Dear Madeleine,

I am an executive coach. An interesting thing came up in a coaching session today: one of my clients has been tasked with defining the difference between a manager and a leader. There are some HBR articles on the topic and some different definitions, but I’m curious to learn if you have ever defined the difference between the two at Blanchard. It seems that most of the gurus in the coaching and training space talk about leadership and sometimes interchange the words leader and manager, but I don’t know if anyone has really distinctly defined the difference. How do those two roles manifest themselves at different leadership levels in a company?

My client and I discussed it and we agree on this: the closer a supervisor is to the individual contributor level (e.g., a frontline leader), the greater percentage of their time would be spent on manager-type tasks. The closer a supervisor is to the CEO level, the greater percentage of time would be spent on leadership-type tasks. In the middle levels, it likely would be a combination of both.

I’m curious, though, if we have defined the two roles in the past. I thought I would run this by you to see what you think.

Seeking a Distinction

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Dear Seeking a Distinction,

This is such a great question. I am curious to know what was behind the task request received by your client. You’re right—pretty much every place I’ve looked uses the terms manager and leader interchangeably. In fact, our flagship model SLII^® is referred to as a leadership model, while I think of it as a performance management model. So there you have it.

The distinction we do make at Blanchard is between strategic leadership and operational leadership. This is outlined in our white paper The Leadership-Profit Chain, which details the research that reveals the critical importance of leadership capacity to the bottom line. Strategic leaders are responsible for articulating the vision, defining the culture, and clarifying the strategic imperatives for the organization. Operational leaders engage in disciplined management practices that drive procedures, policies, and behaviors to ensure people do three things: understand and align with the vision, choose behaviors that are aligned with the stated values of the organization, and deliver what is needed to achieve the strategic imperatives.

Does that mean strategic leaders don’t have to manage people? No. Almost all senior executives still have to manage a function and direct reports.

Does this mean operational leaders can’t have a vision for their business area and come up with their own strategies to deliver what is needed? No. The best mid-level managers are trustworthy humans and have vision and strategy skills.

But we know not all leaders know how to (or care to) manage people and take care of all the details associated with managing. And not all operational managers are leadership material.

I think what you and your client came up with makes sense. Here is the way I would define the two different things—and I hope it will add value to your conversation.

A leader, in my humble opinion, is quite simply someone whom others choose to follow. Leadership activities include inspiring others, developing a reputation for making sound decisions, defining reality, resolving problems created by complexity, role modeling the stated values of the organization, and building trust with those they serve at every opportunity and through every interaction. A leader sees the big picture of what’s possible and inspires others to jump in and help to create that big picture.

A manager is a person who gets things done. Management activities include setting goals, working with peers to define how groups can work best together, breaking goals down into activities, assigning those activities to the best available person, and tracking progress and accountability for their group. A manager has a decent idea of the big picture but focuses on the right details in the creation of it.

It’s tricky, isn’t it? It all depends on what one’s job is and knowing where to focus one’s attention and how to allocate one’s precious time. To be successful in one’s job, no matter what label is assigned to it, this is what counts: attention and time allocation.

One might say a leader who is also a great manager (or a manager who is also a great leader) can see the forest and the trees. I think we’ve all had bosses who are brilliant at seeing the whole forest but can’t see a single tree, or one who can’t see the whole forest because they are focused on a single cluster of trees. And let’s not forget the technical experts who understand the inner workings of an individual tree. One of the great challenges we help organizations deal with is how often technical experts are promoted to management roles. There is a natural assumption that people who are excellent in their job will be good at managing others doing that same job. Anyone who has suffered from that situation as either manager or direct report can testify that nothing could be further from the truth.

In the end, it is a both/and situation instead of an either/or.

I hope this is helpful. Let me reiterate that this is my opinion, not Blanchard’s stated point of view, or the Truth. I look forward to hearing what you think!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I was recently promoted to a VP role in my company. It was a bit of a surprise as I thought my boss would never leave—but he did, quite suddenly. I have been in the role now for about five months.

My new boss keeps telling me I need to “get out of the weeds” and be more strategic. I have no idea what that means. I am still doing my old job while now also supervising the work of all my peers. I am at my wits’ end with the workload. The meetings alone are killing me.

My biggest issue is that I am most comfortable simply getting things done—making my list of tasks and systematically checking them off. I suspect that isn’t particularly strategic.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

How to Get Out of the Weeds

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Dear How to Get Out of the Weeds,

I can appreciate your overwhelm and confusion. The transition you are going through is one of the hardest, in my opinion, because everything you have done in the past that has made you successful is now getting in your way.

It is very common among people who are great at execution to be at sea with how abstract and unproductive “strategic” activity can feel. It is a shift in mindset that very few people recognize and even fewer are able explain or help with. It sounds like your boss might be one of those folks who expects you to just figure things out on your own.

I recommend a couple of do-nows—things you can do right now that will set you up for success in the near future.

• Identify someone in the organization that you respect and ask them to mentor you. Tell them you specifically need help to figure out how to be more strategic.
• Ask your boss what five things they need to see from you that will give them confidence that you can be more strategic and that you can do the job the way they want it done.
• Replace yourself: find someone who can do the job you were doing before. Either promote from within or request to hire from outside the organization. Nobody can be successful doing two full-time jobs.

Once you have done all of the above, or have them in process, you can turn your attention to what it means to be strategic.

This issue has come up so much with my coaching clients that I have developed a list of things a strategic leader does, gleaned from my experience and from reading books and articles. There are a million books on this topic and even more opinions, so remember this is just my take on it. Maybe use this list with your boss to see what they agree with and what they think might be missing or not quite right. That will at least get you two on the same page.

What does it mean to be a strategic leader?

See the big picture:

• Anticipate what is coming. Note and develop plans to navigate the unknown.
• Get the big ideas right.
• Stay aligned with reality while entertaining innovative ideas.
• Use big ideas to set direction while considering potential contingency plans.
• Craft the short-term and long-term objectives that will move people in the right direction.
• Communicate about objectives and direction clearly and repeatedly. Use storytelling and share inspiring wins widely.

Translate the abstract into the concrete:

• Help design tactics to achieve objectives, especially those that require cross-functional cooperation.
• Oversee implementation and execution of tactics—create dashboards of the most relevant data to create transparency, visibility, and accountability.
• Track analytics—interpret data to formulate meaning found in analysis.
• Refine big ideas, direction and objectives, and tactical approaches as activity surfaces new information.

See all, know all, intervene judiciously:

• Re-direct to maintain focus.
• Measure and evaluate performance.
• Track successes and breakdowns—help tackle hiccups in processes and systems.
• Support solving of complex entrenched problems.
• Make sure people feel noticed, seen, and heard.
• Keep your ear to the ground to get advance notice of potential problems and to surface time-wasters—policies that aren’t producing intended results. Anticipate.

Focus on the future:

• Create multiple paths for generating and testing ideas.
• Create an environment of learning and innovation.
• Develop opportunities for high potential performers.

Master political agility:

• Cultivate relationships incessantly.
• Challenge the status quo without provoking outrage.
• Be masterful at shuttle diplomacy—conducting negotiations, especially between parties at odds with each other, but also parties who can’t see how their goals can be aligned.

As you can see, a lot of these activities involve thinking or relationship building, which can feel like anything but work. And to be fair, it isn’t work as you have known it. But it is work—it is strategic work and someone needs to do it. You can expect this transition to take some time and a lot of getting used to. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself some grace. As long as your boss is getting what they need from you, you will be okay.

Good luck.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I have risen through the ranks of my organization very quickly. Last year I took on a lot of new responsibilities with almost no direction, did a good job, and got a raise and a promotion. My boss, the president of the company, has told me several times that he sees me as partner material.

One of my superpowers is figuring things out—but I fear I have reached my limit in one area.

I keep asking my boss for more clarity on what is expected of me to be able to reach partner. And he keeps saying I need to become “more comfortable with ambiguity.” It is maddening. If I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I would be doing it. But he won’t tell me.

Any ideas for me on how to break through this impasse?

Flying Blind

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Flying Blind,

You have just described the exact conundrum of making the leap from operational leadership to strategic leadership. When you reach the top ranks of any organization, the biggest shift is that there is no longer anyone to tell you what to do. What your boss is trying to express is that at the level you are playing, it is up to you to use your best judgment and make it up.

What most people don’t realize (until they are doing it) is that executive leadership is a wildly creative—and risky—business. When people are young, a little naïve, and lacking in experience, it can be incredibly exciting. When people have suffered the pain of making expensive mistakes, it can be terrifying.

Here is an article published recently: “The Ultimate Test: What I learned about leadership from Covid-19” that lays out exactly what I mean.

Managing ambiguity literally means figuring out how to get things done when things are not clear, nothing is certain, and there is no road map. It means looking at the whole picture and envisioning the path from where things are now to where you and the other senior leaders say you want to be.

Almost nothing you have been good at or thought you knew up till now is going to help you much, but it can be a good foundation. You will be required to let go of your addiction to checking tasks off your list and get comfortable with moving from incomplete task to incomplete task. For people who define themselves by their ability to get things done, this is a mind-bending transition. Get used to spending your time sharing your vision for the direction your people need to go and experimenting with approaches. Be prepared to adapt as new information comes in, and to pivot if necessary.

The metaphor that has been helpful to many is instead of checkers, you are now playing chess. Instead of moving all your pieces across the board quickly in a day or a week, you will now be lucky to make one or two moves in that time. Each move will require a lot of thought and consideration, frequent checking with others on the team, and possibly accepting a temporary fix until new information is revealed. It is dealing with constant change—and the job is never done.

One thing you can’t do on your own is decide on strategic imperatives. If your boss cannot articulate those, you can push for the leadership team to make decisions on what they are. Once you have those, and a sense of a budget, you will have to make up the rest.

Hopefully, you have organizational values to guide your decisions. If you don’t, you will have to decide on your own leadership values. That means you must know what is most important. That is a whole can of worms in itself and you can find more on that here. If your organization has not spent the time to articulate its values, you can advocate for putting some attention on that. Get some arguments for doing that here.

To be a partner means to be a co-owner with the other partners. Your boss is waiting for you to be brave. So be brave.

Make a plan for what you think needs to be done for you and your people to achieve, or even exceed, the strategic goals that have been set. Do you have the right people in the right seats? (Do they have the skills to do the job the way it needs to be done?) If not, how will you address that issue? Do you have all the resources you need? What hasn’t been thought about yet? What obstacles need to be cleared?

Let me be clear here: this is not a plan for how you will make partner. It is a plan for how you will lead your people to accomplish what needs to be done for the organization. It isn’t about you, it is about the success of your team and the organization.

Lay out the path for how you will do everything. Make a list of the unknowns and the obstacles you can see today. You will be worried that you’ve made mistakes, that you’ve missed something, and that it won’t be perfect—which will almost certainly be the case. That’s OK. No one and nothing is perfect right out of the gate.

Take your plan to your boss as your best guess of what you think you should be doing in the next 12 to 18 months and see what he says. Talk it through, get feedback, and share it with other leaders in the organization. If you think you are right about something that others disagree with, have the courage of your convictions and make your case. Or, if you think someone else’s point of view makes sense, let yourself be influenced. Then tweak the plan, share it with your team, and go.

You have passed the point of studying for the quiz and getting 100% and a gold star. You are now in unknown territory where you have to make your own map, and the test is about making decisions in the absence of enough information. Not only are there no gold stars on offer now, you will be surrounded by people who think they could do it better if they were in your shoes.

You say you have reached your limit for figuring things out? I say you are just getting started. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You are signing up for a bumpy but exciting ride!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I have had uncanny success in my company. I am extremely competitive and incredibly focused, and I work really hard because I live in fear of disappointing my boss or my customers.

Now my boss wants to put me in charge of a whole region—to open an office with about 75 people reporting to me. I have never managed people before, and my boss is asking me to lead all of these people. I am paralyzed with terror. I don’t even know much about the job. I keep asking my boss for some direction and he seems to expect me to just do it.

What is leadership, really? I generally don’t take things on if I don’t see how I can win, but I either have to step up to this challenge or start looking for another job.

Help!

Paralyzed

______________________________________________________________________

Dear Paralyzed,

Generally, I think there are two kinds of people: people who work their way up to being leaders and people who unwittingly become leaders without thinking much of it. You, clearly, are neither. You are being thrown into the deep end with your eyes wide open. The good news is that you are smart enough to be scared, which is entirely appropriate.

Speaking from experience, I can attest that leading and managing people is thankless, impossible, exhausting, and the most worthwhile challenge there is. It is a little like being a parent in that there is no one who can tell you how to do it. You kind of have to figure it out as you go. Being great at it will depend on your leveraging your superpowers and your strengths and finding ways to manage your weaknesses and human frailties.

Your boss is making a commonplace assumption. He is assuming that because you are a rock star individual contributor, you will be a rock star manager and leader. That is almost never true—and is, frankly, why our company has a thriving business. Anything that isn’t going well in a company is because of leadership. That is one of the few things I know for sure.

Your biggest initial challenge, I suspect, will be shifting from being a star performer to creating, developing and supporting star performers. Until now, your work has been all about you: your drive to compete, ability to focus, and work ethic. You will have to withstand a fair amount of discomfort and practice as you shift to making your work all about others. Who am I kidding? It will be a lot of discomfort. Just getting your head wrapped around that shift will be monumental.

The most important thing you can do right now is, first, breathe and slow down. Then put on your beginner’s mind, adopt a growth mindset, and make a commitment to becoming a student of leadership. This will help you to be patient and kind with yourself and it will keep you engaged over the long haul. And it will be a long haul, my friend, because in rising to this challenge, you are signing up for a lifelong quest.

I looked on Amazon and there are 60,000 books available on leadership and 10,000 on management. My father-in-law, Ken Blanchard, coauthored 65 of them. So I can’t exactly recommend the #1 book you need, but here is what I can do: I can point you to some eBooks and book summaries to get you started.

•  A book summary of Ken’s newest: The Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust
• A book summary of Leading at a Higher Level; Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations
• An Ebook: Taking a Situational Approach to Management
• A white paper: The Leadership-Profit Chain

Once you get into our resources site, you will find a treasure trove of simple—but not simplistic— guidance.

One of the most valuable insights in the Leadership-Profit Chain white paper is the distinction between strategic leadership and operational leadership. This is critical because it gives you a way to think about this massive topic in small bites, so it doesn’t feel like a tidal wave coming at you. It also helps (me, at least) break down the differences between leadership and management; terms most people use interchangeably. Some definitions that might be helpful:

• Strategic Leadership defines the imperatives for everyone in the organization. It is the what that provides the key relationships and metrics needed to ensure all units follow the same strategy. Strategies must then identify the criteria that are the key determinants of behavior. Examples of strategic leadership include vision, culture, and the declaration of strategic imperatives.
• Operational Leadership practices provide the how in the organization. They enable departments and employees to understand how they specifically contribute to organizational success. They are the procedures and policies that clarify how each unit will achieve the overall strategy.

So the act of simply breaking down the job at hand to the what and the how is a good place to start.

People can be both great leaders and poor managers—I’m sure you have seen this. You might even see this in your own boss, who has given you the what with no how. Managers can be very good at creating processes and systems and tracking accountability and compliance without being great leaders. In the end, I think your goal must be to be decent at both leading and managing, because that is what will win you hearts and minds.

Ultimately, leaders are people whom others choose to follow. They are people whom others look to for setting the direction, the stage, and the tone, and for keeping the train on the track and running on time. They have a compelling vision for what is possible that inspires people. They are role models for the behaviors they are looking for in their people—“do as I do,” which is much more motivating than “do as I say.” This is what’s meant by building culture.

Managers make sure their people understand what is expected of them and also have what they need to do a good job: role clarity, time, equipment, access, and opportunity to use their strengths.

When an individual is competent at both leadership and management, it vastly increases the chances their people will have a positive experience at work and will bring their best selves to the task at hand.

Great leaders and managers understand that their job is getting things done with and through others. Consultant Stan Slap, who is brilliant and notoriously irreverent, once said “Most visionary leaders have no patience for bringing people alongside them. If they could get where they need to go by themselves, they absolutely would, and send post card saying, ‘wish you were here.’” It is true. It takes an astonishing amount of care, patience, generosity, and repetition to bring people along with you.

My recommendation is that you do some research and create a scorecard for yourself of all the things you think you can do now, leaving some space to add things as you go along. For someone who is competitive and has a strong drive to win, a scorecard can be comforting.

You may decide you hate leadership. But you may find you were born for it. Either way, you’ll never know until you try, right? And the good news for someone competitive is that there is always room for growth and improvement; always something to work on. I guarantee you will never be bored.

I am excited for you, and wish you well.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

Is it naïve to want people to like me? I have been very successful at sales and developing partnerships in my job, partially because I am so good at knowing how to relate to people and getting them to like me.

But recently I am beginning to wonder if having people like me—and being good at it—is really helping me. I have started to manage people and I am having a rough time giving them feedback and holding them accountable. My boss says it is because I have too great a desire for people to like me and I need to get over it. What do you think?

Need to Be Liked

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Dear Need to Be Liked,

First of all, being great at knowing how to relate to people and getting them to like you is a superpower to be thankful for. If it comes naturally, you are lucky—it is a beautiful trait, and the many people who don’t have it work very hard to develop it as a skill.

Is it naïve to think you can make anyone like you? It might be, but as long as it isn’t hurting you, I say enjoy it while you can. As you are experiencing, it may already be hurting you as a manager because giving clear feedback and keeping people accountable is part of your job description. But there are ways to do it that can build relationships instead of eroding them. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I used to think the same thing about myself until a couple of relationships proved me wrong in extremely painful ways. I suspect you will run into some of those. It will have more to do with an imbalance of power combined with conflicting goals than with how the person feels about you. The truth is, when push comes to shove, not everybody is going to like you all the time. And that is okay.

You need to understand something important about needs: Needs will get themselves met. So it is up to you to make sure they get met appropriately. Let me explain.

If your need to be liked is, in fact, a core psychological need instead of just a preference, you need to understand it, notice how it drives your behavior for better and for worse, and learn how to manage that need so it doesn’t get in the way of what you are trying to achieve. There is tons of research about needs, and a lot of theories. Among them is one that psychologists and researchers seem to agree on: Every human being tends to have similar needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Beyond that, individuals differ—but everyone seems to come hardwired with needs that (1) don’t change and (2) will drive behavior to get met. You must find out how to get people to like you in ways that don’t cost you.

How might getting this need met cost you? If it causes you to either choose friends who aren’t good to you or stay in relationships that drag you down, or if it keeps you from being effective in your job. Awareness of your self and your needs is critical so you can make the best choices and thereby protect yourself from your own unconscious behaviors.

You can still be liked as a manager—but the most important thing to remember about being an effective manager is this: Leadership is not about you. It is about the people you are managing. The most important thing you need your people to feel is trust. They must trust that you know what you are doing, that you will give them clear direction and everything else they need to be successful in their jobs, and that you will be fair and consistent. They may or may not like you as a person, but they will definitely trust you.

You can tell your people that it’s your job to give them feedback and you’ll do so whenever it is needed, and that it’s also your job to hold everyone on the team accountable and you’ll be doing that as well. Once you have set the stage for what is expected, it is much easier to follow through on a consistent basis.

Ultimately, the job of a manager is to help their people be as successful as possible in their jobs. You can only do that by giving people feedback—all kinds of feedback—not only, of course, when things go well so they can keep it up, but also when things could be different or better.

Here is an excellent article: Are You a Trustworthy, Self-Aware Leader? by Ken Blanchard with a little bit of detail on our excellent Trust Model and, more to the point, how the need to be liked (which he has in spades) can get in the way of being trustworthy.

The confusing thing about having the need to be liked is that it can be one of the reasons you are successful. It almost certainly is in your case. But there is a moment at which this particular need can become an overused strength and backfire, causing unintended consequences. You are already quite a few steps toward self-awareness, so just keep going. Pay attention, notice, and modulate, taking it one step at a time.

In the meantime, enjoy those relationships—especially your personal ones, where you can be unabashedly yourself with no concern about consequences, with people who love you just the way you are. This way, you can get your need to be liked met with enough people to be satisfied.

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.

I recently announced the February 1 publication of my new book with longtime colleague and trust expert Randy Conley, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust. Now I’d like people to know what inspired the book and why I’m so excited about it.

The beginning of my mission statement is “I am a loving teacher and an example of simple truths.” From the time I was a young college professor, I have always looked for simple truths that reflect commonsense practices people can use to make their work and life—as well as the lives of the people they care about—happier and more satisfying.

Simple truths are not complicated but they are powerful. An example would be “All good performance starts with clear goals” or “Praise progress!” When I talk to audiences about these simple truths, I often add, “Duh!” because what I’m saying is so obvious. The audience always laughs because it’s common sense. The trouble is, too many people aren’t applying commonsense leadership principles in the workplace. When was the last time your leader took the time to review your goals with you? When was the last time your leader praised you, in specific detail, for a job well done? If it was recently, you’re one of the lucky ones.

Effective leadership is about implementing everyday, commonsense practices that will help your organization thrive. Yet so many leaders get caught up in the next urgent task that they forget to “walk the talk” and apply these basic good principles. That’s why we organized our book into 52 simple truths—one for each week of the year—which leaders can implement on the job. Each simple truth is described on a single page and can be read in about a minute. That’s brief enough for even the busiest leader!

The book also includes a discussion guide with twenty-four questions that touch on topics related to the 52 simple truths. You can use these questions to prompt discussions in a group setting or use them for independent study. Either way, the guide is intended to stimulate your thinking and help you become a wise and trusted servant leader.

When commonsense leadership is put into practice, everybody wins—leaders, their people, their organizations, and their stakeholders. If you’d like to know more, my coauthor Randy Conley and I will be talking about these common-sense practices in a webinar on Wednesday, January 26 at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time. To sign up, click here: Simple Truths of Leadership: Becoming a Trusted Servant Leader. You won’t want to miss it!

In a perfect world, your leaders are inspiring, people know how to succeed, and everyone is engaged. In the real world, leaders are a source of tension, people aren’t sure what to do, and employees are disengaged.

A few distressing facts show how dysfunctional the typical office is

• 75% of workers say the most stressful aspect of their job is their immediate boss_[1]
• 54% of workers are “not engaged” and 14% of workers are “actively disengaged”_[2]
• 50% of employees don’t know what is expected of them_[3]

Leaders not understanding either their leadership points of view or how they affect others is a cause of these troubles.

Most leaders haven’t taken the time to reflect on their leadership values or how they want to lead. Because of this, direct reports have little insight into a leader’s motivations. This can leave them confused by their leader’s actions and suspicious of their intentions. Misunderstanding, lack of trust, and disengagement quickly follow.

But you can create a dynamic workplace with Leadership Point of View (LPOV): a transformative learning experience that takes leaders on a journey of self-understanding.

LPOV helps your leaders identify experiences that shaped how they lead. Blanchard coaches assist them in developing a compelling narrative that turns these pivotal events into a leadership story. Leaders then share their journey with their colleagues.

Sharing a Leadership Point of View is a deeply personal experience that wins the hearts of listeners. By being vulnerable, leaders reveal themselves and their leadership philosophy. People gain a new perspective of their leader and a better understanding of their motivations. A leader is freed to be more authentic and inspiring. Their people find a renewed commitment to working with them.

Several Blanchard leaders recently participated in the LPOV. We asked them to share their experiences.

What was your biggest challenge before sharing your LPOV?

Lindsay Ray, Senior Director of Client Services: Before discovering my LPOV, I had never taken the time to dig deep and really consider what life experiences have defined how I lead today. I get stuck in the trap of thinking “there is nothing that interesting about me,” so I had to do some real reflection. I felt a bit nervous and unsure about what the outcome would be. 

Diana Johnson Urbina, Head of Coaching Services: I tend to be action oriented. I make fast decisions, with the intent to test each idea. It’s rarely a final decision when I make one. Some of my people were struggling to believe this. They perceived me as dictating how things should be done, and I never intended them to feel this way. I was disappointed to learn that some had made these assumptions and I was frustrated with the resulting dynamics on my team.

Richard Pound, Vice President of Indirect Sales: People knew me, but didn’t know how I became the person I am. Sometimes, they didn’t understand why I considered something important. That could be frustrating to me and those that I work with.

What was your LPOV experience like?

Richard Pound: It was a discovery experience. I say “discover,” as your LPOV is already inside you, but the process I went through helped me surface, clarify, and articulate what is important to me as a leader. It helped me understand my core personal values and share the events in my life that have shaped me as a person and as a leader.

It was a very safe, supportive, and rewarding experience—and a challenging one because I had really dig deep to explore the experiences that made me who I am.

Diana Johnson Urbina: The experience I had with my coach was wonderful. It felt like a chat with an old friend about how I came to be the leader I am today. I was given an opportunity to share how my experiences shaped me and what I value. I was able to draw a clear line between my values and expectations.

Lindsay Ray: It gave my colleagues a frame of reference about me that they never would have had otherwise. It put language to my values, and gave me something to refer back to, especially when things at work are challenging. 

What changed after sharing your LPOV?

Diana Johnson Urbina: Everyone was so appreciative that I was willing to share and be so open and vulnerable. It helped them connect with me. Some of my team members who were guarded became more open and felt more comfortable with my leadership approach. I asked them, “Given my values and expectations, where are we aligned and where are we at odds? How can we navigate the gaps we have?” They felt comfortable to answer honestly.

Lindsay Ray: My people reacted very positively! Everyone was supportive, asked great questions, and was genuinely interested in learning more about me and my story. We felt closer because of it. Some of the stories I had shared only with the people close to me, so it was a big step to share them professionally. 

Richard Pound: My team had a better understanding of what to expect from me. They also knew what I would expect of them. This deeper understanding was extremely valuable. My people also really appreciated me showing that kind of vulnerability.

Sharing my key values was also helpful. People understood why I do what I do, and why I am what I am.

Because my people now had a much better understanding of my priorities, they are more committed to accomplishing things I consider important. I feel empowered to be a better leader. And being a better leader improves the lives of the people you lead.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Richard Pound: This has been an invaluable discovery process for me, and I see the real impact that it has had on the way that we work as a team. Going through the LPOV process with my work colleagues was also very rewarding. I learned more about them and built deeper relationships.

Lindsay Ray: It was thoughtful, deep, and inspiring to hear the story of others. Overall it was a wonderful experience! 

Diana Johnson Urbina: To sum up the impact it had,it improved psychological safety for my team. It gave them permission to be real. Now we all operate at a much more authentic and appreciative level.

How about you?

Ready to start your leaders on their journey of self-discovery with Leadership Point of View?  Visit the  LPOV information page on the Blanchard website.  Interested in learning more about the LPOV process from a first-hand experience?  Join us for a complimentary webinar on October 20, Creating and Sharing Your Leadership Point of View.  The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-boss-factor-making-the-world-a-better-place-through-workplace-relationships

[2] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/313313/historic-drop-employee-engagement-follows-record-rise.aspx

[3] fastcompany.com/90679528/i-spoke-to-5000-people-and-these-are-the-real-reasons-theyre-quitting

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I have a new boss who just offered me the role of lead for a team I have been on for about seven months. Our former lead (who, frankly, wasn’t great at leading) left suddenly a month ago. In the leadership vacuum I kind of stepped up, and nobody seemed to mind. In fact, the group seemed relieved that someone was doing something.

My new boss has asked me to define my new role. I got excited until I sat down and realized I had no idea how to write this description. Any guidance on this? All my life people have treated me like I know what I am doing even when that isn’t true.

Making it Up

Dear Making it Up,

How exciting! To be able to define your new role is wonderful—and daunting. I think there are a few ways to go at this, and I recommend that you do some or all of them. The main thing you have to remember is to get input.

1. What does your boss expect? What organizational norms do you need to consider?

Ask your boss for an example of what a good job looks like so you know exactly what he means by “define the role.” It is an awfully broad request if you are starting from scratch. A quick Google search offers an overwhelming amount of options. See if you can find out: Is there something wrong with the way the role was previously defined? Does a written description exist that you could build on? Do other areas of the company have team leads—and if so, how are their job descriptions written? It’s all fine and good to essentially make up your own job description, but if there are accepted and tested ways of doing things, there’s no point in your reinventing the wheel. Better to find what has been working well and improve on it if you can.

2. What does your team think?

Ask your team members what they think has been working well so far, and what could change. What things did the last lead do that were good and should be kept? What can you stop doing because it doesn’t work as well anymore, or never worked at all? Don’t promise to do everything they want you to do—but a few of their ideas may inspire you to greatness!

3. What do you want? What is your vision?

You are excited. You stepped into the leadership vacuum because someone needed to, so you must have a natural affinity for taking charge. That is a gift. Think back to leaders you have had and ask yourself which ones were great, and which were not so great. What did the good leaders do that you can replicate? What qualities did they have that you can cultivate and aspire to? What things are the most important for a leader to do, and how would you prioritize those things?

4. Take a class on team leadership.

Of course there is always ours, which covers the basics for structuring how you lead. Our High Performance Teams Model may be helpful to you as you build your ideal role. It prescribes that the team focuses in specific ways at different stages of its development.

• Align for Results: Clarify team purpose, determine goals and roles, and agree on behavioral norms.

• Communicate During Conflict: Participate with candor, listen with curiosity, and value diversity.

• Build Team Cohesion: Work collaboratively, trust and support each other, and hold each other accountable.

• Sustain High Performance: Share leadership, maintain synergy, and strive for continuous improvement.

5. Gain some organizational insight.

What isn’t covered in any of the above, but is critically important, is this: How will you ensure your team is totally aligned with organizational strategy and with what other teams or departments are doing? How can you make sure you are sharing information upwards and across in a useful way? How can you build connections and stay in the know about what is going on and what is coming? If you need a step-by-step guide on these points, here is an oldie but goodie article. You probably won’t be able to depend on your new boss for all your intel, so if you don’t have a deep network already, you will want to start building one now.

I hope I have provided enough food for thought to get you going. I have a feeling you are going to be just fine. Don’t forget to have some fun while you are at it.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior business leader for a global manufacturing company. I recently was on a panel with an officer of our company—not my boss, but a peer of my boss. He was very impactful with his remarks; I was okay but not nearly as sharp. Later, when I complimented him on his presence and remarks, he graciously thanked me and asked if he could give me some advice.

Of course I said yes.

“You need to prepare,” he said. “You have no idea how much I prepare when I need to speak—in any venue, including executive team meetings. It makes all the difference.”

It got me to thinking, and I realized that I have been basically winging it. All the time. I talk way too much. I start talking and keep talking until I figure out what my point is. I am smart enough to have gotten away with it so far—but now that it has been called out, I really want to improve. I am not sure where to begin. Thoughts?

Winging It

Dear Winging It,

The first step is self-awareness, so congratulations for realizing that you can improve. It is my experience that the less people talk, the more others tend to pay attention when they do. There is tremendous power in silence, and in taking the moment to think before you speak.

The next step is clarifying your own motivation for improving, because it will require sustained attention and effort. Since you have gotten away with winging it till now, it would be easy to slide back into old habits. So remembering the point of the exercise will help to keep you on track. Ask yourself:

• Why bother improving?
• What are my long-term career goals, and will my improving impact those goals significantly?
• How will I deal with it when I get disillusioned with how much time and effort preparation takes?

Once you have given this a little thought, you will be ready for the next step. This may be the hardest part: deciding what meetings/events you want to be more prepared for and blocking time off on your calendar to prepare.

The key to preparation is taking the time to do it—and you’ll find that it really doesn’t take that long. Once you have your system down you might very well be able to do it on your commute, or your morning walk, or even in the shower. Personally, I prepare by creating mind maps using pen and paper. Many people need to think out loud and take note of what comes out of their mouths that is useful and what can be consolidated or edited out. You will have to experiment.

Taking the time to prepare also means reviewing the supporting documents that are shared before a meeting. Most people who are used to winging it figure they can do a quick scan once the meeting starts, which is probably what you do now. But reviewing early will allow you the time to develop an opinion with supporting arguments that will be three steps ahead of what you can get to in real time.

Once you have blocked a little time out, run some tests: What method is going to serve you best? Are you a writer? Do you need markers and flip chart so you can think big? Do you need to think out loud with a peer or team member? Perhaps the recording feature on your phone would help you?

To organize your preparation, regardless of your method, consider:

• Who is your audience?
• What is their agenda? Why are they there?
• What is the main topic or decision that needs to be made?
• Do you have one or two key messages you want people to remember?
• Are there related side topics that may be missing, and can you explain why it is critical to address those at this time?
• What are the most important points people need to hear to grasp your opinion?
• Do you want/need research or statistics to support your point(s)? It’s much better to Google beforehand and be ready with links.
• Is there a personal story or example you might share to support a point?
• Can you tell that story succinctly and make sure it circles back to the point? Stories are very effective but all the more when they are short, sweet, and relevant.
• If your audience remembers only one thing about what you say, what do you want it to be?
• Is there a call to action and is it clear?
• What questions do you anticipate being asked, and how will you answer them?

If you start with just these, you will be way ahead of the game. Even if you focus yourself on the way to a meeting (or in our current Zoom world, take five minutes before the meeting) with some thinking about who the audience is and what you need them to know, you will be on the road to being prepared. Success breeds success, so start small and build.

If at all possible, consider asking the gentleman who gave you advice how he prepares—he may have some brilliant tips for you. And almost everyone likes being asked for advice.

Finally, you can practice keeping your hand over your mouth until you figure out exactly what needs to be said. I spend a great deal of time with my hand over my mouth—as a former “winger,” it serves me well. It is much easier to circle back to share something you didn’t get a chance to say than to take back something (or worse, a lot of stuff) you wish you hadn’t.

Love, Madeleine

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Standing Back

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

Authenticity

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

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

Humility

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

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

All Three Principles Are Interrelated

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

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

Self Concept as a Leader

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

Strategic Leadership Skills

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

Operational Leadership Skills

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

3 Big Buckets—A World of Questions

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

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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

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

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!

As if the job of managing people in the workplace isn’t difficult enough, add in the recurring need to coach them through challenges and issues.

The skill of coaching others is not one that comes naturally to most of us; in fact, during my experience coaching within organizations, I’ve found leaders who are downright plagued by the idea of coaching! Here are a few typical comments I’ve heard:

• “I’m uncomfortable coaching others. I don’t know what to say.”
• “What kind of questions should I ask?”
• “How should I get a coaching conversation started?”
• “I always want to solve the problem right away.”

Although the idea of adding coaching to your leadership skill set may seem daunting, it’s a competence most leaders can learn and master. The art of coaching involves the use of the following tools:

• Active listening: listening with the intent of learning more
• Asking open-ended questions to help uncover the issue
• Starting questions with words or phrases such as how, when, if, what, tell me more, or what else
• Being mindful that coaching is about leading the coachee to their own conclusions, not giving them answers
• Getting curious
• Honoring personal intuition

The last tool, personal intuition, is a powerful coaching skill but you must nurture it to keep it at peak efficiency. It is similar to flexing and strengthening a muscle—when it is underused, it is hard to access maximum performance.

Years ago, as my coaching abilities began to grow, I became aware of my intuitive skills. I started to experiment with sharing intuitive thoughts with clients during coaching sessions. During my coaching training, this was known as throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it would stick. When I would experience an intuitive thought or nudge about what might be going on with a client, I would say something like “I have a thought about this. Would it be okay if I share it with you?” Most of my intuitive pings had to do with people stepping into a new leadership role, feeling fearful, lacking confidence, or being in denial. After I would express my thought, clients would often say “How did you know that about me?”

The concept of tapping into your intuition may seem simple, but for me, it was powerful. It gave me joy to know that my gut reactions could change the coaching conversation by uncovering vulnerabilities or blind spots. I believe utilizing personal intuition can be a valuable asset for coaching in the workplace setting.

Imagine that as you listen to your coachee, you sense that something is unsaid. It’s as if you can hear a note that is out of tune. You might say “Something doesn’t sound quite right here. Help me out if I’m getting this wrong, but it feels like you may be holding back something important. What’s your sense of this?” (You are trying to see if the spaghetti sticks!)

The person you are helping may be holding something back intentionally or they may not realize they are holding back. That’s why it’s important to check in, get curious, and ask the question.

• I have a sense…
• May I tell you about a gut feeling I have?
• I have a hunch that…
• See how this lands with you.
• My intuition tells me…
• Can I check something out with you?
• I am curious about…

Curiosity is essential for effective coaching. In her book Dare To Lead, Brené Brown introduces the concept of the knower in all of us and contrasts it with the concept of curiosity:

“The knower in us (our ego) races to beat everyone with an answer that may or may not address the real issues, or thinks: I don’t want to talk about this because I’m not sure how it’s going to go or how people are going to react. I might not say the right thing or have the right answers.

“Curiosity says, No worries. I love a wild ride. I’m up for wherever this goes. And I’m in for however long it takes to get to the heart of the problem. I don’t have to know the answers or say the right thing, I just have to keep listening and keep questioning.”

When coaching others, the skills of listening, questioning, and paying attention to intuitive thoughts are key to a successful outcome. Achieving mastery of these skills is worth the practice it takes.

Leaders who are great coaches are catalysts for positive change in others. They are courageous because they know how important it is to say what others cannot.

About the Author

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

Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

Dear Madeleine,

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

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

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

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

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

Would Rather be Alone

______________________________________________________________________________

Dear Would Rather Be Alone,

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

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

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

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

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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

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

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

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

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

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

A coach:

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

Does training really work?

“If we as leadership, learning, and development professionals can’t answer that question with an enthusiastic yes, we’re all in trouble,” says Dr. Paul Leone, ROI expert at Verizon and author of the book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact: Bridging the Gap between Training and Business Results.

“The truth is, HR people don’t always know if training is working,” says Leone. “Often we ask for budget at the beginning of the year, but at the end of the year we aren’t able to show the training has had an impact on the bottom line. That’s not a good position to be in.

“Imagine how much better you would feel if you could go into meetings with senior leaders and stakeholders saying, ‘This time I have some data—and I can show that we are impacting the bottom line by X amount of dollars.’ I think that’s where we all want to be in the industry.”

The good news, according to Leone, is that you can demonstrate the impact of training if you know where to look, how to set up your initiative, and how to present your data.

“Begin with the end in mind,” says Leone. “What are the leadership behaviors you want to impact and what is the benefit in terms of increased sales or productivity, decreased costs from better alignment or efficiencies, or improvements to the customer experience?

“Senior leaders want to know that the money they are spending on training is generating a good return on investment. If you don’t clearly identify the benefits along with the costs of training, it creates some pretty lopsided equations and makes it difficult to talk about ROI—because training is seen only as a cost. That’s a vulnerable position.”

Start Small and Be Conservative in Your Approach

For L&D professionals just getting started with measuring ROI, Leone suggests focusing on a small, manageable test case, such as a pilot study with a group of managers who have direct reports with easily quantifiable key performance indicators (KPI).

“Two things are important here,” says Leone. “First, remember that you are measuring the benefit of better leader behaviors by looking at the improvement in performance of that leader’s direct reports—that’s where the bottom-line impact will show up. For example, better leader behaviors from a call center manager will translate into better performance from that manager’s frontline associates. Better goal-setting and coaching skills from a sales manager will translate into better sales performance from that manager’s individual salespeople.”

“Second, choose managers whose direct reports have KPIs that are easier to convert into bottom line impact. Don’t try to quantify the impact of better research and development performance among a group of engineers as your first project. Choose a group where you can measure shorter-term impact and easily convert improved performance into dollars and cents.”

Use a Proven Model and Process

Leone also recommends using a proven approach such as the Phillips ROI model and the Kirkpatrick levels of change. He suggests focusing on levels 3, 4, and 5 in the Kirkpatrick model which cover leader behavior changes and bottom-line impact.

Leone uses a survey administered 90 days after training to measure perceived changes in manager behavior. To corroborate answers and provide a more airtight case when presenting evidence of changed behaviors to senior executives, Leone surveys both the managers who participated in the class and their direct reports.

“It’s important to not only ask the managers if they have changed their behavior, but also ask the direct reports if they have experienced changed behavior from their manager. This provides a corroborating data point.”

To isolate the impact of the changed behaviors on business performance, Leone recommends comparing the financial performance of the treatment group (the managers who went through the training) with a control group (similar managers in an identical business unit who have not yet gone through the training).

“Comparing the treatment group with a control group allows you to isolate the benefits of the training. When senior leaders know that everything else between the two groups is identical, they are more at ease attributing the improved performance to the training initiative.”

Keep the Presentation Simple for Best Results

Leone also has a tip for how to present the data to senior leaders: keep it simple!

“When I first began presenting data after graduate school, I thought it was necessary to show things like multiple regressions and multivariate analysis in my presentations. But in reality, it had the opposite effect. When I made my presentations more understandable, they started to go higher and higher in the organization.

“If you want to squash your story, throw in a lot of numbers and tables,” says Leone with a smile. “But if you want to push that story up the hierarchy to the highest levels, make it simple and it will get up there.”

Establish Credibility that Lasts and Builds Confidence

“The goal with your ROI presentations is to create credibility within the organization—where you can say, ‘If we are going to keep a program, we are going to run a pilot and we’ll measure it. If it’s great, we’ll scale it across the organization. If it’s not so great, we won’t.’ I can guarantee you that at some point in the very near future, someone is going to ask if a training worked. You will want a study and some data to show that it did.

“Remember, you don’t need to measure everything at first,” says Leone. “Go in and measure one or two programs and do it right. Once you get your foot in the door as a credible evaluator, you’ll have a much easier time securing budget in the future.”

Would you like to learn more about calculating ROI and measuring the impact of training? Join us for a free webinar!

Leadership Training—Calculating ROI and Making the Business Case

Thursday, November 29, 2018, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Improving leadership skills is one of the best ways to impact your organization’s bottom line. Still, many leadership, learning, and talent development professionals struggle with both identifying the expected return on investment for training expenditures and measuring impact after an initiative.

In this webinar, David Witt, program director at The Ken Blanchard Companies, teams up with Dr. Paul Leone, author of Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact: Bridging the Gap between Training and Business Results to show you how to identify anticipated fiscal impact of a leadership training initiative and how to measure it in a cost-effective manner after the class has been conducted.

You’ll learn:

• How to calculate the ROI for your leadership training initiative using Blanchard’s Leadership Training ROI Worksheet. (Worksheet provided to all registrants.)
• How to measure the impact of training using the methodology outlined in Leone’s book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact.
• How to improve the adoption of new leadership practices from the classroom to the work environment.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to quantify the impact of leadership training in proposals—and how to set up your training to deliver on expectations.

Register today using this link!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a part of a 13-city servant leadership executive briefing series, Halsey has worked with leadership, learning, and talent development professionals to identify more than 60 skills and attributes that should be part of a comprehensive servant leadership training program.

“Of course you have to take this a step at a time,” says Halsey, “and recognize that some of your desired outcomes are part of a mindset—attitudinal, while others are part of a skill set—behaviors that can be learned and developed.”

“Topping the servant leader mindset traits is empathy, closely followed by selflessness and humility,” says Halsey. “This is the recognition that leadership is not about you and your agenda.  It is about leading others to achieve their goals in order to achieve larger organizational goals in a collaborative way.  It’s about assessing people’s needs and providing the right amount of direction and support to help them succeed.”

The top servant leader skill set behaviors are task- or goal-specific listening, asking questions instead of telling, and focusing on how and when to develop others.

“These are skills that can be taught,” explains Halsey.  “If you want to be a servant leader, you must focus your energies on developing and practicing the behaviors of a servant leader.”

Halsey recommends that L&D professionals conduct an audit of their current leadership development curriculum and compare it against the complete list of attributes identified by learning professionals.

“Most organizations have some of the components already in place as a part of their current leadership development curriculum. But there are often a few competencies not on the list, such as advanced coaching skills, building trust, and self leadership, for example.

“When you compare your list with the complete list, look for gaps and consider how they might be addressed. Don’t overlook leadership basics,” says Halsey.

“Performance management concepts such as collaborative goal setting, situational specific day-to-day coaching, and effective performance reviews are still critical.  You are covering the same content—just from a different point of view.

“Once you have all of the pieces in place, the next step is to organize the content in a logical flow where leaders learn and practice basic skills in and out of context and then move to more advanced skills.  Along the way, keep working on encouraging a servant leadership mindset as you teach the servant leadership skill set.”

The world needs a new leadership model, says Halsey—one that focuses on both people and results.

“Engaged people and great results are not mutually exclusive—you can achieve both.  With some good design and consistent application, you can create an organizational culture where leaders see their job as serving others and also see goal achievement as a shared responsibility.”

Would you like to learn more about creating a servant leadership curriculum in your organization?  Join us for a free webinar!

3 Keys to Building a Servant Leadership Curriculum

Thursday, November 15, 2018, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Servant leadership principles are being rediscovered by a new generation of leadership, learning, and talent development professionals. An others-focused approach where people lead best by serving first is being recognized as one of the best ways to unlock performance in today’s organizations.

In this webinar, instructional design expert Dr. Vicki Halsey, vice president of applied learning at The Ken Blanchard Companies, will share how to design, build, and launch an effective servant leadership curriculum. Drawing on her research and experience designing hundreds of training courses for clients worldwide, Vicki will share three keys to an effective curriculum:

Identify the key components of a comprehensive program. Halsey will share research on the attitudes, skills, and behaviors most associated with an others-focused approach to leadership.

Evaluate current gaps in existing training. A comprehensive curriculum includes self-awareness, listening, coaching, and performance management components. Halsey will show you how to audit your current classes and identify gaps.

Utilize effective design principles. An effective curriculum includes asynchronous and virtual training components as well as face-to-face components for interpersonal skills. Halsey will share how to match technology to content and how to create engaging learning experiences across all modalities.

Participants will have an opportunity to ask questions, explore options, and get answers about their own designs from Halsey’s expert instructional design point of view.

Use the link below to register.  This event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

REGISTER NOW

That statistic is unnecessarily high, say organizational coaching experts Madeleine Homan Blanchard and Patricia Overland. As leaders in the Coaching Services division of The Ken Blanchard Companies, both coaches have seen the research and witnessed firsthand the failure that can occur when leaders are not provided with the support they need to succeed.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’ve coached leaders who were newly promoted because they had a set of skills and good relationships with people,” says Blanchard, “and when they got on the job, they failed.”

It’s not that surprising, she says, given the high expectations set for new leaders and the minimal support they actually receive when transitioning into a new role.

“Leaders are under a lot of pressure to produce results, but they often don’t get the mentoring support they need.  The thinking is that at this level they should be able to just do it.”

In conducting interviews with 2,600 Fortune 1000 executives, organizational and leadership consulting firm Navalent found that 76 percent of new executives indicated that the formal development processes of their organization were, at best, minimally helpful in preparing them for their executive role. What’s more, 55 percent of respondents indicated that they had little if any ongoing coaching and feedback to help them refine their ability to perform in an executive role.

“It’s a challenge for HR professionals,” says Overland. “And with the level of change and the number of executives transitioning into new roles, especially in larger organizations, the problem becomes magnified. It’s not uncommon for larger companies to have five executives in transition from five different parts of the company at the same time.

“Even one or two levels below the executive team, all kinds of change is occurring at the VP and director level. It’s always difficult when decision makers move. Now HR finds itself managing several different coaches from different companies, each with their own approaches, contracts, conditions, etc. It can be overwhelming, and that much harder to ensure quality and a return on the investment.

For HR leaders facing this challenge, Overland offers four words of advice: “Don’t go it alone—especially if you are managing a large number of executives in transition across a wide geographical area. This is where working with one company with global reach and a single point of contact really helps. Having one contact person who can help ensure quality, vetting, reporting, and ROI can position an organization to provide successful coaching to every leader who needs it.

“A larger, experienced coaching organization can provide a consistent quality of coaching. Not only is this good for the client and the leaders being coached, it also permits the coaches to talk to each other about how the coaching is going or about the challenges they encounter, and to ask for help when necessary—all without breaching confidentiality.

“This keeps the coaching aligned with organizational objectives and keeps the people focused on priorities,” says Overland.

Be especially careful about going it alone if you are looking to bring the executive coaching function in-house, says Overland.

“In my experience, executives tend to have a real hesitancy to work with an in-house person. They see a risk in disclosing potentially sensitive information to someone junior to them in the organization. Let’s say a senior executive is feeling stressed about a major strategy change, the sale of the company, or a pending merger. The executive won’t want to talk to an internal person about that.  An external person is almost always a better choice.”

Blanchard agrees. “Coaching gives people the direction and support they need for the complex, high level leadership and management skills used in a senior role. When I’m thinking about the role of coaching, I always go back to Jim Collins’s book Good to Great,” explains Blanchard. “Collins said that a leader’s job is to get the right people on the bus in the right seats and make sure that the bus is going in the right direction.

“That’s what you are accomplishing when you bring coaching into an organization. You are ensuring that the bus is going in the right direction and all the right people are in the right seats.”

Would you like to learn more about how coaching can improve the success rate of your executives in transition?  Join us for a free webinar!

Supporting Leaders in Transition with Coaching

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

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

When leaders are in transition—moving from one role to another within the organization, or moving in from an outside organization, ensuring their success is critical.  Leaders in transition can’t afford to fail—yet statistics show that a large percentage do.

In this webinar, organizational coaching experts Madeleine Homan Blanchard and Patricia Overland will show you how to leverage transition coaching during an executive’s first 90 to 120 days to ensure your leaders succeed.

Participants will learn:

• The 3 types of executive transition
• What the latest research reveals
• The 4 critical elements you need to build into your transition strategy

Blanchard and Overland will also share best practices and examples from two large company client initiatives.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to put these success strategies to work in your organization.  This event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

REGISTER TODAY!

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

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

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

Skill 1: Listen to Learn

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

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

Skill 2: Inquire for Insight

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

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

Skill 3: Tell Your Truth

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

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

Skill 4: Express Confidence

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do’s and Don’ts When Creating a Servant Leadership Curriculum

You have to resist the temptation to treat a servant leadership initiative as just a training intervention, says Blanchard senior consulting partner Bob Freytag. “Instead see it, ideally, as a gradual way of being.”

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You have to resist the temptation to treat a servant leadership initiative as just a training intervention and instead see it, ideally, as a gradual way of being—a slow, consistent approach that embraces hiring practices, vision and values work, and teaching and encouraging the skills that allow leaders to enter into a deeper trusted partnership with their people.

“A mindset of partnership and safe conversations are the cornerstone of any successful program—but you need to have the vision and values in place first,” says Freytag. “You also need alignment at the top.”

In developing a holistic approach, Freytag points to research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies that looks at the connection between leader behaviors, impact on the work environment, and the way employees make decisions about whether or not they will support the mission of the company.

“People always have a choice —we call it discretionary effort,” says Freytag. “Compliance may work in the short term, but if you truly want the type of commitment and effort that sustains high performance, you have to tap into something more. You have to meet people’s needs. You have to make it safe for people to tell you what they need. It’s about reciprocity. If you can identify and help others take action on what they hold most dear, they will do the same for you.”

Freytag believes a partnering approach—managers and direct reports working together to achieve goals—is best.

“A partnering approach requires higher skill levels in conversation, listening, receiving and delivering feedback, and coaching—but it’s the only way I know to consistently deliver sustainable results and achieve high levels of performance with the workforce,” says Freytag.

Turning into people’s needs

Freytag says servant leadership is a partnership that makes it safe for people to express their needs on the job. It’s about leaders being approachable and turning toward their direct reports in a spirit of partnership to discuss those needs and provide support.

“As a leader, you must realize you don’t have to know it all. You must listen to learn—and make every person you talk to feel heard. When you do that, you set up a sense of approachability. People start bringing their concerns to you because they see you are not only well-intentioned but also available to listen. Your focus must be more on them and less on yourself. This is an essential of coaching. Servant leaders understand that they are always leading by example. Servant leaders also choose and behave so that they reflect the very behaviors they wish to see in the workforce.”

“When having discussions with some leaders in my past, I’ve had some give me their full attention and acknowledge my position only to let my suggestions fall on deaf ears and go nowhere. As a result, I didn’t really feel heard. The leaders I have had the highest affinity and respect for are those who were willing to have a discussion and to do more than just acknowledge my point of view. They got their arrogance and pride out of the way so they could hear my comments. They didn’t have to agree but they certainly made me feel heard.”

“As a servant leader, you have to raise your hand and show others it’s okay to raise their hand if they don’t know the answer. Leadership is about leading by example. You’re always doing that—it’s your choice whether the example is a good one or a bad one.”

Once you give yourself a heart check and are working on being more open, approachable, and available, Freytag says you’re ready to return to the basics of performance management—goal setting, coaching, and review—but with a different mindset.

“So what does it mean to serve—and what do you do differently? We use an operational leadership model called Situational Leadership^® II (SLII®.) SLII® teaches leaders first that people have needs and how to diagnose the different levels of needs people go through on various tasks and goals, and then how to help their people with those needs at their level.

“When aspiring servant leaders take a situational approach, they learn how to help their people grow and develop by meeting their needs for competence and autonomy. It’s a great model that lets leaders know where they are in a conversation. Using this approach puts the leaders focus on the needs of their people first and foremost.”

Freytag asks himself a simple question at the end of every performance related conversation to make sure he stays focused on meeting the needs of others.

“I ask myself: is this person more or less dependent on me on this topic as a result of this conversation? If they are more dependent on me, I’ve missed an opportunity. If they are less dependent on me, I’ve helped them grow and develop competence—which meets a basic psychological need. Now they feel more viable and are able to thrive. That’s a practical, real time, conversation-based perspective. It’s how you stay valuable to others.”

For leadership, learning, and talent development professionals considering a servant leadership initiative in their organizations, Freytag offers some caution on going too big at first.

“Don’t start with the training initiative right away. Start a little smaller—begin with vision and values. Where are you going? What’s important and why? Where are the gaps? I always guard against going too large or too fast with the aspiration of a large-scale training intervention, especially at the beginning of the conversation.”

Freytag also encourages senior leaders to walk the talk.

“It can be as simple as catching others doing things right. Develop recognition programs that recognize when others exhibit behaviors that serve the needs of others. Demonstrate that you value both relationships and results. Slowly you will plant the seeds and prepare the soil for a larger initiative. Once that gets rolled out through the ranks, you can focus on feedback, listening, and accountability.

“Now, piece by piece, you are building a servant leadership culture—and creating a work environment where people can grow and thrive.”

Would you like to learn more about creating a servant leadership curriculum for your organization? Then join us for a free webinar!

Creating a Servant Leadership Curriculum

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join Blanchard senior consulting partner Bob Freytag as he explores how to create a servant leadership curriculum in your organization. In this special session designed for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals, you’ll learn:

• What servant leadership is—and what it isn’t
• Research on self-oriented vs. others-oriented leaders
• The power of vision, values, and purpose
• Identifying your Leadership Point of View
• Taking a 4-step head, heart, hands, and habits approach to skill development

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to apply servant leadership principles to improve satisfaction, performance, and engagement in your company. You’ll walk away from this session energized and encouraged with fresh ideas to apply in your organization.

Register using this link!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

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

Dear Madeleine,

I am a senior executive in a big global company. I am not an American, but it is an American company. With each rise I achieve in the ranks here, the more I realize just how not-American I am.

Here’s my problem. I am a large person physically—I was an athlete in my school days. Recently, I was called into a meeting with HR during which I was told that people find me physically aggressive. Also, someone reported that I point when I am talking and it feels to them like I am pointing a gun.

I reported this to my wife and she laughed and said, “Oh yeah, the finger gun, we take bets on whether any given topic at the dinner table will bring it out!”

I am a perfectly decent and nice guy, and I find this upsetting. I don’t know what to do. I think the HR lady had some recommendations but I don’t remember a word she said after the “finger gun” thing. Help?

Finger Gun

Dear Finger Gun,

You will forgive me for smiling. If you weren’t a perfectly decent and nice guy, you wouldn’t be so upset. But because you are, the good news is that it won’t be that hard for you to change people’s perceptions.

I have heard “finger gun” before, believe it or not. A lot of leaders have habits they are unaware of that undermine their ability to connect with people—raising their voice, pounding the table, moving quickly, or slamming doors. In some cultures, that kind of physicality seems totally normal, but in the western corporate world it causes people to go into fight-or-flight mode.

The problem with being the boss is that everything you do is under a microscope and has a multiplied effect. I worked with one client whose lifelong trademark eyerolling was considered hilarious until he was the big boss, and then his employees experienced it like a slap across the face. I have lost count of the clients, both men and women, who have taught themselves how to smile so they wouldn’t be so scary.

You have obviously been effective enough to rise in the ranks, so don’t go second guessing everything you are doing. You must be doing some things right. It is normal for people to ascend to senior levels only to find out that what has been working for them up to this point isn’t going to work at this new level. Marshall Goldsmith wrote a book about it: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There—the title says it all.

Perhaps you could go back and talk to your HR lady, now that you are calm enough to hear what she has to say. She probably has some good ideas. Here are mine:

It sounds like what we are dealing with here is physical self-awareness. The emotional intelligence experts would say that you need to increase your awareness of the effect you have on others and then modulate your behavior if it isn’t the effect you want. As a leader, you may want to increase motivation in your people and you are finding out that physical intimidation—real or perceived—doesn’t accomplish that. So, what do you do? Curbing your physical habits would be a good start. The science of motivation is extremely advanced now. I would recommend Susan Fowler’s book Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What Does. Susan says that people find their sweet spot when they have the right amount of autonomy, relatedness, and competence. I would submit that your physical habits decrease the sense of relatedness your people have with you, and as a result they are not motivated to go the extra mile for you.

To start managing your physical habits, I would recommend a four-step approach. “Four steps,” you say? “Nonsense, I just need to be disciplined and get to it.” Well, maybe, but you will have a much better result if you approach this thoughtfully and deliberately.

1. Observe how other respected and effective senior executives manage their physicality. Notice how they move, sit, stand, and manage the space in informal groupings. Pay attention to how these people make their point when they feel strongly about it. Notice what these folks do in situations where you would normally pull out that terrifying finger. This will be quite entertaining and educational. You will have an opportunity to also observe behavior that isn’t effective, so be sure to weed that from your repertoire. While you are observing others, also observe yourself. Notice what you do naturally that can be effective and what you do that tends to cause alarm in others.
2. Begin a practice that helps you to calm down. A cocktail at the end of the day doesn’t count, sorry. Do yoga, tai chi, qigong, or walk around the block breathing deeply. Meditate for six minutes a day—there are about five million free apps for this. Sit quietly, breathing in for five counts and then out for five counts. If you Google breathing exercises you will find many extremely easy and effective variations. Choose something. Anything. Nipping back habits is stressful—especially habits you engage in when under stress—but you have to find ways to manage it.
3. Start practicing new physical moves in safe environments. Try stuff out with your family. It sounds like they have your number, and also your best interests at heart. They may tease you mercilessly, but taking yourself a little less seriously will only improve things right now.
4. Try your new stuff out at work. The test will be when there is stress, such as a looming deadline, a costly mistake, an unhappy customer…whatever. Your finger will itch. You will want to do all of the things you normally do to feel powerful and in control. So you’d better have your practice to lean on. Breathe. Feel your feet. Keep your hands folded loosely on your lap. Keep your face free of tension.

You can do it, FG, because it matters to your long-term success—which you obviously care a lot about. You will notice a difference very quickly, which will be motivating. Breathe.

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!

Take an Inside-Out Approach to Improving Customer Service Scores

Customer service expert Kathy Cuff believes that organizations need to take a look at how their culture impacts service. That starts by recognizing that everyone has internal customers. “It’s about looking at the relationships and mindset within the organization.”

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Of course, I am a fan of Leading at A Higher Level, which outlines a lot of The Ken Blanchard Companies content. And then of course there is the brand new Servant Leadership in Action.  I love both of these books and recommend them highly.

My son also got me thinking about some of the attributes a great manager should either have or be working on.  Here is a list of 15 attributes that serves as a good starting point—these suggestions are taken from notes our Blanchard coaches have made about what they focus on during coaching calls.

Attributes/Practices of Great Managers

1. Be interested and curious
2. Do no harm (or don’t be a big jerk)
3. Admit when you are wrong and apologize when appropriate
4. Keep your eye on the ball – don’t waste time on what doesn’t matter
5. Surround yourself with the best people you can
6. Be a role model from the behaviors you are holding your people accountable for
7. Have at least one bright person you trust who challenges you even if it is annoying
8. Exercise iron clad personal discipline when it comes to self-care
9. Practice self-control so that you can respond instead of react
10. Do the hard things first
11. Mean what you say, say what you mean
12. Do what you say you are going to do
13. Be crystal clear about your expectations
14. Listen more than you talk
15. Keep learning and growing

What am I missing?  Please do add your thoughts!

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services.

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

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

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That’s a lot of people!

I think the event is popular because people recognize we are in desperate need of a new leadership model—one that recognizes that people lead best when they serve first.

(For more information about the Livecast, keep reading.)

We have all seen the negative impact of self-serving leader behaviors. So why does this type of leadership continue to be so prevalent in today’s organizations?

In my experience, self-focused leadership is always caused by an overactive ego—one that is driven by comparative feelings of being either more than or less than others. Once you fall into one of these traps, you spend your time trying to either prove how smart you are or win the favor and approval of others.

One of my favorite books on this topic is Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith. They identify four warning signs of an overactive ego that could undermine an executive’s career.

Seeking acceptance: These leaders become overly concerned with what others think, which keeps them from being true to themselves. They tend to play it safe, swim with the current, and restate others’ ideas instead of coming up with their own.

Showcasing brilliance: These leaders go beyond sharing their thoughts—they want their intellect to be the center of attention. When showcasing is allowed or encouraged, the casualty is collective wisdom. Paradoxically, the more leaders show off their brilliance, the less likely people are to listen.

Being comparative: Instead of focusing on their own personal best, these leaders feel a need to compare themselves with others. Excessive comparison turns colleagues into competitors—and competitors are not effective collaborators. Comparing strengths to weaknesses leads to either excessive self-confidence or feelings of inadequacy.

Being defensive: Instead of defending an idea, these leaders behave as if they are defending themselves personally. They focus on proving their case and deflecting alternative points of view. These leaders resist feedback and brush off mistakes to the degree that conversations with them become superficial.

The goal is not to remove ego from the equation completely—it is to keep it in balance. Marcum and Smith recommend that leaders develop their humility, curiosity, and veracity. The objective is to achieve and maintain an intelligent self-respect and genuine confidence.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies another way leaders can keep their ego in check: focus on something bigger than themselves. Collins suggests a special type of leader who builds enduring greatness through a combination of personal humility and professional will. He describes this type of leader as a Level 5. Of special note is the underlying principle Collins sets forward—leaders at all levels need to put organizational, department, and team goals ahead of their personal agenda.

Don’t let your ego get in the way of your good intentions. Practice humility and self-acceptance. When you are able to love and accept yourself with all of your imperfections, you can do the same for others. You’ll be surprised at how well people will respond when you get your ego out of the way. People already know you’re not perfect—it’s when you become vulnerable enough to admit it that the magic will happen in both your personal and professional relationships. As Colleen Barrett, former president of Southwest Airlines and servant leader extraordinaire, says, “People will admire your strengths, but they will respect your honesty regarding your vulnerability.”

PS: Interested in learning more about servant leadership? Join us for the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28. The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Twenty servant leadership experts—authors, CEOs, and thought leaders—will share how servant leadership concepts work in their organizations and how you can be a servant leader in your workplace. You can learn more here!

“The mindset is to recognize that there are two parts of servant leadership, says Blanchard. “There is the vision, direction, and goals—that’s the leadership part. Everybody needs to know where you’re going and what you’re trying to accomplish.

“The servant leadership skill set is turning that vision into action. Now you are looking at the day-today management behaviors people need from their leader to succeed.”

Blanchard shares some examples:

Developing Others: “Servant leaders are always preparing people to be their own boss by helping them own their job and be in charge. This means identifying a direct report’s development level and providing the direction and support they need to grow and develop.”

Delegating: “Servant leaders first make sure that people know what the goals are. Then they turn the organizational pyramid and the reporting relationships upside down. They ask questions like How can I help? and What can I do to make a difference to help you accomplish your goals?

Directing Others: “It’s not really about directing them,” says Blanchard. “It’s about helping them. Sometimes when people are new they need clear direction—it is a temporary leadership behavior to help someone take ownership of their job and get to where they want to go.”

Servant leadership is a journey, says Blanchard. It’s both a mindset and a skill set. Once you get it right on the inside you can begin to develop the skills related to goal setting and performance management. Blanchard points to two of his company’s flagship programs as examples of how servant leadership principles can be taught as a part of a larger leadership development curriculum.

“In many ways, servant leadership is the overarching theme that covers the concepts of two of our most popular programs: Situational Leadership® II and First-time Manager.

“For example, Situational Leadership® II has three skills that generate both great relationships and results: goal setting, diagnosis, and matching. Notice that the first skill is goal setting. All good performance starts with clear goals—which, for a manager, are clearly part of the leadership aspect of servant leadership.

“Once clear goals are set, an effective situational leader works with their direct report to diagnose the direct report’s development level—competence and commitment—on each specific goal. Then together they determine the appropriate leadership style—the amount of directive and supportive behavior—that will match the person’s development level on each goal. That way the manager can help them accomplish their goals—the servant aspect of servant leadership. The key here is for managers to remember they must use different strokes for different folks but also different strokes for the same folks, depending on the goal and the person’s development level.

“In our First-time Manager program we teach the concepts of One Minute Management. The First Secret of The One Minute Manager is setting One Minute Goals—which for a manager is part of the leadership aspect of servant leadership. Once employees are clear on goals, an effective One Minute Manager tries to catch people doing something right so that they can deliver a One Minute Praising—the Second Secret. If the person is doing something wrong or not performing as well as agreed upon, a One Minute Re-Direct is appropriate—the Third Secret. When effective One Minute Managers are praising or redirecting their employees, they are engaging in the servant aspect of servant leadership—working for their employees to help them win.

“Why are the concepts of Situational Leadership® II and The One Minute Manager so widely used around the world? I think it’s because they are clear examples of servant leadership in action. Both concepts recognize that vision and direction—the leadership aspect of servant leadership—are the responsibility of the traditional hierarchy. People need to be clear on their goals. Implementation—the servant aspect of servant leadership—is all about turning the hierarchy upside down and helping employees accomplish their agreed-upon goals.”

Mindset and Skill Set

“Saying you’re a servant leader is a good start, but it is your behavior that makes it real for people,” says Blanchard. “Servant leadership is a combination of mindset and skill set that focuses on serving others first so that organizations develop great relationships, achieve great results, and delight their customers.”

Would you like to learn more about implementing a servant leadership mindset and skill set in your organization? Join Ken Blanchard for a free online Servant Leadership in Action Livecast on February 28!

Blanchard will host 20 authors, CEOs, and thought leaders from all walks of life as they discuss strategies and offer encouragement for leadership, learning, and talent development professionals interested in discovering more about servant leadership concepts.

The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. Learn more here!

David Marshall at Berrett-Koehler Publishers recently posted a Reading List for Servant Leaders. It’s a great mix of titles beginning with Robert Greenleaf’s The Servant as Leader (the book that started the modern servant leadership movement) and then continues with books by authors, CEOs, and thought leaders from all walks of life explaining how to use servant leadership concepts in today’s work environment.

Here’s the complete list:

1. The Servant as Leader by Robert K. Greenleaf
2. Servant Leadership by Robert K. Greenleaf
3. The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse
4. The Secret by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller
5. Dare to Serve by Cheryl Bachelder
6. The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
7. The Serving Leader by Kenneth R. Jennings and John Stahl-Wert
8. Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
9. The Servant Leader by James A. Autry
10. Give and Take by Adam Grant

I’d like to add two more books to this list that I’ve found to be helpful.  Number 11 will help aspiring leaders get it right on the inside by examining beliefs and behaviors that might be getting in their way.  Number 12 will help people get it right on the outside by sharing practical strategies leaders can use in their day-to-day management practices.

11. Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts–Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith

Marshall Goldsmith is the #1 executive coach in the world and his client list reads like a Who’s Who of the Fortune 500.  In this book, Goldsmith shares six engaging questions he uses with his clients. The questions provide a daily touchpoint to keep leaders on track with their intentions.

12. Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy Called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A” by Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge

Ken Blanchard is the best-selling business author of 21 million books and Garry Ridge is the CEO of WD-40 Company.  In this book, Blanchard and Ridge teach leaders how to focus less on performance review (akin to grading people’s papers) and spend more time on providing the direction and support they need to succeed (helping people get an “A”.)

Those are my suggestions. How about yours?  What books would you add to a recommended reading list for aspiring servant leaders?  Use the comments section to add your recommendations.

PS: Interested in learning more about servant leadership and how an others-focused approach could work in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard and 20 other authors, CEOs, and thought leaders for a complimentary online conference February 28. The Servant Leadership in Action Livecast is free and open to leadership, learning, and talent development professionals wanting to explore servant leadership and how it is used in today’s organizations. The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Learn more here!

Dear Madeleine,

I manage a large team in Silicon Valley. My peers and I recently went through a 360 degree feedback process and I received a big report with everyone’s opinion about how I can be more effective. The feedback was fine; nothing too negative.

Here’s my problem.

I know I need to work on some areas, but I am completely overwhelmed by this report. How do I choose what to focus on? We have internal coaches in the company, but it takes weeks to get an appointment. And how will they even know how to help me? Right now I am just kind of stuck.

What do you think?

Stuck

Dear Stuck,

Those reports are indeed overwhelming. Many organizations provide 360 recipients with a coach to help process and debrief the reports and build an action plan for exactly this reason. You didn’t mention which assessment was used so I can’t give you detailed instructions, but I do have a few ideas.

Does your report provide you with any information on how to read and interpret the results? Some competencies are more critical than others for your particular job role, and the report should point those out to you. You might have to read through the report a couple of times and get used to how the data is laid out. Here are some key places to look:

• Blind spots: The areas where you rate yourself higher than everyone else may indicate a blind spot where you may think you are more effective than anyone else does. The bigger the difference in how you see yourself and how others see you, the more attention you may want to pay to narrowing the gap.
• Hidden strengths: Similarly, the areas where you rate yourself lower than all of the other raters may indicate hidden strengths. These are areas where you are doing well and aren’t that aware of it. Hidden strengths are good to understand—these are areas to lean on and possibly build on for your future career.
• Trust your gut: I would submit to you that before you did the 360, you already knew where you might need to focus to be more effective. Most of us know what we need help with and are hoping nobody notices, and a 360 feedback report will confirm what we probably already knew.
• Low hanging fruit: Perhaps there is one area you could work on immediately that wouldn’t be that difficult. The one thing I know for sure is that no one succeeds at giving themselves a personality transplant no matter how hard they might try, so I suggest you choose something to work on that you can actually do. To figure out what that might be, make a short list of things you know you should be doing or you should stop doing and then choose one of those things you can commit to. Maybe it is as simple as stop interrupting people, or more complicated like spend 15 minutes of dedicated time per week with each direct report.
• Ask your boss: Put a short list of all the different things you could work on and ask your boss which of those things he or she thinks is most important.

As you read through your report again—slowly, while breathing—one or two things will present themselves as possibilities to you. If you stay calm you will notice them. Don’t choose more than three things to work on; that’s about the limit of what you will be able to do. Ultimately, no matter how much help you get, you will have to be the one who decides where to put your focus and energy.

Finally, don’t worry too much about it. Take what you can from the experience and leave the rest. A person can only do so much.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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

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

What exactly does it take to achieve mastery?

It begins with clarity. Identifying the needed behaviors and actions to move toward mastery.

Be intentional and focused. It takes concentrated brain power to go against your natural tendencies due to deep pathways created in the brain. You must be focused in your actions.

Take risks. Allow yourself to be uncomfortable as you move toward mastery. Be prepared to step outside of your comfort zone to experience new behaviors, actions, and interactions.

Embrace change. Keep your eye on the prize. In Situational Leadership^® II we teach that being new to a task or goal requires extra time and effort; but as you progress and gain mastery, it becomes easier and easier as new natural tendencies are formed.

Learn from setbacks. Recognize that you will experience setbacks and what even feels like failure at times. The key is to learn from these challenges and to see them as learning opportunities that lead to mastery.

Be open to learn. An open mind sparks the creation of new pathways in the brain. Be open to making changes when needed based on experiences. Mastery is a journey!

I’ve made a commitment to myself for 2018 to do what it takes to achieve mastery in public speaking. I am confident speaking one on one, but I want to also be confident in front of a group. I have already committed to several speaking opportunities this year. Yes, I am nervous, anxious, and excited. But I want to achieve mastery for professional growth.

Repetition is the key. It will take time and dedication to achieve mastery. It will be uncomfortable. But I believe in myself!

Join me and shake it up to achieve mastery!

About the Author

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

“It begins by asking yourself a tough question: ‘Am I here to serve or be served?’” he says. According to Blanchard, the answer to this question will reveal your fundamental approach to leadership.

“If you believe leadership is all about you, where you want to go, and what you want to attain, then your leadership by default will be more self-focused and self-centered. On the other hand, if your leadership revolves around meeting the needs of the organization and the people working for it, you will make different choices that will reveal a more others-focused approach.”

Blanchard believes the best leaders have a servant leadership philosophy. He explains that servant leadership requires a two-pronged approach that combines strategic leadership—vision and direction—with operational leadership—strong day-to-day management practices.

“At its core, servant leadership means that once vision and direction are set, the organizational pyramid is turned upside-down and leaders work for their people.”

There are two huge challenges to being a successful servant leader, according to Blanchard.

“One is false pride—when you think more of yourself than you should. When this occurs, leaders spend most of their time looking for ways to promote themselves. The other is fear and self-doubt—when you think less of yourself than you should. These leaders spend their time constantly trying to protect themselves.”

Surprisingly, the root cause of both behaviors is the same, explains Blanchard: “The ego. It’s just part of the human condition. Any time I hear someone say that their ego has never gotten in their way, that they are never prideful and never experience self-doubt, I usually say, half-jokingly, ‘I’ll bet you lie about other things, too.’ We all have times when we get off track.”

To help executives identify ways that ego may impact their leadership, Blanchard often incorporates an “Egos Anonymous” exercise into some of his work with clients.

“The Egos Anonymous session begins with each person standing up and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Ken, and I’m an egomaniac. The last time my ego got in the way was …’ And then they share a false pride or self-doubt moment or example.”

Egos Anonymous sessions have become so popular with executives that some use the technique to kick off meetings back at their workplace.

“They find it really helps their teams operate more freely,” says Blanchard. “It’s very powerful when people can share their vulnerability and be more authentic and transparent with one another.”

For leaders looking to get started with an inside-out approach to addressing and improving their leadership abilities, Blanchard has one final question: “What are you doing on a daily basis to recalibrate who you want to be in the world?

“Most people don’t think about that. This could include how you enter your day, what you read, what you study—everything that contributes in a positive sense to who you are.

“Consider your daily habits and their impact on your life. Take time to explore who you are, who you want to be, and what steps you can take on a daily basis to get closer to becoming your best self. Your leadership journey begins on the inside—but, ultimately, it will have a tremendous impact on the people around you.”

PS: Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a free online event February 28.  The Servant Leadership in Action Livecast will feature more than 20 thought leaders and business executives sharing how they have successfully implemented servant leadership principles in their organizations.  The event is free, courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Learn more here!

That surprises some people who might expect him to point to his company’s flagship leadership program, Situational Leadership® II, or his best-selling business book, The One Minute Manager®.

Blanchard explains he is proud of the concepts within those products and how they have been widely accepted around the world. But over the last decade, he’s realized that the reason the concepts are well recognized is that they are examples of servant leadership in action—which he believes is the only way to achieve great relationships and great results.

“The world is in desperate need of a new leadership model,” explains Blanchard. “Too many leaders have been conditioned to think of leadership only in terms of power and control. But there is a better way to lead—one that combines equal parts serving and leading.”

In a new book, Servant Leadership in Action, coming out in March, Blanchard has invited more than 40 leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries to share their experiences with servant leadership. Here are a few of their stories.

Southwest Airlines

Colleen Barrett, president emeritus, Southwest Airlines, explains how servant leadership has been a key principle of success since the airline’s founding.

“For more than 40 years all of the leaders at Southwest Airlines have tried to model servant leadership. Herb Kelleher, our founder, led the way clearly—although I don’t think he knew what the expression servant leadership meant until we told him. Herb and I have always said that our purpose in life as senior leaders with Southwest Airlines was to support our people. At Southwest, our entire philosophy of leadership is still quite simple: treat your people right and good things will happen.

“We try in every way to let our employees know they are important and empowered to make a positive difference on a daily basis. Servant leadership isn’t soft management—it’s simply the right thing to do.”

That level of support manifests itself in many different ways at Southwest.  Barrett tells a heartwarming story of servant leadership in action that happened at Southwest a few years ago when a grandfather had to make last-minute reservations to be with a dying grandchild.

“The man was away from home in an unfamiliar city when he learned his grandson was dying and had only a couple of hours to live. The grandfather was desperately trying to get to him.

“Without any managerial intervention, our reservation agent directed the grandfather to head to the airport while she started working to clear obstacles from her end,” Barrett said. “She called the ground ops station at the airport, got hold of a ticket agent, and explained what the situation was. The ticket agent bought the grandfather a ticket with her own money, then went to the TSA checkpoint and told them she would be escorting a passenger who needed to make a flight. She then contacted the gate and explained the situation. The gate attendant, in turn, notified the captain on the flight.

“When it was time to push back, the pilot asked the ticket agent how close the grandfather was to arriving and learned the man was still about ten minutes away. The captain thought about it for a moment, then walked out of the cockpit to the front of the airplane and explained the situation to the passengers. He said, ‘We are going to wait for this gentleman. I think it’s the right thing to do.’ After listening to the captain’s explanation for the delay, the passengers broke into applause. When the grandfather arrived ten minutes later, he couldn’t believe the captain had held the plane for him. The captain’s response was, ‘Sir, this airplane wasn’t going anyplace without me—and I wasn’t going anyplace without you.’”

Synovus Financial

James Blanchard (no relation to Ken Blanchard) is the former CEO of Synovus Financial—a company whose servant leadership culture goes all the way back to 1888 when the founders of Columbus Bank and Trust Company were in the cotton mill business.

One day when a woman was working on a loom in the mill, her skirt got caught on the machine. The hem ripped and her life savings came spilling out on the floor. The hem of her skirt was the safest place she knew to keep her money. That day, the founders decided they could do better for their employees—so they started a bank that would serve as a trusted place for their workers’ life savings. The Synovus culture of service began the moment that woman’s savings spilled onto the floor.

“Over the years our name changed and we grew,” says Blanchard, “but our servant leadership culture endured and became even stronger. A few criticized us, saying the approach was too soft and permissive. So we had to prove it was the exact opposite—that people who were loved, respected, and prepared would perform better. Servant leadership led to higher performance and there was nothing permissive about it. We loved our people and we expected high performance. I believe when you truly care about someone, you not only love them but also expect the best from them and hold them to it.”

That approach has paid off for Synovus. In 1999, the company was named Fortune’s No. 1 Best Place to Work in America. They were on the list so often, in fact, the magazine asked them to stop entering and made them the first inductee into the Best Places to Work Hall of Fame.

“It was a great validation of our aspirations and our actions,” says CEO Blanchard. “I have been retired from Synovus for years but the pursuit of a servant leadership culture at Synovus was my greatest and most favorite satisfaction.”

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

When Cheryl Bachelder accepted the role of Popeyes CEO in November 2007, the company had been struggling.  Relationships with franchisees were not at the level they needed to be. Even so, a comment from a veteran franchisee caught her by surprise: “Don’t expect us to trust you anytime soon.”

Bachelder and her team decided to focus on servant leadership principles for turning around business performance.

“We began calling the franchisees our ‘number one customer.’ More important, as servant leaders, we began treating them that way. Our first principle was to respect and admire our owners’ passion for their work. Next, we listened to their needs and we accepted our roles and responsibilities in making things right. Finally, we put our owners’ interests above our own.”

The approach was a huge success. Relationships and business outcomes flourished. During the period from 2007 to 2016, under Bachelder’s leadership, Popeyes became a prosperous enterprise again. Franchise owners were served well: 95 percent rated their satisfaction with the Popeyes system at good or very good and 90 percent said they would recommend Popeyes to another franchisee.

“When we started, we didn’t know servant leadership would drive our success. We didn’t have a plaque in the office that stated our purpose and principles. What we did have was a team of leaders who were willing to put the success of the people and the enterprise before their own interests.”

The Power of Love, Not the Love of Power

A few years ago, Ken Blanchard received a letter from a man in New Zealand with a line that he believes sums up his leadership philosophy. The man said, “Ken, you are in the business of teaching people the power of love rather than the love of power.”

Servant leaders are constantly trying to find out what their people need to perform well and to live according to their organization’s vision. Rather than wanting employees to please their bosses, servant leaders want to make a difference in their employees’ lives and in their organizations. In top organizations, leaders believe if they do a good job serving their employees and show they truly care about them, the employees will, in turn, practice that same philosophy with customers.

Blanchard says, “We need servant leadership advocates and I nominate you. Go forth and spread the word to everyone who will listen. And remember: your job is to teach people the power of love rather than the love of power. After all, servant leadership is love in action.”

Would you like to learn more about servant leadership principles and how to apply them in your own organization?  Then join us for a free livecast on February 28!

Servant Leadership in Action Livecast

February 28, 2018 from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Join best-selling business author Ken Blanchard and 20 other successful leaders for an in-depth look into the concept of servant leadership and how it can transform the culture and performance of your organization.  You’ll explore:

• What is servant leadership?
• How does it work in today’s organizations?
• The role leaders play
• How to get started
• How to keep it growing

You’ll hear personal and powerful stories from 20 of today’s most inspiring servant leaders. You’ll be motivated to act after seeing how others have achieved great relationships and results in their organizations through servant leadership.

Attend this online event to:

• Gain a clear understanding of this proven leadership model
• Learn the fundamentals of servant leadership
• Discover how other companies have achieved results
• Acquire ideas of how servant leadership could look in your organization

People lead best when they serve first.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how servant leadership principles can take your organization’s performance to the next level.

The event is free courtesy of Berrett-Koehler Publishers and The Ken Blanchard Companies. To learn more, visit the Servant Leadership in Action Livecast registration page.

New Hire Is Dressing Inappropriately? A manager writes, “Her taste in work clothing is wildly inappropriate. She dressed perfectly for the interview phase, but now the heels are sky high, the skirts are too short and tight, and the necklines are way too low. People’s eyes literally go wide when she walks by.”

Burned Out But Don’t Know Why? A reader writes, “I really like the challenge of being a manager—but something has begun to worry me. I start at 7 a.m. and by 2 p.m. I am exhausted, even though I work from home most days. I’m on the phone in endless meetings dealing with strategy, budget, and gnarly personnel issues—and by the middle of the afternoon I’ve got nothing left.”

Direct Report Won’t Stop Talking During One on Ones?  A manager writes, “I have one direct report who is very good at her job—but during her one on one meetings with me, she literally never stops talking. I can’t get a word in edgewise. It is a one-hour wall of words. In fact, she often can’t stop so the meeting goes late. Worst of all, she doesn’t seem to leave these meetings the better for having had them.”

Mindless Work Killing Your Soul? A reader writes, “I hate my job. I am just bored to tears. When I completed graduate school, I was recruited into what I thought was the perfect job for me—the job description was exactly what I was looking for. A year later, I am doing a ton of mindless administrative work and almost none of what was in the original job description.”

People Think You’re Having an Affair at Work? A manager writes, “About a year ago we got a new boss.  He is a few years older than me and very smart and creative. We had an immediate connection because we went to the same school for undergraduate and are both huge fans of our school’s sports teams.  We became instant BFFs. The problem is that everybody thinks we are having an affair.”

ABOUT MADELEINE

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a Master Certified Coach and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. She is coauthor of Blanchard’s Coaching Essentials training program, and several books including Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest, Coaching in Organizations, and Coaching for Leadership.

Do you have a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

Leadership Training—3 Challenges When Making the Business Case

Senior executives instinctively know that the quality of leadership in an organization impacts that organization’s performance. But leadership, learning, and talent development professionals still have to make the business case if they expect their training initiatives to make it through the budgeting process.

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR!

Leadership Training—Calculating ROI and Measuring Impact

ROI expert Dr. Paul Leone, author of Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact joins David Witt of The Ken Blanchard Companies with help on budgeting and proposals. Includes link to interactive Leadership Training ROI Worksheet!

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

Below are a few key skills and techniques that coaches use when working with others. Each of these skills will help your managers adopt more of a coaching approach in their interactions. If you are interested in a more extensive and detailed look, check out Coaching in Organizations – Best Coaching Practices by Madeleine Homan and Linda Miller. Also, the International Coach Federation’s list of Core Competencies for coaches are listed on the federation’s website: www.coachfederation.org

• Take a service-partnership approach. It’s not about you. The focus is on helping leaders be effective and develop.
• Be fully present. This can be a challenge even for experienced coaches—there are so many distractions in today’s world. Constantly reengage yourself. During the coaching session, nothing else matters other than the person you are working with.
• Be a sounding board. Practice active listening. Many people just need a neutral partner to listen to them so they can work it out for themselves vocally.
• Inquire for insight: Ask open-ended questions. Clarifying questions help get to the heart of the topic. Focus questions set the direction for the coaching session. Discovery questions lead to increased awareness. Challenging questions lead to new insight and action.

This list is only a highlight of what is needed to have a productive, valuable, and rewarding coaching session from the client and coach perspective. Give it a try. I’m sure that even with this exploratory approach, your managers will experience the thrill of hearing and watching their people have aha moments as they come up with their own solutions.

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Here are the three biggest challenges L&D professionals face—along with some resources to successfully address each challenge.

Adding Credible Numbers to Your Proposal. The first challenge is how to quantify the bottom-line impact of improved leadership behaviors. There are three areas to focus on, says Paul Leone, author of Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact. “Key in on performance indicators that produce revenue, cut costs, or avoid future costs.”

When measuring programs designed to increase the effectiveness of leaders, Leone reminds practitioners to focus on improvements made by the direct reports of the leader in question.

“A leader’s productivity is really an accumulation of their direct reports’ productivity. I measure the impact of leadership training performance by looking at increases in direct reports’ performance and productivity.”

Leone shares more in his interview and webinar on Measuring the Impact of Training.

Convincing Others. Once you have your numbers together, you need to practice your financial presentation skills. “It shouldn’t be an adversarial meeting,” says Craig Spitz, chief financial officer at The Ken Blanchard Companies. “It’s about connecting the dots. Anytime learning and development professionals come prepared with models, numbers, and rationale that help make the case for training, they make the CFO’s job easier. If a training professional can show the impact of training, everyone is going to be interested in that.”

Spitz shares more in his interview and webinar on Presenting Your Training Initiative to the CFO.

Getting Out of Your Own Way. Finally, it’s important to recognize that there is a certain amount of guesswork when making assumptions about the impact of training. L&D professionals are often their own toughest critics, says Leone.  “Maybe it’s because we come from the social sciences or a more academic background. Maybe we tend to be harder on ourselves or hold ourselves to a higher standard—almost as if we think we need to write a thesis or a dissertation. That’s not the case. We just need to show value.”

But as CFO Spitz reminds L&D professionals, “Even the most thorough proposals are based on assumptions. Present your proposals confidently.”

Are you getting ready to submit a leadership training proposal? Don’t let these three challenges hold you back. For more on calculating impact, refining your presentation, and making the business case, check out these free resources available at the Blanchard website.

Blog Posts

Measuring the Impact of Training

Presenting Your Training Initiative to the CFO

Getting Buy-in for Leadership Development Training

Webinar Recordings

Making the Business Case for Training: Talking to a CFO

Leadership Training: Calculating ROI and Measuring Impact

Making the Business Case for Leadership Training

• We know our coaches—their strengths, their style, and who fits the profile for their ideal client.
• We consider geography as one of many factors, but not necessarily the first factor.
• We explore the needs of the client. What do they want to achieve? Who do they like to work with? The more we know about the client, the better we can match them to a coach.
• We explore the needs of the client’s organization. What does the boss think? What are desired outcomes? How will the organization know that outcomes have been achieved?
• We ask the client to put some skin in the game, often in the form of a chemistry call with one or more prospective coaches.

And we rematch if we get it wrong.

We want the client to have the right coach. Relationship and rapport are of the utmost importance in coaching—and not every coach fits every client. Although it rarely happens, in the seventeen years we’ve been doing coaching there have been times we’ve had to rematch a client with a different coach. Here are some examples of what happened and what we learned.

• A coach missed her first session with the client. It was a simple time zone issue, but the coach just couldn’t recover trust. We swapped to a new coach and the client is now deeply engaged in his own development. He appreciated the quick response and the high touch recovery.
• A coach worked with a client for several sessions but wasn’t seeing the high impact we expect. He talked to his Coaching Solutions Partner (head coach) and we then reached out to the client. We explained that we wanted the client to have a phenomenal experience. The client agreed to try a new coach. His feedback was that it was the “best decision ever.”
• A coach made an error during a second coaching session, confusing one client with another. The client in the coaching session felt marginalized and asked for a new coach. We learned that feedback from a client is a powerful learning and development opportunity for our coaches. The coach in question now has a better system in place for herself: she consistently takes a break between coaching sessions to allow herself to properly prepare.

3 Signs a Rematch Might Be Necessary

Our experience as a business-to-business organization with more than 143 coaches worldwide has given us good insight into some of the early warning signs that the client and coach match isn’t what it should be.  These signs should be monitored as part of any internal organizational coaching you might be managing. If you are a human resources business partner tasked with managing the coaching of others in your organization, here are three signs to look for:

1. Clients are rescheduling frequently.
2. Clients are not looking forward to their scheduled coaching sessions.
3. Learning is not occurring.

If you see any of these signs, what do you do?  A frank conversation with the client is a great place to start. Have a backup plan in place—and another coach who can step in as a better fit.

Ultimately, trust and rapport are key elements to a great match. Our goal is to serve clients in achieving their desired outcomes.  If that’s not happening, we won’t hesitate to suggest a better fit.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Measuring the Impact of Training

“Productivity is the best and most immediate indicator of training impact. If you send someone to training, increased productivity can happen as fast as the next week or the next month. That’s where your business case should focus,” says Paul Leone, senior ROI consultant at Verizon and author of the book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact.

FREE WEBINAR!

Leadership Training—Calculating ROI and Measuring Impact
November 29, 2017

ROI expert Dr. Paul Leone, author of Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact joins David Witt of The Ken Blanchard Companies for this free online event!

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

But this isn’t true, says Paul Leone, senior ROI consultant at Verizon and author of the book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact: Bridging the Gap between Training and Business Results. In Leone’s experience, financial executives are receptive when anyone in an organization shows that money being spent is producing a return.

“Senior executives just want to make sure money is well spent. They are not necessarily looking to reject the proposal. If it will generate results, it’s in everybody’s interest for the organization to do it.”

It’s important for HR and L&D professionals to realize that they are not the only ones coming in with proposals based on assumptions, says Leone. Even the most tangible projects are based on best-guess scenarios.

“Let’s suppose marketing is proposing spending budget making a commercial. They have to ask for budget just like any other department. So they do some predictive analytics and some research, but in the end they are making an educated guess that the commercial will produce an uptick in sales.”

L&D professionals shouldn’t feel that everyone else is going in with rock-solid assumptions and metrics, says Leone. Everyone is in the same boat more than they realize.

“Maybe it’s because we come from the social sciences or a more academic background. Maybe we tend to be harder on ourselves or hold ourselves to a higher standard—almost as if we think we need to write a thesis or a dissertation. That’s not the case. We just need to show value.

“I can honestly say that I think it’s safer to bet on a training experience to improve performance than to take a chance on a commercial. We are adding bottom-line value with training—it’s just that we never measure it.”

When Leone looks at the typical measurements organizations can use to measure the impact of leadership training—employee retention, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity—he recommends a rank order on how to use each of these common measures to make the case for training.

“Productivity is the best and most immediate indicator of training impact. If you send someone to training, increased productivity can happen as fast as the next week or the next month. That’s where your business case should focus. Key in on performance indicators that produce revenue, cut costs, or avoid future costs.

“Customer satisfaction is also good to show, but it’s second down from productivity. In many organizations, there’s not a dollar value assigned to customer satisfaction.

“Employee retention is number three because it is long-term. By the time you show that your training had a positive effect on employee retention, so many other things over the same period of time could’ve happened in the business that could take credit for that.”

When measuring programs designed to increase the effectiveness of leaders, Leone reminds practitioners to focus on improvements made by the direct reports of the leader in question.

“A leader’s productivity is really an accumulation of their direct reports’ productivity. I’m not talking about the leader’s ability to make better presentations, better speeches, or better contributions to teams—even though those things could be counted as gains in productivity. I measure the impact of leadership training performance by looking at increases in direct reports’ performance and productivity. I look to see how these leaders are impacting their frontline people who have the tangible Key Performance Indicators we are tracking every day—sales, repeat calls, phone-ins, customer satisfaction, and the like.”

Leone is also passionate about what he calls Level Six measurement—identifying factors that lead to high levels of ROI.

“After a training event, certain factors in a training participant’s immediate work environment can make or break your training initiative’s overall impact. These factors have nothing to do with your training content, or your trainers, or with how well you planned out your delivery. This is about the manager that the training participant is returning to in the workplace.

“We conducted a recent training where the overall return on investment was about 6 percent—a modest positive return.  But when we focused on a subgroup of 50 people who reported to one specific manager, we found that group had an 1800 percent return on investment! This was directly attributable to what the manager was doing with participants after the training—things like bursts, boosts, contests, and sit-downs, with the manager shadowing people to see if they were handling the calls in the way they had been trained.”

For leadership, learning, and talent development professionals still on the fence about including projected impact numbers in their training proposals, Leone offers encouragement.

“You always get the biggest bang for your buck with leadership training, because you’re sending one person through and influencing the ten people who report to that person. You’re paying for one person and influencing so many others.

“Don’t be afraid to measure the impact of your training. If you don’t, people will never know the value you bring to the organization. Speak up and show your value!”

Would you like to learn more about calculating ROI and measuring the impact of training?  Then join us for a free webinar!

Leadership Training—Calculating ROI and Measuring Impact

November 29, 2017, 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time

Improving leadership skills is one of the best ways to impact your organization’s bottom line. Still, many leadership, learning, and talent development professionals struggle to identify the expected return on investment for training expenditures and to measure impact after an initiative.

In this webinar, David Witt, program director at The Ken Blanchard Companies, teams up with Dr. Paul Leone, author of the book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact: Bridging the Gap between Training and Business Results to show you how to identify anticipated fiscal impact of a leadership training initiative and how to measure it in a cost-effective manner after the training is finished.

You’ll learn:

• How to calculate the return on investment for your leadership training initiative using Blanchard’s Leadership Training ROI Worksheet. (The worksheet will be provided to all registrants.)
• How to measure the impact of training using the methodology outlined in the book Measuring and Maximizing Training Impact
• How to improve the adoption of new leadership practices from the classroom to the work environment

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to quantify the impact of leadership training in proposals—and how to set up your training to deliver on expectations.

Register today!

Most of the people who are to chosen to receive coaching are excited about the prospect and immediately enthusiastic; however, some are not. These folks either miss the initial email from their L&D business partners, or they read the email and don’t really understand it, or they do understand it but aren’t really signed up for what feels like yet another thing to do. Sometimes they have had a bad coaching experience in the past.

When clients aren’t prepared to meet a coach at least halfway, it can lead to problems. This type of coaching client often doesn’t show up for their coaching sessions—or, even worse, they do show up but they “yes” the coach. This essentially means that the client shows up for their session but doesn’t really pay attention or commit; they just say enough of the right things to slide by. Most coaches know when they are being “yessed,” but it is amazing how good some people are at this. In the worst cases, the client goes along and then claims the coaching was a waste of time and their coach was terrible. The financial, emotional, and lost-time cost of this kind of coaching situation is painful and embarrassing for all concerned—so we work very hard to avoid it.

It is critical for the professionals in charge of the coaching initiative to put some effort into what we think of as internal marketing. This includes:

• An Invitation. Nobody likes to be told that they are getting a coach, even if they actually want one. An invitation respects the individual’s autonomy, which is critical to motivation. This is beautifully explained by my colleague Susan Fowler in her book Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…And What Does.
• An Explanation. Coaching is expensive. It’s important for candidates to understand why they are being offered coaching right now, what the organization expects them to get out of it, and how they can expect to benefit professionally and personally.
• An Opportunity to Opt Out. Candidates need to be given the option to decline coaching as well as clear direction and support for how to make the decision. There should never be a sense that any coaching candidate will be judged or penalized if they decide to forgo coaching for now.

Ultimately, a client must be ready, willing, and able to work with a coach for the exercise to be fruitful.

To help L&D professionals support coaching candidates in making the best choice for themselves, we developed a series of questions potential clients can ask themselves. There is no hard and fast rule about how many of these questions a potential coaching client needs to say yes to. The purpose is to shine a light on the client’s present mindset and circumstances.

Is coaching right for the candidate? Have them consider these questions:

1. Am I planning to stay in my role and/or grow with the organization for at least the next six months?
2. Am I currently feeling successful in my role and organization?
3. Am I on an even keel from a performance standpoint—having some challenges, perhaps, but no serious problems?
4. Am I eager to obtain, consider, and be influenced by feedback?
5. Am I familiar with or open to learning what coaching is all about?
6. Am I open to new perspectives?
7. Am I ready to accept input?
8. Am I able to devote time—at least three hours a month—to coaching sessions or commitments made in coaching sessions?
9. Am I willing to be challenged?
10. Am I confident enough to disagree with my coach?
11. Am I confident enough to give my coach feedback if I don’t think the coaching feels useful?
12. Am I capable of introspection?
13. Am I eager to grow and change?
14. Am I currently free from severe personal problems that require extra brain space? (This may include addiction recovery, deep grief due to recent loss, difficult relationship issues with significant other, child or parent that requires close attention/therapy/counseling, contentious divorce/custody/legal issues.)
15. Do I believe coaching is the best use of my time, focus, and efforts right now?

Allowing individual clients to think ahead and choose for themselves will increase the likelihood that every coaching engagement will result in a success story. Consider how you can help your coaching candidates be better prepared to get the most out of what coaching has to offer.

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Presenting Your Training Initiative to the CFO

Leadership, learning, and talent development professionals are sometimes a little nervous talking with chief financial officers. CFOs ask hard questions and want to see demonstrable bottom-line impact for training initiatives being proposed. It doesn’t have to be an adversarial relationship, says Craig Spitz, CFO at The Ken Blanchard Companies.

FREE WEBINAR
Making the Business Case for Training: Talking to a CFO

Get coaching on how to build a sound financial rationale to go along with a proposed training agenda. Join Craig Spitz, CFO of The Ken Blanchard Companies for this special hands-on webinar!

In this episode of the Blanchard LeaderChat podcast we speak with Susan Fowler, coauthor ofSelf Leadership and The One Minute Manager^®. Fowler shares key points beginning with challenging assumed constraints and recognizing your points of power.

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

How quaint!

When it comes to interacting with others in today’s digital age, the telephone may seem like a relic from the past.  You may think coaching over the phone would be a poor substitute compared to face-to-face interaction.

But the truth is, phone coaching is awesome! Here’s why:

• You will be listened to—really listened to. When was the last time that happened?
• No travel, no fuss. You just call your coach as planned.  Close the door, walk a trail, or sit in your car.  Select a setting in which you can speak freely, and you and your coach will co-create an environment with words that will bring out your best.  The coaching conversation becomes your private oasis of professional development—and shoes are optional.
• On the phone, you have to use your words. This is powerful.  You’ll be forced to say what you mean.  Using only a telephone, you can’t posture, your coach can’t try to read your nonverbals, and you can’t mirror one another.  Instead, the power of words will be accentuated and underscored.
• You’ll experience the power of silence. A great coach doesn’t yammer in an attempt to offer options for what you might want to say. A great coach will wait for you to find the words.  You’re worth it.
• Your telephone coaching conversation is yours. It is all on you, all about you, and driven by you.  It is your time, your way.  Your coach will tell you what they’re hearing and what they’re not hearing: verbal feedback.  Again, when was the last time you got that on a consistent basis?
• Finally, with telephone coaching, someone will be hanging on your every word.

At Blanchard Coaching, we’ve been using the phone with more than 15,000 clients over the past 15 years for one key reason: phone coaching works!

Let us know if we can share more.  We’d love to talk about it!

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Leadership as a Partnership

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

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

The same can be said for a person with integrity. I like to define integrity as a unifying way of being. It integrates all of the aspects of a person.

But many work cultures promote a compartmentalized view of life—for example, an expectation that you use only your brain (your head) at work and save emotions (your heart) for what is going on at home. Such an expectation is unrealistic, unhealthy, and exhausting. When you compartmentalize, you lose the integration and integrity needed to make wise choices.

Instead of compartmentalizing, I ask my clients to consider integrating their brain and their emotions more fully and to use both in a complementary fashion as they make decisions.  By removing the blinders of compartmentalizing, they can become more aware of what is going on inside themselves. This increased self-awareness creates new choices and opportunities.

Have you been trying to compartmentalize your heart from your head? How would your life be different if you checked in with all of yourself instead?

Select a few of the following activities to expand the use of all aspects of yourself—not just your head or just your heart—to see where else you can open yourself and better access your integrity.

• Write in a journal, seeking to address thoughts, feelings, and sensations
• Practice meditation
• Discuss what you’re learning with a caring colleague, friend, or family member
• Adopt a new physical activity and let your mind wander in this kinesthetic experience

Create the opportunity for greater integrity in your life. Rather than using your mind to have the last say in all your decisions, allow yourself to check in with your heart, your body, and your soul.

By reinforcing your awareness that your heart, mind, body, and soul are integrated, you will expand your ability to benefit from all aspects of yourself—and you will fully benefit from being in integrity instead of just having it.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Getting Buy-In for Leadership Development Training

One of the biggest challenges leadership, learning, and talent development professionals face when they propose a new initiative is convincing their CEO of the financial impact of the proposed initiative. Without a clear sense of the positive financial impact, it’s easy for a leader to dismiss a new proposal as being too disruptive, too expensive, or too time consuming.

An analysis of more than 200 organizations by The Ken Blanchard Companies found that every year of delay in improving leadership skills costs the typical organization an amount equal to 7 percent of their total annual sales.

Leading the Duke Energy Way

A senior leader at Duke Energy approached Stephanie Bush, director of learning and development, with a request for building leadership skills in his division. Already familiar with Situational Leadership® II (SLII®), Stephanie decided to pilot the program with this leader’s management group to see if it met their needs.

“I knew our leaders wanted to be able to have impactful coaching conversations with their team members. They needed to be able to set goals, hold people accountable, and provide a leadership style to match their employees’ needs. That is exactly what SLII provides.”

The feedback from the pilot sessions was so positive that SLII was added to the curriculum for the Duke Energy Leadership Academy which was created to support “Leading the Duke Energy Way” by aligning to the business strategy and leadership imperatives.

Podcast: Michael Bungay Stanier on The Coaching Habit

Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever shares how time pressed managers can effectively coach direct reports by asking instead of telling, being a little more curious, and engaging a little more often.

Developing Self Leaders—A Competitive Advantage for Organizations

The nature of leadership continues to evolve as organizational structures and business models change. A new Blanchard white paper looks at how top-heavy leadership approaches are shifting and in their place, individual contributors are being asked to step up in new ways, take on more responsibility, contribute differently, and look for ways to empower themselves—essentially to become self leaders.

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

Without a clear sense of the positive financial impact, it’s easy for a leader to dismiss a new proposal as being too disruptive, too expensive, or too time consuming.

An analysis of more than 200 organizations by The Ken Blanchard Companies found that every year of delay in improving leadership skills costs the typical organization an amount equal to 7 percent of their total annual sales.  This represents millions of dollars each year—because poor leadership behaviors not only increase the loss of high potential employees, they also lower the employee work passion and productivity of the people who remain with the company.

Employee Retention

Research originally conducted by Leigh Branham, a leading authority on turnover and retention and author of The Seven Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, identified that at least 9 percent and possibly as much as 32 percent of an organization’s voluntary turnover can be avoided through better leadership skills. Branham, who partnered with Pricewaterhouse Coopers in conducting the study, identifies that trust, hope, worth, and competence are at the core of most voluntary separations.  When employees are not getting their needs met in these key areas, they begin to look elsewhere.

Employee Work Passion

Research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies using its Employee Work Passion Assessment has found significant correlation between positive work intentions and a leader’s ability to build trust, use coaching behaviors, and create an engaging work environment. This environment includes high levels of Meaningful Work, Autonomy, Growth, Fairness, Collaboration, and Feedback, along with six other factors (see complete list here.) Failure in any of these areas on the part of the leader leads to lowered intentions on the part of employees to perform at a high level, apply discretionary effort, remain with an organization, endorse it to others, and act as a good corporate citizen.

Employee Productivity

Providing employees with the tools, resources, direction, and support they need to perform at their best is the key to creating a high performance work environment. Research conducted by Dr. Paul Leone with a large Fortune 100 financial services company involving 300 managers and 1,200 direct reports found a 5 to 12 percent increase in productivity among direct reports of managers who attended leadership development training and immediately began using the new skills they had learned.

Leadership Impacts the Bottom Line

Leadership matters! After all, leaders help employees set goals. Leaders make sure those goals are in alignment with overall corporate strategy. And leaders are responsible for providing the direction and support employees need to succeed on a daily basis.

Even though a leadership development initiative—like any change—can be disruptive, difficult, and financially challenging, taking no action is often the most expensive option of all.

Most executives instinctively know that strong leadership is essential for overall organizational success. By evaluating and improving leadership practices throughout their organization, leadership, learning, and talent development professionals can remove a persistent drain on financial performance and allow their organizations to grow and thrive.

# # #

Want to learn more about quantifying the impact of leadership training?  Join us for a free webinar!

Making the Business Case for Leadership Training

Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 9:00 am Pacific Daylight Time

Organizations lose millions of dollars each year due to poorly trained leaders. In this webinar, David Witt, researcher and author of The Ken Blanchard Companies eBook 7 Ways Poor Leaders Are Costing Your Company Money, will share how poor managerial behaviors negatively impact engagement, alignment, productivity, and employee retention.

Drawing on original research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies, Dave will explore:

• The 7 biggest gaps between employee expectations and leader behaviors
• The 3 ways to measure the bottom-line impact of leadership training
• The 5 keys to leadership training that works

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to evaluate your current level of leadership readiness, how to measure the impact of your leadership development, and how to get started on deploying training that makes an immediate difference. The event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Register here!

Here are the top three (with Madeleine’s advice) in ascending order.

Click the title or picture to see the complete question and response.

#3 Don’t Really Like People? Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “You made me laugh out loud with your concern. People are tough; there is no question. However, you can’t be in business without them—so you are going to have to extend yourself just a touch….”

#2 Afraid You Might Be a Wimp as a Manager?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Here’s the thing. You have trained your people to think they can get away with making a commitment and not following through. The result is, when you give out work assignments, your team members know there isn’t much of a consequence for shoddy planning, so they plan shoddily. This needs to be corrected or you will just keep repeating the same pattern….”

#1 Co-Worker Won’t Shut Up?  Ask Madeleine

Madeleine’s advice: “Generally, people who are that oblivious to social cues are in the grip of some huge need that they are not able to get met. You are the one who’s going to have to either do something or risk losing the respect of your team. It stinks. I think you need to go at it head on—don’t soft-pedal or pull any punches….”

About Ask Madeleine

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Dear Madeleine,

There are always recommendations for best summer reading and the lists usually point to fiction best-sellers. 

Any suggestions for top business books? 

I love a good novel but I also want to keep developing my skills.

Business Minded

Dear Business Minded,

There are so many great development focused books out there. I wrote a series of four blog posts earlier this year identifying some of the best in four categories. Take a look at the links below.  I know you’ll find a title that will pique your interest and keep you growing!

9 Books About Coaching, Chosen by Coaches

I asked a select group of coaches their picks for the best books about coaching.

12 Books NOT About Coaching, Chosen by Coaches

I went out to my network again and asked people what books—not about coaching—have made the biggest difference for them as a coach.

8 Top Leadership Books, Chosen by Madeleine

My son was an intern at The Ken Blanchard Companies last summer when he asked me “What do you think is the best book on leadership?” Here’s the list that came out of that question.

7 Best Books on Neuroscience, Chosen by Madeleine

Neuroscience has entered the coaching and leadership development conversation in a big way. This is a short list of books that will help you get up to speed.

I think these great reads should get you through the summer! Please let me know your favorites!

Love, Madeleine

About the author

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

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

This new capability has given learning, leadership, and talent development professionals added insight into ways to bring out the best in people by identifying what lights up different areas of the brain.

Ready to take the plunge and learn more about this fascinating new field? Here’s a short list of books that will help you get up to speed.

The Owner’s Manual for the Brain by Pierce J. Howard

This book provides a great overview and is an encyclopedia on all things having to do with your brain. It is very well organized, super clear, and chock full of resources including additional reading and websites. Content includes nice coverage of brain basics, human development, wellness, learning, creativity, and more. If you only have one book on the brain, this should be the one.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky

More than just a charming cover with cavorting zebras, this book focuses on the toll that modern-day stressors are taking on our brains and our bodies. We all know about the fight-or-flight response—but what we don’t know is that our brains can’t tell the difference between a grizzly bear charging toward us and a cranky boss. As a result, many people in today’s organizations are in a constant state of alarm. Sapolsky is down to earth, funny, and gifted at helping the layperson understand the ins and outs of managing our own brains under stress.

The Mind and The Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley

An early entrant into the neuroscience fray, this book is a valiant attempt to help us understand how we can harness the power of our brains to improve our quality of life. Schwartz, a UCLA psychiatrist, and Begley, a Wall Street Journal science columnist, look at new treatments being developed for brain trauma and dysfunctions and what it teaches us about the brain’s ability to adapt.

Your Brain and Business by Srinivasan Pillay

I had the great good fortune to meet Dr. Pillay, and there simply isn’t a more interesting or kinder person. He has about 90 irons in the fire at any given moment but has somehow found time to write several books. This one, focused on leadership and workplace issues, explains how brain processes affect behavior and how knowing this is helpful to leaders. Dr. Pillay is often—if not always—able to express complex concepts in a way that a person with a normal IQ can get them.

Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney

I stumbled over Baumeister and Tierney’s writing in The New York Times Sunday magazine and it rocked my world. They explore and explain the notion of decision fatigue, which is extremely important to know about because when our ability to think properly is exhausted, we are unaware of it. When our muscles give out, it is obvious to us—but when our brains give out, it is less apparent. When that happens, we can unwittingly make terrible decisions, lose self-control, and do things we regret simply because we are tired. This book will help you understand the fundamentals of self-management.

Your Brain at Work by David Rock

Rock is a pioneer in the area of putting neuroscience discoveries together with leadership research. He claims the coining of the term neuroleadership and has a training and coaching organization devoted to same. His book is a fun read if not an entirely easy one—he uses a theatre metaphor with different parts of the brain represented by The Director or Actors. This metaphor is especially relatable to some (like me, a former actor) and not so much to others. Rock’s most notable contribution to the field is his acronym SCARF, which represents dimensions that the brain is particularly sensitive to: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness.

Social by Matthew Lieberman

Lieberman is extremely accessible in person. His book is somewhat less so. Written by and for people with advanced degrees, it can be a slog—but his research is important. He and his wife, Naomi Eisenberger, have focused on the science of why humans are so dependent on each other for their well-being. The two have proposed the scientific underpinnings for the truth that “no man is an island.” For a quick taste of their critical work on why rejection hurts so much, click here. Lieberman’s book is for the nitty gritty reader.

That’s my list—what would you add? What have been your favorites? Please do share in the comments section below.

About the Author

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

A visionary/direction, or strategic, role—the leadership aspect of servant leadership; and

An implementation, or operational, role—the servant aspect of servant leadership.

The visionary role involves establishing a compelling vision that tells people who you are (your purpose), where you’re going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values).

When Walt Disney started his theme parks, he was clear on his purpose. He didn’t say “We’re in the theme park business,” he said “We’re in the happiness business.” Why the distinction? Because being in the happiness business helps keep Disney cast members (employees) aware of the company’s primary goal.

Disney’s clear purpose for his theme parks also helps his people understand the company’s picture of the future, which is “To keep the same smile on people’s faces when they leave the park as when they entered.” After all, they are in the happiness business!

The final aspect of establishing a compelling vision for Disney theme parks was to identify values that would guide staff and management on their journey. Disney parks have four rank-ordered values, called the Four Keys: safety, courtesy, the show, and efficiency. Why is safety the highest ranked value? Walt Disney knew if a guest was carried out on a stretcher, that person would not have the same smile on their face leaving the park that they had when they entered.

The traditional hierarchical pyramid is effective here in the leadership aspect of servant leadership. People look to their organizational leaders for vision and direction. While these leaders may involve others in the process, the ultimate responsibility remains with the leaders to establish a compelling vision and define strategic initiatives for their people to focus on.

After the vision and direction are set, it’s time to turn the organizational pyramid upside down and focus on implementation—the servant aspect of servant leadership. Nordstrom excels at this. Their leaders work for their people—and now the focus and the energy flows toward the customer, not toward leadership. This one change in mindset makes all the difference. Nordstrom’s servant leaders help their people live according to the company’s vision, solve problems, and achieve their goals.

Our daughter, Debbie, worked at Nordstrom when she was in college. After she had been there about a week, I asked her how the job was going.

She said, “It’s going well, Dad, but I have a really strange boss.”

“Oh?” I said.

“At least three times a day, he says to me, ‘Debbie, is there any way I can help you?’ He acts like he works for me.”

“He does,” I said to Debbie. “That’s the Nordstrom philosophy—they’re all about serving rather than being served.”

For years, Nordstrom employees were given a card with just 75 words printed on it. It read:

Welcome to Nordstrom

We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

I love to tell the story about a friend of mine who went to Nordstrom to get some perfume for his wife.

The salesperson said, “I’m sorry; we don’t sell that brand in our store. But I know where I can get it. How long will you be in the store?”

“About 30 minutes,” he said.

“Fine. I’ll go get it, bring it back, gift wrap it, and have it ready for you when you leave.”

That’s exactly what she did. And she charged him the same price she had paid at the other store. Nordstrom didn’t make any money on the deal, but what did they make? A raving fan customer.

So you see, servant leadership isn’t a strange concept at all. Large organizations like Disney and Nordstrom have been practicing it for years and doing pretty well. How about you and your company? Give servant leadership a try—you’ll be surprised at how it will help you achieve great relationships and great results.

Here are five of the most important techniques coaches use in their conversations with clients.

Consider how these techniques could help the managers in your organization be more coach-like in their communication style.

• Be fully present. Practice being fully present in your conversations with people. Avoid distractions, give undivided attention, and show you care. Of course, we all know this is easier said than done—but this alone can go a long way toward building trust.

• Get, and keep, the conversation focused. It is easier to help a direct report move forward, faster, if they are the one who declares a specific focus for the discussion. Having them establish a focus creates a more deliberate and intentional conversation. Keep in mind there will be times when the conversation goes off topic. When it does, the manager is expected to get the conversation back on track.

• Ask mostly open-ended questions, especially those starting with what and how. Open-ended questions promote discovery for the other person. The most essential questions coaches ask are what and how questions that help direct reports discover their own answers or course of action.

• Stay action focused. Help the direct report create a plan of action that will move them forward. Share coaching questions such as “What do you think you need to do now?” As much as possible, keep the ownership of the plan, and any actions, in the direct report’s court. Actions they take may turn out to be excellent growth opportunities. Keeping the ball in the other court allows managers to get on to other things on their to-do list.

• Follow up. Check in with direct reports on their progress, their learnings, and any challenges they might be facing. Doing this helps them keep what they said they would do top of mind. It also shows them again that you care—which is never a bad thing.

There are many ways for managers to incorporate a coaching style to help people develop more competence and confidence. The ideas above are in no way a complete list, but I encourage you to have the managers in your organization give them a try. Practicing coach-like behaviors in your conversations creates a learning environment not only for those you coach, but for you as well.

Let me know how it goes!

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

“No. It’s not a panacea,” says coaching expert Patricia Overland in an article for Chief Learning Officer. “Determining when coaching is a good investment can be challenging.”

Overland shares a couple of examples from her experience when a leader may not be ready to learn and apply coaching skills. Overland explains that offering coaching without addressing these underlying beliefs is usually a recipe for failure.

• If they prefer command and control: They just want people to do their jobs.
• If they don’t value innovation: They just want people to do things the way they’ve done them before.
• If they have a negative attitude about people: They believe that people only do what they have to.
• If they have a negative attitude toward coaching: They know all the answers and think coaching is a flavor-of-the-month methodology.

For those leaders ready for coaching, Overland points to a research study conducted by Human Capital Institute and The International Coach Federation which found, “A strong coaching culture positively correlates with employee engagement and financial performance. Nearly two-thirds of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures rate their employees as being highly engaged, compared to only half from organizations without strong coaching cultures. In terms of financial impact, 51 percent of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures report their 2015 revenue to be above that of their industry peer group, compared to 38 percent from all other organizations.”

To be successful at coaching, Overland identifies five must-haves that need to be in place:

Environment: Before coaching, managers should let direct reports know they’ll be doing things a bit differently. Set the stage, get permission to coach and check in frequently to ensure this new way of leading is hitting the mark.

Trust: Trust is a foundation for any coaching relationship. The manager’s role can be especially hard because they have both perceived and real power over direct reports. Getting people to talk openly and honestly about their needs, motivations and skill level takes patience, practice and trust.

Intent: It is important to begin by being very clear about objectives and goals. If a manager notices that coaching is going off track, they should examine their own motivations and beliefs. It can be powerful to say, “That didn’t go the way I intended” and start again, working to be more supportive and encouraging.

Action: Development is good. Development with focused action is better. The purpose behind great coaching is to influence some kind of change in mindset and behavior. Encourage others to take specific actions that are focused on achieving a desired outcome. This moves coaching beyond much disdained navel gazing to a strategy with real bottom-line impact.

Accountability: Leaders who use coaching skills help others commit to behavior change. Even with the best of intentions, people get sidetracked, work gets reprioritized, and sometimes life just gets in the way.

Coaching effectively supports long-term and sustained employee development encourages Overland. “Consider the higher engagement levels, trusting relationships and financial health to be gained from a shift to a coaching culture — and say yes!”

To read the complete article at Chief Learning Officer, click here.

Step 1: What is the goal? What outcomes do you want coaching to achieve? Is a behavior change required? Is a shift in thinking necessary? What exactly has to change? Being specific about outcomes is surprisingly hard for people. Earlier this year, we worked with an organizational sponsor to set up coaching for an executive. When we asked the desired outcome, the sponsor replied, “I’ll know it when I see it.” Needless to say, the target was constantly changing. Coaching is an exploratory process but it must be done with a clear target in mind.

Step 2: Prepare the person to be coached. This includes going over a set of expectations prior to the launch of coaching. Be sure to include expectations around feedback. Share that requests for behavior change will be made in a clear and specific manner along with discussions that ensure feedback is understood and acted upon. Discuss how to create the space for the person being coached to reflect how they might best use coaching and what outcomes they want to achieve.

Step 3: Stick with it. Discuss follow-up. Organizations often expect overnight results. Coaching does not replace the need for internal organizational support—in other words, the manager of the person being coached is not off the hook. In fact, this is a time for the manager to step up, lean in, and follow through. Set up a plan to recognize and acknowledge the growth of the coachee and then support that growth with positive and specific feedback.

Step 4: Gather success stories. Ensure your coaching interventions have some method or process to capture the successes brought about by coaching. Use a post-coaching interview process to capture the changes made and their impact on not only the person being coached but also those around her. Help the coachee to link those successes to business strategies or imperatives. Document the successes and leverage them as a way to influence others to take advantage of coaching.

Coaching will have an impact on people who engage in the process. Careful thought, planning, and follow-through can dramatically increase the effectiveness of coaching, which will pay off a hundred fold in your organization.

About the Author

Patricia Overland is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Let’s give a nod to the great political leaders whose journeys of provoking and leading change on a massive scale provide worthwhile leadership lessons: King Solomon, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a mere handful.

Then we have to acknowledge the modern writers on leadership specifically: Drucker, Bennis, Maxwell, Blanchard.

But this is about the leadership books that have made the biggest difference for coaches. I have asked several of our Blanchard coaches and many of my peers, and here are the results:

Tony Klingmeyer, one of our Blanchard Master coaches, chose Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson. Tony says “It is wonderfully written, about many of the dilemmas and paradoxes our clients face when leading in organizations.” In this short and sweet book, Farson details the complexities of navigating human beings and debunks some well meaning management advice.

Renee Freedman, MCC, former director of The SupporTED Coaching Program, says her favorite book is The Leadership Dojo by Richard Heckler Strozzi. Renee says “Although there is much great guidance here, two primary things about this book sucked me in and made me fall in love with it: 1) it treats leadership as a somatic experience and that’s how I experience it; and 2) it has a 5-step leadership process of entering, centering, facing, extending, and blending—which I find extremely simple, effective, and trainable. It changed leadership for me from believing that only 1% of people can lead to understanding that anyone can lead, including me!”

Ann Marie Heidingsfelder picked Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization by John Wooden.

Many coaches on a recent webinar chose Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. It is essentially the application of the concepts of emotional intelligence to leadership. How many clients really need to understand the fundamentals of self awareness, self regulation, awareness of others, and modifying self to be more effective with others? All of them.

Then there’s Leadership BS by Jeffrey Pfeffer. A recent addition to the canon, I personally love the devil’s advocate position the author takes against some of the baloney being peddled by leadership companies out there. No nonsense, brass tacks, and really useful for coaches helping clients navigate the insanity of the global business world. My particular favorite moment is when the author debunks the notion that leaders need to be “authentic.” This book is validating for natural subversives and required reading for idealists.

Why Smart Executives Fail by Sydney Finkelstein is one of my all time favorites and should be required reading for anyone aspiring to senior leadership—and those who coach them. You might think because it came out in 2003 that it is obsolete, but you would be wrong. Finkelstein examines some of the whopping business failures and teases out the mistakes that were made. These lessons are timeless. But my favorite chapter is “The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful People.” Just the title makes me laugh out loud.

Another great book is Coaching for Leadership by Goldsmith, Lyons, and McArthur. This one is kind of a no-brainer, because it is an anthology with writings from leadership and coaching experts with extremely targeted practical advice for all kinds of situations (understanding purpose, gender differences, working cross generationally and culturally, etc.). Of course, Goldsmith’s entire body of work is must-know—particularly What Got You Here Won’t Get You There—but this is a different resource altogether.

Finally, a crowd favorite: Leadership and Self-Deception from The Arbinger Institute. A fairly fast and easy read that outlines the effects of self-deception and how to fix it. The fundamental premise is that when we behave in ways that do not match our values, we betray ourselves.

How does that match up with your list? Any books you’d add? Just include them in the comments section!

I once conducted interview-based 360-degree assessments with three executives in the automotive industry.

Coming in as a third party consultant, I perceived a cautious skepticism from the leaders under review.

I decided, right at the onset, to create an environment conducive to their learning from the feedback they would be receiving. My goal was to help them be receptive to the comments and to avoid the thought that often comes by default when reading negative feedback: Who could have said that?

My clients and I worked together during the first meeting and agreed to navigate the process while bearing in mind the following three principles:

1. The feedback you will receive is not you. It is how others observe you. As Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson discuss in their book The New One Minute Manager®, when giving negative feedback—a re-direct, as they call it in the book—you want to get rid of the bad behavior but keep the good person. As soon as I said this to my clients, their sense of relief was noticeable even over the phone. I even pictured them nodding in agreement as they thought about the separation between who they are and how others may perceive their behaviors. I could feel them becoming more relaxed as they began to open up and ask vulnerable questions.
2. Intention + observable behaviors = impact. I developed this equation as a simple illustration for myself and others of how, by aligning our observable behaviors with our intention, we can generate the impact we desire. Interestingly, after I shared this equation, the leaders identified on their own the behaviors they needed to improve to increase their impact and performance.
3. Don’t waste energy trying to identify who said what. Although the 360-degree assessment is a tool for development, not for performance review, it is natural to respond with some emotion when receiving the feedback. It often triggers a fight-or-flight response. To help my clients avoid worrying about who said what, I asked them to focus instead on thinking: If this feedback were true, what could I learn from it? The leaders found this thought very liberating. They realized the exercise was not about finger-pointing. This way of thinking reassured them that the process was for them to learn about and become aware of areas for improvement.

After looking at the feedback with these principles in mind, the leaders expressed their enthusiasm for the process and saw it as an opportunity to further develop their leadership skills. Because of their positive attitude, the debriefs went smoothly—even though the feedback included acknowledging some hard truths.

One client stated, “This has been the best feedback exercise I’ve experienced. I now know the behaviors I need to work on when crafting my development plan.”

I have used and shared these three principles with many clients, with great results. I’m certain you’ll find similar success in feedback sessions you are facilitating. Have you used similar principles in the past? Try it! And please share your experiences in the comments section.

About the Author

Antonio Estrada, MBA, Engineer and Certified Professional Coach is a member of Blanchard Coaching Services network of executive and leadership coaches.  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.

But how does this really occur? Certainly not with the coach standing there, bullhorn in hand, yelling at the leader to stay on task.

Instead, the coach listens carefully to what really matters to the leader and helps the leader connect the meaning to the activity.

I’ll give you an example. I recently worked with two leaders in different organizations who needed to improve their expense report process. Each was frustrated by a system they saw as unnecessarily complicated and burdensome.

How did each leader determine the best strength to use to get those pesky expense reports completed? Through positive psychology coaching. Founded at the turn of this century, positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to:

• lead meaningful and fulfilling lives,
• cultivate what is best within themselves, and
• enhance their experiences in all aspects of their lives.

Through coaching, both of these leaders successfully addressed the process of completing their expense reports on time, but in very different ways: for one, it meant employing the strength of perseverance. For the other, it centered on the strength of gratitude.

Both of these strengths were identified by using the Values In Action survey. This is a scientifically validated tool that looks at 24 character strengths and rank orders the strengths of an individual through self-reporting. The VIA survey of character strengths has been taken by more than four million people and can be accessed here: www.viacharacter.org. Character strengths are positive personality core capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that can bring benefit to oneself and others—not only at work but also in personal relationships.

The leader with the signature strength of perseverance used the fact that he takes satisfaction in completing tasks and applied that valuable perspective to his expense reports. The other leader focused on her strength of gratitude to get her reports done: she channeled her appreciation for the people who processed the reports as well as the gratitude she felt that her organization supported her travel as well as her training.

How about you? What would your day look like if you led with your signature strengths?

Leaders who purposefully employ a strengths-based approach show greater engagement in their activities including a sense of ownership and authenticity, a rapid learning curve as the strength is applied, and—key to the leaders above—an intrinsic motivation to use the strength.

If you develop the habit of consciously applying your strengths, I suggest you’ll find yourself fueled with a clean source of energy that is unique to you. Take the VIA survey and find out!

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 120 coaches have worked with over 15,000 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

Blanchard researchers surveyed 1,800 workers looking at the connections between trust, well-being and coaching behaviors.The research found that trust and well-being were both positively impacted by perceptions of managers engaging in three key behaviors.

1. Facilitation: Helping employees to analyze and explore ways to solve problems and enhance their performance.

2. Guidance: The communication of clear performance expectations and constructive feedback regarding performance outcomes, as well as how to improve.

3. Inspiration: Challenging employees to realize and develop their potential.

Interested in strengthening the manager—direct report relationships in your organization?  A white paper which accompanies the research shares four coaching skills to help managers move away from some typical tendencies—telling people what to do, making assumptions, and solving problems—and instead adopt a coaching mindset. Here are the four skills to get started:

• Listen to Learn: Effective managers listen to learn something they might not have known before. They listen for opportunities to hear a different perspective, to hear new ideas or insights. They listen in service to the person and to the conversation.

• Inquire for Insight: Managers who are great coaches draw the brilliance out of their people. They ask questions that allow their people to share insights and ideas that can benefit projects, tasks, and the team in general. When inquiring for insight, it’s important to focus on the future rather than the past and to avoid placing blame.

• Tell Your Truth: Being direct and candid can be a challenge for anyone, but done properly, telling your truth with others can be empowering to both parties. Because the goal is to create purposeful action through clarity, telling your truth is an opportunity to share observations or give feedback that will help the employee accomplish the goal.

• Express Confidence: Managers who acknowledge direct reports and maintain a respectful, positive regard for their contribution are building the confidence of the people they manage. Expressing confidence allows a manager to preserve a good relationship regardless of the type of conversation being held. Expressing confidence builds self-assurance and enthusiasm.

You can access the white paper and see the complete research report by downloading, Coaching Skills: The Missing Link for Leaders

Research Details:

Approximately 1,850 people participated in the study, including human resource, learning and development, management, and non-management professionals to measure the various dimensions of coaching, trust, affect or emotion, and intentions (i.e., intent to remain with the organization, exert discretionary effort, endorse the organization, perform well, and be a good organizational citizen).

The measure used for coaching was Heslin’s (et al.) Employee Coaching Measure and the defined behaviors included Facilitation (acting as a sounding board, helping the direct report develop ideas), Inspiration (expressing confidence in the direct report’s ability to improve, and encouraging continuous development and improvement), and Guiding (providing guidance and feedback and providing constructive feedback regarding areas for improvement). The scale measures ten items on a 5-point Likert scale with response possibilities ranging from Not at all to To a very great extent.

The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) constructed by Watson and Clark was used as the measure of affect. The PANAS, a semantic differential measure, has ten descriptive items such as Upset, Alert, Inspired, and Nervous, and uses a 5-point Likert scale ranging from Not at all to Strongly.

McAllister’s 11-item Trust scale was used to measure Affective Trust (I can talk freely to my leader to discuss difficulties I am having at work and know that he or she will want to listen) and Cognitive Trust (Given my leader’s track record, I see no reason to doubt his or her competence and preparation to do the job). The scale uses a 7-point Likert scale with response possibilities ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree.

Blanchard’s Work Intention Inventory (WII) was also included; it uses five intention measures, including Intent to exert discretionary effort on behalf of the organization (I intend to volunteer to do things that may not be part of my job), Intent to perform (I intend to work efficiently to achieve all my work goals), Intent to endorse the organization (I intend to talk positively about this organization to family and friends), Intent to remain with the organization (I intend to stay with this organization even if offered a more appealing job elsewhere), and Intent to be a good organizational citizen (I intend to respect this organization’s assets). From earlier research, Blanchard found that these work intentions ultimately predict behavior. When the scores in the five intention scales are high, it’s an indication of the presence of positivity and high levels of work passion. The five intention scales each contain three items and use a 6-point Likert scale with response possibilities ranging from To no extent to To the fullest extent.

References

Fielden, Sandra. 2005. “Literature Review: Coaching Effectiveness—A Summary.” Prepared for the NHS Leadership Centre.

Heslin, Peter A.; Vandewalle, Don; and Latham, Gary P. 2006. “Keen to Help? Managers’ Implicit Person Theories and Their Subsequent Employee Coaching.” Personnel Psychology 59: 871–902.

McAllister, D. J., “Affect and Cognitive-based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations.” Academy of Management Journal, 38 (1): (1995) 24-59.

Theeboom, Tim; Beersma, Bianca; and van Vianen, Annelies E.M. 2014. “Does Coaching Work? A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Coaching on Individual Level Outcomes in an Organizational Context.” The Journal of Positive Psychology (9)1: 1–18.

Watson, D.; Clark, L. A.; Tellegen, A. (1988). “Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 54 (6): 1063–1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063. PMID 3397865.

Zigarmi, D., Nimon, K., Houson, D., Witt, D., and Diehl, J. (2012). The work intention inventory: Initial evidence of construct validity. Journal of Business Administration Research, 1 (1), 24–42. doi: 10.50430/jbar.vlnp24

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

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

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

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

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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

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

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

Guess what? These are all coaching behaviors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Footnotes:

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

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

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

Two new research reports just published by The Ken Blanchard Companies point to strategies that learning and development leaders can use to improve the level of trust in their organizations.

Drawing on an 1,800-person survey, the study looked at the connections between coaching and trust behaviors and employee intentions to:

1. Remain with an organization;
2. Apply discretionary effort;
3. Be a good organizational citizen;
4. Perform work at high levels; and
5. Endorse the organization as a good place to work.

Results of the survey show that trust in one’s leader has a large degree of correlation to the five intentions as a distinct unit.

The research also looked at the impact coaching behaviors had on trust. There was a strong relationship between trust and the coaching behaviors of facilitating, inspiring, and guiding—and it was found that individuals are more likely to trust their leader when they perceive the leader exhibiting these coaching behaviors.

You can read more about the new research in the January issue of Ignite!—Blanchard’s monthly briefing for leadership and talent development executives.  Access the January issue here.

“We’ve worked with more than 15,000 leaders since we opened the Coaching Services division back in 2000. Much of our work deals with helping people first understand the impact of their natural tendencies and habits and then sharpen their communication skills.”

In a recent interview for the November issue of Ignite, Blanchard recommends three basics as a starting point for leaders looking to improve—goal setting, listening, and feedback.

“Most leaders aren’t as good at setting goals as they think they are. It seems so obvious and simple, but it actually takes a lot of imagination and creative brain power. Leaders often think direct reports should already know what they need to do and should be able to set their own goals, but unless people are taught how to do it and given some solid support, it just doesn’t happen. Very few people have their goals written down and chunked into deliverables, with specific timelines.”

Listening is another area where leaders fall short, in Blanchard’s experience.

“Many leaders think that the most senior person should do most of the talking, when it really is the other way around. When employees are free to express themselves they ultimately learn more, become more innovative, and get better at problem solving. I have a big red stop sign in my office with the word WAIT printed on it in big letters—it stands for Why Am I Talking?” Because when I am talking, I am not listening—and as a coach and a leader, listening is what I need to be doing.

Feedback is a continual trouble spot for leaders.  Blanchard recommends that leaders ask themselves a key question before deciding to address the issue.

“Try this. Before providing feedback on performance, ask yourself this question: Am I delivering this feedback because it is something my direct report needs to hear—or is this just something I feel I need to say? If it is something you feel you need to say because you have a strong opinion or because you just want to vent, do it—but not with your direct report. Share it with your own boss or with your coach, spouse, or therapist. It’s your issue—not your employee’s.”

Blanchard cautions that this doesn’t mean leaders should be talking about an employee’s issue with others. She makes it clear that feedback on performance needs to be delivered directly to the person involved.

“I am very upfront with my people. I promise that any feedback I have for them will be shared only with them. That’s a fundamental coaching ethic. I’m also clear that I expect the same in return. If they have an issue with me, I insist they discuss it directly with me. If either of us is discussing feedback issues with others, we are gossiping—and that is damaging to our relationship and to the organization.”

You can read more of Blanchard’s recommendations for leaders—including a final area that needs to be addressed—by accessing the complete November issue of Ignite.

PS: Also check out the complimentary webinar Blanchard is conducting to help leaders become more coach-like in their conversations with their people.  The event is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

IMPROVING LEADERSHIP ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME

Executive coach Madeleine Blanchard held the phone to her ear, listening attentively as her newest client explained the problem she was having communicating with her direct reports. “They say that I’m not a good listener. I’m trying to connect, but it just doesn’t seem to be working. Any suggestions?”

Blanchard thought for a moment and replied, “Well, I can hear you typing right now, so I suspect you are actually answering emails while we talk. Do you do that when you are with your people? What would it be like if you actually gave each person your undivided attention?” READ MORE 

MANAGING IN A BUSY WORLD

Managers are struggling to find the time to have needed conversations with colleagues and direct reports. Ann Phillips, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, knows this firsthand.   “I always ask leaders ‘How many of you have enough of your own work to do each day?’

The leaders in class typically tell me that every day they have 8 to 12 hours of their own work that doesn’t include addressing the needs of their direct reports.  Lack of time kills many good intentions.” People want to be better leaders, says Phillips, but they don’t have the open space in their schedules. READ MORE 

CREATING A DEEPER CONNECTION AT WORK

You have to put yourself out there if you want to create an authentic connection with people. Sharing your Leadership Point of View is one of the most powerful ways to accomplish that, according to coaching expert Joni Wickline.

“Your Leadership Point of View is about the people and events that have shaped who you are. It also speaks to your values, your beliefs, and what drives you as a leader.” Wickline says creating a Leadership Point of View is an emotional journey and a lot of leaders play it safe when first given the chance to share. READ MORE

MID-LEVEL MANAGERS: TAKING CARE OF THE HEART OF THE HOUSE

Scott Blanchard, principal and EVP at The Ken Blanchard Companies, likes to use the phrase heart of the house to describe the important role middle managers play in an organization. In Blanchard’s experience, if mid-level management is neglected, the result is a slow-moving organization that doesn’t respond well to feedback.

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

ALL GOOD PERFORMANCE STARTS WITH CLEAR GOALS

The ability to set goals effectively is a key managerial skill. It’s also the key to being a successful individual contributor, according to leadership expert and best-selling author Ken Blanchard.

“All good performance starts with clear goals. If people don’t know what you want them to accomplish, what are the chances they will be successful? Not very good. “Peter Drucker used to say, ‘If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.’ Measurements are important to give both managers and direct reports more clarity when assessing performance.” READ MORE

A leader’s role, while serving as a role model of performance and development, is to help others accomplish objectives.  Anyone who is striving to be an effective leader, the role of the mirror is key! Leaders who are aware of their own behaviors and emotional intelligence are able to influence effectively, build deep connections with others, and intentionally serve as an inspiring example.

However, even when identified, adopting a new behavior is not always easy. Have you ever tried adopting a new behavior such as asking open-ended questions before offering a solution? Or adapting your communication style to the style of the receiver? Or sharing your thoughts rather than remaining silent?

Most of these behaviors are challenging for leaders—and this is exactly the type of objectives professional coaches work on with clients. Here, for example, are some of the communication behavior goals I’ve worked on with my clients.

• Communication Goal: Developing new behaviors that open up lines of communication instead of shutting them down.
• Listening Goal: Managing the tendency to provide solutions rather than ask open-ended questions from a curiosity perspective to promote self problem solving.
• Executive Presence Goal: Learning how to manage emotions to increase confidence, credibility, communication, conciseness, and composure.

A quick check in the mirror is a good first step toward identifying and altering leadership behaviors that might be holding you back. In addition, working with a coach is a great way to double-check the accuracy of your perceptions and get going in the right direction.

If you want to continue to develop as a leader, you must be willing to look in the mirror on a regular basis—to reach deep down into the depths of your soul to identify values, motivators, and behaviors. When was the last time you took a good look?

Could you be more effective as a leader? Take a deep breath, open your mind, and repeat after me: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…”

About the Author

Terry Watkins is a coaching solutions partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 150 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

At the top, managers identified communication skills, help with transitioning to a leadership role, and interpersonal skills as the most needed training.

In the middle, they identified setting goals, directing others, and managing conflict as next most important.

In the last four slots, the respondents identified training on delegating tasks, dealing with performance issues, understanding HR policies, and conducting performance reviews as somewhat less important.

Scott Blanchard, a principal with The Ken Blanchard Companies and coauthor of the company’s new First-time Manager program prioritizes a similar list in the September issue of Ignite.

“A new generation of managers is moving forward. But we’ve found that first-time managers are not getting the training they need in key areas—including communication skills, transitioning to a new role as manager, and interpersonal skills. As a result, more than half of the people we surveyed said they were not prepared for their first manager role.”

Blanchard highlights results from the same survey showing that only 39 percent of new managers with fewer than 3 years on the job reported having received any leadership training. Just 34 percent had received any mentoring. And a mere 31 percent had received coaching.

According to Blanchard, if new managers are going to succeed, organizations need to be more consistent and proactive in their approach. Otherwise, managers are left to their own devices with mixed results. In fact, research from CEB indicates that as many as 60 percent of new managers underperform or fail within their first two years.

“With over two million millennials stepping into first time leadership roles each year in the US alone, we need to take steps immediately to better train new managers for their first roles,” says Blanchard.

To address this, Blanchard recommends that organizations focus their new manager training curriculum on two areas: communication skills and conducting work-related management conversations.

“We teach communication skills drawn from our Coaching Essentials program—including Listening, Inquiring, Telling Your Truth, and Expressing Confidence.  Then we take a deeper dive into four conversations we feel are foundational for new managers: Goal Setting, Praising, Redirecting, and Wrapping Up.

Blanchard’s goal is to increase the winning percentages of new managers one conversation at a time.

“Our work relationships are contained and maintained in our conversations. Every interaction you have with an employee moves that relationship in a positive or negative direction. We believe the quality of a relationship over time is a result of the net impact of all the different conversations that have occurred.”

You can read more about Blanchard’s approach to first-time manager development in the September issue of Ignite.  Also be sure to check out the webinar Blanchard is conducting later in the month, Management 101: Developing a Leadership Curriculum for New Managers.  It’s free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

PS: Use these links to download a PDF or PNG version of the infographic.

In their book Coaching in Organizations, master certified coaches Madeleine Homan Blanchard and Linda Miller devote a chapter to tips that help ensure a productive coaching relationship and also create a nurturing environment for the person being coached.

In addition to making sure the potential coachee has a clear understanding of what to expect from the coach as well as the coaching process, the authors recommend that anyone pursuing a coaching relationship have seven additional qualities.

Ever wonder if you would be a good candidate for coaching?  How would you score yourself in these seven areas?

1. I am enthusiastic about the concept of continuous professional development and learning.
2. I am willing and able to identify at least one key area in which I can commit to change.
3. I am open to finding a minimum of one hour of company time per week to speak to my coach.
4. I am willing to share openly about myself and my perceptions with someone outside the company.
5. I am an early adopter of new ideas and behaviors.
6. I see myself as a trailblazer, risk taker, or leader.
7. I am fundamentally proud of working at my organization.

A successful coaching relationship is not something that should be entered into lightly.  A person being coached not only must have a clear sense of what is to be gained from the investment of time, but also must be prepared to enter into a full partnership with their coach.

So—are you coachable?  Would you add any other characteristics/statements to this list? Use the comments section below!

A new book by Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, just might be the solution every well-meaning manager has been looking for. I finished the book during my recent vacation. (I can hear the groans—Reading a business book on vacation; really?—but it was definitely worth it.) Stanier, an acclaimed executive coach and former coach of the year in his native Canada, shares seven questions any manager can use to increase their leadership effectiveness—especially during One on Ones.

I don’t want to give it all away here—you really need to read the book to appreciate the nuance and genius of what Stanier shares, but in a nutshell the seven questions are

1. What’s on your mind? A brilliantly simple way to open up a one-on-one conversation, invite people to share, and get at what is most important in the moment
2. And what else? Three little words that open up possibilities, insights, and increased self-awareness
3. What’s the real challenge here for you? The question that slows down the rush to find the first answer instead of solving the real problem
4. What do you want? Taking the time to discover the need and the desired outcome that makes charting the journey easier
5. How can I help? Insisting on a clear direct request that you as a leader can respond to
6. What will you say no to if you’re truly saying yes to this? Life is about choices. This question identifies the tough trade-offs.
7. What was most useful for you? Gathering feedback and extracting value from the conversation

If you are a well-meaning manager who wants to have more-productive conversations with your people, try these questions. Bonus: They also work great for those work-related conversations at home—you know, right after you ask, “How was your day?” You’ll see the power of these questions immediately.

For those interested in learning more about the method behind the magic, be sure to check out all the praise and positive reviews on Amazon. See why Dan Pink, Brené Brown, and Dave Ulrich, along with 300 other positive reviewers, are so excited—including me!

Conducting successful One on Ones are a key leadership competency. Learn how asking these seven questions can help you be the manager you want to be.

About the Author

David Witt is the Program Director for The Ken Blanchard Companies. A business-focused writer, researcher, and speaker, David is the editor and lead columnist for The Ken Blanchard Companies Ignite! online newsletter, moderator of the company’s LeaderChat blog, and host of the company’s monthly webinar programming.

In an article for Forbes, David Horsager, author of The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line shares that anyone in a leadership role can have a compelling vision, excellent strategy, flawless communication skills, insight, and hard-working direct reports, but if people don’t trust them, they’ll never get the intended results.

At the same time, research by Towers Watson identifies that only 55% of employees trust senior management, and only 52% of employees think their leaders are aware of how their actions impact the thoughts and emotions of other workers.

Business leaders need to be skilled in the art and science of trust if they are going to succeed in engaging the hearts and minds of those they lead.

So how can a leader build trust?  Here are five places I’d start.  See how this matches up with your experience.

1. Increase self awareness, and living with core values.

A good leader needs to know themselves well, and understand their own behaviors and actions. Becoming more aware of their own moral values and personality traits allows a leader to identify assumptions and behaviors that might hinder their ability to lead effectively.

2. Avoid breaking promises.

Leaders who keep their word build trust because people know what to expect from them. Leaders can avoid breaking promises by learning to say “no” if necessary; only making promises they intend to keep in the first place, and keeping agreements clear and precise. If something comes up that requires a change, share any setbacks early on.

3. Being honest and upfront.

Trustworthy leaders keep their team members informed as much as they can—sharing information openly and honestly—even if this means having a difficult conversation. Honesty and openness increase trustworthiness because employees know that their leader isn’t intentionally hiding information.

4. Approachability and mutual respect.

A trustworthy leader needs to be approachable. Team members won’t approach their leader if they can’t predict how the leader will react, or what kind of mood he or she will be in. This consistency in reaction should be applied to everyone on the team (and not just the people they like the most!)

5. Being firm, but fair.

Leaders need to be clear on their expectations and then be available for course corrections as needed. If a leader sees someone off course, tell them right away. Be honest and upfront but also be prepared to listen carefully and really understand the reasons why a direct report is not meeting the expectation set.

Trust is a key element of success in today’s business environment.  When everything is moving quickly, you need people you can count on, and people need leaders they can trust.  Without it, things grind to a halt and even the simplest of tasks takes forever.

Leaders have a major role to play in setting the tone for their team, department, or organization. I hope these five points get you thinking about ways you can improve trust in your organization.  Any additional ideas?  Be sure to share them below.

Dear Madeleine,

I am a director in a large retail organization. Recently everyone at my level received an online 360° feedback. My report shows that my whole team is very unhappy with my hands-on style. All 14 of my people—not just 1 or 2— see me as a micro-manager. In the open-ended comments were phrases like “in the weeds” and “breathing down my neck.” Also, my peers and my boss perceive me as being “not strategic.”

I was blindsided by this. I am upset and confused. Right now I have no idea how to do my job. I have always thought it was good that I’m on top of things and I head off errors and problems before they can even start—but it turns out that all this time I have been de-motivating my team! I am at a total loss. I just don’t understand why the feedback is so negative.

My wife thinks I am taking this too much to heart and I should ignore it and move on. What do you think?

At a Loss

Dear At a Loss,

I think your wife is wrong—you should not take her advice to ignore this feedback. She is right, though, in the sense that you can’t take it too personally. But you have to take it seriously. Your job and future are at stake here. Feedback is often more a reflection of the person giving it than the one receiving it, but the one useful thing about the multi-raters—especially if you had a large group filling it out—is that it shines a light on something you are oblivious to but everyone else sees.

It is surprising that you have never, ever heard this type of feedback before and that you are so gob smacked by it. Has no one ever mentioned to you that they didn’t need you to supervise them as closely as you do? If you think about it, you may have had hints about this but chose to ignore them. We all do it.

Now is the time for you to pay attention to this very real situation and make a change. You must make use of the feedback or you will never grow as a human being (or be promoted). You don’t want to look back on this moment and regret it. Create some space in your brain to process the feedback by asking yourself What if this were true?

Research shows that successful people are naturally good at seeking out feedback and making changes based on that feedback. You can choose to develop this quality.

So what to do? The first person to talk to is your boss. Ask her what it would look like for you to be more strategic.  Get specifics on what you should stop doing and what you should do differently. Challenge her to give it to you straight. Tell her about the feedback from your team and enlist her help in adopting a less controlling style. Make a list of all the ways you can improve and brainstorm with her the ones that are the most doable and will get the best results. You can’t get a personality transplant, so find changes you can make that are realistic for you.

You could also ask your boss to arrange for some training—our Situational Leadership® II method is ideal for just this problem. You can read about it in the book Leadership and the One Minute Manager. It explains how to give each employee just the right amount of direction and support so you aren’t breathing down anyone’s neck or, conversely, abandoning them when they need you.

Then swallow your pride and go talk to your team. Go ahead and tell them how shocked you are at the feedback. Explain that you want to be a better boss and that you want to give them the direction and support they need, when they need it, and not more than they need. Give them permission to tell you when you are overdoing it and to come to you for help when they need it. Once you decide what behaviors you want to stop or start, tell your people what you are working on and ask them to give you in-the-moment feedback as you go. Leadership is a relationship between you and the people who follow you. Develop that relationship and improve the communication channels. Use your strength—the one that makes you good at staying on top of things and anticipating problems—to monitor your own behavior.

This feedback is not an attack on your character. It is an opportunity for you to become a better leader. Was any of the feedback good? Did you even notice the good feedback? Probably not. Most people are hyper-focused on the criticism. Go back and read through the report again and focus on the good stuff. It drives me crazy that your company thought it would be a good idea to give you a feedback experience without offering support from someone who could help you talk it through and come up with an action plan for what isn’t working.

Stay in touch and let me know how it is going.

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!

Essentially, the first order of business when you set out to work with a coach is to establish where you are right now: Point A. This requires a cold, hard look at your current reality.

Next, figure out the place you want to end up in the not-too-distant future: Point B. Your coach may start with the question What will be different in six months because of the changes you are about to make?

Once you are clear on Points A and B, you and your coach can put together a plan. When creating the plan, it is important to choose areas where change is actually possible—you want to set goals that may require you to stretch but not ones that would require a personality transplant. This is what’s called “reaching for low hanging fruit.” You can’t ask a chicken to climb a tree. Ask yourself: What can I do—maybe with a little extra direction and support—that makes sense for me?

During the conception of the plan, your coach will help you figure out not only how to leverage your strengths and stay engaged, but also how to choose goals that feel fun and exciting to you. You will gain some clarity about your weaknesses and learn to mitigate them and work around them. You may decide to shore up an area in which you are weak—but I recommend working on only one weak area at a time. Better to leverage strengths.

As the coaching sessions progress, you’ll find yourself stumbling over some attitudes or beliefs that have been holding you back—blind spots, if you will. You’ll think through and perhaps shift some long-held perspectives. Finally, you’ll uncover some new emerging strengths you can build on.

When the coaching is drawing to a close, you will review with your coach everything you have accomplished and what you have learned along the way. This will reinforce changes you have made and highlight new habits you have established.

In the crazy rush of everyday life, it can be really hard to stay focused on the stuff that is important but not necessarily urgent. Ultimately, that is what coaching will help you do.

About the Author

Madeleine Blanchard is the co-founder of 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.

Consider this story shared by a woman in a workshop I was teaching on motivation.

While taking her normal elevator ride up to her office she found herself alone with the CEO of her company, whom she had never met. As she explained, “My heart raced. Should I introduce myself? When will I ever have another chance like this? But what if I make a bad impression?”

By the time the woman could gather her thoughts and decide what to do, the elevator stopped, the CEO stepped out, and the moment was lost. As she rode up the final few floors she was flooded with emotion.

“I was shaking. I was sad—disappointed—mad—frustrated—angry. I couldn’t believe how one person entering the elevator and not saying a word could generate so much negative emotion in me.” The woman said it had been a horrible way to start the day.

What caused all of the mental anguish? Real and perceived power. Without the woman’s perception of the CEO’s power, the dynamic in the elevator would have been far less tense for the woman. Research bears this out.

Dr. Drea Zigarmi, Dr. Taylor Peyton Roberts, and I recently completed research on how a leader’s power affects people’s motivation. We found that leaders at all levels need to be mindful and clear about the types of power they have and use. Our findings showed that the use—or the perceived use—of leader power usually results in people experiencing suboptimal motivation. Let’s take a closer look.

In 1959, social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven described five bases of power that are typically in play in the workplace.

• Reward power: A leader’s power to promise monetary or nonmonetary compensation or incentives.
• Coercive power: A leader’s power to use threats and punishment.
• Referent power: A leader’s power that causes followers to want to identify with, be associated with, or to believe in the leader.
• Legitimate power: A leader’s power of position or title that gives the leader the right to request compliance from another individual.
• Expert power: A leader’s power that comes through depth and breadth of knowledge.

Why are perceptions of power so important to understand? Because of their impact on motivation. A leader’s use of power can undermine people’s need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence (ARC)—the three psychological needs required for people to thrive, produce, and sustain high performance. Because people can potentially perceive their leader as having power over them in any of these five areas, you could be undermining people’s motivation and not realize it.

Here are insights on how to use your five bases of power more wisely:

• There are two types of reward power—impersonal and personal. Consider how you are using impersonal reward power to grant special benefits, promotions, or favorable considerations. Think about how you might be using personal reward power to influence employees’ feelings of being accepted, valued, and liked by you. Misuse of either leads to suboptimal motivation.
• Understandably, the use of coercive power usually results in a negative relationship—and suboptimal motivation in those you lead. Coercive power creates a workplace where people waste emotional energy to avoid suboptimal motivation.
• If referent power becomes too important, it can result in people who are afraid to disagree with you. It might surprise you to discover that when employees report managers exhibiting referent power, they also report experiencing suboptimal motivation because of their dependence on that leader for their internal state of well-being.
• Even legitimate power—often referred to as position power—can be misused when it is perceived as “Do this because I tell you to.”
• Finally, while expert power won’t necessarily result in people’s optimal motivation, withholding it can put them into suboptimal motivation.

As my colleague Dr. Drea Zigarmi so aptly puts it: “Power is very precious stuff. It entices the leader into flights of self-delusion and separateness from those they lead.”

Over 125 years ago, Lord Acton wrote the famous line, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and the less famous line, “The sole advantage of power is the ability to do more good.” Based on our research, we might follow with this advice: Let go of your dependence on power to get work done. Instead, consider your power as an opportunity to do more good by developing ARC-supportive skills to understand, appreciate, and respond to people’s psychological needs. You will create a workplace where people are optimally motivated to achieve results and have the energy, vitality, and well-being needed to sustain those results. Powerful!

About the Author

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

One challenge organizations face is when individual contributors, who are Self-Reliant Achievers in most of their work, are tapped for leadership roles.  While they may be experts in their previous individual role, they are rarely at the Self-Reliant Achiever level when they move into their first leadership position.

More realistically they start out as beginners commencing a long leadership development learning journey.  This shift from being master of their previous universe to “wet behind the ears” can often be challenging.  If new leaders don’t recognize that they aren’t, nor should they expect to be self-reliant it can create self-doubt.  And self-doubt can eat away at their confidence which can hinder needed learning.

As a coach—or anyone helping someone else step up to leadership for the first time, here are a few ways you can help someone along that journey.

Set reasonable expectations.  Growing and developing leadership skills is a learning journey. Recognizing that can help.  Truly acknowledging that our first attempts will likely not be our best attempts allows us to give ourselves the “grace” to be a learner.

Practice, practice, practice.  We don’t learn through osmosis or simply by knowing.  We learn by applying what we know.  We try, fail, and if we are smart, get up and try again taking note of what we did right.

Ask for help.  We need to embrace our role as a learner and courageously ask others for help and guidance.  Learn from our boss, or a mentor, or those who have leadership skills we admire.  When asked, most relish the opportunity to share their wisdom.  Let’s not struggle in silence.

In working with clients, I’ve always believed the old saying Success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. When you lead, mentor or coach a first-time manager, let them know that learning to be an effective leader requires a lot of effort—and it will only be harder if they become their own worst enemy. Help them realize they will need to give themselves a break and understand there is no quick or easy path to skilled leadership.  Actually I think we all need to remember this because in today’s rapidly changing world –learning something new is likely a common occurrence.

What are your thoughts and experiences about coaching new leaders?

About the Author

Joanne Maynard is a senior coach with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team.  Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

They talked about how it’s up to the individual to manage their development and get the direction and support they needed.  They shared that self leadership is about setting goals and achieving them.

Next, I asked what advice they would give to a first-time manager who was stepping into a new role of leading others. They came up with three things.

1. Learn what’s expected. What is expected of someone in the role of a manager? What does a good job look like?  Where does formal training fit in the plan?
2. Observe other good managers. Observe what a good manager does. For example, the star player on an athletic team shows their talent in many ways for the team to see.  Teammates know what good performance looks like by observing what the best player does in practice and during the game.
3. Talk to your guidance counselor. In the same way a guidance counselor provides direction and support for a student’s needs to help the student reach their goals, a new manager can look to their boss, an experienced peer or mentor, or a professional coach for guidance.

I was surprised by the good, simple, straightforward ideas they took away from the session—and what a great reminder this advice was for me. How about you? I welcome your thoughts.

About the Author

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

In a new article for Training Industry Magazine, “Why Do We Wait to Train Our Managers?” leadership experts Ken Blanchard and Scott Blanchard share that companies rarely think about providing training to someone making the transition into their first leadership position until the individual actually settles into their new role—or later. For example, the average tenure of people enrolling in their new First-time Manager training program is two years.

And research by Jack Zenger of leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman has found that most managers don’t receive training until they have been in a leadership role for almost ten years!

This is much too long of a delay—and it underestimates just how difficult it is to manage the work of others. As a result, CEB research has found that 60 percent of new managers underperform in their first two years—with negative consequences for both new manager and direct reports.

That’s a shame, say the Blanchards, considering how much better things could be for everyone if leaders would receive the training they need when they step into a new job on day one.

So Why Do We Wait?

Why don’t organizations train new leaders earlier in their careers?  The Blanchards believe it may be a holdover from the past, when training was cost prohibitive and organizations would invest only in people who were definitely going to remain with the company.  Although this may have made some sense in the past when training was a two-or three-day classroom event, the arrival of blended and virtual options has dramatically reduced the cost involved. Their advice?

“Don’t hold your best people back—in fact, don’t hold anyone back. Why not train everybody who desires it? One thing we’ve learned in working with clients is that the people who raise their hand and ask to be included in leadership training are the people who end up being the best leaders in your organization. Show everyone you value them and are willing to invest in their development.

“We can do better than allowing 60 percent of our new managers to underperform.  With inclusive policies that identify and provide people with the training they need, we can greatly improve this statistic to the benefit of new managers, their direct reports, and organizations as a whole.”

You can access the complete article from Training Industry Magazine here.  For more information on the Blanchard approach to first-time manager training, take a look at the extended article “Essential Skills Every First-Time Manager Should Master”.

Unfortunately, most leaders don’t realize that this first step, knowing yourself, should never end.

Why? Because as you grow and develop as a human being and as a leader, aspects of you will inevitably change—as is the nature of growth and development.

As a result, the knowledge of who you are can become outdated quickly.

It may be surprising to find out that even the building blocks of your physical being change quite frequently. Find out more here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQVmkDUkZT4

When was the last time you took some time for self-discovery?

As a leader, remember to make time periodically to rediscover yourself and figure out how you’ve changed and grown.

It’s a great way to measure your development progress, to better understand who you are, and to determine how you can best serve your direct reports.

A survey of 450 human resource and talent management professionals by Training magazine and The Ken Blanchard Companies found gaps of 24–39 percent between what employees wanted from their leaders and what they were experiencing in 10 key areas.

Performance management is a key leadership responsibility. This survey suggests that significant gaps exist between employee expectations and what they are experiencing at work. And research shows that left unaddressed, these gaps represent a drain on overall organizational vitality through lowered employee intentions to stay, endorse, and apply discretionary effort as needed.

Better Communication Is the Key

For leadership development professionals, these survey results point to the need for including workplace communication skills as a key part of any leadership curriculum. For example, in Blanchard’s First-time Manager program new leaders are taught four key conversations:

Goal Setting: All good performance begins with clear goals. New managers usually prefer to be seen as supportive and try to avoid appearing overly directive—but that approach can backfire as soon as the first project deadlines are in jeopardy or performance standards aren’t being met. Being skilled at goal setting helps people start off on the right foot.

Praising: Ask some people how they know they are doing a good job and they will say, “No one yelled at me today.” Don’t make the mistake of not noticing. Are managers taking the time to catch people doing things right by calling out a team member’s specific behavior and the positive impact it had when they do things right?

Redirecting: When managers are not skilled at redirecting, they tend to be either unduly critical or so vague that the direct report walks away not sure what to do next. Do managers know how to use open ended inquiry questions to get the other person to talk about what is happening and ways to get back on track? Redirecting conversations are best when the direct report is doing most of the talking.

Wrapping Up: Are managers providing feedback on a frequent and consistent basis? A wrapping up conversation allows managers to measure success, review performance, and keep things moving forward. This is not a once-a-year conversation—it has to happen after the completion of each task or project if you want good results.

A renewed focus on improving workplace communication can have significant results on the performance of an organization. How’s the everyday leadership in your organization? Strong operational leadership with a focus on better communication is the key.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s simply too late. Without training, undesirable managerial habits develop that prevent new managers from being as effective as they need to be. It could also be part of the reason why 60 percent of new managers underperform—or fail—in their first two years.

In a new article for Blanchard Ignite, Linda Miller, master certified coach and coauthor of Blanchard’s new First-time Manager program, says, “If left on our own, we continue to lean on our habitual behaviors. Even when we change roles or move into a new job or position, we still are inclined to fall back into familiar patterns.”

That can be a problem in the case of new managers, explains Miller. “They often bring their individual contributor habits or practices into the new role. In this case, they may repeat a pattern over and over again—even when it is not helpful or appropriate—simply because it is comfortable and familiar.

As Miller explains, “When coaching first-time managers, I often ask how much of their work could be delegated.  A new manager has to have a plan for accomplishing results through others. Many find it easier to keep doing a familiar task themselves than to have a conversation with a direct report who could take on the responsibility. Although it may be easier for them to just do the task, as a new manager that work is no longer part of their role.”

Creating a New Manager Curriculum

Instead of letting new managers take a trial-and-error approach that potentially leads to bad habits, Miller believes organizations need to create a new manager learning path. This begins with normalizing the idea that transitioning from an individual contributor role into management is a big change—and that it is normal for first-time managers to feel awkward or even paralyzed by all the new skills they need to learn.

Next, identify some of the gaps or differences between being an individual contributor and being a new manager. For example, early discussions could focus on situations where old habits may not serve the new manager or the organization well.

Replacing Bad Habits with Good Habits

Once new managers have examined their behaviors and found patterns that aren’t working in their leadership roles, the hard work begins—changing those ingrained behaviors. This requires interrupting the automatic responses, says Miller.

“As a coach, many times I will suggest to people that they take some time before they respond to a situation. For example, before saying yes to a request, the new manager might wait two hours to think it through.  Or we might discuss coming up with a question they can ask themselves that will interrupt the pattern.

Don’t Wait

Miller’s advice to organizations interested in identifying and developing new leaders is short and sweet. “Don’t wait. Start now. Preparing your high potential people for management early will pay dividends—now and in the future.

”It’s much easier to train and develop good leadership habits in the first place than to change undesirable patterns that have been deeply embedded. Identifying high achievers and beginning leadership training before they accept their first leadership role does the organization, as well as the aspiring leaders, a great service. It’s not what most organizations do, but it is a unique and promising approach—and a far superior option to trial and error.”

Dear Madeleine,

I run a department in a fast growing biotech company. Things are moving so fast that they keep promoting me and I have to say I am pretty sure I have no idea what I am doing at this point.

I have excellent people reporting to me—they are all super smart, insanely dedicated, and well intentioned. When I was first promoted, I really enjoyed managing professionals who were like me. But with the latest change I now supervise managers of other managers who are quite a bit older than me and more experienced, and I also still have my own deliverables.

I am behind on paperwork required by HR, performance reviews, and my goals for next quarter. I am so overwhelmed I don’t even know where to begin. I am tempted to go to my boss, tell him I can’t hack it, and ask to be demoted again.

Want to Downgrade

Dear Want to Downgrade,

Whoa there, let’s just take a deep breath and think this one through, okay? You, like so many, have been thrust into management, and now senior management, apparently with zero direction or support. It sounds as if you feel like your hair is on fire—and why wouldn’t you? Let’s try to put that fire out first so you can think straight and make yourself a plan. The good news about being clueless is that you aren’t doing a lot of stupid stuff you shouldn’t be doing.

You definitely need to go to your boss—but to get some help, not to throw in the towel. I suspect your boss is underwater as much as you are, but you can ask him for some direction and prioritization. You will figure out how to do everything you need to do, just not all at the same time. Find out what is most important to your boss and, in the process, notice what matters to him least—for example, he may not care about the HR stuff. This will help you to decide what to tackle first, and what you can let slide for a minute or two. Choose which areas will help you get your feet back under you, and then figure out the rest. Block out some time each day to plan and prioritize. New research shows that people who spend their commute time clarifying goals and planning their workday have much lower levels of stress than those who don’t.

Next, get one-on-one meetings with each of your new direct reports on the calendar. The agenda? Simply ask them what they think you should know. You will be surprised at what you can learn.

Finally, cut yourself some slack. Someone obviously thought that in a sink-or-swim situation you were going to swim. So take a moment to float while you get you get your bearings, and then pick a direction and start swimming. Worst case would be that you fail and get demoted—but that probably won’t happen. Or you might actually figure out the job, decide you don’t want it, and move on to something else. At least that way you would be rising to the challenge and not throwing your hands up and quitting. I suspect you would regret that most of all.

Oh, and the next time you think you are going to run screaming from the building, take a short walk and take three deep breaths. When we are super stressed out, we tend to hold our breath—but the answer to the question always comes with the intake of breath.

Good luck!

Love Madeleine

About the author

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

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

Dear Madeleine,

I have been a manager for about ten years in three different companies, all in the same industry. I have learned a lot and over the years have become more patient and diplomatic and a better communicator. I have a reputation for being a tough but fair manager and I keep getting promoted.

All my hard-won experience didn’t keep me from making a really terrible mistake, though. I was in the ladies’ room talking to a peer who was complaining that one of her employees was still out sick. I vented about one of my people who had really been slacking.

Unbeknownst to us, one of my direct reports was in one of the stalls during our conversation. I wouldn’t have known, except someone stopped me outside the bathroom and I saw her walk out. She saw me see her, and we both did the wide eyed “oh crud” look. I really should know better than to do something so stupid. I am mortified. Nothing has happened yet, as far as I know. The woman who overheard us is a very good employee with whom I have had good rapport. What to do?

Indiscreet

Dear Indiscreet,

Wow. Busted. The old “someone lurking in the bathroom stall” scenario. How painful and embarrassing. The good news is that you will never, ever do that again—I know this from personal experience. The kind of amazing thing is how conscious you are that you made a terrible mistake. A lot of people aren’t aware of the power of their words.

You have a couple of options: (1) Pretend it never happened; or (2) Fall on your sword.

If you go with option 1, you may never know if your employee spilled the beans. Or you may find out the hard way that she did. Either way, it will be hanging over your head. This would stress me out unbelievably, but denial can be a very powerful tool and many avail themselves of it. I wouldn’t judge you.

I do, however, encourage you to consider option 2. Go to the unwitting spy and beg her for forgiveness—and her silence. Explain that you were (carelessly) venting and trying to get your emotions under control so that you could give useful feedback. You will then, of course, be obligated to actually give that feedback to the person you were venting about. But you were going to do that anyway, before you got derailed by this drama, right? In this way, you can clean up your mess and move on.

When I was in coach training there was a great deal of focus on integrity, which included a ban on gossip. Gossip was starkly defined as talking about anyone who wasn’t present in the conversation. One of my friends in the program and I challenged ourselves to take it super seriously and not talk about anyone who wasn’t present for thirty days. It was astonishingly difficult, but it really helped us both to raise the bar for our own professional behavior. This experience will do the same for you.

Love Madeleine

About the author

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

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

When these same respondents were asked to look at a list of common mistakes and choose the five biggest missteps by leaders, two responses stood out.

Not providing appropriate feedback was chosen by 82 percent of respondents. Failing to listen or involve others came in a close second, cited by 81 percent. (Failing to use an appropriate leadership style, failing to set clear goals and objectives, and failing to develop their people rounded out the respondents’ top five of things leaders most often fail to do when working with others.)

A 700-person follow-up study conducted by Blanchard in 2013 with readers of Training magazine found similar results. In that survey:

• 28 percent of respondents said they rarely or never discussed future goals and tasks with their boss—even though 70 percent wished they did.
• 36 percent said they never or rarely received performance feedback—even though 67 percent wished they did.

Why are communication and feedback such a challenge in today’s workplaces? The fast pace of work and increased workloads are certainly part of the equation—but another possibility is that new managers are not trained in either of these essential skills. Research conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity found that 47 percent of organizations do not have a formal training program in place for new managers. Research by leadership development consultancy Zenger Folkman has found that most managers don’t receive training until they are ten years into their managerial careers.

That’s too late. Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill has found that most managers who survive their first year develop habits—good or bad—that they carry with them for the rest of their careers.

The Ken Blanchard Companies believes it is essential for new managers to develop good communication skills as they step into their first leadership roles. In a new first-time manager curriculum, Blanchard identifies four communication skills new managers need to develop as well as four conversations new managers need to master.

Four Essential Communication Skills

• Listen to Learn—a deeper type of listening where the goal for the manager is to hear something that might change their mind, not just prompt a response.
• Inquire for Insight—when the manager uses questions to draw people out and probe for understanding that might not be shared at first.
• Tell Your Truth—being direct in communication in a way that promotes honest observation without assigning blame.
• Express Confidence—conveying a positive attitude toward the other person and toward future conversations, regardless of the subject.

Four Performance Management Conversations to Master

• The Goal Setting Conversation—setting clear objectives: all good performance begins with clear goals.
• The Praising Conversation—noticing and recognizing progress and good performance: catch people doing things right.
• The Redirecting Conversation—providing feedback and direction when performance is off-track: seize the opportunity before the problem escalates.
• The Wrapping Up Conversation—conducting a short, informal review after a task or goal is finished: savor accomplishments and acknowledge learnings

Becoming skilled in each of these areas not only helps new managers get off to a great start but also can help them succeed for years to come. How are your managers doing in these critical areas? You can read more about the Blanchard approach to first-time manager development in the white paper Essential Skills Every First-Time Manager Should Master.

I’ll summarize the major buckets as I saw them, but I encourage you (after you read this, of course!) to click on the graphic and read what people said in their own words.  This exercise paints a very human picture of the challenges new managers face when they first make the jump from individual contributor to supervising the work of others.

Here’s how I categorized things:

The vast majority of challenges dealt with people issues—things like managing former peers (about 20% of responses), managing conflict, improving morale, building trust, earning respect (about 15%), or working with older or more experienced team members (about 13%.)

The second biggest bucket contained performance management issues. This included setting goals, providing day-to-day feedback, coaching, redirection, and year-end performance review (about 13%.)

The topic of the third big bucket was personal concerns about the new role and included time management, prioritization, and finding balance along with trying to do it all and live up to expectations (about 15%.)

These findings are similar to what we have been seeing in an ongoing survey we’ve been conducting to inform the development of The Ken Blanchard Companies new First-time Manager program.

That research, combined with extensive interviews of managers and client organizations, helped us develop a curriculum for first-time managers that focuses on four essential communication skills—Listening, Inquiring, Telling Your Truth, and Expressing Confidence—together with four performance related conversations all new managers needs to master.

The four conversations were drawn from the three key principles in Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s best-selling book The New One Minute Manager®— Goal setting, Praising, and Redirecting—and joined by a new, fourth conversation, Wrapping Up, which is about bringing closure to goals and tasks.

What categories do you see when you look at the responses?  How do they match up with your experience as a first-time manager?  If you would like to participate in our ongoing research, please use this link to take a short five-minute survey, or just use the comments section below to share a thought or two.  What was your biggest challenge as a first-time manager?

We ask what they wish they had known before they started, what surprised them about their new role, and what mistakes they made.

The results have been both fascinating and heartbreaking. It is not a pretty picture. The story revealed in the responses is the same one I have heard in coaching sessions for the last two decades.

Unwitting newbies are seldom given clear goals and expectations for their new charges. They are generally unprepared in terms of time management and delegation skills. And they often receive absolutely no people or communication skills training. As a result, they are shocked that their peers don’t greet them with open arms and that their former peers often resent them and gleefully test them right out of the gate. They are surprised at how many employees aren’t that interested in doing their jobs well and don’t do what they are told. They are exhausted by the personal problems of their direct reports and the drama among coworkers.

A new infographic we’ve published highlights CEB research that 60 percent of new managers underperform in their first two years. A major culprit is a lack of training—in fact, 47 percent of companies don’t offer new supervisor training according to a survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity. Separate research by Zenger Folkman CEO Jack Zenger reported in Harvard Business Review shows that, on average, people are supervisors or managers for ten years before they get any training. Essentially, the way most companies promote employees into their first supervisory or management position is nothing short of Darwinian: only the strong survive.

I have had the rare opportunity to coach people at all stages of their careers. All of my experienced clients had to learn the hard way. This doesn’t have to be—and shouldn’t be—the norm. As a new manager, you need to take advantage of all available resources. Some people turn to books on management (there are a million) and try to create a self study program. But you can’t read everything—and some people simply aren’t readers at all. I’d like to suggest a guided approach. One of the services a coach performs for a client is to be both library and librarian, to pull out just the theory, the model, or the most current research that will help the client make sense of their current difficult situation. With the right framework, the new manager can develop a plan of action that helps them move forward.

What does this mean to you? If you manage people and you are suffering, don’t feel that you have to go it alone. Consider taking a class designed especially for first-time managers. Blanchard’s new First-time Manager program, for example, focuses in on four essential communication skills and four performance-related conversations new managers need to master. Or ask for a coach, or find yourself a mentor—but don’t suffer alone. Managing others is one of the most important jobs because you directly affect the quality of people’s lives. So don’t be bashful about asking for help. It’s important for you and others that you have access to the resources you need to succeed.

About the Author

Madeleine Blanchard is the co-founder of 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.

Unfortunately, research shows that new managers are usually promoted without the skills needed to be a good manager and that 47% of companies do not have a new supervisor training program in place.

As a result, 60% of new managers underperform in their first two years according to a study by the Corporate Executive Board resulting in increased performance gaps and employee turnover.

More importantly, research by Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill has found that negative patterns and habits established in a manager’s first year continue to “haunt and hobble them” for the rest of their managerial careers.

It’s critically important that learning and development professionals help new managers get off to a fast start—both for their immediate and long-term future.  What type of support are new managers experiencing in your organization?  If it’s not what it should be, the new Blanchard infographic can help open up a conversation and encourage some steps in a better direction.

You can download the first-time manager infographic here—and be sure to check out a new Blanchard first-time manager white paper that explores the issue more completely—including suggestions for a first-time manager curriculum.

“As a first-time manager, you want to make a good first impression by demonstrating confidence and capability in managing the work of others. But new managers sometimes get over-invested in people and projects. As a result, they can overreact—getting too excited or upset when things don’t go exactly as planned.”

In the February issue of Ignite, Blanchard shares a story about his own experience.

“I remember being a new parent—you worry about every little thing. Every sniffle is a trip to the emergency room. You find yourself freaking out all the time. But by the time you get to the second kid, you have a whole new perspective. And if you get to a third or fourth, the kids practically raise themselves because you’ve gained experience—you don’t overreact to things like you did before. New managers are sometimes like new parents in that regard.

“As you become experienced as a manager, you are able to respond on a scale that is appropriate. Your energy, tone, and actions are more nuanced. Managers who have been around for a while draw from a larger barrel of knowledge and experience than new managers. They tend to be more patient and calm when things don’t go as planned because they’ve seen it many times before.”

According to Blanchard, experience also teaches managers how to set things up with team members in the beginning so that performance management doesn’t become an emergency issue later on.

Blanchard believes first-time managers need to be prepared for four types of conversations: Goal Setting—to establish performance expectations; Praising—when things are going well; Redirecting—when a mid-course correction is necessary; and Wrapping Up—bringing closure to a task or project. Each of these conversations can pose challenges for new managers.

With skill training and practice, Blanchard believes new managers can get off to a much faster start than they would by using a typical trial and error approach. This can prevent overreactions that can damage a new manager’s reputation and effectiveness.

You can read more of Blanchard’s advice in the February issue of Ignite.  Also be sure to check out the complimentary webinar Blanchard is conducting on February 24—First Time Manager: Performance Management Essentials.  It’s free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Blanchard Companies.

This Coaching Tuesday guest post is by Judith Donin.

I recently found myself sitting beside a young entrepreneur on a flight, and we started chatting. His business was at a crossroads and he was seeking a mentor for help getting unstuck. When he noticed my study books, the topic turned to coaching. Then he asked me an interesting question: “What’s the difference between a coach and a mentor?” Since that conversation, I have spent many hours thinking about the differences between these two roles and the benefits of each in our lives.

Here are my thoughts:

A mentor…

• has pretty much walked in your shoes and can give you the benefit of their experience;
• can teach you unwritten rules and norms;
• often works in the same industry as you do, so there’s a perceived contextual understanding; and
• has useful contacts they can introduce you to.

A mentor can tell you what to do when you don’t know. But your mentor is not you—and a mentor may urge you to follow a path that isn’t one you would normally choose.

A qualified coach…

• follows a process within your conversation to help you draw out your own thinking;
• has no attachment to the outcome—only a goal that you achieve your aspirations;
• has the skills to really listen to you—and pays attention to both verbal and nonverbal communication;
• dares to challenge you and ask questions that others may be unwilling or afraid to ask; and
• gives you a sense that your psychological needs are being met (Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence).

But a coach will not tell you what to do. Instead, a coach will allow you to you discover the answer for yourself.

So what is best for you?  I’d like for you to consider the possibility of both. My career never felt as balanced and productive as when I had both a coach and a mentor—each playing a separate role. Here are my top six tips to follow when seeking both:

When choosing a mentor:

• Ideally, find someone in the same organization—they will be able to teach you how things get done.
• Select someone you admire who has credibility in your organization.
• Select someone who has a sense of your role; ideally, someone who has been in your role or very close to it.
• Select someone you can serve in turn. Think creatively here—does the person yearn to have exposure in your region? Could you read and comment on their research?

When choosing a coach:

• Ideally, select someone outside your industry. You are looking for an outsider’s perspective.
• Select someone you know will be straight with you and use language you will understand and respect.

Make 2016 the year you choose a personal team that will help you achieve your goals and aspirations. Looking for someone to show you the ropes? Consider a mentor who can point the way. Looking for someone to bring out the brilliance already inside you? A coach may be the answer—someone who is trained to listen judgment free and to ask, not tell. Whatever path you choose—or both—you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish with the help of people who care.

PS: In case you were wondering about the entrepreneur, he succeeded in getting unstuck. As it turned out, he had the answers within. We had a 20-minute coaching session as the plane descended

About the author

Judith Donin is a senior consulting partner, executive coach, and professional services mentor for North America with The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Dear Madeleine,

How can one learn when his boss isn’t knowledgeable? I belong to a human resources team and have been facing situations where my boss either doesn’t give the right answers or doesn’t give an answer at all.

Since I like to keep trust within the team, I tend to avoid sending e-mails to my boss if there is no major problem. That leaves me with the option of calling him. However, he doesn’t give me straight answers and often changes the topic when I ask him something.

If he does provide an answer and later things go wrong, he denies having provided the answer. This can get critical and embarrassing when dealing with colleagues across departments.

I have only five years of work experience and want to learn more. I have been looking for a mentor who can not only enhance my technical knowledge, but also help me grow as a person. But with this bad boss, I am constantly disappointed as I am very passionate about my field and my boss is the opposite.

Regards,

Eager to Learn

Dear Eager,

You are not alone. As I was reviewing all of my letters from 2015, the number one issue people write to me about is an endless variation of “my boss is an imbecile.” In fact, if you Google my boss is an idiot, you get all kinds of good advice.

The New York Times published the results of a study conducted by their research and analytics department. For the question Do you think you are smarter than your boss?, 5 percent of respondents checked the box in everything, 14 percent checked in most things, and a whopping 56 percent checked in some things.

At this point, I need to mention that I always advise leaders to hire people who are smarter than themselves if they want to have a smart learning organization!

Actually, your situation sounds like three separate problems, all of which have slightly different potential solutions.

Problem #1: Your boss is actually misinformed and gives you incorrect answers that cause real problems for the people you support.

Your solution here is to stop depending on your boss for answers and discover your own resources to get the correct answers to questions you need. The Society for Human Resource Management has an amazing website designed to provide answers and resources. You might consider asking your company to pay for you to get an HR certificate so that you can build your knowledge base.

Another great site is HR Bartender. Sharlyn Lauby is a former HR consultant and devotes her site to helping HR folks like you get it right. Send her your questions. If she doesn’t know the answer she will track down someone who does. Legions of people in the workplace cannot count on their bosses for accurate and useful answers—and the ones who are successful cultivate other sources for development. This problem can be solved.

Problem #2: Your boss lies to cover up his errors.

Again, you are among throngs of people who have bosses who have a weak character and lack integrity. Everyone has a character flaw or two. The very lucky have bosses whose flaws don’t actually get in the way of the job. But your boss’s flaws will only continue to cause problems for you. This problem is not solvable. So—what to do?

You have a couple of choices. You can decide to stay where you are and work around your boss until he gets either promoted or discovered for who he really is. Or you could start looking for someone else to work for, either in your current company or somewhere else. You have five years in the workplace—that’s enough experience to decide what is most important to you. You need to figure out if you want to spend any more valuable time working for someone you don’t respect.

Problem #3: Your boss doesn’t care about the company, the field of human resources, or, apparently, you.

It is a manager’s job to help his employees be successful, and this is clearly not the case here. Your choice remains as outlined above.

We can learn a lot from terrible bosses—probably even more than from good ones. In fact, I find that young workers are often so busy looking for what’s wrong with their boss that they fail to notice what’s right. Take note of all the ways in which your boss is awful and make sure you never behave this way when you have employees.

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!

#5.  My Boss Is a Jerk

Dear Madeleine, My boss is a total jerk. I don’t know how else to say it. He obviously doesn’t like me or respect me. The problem is, I really love my job. I am good at it and have great relationships with my direct reports…

#4.  Help! I Inherited My Team 

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

#3.  I Don’t Think I Really Want to Be a Manager

Dear Madeleine, I think I have made a big mistake. I have been a manager for about five years. At first I enjoyed the challenge, and I have worked hard to become a really good manager. I get good reviews from my people and excellent performance reviews from my boss…

#2. What Do I Do With A Good Employee Whose Performance Is Deteriorating?

Dear Madeleine, I have an excellent employee who has been working for me for over three years. She has always had a good attitude and she meets her deadlines, turns out reliable work product, and gets along with others—truly a model employee…

#1. What if My Boss REALLY IS Trying to Get Rid of Me?

Dear Readers, I got so much mail about my last post, I Think My Boss is Trying to Get Rid of Me, that I want to address the essence of the comments, which is: What if it’s actually true?

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 here next week!

Here’s what I’ve rediscovered: Leaders often engage a coach when they are faced with opportunities and challenges such as a significant hurdle to overcome, an opportunity to be promoted, or a career that is stalled. The basis for coaching is to assist the leader from going from point A to point B and help them grow and learn throughout the process.

While each coach has their own unique approach, coaching in general has universal guidelines that are embraced by the industry and designed to help clients get the most value from their investment. Thinking about a coach for an opportunity or challenge you may be facing? Here’s what to look for.

• Confidentiality. It’s critical for the coach to create a secure environment so that the client feels safe to speak freely.
• Action oriented. Coaching is about personal growth and achievement. In order to have that, the client must take action between meetings.
• Discovery process. The best answers lie within the client, so it’s important for the coach to lead the discovery process for the client.
• Client’s agenda. The client should always lead the agenda for what they want to accomplish through the coaching. The client needs to articulate what will be different as a result of being coached.

Organizations today are in a constant state of change. They need leaders who can adapt and change with them. Coaching has become a sought after development tool because the change it achieves with leaders is visible and significant. If these guidelines are embraced and both coach and client are committed to the process, coaching can be a life changing experience. I know coaching will benefit me in my new role—and I’m sure it will also help you with challenges and opportunities as you take on the new year.

About the Author

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

“Leadership is about going somewhere. Being successful at that requires a combination of clear goal setting, providing positive reinforcement or redirection as needed, and finally closure at the end of a project or assignment. While leaders in the past may have been accustomed to telling others what to do, we are finding that today’s managers are not as comfortable with an authoritative, directing style of leadership.”

Blanchard explains that although a supporting leadership style is suitable when working with direct reports who are skilled and confident in their ability to accomplish a task, it is not appropriate when managing someone who is new to a task and has little experience to draw from. In this case, even if it is out of the manager’s comfort zone, they need to be very directive—setting milestones and timelines for the direct report.

In co-developing the curriculum for the First-Time Manager program, Blanchard looked at four key conversations every new manager needs to master—Goal Setting, Praising, Redirecting, and Wrapping Up.

“We help new leaders examine and remove their assumed constraints about stepping into a position of leadership and directing others at work,” says Blanchard. “By default, when you make the shift from individual contributor to leader you are now responsible for everyone’s performance, not just your own. This means dealing with an entire bell curve of performance—the people who are doing really well, the ones who are struggling, and the ones whose performance is somewhere in the middle.

“In designing the four key conversations for the First-Time Manager training program, we were inspired by the concepts of One Minute Management. We started with the Three Secrets: setting clear goals, praising when things go well, and redirecting when things don’t go well. We added the necessary component of an honorable closure when a goal is accomplished. And we combined these elements into a valuable communication competency every leader must have: well developed conversational skills.”

Being a manager is about empowering and encouraging others. Conversation is the lifeblood of that process. Blanchard encourages HR and OD professionals to help new managers begin learning the skills necessary to have effective conversations with their people today.

You can read more of Blanchard’s thinking in the December issue of Ignite. You can also view an on-demand recording of Blanchard’s recent webinar on Four Conversations All New Managers Need to Master. It’s free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies monthly webinar series with Cisco WebEx.

“As an individual contributor, your focus is on doing the work, getting projects done, and meeting deadlines. But when you switch into a manager role, it means that you have to help others get the work done and ensure that they have the support, resources, and encouragement they need to be successful, both as individuals and as a group.”

When it comes to relationships, Miller uses the simple example of lunch behaviors to make her point.

“When we are peers, I get to go to lunch and we talk about personal things and sometimes we talk about our manager. But when I become the manager, I’m not always invited to those lunches. A new manager can sometimes feel lonely because they’re not included in the conversation.”

Jay Campbell, vice president of product development for The Ken Blanchard Companies—who will also be speaking as a part of the Livecast event—explains that first-time managers often find themselves with too much or too little help when they step into their first role. On the too-little side, many new managers  receive only a few hours of initial training in their first week, focused primarily on how to fill out timesheets, manage PTO, or maybe some compliance training—but not a lot that helps them master the skills of new management. On the too-much side, some training programs can consist of 10 to 15 modules, which can leave first-time managers completely overwhelmed before they get a chance to apply any of their new learnings.

Ken Blanchard believes the secret is to apply the 80/20 rule when developing training curriculum for new managers: 80 percent of the performance and results you want will come from 20 percent of what you focus on. Blanchard recommends first-time managers begin with a focus on goal setting, praising, and redirection.

“You want to make sure all of your people are clear on what you are asking them to do, and that they know what good behavior looks like.”

Becoming skilled at three types of conversations helps to set that up:  a Goal Setting Conversation, a Praising Conversation, and a Redirect Conversation.

“All good performance starts with clear goals,” explains Blanchard. “Once people are clear on goals, you need to get out of your office, wander around and see if you can catch them doing something right.”

For performance that isn’t going in the right direction, Blanchard recommends that first-time managers master the One Minute Re-direct.

“Go to the person and tell them the behavior you are observing. Talk to them about it and see how you can get their performance back on track. You don’t want to wait for a long time if performance isn’t going well. You want to catch it early.  It’s not about punishment; it’s just getting people going in the direction they need to go.”

To find out more about the First-Time Manager Livecast and how a minute can make all the difference, be sure to check out the registration page at www.kenblanchard.com/livecast.  (Over 3,000 people are already registered for this free event.) Blanchard, Miller, and Campbell will be joined by other consultants as well as both new and experienced managers. They will all share tips and strategies to help new leaders succeed in their first leadership assignment.

Want to get the most out of your leadership training investment? Here is a three-step process using coaching to support learning that helps leaders  master new skills after they complete a training program.

1. Start with valid feedback. Use a validated assessment to identify the leader’s strengths as well as areas that need improvement. Be sure the information you are starting with is credible in the eyes of the leader.  It can be difficult for someone to make behavioral changes if they have any doubt about the accuracy of the information.
2. Focus. Review the training materials and the assessment data and identify a few carefully chosen areas to work on in coaching. Customized attention to a relevant business need creates direct application of learning.  Focused sessions with a coach provide the opportunity to practice new responses, which helps a leader build skills and confidence.
3. Use a coach as an accountability partner. To support the learner’s practice and mastery, plan on at least two or three phone coaching sessions within eight weeks of the leader’s training sessions. Doing this allows the learner to not only get the dedicated focus of how to apply new concepts but also use their coach as their accountability partner. The leader/learner can sharpen their skills between coaching sessions.

Make sure your organization is getting the most out of its training dollars. Using a coach provides an opportunity for the leader to master newly learned skills while it gives the organization a way to improve communication, relationships, morale, and the retention of good people.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Sailer, Ed.D., is a Coaching Solutions Partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services team. Since 2000, Blanchard’s 130 coaches have worked with over 14,500 individuals in more than 250 companies throughout the world. Learn more at Blanchard Coaching Services. And check out Coaching Tuesday every week at Blanchard LeaderChat for ideas, research, and inspirations from the world of executive coaching.

So what are the advantages to spending part of your organization’s learning budget on coaching?  Coaching principles benefit the individual and the organization in several areas.

• Coaching engages the learner and encourages ownership by drawing out the learning that comes with training. Creating or discovering solutions helps the employee feel empowered.
• Coaching focuses on the learner’s specific needs quickly, concisely, and in a way group training cannot.
• Coaching adapts to the learner’s preferred learning style which is easier to do on an individual basis than with a large training group.
• Coaching offers a more flexible approach to development than do group training programs.

In spite of these advantages, learning and development professionals sometimes find that it’s not easy to make a business case for expanding the use of coaching principles. Sound familiar?  Start with this step-by-step approach.

1. Assess what resources need to be in place to instill a culture of coaching by anticipating potential barriers and obstacles.
2. Specify investment costs, benefits, outcomes, and examples of success.
3. Link coaching to key metrics including strategic organizational goals, competencies, vision, and values.
4. List potential benefits of implementing coaching versus risks of not moving forward.
5. Identify executive allies and early adopters.

A coaching program can be combined with training or launched on its own by skilled managers, colleagues, or outside consultants. To help you as you build your plan, here are some of the more popular ways organizations apply coaching principles:

• Coaching to support learning. Research shows that productivity, retention, morale, and employee relationships improve dramatically when training is combined with coaching. In case studies where coaching was added to training, productivity rose 88 percent. Without coaching, productivity rose only 22 percent.
• Coaching as a leadership skill. Training leaders in coaching skills provides a way to create a safe, focused, and supportive environment for productive conversations. Research by Manchester Consulting shows that the use of coaching principles significantly improves working relationships among supervisors, direct reports, and their respective teams and demonstrates a 5:1 return on investment.
• Peer group coaching is another resource used increasingly with department and project teams. It offers a forum where people can not only learn about how colleagues are using their skills but also share successes and challenges.
• Executive coaching encourages leaders to take a step back and gain objective feedback, then challenges them with new ways of thinking and behaving. As a result, leaders are better able to focus on strategic areas of self improvement such as actions or attitudes that may limit their influence.

Coaching is a valuable medium for personal development that can dramatically help individuals and groups focus on purposeful action. Use these tips and resources to help you to tailor coaching to your organization’s needs and budget so that you can build your case for utilizing coaching principles throughout your organization.

About the Author

John Slater is a Senior Director, Client Solutions for The Ken Blanchard Companies working out of Blanchard’s Toronto, Ontario regional headquarters in Canada.

At LeaderChat, we’ve been following this topic for several years.  Below are some of the recurring themes we’ve seen.  What would you add to this list?

In a blog post on Avoiding New Manager Syndrome we highlighted BNET columnist Jessica Stillman sharing reactions she got from readers to a blog she wrote, What’s the First Thing New Managers Need to Learn?  According to Stillman, here are some of the symptoms that afflict the under-trained management newbie:

• Providing reports with too much “helpful” advice
• Trying to show confidence by refusing to admit weaknesses or mistakes
• Missing the mark with recognition through overdone or meaningless kudos to staff
• Working 12-hour days to complete all work individually, instead of delegating

In a post entitled New Managers–Don’t Fall into these Common Traps, we highlighted an article by Blanchard senior consulting partner Ann Phillips.  In addition to agreeing with the common trap of leaders doing the work themselves, Phillips added two more challenges she often sees.

• Not setting clear roles and goals. This is especially challenging for new managers who have been promoted from within a group of peers.
• Difficulty balancing accountability and caring. Sometimes new managers think they have to choose between people and performance. Phillips recommends new managers balance high expectations with equally high levels of support and caring.

Most recently, we highlighted Ken Blanchard and Scott Blanchard’s thinking on 3 Ways Good Leaders Get Conversations Wrong.  The two authors identify that leaders mishandle performance related conversations by:

• Plunging ahead in an inappropriate setting with negative consequences. For example, you bump into a direct report who has a question, and before you realize it the dialogue touches on topics that are potentially sensitive, emotional, or confrontational.
• Not staying focused on the topic at hand. As a rule, leaders should focus on one subject at a time—especially when a conversation is about feedback or necessary behavior change.
• Poor listening or an inability to find common ground. When leaders don’t listen well or are unable to reach a shared understanding, they tend to focus on only their side of the conversation.

What’s your experience?  What are some other situations that are especially challenging for first time managers?  Add your thoughts in the comments section below.  You’ll see them appear here—and perhaps also during the December Livecast.

PS:  For more information on the Livecast, check out the web page at www.kenblanchard.com/livecast