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Executive Coaching Services

Working the Plan – Step 3 in Team Trust

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Leaders responsible for teams must cast a solid vision to define the purpose for their team. Your team needs to know why the team exists. Every good purpose needs a plan. How are we going to execute the vision we just agreed to pursue? Purpose and plan are critical parts of building team trust.

Leaders who have great vision need to translate the vision into a plan; an action plan. You can pull your team together to create the plan. That’s perfectly fine. But plan you must.

The plan helps map out the next steps, milestones, contingencies, and a host of other critical factors that cause your likelihood of success to rise. As the old saying goes, without a plan any road will get you there. You probably don’t want to travel some of those roads. That is why a plan helps.

Step 3

In the Team Trust Model, Step #3 is the Plan.

team trust model diagram showing all the steps

The questions your team members and employees may be asking about the plan include the following examples.

What are the steps to achieve results?

What does a ‘win’ look like?

Can I agree with what you think we’ll be doing to go from A to B to C?

Does the plan make sense to me?

Does anyone else think this plan is crazy?

Is there something we already know about a step in the plan that won’t work?

How can I comment on the plan?

Do you want my feedback?

A Story from the Field

During a coaching session on team trust, one client who was responsible for a large regional sales organization spoke about his plan. It involved a cradle-to-grave process for their sales cycle. The plan started with prospecting and funnel management, then went into client onboarding and order entry. Ultimately the plan ended with various aspects of client support and service obligations assigned to the originating salespeople.

After thinking about it, he said “Wow, I really should be doing more to look at this plan when I’m hiring people. I generally look for personality but having folks who can serve these other needs is very important too.”

Viola!

There’s another reason to have a well-articulated plan.

The plan gives you the path to get work done. You deliver on the plan. You work through the plan. Without a clear blueprint for success, your team will get stuck wondering what to do next.

Doing the Right Thing

There is one thing I’ve learned in all my years of executive leadership, it’s about the people. Assuming your hiring process is reasonably reliable i.e. identifying good talent suitable for what you need to do, then the team you build will want to do the right thing.

If you as a leader don’t show them what the right thing is, they freeze. Because they want to do the right thing, they definitely don’t want to do the wrong thing. Therefore they tread water, running in place not doing much of anything.

Your plan helps them understand the next steps that amount to the right thing to do. Then they can become effective at the work.

There is obviously a lot more you have to do managing the effort, but without clear definitions of what a win looks like and what success can mean, your team will struggle to move forward.

The more you can do to articulate the right plan for the work you need to be done, the better your chances of having a team that can trust the plan and is willing to commit their dedicated effort to get there. This is the way to build team trust.

trust at work

Copy These 5 Communication Skills From Top Leaders

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Do you struggle with communicating effectively? Communication is a key part of success at work or in other parts of your life. Top leaders have practiced and mastered the skills that enable them to communicate so well. Luckily, you too can learn these same skills!

Follow these strategies to practice essential communication skills:

Learn to Listen

Top leaders know that listening is a crucial part of communication. Learn to love listening and engage in the stories of others.

Try to really pay attention during a conversation instead of being distracted by your phone or another device. Have one conversation at a time to give each person your full attention. 

Practice retelling the person’s story in your mind to get better at listening.

Everyone wants to be heard. Others will notice that you’re listening to them and will go away from your conversations thinking what a great communicator you are when all you did was listen.

Avoid Slang and Informalities

It’s normal to use slang or other types of informal language while talking to friends or family. However, business usually requires a more formal language set. Pay attention to who you’re talking to and make the necessary adjustments.

Slang, acronyms, and informalities can also make some people feel uncomfortable, especially if they’re not familiar with them.

Focus on Being Brief

Top leaders know that you don’t have to make a long speech to be effective.

Practice being brief and getting your point across with fewer words and less time. People appreciate brief conversations and respect others who don’t go off on tangents.

However, ensure you’re still providing enough information while you talk. You don’t want to be vague or miss important details.

This skill may take time to develop, so practice it often. The next time you have a conversation, try to get your point across with less talking. Try to summarize the important parts and only focus on them while you talk. 

Pay Attention to Other’s Emotions

When you talk, take note of how the other person is reacting. Words are powerful, and communication can affect people in many different ways.

You may want to learn psychology to understand emotions better.

Show sympathy and empathy when it’s appropriate during a conversation.

Look at things from the other person’s point of view without criticism or judgment.

Be Charismatic

Communication is easier for charismatic people, but you can learn this skill.

One of the most important aspects of charisma is confidence, but not arrogance or self-righteousness. Confident communicators know their value and worth, but they’re also respectful of others.

Another facet of charisma is optimism, and it’s also a big part of communication. Even if you’re having a difficult conversation, focus on something positive. Top leaders are good at finding the silver lining.

Charismatic communicators are interesting, but they also share interesting information with others.They focus on innovation and new ideas that give people a spark.

Summary

You can learn to communicate more effectively by following these tips from top leaders. Practice these skills as often as possible. You’ll have many opportunities each day. Every time you have a conversation with anyone is an opportunity to practice a little more. And as you know, practice makes perfect!

Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders

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business leader

Great leaders know how to motivate others. Since the amount you can accomplish on your own is limited, it’s necessary to have the assistance of others.

Someone who can motivate others to do their best has an incredibly valuable talent.

When you can inspire others, you can accomplish much more.

Motivate others to do their best:

Be emotionally supportive. To help others shine, removing the fear of failing or looking foolish is critical. Most people are frozen by fear and prefer to remain comfortable. When fear is greater than motivation, nothing happens. Removing fear can be just as effective as instilling additional motivation.

Provide additional support. Ask what resources are required. Does your employee require additional help or funds to get a project off the ground? Perhaps your child needs a tutor or assistance with creating a resume. Determine what resources are required for success and provide them.

Support is not limited to financial or physical resources. Support means standing alongside; proving you have their back.

Follow up regularly. Show that you care by monitoring their progress. It’s enough to ask and then listen. Asking questions will also help to keep them on track.

Don’t micromanage. Hold people accountable for measurable and attainable goals. Think about Goldilocks – ‘not too big, not too small, but just right.’ That’s the way to set expectations.

Be publically supportive. It’s one thing to support an employee in the privacy of your office. It’s quite another to be supportive in front of his/her co-workers. Parents are guilty of this, too. Avoid only supporting your children around the dinner table. Support them in public also.

Acknowledge and reward. Acknowledge progress and effort regularly. Everyone needs a little boost now and then. Ideally, give acknowledgment publically. Conversely, your disgruntlement and any discipline should be handled privately. It’s as simple as handling praise and reprimands most effectively.

Still More to Think About

Ask for ideas. You might hear a few ideas that are better than your own. It’s easier for others to get excited about their own ideas than to get excited about yours. Using ideas from your team will create a sense of purpose and involvement.

There’s a keen focus on empowerment and inclusion in today’s business. Executives are talking about collaboration too. It all goes together very well toward creating a collaborative environment where people’s ideas are welcome.

Be clear. Vagueness breeds confusion. Confusion saps enthusiasm. It is said ‘a confused mind says NO.’ Leaders need to create clarity.

When the objective and the necessary steps are clear, motivation is easier to generate. Ensure that everyone is clear on their roles.

Set a good example. If it’s important to you, it will be important to your employees, spouse, or children. Don’t just tell them it’s important, but show them by your behavior. Make the objective a priority in your own life.

Create a vision. Paint a picture of the end results in the minds of those involved. The work is not always enjoyable, but it’s the end result that matters. Then keep reminding everyone of how great things will be when it’s over. The work is the path to reach that endpoint.

Deal swiftly with dissenters. It only takes one dissenting, charismatic employee to bring the whole thing crashing down. There’s often one complainer that tries to undermine the enthusiasm of everyone else. Don’t underestimate the damage this one person can do. Have a heart-to-heart conversation with them or move them out of the group.

Play the Whole Game

Motivation isn’t just about adding positive energy. It’s also about removing obstacles. Dissenters are obstacles.

Encourage the sharing of opinions. However, once a decision has been made, expect cooperation.

Encourage others to do their best work or to follow their dreams. Motivating others is a skill that anyone can develop. You can only be as successful as your team. Avoid the belief that you can do it all alone. You can’t.

Great leaders inspire others to be overachievers. It’s a challenging task, but if you’re good at motivating others, you’ll always be one of the most important people around.

More Than a Sales Trick – What is WIIFM?

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sales pitch

Many sales training programs teach a principle called WIIFM. Have you heard it? Know what it means?

It stands for “what’s in it for me?” The concept says a good salesperson must be prepared to answer that question on behalf of the prospect.

In other words, if I am the salesperson, it’s not about ME. It’s about my prospect. I’m supposed to get out of my own story and think about their story.

The prospect will ALWAYS be asking what’s in it for me? They don’t care how slick, smooth or smart you might be. (That helps for sure, but is not enough to win the deal.) You have to answer their questions using their terms AND their story.

It’s not your story.

It also applies to Leadership

I have discovered there is a similar powerful application of the WWIFM idea when coaching leadership development. Clients often ask, how can I be better at engaging my stakeholders or being able to influence ‘up’ the organization.

The answer? WIIFM.

Think about what’s in it for them. Why should they be listening to you? It’s not enough to try to impress people with your skills and knowledge.

You have to approach them on their wavelength, their mindset, using their standards for communicating. Some might call this “know your audience.” I like that too.

If you engage others using the WIIFM mindset, you can become more effective at delivering the value proposition you are responsible for executing.

Delivering Value

You see, we all go to work to create and deliver value. It might be tangible goods, services, or more academic thinking, but it’s incremental value being added to the overall value chain of your business. Otherwise, why should you be there?

If you’re not delivering value in some form or another, you are expendable. The faster you figure out how to demonstrate that value-add to your business partners and stakeholders, the better you will be.

So stop trying to be the resident expert pushing the cart up the hill. Rather think first about what that stakeholder really needs. Get them to share with you the key questions in their mind. While these questions help resolve the WIIFM for your stakeholder, you also need to explore how they engage.

Recently a client was telling me about one stakeholder who never responds to their internal instant messaging system. I asked if anyone else experienced that pushback from the stakeholder. Sure enough, others also complained this person never responded to IM. That’s a clear signal they don’t like that tool. How about an old-fashioned face-to-face?

In the process of learning your audience, ask them how they prefer to engage. In today’s fast-paced world of slick tech tools, there are so many options.

Do they like internal messaging systems, emails, or periodic face-to-face meetings? Figure out the most desired medium for them to receive information. Then stick to that answer.

Senior Execs Need More

The more senior the person you need to engage, the more likely is their sense of WIIFM. They are making split-second decisions about how to spend their minutes each day. If they can’t see a quick and obvious WIFFM answer, they will cut you off and send you away. It doesn’t matter how slick your PowerPoint was going to be.

Plus you should never take that kind of rejection personally. It’s just their way of subtly saying, “…you didn’t answer my WIIFM. Get me a better answer for that and I’ll engage.”

I had a mentor who taught me the phrase “Be bright, be brief, be gone.” The better I perfected that technique the more often I was getting asked to the senior executive floor for consultation. It was obvious I was doing a better job of answering WIIFM.

You can too.

Top 10 Critical Competencies of Great Leaders

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10 great leadership attributes doug thorpe

Great leaders share many common traits. Though criteria for leadership in the workplace can vary from company to company, the majority of effective leaders exemplify certain skills. By focusing on developing these same skills, you can take your leadership abilities to the next level.

Develop these 10 important traits necessary to become a great leader:

Self-motivated. As a leader, it’s important to be able to motivate yourself to take action to move forward toward your goals – whether they’re personal or team goals. Leaders are driven to get things done and they lead their team to do the same.

If you are the leader, you can’t wait for someone else to get you started each day. YOU have to be the spark, the fire to light others up.

The ability to delegate. You can’t do it all yourself. The most effective leaders surround themselves with skilled people, define their responsibilities, and then get out of the way. A single person is quite limited, but many hands can get a lot done. Learn how to share your workload.

This is not always easy, especially for someone who gets promoted up from the ranks. Yet it is vital to your success.

Communicate effectively. You might have a clear picture in your mind of what you’d like to see happen. Unfortunately, no one can read your mind. A leader is responsible for sharing his vision and making his desires known.

  • People can give you what you want when you can communicate clearly what needs to be done.
  • Provide status updates and keep everyone on the same page. Employees lose motivation when they don’t understand the current situation fully.

More Examples

Develop others. Being a leader isn’t just about utilizing others to reach your goals. It’s developing those around you. From a more selfish perspective, the more skilled your employees, the more they can assist you and the company.

  • Share your expertise and help everyone around you to grow.

Be committed. You can’t expect greater commitment than you’re willing to provide. A leader sets the ceiling. Everyone else settles in somewhere below that point. Set the ceiling high and show them what true commitment looks like.

Inspire others. A great leader knows how to inspire others to do their best work. It’s not always easy to inspire those content to simply show up each day and collect a paycheck, but it’s possible. Show your motivation and commitment.

There’s something called discretionary effort. Everyone has it. You can choose to apply it to the work or not. You can meet most job descriptions without ever tapping into discretionary effort. Leaders find ways to tap into this valuable resource in each one of their people.

Even if you’re only able to inspire a few people to do their best, it will make a positive difference.

And here are a few more

Have a clear focus. If you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it. Leaders are clear on their vision and readily share it with others. A clear vision serves as a roadmap. Employees can easily ask themselves if their actions are contributing to the attainment of your vision. Know your focus and communicate it effectively.

Show respect. Strive to treat everyone fairly and avoid playing favorites. Everyone is worthy of a basic level of respect. Ensure that you’re giving it.

Confidence. It’s natural to be drawn to others with confidence. You are viewed as more capable and trustworthy when your confidence level is high. Be comfortable with your skills and your plan.

A lack of self-confidence will limit the ability of others to trust your vision and judgment.

Decisiveness. Leaders make the tough decisions fearlessly and take responsibility for the outcome. It’s easy to make quick decisions when you’re clear on your values and those of the company. If you can’t make up your mind, your leadership skills will be called into question.

Practice by making small decisions quickly and following through on them. It gets easier with practice. You’ll be surprised by how much more you accomplish when you’re able to make a clear decision.

Summary

Leaders are necessary in any organization. Great leaders share common characteristics that you can develop in yourself. Even if you don’t feel you currently possess these qualities, you can grow your capacity to be an effective leader.

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Burn the Boats – The Toughest Leadership Command

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burn the ships

We all like Plan “B” options that afford us an escape when things don’t work out. In 1519, Captain Hernán Cortés landed in Veracruz to begin his great conquest. Upon arriving, he gave the order to his men to burn the ships. How’s that for bold leadership?

What Cortés did was force himself and his men to either succeed or die. A retreat was not an option.

In order to achieve the highest level of success we each desire, there are times when we need to “burn the boats.”

The obvious question becomes “what are my ships or boats”? For starters, your ship may be anything that you are afraid to let go of.

Read more

Lead by Example – Learn by Example

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When starting with a new executive coaching client I often ask ‘what kind of leader do you want to be?’ ‘Someone who leads by example‘ gets a lot of the votes.

As much as I like that answer, it can often be an easy idea to speak, but the hardest action to take. Where do you start? Many folks start by talking about technical expertise. They want to leverage subject matter expertise. That’s fine if you are sitting in a middle management chair within an organization.

But what does it really mean to lead by example? What things should you do? How do you do it? Who’s paying attention? When should you do it?

A Story

Let me share a story. Recently, I began a coaching engagement with a large publicly-traded company. I have several of their leadership team members assigned to me. Just as I began my weekly round of meetings, I was informed a very senior executive had passed away suddenly, at work, on the job.

Apparently, this man had been with the company for almost 30 years. He had been integral in its growth and success.

All of my individual clients were visibly shaken when speaking of this man. It was easy to see how revered and well respected this gentleman was. Each person shared with me their own personal experience being mentored and inspired by him. No one was without a story about “Bill” (the name has been changed to protect confidentiality).

The leadership examples Bill modeled were clear, distinct, and memorable. Truly the acclaim a leader should create. As people began explaining the things Bill did to endear his tribe, I asked “why don’t you try doing that?” The usual answer was, “Yes, I really should try to be that way.”

We see examples of leadership in small gestures, calm ways, meaningful mentions, and quiet resolve, yet we often struggle to decide how to add a skill or trait to our leadership tool kit. Why?

7 Ways

One of the best ways to build trust with the team is to lead by example. Here are seven ways to lead by example and inspire your team.

Get your hands dirty.

Do the work and know your trade. Stay present with the team where they work. Walk the floor, the shop, and the field. Don’t let yourself get caught behind closed doors in the corner office.

As to the details, you don’t have to be the most advanced technician on the team, but you must have an in-depth understanding of your industry and your business. Learn the subject matter if you have to. Leaders have many responsibilities, but it is important to work alongside your team. This is a great way to build trust and continue to develop your own knowledge and skills.

Watch what you say.

Actions do speak louder than words, but words can have a direct impact on morale. For better or for worse. Be mindful of what you say, to whom, and who is listening. Always show support for all team members.

If someone needs extra guidance, provide it behind closed doors. Keep explanations simple and clear. Remember a confused mind says “NO”. Don’t confuse people with lofty technical speak. Just get to the point.

Respect the chain of command.

One of the fastest ways to cause structural deterioration, foster confusion, and damage morale is to go around your direct reports. All team members need to respect the leadership at every level. If the senior leaders don’t respect the chain of command, why would anyone else? This includes the ranks below you in the organization.

Don’t skip level jump a supervisor to talk with a worker. Sure you can share casual banter in the workplace with anyone, but when you have directives, follow and support the chain.

Listen to the team.

As leaders, sometimes we are so consumed with providing directives, giving orders, and, well, talking that we forget to stop and listen. If the recruitment and training engine is functioning well, you should have a whole team of experts to turn to for advice.

One sign of good leadership is knowing that you don’t know everything. Listen and get feedback from your team regularly.

Take responsibility.

As the saying goes, it’s lonely at the top. Blame roles uphill. Great leaders know when to accept that mistakes have been made and take it upon themselves to fix them. It doesn’t matter if one of your team members messed up or you did.

If you are the leader, you need to take responsibility. We hear about the notion that “I’ve got your back.” Prove it by taking flak when it’s aimed at the team. Let the buck stop on your desk. Put the monkey on your back.

Business leader

Let the team do their thing.

Stop micromanaging. Communicate the mission, vision, values, and goals. Then step back and let the team innovate. Setting this example for the team will encourage your other managers to do the same.

Coach and mentor when you have to or when someone presents a problem, but stop solving all the problems. Teach others how to do that.

Take care of yourself.

Wellness and fitness are essential for good leadership. The more you take care of yourself, the more energy you will have and the better work you will do. The only way to build a fitness-oriented culture is to lead by example.

Get in shape and lead from the front. This part is not just about physical fitness but also mental toughness. Find time to recharge, especially after long-distance runs in fast-paced, high-pressure situations like big project delivery or special market shifts. You must re-calibrate periodically. Renew your mind as well as your heart for what it is you are doing.

If you are still wondering how to up your leadership game, let’s have a chat. I can schedule a free call to explore your leadership ideas and plans for growth. Click the image above to set your time to talk.

Real Leaders Don’t Lose the ‘Person’ in Personality

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Whether you own a business or run one for a bigger company, your role as manager/leader is in the spotlight. When people start searching for leadership development tools or management training, you often run into a large segment of the market focused on Personality.

The logic says ‘if I understand my personality, and the personalities of those around me, I can be better leader. Why? Because I can learn to meet them where they are, etc.’

Logic like that is like a 3-year strategic plan. It looks great on paper, it’s a cool workshop to sit in, but what do you really do with the information? Too often it gets implemented poorly and soon forgotten. (I happen to hold a strong bias on the use of common personality tools. Email me and I’ll share that discussion.)

For now I want to challenge you to think about something else.

What’s at the Core

Throughout my coaching career I have often found executives and business owners who struggle with their personality defining the person they think they need to be. Or vice versa. The person they believe they are does not show up when the work gets going. Instead, some different personality appears.

My challenge to you is to consider separating your thinking about the person you want to be from the personality that actually shows up.

Getting a solid grip on the person you want to be has nothing to do with title, role, and financial status. But it has everything to do with the kind of friend, neighbor, and fellow human being you believe you are. It’s about core values, principles, and beliefs. Most leaders, when asked, have a good list defining those things in their personhood.

And, ok, I’m going to say it….

There are some solid jerks in the world (keeping it PG-13). For me, the good news is, I just don’t get many of those folks reading my articles or asking me for coaching. And I’ll never take one as a client.

Instead, I talk with people who are already successful at some level and they want to do more, be more.

The Derailers

First, let’s talk about some common contributors for why personality may interrupt personhood. In the Hogan world we call these ‘derailers.’

One issue that appears most often is the idea that a strength used in excess becomes a derailer. For example, if you are naturally empathetic, you might not drive your team hard enough. Your personality shows up ‘friendly’ and well-intended, but when the going gets tough, people want direction and drive from their boss.

Next, you might be covering something. I don’t mean in a criminal way, but rather in a defensive way. If you are uncertain about a subject, your personality may be too comical, trying to laugh off the tension in the moment. This usually shows up as the boss who cracks jokes at inappropriate times, taking serious discussions off track.

Also, people with highly focused technical ability may come across as too robotic, not enough ‘people’ skill when interacting. Their personality is plastic. Yet when you peel the onion, you find a wonderfully motivated mind wanting to do great things.

The Options

While doing a ‘post-game interview’ wondering what went wrong with a particular situation, you likely may be thinking “I know what I wanted to say or do, but somehow it never came out that way.”

If that is you, then you, my friend, may be suffering from the conflict between person and personality.

First, doing the post-mortem on a meeting or a one-on-one interview can help tremendously to isolate the areas where you are disconnecting person and personality. Do your own analysis.

If it is possible, ask for feedback. Ask for specifics like “When I said ‘X’, how did that strike you?” When you think your personality usurped your personhood, then you have an opportunity to fix it.

When feedback highlights specific gaps, check first to see if the gap is properly covered by those core beliefs and key principles you claim. Not the other way around. Then search for reasons your personality may have thrown up a different solution in the moment. Here are some of those situations.

  • You cracked a joke when you should be serious.
  • You got technical when empathy would have been better.
  • You quoted company policy when a warmer more collaborative idea could have been put to play.
  • You genuinely love your team, but you go to performance issues too often when talking to them.

Ask a mentor or a coach to help you make the distinction between the person you believe you are and the personality that often shows up instead.

Don’t lose the person in personality.

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Daniel Mueller on Leadership

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leadership banner

From time to time, anyone working as a manager needs to decide whether they really are a leader. Several years ago, I began an association with a long-time executive coach, Daniel Mueller. He’s a pioneer in the field of executive coaching having served senior executives across most of the Fortune 500 companies. Daniel has graciously shared some of his information with me. Here is a discussion about leadership.

Change Agents

A leader, by definition, is a change agent. Leaders have the ability to look beyond the status quo, determine the change needed, and introduce it in such a way that the organization successfully grows to the next level of effectiveness.

“Leadership . . . is the ability to step outside the culture to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive” (Schein, 1992).

Effective leaders are competent in gaining and maintaining followers. They communicate at an expert level, inspiring others to go in a certain direction while setting clear expectations of high-level roles and responsibilities. Leaders ensure that all employees understand the mission, vision, values, strategy, and overall direction of the company, along with their own area of responsibility.

They over-communicate, gain buy-in to key initiatives, and obtain strong commitment to achieving the organization’s mission. Developing and communicating the organization’s vision, philosophy, and values is an essential competency of effective leaders, who also model the right values by example, thereby gaining credibility and respect from others.

“Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished” (Richards & Engle, 1986).

Developing Leadership Competentcy

Both nature and nurture play a role in developing excellent leadership competencies. It’s helpful, but not essential, to be born with the genetic predisposition toward leadership.

Nevertheless, leadership competencies can be cultivated and developed. Factors positively associated with the development of leaders include having at least one parent who is a leader; being the eldest child; taking opportunities to lead peers or siblings; having influential childhood role models (e.g., family members, coaches, mentors); holding leadership roles in high school, college, graduate school, or early in a career; taking leadership training programs; and undergoing leadership coaching.

It is useful for leaders to take regular behavioral assessments and to review their self-assessment reports with others who know them well. A spouse or significant other is a good place to start. This review may serve to further validate the report, as well as to remove blind spots that the leader may have.

Deciding on a Style

People tend to prefer their own styles, with a strong propensity to view the world through the filter of their behavioral styles, thus projecting those preferences onto others.

This tendency limits the ability to understand co-workers and others to the fullest extent possible. It is easy to see how this can lead to frustration with others’ behavior, which leads in turn to difficulty in developing high-performance teams.

Through the process of understanding their own leadership styles and being able to identify and understand those of others, effective leaders become more accepting of others’ styles, and others become more accepting of theirs. Each leadership style is valuable in the workplace.

People with the same narrow behavioral style will approach a problem in the same way, usually with sub-optimal results. A leadership team that encompasses a diversity of styles provides a diversity of thought, which leads to peak team performance. Leaders who understand their own behavioral styles are much better able to identify others’ styles.

As leaders grow in their understanding of, and their ability to control, their own styles, they may become more willing and able to adapt their styles to meet the needs of others and of the organization.

Being Adaptable

Demonstrated adaptability is a powerful approach, resulting in increased influence over others. In order to reach full effectiveness, leaders need maximum adaptability. An inaccurate understanding of their own behavioral tendencies will weaken the ability of leaders to effectively adapt their styles to the needs of others.

Effective leaders are able to develop or improve positive relationships in much less time than would normally be needed. Most effective leaders are unconsciously or consciously adept at identifying and adapting their leadership styles to the behavioral styles of the people with whom they work. The leadership quadrant comprises anything related to influencing people.

Setting the Right Focus on Leadership

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Good leadership includes having the right focus. Who are you? Where are you going? Who do you want to be as a leader? That sort of thinking.

There was once a middle manager who was well known for creating great results. Quarter by quarter, his numbers were always good. His team loved working for him, but his peers hated him.

The peers did not simply dislike him, but the loathed him. And the reason why is not what you might be thinking. Jealousy over his good results? Nope. Not even close.

The reason is that he was an ass. Plain and simple. He had no regard for his peers. Yet it was true what I said, his people loved him. How can that be?

bad boss
Bad colleague disrupts meeting

Careful Analysis

The senior executive to whom this man reported had a conundrum. The performance of the single unit was solid and reliable, yet the harmony across the leadership team was crumbling daily. What to do?

Well, a coach was called in. After a few meetings with the gentleman, it was revealed that his #1 goal was to be seen as the best boss anyone could ever work for. It was a noble goal but shrouded in self-aggrandizing glory.

He bent over backward for his team. They loved him for that indeed. He could push but in very special ways. Yet amongst his peers, he was cut-throat, brazen, and very unapproachable.

The focal point he chose for his management career prohibited him from becoming an effective leader.

The Cure

When the manager’s goal about ‘being the best boss’ was finally revealed to the coach. The coach responded with a question.

“What about adding a second goal to be the best team player too?”

This was a classic epiphany for the manager. He was shocked at how shallow his goal actually sounded. You see, he really did have ‘the greater good’ at heart, but he was so focused on the boss thing, he never thought about what it might take to be a good colleague across his peer group.

It was truly a life changing moment for him. He committed to adjusting his plans and his focus.

Viola!

He actually became both.

The Twist

It is so easy to get misaligned as a manger and a leader. You take in so much information on a daily basis, but you can easily get distracted if your personal vision and goal is not set straight.

Here are three quick tips on staying focused the right way.

First, have a vision and a plan. I am routinely surprised by how many of my executive clients fail to establish personal vision for being the leader they want to be.

Yes, they may have corporate goals to conquer, but personal vision counts too. In fact, I argue that your personal vision is really the foundation from which you must lead. Without it, your leadership is on shaky ground.

Next, you need to review your vision with trusted advisors. Get solid and candid feedback before launching out. Had the hero in our story above done so early on, he might have learned the one focus area was not enough.

Lastly, review your vision regularly. Keep your vision and plans evergreen. Have a cycle and a discipline for reviewing what you have set in motion.

Things change. So should your view of the world around you. Having a good vision and a plan is not one-and-done or set-it-and-forget-it.

If you’re looking for a trusted advisor, I’m available for a quick call to meet. We can discuss your situation and talk about ways a coach might help.

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