Dear Madeleine,

I was recently promoted from team lead to manager of a whole department. I am very good at the processes and systems piece, but worry that I am lacking the leadership piece.

I have a ton of books and have taken several courses, but now I am overwhelmed. If I were to work on just a few things this year to be a better leader, what should they be?

New Leader

__________________________________________________________________________

Dear New Leader,

It is overwhelming, isn’t it? I guess this makes sense, since becoming the best leader you can be is a lifelong endeavor. It is good that you have mastered the systems and process piece, because anything you decide to implement to be a great leader will become a part of those. 

The question is always where to begin. It is tricky for me to try to tell you, because I don’t know what your strengths are or what needs work. I can only proceed with some of the qualities and behaviors that come up again and again when people talk about great leaders they’ve had, and recommend that you pick one or two to start with and go from there. You will have to define for yourself what it means to be a good leader and then build your skills and habits to reflect that. I define a leader as “one whom others choose to follow,” and that can mean so many different things.

• Make sure everyone who works for you knows exactly what they are supposed to be doing, what a good job looks like, and what their priorities are. This sounds so obvious, but it is shocking how many people don’t really know what is expected of them at work.
• Remember that you are the weather system for your department. Practice self-regulation to be consistent; don’t let your moods dictate how you respond to people. Your direct reports shouldn’t have to constantly observe you to figure out how to navigate how you are feeling at any given time.
• Be fair. You will like some people more than others, but you can’t play favorites. Apply the same rules and values in the same way across the board.
• Pay attention to people’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can vary their workload. Some things should be easy and fun, and others should provide a challenge.
• When someone screws up, be kind, resist placing blame, and get to the bottom of where things went off track. Take full responsibility even if you think it wasn’t your fault. It will make your people feel like you have their back, and they will be more likely to come to you in the future before a mistake is made.
• Build relationships with your peers and stay connected with everything that is going on in your organization so that you can be strategic when you need to. Pay attention to what others in your industry are doing so that you can keep your eye on the bigger picture.
• Ask for feedback—what you can do more of, less of, or start or stop doing. Listen carefully when you get feedback, ask for more detail if you don’t understand it, or simply say thank you. You don’t always have to act on it, but at least you will know what works and doesn’t work, and with whom.
• Tell the truth. I don’t mean you have to be brutally honest all the time, but don’t pretend someone has done a good job when they haven’t. Point out what worked, what didn’t, and how it can be improved upon. Don’t make promises you can’t or don’t intend to keep. And if you aren’t sure what to say, don’t say anything. It is impossible to take back something you wish you hadn’t said, but often possible to loop back around and say something you wish you had.
• Be trustworthy: do your best, don’t gossip, pay attention to people, and show you care by being responsive and following up. It is much harder to regain trust once you have lost it, so do everything you can to build and maintain it. And this is hard, but try to remember to take nothing personally.

These are just a few ideas plucked out of a massive body of leadership research. Don’t try to implement all of these at once. Start with one that feels manageable and see how it goes. If you aren’t sure, just choose one at random.

You’ll get really good at one of these leadership dimensions, and then things will get more complex and you will have a chance to revisit and refine.  It will feel never ending, because—it is. Good luck on your leadership journey!

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,

You have answered many questions about being a mentor—but as a young person in my first job, I wonder how I can find a mentor. How do I go about it? How do I know if someone is the right mentor for me? Once I find someone willing to mentor me, how do I go about being a good mentee?

Seeking a Mentor

_________________________________________________________________________

Dear Seeking a Mentor,

Everyone I know who has a mentor or has had multiple mentors shares a few traits. They are ambitious and goal oriented, are curious about others, can be gregarious, and are comfortable asking for help. The fact that you are asking these questions now is a sign that you are on the right track.

Before you go searching for the right mentor, you will want to be clear on your career goals. They may change, and that’s okay. But in order to enlist support, you need to be able to articulate what you want support for. Whatever your goal is will inform the steps you need to take to reach it—and it is those steps that others can potentially help you with.

Maybe, say, you need to research the kinds of jobs that interest you. Reach out to people who have those jobs. Ask them to share what they like about the job, what they don’t like, and what they wish they had known when they were just starting out. This takes guts, and some people will turn you down. But you may be surprised at how many are eager to share their wisdom with you.

Maybe you need to build a specific skill set. You can ask around to see who is respected and admired for having that skill set. Then you can approach those folks to ask them how they got so good at those specific skills.

Almost everyone loves to be asked for advice—and they really love talking about themselves. Almost everyone will be delighted to spend some time with you answering smart questions. Listen carefully to what they say to ascertain what is important and interesting to them, then shape your questions along those lines.

Make sure you thank anyone who takes the time to speak with you. Take note of what they are interested in and stay in touch by sharing news tidbits, blogs, books, or websites that you think will appeal to them.

As you have conversations with more experienced people, you will eventually find one or two with whom you feel a genuine connection. These are the people you can ask to mentor you. Not everyone you ask will bite—it might not be a good time for them, or they may feel they are mentoring too many people. They will either decline or leave the door open for you to ask again in the future. Eventually, though, someone will be flattered and excited by the idea.

Once you do find someone who is willing to mentor you, you can co-create how you want the relationship to look. Perhaps your new mentor has had successful mentoring relationships and has strong ideas about what works well. Perhaps not. You can agree to start with a design and then tweak as you go. The key is for you to take 100% responsibility for driving the relationship, and for the two of you to have clear agreement. Pay special attention to these areas:

• Agree on a time frame: It is good to commit to a finite period of time. You may both agree to continue once you reach the end of it, but it gives you both an out if one is needed.
• Set specific goals for the time period: They may change, but having goals will give both of you a sense of the impact the mentoring is having.
• Have regular meetings: Start with some kind of regular framework for getting together, either over the phone or in person. You won’t both be able to make every meeting; that’s fine. But if you don’t have a schedule, months can whiz by with no input.
• Review progress: Every month or so, check in on how the partnership is going. Are you getting value? Is the mentor feeling good about everything? I was once completely ghosted by a mentee, and to this day have no idea why. It didn’t feel great.
• Make clear requests: It is okay to ask for what you want, and it is okay for your mentor to say no. They may offer something else or even something better that is easy for them. Be clear, flexible, and patient.
• Prepare: Be ready for your meetings by outlining actions you have taken, results you have produced, obstacles you need help to overcome, and questions that have cropped up since your last meeting. The more you prepare, the more value you will get out of whatever time you are granted. As a bonus, your mentor will feel that you are taking their time seriously and that their investment in you is wise.
• Express gratitude: Find ways to say thank you. A handwritten note or fun card is never bad, antiquated as that idea might be. A small gift of chocolate, a book, gourmet tea, flowers, or bourbon—depending on the tastes of your mentor—is always welcome. Gifts don’t need to be fancy or expensive, they just need to show that you are paying attention and that you have given it a little thought. You might also find ways to acknowledge your mentor to others when appropriate. If you do something your mentor suggested or helped you with and it gets attention from others, you can always give credit where credit is due.

Ken Blanchard wrote a book on this topic with Claire Diaz-Ortiz that will help you: check out One Minute Mentoring.

Best of 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.

Can someone be a great leader and not be self-aware?

I believe all great leaders are self-aware. If you don’t know how your behaviors affect others, it’s difficult to lead successfully. Furthermore, leaders who aren’t self-aware can cause significant damage. The news is filled with reports about highly visible executives (I hesitate to call them leaders) who lack self-awareness and the damage they cause to their people and their companies. Their stories have unhappy endings.

The Two Parts of Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is foundational to inspiring leadership. It has two parts. The first part is being able to observe your own feelings and thoughts and their relationship. It’s challenging to do and requires observation and patience. The second part is being aware of how you affect others and how they perceive you. Observing your thoughts is an internal knowing. Being aware of your impact on others is an external knowing.

If you want to be an inspiring leader, you must have some degree of mastery over both parts of self-awareness. You need to know what’s important to you, why it’s important, what triggers you, and what your values are. When you have answers for these elements, you will be able to intentionally influence people—a key requirement of leadership.

Internal Knowing

• Gain internal knowing by expanding your feelings vocabulary. To gain a better understanding of your internal self-awareness, a best practice is to develop an extensive feelings vocabulary—descriptive words for emotions that help you accurately identify what you are feeling and why. It helps you move aware from vague explanations of “I am upset” to “I am disappointed and discouraged.” If you have difficulty describing what you are feeling, you may have a limited understanding of your emotions and difficulty taking appropriate action as a result. For some leaders who are less in touch with their emotions, this will require a lot of intentional practice.

Being able to identify an emotion is powerful. When you can describe it, you can name it, tame it (by understanding what actions might help minimize or address the feeling), and ideally reframe it—because it now feels manageable.

One way we help our coaching clients is to provide a vocabulary sheet for them to refer to a set number of times throughout the day to identify what they’re feeling in the moment. There’s a big difference, for example, between frustrated and disappointed, between stressed and panicking, and between content and proud. The vocabulary sheet helps the person become more self-aware and teaches them how to accurately describe their emotions and take appropriate action.

• Gain internal knowing through rightsizing emotions. Rightsizing emotions is another one of my favorite strategies. It’s best described through an example most can relate to: Someone cuts you off in traffic and you become enraged. You ask yourself if the intensity of your emotion is appropriate to what just happened and if your emotion is helpful. In this situation, your emotion is doing nothing but giving you high blood pressure. It’s not changing anything in the world. The best thing to do is to rightsize your rage—decrease it to a mild frustration—and let the anger go because it’s not serving you.

When you feel an intense emotion, first think, “Why does this feel so intense for me?” Then, “Is this intensity going to create a helpful outcome?” If the answer is yes, think about the outcome you want. If the answer is no, think about a more appropriate emotion or one that would be more helpful in helping you achieve your desired outcome.

Variations of this scenario happen at work all the time. Someone hurts you and you feel righteous anger for a while—maybe days or even weeks. Once you learn to look at the intensity of your emotion and determine the outcome you want, you can move past the emotion. The next step would be to either move on or address the issue—ideally, with the person who caused the hurt.

External Knowing

• Gain external knowing through a 360 assessment. One of the best ways to become more self-aware is to learn what people truly think about you. Most leaders don’t take the time to get feedback. They assume they know what would be said—and it’s surprising how often they are off track.

A multi-rater 360 is a fantastic way to improve self-awareness. It allows people to provide anonymous feedback, which increases accuracy. The feedback is gathered in a consistent manner and grouped together so it is nearly impossible for you, the leader, to identify who gave what rating. The pooling of perceptions can also help you be more detached from the results, allowing you to have a clear picture of how you are perceived and what you might want to do about it.

• Gain external knowing through interviews. Have an objective third party act as a surrogate multi-rater. You might choose an executive coach who does not work in your organization. They interview your key stakeholders and keep all answers confidential. Then they summarize the answers to protect anonymity and share with you what they find.

Don’t assume you know what they’re going to discover. Even though the information people share through this confidential approach is often very surprising, leaders usually appreciate being informed than being kept in the dark.

The Unexpected Rewards of Becoming More Self-Aware

The rewards of becoming more self-aware are significant. When you are aware of your feelings, you can rightsize them. You can pivot easily. You can work better with difficult people. When you know the affect you have on others and how they perceive you, you can entertain different perspectives of a situation. You can be an inspiring leader. You are in a place of choice.

Being self-aware brings tremendous freedom. And that makes you a better human and a better leader.

It’s Women’s History Month—time to celebrate women’s accomplishments in the workplace! It’s essential to take a moment to recognize our contributions when you consider that in 2020 women still made just 84% of what men earned for the same job and were significantly underrepresented in leadership roles, according to Pew Research.

The argument about whether women can be great leaders is one that needs to be put to rest. Research has long shown that women excel in leadership roles. To empower women colleagues and to reassure anyone who may have an unconscious bias against women who apply for leadership positions, I share these findings:

• Women leaders are rated as being more competent than men on 11 out of 12 dimensions of leadership, according to Forbes.
• Women leaders score higher than men in 17 of 19 leadership competencies, according to Harvard Business Review.
• And 33% of people who work for a female manager are engaged at work, compared to 27% who work for male managers, according to Gallup.

There’s more: Female managers are more likely than male managers to encourage employee development, check in frequently on their employees’ progress, have regular conversations about their performance, and praise their people.  They are also better at collaborating and are perceived as being more empathetic and trustworthy. And they are significantly better listeners.

Perhaps Forbes best summed up the facts:

Having women in senior leadership roles also translates into greater profitability. A study by Credit Suisse found 25% of women in decision making roles had a 4% higher average return on investment—and companies with 50% of women in senior leadership had a 10% higher cash flow return on investment.

“With incontrovertible evidence like this, organizations not aggressively pursuing the cultivation of women executives are making the expressed, intentional choice to disregard evidence, severely undermining performance and compromising their organization’s potential.”

It’s crystal clear that your unique voice is needed to help people thrive! So, as a way of encouraging dynamic women such as yourself to climb the leadership ladder, my acronym WOMEN shares five strategies you can use to create the future of your dreams!

W = Ask WHO Questions

From my experience, successful women are fabulous at focusing on what they need to do, when they need to do it, and why they need to do it. Then they go out and get it done!

We’ve got the what, when, and why down. Now, as more women seek to move into leadership positions, we might want to focus on who. Here are some who questions you can ask to rocket your career to new heights!

• Who can help me do this task?
• Who can I delegate this to, so I can protect my time and build competence in others?
• Who do I want to meet?
• Who can I observe to see how the best and brightest do this task?
• Who do I want on my personal board of directors?
• Who can I endorse and build their confidence, so they are ready to step into a leadership position?
• Who do I want as a mentor?
• Who can I partner with who energizes me?
• Who can I and other leaders champion to help them get more visibility?

O = Be OTHER-Focused

Great women leaders are other-focused while keeping their eye on their own work. If someone asks them for help, they are immediately of service. They think of that person and what is important to them, and ask themselves, “How can I best help them?” They never lose sight of what that person wants to accomplish, sending them articles and ideas, checking in on their progress, and being an accountability buddy to ensure the person is successful.  

Other-focused women leaders know when to tell people how to do a task and when to ask someone to share how they think they would like to do a task. They know this because, just like a good doctor, they diagnose the task and the person’s demonstrated competence before responding. They are mindful of individual differences and communicate, recognize, and encourage people in a way that is meaningful to them.

M = Use MOMENTUM to Make Things Happen

Inspiring women leaders are energized by momentum. They are always seeking to do things better and faster, help the greatest number of people to succeed, and drive organizational vitality. They are always learning, reflecting on their actions, analyzing what they think would be best, and sharing their insights with others.

Momentum comes in many different forms such as speaking up in meetings. Here’s a helpful tip to ensure people listen to your ideas: Instead of giving your suggestions or recommendations in the form of a question such as “What if…” or “How about…,” be direct and say, “Here’s what I think we should do.” That way, people don’t think you are asking a question that drives their need to problem solve.

When you present your ideas, remember: if you hear no, it doesn’t necessarily mean no. No can mean lots of things such as “I’m hungry” or “I’m too busy today and don’t have the bandwidth to consider it.”

Here’s a funny anecdote that some of you may have experienced, between my very rational husband and me. We were driving home with the kids from a long hike, and everyone was hungry. My husband said, “Let’s go out to dinner!” Then he asked me, “Where would you like to go?” I said, “How about that new place?” He thought for a minute and said, “Nooo.” Then I said, “Well, how about the ABC restaurant?” And he thought for a few seconds and said, “Nooo.” And then I said, “I’ve got it! How about if we go to the place everybody loves, the XYZ restaurant?” And again, he said, “No I’m not really feeling that tonight.”

At this point, I thought to myself how come we never get to go where I want to go? So I decided to address that. I asked, “How come you never want to go where I want to go?” He said, “Well, you didn’t say where you wanted to go.” What’s the moral of that story? He was right. I just kept asking questions—and, being a rational guy, he just gave me his answers. Remember this when you’re pitching ideas in the boardroom. State your recommendation (like I should have): “Let’s get off at the next exit and go to Buca de Beppo.” Which I did, and we went, and it was delicious.

One last tip. If you have to say something that might upset someone, don’t start your sentence with “I’m sorry.” Say something like, “Thanks for taking the time to chat.”  This expression of gratitude makes the listener more receptive to what you’re about to say. 

E = Be Comfortable with EMOTIONS

Awesome women leaders realize that emotions should be acknowledged and embraced. Leveraging emotional intelligence is one of their superpowers.

When I was in my doctoral program, I read In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan of Harvard. It was revolutionary for me. I did have a different voice—a woman’s voice. When I was a school administrator, colleagues would often tease me by saying, “Oh Vicki, you’re so sensitive! Do you always have to ask how this will impact the students (or teachers or parents)?”  This often triggered a sense of shame and powerlessness that came from my childhood admonitions. When I was little, I was often told I was too emotional. If I got excited or upset, I would constantly hear negative comments from my parents that sent the message “People like you don’t make it in the real world!” In other words, they felt expressing emotions would hinder my success.

The truth is the opposite. Now, in a time when people are feeling so strongly about everything, the ability to be aware of and acknowledge your emotions and the emotions of others is the ultimate relationship builder. Creating a place where your people can release negative emotions and amplify positive ones is a special gift. It’s what makes women leaders such a tremendous benefit to an organization.

N = NURTURE Yourself and Others

Nurturing is a profound concept. It encompasses mindfulness, boundaries, and caring for ourselves and others. Fabulous women leaders realize that our bodies are the holding tanks for our brilliance. No bodies, no brilliance.

Because of this, women leaders protect their time, helping their people take brain breaks and look after their bodies. They run effective meetings so that people are energized, not drained. They stop every hour for a “mindfulness minute” to drink water, exercise for a minute, call someone, or praise someone. They know self-care renews their energy, their ability to be compassionate, and their ability to focus. And they know it’s much harder to be compassionate when you’re drained.

Last, women leaders watch their thoughts carefully. As Margie Blanchard, one of my favorite women leaders, says: “Don’t say it unless you want it!” They realize there is a profound connection between their thoughts, physiology, and outcomes. Since the brain stores information in images, which the body reacts to, they keep their minds filled with desired outcomes and a vision of what they want.

For example, if I say, “I’m exhausted,” what happens in my body? It wilts. But if I say, “I am so energized and excited to go into this meeting and learn something from everyone,” my body becomes energized.

Embrace Yourself. Embrace Success.

Women leaders: the world needs your unique point of view and your energy—for unleashing the power and potential of others!

Keep on leading. Keep on inspiring. Keep on challenging yourself to take even better care of yourself than you already are! Let others hear your powerful voice. Model for others the gifts of clarity, influence, and autonomy. And watch the world return it to you in abundance.

Our collective future is unfolding right before us. It demands a new kind of leader.

Consider life in this new era. An event happens on the other side of the world and its ripples nearly capsize our boats thousands of miles away. The pandemic is the latest example that we are more interconnected than we knew. A virus originated in China, a South African variant traveled around the world with disarming speed, and we resorted to social distancing, another round of vaccinations (or not), office closures, etc.

Now we are experiencing dramatic shifts in global markets and new technologies. A supply chain disruption roils countess markets. A new technology overthrows the process and forces us to react. These changes leave a path of creative destruction marked by the birth of start-ups and the fall of former Goliaths.

It is nearly impossible to predict what is going to happen next and how it will impact our lives. “Business as usual” already sounds like a quaint relic from the pre-pandemic past. We are now in the phase of accepting that many things will never go back to the way they were.

So what will the leader of tomorrow look like? Here are seven skills the VUCA leader must master.

Seven Skills of a VUCA Leader

1. Lead with a compass. The business world was once made up of workplace silos—functional or local, perhaps. Leaders knew their boundaries and were relatively comfortable with them.

The future organization will be flat and incredibly nimble. The VUCA leader has a bird’s-eye perspective of the business and is able to survey the landscape, identify all the moving parts, and understand how they are connected.

This 360^o vision requires a leader with a clear sense of purpose and a deep understanding of an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. The VUCA leader makes sense of all this and helps their team see the bigger picture and how their work matters. And they have exemplary communication skills that allow them to communicate what they are observing with their people.

2. Innovate with a purpose. The VUCA leader doesn’t do a task out of habit. Micro-innovating is the norm. Using micro-innovations turbocharges creativity, unleashes the power of teams, and enriches the customer experience.

3. Be an agile shapeshifter. The VUCA leader pivots instantly. They are a tinkerer, not an order taker. They are constantly learning through both successes and flops as they keep up with the changing business landscape. Once they have surveyed a situation, they determine the best path forward.

Being an agile shapeshifter is tricky. It requires seeking multiple perspectives while also making sure not to become stalled by analysis paralysis.

4. Embrace imperfection. Knowing when a minimum viable product is sufficient and ready for feedback requires vulnerability and being okay with “just enough.” Consider the power of iterative improvements. Amazon, Meta, and Etsy are just three examples of companies that have dramatically evolved since their founding. Embracing innovation also means being willing to accept redirection, failure, and setbacks.

The VUCA leader knows that perfection is the enemy of progress. Chasing after an unrealistic ideal can result in missed opportunities.

5. Prioritize ruthlessly. The VUCA leader continually reviews their priorities and jettisons those that no longer make a meaningful contribution to their strategic goals. This requires knowing when to allocate resources. The VUCA leader understands the trade-offs involved in assigning people to projects that offer little return versus those that have great promise.

6. Be constantly curious. The aggregate amount of knowledge is growing so fast that the VUCA leader recognizes the improbability of being an authority on a subject. They partner with their people to seek smart solutions and don’t blame team members for their shortcomings. Instead of blaming conversations, they have learning conversations.

7. Never be satisfied. The VUCA leader doesn’t rest on their laurels. They understand a business world that is spinning ever faster doesn’t allow one to celebrate a success for long.

The new reality seems daunting. But the VUCA leader will meet it with poise and grace. I’m preparing myself for the coming future. What are you doing to get ready?

Dear Madeleine,

I am going to start a role in a new team soon. I’m hoping you can give me some advice on how to seem confident and establish credibility.

I am on the younger side and I am not a very confident person to begin with. In my previous roles, I noticed that some people started talking down to me—for example, explaining things I already know or even taking credit for my work. I once told someone some ideas I had and during the next meeting, before it was my turn to talk, he shared all of my ideas as if they were his.

Do you have any suggestions on what I could do to avoid these situations? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Starting a New Role

____________________________________________________________________

Dear Starting a New Role,

Congratulations on your new role. Your question shows that you are a planner and that you are thoughtful—two strengths you have going for you. Your description of your previous experiences reveals that you are observant, which is another strength. The fact that you were once undermined by a co-worker who had no compunction about stealing your ideas and sharing them as his own is painful—but excellent—experience. I hope it taught you not to trust anyone until you have evidence that they are trustworthy.

A lot of appearing confident when you aren’t is physical. This means standing up straight, smiling and making eye contact with everyone you engage with, and maintaining stillness. Women, especially, tend to play with their hair, touch their face, or fidget with their accessories—a bag, jewelry, a phone. So don’t do any of those things. To keep yourself from movements that may signal discomfort, keep your hands loosely together in your lap or on a table and breathe.

If you feel yourself getting overly stressed, try two-to-one breathing: simply breathe in for three counts, hold for one count, and release the breath for six counts. Repeat. Or you can do two and four counts—whatever works for you. The research shows that this kind of breathing enables your parasympathetic nervous system to calm you down in a way that deep breathing doesn’t. And no one has to know you are doing it. Another benefit is that the counting occupies your mind and makes you appear alert and interested.

I would refer you to the work of Amy Cuddy, who wrote an entire book on Presence—and how the way you hold your body can actually change your brain, how you feel, and how others perceive you. Her research has been challenged—but I will tell you that I have experimented personally with her methods and they help.

I learned another technique from the autobiography of Laurence Olivier (the most famous actor of his day), where he describes how he suffered from almost paralyzing stage fright at the height of his success. The method he found that helped him overcome it was to feel the soles of his feet on the ground. I know that sounds weird, but I have had plenty of stage fright myself and it has worked. It literally gets you out of your head and back into your body.

The physical stuff is your first line of defense. The next step is to manage what goes on in your head. This is where your strengths will really help you. Use your powers of observation. Instead of second-guessing yourself, pay attention to others. Ask yourself what is important to each of the people you are interacting with.  How do they think? What are their strengths? The more you pay attention to others, the less attention you will pay to whatever doubts you may have about yourself. The more information you gather about everyone you work with, the more you will be able to tailor your communication when you interact with them.

Credibility will come with delivering the results that are required of you. So do everything you can to first get crystal clear on what your boss and teammates are expecting from you—and then deliver. Make sure to follow through on any commitment you make, and only make promises you know you can keep. Ideas are all fine and well, but execution trumps pretty much everything.

Don’t worry about what to say. It is better to keep your mouth shut until you have something to say that you are 100% sure of. And when you are ready to say something, state your position and how you came to it. Straightforward, simple, and to the point. If you must speak in meetings, again, keep it simple and to the point. And of course, you already know how to not share your ideas with anyone until you know you can trust that they won’t take credit for them.

I would question your assertion that people telling you things you already know is the same as them talking down to you. It’s possible these people are just trying to be helpful. I guess my point here is that you don’t need to make assumptions about people’s intentions. If people are telling you things you already know, all you have to do is smile and say “thank you.” If people are offering help you don’t need, all you have to do is say “thanks, I’m all set.” It doesn’t hurt to cultivate relationships with people who want to help you. We all need all the help we can get! Nobody reaches their goals or achieves their dreams by themselves.

Pay attention, take notes, deliver on expectations. Stand up straight, keep your hands still, and breathe. Trust no one until you know they can be trusted.

You are going to be great.

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.

As I think about what it means to wrap up this year, I reflect on the goals I set for myself and my team and celebrate the progress I’ve made personally and professionally. (As an example, my 40^th year has been my best yet! If you want to know more, feel free to send me an email and I will share how shame has lost its grip on me.)

While looking back on what I’ve learned is certainly useful (I’ve learned a lot), I also realize that I need to open the aperture and think about the future. What goals shall I set in 2022? What should I prioritize for my team? With that, I add planning sessions with each of my team members in which we will create development plans, talk career, and dream big—even for a moment—before the new year hits and we are all back at work executing, checking things off, and making what we hope will be a meaningful difference in the world.

So, as a learning professional who cultivates the leadership and human skills needed to create an empathetic, inclusive, and high-performing workforce, what is your priority as you shift your focus to 2022? Really, it should be just one thing: your people. Just them. Not the solution, not the platform, content, technology, or modality.

Often when we think of priorities, we start to list out initiatives such as:

• We need a new leadership development program
• We must increase engagement in our learning platform
• We need to re-evaluate our content strategy so it’s more micro
• We must create a coaching culture
• We need to include more simulations to engage our audience

Every item above is likely a worthy pursuit—but in the current way it’s framed, each one becomes about the solution, not the humans we are desiring to impact. When we focus only on the what, we tend to lose sight of our ultimate goal, which can cause us to design and build something that misses the mark.

For example, there is huge value in re-evaluating a content strategy, but why is it necessary? What outcomes are you trying to achieve? How does a content strategy actually have meaningful impact on your audience? If you create short videos, podcasts, and interactive content without really understanding who is going to consume them and what value they’ll provide, you are simply generating more content for a platform no one touches.

So instead of listing your goals from a solution perspective, try to reframe them from the perspective of the individuals you want to impact. When you start with who and keep people at the center, you may rethink your solution. For instance:

Voluntary separations are increasing. Exit interviews indicate our leaders’ inability to build trust is a root cause. How might we help our leaders understand their role in engaging and retaining our best talent?

• The solution could be a leadership development program, but it could also be an initiative where data shares and targets select individuals for coaching.
• The solution could be an organization-wide focus on trust, including the behaviors people need to demonstrate to build trust with others.
• The solution could be an acknowledgement from senior leaders that all the change in the past two years has shifted our focus away from our people, prompting every leader in the organization to have re-engagement conversations with each of their people.

When the solution becomes about people and the outcomes you want to achieve, you’ll start seeing more energy from your team members. People are better able to connect the work they are doing to a purpose that is inspirational and meaningful.

So this year, first reflect on and celebrate the progress and the impact you have made on the lives of the people around you. Now pivot to the future and identify the individuals you want to have an effect on in the coming year. Then—and only then—determine the solution.

The Great Resignation. The Great Attrition. The Mass Exodus.

The historic turmoil taking place in today’s workplace has been given many names—and for good reason. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record-breaking 10.9 million jobs were open at the end of July 2021.[1]

This unprecedented turnover will stretch long into the future. Some 41% of the global workforce is “considering leaving their employer in the current year,” while “95% of workers are contemplating a job change.”[2]

All this turnover comes at a staggering cost: 30%–40% of the annual salary for entry-level employees; 150% for mid-level employees; and up to 400% for highly skilled employees.[3]

The costs are particularly steep for the sales function:

• The average salesperson needs 15 months before becoming a top performer.^[4]
• A company spends on average $106,374 for a salesperson’s salary, health care, etc., before the person starts to reach their quota.[5]
• The annual turnover rate for salespeople is 27%—twice that of the overall labor force.[6]

A little reflection reveals a sobering conclusion: A company cannot succeed if there is significant turnover in its sales force. The cost of the investment, the long lead time before success, the risk of a salesperson quitting, and the opportunities lost along the way are financially crippling.

The Pivotal Role of the Sales Manager

Sales managers have an oversized influence on the struggles and successes of a salesperson.

Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units.[7] An article in Harvard Business Review went even further:

High-performing sales leaders reported an overall average annual quota attainment of 105% compared to 54% for underperforming sales managers.[8]

The same article stated that when salespeople rate their manager as being excellent or above average, 69% of them exceed quota.[9]

So how can sales managers help their new hires?

Using SLII® with New Hires

SLII®, the world’s most taught leadership development solution, is a proven way to help salespeople succeed. It categorizes a person’s capability for a given task or goal into four categories:

• D1—Enthusiastic Beginner. You’re usually at D1 when you’re starting to learn something new.
  • Remember how you couldn’t wait to ride a bike? You were at D1 on that goal.
• D2—Disillusioned Learner. You inevitably discover that what you’re trying to learn is harder than you first thought.
  • Pedaling, steering, and keeping your balance was trickier than it looked at D2.
• D3—Capable, but Cautious, Contributor. You need to build your confidence in using the new skill.
  • At D3 you could now ride around the block, but your first outing to a crowded park was a bit intimidating.
• D4—Self-Reliant Achiever. You’re highly competent at a task and committed to doing an excellent job.
  • When you reached D4, you could help your younger sibling learn to ride!

SLII® teaches managers to match their leadership style to an employee’s needs by using the appropriate directive and supportive behaviors. The four leadership styles are S1 (Directing), S2 (Coaching), S3 (Supporting), and S4 (Delegating). When leaders match their leadership style with an employee’s development level on a particular task or goal, the person develops competence, motivation, and confidence. And because their development leads to new career opportunities, they stay with your company.

New salespeople are at D1 or D2 on many tasks. They have considerable commitment (motivation and confidence) but little competence, even if they were a top performer at their previous job.

Here are examples of Style 1 leadership that sales managers can use to get new hires off to a fast start:

• Give clear goals
• Set timelines for accomplishing them
• Prioritize tasks
• Create a step-by-step learning plan
• Show what a good job looks like
• Give access to resources
• Share generous feedback on progress

Sales managers should also acknowledge a new hire’s transferable skills and commitment. People at D1 on a specific task or goal are receptive to direction when you acknowledge their commitment.

Sales managers can also paint a picture of success. That means showing the new hire what a good job looks like instead of letting the person develop bad habits as they struggle to find their own way. This tactic works because brain stores information as images, not words.

Time Well Spent

Millions of people worldwide are reevaluating their careers because of the pandemic. Competition for talented sales professionals is fierce. What’s a sales manager to do?

Take the time to invest in your new hires. Use SLII® when you lead. It will pay returns for years to come.

You can learn more about the impact that SLII® can have in your organization by downloading the new eBook Turning New Hires into Top Performers… Quickly. Looking for more content specific to sales management? Check out Meeting the Quota Challenge: Critical Skills Every Sales Manager Needs to Excel. Both downloads are free courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

ENDNOTES

[1] 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

[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.clickboarding.com/employee-turnover-what-is-it/

[4] https://www.indeed.com/career/salesperson/salaries

[5] https://www.sba.gov/blog/how-much-does-employee-cost-you#:~:text=There’s%20a%20rule%20of%20thumb,little%20harder%20to%20pin%20down.

[6] https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-predict-turnover-on-your-sales-team

[7] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/231593/why-great-managers-rare.aspx#:~:text=Companies%20fail%20to%20choose%20the,of%20the%20time%2C%20Gallup%20finds&text=Managers%20account%20for%20at%20least,severely%20low%20worldwide%20employee%20engagement.

[8] https://hbr.org/2015/09/the-7-attributes-of-the-most-effective-sales-leaders

[9] https://hbr.org/2015/09/the-7-attributes-of-the-most-effective-sales-leaders

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.

I’m excited to announce that The Ken Blanchard Companies has just made available a free ebook that provides practical information and easy-to-use tools to increase your leadership effectiveness.

If you’re familiar with my work, you know I’m a big believer in “different strokes for different folks”—meaning that I believe there is no best leadership style; the most effective leaders adapt their style to the development level of the person being led. This is the essence of SLII®.

Here are some of the assets you’ll receive in the free ebook:

• Leadership Style Quiz: Becoming aware of your default leadership style can help you improve your ability to influence others. Do you tend to be a more directive leader or a more supportive leader? Take our quiz to find out.
• Summary of SLII® Leadership Styles, Skills, and Micro Skills: The ebook summarizes the four SLII® leadership styles, the three SLII® leadership skills, plus the fourteen SLII® micro skills—a very handy overview for busy managers!
• Strengths and Weaknesses Quiz: SLII® teaches that people go through four development stages on any goal or task: Enthusiastic Beginner, Disillusioned Leader, Capable But Cautious Contributor, and Self-Reliant Achiever.

Blanchard research conducted with tens of thousands of leaders has found that only 1 percent of leaders are able to successfully match the needs of all four development stages. A majority of leaders—54 percent—use their default style with everyone. As you might imagine, this is not terribly effective!

Our Strengths and Weaknesses Quiz will improve your effectiveness by raising your awareness about your own leadership style and showing you when and how to adapt your style to the situation.

Concise and loaded with insights, our new SLII® ebook is a valuable tool for every leader. To download your free copy, follow this link: https://resources.kenblanchard.com/ebooks/are-you-a-directive-or-supportive-leader

Most companies want their employees to continue to grow and develop because they know employee growth benefits not only the individual but also the organization. For example, how would productivity change if an employee became a more effective communicator or learned to manage others using a coach approach?

To foster employee growth and development, organizations often enroll people in training or provide them with a coach. What they don’t do enough of, however, is encourage the managers of these employees to support that growth and development. 

This type of manager involvement is often referred to as stakeholder engagement. Simply put, the leader is paying attention to their employees’ development. Stakeholder engagement does not have to be time consuming or difficult. And it’s been documented that when managers are involved, it’s much more likely that an employee’s training and coaching will meet or exceed desired outcomes.

Why stakeholder engagement?

Stakeholders are in a great position to provide helpful feedback to their employees. The employee can use this valuable data to determine their development goals and how those goals relate to the organization’s needs. Additionally, stakeholders can:

• Encourage the employee to share their learning objectives to make sure the two parties agree on the work the employee should focus on. Then together, they can align the employee’s development goals with organizational objectives to increase the impact of the learning. This not only maximizes the employee’s effectiveness but can also increase their overall contribution.
• Provide insight and suggestions for improvement and behavioral change to the employee and help them understand the manager’s vision for their role.
• Emphasize the organization’s level of commitment regarding the employee’s development.
• Recognize whether or not the employee is invested in their own development.
• Encourage the employee to invest more effort in pursuing learning opportunities.
• Hold both themselves and the employee accountable for the employee’s development goals.

Manager involvement before training or coaching

When stakeholders get involved early, they can help direct the course of an employee’s learning—it can be as simple as the leader recognizing and acknowledging the developmental work the employee is taking on. More often, however, it involves the manager facilitating a conversation with the employee before training or coaching begins. During this conversation, manager and employee can discuss:

• The organization’s key goals, objectives, vision, and values
• The employee’s key initiatives and how their role fits into the overall strategy of the organization—linking the employee’s development to the organization’s purpose and desired outcomes
• The way employee performance is evaluated and how it ties into business metrics 
• The stakeholder’s thoughts on the employee’s goals with the goal of agreement on skills the employee needs to achieve specific results. They can then work together to consider how the employee’s actions impact the employee, the manager, and the organization.
• Potential gaps the training or coaching might be able to close that will enable the employee to improve and maximize the value they bring to the organization.
• The employee’s Individual Development Plan (IDP), if they have one—or, if not, manager and employee may discuss how to create one. It’s always a good idea to have a written plan defining employee development objectives. At the end of the conversation, the IDP serves as a contract between employee and manager that outlines what they will do together on further development.

Manager involvement after training or coaching

At the end of training or coaching, stakeholder and employee can review:

• Key concepts from the training and how to use them to be more effective going forward. Help make the concepts come alive by linking the learnings to the employee’s strategic and organizational objectives.
• The employee’s IDP and how the learnings might align with, enhance, or change their development plans. Discuss specific actions the employee is going to take, including timeframes and deadlines.
• Having ongoing conversations about the employee’s IDP and their new learnings. There is so much value in having regular development discussions; don’t let this be “one and done.”

These conversations are extremely important. They not only engage the manager with the development process but also begin to assign some ownership to the manager for the eventual level of development achieved by the employee.

Employee development is everyone’s responsibility

The reality is that an employee’s growth and development is the responsibility of the whole organization. Stakeholders getting involved can provide a big return on investment without being time consuming. Many stakeholders are motivated by their own participation because they feel they are contributing not only to their employee’s development, but also to their own success. When this happens, it’s a win for all!

Are you a stakeholder who could increase your involvement in your employees’ development? Or perhaps you are an employee who could benefit from more attention from your manager regarding your development? I hope this post has given you some ideas for getting started!

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.

Presenting the results of our 2021 Blanchard HR / L&D Trends Report in a recent webinar was a surprisingly moving experience for me.

More than 1,000 L&D professionals participated in this year’s survey, which included questions about your response to COVID in 2020, the challenges you experienced converting face-to-face designs in a disrupted business environment, and your plans for developing people in 2021. One section of the survey included an open-ended question about the greatest challenge your L&D team faces going into the New Year.

Your responses and comments painted such a vivid picture of the past year. Reading them was like stepping into your lives—and it made me proud to be your colleague.

The Hero’s Journey

It’s clear that so many of you took the hero’s journey, overcoming challenge after challenge in 2020.

One finding from our survey shows how much terrain you covered: 85% of you converted face-to-face training to virtual and digital offerings in 2020. That is astounding. Classroom training—the most common delivery method for training—abruptly stopped. But developing your people couldn’t be put on hold.

So you pivoted at a stunning speed.

You worked valiantly to turn your F2F offerings into digital learning modalities. And most of you did it with limited experience, with inadequate resources, and under the most difficult of circumstances.

I say this with absolute appreciation because your comments and struggles reminded me of what our team had to do to convert our F2F offerings. Their efforts were nothing short of heroic and their output level was unprecedented. Sound familiar?

The hero’s journey ends with personal transformation. Perhaps you discovered something admirable about yourself and your colleagues. Our team discovered they can accomplish a year’s worth of work in two to three months when they know people they care about are relying on them.

Perfecting Accomplishments

Product developers consider three fundamental trade-offs when creating project plans: scope, budget, and timeline. All three are interdependent; each variable affects the others. For example, increasing the scope requires a larger budget and/or changing the timeline.

Normally, a team can adjust these variables to fit the project. The pandemic, however, did away with this freedom for L&D teams. Budgets were slashed so we couldn’t just shovel money at the problem. Timelines were unyielding because everything was in crisis. Scope, as a consequence, had to be reduced. Functionality, interactivity, and engagement were just a few of the casualties.

Not surprisingly, 51% of respondents in the 2021 Trends Survey felt their new digital/virtual offerings were less effective than F2F solutions. This is nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, you may have unknowingly applied a best practice of agile development by releasing minimum viable products to your users.

Now—what to do going forward?

When setting priorities for 2021, you’ll likely want to address some of the shortcomings in the solutions your team created. Recognizing the need to revise these offerings to boost learner engagement and quality is an important step. Instead of rushing off to build new products, consider enhancing the ones you developed when resources were scarce.

A Caring Group

The L&D field tends to attract people who are concerned about the welfare and development of others. I was reminded of this again and again as I read your comments in the survey responses. The common theme was helping others—and this greatly overshadowed your personal struggles.

Here are some empathetic words your peers shared when asked about the main problem they faced during COVID:

• “Keep people engaged in times of fear”
• “Employees feeling isolated and disconnected”
• “Overworked and overwhelmed employees”

What you wrote is even more striking when you consider that Learning & Development was often considered a nonessential function during COVID downsizing. Countless organizations slashed their L&D budgets in 2020, leaving many L&D people feeling marginalized, overworked, and underappreciated.

But you remained true to your calling. You felt compassion for the people you develop. And you expressed concern about their emotional health. What a caring and dedicated group!

Your Turn

Now you can take the same journey I did: listen to the webinar, read the report, and come to your own conclusions.

I’m confident that you’ll be as proud and inspired as I am!

About the Author

Jay Campbell is SVP of Products & Content at The Ken Blanchard Companies, overseeing research and development activities. Holding degrees from Vanderbilt University and Boston College, Jay is currently pursuing a doctorate in leadership and organizational change at USC.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies

For more than 40 years, The Ken Blanchard Companies has been a global leader in management training, consulting, and coaching. Its solutions inspire leaders at all levels to create cultures of connection, unleashing talent to deliver extraordinary results. Its flagship leadership training program, SLII®, is the solution of choice for more than 10,000 organizations. Blanchard also offers a suite of other award-winning leadership solutions and coaching services to support them.

Dear Madeleine,

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

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

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

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

Dying in Silence

________________________________________________________

Dear Dying in Silence,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next steps:

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

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

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

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

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

What Is Servant Leadership?

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

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

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

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

Sound familiar yet?

Two Examples of Servant Leadership

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

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

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

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

Are You a Servant Leader?

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

You might be a servant leader—IF you…

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

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

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

Use this link to access the summary.

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

Historically, leadership development has been the one “vertical” within traditional learning and development curriculums that was immune to digitalization. Training and workshops had to be face to face—or so the story was told.

But the nature of our workforce and operational constraints have forced a change for nearly every global organization—and when you overlay disruption at work (like what we are experiencing right now), you’ll find that the need for a fresh, modern approach to effective, human-centered digital leadership development experiences has never been so pressing.

Leaders and practitioners know that they need to change how learning happens, leadership development and beyond, but they don’t necessarily understand how to get from today to a tomorrow that is still human-centered and has measurable business impact.

As a solutions architect at Blanchard, one element of my job is to help our clients sort out the noise regarding platforms, access points, user experience, reinforcement and sustainment, while at the same time finding a way to blend content and digital into an experience that results in the type of leader people love to work for.

This means while designing with the helping hand of smart technologies, our experiences need to be undeniably human.

That’s our goal. We develop learning experiences that are deeply rooted to your leaders and learners: who they are, what they do, and when and how they work. And we build experiences that improve their awareness and capability and move the needle forward for your business.

Over the next two weeks we will showcase some of the ways you can bring digital offerings into your organization.

• On March 18, I will present on Leveraging Learning Technologies.
• On March 26, my colleague Britney Cole will present on Evaluating Digital Leadership Training Programs.
• On March 27, virtual training expert Brent Bystedt will share best practices on Conducting Your First Virtual Session.

Click on any of the titles above to register for the session of your choice. All of these sessions are free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Have an immediate need or a more in-depth question? Use this Contact Us link to set up a complimentary consultation with a Blanchard solutions specialist.

Together, let’s bring a people-centered, digital approach to the leadership development space.

About the Author

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

“People’s lives change in two ways,” says bestselling business author and syndicated columnist Harvey Mackay, “the people they meet and the books they read.”

In his new book You Haven’t Hit Your Peak Yet! Uncommon Wisdom for Unleashing Your Full Potential, Mackay shares advice he’s learned over the years from coaches like Sam Walton, Peter Drucker, John Wooden, Lou Holtz, and others. His straight-shooting, humor-filled approach to success in business and life is covered across 27 different topic areas that include accountability, discipline, persistence, setting goals, ethics, and trust.

Here are eight key takeaways from Mackay’s book:

1. Attitude is key. “One of the most powerful things you can do to have influence with others is to simply smile at them. On the flip side, of all the human failings that can destroy a person or a business, arrogance is the deadliest.”
2. Your customers matter. “Taking care of customers is taking care of business, which is why you need to create a service culture. And when you do screw up—and everyone does—you need to know how to correctly apologize.”
3. Get hiring right. “You cannot be a leader under any circumstances unless you understand one four-letter word in the dictionary: hire. The single greatest mistake a manager can make is to hire the wrong person. And when it comes to getting hired, the most important thing to remember is that getting a job is a job in itself.”
4. Develop your people skills. “People skills are so important—including manners, watching your language, friendship, and being a class act.”
5. There is no substitute for quality. “Doing something that’s ‘just good enough’ never is. Our values and eye to detail determine who we are. It’s important to do things right the first time to gain trust.”
6. Compete to learn and grow. “Rivalries and opposition make you better and lead to creativity and innovation, which are critical for growth.”
7. Believe in your ability to improve. “There are many things you can do, such as strengthening your memory and learning from your mistakes, to build new skills. In my public speaking, I hammer home the point that people achieve to the degree that they believe in themselves. It doesn’t matter if someone says you can’t do something. The only thing that matters is if you say you can’t do it.”
8. Balance and perspective. “Be sure not to let making a living interfere with having a life!”

Ready to learn more? Visit the pre-order page for You Haven’t Hit Your Peak Yet! at Amazon.com.

Need a little extra incentive? Every person who orders Harvey’s book by noon on Friday, January 31, will get two additional e-Books: “The Harvey Mackay Network Builder” and “Harvey Mackay’s ABCs of Success.”

All you need to do after ordering You Haven’t Hit Your Peak Yet! is send an email to harvey@mackay.com and mention you learned about the book through Ken Blanchard. No proof of purchase is necessary.

PS: Not familiar with Harvey Mackay’s work and legacy? Check out this post from Jeffrey Gitomer sharing his experience spending a day with Harvey Mackay and Ken Blanchard.

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

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

Here are some benefits to developing leadership presence:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

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

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

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

Any advice you have for me would be appreciated.

Looking for a Role Model

Dear Looking for a Role Model,

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

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

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

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

Love,

Madeleine

About the author

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

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Dear Madeleine,

I lead a business for a global company. I am very bright and hardworking, have risen fast, and continue to rise. I will probably end up being a senior leader for the company someday—if not here, then in another area.

My problem: I am a jerk. I have heard others describe me as such when they thought I wasn’t around. This isn’t news to me; I know I have a real problem connecting with others. People usually fail to live up to my expectations. In fact, my direct reports disappoint me regularly—so do my peers—and I make no bones about how I feel. I also have a hard time staying present in meetings because I am so busy matching what I think should be happening with what is actually happening.

I have read up on authenticity—but seriously, if I were to be truly authentic, I would be run out of town. Trying not to be nasty takes virtually all of my self-control.

How can I stop being so judgmental? How can I lighten up and be more present? How can I be nicer?

Rhymes with Witch

____________________________________________________________

Dear Rhymes with Witch,

Wow. It sounds like it’s hard to be you right now. But here’s the good news: you are aware that you have a problem, which is half the battle. You possess valuable self-awareness and apparently have also developed some handy self-control. These are excellent prerequisites for change.

The next step is to get some clarity on why it is so important for you to be less judgmental, more present, and more kind. I use kind instead of nice because I believe there is a distinction. Here is an excerpt from Owen Fitzpatrick’s blog:

Being nice is when you are polite to people and treat people well. Being kind is when you care about people and show you care. Sometimes you can be kind to someone even though you aren’t nice to them—and you can certainly be nice to someone but also be unkind.

Here’s why the distinction between kind and nice is significant: Niceness is all fine and well, but it is superficial. It only requires a change in your behavior. You can Google “How to be nicer” and about a million good ideas will pop up for you. (I know this because I just did it.)

Kindness, though, has more depth, will help you go the distance, and will require a change in your character. If you are really signed up for the job of changing your character, you must first establish what makes it such a critical goal. Because it is hard work, my friend—worth it, but hard.

So what is the point for you? You are a superstar who could probably get away with being awful for the rest of your career. There is quite a bit of research that proves cleaning up your act would help ensure your rise to the top; but there are also plenty of rotten meanies at the top, everywhere.

In your case, your motivation may lie in how exhausted you get trying to control yourself and how hard it is to stay present as you indulge in your “judgy” ways. Or is it possible that it might actually bother you that people call you names when you aren’t around? If that happened to me, I would be crying in the ladies’ room. How did you feel when it happened to you? Either way, in order to change, you will need to hook into your motivation.

Once you have done that, you will really need to get help. You are striving for something hard and you will need a lot of support. Don’t ignore this part. You have come this far on your innate gifts, which has been relatively easy for you—if you had struggled mightily to overcome your shortcomings in the past, you probably wouldn’t be so judgmental. So do not try to go on this journey alone.

• Work with a therapist to get to the bottom of what may have shaped your meanie habits. Possibly you were judged harshly in your family of origin? There could be some value in going back to explore what got you here.
• Hire a coach to help you sift through all of the possible ways you could be more present and more kind, and to support you in finding a few methods that work for you.
• Discuss the whole thing with a friend who has your trust and respect.
• Look around for someone at work who might mentor you on this journey—someone who matches you in IQ, work ethic, and high standards, but who is warm and well liked.

It wouldn’t be overkill if you tried all of the above.

Once you get your support system set up, you might consider learning how to meditate or practice mindfulness to quiet your busy monkey brain. Think about small ways to manage yourself more effectively by building some new habits. But now I’m jumping the gun.

Begin by discovering what is so important about your becoming a better person. That will help you formulate the first step of how you are going to do it. This journey will humble you and it will be painful. You will get the stuffing beaten out of you as you walk this road, which will help you be more compassionate and empathetic toward others—and that’s the actual point, is it not?

I’m impressed you have come this far, RWW. Now comes the really hard part. Apply that formidable intellect and that implacable will, get a lot of help, and you might just make it.

You will need good luck, too, but I find that fortune favors the brave and those who genuinely want to be better.

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!

Blanchard points to research that shows most managers don’t receive that necessary training, however, until they are about ten years into their managerial career.

“The effects are damaging at both an individual and organizational level,” says Blanchard. “More than 60 percent of new managers underperform or fail in their first two years.  And those who survive without managerial training often find themselves with negative habits that are hard to break—which can hold them back for years to come.”

With over two million new people stepping up to leadership for the first time each year in the US alone, Blanchard believes organizations need to take management training a lot more seriously.

“It is very important that those responsible for organizational training put together an effective curriculum for developing people into trusted professional managers. As a professional manager, you are responsible for what your direct reports do, and to some degree, how they feel—especially the emotional connection they establish with their job and the company.”

While some people’s influence and communication skills come naturally, every manager can learn and develop the skills they need regardless of their starting point, says Blanchard.

“Some people naturally understand how to work with others collaboratively and how to build rapport, while others come to leadership from a less developed starting point. But you still need a system if you are going to succeed as a manager. It’s something everyone can benefit from.”

According to Blanchard, all great managers do four things:

“Great managers begin by establishing clarity for their people through clear goals, accountability, and personal responsibility.  Second, they intervene appropriately when things are going well—and when things aren’t going well. Third, they adapt their leadership style to what is needed by appropriately identifying a direct report’s development level on a task and then modifying their style to best serve the direct report at that stage.

“Finally, great managers know how to create long term, long lasting relationships that are evidenced by trust and engagement over time.  This results in people who stay with the organization, talk positively about the organization to others, and perform at high levels in a collaborative manner.”

Blanchard explains that effective managers connect the dots between the work of the person, the work of the unit, and the work of the organization as a whole. They understand the correlation of action, motivation, and commitment. They successfully manage both performance and employee satisfaction.

“Great managers help people see the bigger picture from whatever seat they occupy,” says Blanchard, “and that can be a challenge.  People’s careers rise and fall and managers need to be there with coaching skills to help people through the ups and downs—even when there isn’t a clear path forward.

“These powerful skills almost always have to be developed through training—and once learned, they can help people focus and find a way forward in any situation.”

Interested in learning more about designing a leadership development curriculum for the managers in your organization? Join us for a free webinar!

Creating an Effective Leadership Development Curriculum—3 Essential Components

Online—July 25, 2017 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Great managers aren’t born—they’re trained. In this webinar, best-selling business author and consultant Scott Blanchard identifies the essential ingredients of a comprehensive leadership development program, starting with a first-time manager curriculum and moving through intermediate and advanced skills managers need to bring out the best in people.

Drawing on his company’s experience successfully training hundreds of thousands of managers for more than thirty years, Blanchard will share:

• Four communication skills and four conversations new managers need to master
• Three goal setting, diagnosing, and matching skills intermediate level managers need to learn
• Four specialized coaching skills that help advanced managers cope with management situations that are shifting or otherwise uncertain

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to put together a proven leadership development program in your organization!

Register today!

“As a leader, you need to be on your best behavior all of the time,” says coaching expert Madeleine Blanchard.  “What’s unfortunate is that just when a leader needs increased self awareness, the quality of honest feedback they receive plummets.

“As the leader assumes increased power, followers in the organization start to modify the feedback they provide.  Feedback is more positive.  The boss’s jokes are always funny and their ideas are always good. People begin to suck up to power in a way that distorts reality for the successful executive, who no longer receives the straight scoop.”

“That can lead to blind spots, especially in the areas of communication and trust,” says Randy Conley.  As trust practice leader for The Ken Blanchard Companies, Conley has seen how leaders can struggle—and how they often can be unaware of how they are coming across to others.

“The problems can usually be traced back to one of four areas,” explains Conley.  “A leader’s style can cause negative perceptions of their Ability, Believability, Connectedness, or Dependability.  Negative perceptions in any of these four areas can lead to decreased trust.

That’s why Conley recommends that leaders take the time to conduct a trust audit, which helps them evaluate where they currently stand, make amends where necessary, and modify their behavior going forward.

“It’s a three-step process where leaders assess their current behavior, apologize if they need to, and act more consistently.

“Assessing behavior involves looking at your conduct in four areas,” explains Conley. “In our Building Trust training program we have leaders look at how they are perceived by others in terms of being Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable.  A problem in any one of these four areas will have a negative impact on relationships and the ability of people to work together successfully.

“Able refers to how people see you as being competent in your role.  Do people think you have the skills and experience to get the job done?  Sometimes it is a perception issue; sometimes it is a gap in experience.  Either way, it needs to be addressed.

“Believable is always a perception issue—do you act in ways that are consistent with someone who is honest, truthful, and forthcoming?  This can be a challenge for leaders as they move up in an organization and feel it necessary to share some information on a need-to-know basis.  The problem is that people may perceive the leader is hiding information or not being completely transparent.

“Connected is the relationship aspect of trust.  Do you demonstrate that you care about people—or do you come across as all business?  Working together requires a heart and head connection.  In addition to following you for logical reasons, people also want to follow you for emotional reasons.  Leaders need to check their style and make sure that they aren’t coming across as cold or aloof.

“Dependable means following through on your good intentions.  This trips up a lot of well meaning executives—especially the people pleasers who can’t say ‘no.’  They overcommit themselves and start missing deadlines. They are often surprised to discover how this diminishes people’s trust that they will do what they promise.”

Both Conley and Blanchard caution leaders to be prepared to act on gaps uncovered by the trust audit.

“Make sure you are ready for what you hear,” says Blanchard.  “When you invite people to discuss these potentially sensitive areas, you have to be ready to listen.  Feedback is a gift.  There are only two things an executive should say when they receive feedback—either “thank you” or “tell me more.”

Also, explains Conley, be ready to acknowledge and apologize when necessary.

“You have to own up to areas where you have fallen short. In our program, we train that the most important part of apologizing is being completely sincere—don’t explain, rationalize, or make it the other person’s problem.”

“It’s a simple concept, but one that leaders screw up all the time,” adds Blanchard.  “How many times have we heard a senior leader qualify an apology by saying, ‘I’m sorry if my behavior made you feel that way,’ or by explaining, ‘I was only trying to…’

“Less is more when it comes to apologies,” explains Blanchard. “Just say ‘I’m sorry. I hope you will forgive me for the way I have acted in the past.’ If you need to say more, save it for the next step when you explain how you will act differently in the future.”

“Most leaders are trustworthy.  It’s just their behavior that gets in the way sometimes,” says Conley.

Interested in learning more about adding trust and coaching skills into a leadership development curriculum?  Be sure to check out the Building Trust or Coaching Essentials pages on the Blanchard website.

You can also download copies of the new eBooks

 Do Your Managers Build or Erode Trust

 Great Leaders Don’t Tell You What to Do—They Develop Your Capabilities

Trustworthy behavior leads to trusting relationships. With increased awareness, the willingness to hear feedback, and the humility to apologize for times when trust has been broken, leaders can take a huge leap toward building the types of relationships where people work together to move the organization forward!

Dear Madeleine,

I have been asked to participate in a 360 degree feedback program.

My boss and the HR team will see the results—and I think the results are going to be used to make promotion decisions.

I have a bad feeling about this. I’m not that worried about someone giving negative feedback, but the whole process feels very unsafe to me.

My participation seems to be optional. What do you think?

Unsafe

Dear Unsafe,

Well, this is a can of worms if there ever was one. There are entire books on this topic!

The best practice in most organizations is to give the results of a 360 report only to the person who is the subject of the feedback, and to offer the support of a trained professional to debrief the report with the participant and create an action plan based on the results. I have heard of organizations including 360 results in personnel decisions, but it is not a recommended practice. The problem with any feedback is that it usually says as much about the person giving it as it does about the person receiving it, so the results can be tricky to interpret. You can’t always be certain about anyone’s agenda, especially if that person has an ax to grind or is competing for a job with the subject of the feedback.

In your situation, I would say get more information to help you make the decision about whether or not to move ahead with the program. Questions to ask include:

• What is the assessment, and is it a validated tool? (We have seen some 360 tools created “in house” that are really poorly written and confusing! This can invalidate any results.)
• What does the assessment measure?
• How will your raters be chosen and will you have input on the choice?
• Will you get to see and learn from the results?
• Will you get help to interpret the results and create an action plan based on them?
• Who else will be doing this process?
• Who exactly will be seeing the results?
• How will the results be used to make decisions?
• Just how optional is this opportunity?

Ultimately, declining a development opportunity never makes you look good. And properly sourced feedback can be a gift, so I am inclined to say go for it. But if you feel unsafe, I suspect there is a good reason for it.

Sit down with your boss and get answers to your questions. Share your uncertainty and ask your boss what he or she thinks you should do. A candid conversation about the whole thing will increase your confidence and ability to make the right decision for yourself.

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 example, one client I was working with wanted to say “no” to committing to weekly one-on-one meetings with a new direct report. My client did not feel she had the time to commit to another meeting due to competing priorities.  Plus, she wanted to accept a complex project that would increase her professional development.

During our coaching sessions we discussed the impact of her committing to weekly one-on-ones and how it might serve her, the direct report, and the overall department. My client soon realized it was her responsibility to provide support and direction to her direct report to help her be successful. She understood that saying “no” would negatively impact her as well as her direct report. My client also recognized that saying “yes” to meeting more often might eliminate some of the frustration she was feeling as her direct report was challenging her on requests while missing deadlines.

As a result of our discussion, my client committed to weekly one-on-ones with her new direct report to increase her competency in specific tasks. The “yes” response supported the direct report’s growth and development that led to the accomplishment of departmental goals. Over a period of time, the direct report needed less and less support and direction from her manager. This allowed my client more time to take on a complex project to increase her own growth and development.

How about you? Are you thinking through the implications before you say yes or no? Below are a few questions to ask yourself prior to making a knee-jerk decision.

• Who will benefit from this decision?
• What am I not going to be able to do if I say yes or no?
• Will this decision help me accomplish my goals or will it take time away from my efforts in reaching my goals?
• How much time will I need to invest?

What situations have you said yes or no to recently? Are the decisions you make increasing your leadership effectiveness? YOU have the power of choice to make conscious, informed decisions.

About the Author

Terry Watkins 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.

The first step in any leader’s career progression is often the most difficult: moving from the rank and file of a peer group into management. It can be a tough transition for the unprepared. Many first time managers see themselves in a split role: not only as a manager but also continuing as an expert in their former position. It’s an inner struggle that can go on for years.

As you start assuming your new manager identity, it may be easy to slip back into doing the comfortable and familiar work at which you excel. But for the good of your team and your own career progression, you need to focus primarily on your manager role.

Here are three key steps to help new managers make a smooth transition.

Don’t delay—manage

Delaying your transition to a manager or director can be the kiss of death for your career. The longer you are labeled a worker/manager, the more you will be pigeonholed for non-management production assignments. Furthermore, when an opportunity does open up at a higher level, your lack of key management abilities such as vision, budgeting, conflict resolution, delegation, team building, and strategy will be a glaring weakness when compared to other candidates.

Adapt and guide

You may at first be inclined to increase the team’s performance by telling everybody what to do and how to do it, based on your experience. Junior members of the team might appreciate this style, but seasoned experts may reject your directive approach and react with frustration and animosity.

Understanding each team member’s skill set and working within those parameters is vital to your effectiveness as a leader. Along the way, you may coach individuals to consider a different perspective or learn a new skill—this is expected in your role. But as a new manager you must remember that you are primarily responsible for the end result. Guide your talented team—but give them the ability to resolve the how.

Manage performance effectively

Managing people who were peers a few weeks ago would be a challenge for most new leaders. Some will turn into micromanagers and others will ignore poor performance in an attempt to maintain relationships. Neither too much managing, nor too little, is good for building a high performing team—or for your future career. Find the right balance to effectively manage your team’s performance. Leadership coaching in this and other areas can help a great deal with your transition into management.

Don’t Limit Your Potential

New managers struggle with workplace dynamics all the time. These issues are part of your evolution as a leader. Your first promotion into management happens because someone thinks you have leadership potential. Your job is to avoid the common mistakes that can delay your progress as a leader. You will transition into your new role with less difficulty by acquiring new skills that will help you face the future as a confident and coachable new leader.

____________________________________________

About the Author

Denis Levesque is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and a Certified Executive Coach (CEC).  Denis is also a member of The Ken Blanchard Companies 130-member coaching network, which has coached over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

About Coaching Tuesday

Coaching Tuesday is a regular weekly feature at Blanchard LeaderChat.  Check back each week for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Underestimating the amount of attention and follow-up that is required for people to apply what they have learned. Change is difficult under the best of circumstances. Research identifies that only a fraction of learning ever sticks without repetition, reminders, and reinforcement. Don’t underestimate the time required to make real change.

Underestimating the challenge leaders have in balancing their workload and engaging in their own learning and development. Time and competing priorities are the two big challenges. What usually happens is that well-meaning managers put their own personal development at the bottom of the list because it doesn’t feel central to the business of the organization. Coaching helps with that because it provides some structured time where people can slow down a bit and think about their leadership and how new behaviors can improve their effectiveness managing people and situations—it can help them address things early in the process.

Outsourcing responsibility for behavior change. According to Overland, to be successful, any leadership development initiative needs organization sponsors to support and push for a cultural environment that helps to sustain learning and change efforts. “Sometimes when we go into organizations, sponsors will want to offload everything to Blanchard. And while we are very, very good at what we do, that does not substitute for the impact a message from a senior leader will generate. One of the greatest ways to demonstrate the importance of any initiative is to have a senior leader check in on progress. That type of tactical approach makes a huge difference.”

INVOLVEMENT LEADS TO SUCCESS

As much as Overland would like to promise clients that they can just turn over the process to her and the Blanchard network of coaches, the reality is that senior leaders need to stay involved every step of the way. The good news is that the level of involvement required is no more than that required for any other successful leadership initiative.

You can learn more about Overland’s approach in the article, Considering Coaching to Support Learning? Be Sure to Avoid These Common Mistakes.  Also check out information about a free webinar Overland is conducting on August 6, Coaching in Today’s Organizations—Best Practices and Common Mistakes

Executives from leading companies in the US, Canada, and Europe will be sharing stories of how they have successfully met these challenges through development programs that teach leaders how to co-create, co-design, and collaborate more effectively.

That’s the type of leader Blanchard believes is needed to effectively turn the organizational pyramid upside down.  As he explains, “We’ve seen the negative result of self-serving leadership where all the money, power, and recognition moves up the hierarchy.  Self-serving leaders think that leadership is all about them and not about the best interests of the people they serve.  They forget about acting with respect, care, and fairness for all involved.”

Blanchard’s dream is that someday everyone will know someone who is leading at a higher level.  Self-serving leaders will be a thing of the past and leadership around the world will be composed of people who, as Robert Greenleaf said, “Serve first and lead second.”

Helping Blanchard spread the word will be several best-selling business authors each sharing a unique perspective on leading in today’s world.

Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers, will be sharing her research into the traits of leaders who “multiply” the talents of the people they serve.  She will also look at some of the ways that leaders accidentally diminish the performance of direct reports through behaviors they may be unaware of.

Dr. Henry Cloud, clinical psychologist and bestselling author of Boundaries for Leaders, will share how saying “no” to some priorities allows leaders to better say “yes” to others. Cloud will look at how human behavior, neuroscience, and business leadership can come together to improve performance and increase employee and customer satisfaction.

Matthew Emerzian, author of Every Monday Matters will explore the impact that one person can have in this world.  Drawing on his own liberating experience of spending one day a week in service to others, Emerzian will share how small, seemingly inconsequential acts of service can have a big impact in your own life and the lives of others.

Are you ready to serve?

In his book, The Secret: What Great Leaders Know—And Do, Ken Blanchard, along with co-author Mark Miller outline five areas a serving leader of the future needs to excel at.  How would you assess your leadership in these five areas?

1. See the Future.  Leadership is about taking people from one place to another.  What is your team’s purpose? Where do you want your team to be in five years?  How many members of your team could clearly explain the group’s purpose and goal to others?
2. Engage and Develop Your People. Once vision and direction are set, a leader’s job is to turn the hierarchal pyramid upside down so everyone is focused on helping those closest to the customer.  How are you encouraging the development of your people? To what extent have you successfully engaged each member of your team?  What have you done to suggest to your people that when it comes to implementation activities, you work for them?
3. Reinvent Continuously.  Great leaders don’t rest on their laurels.  How often do you review: How can we do the work better? How can we do it for less? What systems or processes can we change to enhance performance?
4. Value Results and Relationships. Serving leadership requires a balanced approach to results and people—it’s not an either/or question.  To what degree do you have high expectations for both results and relationships? How many of your people would say that you have made a significant investment in their lives? What are the ways that you have expressed appreciation for work well done in the last 30 days?
5. Embody the Values. In today’s age of transparency, being bold enough to lead others requires authenticity and trust. Do people know where you stand, what they can expect from you, and what you expect from them?  How well do your daily activities align with your personal values?

Review these five areas often, (you’ll see that the first letter of each factor spells SERVE to help you remember.) Continually doing a good job in each of these areas is a significant task—don’t be too tough on yourself if you see a couple of areas for improvement.  Every step you take in this direction will bring you closer to leading at a higher level.  Get started today!

PS:  Interested in learning more about Blanchard Summit 2013?  Use this link to download a brochure or request an invitation.

But leaders still play a vital role. The next advance needed in today’s organizations is to develop motivation into a strategic leadership capacity. When leaders treat employee motivation as a strategic issue, they create a distinctive advantage that is not easily matched by competitors. This strategic approach results in higher quality individual performance on everyday goals and projects, more “out of the box” thinking, faster innovation, greater acceptance of change, and greater “idea velocity.” Sustaining high quality motivation as a strategic capability also creates a magnet for talent.

Where to start?

The path to competitive advantage is paved with autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Focus on honoring employees’ legitimate needs for a sense of freedom in their work, their natural desire for warm relationships that are free of manipulation, and the natural striving for ongoing competence and growth.

One powerful place to start is with what you write and say to employees.  Here are three simple upgrades that you can make to your communication style to build more autonomy, relatedness, and competence in your interactions:

1. Offer as many options as possible when making requests for action, and make them true options. Employees need to feel a sense of freedom and control over their work. Try to avoid false options that really pressure them toward the single outcome you think is best.
2. Highlight the extraordinary learning that everyone is doing, particularly when times are tough. People are less afraid of difficult challenges when they realize they are successfully learning their way through them.
3. Balance focus on final results with focus on team, community, and collective effort. Be sure not to bang the table for results without expressing your gratitude for individual and team effort along the way.

Distinctive motivational capacity across the entire organization, in all functional areas, and among every level of executive, can be built by more carefully cultivating the work environment. Optimal motivation is fostered when you upgrade the quality of the language used in everyday meetings, in email, and even in how senior leaders speak to the financial markets. Such improvements tell employees what matters most—and whether employee well-being is really a central management focus.

The more you show that you genuinely care about your people as human beings, and are thankful for all they strive to achieve every day, the more likely you are to set your organization apart from the rest.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

To help with the transition, Homan-Blanchard recommends that new managers take a minute to catch their breath and then review a couple of the new changes in their life. Three things—getting comfortable with being a beginner again, scoring some early wins, and learning how to ask for help—can make the transition smoother.

1. Being a beginner again.  This is the first shock that many new managers experience and it can be a big one.  Making the shift from being a highly-competent individual contributor to a new life as a rookie manager can be a humbling experience.  The important thing is how you react to it.  If you respond by acting like you know it all, you’re going to be in trouble.  If you recognize that your new at this, and need a lot of direction and support, you’ll increase your chances of success.
2. Score some early wins.  New managers need to establish some credibility and confidence among the people they’re leading.  One good way to do this is by finding a relatively simple project, something small that can generate an early win.  Nothing builds confidence like success.
3. Ask for help. Sometimes new managers fall into a trap of thinking that they are supposed to have all the answers now.  Remember that you’re new at this.  If anything, you’ve probably got more to learn than ever before. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.  Pretending you have all the answers, or stumbling ahead when you don’t, is.  Find someone in the organization you admire as a good leader and pursue a possible mentoring relationship.  (Not your new boss, by the way.)  Take them to lunch, pick their brain, and learn everything you can.

To read more about Homan-Blanchard’s thinking on how to start fast as a new manager, be sure to check out First Time Manager, It’s Not Just About You Anymore. You can also access a webinar that has even more advice on making your first year a good one.  Survival Skills for First-Year Managers webinar recording

That’s one of the messages that Ken Blanchard highlights in a short article entitled Setting a Leadership Point of View for Yourself and Your Organization.  In it, Blanchard underscores the idea that leadership transparency is a key element of success in today’s organizations. That’s because transparency gives employees a chance to see the “person behind the position” in their organization.  This willingness on the part of leaders to share a little bit of themselves helps to build trust and confidence in a powerful way.  It also encourages people to share a little bit more about themselves as well. The result is greater openness and stronger bonds throughout the organization.  For leaders looking to get started with being more transparent with their people, Blanchard recommends three steps:

1. Identify your beliefs about leading and managing people. Who are the people that have influenced you in your life?  Most people think about traditional and famous leaders first, but the reality is that parents, teachers, and other important people in our lives are the ones who have usually influenced our thinking the most. Given what you’ve learned from past leaders and your core values, what are your beliefs about leading and motivating people?
2. Share your “leadership point of view” with others. How can you communicate what you believe and how it influences your behavior?  By sharing your leadership point of view with the people who report to you, they will not only have the benefit of understanding where you’re coming from, but they’ll also understand what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.
3. Think through how you will set an example for your people. Your leadership point of view lets others know how you will set an example for the values and behaviors you are encouraging. But as most parents know, people learn from your behavior, not from your words. Leaders must walk their talk. Developing a leadership point of view creates a clear path for you to follow.  Now you need to walk it.

To read the entire article, check out Setting a Leadership Point of View for Yourself and Your Organization here.

In The Ken Blanchard Companies’ SLII® Model, managers are taught to modify the amount of direction and support they give to direct reports based on their skill and commitment levels for the task at hand.  To make this easier to understand, Blanchard uses four easy to remember descriptors to identify the four stages of development: Enthusiastic Beginner, Disillusioned Learner, Capable but Cautious Performer, and Self-Reliant Achiever.

• Enthusiastic Beginner–Can you remember when you first started to learn to ride a bicycle? You were so excited sometimes that you couldn’t even sleep at night, even though you didn’t have a clue how to actually ride a bike. You were a classic Enthusiastic Beginner who needed direction. At this point you had enthusiasm for the task but not a lot of experience. You needed someone to show you how—in a step-by-step process.
• Disillusioned Learner–Remember the first time you took a fall on your bike? As you were picking yourself up off the pavement, you might have wondered why you decided to learn to ride in the first place and whether you would ever really master it. Now you had reached the Disillusioned Learner stage, and you needed coaching. This is a combination of direction mixed in with a lot of support to help you get through this rough patch.
• Capable but Cautious Performer–Once you were able to ride your bike with your parent cheering you on, that confidence probably became shaky the first time you decided to take your bike out for a spin without your cheerleader and supporter close at hand. At this point, you were a Capable but Cautious Performer in need of support. You knew how to ride, you just needed some extra encouragement to keep going.
• Self-Reliant Achiever–Finally, you reached the stage where your bicycle seemed to be a part of you. You could ride it without even thinking about it. You were truly a Self-Reliant Achiever, and your parents could delegate to you the job of having fun on your bike. Just don’t let them see you jumping off of that ramp.

Developing More Effective Leaders

There are still people out there who think there is only one best way of leading people. Experienced managers know that this is not the case. Take a look in your own organization. Notice what the best managers in your company are doing. Chances are you will see them adjusting their management style to meet the needs of the people they are working with.

Effective leaders know that there is no one best way to manage people. Managers looking to improve their ability to lead people to higher levels of performance need to adapt their style to match the development level of the people they are managing. It is a proven approach that will help managers lead people to their best performance every time.

To learn more about taking a situational approach to leading and developing others, be sure to check out the free, on-demand webcast, Managing and Developing People to Be Their Best: The 3 Keys to Becoming a Smart, Flexible, and Successful Leader

This finding is based on survey data gathered from 520 business organizations in 17 countries designed to test if a CEO’s primary focus on profit maximization resulted in employees developing negative feelings toward the organization. The result? Employees in these companies tend to perceive the CEO as autocratic and focused on the short term, and they report being somewhat less willing to sacrifice for the company. Corporate performance is poorer as a result. 

But when the CEO makes it a priority to balance the concerns of customers, employees, and the community while also taking environmental impact into account, employees perceive him or her as visionary and participatory. And they report being more willing to exert extra effort, and corporate results improve. 

These results aren’t surprising. When the definition of leadership focuses only on profit what tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Leaders wrongly believe that they can’t focus on both at the same time. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.  As this research points out, organizations perform best when they balance financial goals with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of everyone involved. 

The Four Keys to Better Leadership 

In looking at all of the great organizations that The Ken Blanchard Companies has worked with over the years, we have found one thing that sets these organizations apart from average organizations. The defining characteristic is leaders who maintain an equal focus on both results and people. In these organizations, leaders measure their success with people (customers and employees) as much as they measure their financial performance. 

In these organizations, leaders do four things well. 

1. They set their sights on the right target and vision. Great organizations focus on three bottom lines instead of just one. In addition to financial success, leaders at great organizations know that measuring their success with people–both customers and employees–is just as important as measuring the success of their financial bottom line. In these organizations, developing loyal customers and engaged employees are considered equal to good financial performance. Leaders at these companies know that in order to succeed they must create a motivating environment for employees, which results in better customer service, which leads to higher profits. 
2. They treat their customers right. To keep your customers today, you can’t be content just to satisfy them. Instead, you have to create raving fans–customers who are so excited about the way you treat them that they want to tell everyone about you. 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. 
3. They treat their people right. Without committed and empowered employees, you can never provide good service. You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well. Treating your people right begins with good performance planning that gets things going in the right direction by letting direct reports know what they will be held accountable for–goals–and what good behavior looks like–performance standards. It continues with managers who provide the right amount of direction and support that each individual employee needs in order to achieve those goals and performance standards. 
4. They turn the organizational chart upside down. 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 instead of self-serving leaders. In this model, once a vision has been set, leaders move themselves to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as a cheerleader, supporter, and encourager to the people who report to them. 

The way to maximize your results as a leader is to have high expectations for both results and relationships. If leaders take care of the people who take care of their customers, profits and financial strength will follow. The result is an organization where people and profits both grow and thrive.

CCL surveyed 2,200 leaders from 15 companies for its Understanding the Leadership Gap study. Researchers asked executives and managers from an array of corporations and government agencies to consider a set of 20 leadership skills.

Respondents then ranked those skills in terms of how important they will be for success five years from now and how accomplished their colleagues are at them today.  The biggest gaps?  Executives in the U.S., India and Singapore identified the four most important leadership skills needing work as: 

1. Leading People–knowing how to hire, direct and motivate talented staff
2. Strategic Planning–translating vision into realistic business strategies
3. Inspiring Commitment–recognizing and rewarding employee accomplishments
4. Managing Change–dealing with resistance to change and involving colleagues in the design and implementation of change 

As you look into the future, what do you see?  Are these the biggest gaps for your organization?  More importantly, do you have a plan in place for addressing them?