These were outlets for my leadership learning to blossom. Looking back, I should have channeled this energy back into my career but, hey, I was young and naive. It seemed easier to make a leadership mark in a volunteer capacity. Furthermore, it was self-affirming, a lot of fun, and I received recognition for my efforts.

Leadership development, aka talent development and high potential (“hi pot”) development, is a hot issue, particularly in the private sector. The best organizations are always on the lookout within their ranks for potential future leaders. And at least the larger firms have formal processes for identifying these folks.

But how do you know that you have a future star in your department, especially if the work you have for them doesn’t provide an opportunity to lead others?

Listen for what your people do outside of work. With some, you’ll be pleasantly surprised–and impressed. Are they running a community baseball league? Organizing a 10K run for some worthy cause? Chairing a committee in a non-profit organization?

Now your challenge, as their manager, is to find ways for this enthusiasm to manifest itself in the workplace. What a loss if it doesn’t.

1. How cultural traits to which we are exposed impact our brains
2. How our brain and its processes impact the emergence and transmission of cultural traits

Newsweek had an interesting short article by Sharon Begley that offers just a glimpse into this field. She recounts a study comparing how, for Chinese and Westerners, the medial prefrontal cortex (a section of the brain) swings into action when they pondered whether a particular adjective describes themselves. The same area activated for both groups.

What is interesting is that the same brain area also fired for the Chinese when considering whether the word applied as well to their mother. For the Westerners, it did not. For them, there was no overlap.

What can we in management do with this information? I’m not sure. But for me it just underlines how powerfully our culture, experiences and thoughts carve deep neural pathways in our brain circuitry, pathways that guide our default, unconscious behavior and decisions. Begley puts it so much better:

…our lives leave footprints on the bumps and fissures of our cortex.

Knowledge@Wharton reports on a series of experiments by Grant, all linked to the idea that if you have the opportunity to meet, face-to-face, with at least a sample of the people who ultimately benefit from the work you do, your performance level will rise.

• In a fundraising call center, reps who had met a few of the recipients of the funds were more persistent, spending significantly more time on the phone, and secured significantly more donation money.
• Lifeguards who read case studies of people whose lives had been saved by the actions of other lifeguards increased the hours worked and were rated higher by their supervisors on helping behavior.
• Individuals at a Career Center editing the resumés of job seekers, if they had even just a brief chat with the applicants, spent much more time on the task.

Adam Grant summarizes the results: Employees who know, first hand, how their work impacts others in a positive and meaningful way are happier than those who don’t and are vastly more productive.

He goes on to point out that this dynamic holds equally for employees whose work product serves internal “customers” (end users).

Think of your work flow and administration processes in your organization. Food for thought…

Under “business acumen,” Alice included a basic understanding of the classic elements of business: finance, marketing, strategic planning, production, customer service, and the role of technology. By the way, this applies for any sector–private, public, or not-for-profit.

Why is having this broad knowledge important? Because HR professionals need to understand the world of the line side of the enterprise if they are going to be a trusted advisor to their internal client(s). Yes, trusted advisor. This is the other and more critical role of HR, beyond ensuring compliance to corporate human resources related policies and processes.

But in order for HR to achieve genuine trusted advisor status, let me suggest two additional skills under Business Acumen:

1. An understanding of the specific “business” of the organization. What are the key products, services, production processes, strategic plans, challenges, infrastructure strengths and weaknesses, and so forth? This gives them “street cred” with managers on the line side. In addition, it enables HR folks to provide informed input, especially at the C-level, on key business issues that arise.
2. A good sense of how successful sales people build and maintain relationships. Good sales people (and trusted advisors, BTW) develop a deep awareness of their client’s concerns, fears, hopes, desires, assumptions, biases, etc. They are able to look at problems through the filter of their client, while adding value by applying a professional human resources prism as well.

For example, the VP of Field Operations is concerned that customer service attitudes are poor and causing retail sales to drop. HR makes an evidence-based case that the culprit is weak management skills leading to low front line staff morale. How to proceed? The savvy HR manager frames the goal in terms of getting sales back up. This is what he talks about when proposing any training initiative or other intervention to boost morale. Fix the sales problem and you’ve earned the respect of the VP. How you do it is not high on your client’s list of concerns.

So, if you are in HR, make sure that you understand your organization’s core business. Then position your role as, first and foremost, supporting the enterprise’s success. And, if you are a non-HR executive, insist that members of your Human Resources department learn what they need to know about the business of the business in order to earn that seat at the table of decision-makers.

1. Precontemplation (not yet acknowledging a need for changed behavior)
2. Contemplation (acknowledging the need but not yet willing to proceed with the change)
3. Preparation/Determination (ready to make the change and gearing up for it)
4. Action (engaging in the new behavior)
5. Maintanence (sustaining the new behavior over the long term, hopefully permanently)
6. Relapse (returning to the old ways)

What intrigues me here, in the context of executive coaching, are Stages 1 & 2.

Obviously, no successful growth to more effective leadership behaviors will happen if the individual doesn’t:

• see a problem with how he or she is operating currently, or
• have a genuine desire to become better as a manager.

Coaching is an investment made mostly in current relatively senior managers or individuals identified as high potential future leaders. So, as you look at potential candidates in which to invest your limited development resources, the first question is to clarify is to what extent they are at the Precontemplation or Contemplation stages.

If not, here are several ways to move them through to stage 3:

• Express your belief that they have potential to rise to a senior leadership role in the organization (This is by no means a promise. You are just informing them of your perception of them.)
• Administer a 360º feedback process for them, to give them a reality check on how they are currently being experienced by others.
• Challenge them as to what are their own goals and aspirations for their career.
• And, for less-than-acceptable performers, give them clear, tough feedback about their current poor performance and the consequences if they don’t turn this around.

These strategies will raise the individual’s conscious awareness that there is a problem or an untapped potential. The final step before you decide to invest in him or her is to solicit to what extent he/she is willing to do the tough personal and professional developmental work in order to make a shift to greater effectiveness.

Absent that genuine willingness, don’t waste you money on coaching.

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

As John mentions, sometimes leaders foster a culture that asking your boss for help is a sign of weakness or failure. This can have really negative consequences for the organization because employees will not tap into the experience and wisdom of their boss when it is appropriate. In the end they risk making poor decisions that can cost a lot.

But the real issue here involves, as is so often the case with the art of management, a paradox:

• On the one hand you want your people to take full accountability for their job, including making decisions and taking action without always running to you to solve their problems or provide cover by endorsing decisions they are about to make.
• On the other hand, you want your staff to come to you when they are truly stymied, the cost of a bad decision is too high, or they need information that is understandably beyond their reach.

The “art” here is, when an employee brings a problem to your doorstep, to be able to differentiate between a problem that they should be able to handle on their own and one on which it is appropriate to consult with you.

Make a point of clarifying with each of your direct employees what sorts of issues or situations should trigger their talking with you first. You can do this as part of a larger conversation about the performance expected from them. Part of their performance, after all, is bringing their independent judgment to bear in their job. These guidelines, of course, may need to be adjusted as you go forward, so be sure to revisit them periodically, as needed.

Finally, having done such a good job clarifying decision boundaries, resist the ever-present temptation to break these guidelines by taking the “monkey” and solving a problem that clearly belongs to them.

]]> http://buildbestbosses.com/2010/02/22/the-paradox-of-who-makes-the-decisions/feed/ 0 http://buildbestbosses.com/2010/02/18/the-truth-that-hurts-but-will-help-us-cope/ http://buildbestbosses.com/2010/02/18/the-truth-that-hurts-but-will-help-us-cope/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:00:54 +0000 Ian Cook http://buildbestbosses.com/?p=1616 Managers have been sorely challenged in 2009 and this year to keep optimistic and not succumb to the ongoing, sometimes mind-numbing stress of work and, at best, tenuous job security. They are called to do this not only for themselves but also for their people. One place employees look for assurance that things will be OK is their immediate boss. If she is sounding scared or negative, staff will pick it up too.

But lingering somewhere in the back of our minds is the idea that when this is all over and we all have jobs back again, things will return to how it was before derivative financing and house prices tanked.

Well, it looks more and more like things won’t!

This week Newsweek Magazine featured an excerpt from Author Greg Easterbrook’s latest book, Sonic Boom. In it he talks about the frenetic pace of change due to globalization and how, once we come out of the recession, this will sweep us all back into its vortex, resulting in both benefit and pain. Let me quote him on the bad news part of our future:

…just as favorable economic and social trends are likely to resume, many problems that have characterized recent decades are likely to get worse, too.

Job instability, economic insecurity, a sense of turmoil, the fear that when things seem good a hammer is about to fall–these are also part of the larger trend.  As world economies become ever more linked by computers, job stress will become a 24/7 affair. Frequent shakeups in industries will cause increasing uncertainty.

I think this means managers must consciously shift the context of the conversations they have with their employees. We need to create a new consciousness about how…

1. We really mean it this time–there really won’t be that elusive thing we call security as we go forward in the decade.
2. This means that each one of us, manager and employee alike, needs to start seeing ourselves as what William Bridges calls “You & Company.” We have take personal responsibility for our job performance record, our skill and educational development, and our ability to stay marketable in the crazy economy coming at us.

We have to get it ourselves! And we owe it to our employees to drive the message home to them as well.

We all have a place of comfort along a continuum that extends from purely “Directing” all the way to purely “Informing” others. Take a look along the line and see which phrasing feels most comfortable to you and sounds like how you would express your need to others.

There are times when speaking from either extremity of the continuum is appropriate and not disconcerting to those who receive your message.

• When you choose speak from the directing end, it is usually because of a time pressure and/or the need to focus laser-like on the task at-hand. This context enables your demand not to come across as inappropriately bossy.
• Totally informing language works well when you want to motivate people to choose to do the action or when you want to enroll them in a wider process.

Those situations aside, a problem arises when a manager needs to get greater buy-in and participation from his or her people but is habitually directive in his/her speech. I encounter problems more often, however, in bosses who are looking to come across more assertively but continue to speak in a strongly informative style. Words do make a difference. Usually, if a non-assertive manager consciously adopts a more directive delivery, over time he/she will become comfortable with how that sounds and will incorporate it into his/her default speaking style. As a result, he/she will come across as more assertive and confident in situations that call for this.

Does what you say when influencing your staff project the “you” you want them to experience?

In a similar vein, I put it to you that your most important three feet as a manager is that space between you and your employee. I’m not talking about so much about the physical space but more importantly about the mental and emotional space. How you handle this “I-thou” space will determine how effective a leader you are. It’s a distance across which pass–in both directions–information, meaning, expectations, resistance, appreciation, criticism, enthusiasm, hope, discouragement, fear, and much, much more.

We hear a lot these days about employee engagement, productivity, and retention, about talent development, and about leadership. These are all central to the results your employees ultimately generate and how profitable and successful your enterprise will be in creating wealth and achieving its goals.

Look at the organizations that do these things well and trace back to what’s behind it. Your search will eventually take you to that same “yardstick” of distance across which exemplary managers are leading excellent relationships with their employees. This is where the important work of leaders at all levels lies.

Leaving aside the political issues and possible motives ascribed to each side for engaging in the event, I think Obama modeled an important element of leadership. This is the willingness to seek out and engage in dialogue those who oppose your ideas or have yet to buy in to your agenda and vision.

Many leaders do this as part of their strategy for implementing change. They hold all-hands staff meetings to explain their vision, share the rationale and benefits of the change, and then respond to questions from the troops. It is even more effective if, at the outset, the leader makes it clear that he/she welcomes expressions of concern and disagreement.

There is tremendous power in putting yourself out there among your fiercest skeptics, listening to and honoring their points-of-view, acknowledging their heartfelt concerns, and then responding with the goal of assuaging their fears and inviting them to see things from your perspective.