Tag Archives: how to be a better leader

Leadership

Leadership Don’ts!

leadership

Our previous post focused on the importance of strong leadership when developing and sustaining high-performing teams.

Strong leaders provide the initial and ongoing energy for change and improvement, and people will only follow leaders if they trust them, if they see the need for change, if they believe improvement will benefit “all” parties, and if they are involved in creating the change.

Here are several behaviors from SmartBrief and Gallup that those in leadership roles should avoid if they hope to enjoy sustainable success:

“You can tell me anything, but…!” This statement is made (without the “but”) to solicit input or feedback on a particular idea or course of action. But, sometimes leaders will completely discount the idea or opinion offered, especially if it’s something with which they don’t immediately agree.

Giving feedback at the wrong time and in the wrong place. The proper place to give any kind of negative feedback is in private! Some leaders feel it is appropriate to give negative or critical feedback to a person on the spot and in front of others. Some of these managers have said that they like giving feedback in this way because it is motivating to others. But in reality, such behavior strikes fear into the heart of any conscious team member who learns to dread interactions with these managers or leaders. Sharing negative or critical feedback in front of others is highly disrespectful and does not inspire candor or openness. In fact, it will likely cause people to keep bad news to themselves and hide their mistakes.

Failing to provide any feedback. People crave feedback, In fact, in one Gallup poll, the most engaged team members say that they receive feedback from their immediate supervisor on a weekly (if not more frequent) basis!

Coercing support. Sometimes in an attempt to win approval for an idea or decision, leaders will say something like, “I need you to support my position today in the meeting. You have to back me up!” Often there’s an implied, “Or else.” Such behavior destroys candor, honesty and team morale.

Solicitation or decision making without action. Simply stated, solicitation implies action. When a leader asks for ideas or solutions, it is implied that the leader will do something with the ideas or solutions that are provided. This doesn’t mean that a leader has to implement or take action on every idea that is offered, but it does require that the leader share what they might do and why. This reinforces the importance of contribution and collaboration. To solicit ideas or input for decisions and then do nothing signals to individuals that their ideas are not important. Do this, and it won’t be long before people quit speaking up or offering ideas.

Manipulation. Sometimes a leader will ask people for ideas and then use them as evidence that the leader’s original idea was the best idea. This ends up feeling like manipulation. If leaders ask for ideas, then they should be open to exploring those ideas.

Continuous Improvement, Culture building, Employee Development, Leadership

The “R” Factor Part 2: Show Me the Money!

Our previous post focused on the importance of relationships within the workplace and the impact on people.

It has also been well-documented with facts and data that the cost of poor relationships in the workplace is significant; and in contrast, improving relationships improves the bottom line.

For example, a Watson Wyatt Worldwide study found a direct correlation between trust and profitability. Where employees trusted executives, companies posted returns 42% higher than those where distrust was the norm.

In a different study, they found that of the 7,500 employees surveyed only half trusted their senior managers. So imagine the impact of improving the relationships with the ‘other’ half!

Another study on trust in the workplace conducted by Leadership IQ, which involved a database of 7,209 executives, managers and employees, revealed that 44% of participants’ responses ranged from not trusting to strongly distrusting their top management, and that trust significantly predicts employee loyalty and their inclination to stay or leave the organization. Having employees “go” is costly and especially so at the managerial and executive level. As once cited in the Orange County Business Journal, the cost of losing one executive who underperforms or one who chooses to join another executive team is an average of $1.5 million per executive hire. Calculated another way, the cost can reach 400% of the yearly salary of a high level employee.

Along the same lines, in his book The Speed of Trust, Covey quoted Professor John Whitney of Columbia Business School, who said “Mistrust doubles the cost of doing business.”

In addition to the obvious and direct costs of attrition (recruitment, severance, training, etc.), there are other costs associated with dissatisfied employees at any level. There is the pervasive, though
often not measured, cost of wasted time and lowered productivity — the unproductive time spent in unresolved conflicts, complaining about management or co-workers, lack of engagement and not putting forth best efforts. It follows that reducing wasted time, like reducing other forms of waste, can contribute to improved profitability.

Imagine how much better-off we all might be if we could better manage our relationships; as noted above, the improvements could be staggering!

Trust

The Trust Triangle

A past post summarized the importance of trust and trustworthiness within our organization and within our leaders.

A recent Harvard Business Review article, “Begin With Trust” reinforces this concept, and also suggests that building trust requires thinking about leadership from a new perspective.

“The traditional leadership narrative is all about you: your vision and strategy; your ability to make the tough calls and rally the troops,” the article states. “But leadership really isn’t about you. It’s about empowering other people as a result of your presence, and about making sure that the impact of your leadership continues into your absence.”

Unfortunately, as illustrated in the article’s real world example, people are too often put in leadership roles without having had the proper training or mentorship to be effective. This perspective aligns with our observations and experience over many years of helping people at all levels develop leadership skills and applying those skills to bring about change and continuous improvement; and certainly, many have struggled to build or inspire trust.

The Trust Triangle
One way to better understand how to become more trustworthy is to understand the three key drivers of trust. Thus, the “trust triangle” illustrated below.

“People tend to trust you when they believe they are interacting with the real you (authenticity), when they have faith in your judgment and competence (logic), and when they feel that you care about them (empathy). When trust is lost, it can almost always be traced back to a breakdown in one of these three drivers.”

Just as the first step in improvement is to identify waste or opportunities, to build trust as a leader you first need to figure out which driver you need to improve and take corrective action.

Read the full article…

Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Performance Management

3 Managerial Best Practices for Engaging Today’s Teams

In our previous post we shared reasons why leaders at all levels (as opposed to “just CEO’s or Senior Management”) must step-up to engage their team members during this time of need.

While that post identified important areas of focus based on employee surveys and polls, this post identifies three key managerial best practices that will help leaders improve the effectiveness of their efforts to help and support team members:

  1. Communication is critically important. A recent Harvard Business Review article states, “Communication is often the basis of any healthy relationship, including the one between an employee and his or her manager… consistent communication – whether it occurs in person, over the phone, or electronically – is connected to higher engagement.”

    However, Gallup research also indicated that “mere transactions between managers and employees are not enough to maximize engagement. Employees value communication from their manager not just about their roles and responsibilities but also about what happens in their lives outside of work.”

    This perspective aligns well with the data shared in our previous post
  2. Effective performance management is also important, but it must go beyond the “annual review.” Given the significant and rapid changes we are all experiencing in day-to-day protocols, many people do not clearly understand their goals or what is expected of them. They may feel conflicted about their duties and disconnected from the bigger picture.

    Consequently, managers must more frequently discuss and possibly redefine mission, priorities, achievement and expectations.
  3. Focus on people’s strengths. Given the above-referenced changes in protocols, this might involve some reassigning of responsibilities – especially for those who are struggling to maintain productivity while working remotely.

    Gallup researchers have discovered that building employees’ strengths is a far more effective approach than a fixation on weaknesses. In the current study, a vast majority (67%) of employees who strongly agree that their manager focuses on their strengths or positive characteristics are engaged, compared with just 31% of the employees who indicate strongly that their manager focuses on their weaknesses.
Crises Leadership, Leadership

Leadership: “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man?”

An English proverb says, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” It’s the idea that the right leaders will emerge or step up during times of crisis.

In numerous posts we have shared data substantiating the fact that the greatest work-related impact comes from our direct supervisor. So, it’s not just CEO’s or top management, but rather leaders at all levels that must step-up to help people during this time of need.

A March 23rd Gallup article reinforced this point. “The supervisor or manager is the key conduit…” the article stated. “Only the direct manager can know each employee’s situation, keep them informed, and adjust expectations, coaching and accountability to inspire high performance.”

The question then becomes, how might we lead and inspire employees during this pandemic that’s creating anxiety and uncertainty everywhere?

The article provided some straightforward guidelines. “Global citizens look to leadership to provide a path — and to provide confidence that there is a way forward that they can contribute to. In times of crisis, there are two directions human nature can take us: fear, helplessness and victimization — or self-actualization and engagement. On the latter, if leaders have a clear way forward, human beings are amazingly resilient.”

The piece went on to share meta-analytics, which have found four universal needs that followers have of their leaders:

  • Trust
  • Compassion
  • Stability
  • Hope

“These needs are especially urgent during crises,” the article said. “People look for these traits in their leaders as a signal that their life will be OK and that they can be part of the solution.”

Surveys Say: Room for Improvement
Among the most important actionable organizational practices to address these four needs, Gallup listed the following along with the results of their most recent tracking:

  • Identify a clear plan of action: When asked if their company leadership had a clear plan of action, 39% of U.S. employees strongly agreed that their employer had done so.
  • Make sure people are prepared to do their jobs: When asked if they felt well-prepared to do their job, 54% strongly agreed.
  • Orchestrate a plan for supervisors to keep people informed: When asked if their immediate supervisor was keeping them informed, 48% strongly agreed.
  • Make sure employees know that the organization cares about their well-being. Gallup has found five elements of well-being that each organization can act on: career, social, financial, community and physical. When asked if their organization cared about their overall well-being, 45% strongly agreed.

This data might be useful to us all as we navigate our way forward during the COVID-19 crisis. It also shows there is room for improvement.

Read the full Gallup article.

Continuous Improvement, Performance Management

Performance Management Best Practices

Bill Conway would say that there are two things that matter: working on the right things and working on them the right way. Performance Management is all about how we as leaders orient our organizations around those two things.

When we asked our Partners In Improvement to define Performance Management, we heard a range of perspectives:

  • the strategic orientation of the organization
  • process performance management
  • setting of goals and objectives
  • individual performance appraisals
  • daily direction and feedback to reinforce desired behaviors
  • providing tools and coaching to help people be successful
  • rewards and recognition

From the strategic perspective, performance management begins with the identification of what’s vital to the organization. If these priorities are not clear and it is not clear what role everyone plays in the priorities, the rest is unlikely to mean much.

Several of the Partners pointed out that performance management refers not just to people management, but to process management, and plant management (which one of the Partners called the “3 Ps – People, Plant, and Process”).

One of the Partners explained that she always starts by measuring the performance of the process. To improve the process, based on the root cause analysis she would work to improve the people performance, tools, materials, methods, the environment, or whatever factor was driving the performance of a process.

While there are clearly a wide range of views about how to manage performance, several excellent points or best practices generated quite a bit of support during our discussions:

  • Performance Management must be about much more than individual performance measurement. As Deming said, over 90% of problems are caused by the system not the person. To manage performance, we must manage the system by which people, plant, process interact to produce results.
  • Frequent observation and feedback is more helpful to people than formal annual reviews.
  • Frequent communication about what an organization needs and wants greatly increases the odds that the organization will get what they need and want.
  • Group rewards encourage teamwork, while individual rewards encourage an individual to optimize his or her own goals even if it may sub-optimize the organization as a whole.
  • Tying money directly to performance appraisal can be a two-edged sword – raising stress and reducing the intrinsic rewards and personal satisfaction from doing a good job for the team.
  • Avoid performance management in the rear view mirror – in other words, avoid “Monday morning quarterbacking.”
  • Make more of the goal setting process which produces targets against which we measure performance and take corrective action

 

Change, Continuous Improvement, Culture building, Leadership

Leadership Pitfalls

Several past posts have referenced the fact that strong, effective leadership is a “must” if we hope to build and sustain a culture of continuous improvement… a culture rife with innovation and high-levels of engagement.

Innovation, change, continuous improvement, and engagement only take place when leaders empower people at all levels to unleash their creative skills, seek new and better ways of improving their work, and share their passion about what can be accomplished.
Strong leaders provide the initial and ongoing energy for change, and people will only follow leaders if they trust them, if they see the need for change, if they believe change will benefit “all” parties, and if they are involved in creating the change.

While two of last year’s posts identified specific steps managers can take to develop and sustain a creative culture and also a culture of continuous improvement, there are also behaviors that organizational leaders must avoid.

In a recent SmartBrief article, John Stoker, Author and CEO of DialogueWORKS, Inc., shares several pitfalls that can result leaders undermining their credibility and effectiveness.

These “behaviors to avoid” include:

  • “You can tell me anything, but…!” This statement is made (without the “but”) to solicit input or feedback on a particular idea or course of action.  But, sometimes leaders will completely discount the idea or opinion offered, especially if it’s something with which they don’t immediately agree.
  • Coercing support. Sometimes in an attempt to win approval for an idea or decision, leaders will say something like, “I need you to support my position today in the meeting. You have to back me up!” Often there’s an implied, “Or else.” Such behavior destroys candor, honesty and team morale.
  • Solicitation without action. Simply stated, solicitation implies action. When a leader asks for ideas or solutions, it is implied that the leader will do something with the ideas or solutions that are provided. This doesn’t mean that a leader has to implement or take action on every idea that is offered, but it does require that the leader share what they might do and why. This reinforces the importance of contribution and collaboration. To solicit ideas or solutions and then do nothing signals to individuals that their ideas are not important. Do this, and it won’t be long before people quit speaking up or offering ideas.
  • Manipulation. Sometimes a leader will ask people for ideas and then use them as evidence that the leader’s original idea was the best idea. This ends up feeling like manipulation. If leaders ask for ideas, then they should be open to exploring those ideas.
  • Giving feedback at the wrong time and in the wrong place. The proper place to give any kind of negative feedback is in private! Some leaders feel it is appropriate to give negative or critical feedback to a person on the spot and in front of others.  Some of these managers have said that they like giving feedback in this way because it is motivating to others. But in reality, such behavior strikes fear into the heart of any conscious team member who learns to dread interactions with these managers or leaders. Sharing negative or critical feedback in front of others is highly disrespectful and does not inspire candor or openness. In fact, it will likely cause people to keep bad news to themselves and hide their mistakes.

Read the full article…