules for leading without authority through co-elevation.

Rule One: Who’s Your Team? No longer composed of people from only one department, teams in the new work world are made up of everyone inside and outside the organization who will help you achieve the goal. You must be proactive about developing authentic relationships with these people.

Rule Two: Accept That it’s All on You. Leadership is not something bestowed upon you. It is everyone’s responsibility to do whatever it takes to create value for the team and the organization.

Rule Three: Earn Permission to Lead. Instead of persuading people to get on board, learn how to serve, share, and care in order to earn the right to invite team members to join the project. Vulnerability is the key to building connection and commitment.

Rule Four: Create Deeper, Richer, More Collaborative Partnerships. Don’t turn to collaboration only when you can’t do the job alone. Understand that collaboration and partnership are essential for creating transformational ideas and completing projects.

Rule Five: Co-Development. It’s time to take responsibility for your own development. Look to teammates for candid feedback about the skills you need to develop—then offer the same service to them.

Rule Six: Praise and Celebrate. Never underestimate the power of praising performance, showing gratitude, and celebrating success.

Rule Seven: Co-Elevate the Tribe. Don’t ignore the team member who isn’t totally on board yet. Enlist the help of others on the team to elevate that team member to improve their contribution. The goal is to cross the finish line together.

Rule Eight: Join the Movement. Once you’ve put your co-elevation skills to the test, teach others to do the same. Help this become a movement that drives corporate culture.

If you’ve read Keith Ferrazzi’s other books, you know how vulnerable, honest, and open he is. He continues that path in Leading Without Authority through personal stories and real-life examples of people who put his principles into practice. Not only is this book entertaining to read, it offers practical advice you can apply on the job immediately. This might be the most important book you read this year!

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Keith Ferrazzi, listen to the LeaderChat podcast and subscribe today. For more information about Keith Ferrazzi, go to www.keithferrazzi.com. To access the handout mentioned in the podcast, go to www.keithferrazzi.com/leaderchat.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that is so true for anyone who is in a leadership role today,” says Kathy Cuff, senior consulting partner at The Ken Blanchard Companies.

“In our SLII® leadership development class we conduct an exercise where we ask people to reflect back on their best boss. We ask them to identify the attitudes and behaviors that earned that boss the ‘best’ ranking in their eyes. People share many different positive behaviors. To sum it up, best bosses care about each direct report as a person. They see something the person doesn’t see in themselves. That’s especially important today with everything we are facing in our lives.

“Now more than ever, people need to know that their boss cares about them, their development, and their career aspirations. How would they like to grow? Where do they want to direct their energy and their passion?”

As a leader, you can demonstrate caring, compassionate, and empathetic behavior. It begins with asking good questions to learn more about your direct reports as individual people, not just employees.

“A great way to build this into your leadership routine is to set aside 15 to 30 minutes every other week for a one-on-one meeting where your direct report sets the agenda—the meeting is about whatever they want to talk about. It’s an opportunity for managers and direct reports to get to know each other so the relationship can be about more than just the job.”

That’s a big shift compared with what happens in most one-on-ones, says Cuff.

“Most of the time, one-on-ones are just progress reports where the leader checks on how much progress the employee is making toward their goals. How about a meeting that is geared to what the employee wants to talk about? This provides that person with an opportunity to share not just what they’re working on but also what they need and how you, their leader, can help them. They also may want to talk about their family, sports or hobbies, or other things going on in their life.

“Now you’re listening and being present and available on a regular basis—exactly the behaviors that demonstrate you care. And you can share, too. It’s important to remember that people can’t read your caring mind but they can see your caring behavior. The combination of being available, listening, and giving them your time—those are the kind of behaviors that show you care.”

Letting people know you care may be harder than you think, says Cuff—especially when everyone is stressed and pressed for time.

“Leaders may wish to be seen as caring, but when something pressing comes up they have a choice to make. More often than not, the one-on-one will get postponed, rescheduled, or worse—canceled altogether. Obviously, as a manager there will always be situations where you have time constraints or changes to your schedule. But consider the message you send to your team member when you cancel their time.

“Look at the things we are experiencing right now—changing work situations, new policies and procedures, more people working from home—during extraordinary times, making time for your people simply has to be a top priority. If you ignore critical events happening in people’s lives, you’re sending the wrong message.”

However, don’t worry if you’re not perfect or if you don’t have all the answers, says Cuff.

“You might think if you admit to your people you don’t know how to solve every problem, they will see you as weak. That’s not true. When you show your vulnerabilities, rather than thinking less of you, people will actually think more of you. Why? Because they already know you don’t know everything!

“Colleen Barrett, president emeritus of Southwest Airlines, wrote a book with Ken Blanchard called Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success. It came out just after the great economic recession we experienced in 2008. One of the messages Colleen shared in that book was that as a leader, people will admire you for your skills, but they will love you for your vulnerability. When you are willing to acknowledge that you don’t have it all together, people will relate to that. And it will give them an opportunity to step in, share their ideas, and make a contribution.

“Leaders need to demonstrate they care by spending time with their people. That’s how you inspire performance. And when people know you care about them, they will do whatever they can to help you.”

You can read about Kathy Cuff here. And to learn more about Blanchard’s SLII® approach to building meaningful connections through authentic conversations, check out the SLII® information page.

Marcus Buckingham believes some basic assumptions about work are simply no longer true in today’s business environment. He shares his insights in his latest book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, coauthored with Ashley Goodall.

Lie #1: People care which company they work for.

Many companies use their corporate culture as a recruitment tool. Although it is true that people will join a company for their projected culture, people will stay—or leave—because of the team they work with every day. Team members who truly care about one another and have each other’s backs create their own culture. Leaders who observe and understand what makes teams perform well, and then encourage that behavior in other teams, will create a stronger organization.

Lie #2: The best plan wins.

Executives spend months developing a strategic plan, getting it approved by the board, and then disseminating it through the entire organization. The more rigorous and detailed the plan, the longer it takes to develop—and during that extended amount of time, reality probably changes. Planning is a good way to scope a problem, but what leaders really need is intelligence. Smart leaders empower their frontline people to deal with situations immediately and then check in regularly to see how they can help. Buckingham’s research indicates that this method lowers turnover and improves productivity while it builds an intelligence system that outperforms a complicated planning system.

Lie #3: The best companies cascade goals.

It has been common practice for a CEO to have annual goals that are cascaded first to the executive team, then through each department structure, to the individual level. The problem? Things can change over a year—but fewer than 5 percent of people go back to look at the goals or recalibrate their need. Truth be told, goals work only if you set them yourself. Freethinking leaders know what they need to accomplish, take the responsibility to explain it to team members, and then set goals they can achieve. The best practice is to cascade meaning—not goals.

Lie #4: The best people are well rounded.

Companies spend time defining competencies they want employees to develop—and then spend more time trying to improve people’s weakest competencies. This practice creates employees with just-average performance. Freethinking leaders look for the skills that people do well and leverage those skills. High performers usually do something a little differently than others—and that difference, when used intelligently, can be a competitive advantage.

Lie #5: People need feedback.

Feedback is a tricky subject. On one hand, if you don’t give any feedback and ignore someone, it destroys them. On the other hand, if you approach someone saying you want to give them feedback, their brain pattern looks almost exactly like fight-or-flight brain waves. The person feels like they are being attacked. Many times, feedback isn’t helpful because it isn’t delivered in a way that helps the person learn how to change a behavior. When freethinking leaders see someone doing something that works, they ask the person what they think worked well and why. This line of questioning as a method of feedback serves as the learning moment. The interrogation of the action—good or bad—is the most important conversation.

Lie #6: People can reliably rate other people.

Forty years of research shows that ratings of the performance of others is more a reflection of the person doing the rating than the person being rated. We simply can’t rate other humans on things like strategic thinking, creativity, business knowledge, or overall performance. Accurate rating of other people’s performance takes a much deeper conversation based on observations—it’s not about selecting a number on a scale.

Lie #7: People have potential.

Of course people have potential. The danger comes in identifying certain people as high potential, because doing it presupposes that others are low potential. By creating these designations, we are deliberately not seeing 85 percent of our people. The truth is that everyone has potential—but we have never found a way to measure just how much potential they have.

Lie #8: Work-life balance matters most.

Work-life balance is a great aspiration, but it is important to remember that balance is stationary. So, if you feel like you are totally in balance, you are probably stagnant. The trick is to find activities that give you strength in work and in life, and then spend as much time as possible on those things. Of course, none of us can spend 100 percent of our time being happy. But if we are deliberate about spending time doing things that invigorate us, it lessens the chance of us burning out and increases the chance of us being happier and more productive.

Lie #9: Leadership is a thing.

The main thing Buckingham wants leaders to know about the power of human nature is that each human’s nature is unique. If we see this as a problem that needs to be fixed, that’s a shame. But if we make a home for the unique individuals, we can build work environments where people are seen and challenged to become a better version of themselves.

You may completely agree with what Buckingham has to say in this book, or you may question some of it. Either way, once again, he’ll give you something to think deeply about.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Marcus Buckingham, listen to the LeaderChat Podcast, and subscribe today. Order Nine Lies About Work on Amazon.com.

For more information on Marcus Buckingham, go to www.freethinkingleader.org

With all of the change and disruption in today’s world, leaders are being asked to lead their teams through new situations never navigated in modern history. It can be overwhelming when everyone is looking to you for the answers. Leaders can take a cue from the coaching world on serving people and meeting them exactly where they are. Here are five things that can help you coach in a challenging time.

1. Remember, the person you are coaching is resourceful and innovative. They don’t need to be fixed, but they may need a nudge to mentally reframe their current situation. I recently coached a colleague who was dealing with all the requisite WFH challenges. She had all the tools and resources she needed, but couldn’t see them through the haze of “newness.” She came up with a structure and a plan. Now she’s on track to be highly effective and is feeling much more in control.
2. You don’t have to have all the answers. Yep, this is Coaching 101—and worth remembering. This week, a client came to her coaching session upset over, well, everything. She couldn’t get in to see her dad, who is in assisted living. Her 19-year-old son was insisting on going on spring break out of the country, her husband was now sharing her office, her grocery store was out of toilet paper, and her company was suffering the first round of layoffs in memory. Through coaching, she was able to reframe and reprioritize. She’s now focusing on the positive actions she can take and finding ways to let go of the things she can’t control. For a great book on reframing, check out Judd Hoekstra’s Crunch Time.
3. You need to take care of yourself. Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly. Taking care of yourself may look like finding new ways to exercise, talking to a therapist, sticking to good habits, or just giving yourself a break to have a mini meltdown and then get over it. Make sure you are checking in with yourself and giving yourself the same loving care you give to your team members. One of my colleagues practices meditation. She says it keeps her calm, focused, and yes—resilient. Find the ways that work best for you, and keep at it.
4. You have adapted, and can adapt, to change. Yes things will change. Yes there will be loss and there will be opportunity. “New normal” might look very different in four or six weeks and beyond. The truth is that ALL change, whether rapid or not, will eventually settle. We humans are pretty darned good at adapting. Trust yourself that you will be, too. My 91-year-old dad saw more change in his lifetime than I had ever realized. Before he passed on (a change in itself) he summarized for his kids some of the changes he lived through: The war to end all wars, the invention of television, common use of the telephone (and the mobile phone), desktop computers, hemlines, women in the workplace, hairstyles (although he stuck to his wonderful brush cut), the beginning of equal rights, the Berlin wall coming down, families with more than one car in the driveway, putting a man on the moon, the Great Depression and the world recovery that followed, fast food, the five-dollar cup of coffee, and a whole host of other things. He said the only thing that hadn’t changed was that old guys like him still wore suspenders. My dad didn’t like change, but he could sure adapt!
5. It’s all going to be okay. Whether you call it faith, self-determinism, hope, or belief in humankind, the label doesn’t matter as much as what does: we are all going to be okay. Find this belief in yourself. Share it. Spread it. Contribute to it. Take a deep breath, then six more. Keep breathing. We ARE all in this together. And together we will move into a post-Covid-19 world.

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.

How do people who are comfortable with finite games like football or chess learn to flourish in a world that operates with an infinite mindset? In his latest book, The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek explains how leaders must learn to operate with the understanding that business isn’t about winning or losing—it’s about being ahead or being behind.

With finite games, players are easily identified, rules are fixed, and there is a clear end point. In the infinite games of business or politics, players come and go, rules are changeable, and there is no defined end point. The keys to navigating with an infinite mindset are to focus on innovation and to remain resilient during constantly changing times.

We can all too easily see the results of leaders who operate with a finite mindset—mass layoffs, cut-throat work environments, shareholder supremacy (placing stock prices above a person’s worth), and unethical business practices. These practices are so common that many have come to accept them.

But Sinek believes the situation will change when leaders operate with an infinite mindset. These leaders leave the company better than they found it because they serve and foster employees’ willingness to show up, work hard, and take care of each other. These leaders build trusting work environments where people depend on each other to make remarkable things happen.

Above all, Sinek wants to build a world where most people wake up inspired every morning, feel safe at work, and return home fulfilled at the end of the day. With leaders who think beyond short term and focus on the long term, this kind of world is possible. Leaders who operate with an infinite mindset will build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations that will lead us into the future.

To hear host Chad Gordon interview Simon Sinek, listen to the LeaderChat podcast, and subscribe today. Order The Infinite Game on Amazon.com.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior leader in a mid-sized organization. I introduced a new strategic approach to the organization about six months ago. In some parts of the organization, things are going well. In other areas, however, people are just not catching on. Specifically, four departments are still doing things the old way and acting as if nothing has changed. I am sick of people “yessing” me and then ignoring the new procedures.

What to do? I feel like a …

Broken Record

Dear Broken Record,

There are a minimum of 200 excellent books on managing change—and there is a reason for that. Change is the boogie monster of all leaders because people resist change. What most leaders forget is that they spent between six and twelve months thinking about the change before it was announced to the people. They are bored with all the conversation about change and are ready to move on long before anyone else is. So yes, you probably sound like a broken record to yourself, but I guarantee you will be playing your song a lot longer than you ever thought you would. But you can vary it.

Change happens one person at a time. Each person goes through predictable and sequential concerns about change. These concerns, if not surfaced and addressed, can present formidable roadblocks to the successful implementation of change. You can identify where each person is in their change process and meet them where they are. It sounds like several of your key folks are still in the first couple of stages, so you must breathe deeply and be patient.

The Stages of Concern are:

Information Concerns. People want specifics about the change process. They want to have the chance to ask questions about the gap between what is and what could be. They want honest and direct answers. Key questions at this stage include:

• What is the change?
• Why is it needed?
• What’s wrong with the way things are now?
• How much and how fast does the organization need to change?

A good assumption at this stage is that people are smart, and if they had access to the same information their leaders had they would come to the same conclusions. Leaders need to be careful at this stage to provide information about the change process rather than try to sell it, and to talk in terms of what the change is and what it could mean to the organization.

Personal Concerns. This stage of concern is often ignored, which is the primary reason so many change initiatives fail. I mean, really, every human being wants to know how things are going to affect them. Our first question is always What about me? It is simply human nature. At this stage, people want to know either how the change initiative will benefit them or what they will lose. Specifically, people want to know:

• How will the change affect me personally?
• What’s in it for me?
• Will I win or lose?

Implementation Concerns. At this stage, leaders need to specifically spell out a detailed change plan about how and when the change will be launched, what resources are available, who will test the change, and how the change will be measured and supported. Questions include:

• How will I find time to implement this change?
• Will I need to learn new skills or do I have the necessary skills now?
• Where do I get help?
• How long will this take?
• Is what we are experiencing typical?
• How will the organization’s structure and systems change?

Remember, the change leadership team needs to include informal leaders and advocates for the change who can help craft a realistic and credible project plan.

Impact Concerns. Now the change is underway and people are interested in learning whether the change is starting to pay off. People focus on issues such as:

• Is the change making a difference?
• Is the effort worth it?
• Are we making progress?

If leaders have done a good job addressing the first three stages of concern, this is the point in the process where people will begin to sell themselves on the benefits of the change. By successfully addressing the initial stages of concern, leaders will find that their employees are more open to the change at this point, willing to advocate it, and ready to evaluate the change on its merits. It is at this stage that an organization will also want to give focus to building change leaders for the future.

Refinement Concerns focus on continual improvements. At this last stage, the change is well on its way and employees are now focused on new ways to innovate. People may wonder if alternative approaches would work better. They may want to play a role in helping to modify the approach to the change process to leverage lessons of the past. The leader’s role is to encourage this refinement, support further innovation, and invite others to challenge the status quo. At this stage, leaders might ask:

• What ideas do you have for further improvement?
• What might work better?

Most leaders think so much about the change before announcing it that, after the launch, they are immediately ready to have in-depth conversations about refinement—but everyone else is at square one. The status quo is what people know. They have figured out how to be successful in it. The status quo will eat your good strategy change ideas for lunch unless you walk people through their concerns step by step.

Are you bored yet? You probably are. Get the help of someone who is extremely disciplined with process and put them in charge of being the broken record, with constant communication targeted toward alleviating people’s main concerns. People are yessing you because you either stopped listening to them or never listened to them in the first place. You need to listen and listen and listen. Meet people where they are and show them you care about their concerns.

Take a deep breath, Broken Record, and slow way down, listen, and then listen some more. People will come around just in time for you to launch your next big change, and you can start all over again!

And just so you know: as a leader, if you don’t sound like a broken record, you are probably doing it wrong.

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 25, super organized, and I have no problem being direct. On the CliftonStrengths® assessment I come out as having high self-assurance. People just assume I am in charge even when I am not—officially. As a result, I have been given opportunities to lead all the way back to my first job.

Most recently I have been a team lead in a fast-moving technology startup for about 18 months. The company is experimenting with different types of leadership growth paths. One approach the company has adopted is treating new management opportunities as just another job; not a promotion per se, but a “tour of duty.” I wanted to give it a shot, so I signed up to be considered. To my surprise, about six months ago I was assigned five people to “officially” manage―but without a lot of training to go with the official designation. I was given training on how to use the goal setting and performance management system, but that’s it.

I would appreciate your overall guidance on next steps for a new manager, but I am also hoping you can help with an immediate problem. One of my “people” (they don’t really technically report to me, so I don’t even know what to call them) is old enough to be my mother, and she isn’t taking this new deal seriously. Her attitude is condescending; she literally laughed in my face at our first meeting and has blown off all subsequent meetings.

How can I shift this situation?

They Call me The Kid

Dear Kid,

Well, I am old enough to be your mother, too―and I say, “Go, Kid!” Clearly your organization has decided to let you sink or swim on your own, so I will do my best to help you figure it out.

The first thing to do is educate yourself on the nature of the matrix organization. This system of reporting to two or more managers isn’t a new concept, but apparently it is still wreaking havoc. Understanding the context of the system you are operating in will help you.

Next, establish a framework for how to do a good job as a new manager. For that, I offer you an eBook that Blanchard created based on our First Time Manager class. The book gives you four skills to sharpen and teaches you to master four kinds of conversations that will give you a solid foundation for day-to-day management.

As for your cranky new managee―for lack of a better word―I think you just have to name it and claim it with her. Tell the truth about how absurd it is for someone who is 25 to “manage” someone in their fifties who has been around the block a number of times. Say something like, “Look, I know this is ridiculous, but it is an experiment, and we are both in it together, so let’s figure it out together.”

Ask questions:
• If this is to work out perfectly for you, what would that look like?
• If I did a great job for you, what would I be doing?
• What can we both do that will set us up for a win right now?
• Would you be willing to craft a way of succeeding with me?

Be clear that your intentions are good and that you are eager to learn and be useful. She may continue to laugh at you, but if you can laugh along with her, it may at least get you on the same page.

If she still won’t give you the time of day, then I guess you must let the chips fall where they may. You can only reach out the hand and make the effort, the rest will be up to her.

Your Clifton Self-Assurance Strength will certainly come in handy. It will help you to go boldly into the unknown and recover quickly when you make mistakes. The key will be not to get too cocky or believe your own good press (too much). As long as you “take your work seriously, but yourself lightly,” as Ken Blanchard says, you will do 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!

For most, if not all organizations, their employees are their number one asset. This makes the wellbeing, the engagement of employees very important. Why?  Because engaged employees are passionate about their work.  They strive to provide superior customer service, solve problems, and find innovative approaches. 

A great way to generate a significant positive affect on employee engagement is through individualized attention and one way to get started is through coaching.

Every employee in an organization is different.  Coaching is a wonderful way to give employees individualized, customized attention.  Coaching is uniquely tailored for the person being coached. A coach works with an individual to understand what make them tick—to understand the employee’s own strengths and work passion.  Coaching helps to draw out employees’ ideas and opinions and helps employees to discover how to best make their own contribution.  It makes employees feel valued and appreciated.  All this attention gets employees to engage more in their own career.

Is engagement an issue in your organization? Consider some of these ways a coach provides individualized attention to those they serve.

A coach:

• Takes the time to build rapport with those they coach to get a sense of who they are, not just what they do. Great rapport often increases employees’ motivation to work hard in their role and on the goals of the organization.
• Values employees’ contributions and cares about their professional success.  This in turn often empowers them to take more ownership of their own continued development.
• Cares about the individual, working with them to understand their strengths and foster greater development. 
• Checks in with those they coach to see what is working, what isn’t, and what might the employee do different in the future.

Coaching gets clients to engage more in their role, their development, and the goals of the organization. When employees receive coaching, they feel positively supported and valued by their organization which in turn generates and builds more engagement. 

Engagement has been shown to increase retention, innovation, and performance, and as a byproduct, revenue.  What organization wouldn’t welcome that?

When people feel that their manager cares about their development their commitment and energy increases. This leads to growth, increases their confidence, and helps them to reach their full potential. Use a coach approach to individualize attention, either by hiring outside coaching or developing those capabilities in-house. Individualized attention pays off for the individual and the organization.

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.

The first edition came out in 2006 and featured the best thinking from 18 different authors, summarizing the key concepts from all the Blanchard programs at the time.  The new edition continues that tradition. Now featuring the work of 25 authors, this edition includes four new chapters: Building Trust, Mentoring, Collaboration, and Organizational Leadership.

“The umbrella concept,” says lead author Ken Blanchard, “is servant leadership—the idea that people lead best when they serve first.

“There are the two parts of servant leadership,” explains Blanchard.  “First, the strategic or leadership part of servant leadership is identifying the target: the purpose of your business, your picture of the future, and the values that will guide your decisions.

“Once a target and vision are set, how do leaders execute or accomplish that vision? They must turn the traditional hierarchical pyramid upside-down to begin the operational or servant aspect of servant leadership. This is when you diagnose the individual or team in terms of their skills and motivation to get the job done. You identify the competencies and commitment that need to be developed.  Now your role as a leader is to provide the direction and support people can’t provide for themselves.

“Using a situational approach to leadership through SLII®, leaders must diagnose development levels, says Blanchard. “If individuals or teams are new to a task, the leader needs to provide direction.  If individuals or teams are lacking confidence or commitment, the leader needs to provide support.”

Blanchard points to the new chapter on Organizational Leadership, where the same concept can be applied to an organization as a whole.

“Organizations, like people, can be at different levels of development.  As a new C-level leader, you need to identify the organization’s development level, so you can apply the right leadership style.  We’ve seen too many situations where new CEOs—wanting to make a quick impact—enter organizations and immediately go to their favorite leadership style rather than to the one that is needed. We include two well-known case studies in the new chapter that show the benefits of a good match and the negative consequences of a misdiagnosis and bad match.

“We’ve all seen the negative consequences of poor leadership. Our goal with this book is to provide the next generation of leaders with a road map and curriculum for great leadership.

“This involves focusing on both people and results,” says Blanchard. “You cannot sustain performance over the long term with an either/or approach. The market demands innovative, agile solutions. This requires a both/and approach to management that places equal emphasis on results and the needs of people.  That’s the success formula today’s top companies are using to attract the best and brightest.

“When you lead at a higher level, people work together in a way that excites customers and gets results. Leadership is something you do with people—not to people,” Blanchard continues.  “And profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment for people so they will take good care of your customers.

“We hope to inspire leaders to go beyond short-term thinking and zero in on the right target. We want to teach leaders to empower people to unleash their incredible potential. Finally, we want to encourage leaders to ground their leadership in humility and focus on the greater good. It’s a tall order, but we think this book provides everything a leader needs to get started.”

Would you like to learn more about creating a higher level of leadership in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a free webinar on January 23!

Ken Blanchard on 4 Keys to Leading at a Higher Level

January 23, 2019

9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern / 5:00 p.m. UK Time / 5:00 p.m. GMT

In this webinar, best-selling business author Ken Blanchard shares key concepts from the newly released third edition of his book, Leading at a Higher Level. Ken will share a four-step approach to building an organizational culture that leads to engaged people and improves long-term business results.

Participants will explore:

How to set your sights on the right target and vision. A compelling vision tells your organization who you are (purpose), where you’re going (picture of the future), and what guides your behavior and decisions (values). Ken will share how a compelling vision creates a strong organizational culture where everyone’s interests and energy are aligned. This results in trust, customer satisfaction, an energized and committed workforce, and profitability.

How to treat your people right. Without committed and empowered employees, you can never provide good service. You can’t treat your people poorly and then expect them to treat your customers well. Ken will explain how treating your people right begins with good performance planning to get things going. It continues with managers who provide the right amount of direction and support that each individual employee needs to achieve those goals and performance standards.

How to treat your customers right. To keep your customers coming back today, you can’t be content with simply satisfying them. Instead, you must create raving fans–customers who are so excited about the way you treat them that they want to tell everyone about you. Ken will share how companies that create raving fans routinely do the unexpected on behalf of their customers, and then enjoy the growth generated by customers bragging about them to prospective clients.

How to have the right kind of leadership. The most effective leaders realize that leadership is not about them and that they are only as good as the people they lead. These leaders seek to be serving leaders, not self-serving leaders. Ken will explain how once a vision has been set, leaders move themselves to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as a cheerleader, supporter, and encourager for the people who report to them.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to create a culture where leaders who are grounded in humility and focused on the greater good can create organizations where both people and profits grow and thrive. This both/and philosophy, Blanchard contends, is the essence of leading at a higher level.

Use this link to register for 4 Keys to Leading at a Higher Level.  The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Dear Madeleine,

My problem is that my people—not all of them, but enough—are extremely needy. They come to talk to me and they take up hours of my time.

They talk about their kids, their lives, and their problems and seem to expect that I’m fine with listening to all of this.

I’m not. I mean, I do care about them as people, but the thing I really care about is their work, and that they do it well.

Am I a monster? How do I get people to shut up and get on with it?

Tired of Listening

Dear Tired of Listening,

You sound kind of tough, but you probably aren’t a monster. You are almost definitely a very specific kind of temperament, and it would serve you well to understand personality types and essential motivators. I am a big fan of the work of Linda Berens and you can get a primer on the topic here. There are lots of different personality types and they all require a different kind of connection.

It is my experience though, that regardless of temperament, most people have a deep need to be seen and heard—maybe not you, but most people. Your people want you to know who they are and they want you to care about them. You claim that you don’t care, but since they continue to come to you, you must be faking it pretty well.

My assessment is this: you have the instinct that it is important to spend time with your people and listen to them, which is correct—but you haven’t figured out how to draw boundaries that will limit the amount of your time people take. So it’s time to set some boundaries.

Tell your people that from now on, everyone gets a specific amount of one-on-one time. Some managers have so many direct reports that they can only spend 15 minutes a week with each person, but the ideal is 30 minutes, and an hour is even better. Tell them that their one-on-one time is their time. They should prepare the agenda and they should use their time to bring you up to speed, get the direction they need from you on their work, and plan future projects. Let people know they are invited to share about their personal lives, but they need to fit it all into their one-on-one time. They will get the message loud and clear, and you will have tight boundaries around your time.

Your people clearly crave personal connection with you, and they obviously trust you enough to seek your ear. You can give them what they need and also take care of your own desire to get on with it. Keep working on the amount of time until you reach a comfortable balance. With the right balance, you will find it easier to access the part of you that actually does care—which will meet your needs as well as theirs.

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!

Left to my own natural tendencies, I’m part of the second group. When I’m chatting with a coworker or hanging out by the proverbial water cooler, after about five minutes I get the itch to get back to my “real” work.

But over the years I’ve recognized that in most cases, the most successful leaders are the ones who are all about building connections.

Several years ago, I spent a week working at our local sports arena during the Davis Cup tennis tournament. We were told parking at the arena would be limited, so I carpooled with a coworker named Dan. Turns out Dan had once worked at the arena and still knew a lot of the staff.

The first two days of work were spent preparing for the main event. Dan was able to park in front in a VIP section. Every day when we got there, Dan would stop and chat with different parking attendants about their work and life. Dan had obtained several Davis Cup commemorative pins that were very sought after, and he made sure to give a pin to each of the attendants he talked with. I noticed what Dan was doing but could only think about how I wanted to get inside and start working.

On the third day, the crowds increased and the parking lot was quite full. As Dan drove into the VIP section, a parking attendant he didn’t know told him he didn’t have the right credentials to park there. Another attendant immediately ran up to tell the first attendant it was okay. We parked in the VIP section each day for the rest of the tournament.

I never got the impression that Dan was chatting with the attendants and giving them the pins only to secure VIP parking. To me, this story is a concrete example of the power of connection.

Think you could use a little more connection in your life?  Here are three ways to get started:

1. See building connections as a valuable part of your job. I mentioned to one very successful senior leader I coached that it sounded like she spent half her time building relationships.  She agreed, but then said it really should be 90 percent of her time!
2. Regularly get up and away from your computer or other electronic devices. Go hang out by the coffee cart, invite someone to walk with you to the vending machines, drop by to say hi to a colleague, or—for the very brave—schedule some lunches. Although initiating contact might not feel natural, most people find it to be a pleasant experience.
3. Listen more than you talk. I don’t think it’s an accident that many people who don’t regularly connect happen to be introverted—maybe even shy.  The reality is that building connections often means listening to those you are connecting with.  If you are a generally shy person, think up a couple of questions you can ask, if you need to, to start a conversation.  Ask a question such as ”How was your weekend?” or “Did you see the big game?”  And then just listen.

With a little practice, you can learn to be a master at connecting, too!

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.

“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.

“In this model,” says Blanchard, “Leaders assume a traditional role to set the vision, direction, and strategy for the organization—the leadership aspect of servant leadership. After the vision and direction are set, the leaders turn the organizational pyramid upside down so that they serve the middle managers and frontline people who serve the customer. Now the leader’s role shifts to a service mindset for the task of implementation—the servant aspect of servant leadership.”

Many organizations and leaders get into trouble during implementation, warns Blanchard.

“When command-and-control leaders are at the helm, the traditional hierarchical pyramid is kept alive and well. All of the organization’s energy moves up the hierarchy, away from customers and frontline folks who are closest to the action. When there is a conflict between what customers want and what the boss wants, the boss wins.”

Blanchard suggests that leadership, learning, and talent development professionals correct this situation by philosophically turning the traditional hierarchical pyramid upside down—putting customer contact people at the top of the organization and top management at the bottom.

“This philosophical mind-shift reminds everyone in the organization that when it comes to implementation, leaders serve their people, who serve the customers. This change may seem minor, but it makes a major difference between who is responsible and who is responsive.”

The next step, according to Blanchard, is to align policies, practices, direction, and support to remove barriers for the people who are taking care of customers. This high-investment approach to talent management is designed to bring out the best in everyone.

“Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and live according to their organization’s vision. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their people and showing them they care, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.”

The Biggest Barrier to Servant Leadership

In looking back at all of the organizations he has worked with over the years, one of the most persistent barriers to more people becoming successful servant leaders is a heart motivated by self-interest, says Blanchard.

“As a leader, you must ask yourself why you lead. Is it to serve or to be served? Answering this question in a truthful way is so important. You can’t fake being a servant leader. I believe if leaders don’t get the heart part right, they simply won’t ever become servant leaders.

“Managers who somehow have themselves as the center of the universe and think everything must rotate around them are really covering up not-okay feelings about themselves. This is an ego problem that manifests as fear or false pride. When you don’t feel good about yourself, you have two options. You can hide and hope nobody notices you, or you can overcompensate and go out and try to control your environment. I always say that people who feel the need to control their environment are really just scared little kids inside.”

“I learned from the late Norman Vincent Peale that the best leaders combine a healthy self-acceptance with humility.  As I learned from Norman, “Leaders with humility don’t think less of themselves—they just think about themselves less.”

An Old Model for a New World of Work?

Blanchard explains that leaders with a servant heart thrive on developing people and helping them achieve their goals. They constantly try to find out what their people need to perform well. Being a servant leader is not just another management technique. It is a way of life for those with servant hearts.

“When I first began to teach managers back in the late 1960s I met Robert Greenleaf, who was just retiring as a top AT&T executive. Bob talked about servant leadership—the concept that effective leaders and managers need to serve their people, not be served by them. It was entirely new thinking then. In many ways, Bob is considered the father of the term servant leadership.”

It is much easier for people to see the importance and relevance of servant leadership today than it was back then, says Blanchard.

“Today when people see you as a judge and critic, they spend most of their time trying to please you rather than accomplishing the organization’s goals and moving in the direction of the desired vision. ‘Boss watching’ becomes a popular sport and people get promoted on their upward-influencing skills. That role doesn’t do much for accomplishing a clear vision. People try to protect themselves rather than move the organization in its desired direction.

“Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to be successful. Rather than wanting their people to please them, they want to make a difference in the lives of their people—and, in the process, impact the organization.”

Servant Leadership: The Power of Love, Not the Love of Power

A few years ago, Blanchard received a letter from a man in New Zealand with a line that he believes sums up his leadership philosophy.

“The man wrote that he felt I was in the business of teaching people the power of love rather than the love of power.

“I believe the world is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. We need servant leadership advocates. 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.”

Would you like to learn more about creating a servant leadership culture and leading at a higher level?  Join us for a free webinar with Ken Blanchard!

Servant Leadership: 4 Keys to Leading at a Higher Level

Wednesday, September 12, 2018, at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time / 12:00 p.m. Eastern / 5:00 p.m. UK / 4:00 p.m. GMT

In this special event for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals, best-selling business author Ken Blanchard looks at servant leadership and how to create an others-focused culture in your organization.  You’ll learn how to:

• Set your sights on the right target and vision. Great organizations focus on three bottom lines instead of just one. In addition to financial success, Ken will share how leaders at great organizations measure the satisfaction and engagement levels of their employees as well as their customers.
• Treat your customers right. To keep your customers today, you can’t be content to just satisfy them. Ken will share how to create raving fans—customers who are so excited about the way you treat them that they want to tell others.
• Treat your people right. You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well. Ken will share how treating your people right includes setting clear, meaningful goals, providing day-to-day coaching, and finally, setting up performance reviews so that there are no surprises.
• Develop the right kind of leaders. The most effective leaders recognize that leadership is not about them and that they are only as good as the people they lead. Ken will share how servant leadership principles can guide the design of your leadership development curriculum.

Ready to take your organization to the next level?  Don’t miss this opportunity to explore how to create an others-focused culture and leadership development strategy based on the principles of servant leadership. The event is free courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

REGISTER USING THIS LINK

Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Hunter Young.

Think about this past week. Did you go to a business where you received below average customer service? Did it make you feel unwanted? Did you feel like leaving right then? If you answered “yes” to these questions, you’re not alone. Thousands if not millions of customers receive poor customer service every day.

Customers should always be the top priority for every business. Whether you are selling cheeseburgers or Louis Vuitton purses, your main focus should be your customer. Why? Because customers fuel your business—in fact, without them, there is no business.

In her webinar Taking a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Approach to Service in Your Organization, Vicki Halsey explains the importance of Legendary Service®—the title of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ customer service training program as well as the book coauthored by Halsey, Kathy Cuff, and Ken Blanchard. The focus of the webinar is the importance of caring for your customers. Halsey and Cuff use the acronym CARE for qualities needed in a service provider: Committed, Attentive, Responsive, and Empowered. These four elements of Legendary Service® are the core values everyone should follow when dealing with customers—whether you are a manager behind the scenes or a customer-facing service provider on the front lines.

First, you must have a clear goal in mind, Halsey explains. “All good performance starts with clear goals.” Your goals give you a service vision that sets the stage for how you will treat your customers. And remember: you must Commit to serving both your internal and external customers.

Although it is extremely important to give your external customer the best experience possible, serving your internal customers—your peers and direct reports—is just as crucial. Because as a manager, if you don’t demonstrate a sense of caring for your employees, how can you expect your employees to care about your customers? “You have to treat your people the way you want them to treat your customers,” says Halsey. It starts with the top leaders and goes all the way to the front line.

Attentive is the next element in the Legendary Service® model. Once you have clear goals in mind for your service vision, you must identify your customers’ wants and needs. Attentive service providers ask questions, actively listen, and then confirm that they understand.

The next step is to be Responsive. Actions speak louder than words. Doing what you say you’ll do will exceed a customer’s expectations and increase the chance they will return. And don’t forget to express your appreciation to the customer. After all, they could have easily gone to one of your competitors instead of to your business.

The last element in the Legendary Service® CARE model is Empowerment. As a manager, you should empower people to take initiative, ask for the help they need to succeed, and share innovative ideas. You will unleash the full extent of your power when you empower others. Even when it seems impossible, turn that “I can’t” into “How can I…?”

Halsey explains that the best leaders are situational. The Situational Leadership® II model can help a manager identify the amount of direction and support an employee needs at their current development level on a particular task or goal.

Here are some takeaways from Halsey’s webinar:

• The most effective leadership is a partnership.
• Work together with your employees to set a service vision.
• Teaching is very different from telling.
• Set goals, stay connected, and give feedback.
• If your employee does not know the most effective way to complete a task, first work with them to find the best way to do it effectively and then build a platform for them to be able to work through the task in the future.

Following these simple guidelines with your employees will go a long way for individuals, customers, and the business as a whole. Providing Legendary Service will have a more positive impact than you can imagine.

If you would like to learn more about Legendary Service® and Situational Leadership® II, follow this link to view Halsey’s webinar presentation.

That’s a big mistake, say Kathy Cuff and Vicki Halsey, co-creators of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Legendary Service training program.

“Every organization knows they need to focus on the external customer—the person who buys their products or services—but they forget two other important groups of people who need care and attention,” says Cuff.

“Before you can care for your external customers, you need to take care of your own people,” says Halsey.

Taking care of your people means providing your frontline service personnel with the direction, support, and authority they need to serve your external customers.

“This starts with a clear service vision at both the organization and individual level—a vision that spells out who you serve, how you serve, and for what purpose. Surprisingly, 19 percent of the 500 people we recently surveyed told us their organization had only some degree of a defined service vision and an additional 14 percent said they had little or no published service vision to guide the actions of employees.”

“Once you have that vision in place, you need to train your people how to deliver on that vision. We teach the CARE model: being Committed to service, Attentive to customer needs, Responsive in providing service, and Empowered to take action.”

Halsey and Cuff also reinforce the importance of getting managers involved in a customer service initiative. Why? Because frontline service people usually care for customers the same way their managers care for them.

“We teach managers to use the same CARE principles in their approach to their people: to be Committed to serving their people, Attentive to their needs, and Responsive in providing direction and support, with a focus on Empowerment,” says Cuff.

“The final person you need to take care of to provide great service is yourself. We’ve all experienced  service providers who didn’t have a service mindset. You can usually trace this back to something happening in their work environment. We teach frontline service personnel and managers how to speak up for themselves and take initiative to solve company problems and improve processes and policies instead of complaining about them.”

Halsey adds, “We also teach people the importance of self-care on a mental, physical, and motivational level to help them bring their best selves to work every day. It’s a holistic approach that brings out the best of everyone in the organization so that they can better serve the customer.”

Interested in learning more about Halsey and Cuff’s approach to improving service in your organization? Check out our customer service resource page at The Ken Blanchard Companies website where you will find eBooks, white papers, and interviews with both program authors. We also invite you to attend a complimentary webinar with Vicki Halsey on May 23: “Taking a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Approach to Service in Your Organization.” The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

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!

Hi Madeleine,

I run a business where we manage large projects and serve customers all day long. I have a new hire who just isn’t working out. She is rude to customers and makes constant errors. She needs to have instructions repeated again and again and just can’t seem to retain anything.

Last week I told her that it is possible she is not suited for our business and she might be happier doing something else. I was as diplomatic as I know how to be. She insisted she loves it here and that this is what she wants to do. Then she went and told everyone that I think she is terrible and I hate her.

What a mess. What on earth do I do now?

Made a Mess

Dear Made a Mess,

I’m not sure you can salvage this situation—and even if you could, I’m not sure you should. You may be right that your employee is not suited to the role if she not only has the undesirable qualities you first mentioned but also gossips to anyone who will listen.

My first instinct is to advise you cut your losses and let her go.

My second, more kind instinct is to suggest you sit down with her to have the difficult conversation. Explain that you don’t hate her; in fact, you want to help her succeed and do a reset.

My third instinct is to let you know that in my 28 years of coaching, I have not once had a client regret letting go of an employee that was taking up the bulk of their waking hours. So there you go.

To avoid this kind of thing in the future, put some focus on business fundamentals.

Hiring: My experience and research shows that hiring is 90 percent of the battle in getting the right fit for the role. Attention to detail and service orientation are inborn traits that are hard—maybe impossible—to train to people who don’t have them. As they say, it is easier to hire a squirrel than to train a chicken to climb a tree. It sounds like you could use some behavioral interviewing techniques. Once you find a new employee who seems to be a good fit, start with a three-month trial before going to a full time contract. This will give both you and the new hire time to assess the job and culture fit.

Onboarding: When you find that you’re always repeating yourself, it may be best to use checklists or put step-by-step instructions in writing. Create a manual accessible for new employees to review. You will also want to state your values, in writing. For example, if it is not okay for employees to gossip, this should spelled out in your values.

Use Situational Leadership® II: Our flagship product at The Ken Blanchard Companies is essentially a prescription for foolproof performance management, in which a leader provides exactly what the employee needs to be successful at any task or goal. You can read more about it here. In your case, you would need to provide consistent and repeated clear direction to help your employee succeed. Perhaps you aren’t good at that—or maybe she just can’t or won’t follow directions. In any event, this is a very worthwhile leadership model to know about.

It sounds as if you have been flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to performance management up until now. You’ll avoid trouble like this again in the future if you put some processes and systems in place to protect yourself from time sinks and embarrassments moving forward.

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!

Leadership as a Partnership

“It’s unfair to expect a manager with multiple direct reports to figure out what each individual needs, let alone always provide it,” says leadership expert Susan Fowler. “Continue to invest in your managers, but leverage your investment by training the other side of the partnership—the direct reports. Don’t ignore half the equation. Make effective leadership everyone’s job.”

You can check out the entire September issue here. Want Ignite delivered to your InBox each month?  You can subscribe for free using this link.

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.

The nature of teamwork in today’s organizations is evolving. Our research shows that both team leaders and team members have a key role to play in this evolution. As a part of our survey we asked people to identify the conditions that impact the level of effort they put into the teams they work on. (See Figure 1: My Personal Effort Depends On))

When it came to conditions that affect how much personal effort individuals put into their role as a team member, the top three statements respondents most agreed with were:

• Whether I trust the other team members
• The level of support I get from my team leader
• Whether or not team members are allowed to share opposing opinions and disagree with each other

 Figure 1: My Personal Effort Depends On 

Implications for Leadership, Learning, and Talent Development Professionals

The amount of support a team receives also impacts overall effectiveness. The survey found that the highest performing teams enjoy greater levels of support in general, as well as higher levels of training for both team members and team leaders. (See figure 2.)

Figure 2: Training and Support

For organizations looking to improve team training, Dr. Eunice Parisi-Carew, a founding partner and teams expert with The Ken Blanchard Companies, suggests training and development professionals be proactive and model an inclusive learning attitude.

“Involve others in crafting a clear purpose, as well as values and goals, for your teams. Have leaders follow through by reinforcing what was agreed upon, demonstrating supportive behaviors, and walking the talk,” she explains.

“Talk openly. Create an environment of safety and trust where people are comfortable speaking out about improving team performance without worrying about upsetting the status quo.

“Take action. Some leaders need to learn how to let go. Don’t wait for someone else to decide it’s time to collaborate—everyone is responsible for creating a collaborative environment.”

When people are busy, it’s normal for them to want to focus on getting their individual work done. To combat this urge, Parisi-Carew reminds us of an old adage: “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

You can learn more about the results of the Blanchard/Training magazine survey by accessing the full article in the July/August issue. After studying the survey results, training and development professionals will have not only a target to shoot for but also recommended first steps to take as they look to create or enhance team training programs in their organizations.

And if you were lucky enough to have someone supporting and partnering with you—someone coaching you through the experience—chances are that support really helped.

In today’s workplace, business leaders are encouraged to coach their direct reports. To do this, leaders must develop a coaching mindset—a mindset that looks for the potential in others.  Here are four ways to get started.

• Talk on a regular basis. Leaders with a coaching mindset intentionally have regular conversations with direct reports in service of their direct reports’ development, learning, and growth. Don’t wait for midyear or yearend reviews—shoot for weekly or biweekly conversations.
• Understand that developing your people is as important as meeting deadlines. Focus on people and Remember, it’s not an either/or question—the more you develop your people, the more valuable your organization will become.
• Value learning. Create a safe environment where everyone on your team has permission to be a learner and to try out new skills. Be a role model—share times when something didn’t go well for you, and talk through lessons learned.
• Slow down to draw out your direct reports’ brilliance. Sometimes giving people the answer seems quicker and more efficient—but in reality, doing this can create dependency.  Slow down and take the time to teach your people how to complete a task. It’s a front-loaded investment that can really pay dividends.

As the Chinese proverb says: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”  Using a coaching mindset is like teaching your people to fish. Embrace a coaching mindset!

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.

When leaders coach their people it has significant positive effects on employee development, performance, and productivity. (Source: Harvard Business Review, 2015)

And while most organizations recognize coaching as a necessary leadership capacity, nearly half of managers polled in a 2014 Conference Board study said they spend less than 10 percent of their time coaching others.

That’s a missed opportunity.  Blanchard research with over 1,800 workers across a wide variety of industries found that leaders who understand how to coach effectively have people who are more likely to:

• Have high levels of trust
• Have positive feelings about their job and the organization
• Remain with the organization
• Create positive buzz about the organization
• Expend discretionary effort
• Behave in ways that support the organization

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Blanchard eBook, Great Leaders Don’t Tell You What to Do—They Develop Your Capabilities, shares four essential coaching skills (Listen to Learn, Inquire for Insight, Tell Your Truth, and Express Confidence) together with a four-phased coaching process (Connect, Focus, Activate, and Review) that leaders can use to be more coach-like in their conversations.

The eBook is available for immediate download from the Blanchard website.  Also be sure to download Blanchard’s complete research report for access to in-depth results and analysis.

• My boss cared about me as a person
• My boss listened to me and helped me grow
• My boss was clear about what was expected and gave me feedback—even when it wasn’t pretty
• My boss was a person I respected and admired
• My boss was consistent
• My boss was always there for me

Guess what? These are all coaching behaviors.

The evidence is clear that these behaviors contribute to trust, passion, and performance at work. (See footnotes for links to research.)

As a part of preparing managers and leaders to go through our Coaching Essentials class, we ask them to assess their own natural tendencies and behaviors. For example, we ask them:

• To what extent are you a role model for the behaviors you expect in others?
• How much time do you spend building positive relationships with your direct reports?
• How natural is it for you to collaborate?
• How frequently do you listen more than talk and avoid distractions when listening?

Our goal is for participants to gain a deep understanding of their own habits and assumptions—and get completely clear about how to work against those tendencies to effectively use the coaching process and refine their skills.

It becomes apparent to all participants—even before they set foot in class—that with these questions we are essentially asking them to become their best possible selves. In fact, we have had participants in class narrow their eyes at us and say “You’re asking me to become a better person, aren’t you?”

This always gets a laugh, because it is kind of true. But only kind of. We aren’t saying you have to become a better person or get a personality transplant before you can be a good coach. That would be absurd and impossible. What we are saying is, when you put your coach hat on, you need to really behave yourself. You have to redirect your own impulses and needs and put the person you are coaching first.

This is hard but doable—and it requires a fundamental shift in mindset. Before a manager or leader can be an effective coach, they must commit to applying uncommon amounts of self awareness, self regulation, and discipline. Coaching is, ultimately, a service the leader provides to the employee.

If I had to choose the one thing that makes the biggest difference for managers, it would be the shift in mindset from “I’m the boss, do what I say” to “I am in service to you and I will do everything in my power to help you be successful.” Managers who use coaching as part of their toolkit are stepping up to become their best possible selves.

Footnotes:

In their 2006 research paper Keen to Help? Managers’ Implicit Person Theories and Their Subsequent Employee Coaching, Peter Heslin, Don Vandewalle, and Gary Latham noted that manager coaching can facilitate employee development and performance, can have a positive impact on productivity, and can inspire improvements in an employee’s ability to master their projects and tasks.

In his paper A Strategic Approach to Coaching in Organizations: A Case Study (2012) Paul Steven Turner found that a coaching style can “directly and significantly impact favorably on the bottom line” through increased sales, better customer service, and improved productivity.

New 2017 research by The Ken Blanchard Companies titled Coaching Skills: The Missing Link for Leaders found that leaders who are perceived as using coaching behaviors (Facilitating, Inspiring, and Guiding) create a sense of positive work affect or emotion in their followers and that individuals who perceive their managers as exhibiting coaching behaviors are more likely to trust their leaders.

Why don’t more managers schedule regular one-on-ones? Time pressure is one factor but sometimes uncertainty on what to discuss can also be a problem. But as this story explains, managers are not expected to have all the answers.

Ready to take a second look at one-on-ones? Here are three posts to offer you help and encouragement if you are ready to make one-on-ones a part of your management skill set in 2017.

Could You Be More Coach-like in Your One-on-One Conversations? Consistently, the data shows strong correlations between a leader’s coaching effectiveness and measures of employee commitment…

Need More Time? How Recurring One-on-One Meetings Can Help I recently coached an ambitious sales person with ten direct reports after he attended a three-day Managing People workshop…

Getting the Most from Your One-on-One Conversations: 6 Tips for Managers and Team Members A recent survey conducted by Training magazine found that 89 percent of those polled want to meet with their manager at least monthly, and 44 percent want …

Trust and empower employees. Respondents identified they look for leaders who believe in them enough to trust them with significant responsibilities and to empower them to use their experience and knowledge. As one respondent put it, “When my manager trusts me, it makes me want to do an extremely good job so I don’t let her down and so that trust increases.”

Provide regular feedback to everyone. Respondents indicated a strong desire for positive feedback when it is deserved—for example, when they show advances in learning a new task or when they offer ideas that benefit their company. They also want to know when they make mistakes or do things wrong. The important caveat? They want the person giving the feedback to respect them as someone who wants to grow and improve.

Make sure goals and expectations are clearly stated—and hold people accountable for achieving outcomes. Survey participants identified that they want leaders to hold them accountable but they don’t want surprises. As one respondent put it, “People don’t like surprises, so managers should make expectations clear up front.” Another survey respondent said, “When the manager explains goals, the employee can take ownership.”

Be open to hearing new ideas and input from everyone. As one respondent stated, “When managers listen to people’s ideas, energy levels can soar. It makes employees feel important and valued.” Respondents also indicated that Millennials want active, involved leadership, a feeling of collaborative teamwork, and unstructured access to information. Implicit in this finding is that information and ideas flow in both directions—from manager to employee and from employee to manager.

Do not micromanage. One respondent noted, “Leaders need to trust their people to do their jobs, but they also need to be available for help when needed—such as when an employee is new in a task.” One key point that came out of the research: the majority of those surveyed expressed a desire to be allowed space for trial and error. This allows the employee freedom to learn from mistakes while having their manager nearby to ward off larger problems.

The report highlights that the growing Millennial generation of workers is looking for clear definitions of expectations, regular feedback, and a receptive ear by managers about their ideas. They do not want to feel micromanaged, but trusted and empowered. They embrace transparency from their managers and want the opportunity to contribute.

You can access the complete report, Millennials in the Workplace: How Do Managers Inspire Them? at the Blanchard website. It contains additional analysis as well as advice for Gen Xers and Boomers, and is available free of charge courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

However, encouragement and recognition shouldn’t be a once-a-year event—it ought to be a leader’s constant mindset, according to Ken Blanchard, management expert and coauthor of The New One Minute Manager® and Leading at a Higher Level. In Blanchard’s opinion, the most effective leaders focus on serving the needs of their people all year long.

Blanchard’s belief is that organizations run best when leaders at all levels see themselves as servant leaders. As he explains, “The best leaders turn the organizational pyramid upside down so that they are at the bottom of the structure, serving their people who are at the top. The leaders provide support, remove obstacles, and act as cheerleaders. They are there to serve their people—so that their people can better serve their customers.”

The good news is that leaders at all levels can serve their direct reports at an individual, team, or department level. Blanchard explains a step-by step process.

Get clear on goals. “All good performance begins with clear goals. Make sure that individual, team, department, and organizational goals are clear and written down so that they can be seen, communicated, and referred to frequently. Goals are too often unclear, poorly communicated, not written down, or never referred to until performance review. “

Discuss competence and commitment. “Managers must sit down with their teams to discuss what’s required to achieve each goal. In Situational Leadership® II we teach that people approach each new task or goal from one of four development levels: the Enthusiastic Beginner, where an individual is excited but inexperienced at the task; the Disillusioned Learner, where an individual becomes discouraged; the Capable but Cautious Performer, where an individual has some experience but still needs occasional support; or the Self-Reliant Achiever, where an individual has a track record of success. It takes time to make this diagnosis at the beginning of a task or when setting a goal, but it will save time in the long run by avoiding misunderstandings, motivation issues, and rework.”

Match your leadership style. “Depending on a person’s development level on a specific task or goal, the leader provides a matching leadership style—either by Directing, Coaching, Supporting, or Delegating. The objective is to provide the direct report with the correct amount of direction and support to get the job done while avoiding over-supervision or under-supervision. This is the essence of servant leadership. The focus is on helping direct reports achieve their goals.”

Blanchard encourages leaders to practice a servant leadership mindset with direct reports every day, not just at year end. “Your job as a leader is to help your people succeed. Set clear goals with them, diagnose their development level on each goal, and then provide them with the direction and support they need to achieve those goals. It’s the best way to serve your people—not just now, but throughout the year.”

You can read more about Blanchard’s approach in the December issue of Ignite!  Also check out stories on two companies putting these concepts into practice with great results—CHG Healthcare Services and WD-40 Company.

I love being permanently connected to the world and I adore the feeling of control I get from remaining on top of everything that comes my way. I guess this means I don’t really know how to distinguish between work and life anymore. They’ve merged into one.

Many articles online feature people who chip away at the time they spend with their families and friends, lose sleep because they’re too busy speaking to the boss or check work email during dinner or on weekends. But this goes beyond work interfering with life. What happens when life interferes with work?

What do you do when a message comes in from a friend who works a different shift so weekdays are the only time they have to chat? What happens when your plumber is available to fix the sink only during your working hours? What if you need to go to your child’s school play on a Friday morning?

For me, the lines between work and life are so blurred that I can barely see them. Generally, when I’m physically in the office I’m at work and when I’m out of the office I’m not at work. However, I work remotely one day a week, so my physical location isn’t much of a distinction. I often check work email when I’m out of the office—and I often check messages from friends when I’m in the office.

These fuzzy boundaries have no effect on my productivity. I’m still an effective member of my department team and I get my work done. If I need to concentrate on a task, I set my phone to Do Not Disturb so that I can focus. If I take a lunch break with a friend and we run late because we are busy catching up, I work a little later to make up the time and get everything finished. So far, I haven’t had the feeling that work is taking over my life. I can still easily walk away from email, go read a good book, and switch off from all electronic connectivity.

I love this flexible approach to working and balancing my life however I please. In earlier posts I have identified that, as a millennial, I’m drawn to the concept of flexible work—and today’s technology makes this work style increasingly achievable. When my parents were my age, as soon as they stepped out of the office they weren’t readily contactable, so their work needed to be completed before they left. Now, I can leave the office at 5:00 p.m. and continue to work if I want to. If I were job hunting and found two equivalent jobs at different companies, one offering flexible work and the other offering a 9-to-5 fixed schedule, without a doubt I’d happily choose the company that offered flexible work.

Organisations who want to attract younger workers need to be increasingly open to flexible work while at the same time deciding how their company will define the concept. Can people check their social media occasionally in exchange for an extra 30 minutes of work, or will their policy be more (or less) strict than this? Are employees allowed to take half a day off with the understanding that incomplete work will be finished another time—for example, taking a morning off in exchange for working into the evening? Could people have the freedom to compress their work week into four 10-hour days and take Friday off?

It is important to note that flexible working does come with a price—and it isn’t for everyone. Stuart Heritage, writing for The Guardian, identifies in his article that each employee needs to make sure they are the right kind of person for flexible work. If you can’t make a clear switch between your work and your personal life it might not be the right move for you. Employers must take on the burden of not only recognising the symptoms of burnout and identifying when people are working too hard, but also calling out someone when their life is taking over and their work output isn’t quite up to scratch. Keep in mind, too, that flexible work isn’t possible for all professions. My mum, for example, is a nurse. She can’t exactly nip out on a Tuesday afternoon to do her Christmas shopping and then pop back in later to finish her shift, when there are patients in need of urgent care.

What do you think? Do you think organisations need to harness the flexibility of new technology and changing attitudes, and be open to flexible work for their employees? Do you think there’s a place in today’s constantly connected global market for people to choose when, where, and how they work? Or do you think it’s more important for employers to control the exact hours employees work to maximize productivity and avoid employee burnout? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

A summer morning stands out with vivid clarity in my mind. I was eight years old. My younger sister, Dee Dee, and I were up before our parents. We were excited to put on our new summer shorts and begin our day. But we were up so early, all our neighborhood friends were still sleeping. And we were bored.

That’s when something magical happened. We went outside and discovered we could turn the steps in our front yard into a game. We ran in opposite directions around the house to see where we met each time. We practiced jumping over the wooden fence between yards. We used the sheets hanging on our backyard clothes line as a makeshift tent.

Exhausted, we flopped down in the grass and began pointing at puffy white clouds in animal shapes against the blue sky. I remember feeling full and satisfied, inventive and adventurous, with a love of games—especially the ones my sister and I created for ourselves.

Dr. Edward Deci, the father of intrinsic motivation, has long lamented that we over-program our children’s lives, robbing them of the discretionary time to be bored. No one wants to be bored, Deci reasons, so we find ways to entertain ourselves. And that’s when we discover our intrinsic motivation—what we enjoy doing simply because of our inherent interest in doing it.

Today’s organizations are filled with employees who are not intrinsically motivated because they haven’t had the discretionary time to discover or tap into their intrinsic motivation.

Do yourself a favor and try these 3 ideas:

Use discretionary time to discover your intrinsic motivation. When you have an unplanned moment, notice the activities you gravitate toward. When there is empty space in your life, what do you want to do? Even if you don’t have the time to get into it or aren’t in a position to do it, recognize your yearning—take note of it. Your discretionary time can reveal the things you are intrinsically motivated to do.

For example, years ago when I would find myself on an airplane without work to do, on vacation with blocks of unplanned time, or with a rare free afternoon on a weekend, I would notice an intense longing to write. Today, I still experience that tug to pull out pen and paper (or iPad) and capture thoughts and ideas. My down time reminds me of my intrinsic motivation.

Tap into your intrinsic motivation at work. When you know what intrinsically motivates you, it’s fun to find ways of integrating it into your work.  I link writing to a variety of work-related tasks such as returning emails, explaining details in written form, drafting proposals, and blogging.

Help reveal other people’s intrinsic motivation. I remember thinking that if my boss caught me reading at work, I’d be branded as lazy. Don’t be that boss. Don’t perpetuate the myth that you need to drive productivity through pressure and constant motion. Instead, encourage your employees to take mindfulness moments. Talk to them about their interests, both work related and personal. Help people discover their own intrinsic motivation. And then help them find creative ways to integrate it into their everyday tasks.

Remember, intrinsic motivation is a good thing. When people are intrinsically motivated they pursue goals for the enjoyment it brings, not because of an external reward or outside pressure. They are more apt to attain a state of flow—that place where time flies and they are in the zone because the demands of the task are matched with their competence to do it. Compelling evidence demonstrates that when people are intrinsically motivated, they generate positive energy, higher degrees of creativity, and sustainable productivity.

One more idea. Do your kids, and their future employer, a favor. Leave them alone with nothing to do sometimes. It might drive you crazy for a while, but it will be precious time where they can discover their intrinsic motivation for writing, reading, teaching, learning, memorizing, running, sports, music, history, or math. Helping your children discover their intrinsic motivation is a gift that will keep on giving.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, co-creator of the company’s Optimal Motivation and Situational Self Leadership training programs, and the author of the bestselling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Engaging, and Energizing.

Pew Research even has a quiz called “How millennial are you?” that shows where you fit on the scale and how you compare with others in your generation. I’m not entirely sure how scientific this is, but I scored a whopping 99 out of 100.

The definition  of a millennial varies depending on where you get your facts and figures—but the consensus seems to be that it’s a person born between 1980 and the mid-1990s. I particularly like Fortune’s definition: “those aged between 18 and 34 in 2015.”

Dan Schawbel has collated a list of some facts about millennials, if you want to do further research about this generation. Some of the facts are shocking, including their collective $1 trillion in student debts; or that only 6 out of 10 millennials have jobs—and half of those jobs are part-time. The article is a couple of years old now but it’s a good starting point for an overview.

It doesn’t take a scientist to identify that the stereotypical attributes of a millennial I outlined above could easily be interpreted to be negative traits; but millennials are getting fed up of getting a bad rap. A quick search online of the word millennial brings up a plethora of articles and blogs about how the negative view many people have of millennials is probably not deserved.

As workplaces move into the future, they’re going to need to start looking at millennials a little differently. This generation currently makes up one-third of the world’s workforce and by 2025, they will account for 75%. If business leaders continue to look at millennials with the aforementioned negative slant, they won’t be able to utilise this growing workforce to the best of their ability.

The growing proportion of millennials in business actually isn’t bad news at all. They’re set to be the most educated generation in history. Growing up in a world filled with negativity and recession has made them resilient, adaptable, and innovative when put in the right environment. They’re more determined than previous generations to prove themselves worthy in the job market because they’ve grown up without knowing job security. And, as the first generation that doesn’t remember what life was like before smart phones and the internet, they’re an excellent resource when it comes to understanding and harnessing the power of technology.

To get the best from the millennial generation it’s important to be able to understand them fully. Business leaders will need to adapt their ways of working to harness the millennial contribution.

Millennials are notable for their unwavering commitment to friends, family, and hobbies—even at the expense of face time at work. Research conducted by Bentley University found that 75% of millennials see themselves as authentic and are not willing to compromise their family and personal values. Companies on the “100 Best Workplaces for Millennials” list are more likely to offer flexible scheduling (76% vs. 63% for other companies), telecommuting options (82% vs. 74%), paid sabbaticals (15% vs. 11%) and paid volunteer days (46% vs. 39%.) More winning millennial-friendly companies offer perks like massages (65% vs. 26%) and fitness classes (70% vs. 24%) to their workforce. You would need to be living in a bubble to have missed the reports on Google’s employee perks or Virgin’s unlimited holiday policy.

The more you dig into the research behind the millennial generation, the more it seems that what they’re looking for is fairness, flexibility, and tolerance. They’ve grown up knowing insecurity. As a result, they’re inclined to work harder and they expect to be rewarded and recognised for their achievements. They are happy to look for work elsewhere if their workplace doesn’t provide a work-life balance that allows them to prioritise things that are important to them—which is not, necessarily, their work.

Millennials are a highly skilled, highly informed workforce with a lot of potential—so being an employer that stands out to them is important. If your organization can offer them:

• a focus on the shorter term (to attract and retain those pesky job-hoppers);
• compensation that is based on their own performance and assurance that the only bar to their success is their own ability;
• greater flexibility for an optimal work-life balance; and
• access to an abundance of growth and learning opportunities…

…you’ll send out a positive, inviting message. And you will harness the power and potential of this intelligent, productive generation as they become a larger and larger share of your workforce.

Here is the synthesis of the brilliance from amazing leaders just like you.

To rally your people to unleash the dream of Legendary Service and fuel repeat business, drive customer loyalty, and increase employee devotion, you must:

• Listen to people’s ideas for improvement. Really listen. Spotlight situations where you have acted on their ideas. Listen with curiosity, not necessarily to find solutions.
• Empower your team. Set clear agreements about their decision making authority. Ask them to describe circumstances where they would like the power to solve a customer’s issue without manager approval. Continually build their authority by increasing their scope of influence.
• Generate Meaning for the work they do. Let them see the impact of their efforts on the greater purpose of the organization and the world. People thrive when they know their work is meaningful.
• Energize others. To keep people energized, hold standing or walking meetings—20 percent more energy goes to the brain when you are standing! Get them to set a goal for taking better care of themselves. Help them remember to take regular breaks during the workday. You can also energize emotionally by asking them to share with you what they are proud of or how they achieved one of their great successes.
• Notice Your People. Look at them when you walk by. Ask them about the project they are working on. Pay attention to what they say and ask questions to engage. Start sending out birthday notes. In addition, help them to notice each other. People often tell me after the training experience how much they loved being with and learning about their peers. They say it enabled them to better serve their external customers—and they felt more inclined to find opportunities to serve at the highest level.
• Develop Their Capacity. Send people videos, white papers, books, links to TED talks, and articles you think will up their game. Educate them through the power of learning and have them teach each other what they put into action from that learning.
• Attend to their needs to either be taught or teach others. When they come to you with something to discuss, ask my favorite question: “Would you like me to share my ideas for how to do this, or would you like to share your ideas for how to do this?” If they want your ideas, they are asking for help. If they want to share their ideas, they are ready to unleash their talents.
• Recognize their efforts. Celebrate small and large successes. Start meetings with status reports where people share what they are proud of or how they made a difference due to their ingenuity. And give them opportunities to praise each other at meetings.

There is one last, vital element:

• You! You are the person everyone is watching at work and discussing at the dinner table. How are you taking care of you? Are you leaving your people with the same legacy of service that you want them to leave with external customers?

Use these nine ideas and strategies to create L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y (can you see the acronym?) internal and external service in your organization!

About the author:

Dr.Vicki Halsey is VP of Applied Learning at The Ken Blanchard Companies and coauthor of Legendary Service: The Key Is to Care. 

But that’s not true. In fact, that kind of misinterpretation of the research can lead to assumptions that actually perpetuate disengagement, such as the concept of organizations needing to use incentives, rewards, promotions, praising, perks, status building, pay raises, games, competition, or prizes to get anything accomplished.

Knowing the truth behind the nature of human motivation will not only help you reframe the research and rethink your basic beliefs, it will also allow you to embrace new practices that result in employee engagement and work passion. Let me explain.

People’s Basic Nature is to Thrive

In the 2014 movie Gravity, Sandra Bullock’s character goes into space because she has no reason to live on planet Earth. When circumstances spell certain death, she contemplates giving up. But then we witness her remarkable resilience and creativity as she fights to return to Earth.

As we learn watching the plot unfold in the movie, our true human nature is to thrive by making choices, finding meaning, and developing skills to cope with what the world throws at us. But is that a struggle we have to take on alone? I don’t think so.  In fact, I think leaders can greatly accelerate the process by developing strategies to help people experience what every human being needs to thrive: the three psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

For example:

• Define boundaries people need to know and then help them explore the choices they have within those boundaries.
• Demonstrate you care about people through proactive listening.
• Encourage people to develop new skills on a regular basis. Even mundane work is brought to life when people identify transferable skills they can develop such as learning how to focus, improving people skills, practicing different communication styles, etc.

Nobody Wants to be Bored and Disengaged

People want to make worthwhile contributions. People appreciate meaningful challenges. Two of the world’s leading researchers on motivation, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, wrote a beautiful explanation of human nature*:

“The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. That most people show considerable effort, agency, and commitment in their lives appears, in fact, to be more normative than exceptional, suggesting some very positive and persistent features of human nature. Yet, it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed… “

What does this mean for leaders? That it’s important to engage in one-on-one conversations to help people explore their inherent interests, align tasks with their deepest values, and connect their work to a sense of purpose.

Promote Human Thriving

If you believe the high number of disengaged employees reflects a natural state of being, you probably tend to depend on traditional means to fix disengagement—like the incentives, rewards, promotions, etc., I mentioned earlier.

But as you run out of resources and find your workforce is still disengaged, you may need to stop looking for different ways of motivating people and rethink your basic beliefs about human nature and disengagement. Only then will you spark the innovation to develop strategies that promote human thriving—and true engagement—in the workplace.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, co-creator of the company’s Optimal Motivation and Situational Self Leadership training programs, and the author of the bestselling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Engaging, and Energizing.

*Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being, https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_SDT.pdf

Hi Madeleine,

I work in the health profession and I’ve just accepted a position in management at a new facility. I don’t know the staff at all. All I know is that the senior leadership wants a change in the management at the facility.

What advice would you have on how to tackle a new job at a new place with a heavy agenda? What should I do first???

 New Healthcare Leader

Dear New Healthcare Leader,

Well, congratulations! Isn’t this exciting? It sounds like you have a great opportunity here! I can’t tell from your letter if the facility is new overall, or if it is just new to you. If it is actually new, this could be good because you won’t have the burden of history—it can be hard to make changes when it’s “always been done that way.”

If it is just new to you, you will need to spend some time asking questions and listening to understand the culture of the organization. Working with people to change things begins with understanding and meeting them where they are.

In terms of change, you will want to press senior leadership to understand what exactly the prior management did wrong, so you don’t repeat those mistakes. If they won’t tell you, it was probably something illegal, immoral, or both. I imagine this won’t be a problem for you.

What they must tell you though is what a good job looks like. This answers the question, “How will you know you are successful?” You say “heavy agenda” but you have to make sure you know what it really is. Ask them for crystal-clear goals, and if they don’t provide them, come up with your own and present them for approval. Some senior leaders simply don’t have the skills or the patience to articulate the vision or the goals of the organization, so if they won’t do it, do it for yourself.

Once you have your goals set, work with your people to get their goals super clear. Also, spend as much time as you can getting to know your people and assessing their strengths. Work with each of them to ensure that their goals leverage their skills, interests, and talents.

Once everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing, make sure they are getting the proper direction and support they need to do it. Make sure everyone, including you, has a short-term goal that they can achieve so that you all have the experience of early success together. Share stories of any and all wins. People will remember stories and it will feel good.

Finally, we have a lot of books here at The Ken Blanchard Companies, but the definitive one on this topic is not by Ken or any of us. It is The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins and I have worked through the book with many clients. Google it, read summaries, and be sure to look at the templates of what to do in your first 30, 60, and 90 days. I highly recommend it.

Best of luck in your new role!

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!

But now for various reasons, you or your direct reports may be struggling to stay afloat. Perhaps as a manager you have reached a stage where you feel discouraged or frustrated—or perhaps you see your team’s morale or performance floundering.

Marcus Buckingham says that people who are truly successful in their roles are doing work where they find the majority of their tasks to be enjoyable. A good balance for success is a job where about 70 percent of tasks are enjoyable and only about 30 percent are not as enjoyable. If much of your work consists of tasks you don’t enjoy doing, you may find yourself getting frustrated and beginning to dislike other things around you. Soon you may see decisions made by your company as inefficient and your team members annoying—and your first thought when you get humorous emails from your colleagues is Don’t they have anything better to do?

If you are already at this gloomy phase, here are three things you can do to help move past it.

1. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team members—and yourself.Whether you are constructing a new team or have been working with the same team for years, it’s time do a diagnosis of each person’s individual strengths and weaknesses. Based on your findings, determine if moving people into certain areas or roles would accomplish tasks or goals more efficiently. Evaluating your team members this way will allow you to place people in projects they like, have strengths in, and enjoy doing.In the same vein, do an honest evaluation of your own strengths and weaknesses as a manager. What are you good, and not so good, at? Do you take on too much because you would rather do things yourself to ensure they are done right?
2. Create a list of all your tasks and put them into two categories: Like/Can live with and Dislike. How do they match up? If you have a long list of things you dislike, you may be on the way to burnout. Look back at your team members’ strengths and decide which of your tasks you can delegate, and to whom. Your high performers will enjoy the challenge of being empowered and you will be able to focus on activities you find more enjoyable.
3. Think of ways to create new experiences to motivate yourself and your team members when doing those necessary but mundane tasks. Work with your team to come up with creative and fun ideas for games or contests associated with the work. Or go a different direction and create a dialogue with your people to bring understanding to the deeper meaning and purpose of these tasks in terms of the bigger picture. Taking the time to make work meaningful and fun can result in a new perspective for each person around the importance of their place in the organization.

Exercise Choice

Remember that being a great leader is a choice you get to make every day.  Skills such as diagnosing strengths and weaknesses in yourself and your team, assigning and delegating work that will play to everyone’s strengths, and being creative with daily responsibilities will not only help your team run more smoothly, it will also improve team productivity and morale while helping propel you toward long-term leadership success.

– Our basic human nature is to thrive. No one wants to be bored and disengaged. People want to contribute. People appreciate meaningful challenges.

– We all have three psychological needs—autonomy, relatedness, and competence—that contribute to our well-being.

– Leaders can’t motivate anyone. What they can do is shape a workplace where it is more likely that people will experience optimal motivation through proven best practices.

If you are serious about improving people’s productivity, sustainable performance, creativity, resilience, risk-taking, mental health, emotional well-being, and positive physical energy, I urge you to consider elevating your current leadership practices.  Here are three ways to get started.

1. Encourage Autonomy: Set SMARTer goals where the M stands for motivating and the reasons for achieving the goal are tied to developed values, a noble purpose, or inherent joy. Illuminate freedom within boundaries to shift focus from what can’t be done to what can be done. Present timelines as useful information rather than as a form of pressure.
2. Deepen Relatedness: Discuss individual values in light of the organization’s values so that workplace goals can be linked to reasons individuals find meaningful. Reframe metrics with individuals so that they can personally relate to outcomes with purpose and meaning. Provide pure feedback that leaves out your personal opinion, statements of your pride or pleasure, and rah-rah comments. Allow individuals to reflect on and determine how they feel about their own efforts, rather than becoming dependent on your approval—an unhealthy reason for their actions.
3. Build Competence: Facilitate Motivational Outlook Conversations to help ensure individuals are optimally motivated to follow through on solutions and action plans—otherwise, your coaching results are as castles built on sand. Concentrate on learning orientation by asking each day/week/month: What did you learn that will help you tomorrow? and What do you still need to learn to achieve your goals? Celebrate learning moments by going beyond fixing mistakes to taking advantage of them.

One More Thing: Leader, Heal Thyself

The new science of motivation builds a compelling case for updating traditional leadership practices. But before you can encourage autonomy, deepen relatedness, or build competence with those you lead, you need to reflect on your own motivation to lead.

Consider this story:

The hard-driving sales manager hoping to inspire his new sales rep took the young man to the top of a hill overlooking a posh part of the city. “Look at that place,” said the manager, pointing to a magnificent property. “I bet the house is 6000 square feet, plus the horse stable and tennis court.” He pointed to another home, “Can you imagine the party you could throw around that pool?” Then, the manager put his arm around the wide-eyed young rep’s shoulders and told him, “Son, if you keep working as hard as you’re working, some day all this could be mine!”

If your people sense—or even wrongly interpret—that your motivation to lead is self-serving, it undermines their psychological need for relatedness. Their positive energy is diminished as you chip away at their autonomy by pushing them to make their numbers or by pressuring them to be number one. They feel manipulated by your suggestions when your intention was to build their competence. Worse, feelings of alienation and pressure can fuel negative energy, leading some to sabotage the system by falsifying reports, making bad deals, or engaging in unethical behavior. They justify their own self-serving actions by comparing them to what they perceive as your self-serving motives.

To take advantage of the compelling new leadership practices, ignite your own motivation to lead through meaningful values and a noble purpose. When it comes to being an inspiring and effective leader, the reasons for your motivation matter.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, co-creator of the company’s Optimal Motivation and Situational Self Leadership training programs, and the author of the bestselling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Engaging, and Energizing.

Editor’s Note: Are you attending this year’s ATD International Conference & Exposition in Denver?  Don’t miss Susan Fowler’s presentation on Sunday, May 22, at 1:30 pm.  You can learn more about all the Blanchard activities at this year’s event by visiting http://www.kenblanchard.com/events/atd-2016

Dear Madeleine,

I was recently hired as regional manager of a large retail company. I come with lots of experience and a successful track record. In fact, my new company actually approached me and made me such a good offer, I couldn’t refuse. 

Unfortunately, I expected to be able to make some much needed changes and to have much more autonomy than I do. Now I feel like I’m stuck here with nowhere to turn.

People are resistant to change, I’m being micromanaged, and I’ve been given one of the toughest regions to turn around.  I’m not getting the support I expected at all. In fact, I can’t even get time on my boss’s calendar. He just says, “We hired you to do a job. Just do it.”

I feel like I’m drowning.  What should I do? 

—Drowning

Dear Drowning,

It sounds like the first order of business here is to recover from how terrible it feels to have expected one thing and ended up with something altogether—well—kind of awful.  It feels terrible because your brain goes a little haywire when expectations go unmet. You are in a constant state of fight-or-flight caused by a surplus of stress hormones.   So you’ll need to immediately calm down and take stock of your current reality without comparing it to what you expected.

If you really can’t let go, you can do a little ceremony to mourn your dream of what your new job would be.  It might sound a little nutty, but it can really help.  Write down your expectations on a piece of paper and then burn them in a fireplace, or cut them into little pieces and release them into the ocean, or bury them in the sand.  Get creative.  Give yourself a moment, have a cry if you need to, and let it go.  Then you will be ready to face your new reality and make the best of it.

To take stock, make a mind map of everything you feel needs to be changed and find the tiny pockets where you have some control.  Decide what you can actually do and start doing it.  Have one on ones with each of your people, listen to them carefully, and get a sense of their strengths.  Work in whatever change you can with one small change and one person at a time.  Change takes constant repetition and support. I am always surprised by how much constant effort it requires.  Buckle down and do one thing at time.

I am a little confused that you say you can’t get time with your boss, but you also say you are being micromanaged.  Is it that your boss expects you to get different results using the same methods that got the results currently being produced?  If that is the case, you’ll have to choose one big change to take a stand for, write it up carefully with a special focus on the outcomes you expect to produce, and basically tell your boss you are going to try it.  That is doing your job. The worst thing that can happen is that he says no.

You aren’t actually drowning; it just feels that way.  The good news is that nobody dies in retail.  Let go of what you expected, get crystal clear about your current situation, and decide what you can do and what you are going to do. Look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself of your experience and your track record.  Choose to step up and win in this situation.   Swim.

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!

Is your organization experiencing heart trouble?  This can be not only frustrating, but also damaging to performance in today’s fast paced business environment that requires a lean and agile approach.

Blanchard explains, “Managers working in the heart of the house play a couple of different roles. First, senior leaders look to middle managers to put goals and action plans in place to achieve strategic results.  But that is just one side of the coin.  Middle managers are also responsible for the environment in which the work is accomplished. So the middle manager’s job is twofold: to get things done and also to manage people’s emotional relationships to their work, their company, and their coworkers. Middle managers set the tone for the workplace.”

Blanchard says that to be successful, middle managers must be skilled in communicating what is expected and how it is to be achieved.  That means connecting the dots from the boardroom to the frontlines. If middle management is ineffective, the staff both above and below this level suffers.

This can be a challenge if managers don’t get the training and support they need.

“If managers are not getting the support they need from the organization to grow and to meet challenges, they can feel stuck in the middle. When this happens, mid-level managers can become disengaged and fall back into transacting business with their people in a way that causes the people to not care as much, to not understand as much about the importance of their work, and to not be as connected to the mission and vision of the company as they could be.”

The good news, according to Blanchard, is that there are approaches organizations can use to help mid-level managers get things done and build commitment in a way that creates positive regard and advocacy from employees.

Blanchard points to a couple of programs in The Ken Blanchard Companies portfolio as examples.

“It’s important to take a foundational approach when helping managers develop skills. The goal is to provide a framework managers can use to guide performance. Two of our training programs can help: Situational Leadership® II, which is our flagship product and the most widely taught leadership framework in the world; and our new First-time Manager program, which is designed specifically for people stepping into leadership for the first time. Both programs teach managers important skills including how to effectively set goals, how to provide day-to-day coaching and support, how to engage in a partnership with direct reports, and how to have effective discussions around performance.”

On the emotional side of the equation, Blanchard refers to the Building Trust and Optimal Motivation programs as examples of content designed to help managers create a safe and engaged environment where people thrive.

“It’s about having useful conversations.  Leadership is about getting things done with and through people. Performance and results are one side of the coin and environment and commitment are the other side. You can’t do one without the other.”

You can read more of Blanchard’s thinking on taking care of your middle managers in the May issue of Ignite.  Also, check out a complimentary webinar he is conducting on June 1, Designing a Leadership Curriculum for the Heart of Your Organization.  It’s free—courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

I’m relatively new to a managerial position; I’ve been in my role for around two years. I was promoted from the ranks and am now leading a team that I was a member of when I first came to the company. This has created some interesting challenges—some I’ve overcome, others remain a work in progress.

My latest battle is the battle of the breaks. The company provides two paid break periods, 15 minutes each, in the morning and afternoon for all team members. At least half of the people on my team regularly—I mean twice a day, every day—help themselves to an extra 10 minutes, extending their breaks to 25 minutes each.

These breaks are a perk that is not mandated by any award or law. I feel annoyed that people abuse this privilege with such audacity. I have tried every tactic I can think of to keep my team on track with their breaks—carrots, sticks; you name it, I’ve tried it. They mend their ways for a few days but soon fall into bad habits again.

I’m at my wits’ end – how do I get them to stop chatting and get back to work? Please help.

At the Breaking Point

Dear At the Breaking Point,

I can appreciate how truly frustrating this situation is. It is really, really hard to go from being a peer to being a supervisor, as anyone who has done it will tell you.

I am pretty sure you were the one chosen to be manager because you were the most diligent and well behaved. Of course, these are the exact traits that make it easy for your former peers to torture you. Let’s stop making it so easy for them.

First, some questions. What exactly is the result of them taking these longer break times? What is not getting done? Are quotas suffering? Are clients being ignored? Are you being sanctioned by your boss? Other than you being driven insane by the disrespect, what is the problem?

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you have become the entertainment. Because you are hyper-focused on the misbehavior of your people and on your own annoyance, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they were doing it on purpose to see what kind of a rise they can get out of you. Maybe they are even taking bets and keeping score on who can push the envelope the furthest.

I am going to take your word that you have tried everything, because that means you’ll be ready to try the radical tactic I am going to propose.

Stop the cycle of you being the cross nanny who catches the children doing something wrong. Just stop. Stop paying attention to the breaks. Look away.

Instead, pay attention to the work that needs to get done. Pay attention to how people are stepping up and adding value. As Ken Blanchard so eloquently says, focus on “catching people doing things right.” Now, I can feel your blood pressure rising at the mere thought of this. As a card carrying control enthusiast myself I can seriously relate. But the more you try to control people, the more they will assert their God-given right to resist you.

I guarantee that once you take your attention off of the break shenanigans, the energy will change. Once that shift in dynamic has happened, you can gather a couple of folks you respect and ask them for feedback on the break times and what it would take for people to respect the guidelines. Once you figure that out, ask them to help solve whatever the real problem is.   If it is really just you being annoyed, then the problem has been solved.

If you treat people like ten-year-olds, they will behave like ten-year-olds. Instead, treat them like the adults they are and harness their wisdom. You clearly care deeply about the organization and about fairness. I hope they know how lucky they are to have you.

It is time to step up from being a clock-watching supervisor to being a leader. You will get much better performance from your people and your health will improve.

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 staff manager at an academic institution. Of my eleven direct reports, seven have been with the University for more than thirty years and the rest have also been here for a long time.

They are smart and capable and very good at what they do, as they should be—they have been doing essentially the same job for most of their working lives. And that is the problem. I can get my people to do exactly their jobs and nothing more.

I read about work passion and engagement and achieving great things by harnessing discretionary energy, but this feels impossible with the culture in my department. I would bet that most of my people could get their jobs done in twenty hours a week and use the rest of the time for special projects that would enhance the department and benefit the organization. But anytime I throw out ideas for projects and ask for volunteers, I get blank stares and silence.

When I try to force the issue, I get constant pushback: “the busy season is just starting,” or “so and so is out on maternity leave and covering for her is overwhelming me.” You know the drill. It is so frustrating. How do I get these people inspired and energized?

Discouraged

Dear Discouraged,

You are not going to like what I have to say about this. (I don’t even like it.) But I know from research and vast experience that it is true. Ready? Here goes: any institution that has not had to keep up with constant change can become a safe harbor for people who are set in their ways and happy to stay in their comfort zones. What you are actually talking about it is total culture change. You can never underestimate the power of culture to kill any plans you might have to change things. The culture you are fighting has been shaped over years and it does not welcome anything new including variations that might require a little extra effort. Revolution is not welcome here. You might be able to shift the culture to get people to step up—but I warn you that you will need both some serious grit and the following:

1. A fundamental shift in expectations for work production that is passed down from the highest possible leadership. If your department hasn’t been targeted for budget cuts, it is only a matter of time before it is. You can ask your boss what the future holds and get senior leader support for adding tasks or even whole key responsibility areas to individual workloads.
2. A plan to match people with tasks and projects that are interesting to them. You will need to have conversations with each person and ask big, open-ended questions that will get them thinking about what would make something new and different feel exciting instead of burdensome, or worse: scary. Examples of such questions:
   • “What would make you feel like jumping out of bed in the morning?”
   • “What made you interested in working in this field in the first place?”
   • “What do you read about/learn about in your spare time?”
   • “If you could wave a magic wand and do anything you want for work, what would it be?

Using this information to shape the right project for the right person will require some creativity but it should help your people feel some initiative and ownership for any new tasks.

3. An extremely compelling reason for people to change. In this way, motivation is less of a mystery and you can tap into what really motivates each individual person on your team. Each person will have core needs that get met at work—and it will be critical to understand what those are so that any change won’t affect them. In addition, the science of motivation tells us that people are most impacted by changes in their autonomy, relatedness, and competence, so focusing on how change will affect people in those areas will be key. Click here for more information on the art and science of motivation.

Finally, you might want to consider your own motivation—it sounds like your department is getting along just fine. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Perhaps your people are just dandy but you crave the excitement of a fast-paced, super challenging environment? It might be easier to move yourself to a new location than try to change the one you are in.

I warned you that you weren’t going to like it. I’m really sorry. I’m not saying you can’t do it—I’m just saying it will be the fight of your life and you’d better really, really want it.

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,

A long-time employee I really liked and respected recently left for another opportunity. I tried to keep her but couldn’t offer her enough money, so I gave her an excellent reference. The whole team was sad, and off she went with a fond farewell.

Surprisingly, while training her replacement, I was stunned to find an avalanche of work never done, errors concealed, and files in a state of chaos. I always knew she was a little slapdash, but I had no idea about the extent of her disorganization and deceptions.

I am ashamed and embarrassed in front of my employees that I allowed this to happen on my watch. I feel I should have known this was happening—perhaps I could have worked with her to fix the problems. Or perhaps I would have fired her years ago. Somehow she successfully kept me in the dark. I am tempted to call her new employer and rat her out for the phony she is—that’s how mad I am. How can I fix this? —Disappointed and Mad

Dear Disappointed and Mad,

There is really nothing quite like that sudden surprise of the rug being yanked out from under you, is there? One minute you are living in one reality and the next, everything is shifted. There is actually a neurological response when you expect one thing and you get a different, negative outcome. Neurochemicals associated with the flight-or-flight response are released—cortisol and adrenaline—and it feels like a car alarm going off in your brain.

So, let’s take a big step back, give the car alarm a chance to stop blaring in your head, and make a plan.

First, get a handle on your feelings. Shame, regret, and humiliation feel poisonous. Once you get a negative thought looping in your brain, it can be really hard to interrupt the pattern. There are a couple of excellent techniques that have been shown through experiments in social neuroscience to be very effective at loosening the grip of negative emotions.

• Labeling. It’s a misconception that talking about a difficult experience will only rub salt in the wound. This is only true if you ruminate—revisit the events with no tools to transform them for yourself. One way to make over the experience is to articulate how events made you feel and label them. You can do this with a therapist, a sympathetic HR professional, or a friend who is a good listener. You have already started to do it by writing your letter—a good first step. The more detailed you can get and the more specifically you can label how you feel, the less of a sting you will feel over time. You will gain some dominion over your experience instead of feeling like it has power over you. You will turn off the car alarm.
• Distancing techniques. Another tool to diminish the emotional turmoil you are dealing with is to tell yourself—in the third person—the story of the events that happened. Tell it as if it happened to someone else. For example, you might start the story, “I once knew this person who was betrayed by a trusted employee. Here’s what happened. . .” It may sound hokey, but it really works to help you get some perspective.
• Re-appraisal or re-framing. Right now you are taking all the responsibility for this debacle, which is actually kind of great. Many people would place all of the blame on the employee. So in this case, I would encourage you to take your newfound labels and your little bit of distance and use them to look at your situation and see how you might reframe the way you are interpreting events. You might consider how the environment in your workplace culture contributed to the situation. Or what about the part the employee played in the situation—she must have been charming, and a bit of a con. Con women are successful because they are masterful at diverting attention. You are not the first person to be hoodwinked!

These techniques, by the way, are useful for dealing with all kinds of deeply felt negative emotions that are getting in your way.

Once you have some equanimity about what happened, you can figure out what there is to learn from your mistake. I am betting this will never happen to you again. From a management standpoint, you will want to look at the extent to which you have absolute certainty that every single one of your people has the competence and commitment to do all of their tasks. Ken Blanchard always says that when people are starting on new tasks or goals, the manager has to start out giving lots of clear direction and not let up on the attention until there is ample evidence that the employee can be left on their own. It may be worth looking to see where this might be happening elsewhere, not to mention reviewing your performance management practices.

You are going to have to forgive your former employee and yourself. Hyrum Smith, known primarily as a time management guru and inventor for The Franklin Planner, has a wonderful point of view on forgiveness. He says that while most people say you have to forgive and forget, he says you actually have to forgive and remember, and then decide it doesn’t matter anymore. I have found this concept to be extremely useful. Remember, first learn from it. Then, when you are ready, decide it is no longer important.

Finally, under no circumstances should you contact the new employer. You would be breaking way too many HR laws and it’s just not worth it. Revenge is so tempting, but succumbing to it wouldn’t help you grow—it would only add to the list of things you feel ashamed of. The best revenge is to get smarter and stronger.

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!

Whenever I conduct trust workshops with clients and discuss the role that rewards and recognition play in building trust, I will ask participants to raise their hands if they feel like they receive too much praise or recognition on the job. No one has ever raised a hand.

So on this day of giving thanks, take a few minutes to review this list and commit to using one of these methods to tell your employees “thank you.” I’ve used many of these strategies myself and can attest to their effectiveness.

1. Let them leave work early – This may not be feasible in all work environments, but if you’re able to do it, a surprise treat of allowing people to leave early does wonders for team morale and well-being. I use this technique occasionally with my team, usually when they’ve had the pedal to the metal for a long period of time, or if we have a holiday weekend coming up. Allowing folks to get a head start on the weekend or a few hours of unexpected free time shows you recognize and appreciate their hard work and that you understand there’s more to life than just work.

2. Leave a “thank you” voice mail message – Don’t tell my I.T. department, but I’ve got voice mails saved from over ten years ago that were sent to me by colleagues who took the time to leave me a special message of praise. The spoken word can have a tremendous impact on individuals, and receiving a heartfelt message from you could positively impact your employees in ways you can’t imagine.

3. Host a potluck lunch – You don’t have to take the team to a fancy restaurant or have a gourmet meal catered in the office (which is great if you can afford it!), you just need to put a little bit of your managerial skills to practice and organize a potluck lunch. Sharing a meal together allows people to bond and relax in a casual setting and it provides an excellent opportunity for you to say a few words of thanks to the team and let them know you appreciate them.

4. Give a small token of appreciation – Giving an employee a small memento provides a lasting symbol of your appreciation, and although it may cost you a few bucks, it’s well worth the investment. I’m talking about simple things like giving nice roller-ball ink pens with a note that says “You’ve got the write stuff,” or Life Savers candies with a little note saying “You’re a hole lot of fun,” or other cheesy, somewhat corny things like that (believe me, people love it!). I’ve done this with my team and I’ve had people tell me years later how much that meant to them at the time.

5. Have your boss recognize an employee – Get your boss to send an email, make a phone call, or best-case scenario, drop by in-person to tell one of your employees “thank you” for his/her work. Getting an attaboy from your boss’ boss is always a big treat. It shows your employee that you recognize his/her efforts and you’re making sure your boss knows about it too.

6. Hold an impromptu 10 minute stand up meeting – This could be no or low-cost depending on what you do, but I’ve called random 10 minute meetings in the afternoon and handed out popsicles or some other treat and taken the opportunity to tell team members “thank you” for their hard work. The surprise meeting, combined with a special treat, throws people out of their same ol’, same ol’ routine and keeps the boss/employee relationship fresh and energetic.

7. Reach out and touch someone – Yes, I’m plagiarizing the old Bell Telephone advertising jingle, but the concept is right on. Human touch holds incredible powers to communicate thankfulness and appreciation. In a team meeting one time, my manager took the time to physically walk around the table, pause behind each team member, place her hands on his/her shoulders, and say a few words about why she was thankful for that person. Nothing creepy or inappropriate, just pure love and respect. Unfortunately, most leaders shy away from appropriate physical contact in the workplace, fearful of harassment complaints or lawsuits. Whether it’s a handshake, high-five, or fist bump, find appropriate ways to communicate your thanks via personal touch.

8. Say “thank you” – This seems like a no-brainer given the topic, but you would be amazed at how many people tell me their boss doesn’t take the time to express thanks. Saying thank you is not only the polite and respectful thing to do, it signals to your people that they matter, they’re important, valuable, and most of all, you care.

9. Send a thank you note to an employee’s family – A friend of mine told me that he occasionally sends a thank you note to the spouse/significant other/family of an employee. He’ll say something to the effect of “Thank you for sharing your husband/wife/dad/mother with us and supporting the work he/she does. He/she a valuable contributor to our team and we appreciate him/her.” Wow…what a powerful way to communicate thankfulness!

10. Give a handwritten note of thanks – Some things never go out of style and handwritten thank you notes are one of them. Emails are fine, voice mails better (even made this list!), but taking the time to send a thoughtful, handwritten note says “thank you” like no other way. Sending handwritten letters or notes is a lost art in today’s electronic culture. When I want to communicate with a personal touch, I go old school with a handwritten note. It takes time, effort, and thought which is what makes it special. Your employees will hold on to those notes for a lifetime.

What other ways to say “thank you” would you add to this list? Please a share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a creative director at an advertising agency, and I have been managing teams of people forever. I was the darling of the advertising world when I started, and developed a reputation for hatching brilliant ideas—in fact, you would recognize some of my work. It is a fast paced business with crazy hours. I just barely manage to juggle a household, two elementary school-aged kids, and a husband who works equally nutty hours. This job, which always has been kind of nuts, is now just a 24/7 slog.

I am a good manager. My people love working for me and I attract the best talent to my projects. My problem isn’t with managing people. My problem is that I feel as if I have lost my creativity. Kids in this business are innovative and quirky and fun, and I just don’t have any good ideas any more. I am worried that I am going to be found out, and that stress is really taking a toll. —Am I washed up?

Dear Washed Up,

No. But where you are right now sure is unpleasant, and for that I am truly sorry. To get to be a creative director at an agency you must have started out with amazing ideas and kept it going for a long time. So, fundamentally, you are a clever and imaginative person. But here is the thing. Creativity is a little like a water well, and it isn’t so much that yours has run dry; it is more that you need to prime the pump. Your life sounds exhausting and I am pretty sure what you are experiencing are classic symptoms of burnout. This is tough but reversible.

I have a few ideas. Some may make you roll your eyes because they are obvious, but others might be new to you.

1. Remember. Look to your past life and former self for clues. What did you used to do regularly when you were at your most creative? I guarantee you will think of some activities you did on a regular basis that you no longer do, whether it’s because you simply don’t have time or because something has changed. For example, when asked this question one client realized that she did her best thinking in the bathtub and had recently moved into a new home with a cruddy tub. She re-prioritized the planned renovations and got to work on the bathroom first!
2. Put yourself first. Howard Gardner, one of the foremost researchers on creativity, examined creativity through the lives of some of the great creative geniuses like Stravinsky, Einstein, and Picasso. He found one of the hallmarks of these people to be that they were very good at taking care of themselves so they could do their work. Not only that, they were particularly good at getting other people to take care of them so that they were freed up to think and create. What this would mean for someone like you would be so radical that you might use the label Extreme Self Care. What would this actually look like? Delegating mundane tasks someone else can do, for starters. If you can’t afford help at home, make your kids empty the dishwasher while you meditate for six minutes. Instead of doing laundry, drop it at the Fluff and Fold. Ask yourself, of all the things that suck the life out you at work, what might some of your direct reports be able to do? Your problem may very well be with managing in that you are not giving away enough tedious stuff and keeping some fun work for yourself. I have found that many people will put up with all kinds of overwhelm until they realize that the cost is too high. Sometimes it is a big health scare. Sometimes it is the death of their creativity.
3. Walk. Most people go to the gym so that they can stay in their skinny jeans. But a pile of evidence now shows that the part of you that really needs exercise is your brain. A study from Stanford shows that walking, even for short periods, increases idea generation and problem solving capability. So get up out of your chair and walk. Have walking meetings. Walk around the block for 15 minutes. Just walk.
4. Write morning pages. These next two ideas come directly from Julia Cameron, who wrote a book called The Artist’s Way that swept New York City, and the world, by storm in the early 1990s. “Morning pages” is a practice that involves grabbing a notebook upon first waking and writing 3 full pages of stream of consciousness. That’s it. No censoring, just free flow writing, for 3 pages. It doesn’t have to take more than 15 minutes. I can’t tell how or why it works, but I have used it myself in times of crisis and many clients have used this practice to get through rough spots in their lives, and magical things happen.
5. The Artist’s Date: Also from Julia Cameron, is the concept of the Artist’s Date. She recommends that you take two hours every week to do an activity that involves experiencing, sensing, and observing, with no real agenda other than to simply be in the moment. This can mean a walk in the park, a visit to a museum, listening to music. (I just heard you laugh out loud at the idea of taking two hours a week. To be fair, as a working Mom I feel pretty pleased if I do this two or three times a year, but even that makes a difference.) For more detail on Cameron’s work: http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/

Finally, Breathe. Is that annoying? It probably is, but too bad. I’ll bet on a regular basis your shoulders are up around your ears and your abdomen is tight—and not in a good way—with anxiety. Take a deep breath in, and release your shoulders on the exhale. Take another breath in and think about what you are trying accomplish, and with the release let go of the judgment you have about your own creativity. The third breath will bring the idea, the word, or the solution. The spirit comes in on the breath. Always. You haven’t lost your creativity forever, I promise. But you will have to fight hard to get it back.

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!

This issue presents a tremendous challenge for organizational leaders. Even worse than dealing with the effects of people who leave your organization (studies show replacing employees can be 1.5 to 3 times their annual salary), you have to manage these disengaged workers who have decided to “quit and stay.” You’re still paying them to under-perform and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of your organization!

In conducting over 19,000 exit interviews of employees who voluntarily left their jobs, Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, identified four basic needs that weren’t being met that started people on the path to disengagement and ultimately quitting a job.

The Need for Trust — The number one priority for any leader is to build trust with his/her team members. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, and in the workplace it’s a non-negotiable if leaders desire to tap into the full effort and passion of their employees. Employees won’t give you their best if they don’t believe you have their best interests in mind. They will shy away from taking risks or making themselves vulnerable if they don’t feel safe and trusted. They expect company leadership to deliver on their promises, to be honest and open in communication, to invest in them, and to treat them fairly. The ABCD Trust Model is a helpful tool for leaders to understand what it means to be trustworthy and build trust with others.

The Need to Have Hope — I’ve had the privilege of meeting football legend Rosey Grier, a member of the “Fearsome Foursome” when he played with the Los Angeles Rams, and now a Christian minister and inspirational speaker. He said something I’ve never forgotten. When speaking about his work with inner city youth in Los Angeles, Rosey said “Leaders aren’t dealers of dope, they are dealers of hope!” So true…leaders are dealers of hope. We need to instill a sense of hope in the people we lead. Our people need to believe they will be able to grow, develop their skills, and have the opportunity for advancement or career progress. It’s our job as leaders to foster that hope and support our employees in their growth.

The Need to Feel a Sense of Worth — Despite its struggles and challenges, work is an intrinsically rewarding experience for people. We derive a tremendous amount of self-worth from our work, whether it’s something we’re employed to do or whether we volunteer our time and effort. Employees have a need to feel confident that if they work hard, do their best, and demonstrate commitment and make meaningful contributions, they will be recognized and rewarded appropriately.

The Need to Feel Competent — Employees need to be matched in jobs where their talents align with the challenges of the work. If the work is too simple, then it’s easy for people to lose interest and become disengaged. If the employee is in over his/her head and the work is too challenging, it can lead to discouragement and frustration. Leaders are on a constant quest to find ways to place employees in that sweet spot where they are challenged at just the right level. But it’s not all on the shoulders of leaders to do this work. Employees need to take responsibility for their own development and learn how to manage their motivational outlooks.

Ignore these four needs at your own peril! Poor leadership results in tremendously high costs to organizations, as my colleague, David Witt, discussed in a webinar yesterday. I encourage you to view and listen to the recording. He shares a wealth of research and information that illustrates the importance of effective leadership. You’ll be exposed to several resources, including additional research from Leigh Branham, that will help you improve your own leadership practices.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

A leader’s responsibility is to achieve desired results through people.  It works best with the collective efforts of the team and with everyone rowing in the same direction.

But many times managers and their people are not aligned on goals.  For example, we conducted a survey in a leadership class, asking leaders “How well does your organization perform alignment conversations?”  Out of 450 responses, 59 percent selected “Needs improvement” and 20 percent selected “What alignment conversations?”  For these leaders, there was a lot of rowing upstream.

When you have a rowing upstream moment as a leader, what can you do? There are many possibilities. Unfortunately, none of them involves throwing a mild tantrum—even though that would probably feel good in the short term!

No, the proper response is to take a deep breath (trust me, it helps) and examine your alignment behavior.  Here are three specific areas to focus on:

• Review the goals you have set with each of your direct reports. Are these goals aligned with the bigger goals of your group?  Are they prioritized? What needs to be adjusted?
• Meet with your direct reports to discuss and reset where needed. It could be as simple as a thirty minute check-in with the focus on aligning direct reports’ daily priorities with the priorities of the department.  I have experienced that many people tend to focus on unimportant, simple tasks vs. important, more complex tasks.  What is needed to connect to department priorities?  What direction and support is needed to get the important tasks completed?
• Recognize and praise progress. When guiding a direct report, leaders can be quick to point out what needs to change—but finding and pointing out what is positive and working builds confidence and commitment. Praise says, “I’m noticing the good work you’re doing and it’s important to our operation.”

A Common Direction

Checking for alignment and resetting goals where necessary may seem like common sense, but experience tells us it is not common practice. Take a minute to check in with your team and get everyone in the boat. Now everyone will be rowing in unison instead of watching from the banks.

And when other people see your team glide by, if you listen closely, chances are you’ll hear them saying, “Wow, you’re getting things done!  You’re making changes around here!  Thank you for leading!”

About the Author

Joni Wickline is Vice President, Professional Services with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Wickline’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

People go through predictable stages of concern during any organizational change initiative.*

Early on, people have both information concerns and personal concerns—they need to know what the change is, why it’s happening, and how it will affect them. Don’t make the mistake of avoiding people’s personal concerns until you can share all the detailed information about the change. People sense when change is coming: word leaks out, rumors and half-truths are spread, and people make up their own stories in absence of full knowledge. If people smell the smoke of change, they are already fearing the fire. If leaders do not effectively address these concerns early in a change process, the change may likely fail or succeed painfully. Neither of those options is optimal.

To address personal concerns, ask three questions: What choices do you have? What meaning can you make from all this? and What can you learn? When you facilitate people’s answers to these questions, you help them satisfy three basic psychological needs and activate their optimal motivation—despite experiencing disruptive change in their workplace.

Question #1: “What choices do you have?” encourages Autonomy, the first of the three psychological needs.

People forget they have choices when they are faced with a change made without their input or consent. But people always have choices. They can choose to come to work or not; to give their all or bide their time working in fear and expecting the worst; to learn, grow, and contribute or hold back out of resentment and retaliation.

Leaders with the skill of facilitating a motivational outlook conversation are able to guide their employees’ understanding of their situation and potentially shift their perspective. As a leader,  you can help your people connect the choices they have to values they hold dear. Change initiatives and a lack of security are less likely to be seen as threatening when people experience a  sense of autonomy.

Question #2: “What meaning can you make from all of this?” deepens Relatedness, the second psychological need.

People need to attribute meaning to the madness around them. Consider taking a proactive approach to helping people identify opportunities to serve others, deepen relationships, and make a contribution for the greater good.

Don’t underplay your role in connecting what people do every day to a higher purpose. Instead of simply driving for results, challenge people to examine higher quality reasons for why results are important. A leader who does this is more likely to generate results that were previously lacking—and that probably prompted the change in the first place.

Question #3: “What can you learn?” promotes Competence, the third psychological need.

It is in our human nature to learn and grow every day. However, without a conscious effort, adults don’t tend to notice what they are learning—or even that they are learning at all. Asking people what they stand to learn from a change prompts their awareness of their innate desire for continued growth—and how important it is to their sense of well-being. As a leader, you can help rekindle people’s innate enthusiasm for learning.

Take Advantage of Motivation Science During Times of Change

Remember, your job is not to shield people from what’s happening, to prevent their pain, or to obfuscate the truth in hopes of protecting them. Your role is to create a workplace where, despite the chaos or conditions, people are more likely to satisfy their psychological needs and experience optimal motivation.

By paying special attention to personal concerns at the beginning of a change process, you can help people grow and develop in ways that are beneficial to them and the organization before, during, and after the change. The greatest gift you may ever give—or personally experience as a leader—is to help people thrive in the midst of change, uncertainty, and ambiguity.

* Blanchard consultants Pat Zigarmi and Judd Hoekstra have written extensively on the predictable stages of concern people go through when asked to change.  You can learn more in their co-authored chapter of the best-selling book Leading At A Higher Level or via their Leading People through Change model and process.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies and author of the best-selling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work… And What Does.  She is also the co-author of Blanchard’s Optimal Motivation training solution which teaches leaders how to create a workplace where employees thrive.  You can learn more about Susan Fowler and Optimal Motivation at The Ken Blanchard Companies website.

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a fairly large team of supervisors. The days are long and hectic but I have a good flow going with the group. 

Recently, though, it has become clear that one of my best people—the person I am grooming to take my job, as I am up for a promotion—is looking for another job.  I know this because her coworkers and one of her direct reports have overheard her talking on the phone, and she has been taking long breaks in the middle of the day with no explanation.

I guess I wouldn’t mind so much, but she is not discussing it with me. I always thought we had an open relationship—in fact, we have often talked about her career and how I can help her to develop.  I also wish she were being more discreet.  I feel kind of mad about the whole thing and don’t know how to proceed.  Thoughts?     —Kind of Mad

Dear Kind of Mad,

I don’t blame you for being mad. It sounds as though you’ve gone the extra mile for this employee and she’s now going behind your back—and it doesn’t feel good.  But this isn’t really about you. Your best bet is to continue being as open as you always have been.

Set up a meeting and tell your employee what you have heard and what you are thinking and feeling.  She must have her reasons for looking for another job, and it is up to you to create a safe environment so she can help you understand what they are.  The best way to do this is to ask an open ended question and then stay quiet long enough for her to answer it.  Examples of questions that might feel right:

“What is going on that makes you want to leave?”

“What is missing for you in your current job?”

“Is there something I should know that I have been missing?”

Stay quiet for as long as it takes – the less you talk, the more your employee will talk. Don’t argue or judge, simply seek to understand. You may find out she is really upset and frustrated with something in her current situation, or you may find that her job search has nothing to do with that.  Either way, the only way to find out is to ask—and, again, don’t judge.

It is an accepted wisdom that many employees leave jobs because no one asked them to stay. You can certainly do that if it makes sense.  If it doesn’t—and it is, in fact, time for her to go—you can certainly offer to provide an excellent reference.  And then you can ask her to be more discreet.

Consider this a good wakeup call. You can leverage it by reviewing who your best folks are and crafting a plan to retain them.  One good tool is the stay interview—a regular conversation you have with each of your high performers to assess their engagement and job satisfaction and what you might be able to do to make staying with the job continually attractive to them.  To be ultra-prepared, it might serve you to understand more about motivation. Susan Fowler has literally written the book on the topic, and here is an excellent white paper to get you started.

So don’t get mad, get smarter about retention!  Good luck.

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 at my wits’ end. I worked hard in college and graduate school and have what some people might call a “Type A” personality. I take on a lot, I work really hard and I complete my work by the agreed-upon deadline.

For the past few years I have been working for a huge organization with a great reputation—but I realized quickly it has a culture of non-accountability.

This didn’t bother me much until recently, when I was promoted to be a department head. I have inherited several folks who clearly have been getting away with less than standard performance for some time. I really do not have the option to clean house—I am going to have to make do. Help!  —Making Do

Dear Making Do,

This is definitely a tough one, but there is an opportunity here. If you play your cards right, you could earn yourself a reputation as a leader who can turn a department around.

The first thing to remember is this: horrified though you may be to have inherited a whole staff of people you didn’t choose, neither did your new staff choose you. Imagine what it must be like for them to have yet another new boss, someone they know nothing about, who is coming in to crack the whip. They will absolutely sense your disapproval and will respond by proving you justified in your negative assessment. No one wants to be judged a slacker—and even if you try to cover it up by being nice, people will think you believe you’re better than they are.

So first things first. Take a big deep breath and keep an open mind. Put aside the hearsay about this group’s previous performance and make it your business to get to know these people and find their best so you can leverage it. The most important thing you can do is learn each person’s strengths and interests and then figure out how you can make the best of the situation you are all in.

To understand your people and get them moving forward in a positive way, start by having everyone in the department take the VIA strengths assessment. It is free and easy to complete. Once everyone—including you—has completed the survey, ask each person to craft a self-introduction with personal stories that show up each of their top strengths. You can share one or two at each staff meeting. You might also be interested in having each person complete the StrengthsFinder 2.0 survey—but this one has a charge, so you would need to have the budget for it. Focus on what is best in each person and also what is already working well, and then you can tackle the other stuff.

The next step is for you to create an environment in which your people will get to know you, be inspired by you, and sign up to follow you. The best tool to do this is the Leadership Point of View (LPoV). You can find complete instructions on how to create your LPoV here. An LPoV is essentially a statement of your beliefs and values around leading others. It helps to paint the picture of the future where there is consistency between your values, your words, and your actions. It is ultimately a course on you that teaches people what you expect from yourself and from them. To create your LPoV, think about these things:

• What drives you as a leader?
• Who are the key people who have influenced you? They can be real people, like your Uncle Pat who was the first in the family to go to college, or they can be fictional. For example, I was deeply moved and inspired by the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird because he stood up for someone who was unfairly accused and was willing to put himself and his family in danger to do the right thing.
• What are the events in your life that shaped you and your attitudes?
• What do you believe about what a leader’s job is?
• What are your leadership values? Which value is most important to you?

Boss watching is a hobby of just about anyone who has a boss. People are always trying to figure out what their boss is really thinking and what their boss really wants. Most bosses keep people guessing. Make it easy for your people to understand you by being explicit about what they can expect from you and what you expect from them. You probably think these things are obvious, but they are not—and in the absence of clear expectations, people will make things up about you. In the worst case scenario, they will continually test you to see what they can get away with. So, if you want people to be on time, tell them. If you expect people to meet their deadlines or to come to you early in the process to explain what will keep them from meeting their deadlines, tell them.

A caveat about sharing your LPoV: you must give your people permission to call you out on it if they experience behavior that is not consistent with your LPoV.

Your people will certainly be interested in your LPoV, and may be surprised by it. Their knowing your LPoV will increase the chances that they will trust you, follow you, and give you their best. People want to do good work and make their bosses happy. The more clear and consistent you are up front, the more successful your connection will be with your people.

Your best option with this new group of folks is to hold yourself to a high standard of leadership. This shouldn’t be a stretch for you, since you are already a hard worker. You can win them over and be role model for higher standards all round. Instead of bemoaning your fate, rise to the occasion! Good luck.

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!

As Blanchard shares, “The advent of the functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is giving us a peek into the workings of the brain, and the new science of motivation is helping us better understand what engages people. These developments, combined with ongoing research into well-being, are all beginning to converge on a new holistic model for leading others effectively.

“For the past fifty years we have used a left brain/right brain model to explain the way our brains work. While that’s been helpful, functional MRIs have vastly improved our ability to see which parts of the brain light up in different situations. The new focus is on the prefrontal cortex. It is the seat of judgment, emotional regulation, and executive functioning.”

According to Blanchard, the prefrontal cortex is also a “resource hog.” It uses a large share of the body’s glucose and oxygen and is very sensitive to external factors like sleep, diet, and stress.

“Stress causes the release of cortisol and adrenaline, which shuts down the brain’s higher level thinking abilities,” says Blanchard. “People revert to a more basic fight, flight, or freeze mode. That’s not the kind of thinking that leads to innovation, creativity, and collaboration. Instead, leaders want to look at creating safe environments that increase the production of the neurotransmitters that promote feelings of wellbeing, like dopamine and oxytocin. This makes it easier for people to consider new ideas, take risks, relate to others, and perform at their best.” 

ENGAGEMENT AND APPRAISAL

Blanchard will also be sharing new approaches to the problem of stubbornly low employee engagement scores in many organizations—including research his company has done that has garnered academic awards for research excellence and cutting-edge thinking.

“Organizations have become good at measuring levels of engagement, but not at improving those levels. Our research has found that there is a significant correlation between twelve work environment factors and five important employee intentions: the intention to perform at a high level, to apply discretionary effort when needed, to stay with an organization, to endorse it to others, and to work collaboratively as a good organizational citizen. Leaders need to intimately understand these environmental factors, the connection to intentions, and the individual appraisal process if they want to make lasting improvement to employee engagement scores.”

OPTIMAL MOTIVATION

The third area Blanchard will cover in his presentation is the latest research on motivation and the continued shift on discovering intrinsic motivators that tap into the motivation people already have. Blanchard will be highlighting the work of Susan Fowler, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, who is the author of Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … and What Does.

“Susan Fowler has literally written the book on how motivation from external rewards and sanctions impacts six different motivational outlooks,” says Blanchard. “Including how extrinsic motivators lead to one of three suboptimal motivational outlooks, while intrinsic motivators lead to optimal motivation.” 

A CRITICAL JUNCTURE

Blanchard believes the leadership learning and development space is at an important inflection point.

“We are at a critical point in our industry where there are tens of millions of people who are either in, or soon to enter, their first management job. This huge thundering herd of people is moving into leadership at a time when direct reports will be expecting a lot from them. It’s never been more important to take a second look at methods that have worked in the past and combine them with the latest thinking about how to enhance leadership practices for a new generation in the workforce.”

If you are attending this year’s ATD Conference learn more about The Blanchard Companies’ complete schedule of activities. If you are not travelling to this year’s conference, be sure to check out a free online event on May 27 where Blanchard will be sharing key points from his presentation.

The article describes the results of a Gallup study showing that employees want communication, a trusting relationship, and clear measurement standards from their immediate supervisor.

I messaged some of my friends to learn why they posted the article. They all replied that the findings matched their own experience and they wanted to share. In fact, each of them told me about how a negative experience in one of these areas had resulted in their search for a new place to work.

That’s pretty sad.

The findings identified in the Gallup study are consistent with those uncovered through research by The Ken Blanchard Companies on the subject of Employee Work Passion. We frame these elements as Connectedness with Leader, Feedback, and Performance Expectations. Blanchard research shows that when there are significant gaps between what employees expect and what they actually experience at work in these areas (as well as nine others), their intentions to stay with the organization, perform at a high level, apply extra discretionary effort, be a good organizational citizen, or endorse the company to others are lowered.

That’s even sadder!

Here’s the good news. Leaders can help create the type of environment people are looking for at work. One strategy we recommend for all leaders is to increase the frequency and quality of their conversations with their direct reports.

A good way to start is by scheduling a special type of one-on-one meeting in addition to performance review meetings.  In this meeting, the direct report is responsible for setting the agenda and capturing the required action steps. The manager’s job is to simply show up and listen.

This kind of meeting helps in many ways. The leader shows an interest and commitment to the employee’s success by listening to what is working well and providing feedback in areas where the employee needs help. And by taking the time to clarify performance expectations, the leader demonstrates to the employee that not only is their work important, it also plays a valuable role in achieving overall organization objectives.

What can you do to create connection, provide better feedback, and set clearer performance expectations with your people? As my Facebook friends point out, we all could benefit from better communication with our leaders.

For more ideas, be sure to read the Blanchard white papers, Ten Performance Management Process Gaps, Are Employees’ Needs Being Met by One-on-Ones?, and Employee Work Passion: Connecting the Dots. They are all available, free of charge, from the Blanchard research archives.

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 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.

Drawing on research from Blanchard senior consulting partner Susan Fowler, the two Blanchards explain that a better approach involves looking for ways to connect a task or goal to something deeper and more meaningful. This requires some introspection, as each person comes to work with a different set of values and beliefs and a different set of personal drivers that are unique to them.

And while there are some common factors like Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence—which are important needs for everyone—more subtle factors, such as Self-Regulation, Personal Values, and Mindfulness also come into play. The more you understand what is important to you and how you react to different motivators, the better able you are to understand how others might react.

Six Action Steps

For leaders ready to get started, the Blanchards point to six action steps from Fowler’s new book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does. 

• Encourage autonomy (perception of choice)
• Deepen relatedness (quality of relationships, meaning and purpose)
• Develop people’s competence (sense of growing and learning)
• Promote mindfulness (capacity to see new options)
• Align with values (including personal values, not just the organization’s)
• Connect to a noble purpose (both personal and the organization’s)

Then they pose an important question—to what degree are a leader’s needs being met in each of these six areas—and to what degree are leaders helping others?  You can learn more about the leader’s role in identifying motivators, avoiding common motivational mistakes, and how six different motivational outlooks play out at work by reading the complete article, Check Your Motivation to Lead in the Spring 2015 issue of Training Industry Magazine.

So why are so many leaders hesitant to share information about themselves? For some reason, they’ve determined that showing vulnerability is unprofessional or possibly a sign of weakness—but nothing could be further from the truth.

In our experience working with leaders on sharing their leadership point of view, one of the key things we recommend is that they share stories of both successes and failures that have shaped their lives as leaders. These stories help direct reports learn more about what makes their leader tick. They also help people better anticipate how a leader will react in certain situations. The goal of a leadership point of view conversation is all about taking time to share some of the key influencers in your life—people and events that have shaped not only you as a leader but also your values and what you expect of yourself and others.

Three Success Factors in Creating Your Story

In working with leaders on their point of view, here are three success factors the best leaders always seem to follow:

1. Take time to reflect. Remember, your point of view wasn’t shaped in a day. You need time to explore and contemplate what makes you Take your time to think through the influential people and experiences in your life. Write down your thoughts. Talk about them with a coach, a mentor or a friend, and get feedback. You might be surprised at what you rediscover about yourself.
2. Illustrate with stories. Facts are important, but personal examples bring your story to life. Use real-life anecdotes to illustrate how you came by your values and leadership philosophies—in essence, how you became the leader you are today.
3. Have courage to speak your truth. Share what is in your heart, where it came from, and why it’s important. What experiences—positive and negative—have shaped who you are? Who in your life has influenced you? What lessons have you learned along the way, and how?

Once you have a sense of the important people and events in your life, start writing. It may take multiple drafts, but the reward will be a document that will guide you in the most important part of this process—sharing your leadership point of view with your team. You are not being vain, weak, or self centered when you share your story. Instead, you are creating connection by sharing your strengths and weaknesses and encouraging others to feel comfortable doing the same. These are the attributes of a strong leader—and a strong team.

As a leader, you have the opportunity to set the tone for the type of relationship you want to have with your people. Don’t make it a guessing game. Encourage open, trustful relationships with others by sharing your leadership point of view.

About the Author

Joni Wickline is Vice President, Professional Services with The Ken Blanchard Companies. You can read Wickline’s posts as a part of Coaching Tuesday here at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

The result is suboptimal motivation, which characterizes three out of a possible six outlooks people can have when considering a task:

• Disinterested (suboptimal): I’m not interested–it feels like a waste of time.
• External (suboptimal): I’ll do it because of a promise for more money or an enhanced status or image in the eyes of others.
• Imposed (suboptimal): I’ll do it to avoid feelings of guilt, shame, or fear from not doing it.
• Aligned (optimal): I’ll do it because it allows me to connect the task to a significant value.
• Integrated (optimal): I’ll do it because it allows me to link to a life or work purpose.
• Inherent (optimal): I’ll do it because it is something I enjoy and think would be fun.

When managers promise more money, award prizes for contests, offer rewards, threaten punishment, apply pressure, or use guilt, shame, or emotional blackmail to encourage specific behaviors from employees, they may successfully initiate new behaviors and produce results—but they fail miserably in helping people maintain their progress or sustain those results. This is the motivational junk food approach that leads to the Disinterested, External, and Imposed suboptimal outlooks.

People with high-quality motivation, on the other hand, may accept external rewards when offered, but this is clearly not the reason for their efforts. The reasons the optimally motivated employees of the world do what they do are more profound and provide more satisfaction than external rewards can deliver.

Don’t Feed Your People Motivational Junk Food

When people experience high-quality motivation, they achieve above-standard results; demonstrate enhanced creativity, collaboration, and productivity; are more likely to repeat their peak performance; and enjoy greater physical and mental health.

Providing high-quality motivation like connecting a task to significant values and/or purpose may require more thought and preparation, but it generates the high-quality energy, vitality, and positive well-being that leads to sustainable results. If you want to create a work culture that thrives, wean yourself and your people off motivational junk food and offer them healthy alternatives.

To learn more about Fowler’s approach to motivation, be sure to read her complete article at Fast Company Online, Why the Way We Motivate People—and Ourselves—Matters.  Curious about your own motivational outlook and how it might be impacting your performance?  Check out Fowler’s free Motivational Outlook self-assessment.

In exploring the importance of various drivers of Millennial engagement and retention, Quantum researchers found that Professional Growth and Career Development came in at number one. They observed: “If young employees aren’t having their needs for professional development met, they will seek opportunities elsewhere.”

Clearly, the ability to grow in both their job and career is a necessity for workers ages 18 through 34. But current data shows that employers are not meeting this need effectively. More than 60 percent of Millennials leave their companies within three years of arriving, according to data from a 2013 Cost of Millennial Retention Study.

Gaps in Career Conversations

Research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies points out an opportunity for employers to address this need. Blanchard teamed up with Training magazine to poll a cross section of 456 human resources and talent management professionals. The study found gaps of 29 and 39 percent between how often employees had career conversations with their leaders versus how often they desired these conversations.

When it came to job development conversations, the survey found a 29 percent gap when respondents were asked to evaluate: (1) the frequency with which their leader discusses job assignments that would help to broaden their job experience and knowledge; (2) how often their leader discusses the training needed to improve their performance during the current performance period; and (3) whether the leader makes time and resources available to help the employee get the training they need.

When it came to career development conversations, the survey found an even larger (39 percent) gap when respondents were asked to evaluate the degree to which their boss: (1) understands the steps that must be taken to prepare them for career advancement; (2) explains organization policies and procedures that impact career development; and (3) discusses potential career opportunities.

The Senior Leader’s Role

Leaders at all levels have an important role to play in making sure that career development conversations are occurring. For senior leaders, that means setting the strategy. In their article How to Quell Millennial Discontent consultants at talent mobility firm Lee Hecht Harrison recommend six starting strategies for senior leaders:

1. Engage Millennials in effective career development conversations. Ask managers to work with Millennials to develop career options within the organization that will help satisfy their career aspirations.
2. Hold managers accountable for building and developing Millennial talent. Formally include the task of developing Millennials among managerial accountabilities.
3. Use career planning and development to prepare Millennials for new roles. Offer them role hopping as an alternative to job hopping.
4. Help Millennials manage their careers actively. All too often, Millennials regard managing their own careers as a simple matter of seeking jobs elsewhere. Channel their energies toward developing their careers internally by providing opportunities for them to work on cross-functional teams or lead key projects that enhance their visibility.
5. Involve Millennials in the creation of a coaching culture. Coaching others grooms Millennials for leadership, helps them build relationships with fellow employees, and deepens their investment in the organization.
6. Promote internal networking to further help Millennials increase their visibility and build relationships. Ask managers to stand ready to make introductions, involve Millennials in larger projects, and ensure that their achievements are recognized at higher levels.

Don’t let your best and brightest young talent leave the organization because no one took the time to discuss career options with them. Make career development a key part of every manager’s conversational skill set. Help your managers see the importance of conducting stay interviews today to avoid exit interviews tomorrow. You’ll be surprised at the impact career conversations can have!

Did any of those family battles end up with your mom or dad saying “Do it because I said so!”—after which you skulked away under threat of grounding and did the minimum possible to complete the task so you could go back outside to play?

Why did you resist your parent’s request? Didn’t the battle take longer than the actual task?  Did you have better and more fun things to do? Did you just not like being told what to do?  Maybe you didn’t know exactly how to do it? Or maybe it was a little of all of those things?

Déjà vu

Fast forward to now. You find yourself engaged in the same battles with your own children and hear yourself saying the one thing you promised yourself that you would never say to your kids: “Do it because I said so!” Then you wonder why you did not keep your promise. Expecting some relief from that question, you go to work. At 9:00 a.m. your employee, Gilda, walks into your office and says she’s going to be late updating her accounts in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. You aren’t surprised. She has yet to meet a CRM deadline.

In response, you reiterate the importance of keeping her account details current. She tells you she understands, but she has too many other things to do. You argue a bit—politely, of course—until, after a few rounds of back and forth, you throw up your hands and say, “Do it because I said so!” Gilda skulks out and inputs the data, but you can tell that she did not put much effort into it and the updates are not what you expect. Is this déjà vu? You wonder, was this a grownup version of the conversation you had with your kids earlier that morning—and the ones you experienced when you were a kid? Surely there is a better way.

Recent motivation research shows that a subtle shift in outlook on these less than desirable tasks can make all the difference in not only well-being, but also goal achievement. So how can you help Gilda feel less imposed upon but still complete the CRM task? As we teach leaders in our new program called Optimal Motivation, the first step is to check out the employee’s basic psychological needs—Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence—on the task. The more fully that the employee has these three needs met, the more likely she will be to complete the task, resent it less, and possibly even enjoy it while she does.

3 Steps to a Better Way

In your next meeting with Gilda, instead of getting upset, you decide to use three steps to helping her improve her motivational outlook.

1. Empathize with her reality. Start by acknowledging that with her sparkly and people-oriented personality, this CRM task probably feels dreary compared to being out with clients. She agrees. You reiterate the importance of getting the data into the system quickly, and you point out that by doing so she will make herself more positively visible in the organization, and that will help get her contributions to the company recognized.
2. Ask for permission to proceed. Next, ask if it would be okay to examine her point of view about the process so that you might help her find a way to make it feel more rewarding. As she begins to open up, you talk about her love of being with clients. She talks about her desire to make an important contribution to the company and to help her clients succeed. She begins to really understand how the CRM might support those goals.
3. Explore positive possibilities. Inquire about ways she might both update the CRM system regularly and accurately and also feel better about doing it. Explore whether she would like to shift her outlook from feeling imposed upon to being more aligned around the importance of her keeping her CRM details up to date. While it may not happen in the snap of your fingers, you are trying to help her decide to spend the necessary time—probably half an hour each morning—updating the system instead of waiting until the end of the month when it becomes overwhelming. By coaching her rather than driving her, you are both much more likely to feel positive and confident about her solution.

A True and Common Story

Gilda’s story is real. From that point on, her information was always up to date in the CRM. It is still not her favorite task, but she sees the value of it and that makes her outlook more positive. And as her boss, you feel better about saying, “Because I said so” less often.

Who knows? Maybe your success with Gilda—and your new awareness of the better way—will help you with your kids, too.

About the Author

Sarah Caverhill is Vice President–East Region of The Ken Blanchard Companies. Sarah holds a master of business administration degree and a bachelor’s degree in marketing. Sarah is also coauthor of the book, Your Leadership Legacy.

This is a great question often posed in our Optimal Motivation workshops. I understand that you are between a rock and hard place—on one hand, you are responsible for getting results; on the other hand, the traditional tactics you use destroy the high energy, dedication, creativity, innovation, and initiative people need to achieve those results. The irony of pressing for results and pushing deadlines is that you promote the exact opposite of what you hoped to encourage. You need a new approach in 2014.

Reframe Goals into Something Meaningful

When I was an itinerant speaker for the world’s largest public seminar company, I conducted over 125 day-long workshops a year—each one in a different city, state, or country. I appreciated the work, but I was literally bone weary. The company imposed hard metrics that meant termination of your contract if not met: Collect 75% or more of participant evaluations (typically 200) and score a 4.5 or better on a 5-point scale.

Those goals exhausted me even more! If I had focused on meeting them, I would have burned out and quit—many of my colleagues did. Instead, I reframed the company’s goals into outcomes meaningful to me. I will remember at least 20 people’s names and something about them by the end of each day. If at least one person tells me I made a difference in their life, then it was a good day. (After all, that was why I was doing what I was doing.)

Reframing goals into results that were meaningful to me was energizing. I focused on the values of what I was doing and the by-product was consistently achieving the organization’s measures of success. Consider taking the time to help your employees reframe the organization’s goals.

When employees reframe organizational goals into results that are meaningful for them, everybody wins.

Turn Deadlines into Data

Deadlines exist. I am working on one right now as I write this blog. The trick is to view deadlines (or live-lines, as a colleague of mine chooses to call them) as critical information. Leaders can help people shift the way deadlines are interpreted. Instead of considering deadlines as points of pressure, position deadlines as communication tools that describe what is needed for people to do their jobs effectively. Instead of imposing deadlines that undermine people’s autonomy, position timelines as data points that provide valuable insight about how to allocate time, make thoughtful choices, and decide what to do next—or not at all.

Deadlines are a reality, but leaders can position deadlines as data to help employees live a more autonomous, optimally motivating, and high-quality life at work.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

Conceptually, the resort was not designed to be anything grand—simply a nice hotel in a part of the country frequented by visitors seeking the warm, dry, desert air. Bob took on this project with a very different vision for Rancho Las Palmas than just being a nice hotel in the desert. He saw Mobil Travel Guide’s Five Stars. He saw potential for a great resort, beautiful grounds, top notch people, and success in occupancy and revenue rates. And he knew how to get there. It was about vision, focus, and—most importantly—service through people. So, how did he do it?

People: Bob knew everyone—Annie who ran the laundry, Freddie the bellman, Eddie the landscaper, and every other person who worked there. He knew what made them happy and sad, and what made them tick. He also made sure they had The Vision. He talked about it on a personal level to everyone, every day. Every employee wore a gold star lapel pin, which represented the fifth star we were working toward. He taught people; he led by example; and he liked people. And they knew it.

Presence: Bob was everywhere. Sunday morning prior to brunch, he was in the kitchen. Not only was he a cheerleader, he also tasted the food. His famous line, “Inspect what you expect,” was his mantra. “Hi everyone—we will have record crowds this morning. Knock them dead! Are you all ready? Do you have what you need? You are the finest culinary team in the desert and everyone knows it. That’s why there is an hour-long wait for this brunch. It doesn’t happen by accident.”

Passion: Every single day, Bob inspected five rooms. He went to the front desk, asked for five room keys and thoroughly inspected five rooms. He always took someone with him, whether it was the housekeeping manager, the resident manager, or maybe the front desk manager. Why? To provide a learning opportunity. “This is what the inspectors from the Mobil Travel Guide will look for. To become a Five Star Hotel, the best of the best, you need consistency. Not one thing can get in the way.”

Competence: Bob really knew his stuff. He knew quality meats and the best produce. We didn’t talk about that as much in the 80s as we do today—but he did. He would even go up against Marriott’s buying practices—not that they were bad—if he thought he could make a better choice. For example, he had the notion that if the hotel grounds had citrus trees throughout, it would make a huge difference. There would be blossoms in the spring and glorious fruit through the winter. He didn’t imagine that anyone wouldn’t agree with him—so he asked the landscape manager to plan and order the trees. In the meantime, he sent a request to corporate to get the expense approved. The very day the trees arrived, the “request denied” paperwork arrived at Rancho Las Palmas. What did Bob do? He planted the trees.

How did he get away with that? Because average rates were higher than expected and occupancies were higher than expected—the things he knew, and did, worked! He was competent at his role and committed to the goal.

Heart: Bob’s weekly staff meetings were legendary. He read aloud from letters from our guests, which were always praising employees. He talked about The Vision—yes, every week. He highlighted successes, large and small, and talked about employees who stood out to him and why. He made it personal. He respected competence in the staff members and they knew it. They would work very hard because they, too, were vested in The Vision—a Five Star Resort. As Bob rode around the grounds in his golf cart, he stopped and spoke to everyone, asked questions about what they were doing, laughed with them, and understood who might need help and saw that they got it. He had heart—with conviction.

Marriott’s Rancho Las Palmas Resort did receive a Mobil Travel Guide Fifth Star. Inevitably, Bob Small moved on to become a legendary leader in the hotel industry at Walt Disney World as well as Fairmont Hotels. Reaching success through service isn’t complicated—Bob has given us a pretty clear roadmap.

The relentless pursuit of excellence came easy to Bob. He began with people, being present, and having a passion for excellence.  He focused on competence –personally, and for those on his team. He knew the importance of vision and heart. He really believed it’s your people who get you there. I think he’s right.

What about you? Could you or your organization apply Bob’s philosophy to earn the equivalent of a coveted five-star rating? What would a five-star rating look like in your industry?

Learn more about Bob at robertismall.com

About the author:

Barbara Notre is Director of Corporate Communications and Initiatives for The Ken Blanchard Companies.  You can read Barbara’s posts as a part of our customer service series which appears twice a month here on LeaderChat.

mal·prac·tice

1. any improper, negligent practice; misconduct or misuse
2. immoral, illegal, or unethical professional conduct or neglect of professional duty
3. the behavior of most bad bosses in today’s workplaces

What if leaders could be sued for malpractice? Malpractice, as a legal course of action, is usually applied to professionals in the healthcare, legal, accounting, or financial investment fields, but imagine if it applied to bad leaders? Would it change the way you view your position of authority and influence you to be a better leader?

The sad reality is there are too many leaders in organizations today guilty of malpractice. I believe that bad leadership accounts for the majority of dysfunctional behavior in organizations and our research has shown it can result in a financial cost equal to 7% of a company’s annual revenue. That’s over $1 million dollars for an organization with $15 million or more in annual sales.

So what does leadership malpractice look like, and to make this really personal, could you be guilty as charged? Here’s ten warning signs you may be committing leadership malpractice:

1. You’re not trusted – Trust is the one non-negotiable for successful leadership. If you have it, all things are possible. If you don’t, you might skate by for a while as people comply with your leadership, but you won’t gain cooperation and collaboration which are key to long-term success. Lack of trust in your leadership shows up in many ways: people avoid you, they don’t confide in you, gossip, low morale, and lack of engagement just to name a few.

2. Being self-oriented, not other-oriented – Examine the way you speak. Is your language filled with “I/me/mine” or “you/we/our?” Do you place your success ahead of your team’s? Is your leadership in service to self or in service to others?

3. Focusing on results at the expense of relationships – Good leadership focuses on both results and relationships. Focusing on either one to the detriment of the other will place the organization out of balance. You could focus solely on results and burn your people out in the process, or you could cater to the whims of your people and party all the way to bankruptcy. As stewards of the organization, leaders have to strike the right balance between the needs of their people and the bottom-line.

4. Being unethical – I’ve yet to meet anyone who would describe himself as unethical, yet the fact is too many leaders have grown comfortable with practicing situational ethics. We’ve grown comfortable with rationalizing our choices or bending the rules ever so slightly to achieve our goals. Dishonesty, taking credit for other people’s work, turning a blind eye to wrong doing, or dismissing bad behavior as routine are ways this shows up in the workplace. Faced with an ethical dilemma? Here’s three questions that could save your career.

5. Not caring about people – Believe or not, there are many people in leadership positions who don’t really like people. These leaders have moved into management positions because it’s the next natural career step or it’s the only way to gain experience or make more money. You hear them say things like “I wish my people would leave me alone so I can get my job done!” Uh, hello…your people ARE you’re job! Caring for people means you value them for who they are as individuals, not just as workers paid to do a job.

6. Holding people back – Have you ever seen or experienced a situation where a star performer was held back from promotion in order to suit the needs of the boss? I have and it’s not pretty. It’s downright despicable on the part of the leader. Leaders should take pride in being a net-exporter of talent, someone who attracts top talent, grows them to new heights, and helps them move to new opportunities (hopefully ones you’ve created for them in your own organization).

7. Carelessness – Just like a surgeon being careless and leaving a sponge inside a patient, leaders often move too fast and don’t practice good listening skills, use the wrong leadership style, give ineffective feedback, or are preoccupied and not truly present when meeting with an employee. All these behaviors diminish the power and potential of your people.

8. Acting like a know-it-all – Malpractice involves inflicting some sort of injury or harm to another person and know-it-all leaders harm their employees by making them feel “less than.” The boss’ way is the only right way, no matter what the facts are or what others say. A colleague of mine experienced this attitude with a doctor who was treating her young daughter. The girl experienced a seizure and was exhibiting all the signs of diabetes insipidus, a condition that ran in the family. Yet every time my colleague suggested it as a cause, the doctor talked to her like she was an idiot and ignored the test results that confirmed diabetes was indeed the cause. Please don’t be a know-it-all, unless of course you want to be a jerk.

9. Not using all the resources at your disposal – Wouldn’t you want your doctor or lawyer to examine all possible avenues in their attempt to help you? Your employees want the same thing. They want you to use your power to remove roadblocks, secure resources, and provide them the tools and training they need to succeed in their jobs. It’s malpractice when leaders get lazy and don’t go to bat for their employees because it’s too exhausting, hard, or inconvenient.

10. Not staying current and relevant – Leaders need to stay educated and current in their chosen fields, both technically and as leaders. You can’t rely on old practices and outdated leadership techniques (e.g., command and control leadership and carrot-stick motivational techniques) that may have been applicable 30 years ago but aren’t relevant in today’s global, fast-paced, inter-connected work environment.

Malpractice, in the general sense of the word, is negligent conduct by a person in a position of trust that causes harm to another individual. Leaders are in a position of trust and we should use our influence for the betterment of our team members, not for their harm.

About the author

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the fourth Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.