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Using Coaching and Mentoring as a Leader

Thu, 04 May 2023 19:28:34 GMT

Coaching and mentoring as a leadership and development style works because it treats the employee as an adult, it acknowledges their capacity for growth, and it works on building self-belief and self-reliance.

John Whitmore noted that:

“Adult learning theory tells us that adults learn in a completely different way to children. Self-belief is central to this. Coaching is adult learning in practice and is both what leaders need and the direction in which leadership style needs to travel. In essence coaching is about partnership, collaboration, and believing in potential.” (Whitmore 2017)

Where coaching leadership differs from directive leadership is in using instruction only where necessary for urgent tasks for example, for a technical skill or process briefing, and it avoids the use of telling all together.

Telling and demanding without debate or listening to the other person is disrespectful, it cuts out alternatives and choice, it disempowers, demotivates, and fosters a blame dynamic.

I define a coaching leader as:

A leader who employs coaching and mentoring techniques as part of their leadership approach with the intention to develop in others greater self-awareness, knowledge, skills, and behaviours, so that individuals and the team are motivated and able to increase performance.

Through a respectful dialogue driven approach where listening to understand and asking questions to raise awareness are a fundamental part of the dynamic, both participants will learn. The quality and creativity of solutions found, and decisions made will improve.

Coachees are more likely to be motivated to take ownership of the decision and be responsible for ensuring it gets actioned, with sufficient resources and support.

Coaching and Mentoring Leadership Skills

I want to now look at the fundamentals of coaching and mentoring that will help you put this style of leadership into practice in your workplace.

Relationships

The starting point to building engaged and motivated team is to take an interest in them as people, get to know them. This will provide you with the foundation of trust that everything else is built upon.

I am not saying you need to be best buddies with everyone, but in the context of a professional working relationship you need to take an interest in them as people and as individuals.

You can’t get the best out of people if you don’t know what makes them tick, and you can’t judge their motivators if you don’t know what is important to them.

It is important to understand what capacity your team member has for taking on new stretch tasks or dealing with change.

Capacity refers to an individual’s ability to absorb change or take on new tasks effectively. People can only take on a certain amount of new knowledge, tasks or change before they become overloaded, the consequences of which may include, underperformance, burnout, depression, or anxiety.

Capacity then, is a finite resource. It is not divided between work and personal lives. Your team members’ capacity might be being taken up with personal things as well as their work life, and whilst we can’t pry into people’s personal lives, we need to be cognisant of the fact and attuned to what’s going on.

It takes time but with respect, trust, and a genuine interest in people you will build a more solid foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship.

Listening, Reflecting and Questioning

These are the three fundamental activities of a coaching and mentoring style of leadership.

1. Active listening with the intent to understand what is being said

2. Reflecting back what people have said to check understanding

3. Asking open questions to generate insight and self-awareness

Practicing and becoming competent at all of these will elevate your interactions with your team and you will find that over time you get much more creative thought and idea generation, as well as building skills in your team members that will allow them to be more autonomous and make more decisions themselves.

Listening and Reflecting

When someone comes to you with a problem your first thought may be to give them the answer, maybe you are an expert, or you are in hurry, or you just feel it would be helpful.

This may be what is needed but try not to rush into giving advice or solutions, rather help people to think for themselves first.

Most of the time, most of us are not listening to understand if we are honest. Depending on the situation, the person speaking and what’s going on in our lives we are usually listening in one of three ways, which I am sure you will recognise.

Surface listening is where we are not really listening at all, we give the impression we are, or at least attempt to look like we are listening, but we could probably not repeat back much of what we heard.
Conversational listening, this is where we are thinking about our response as the other person is talking, before they have finished their point. Our focus is on ourselves, this makes us impatient to speak, which we may show through body language, signalling to the other person we are eager for them to finish.
Critical listening mode,is listening but not with the intent to understand, but rather they are critically evaluating every word and deciding their critical response before the full information has been transmitted and before they have chance to fully process the information.

Active listening means listening with one’s full attention and not thinking about what you are going to say, questions should be spontaneous based purely on what you hear.

As Nancy Kline in her excellent bestseller Time to Think, succinctly defines it,

“Listening with respect and without interruption” (1999)

Kline also summarises beautifully the power of listening and being fully present with the phrase,

“The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking” (1999).

In my practice as a coach, I have found that the biggest benefit to the coachee is the simple fact of being listened to properly, with respect, without judgement and without interruption so that they can clarify their thoughts and express themselves fully.

Best Practice for Active Listening and Reflection

Firstly, be present and pay attention. Give the person speaking your full attention and try to put everything else out of your mind.

The skill is mastering the ability to pay full attention and block out the distractions so that you can actually process fully what people are saying. It needs commitment and practice; it is rooted in the ability to be present in a given situation.

You should also observe body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice as you are listening, to gauge the true meaning behind what is being said. Sometimes the words don’t match the tone, facial expression, or body language which may be a signal that you should be probing through reflection and open questions.

As you are listening try not to be judgemental or to jump to conclusions, let them finish what they are saying, before you make conclusions. Being judgemental inevitably leads to defensiveness and to the other person closing up or perhaps going on the attack, so hold your judgement and try to listen as a neutral observer.

Mind the Gap!

Don’t rush to fill the gaps in a conversation if you think the speaker is still processing and thinking. It can be awkward, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but if you think there is more to come then try to wait a few seconds before jumping in.

Questioning

Asking open questions is another way of eliciting information, helping people to think, probing assumptions, and drawing insights.

Open questions are most useful at the start of a conversation because they get the speaker to think and do not close down alternatives and they avoid you just getting the answer you are looking for.

For example, “Do you like working here?” is a closed question, it will elicit a yes or no answer and does not give much room for an expansive response

Simply changing the question to “What do you think about working here?” or “How do you feel about working here?” is going to get you a different, more expansive answer.

When asking questions, you are trying to find out what the person really thinks and feels.

You need to avoid causing defensiveness which tends to get people to close up or go on the attack.

“Why” questions can make people defensive. Avoiding why questions is a really simple but effective change you can make that will have a positive impact on the quality of your interactions.

For example, if someone says, “I really think we should reconsider the marketing plan for the new product launch”.

Asking “Why?” is likely to lead them into a defence of their statement not a further explanation or greater depth.

Whereas you can reframe the question as an open question, such as: “What do think the main issues are?”, “What reasons do you have for wanting to reconsider”, or simply “Tell me more about that”

Example Questions

There is no one set of magic questions as it will depend on the specific situation, however you can think of types of questions being categorised into groups that help you achieve different goals in the conversation.

You can use these as a guide to help you have meaningful conversations and to help you coach someone into finding clarity, insight and the action needed to solve their issue.

Clarification

What do you mean by…?

Can you give me an example?

What do you think is the main issue?

Probe Assumptions

What else could we assume?

How did you arrive at these assumptions?

What happens if your assumption is wrong?

Reasoning and Evidence

Can you give me a specific example?

What evidence are you basing your answer on?

Alternatives and choices

Are there different ways of looking at this problem?

What other choices do you have?

Focus on Action

Coaching and mentoring are not passive activities, they are action focused with the aim of delivering improved performance and achievement of objectives.

Questions you can use to probe action and commitment are:

How confident are you in achieving the objective?

On a scale of 1 to 10 how committed are you to this objective?

What resources do you need?

When will you achieve the objective?

What steps do you need to take to achieve the objective

ABC

To paraphrase a famous sales mantra (Always Be Closing), you should Always Be Coaching. What I mean is that adopting a coaching attitude and approach should become second nature when you are interacting with your team, so that even in informal moments or brief conversations you are using the key techniques we’ve discussed here.

For example, one of your team comes to your desk and says,

“Hey boss, have you got a couple of minutes I need to get your advice on something?”

Your instinct may be to listen to what they have to say (hopefully actively listening) and then to say:

“Well, what I think you should do is…” or “Why don’t you do X”

If we get ourselves into a coaching mindset, we should respond in a different kind of way. For example:

“Can you clarify what the main issue is for me?”
“What do you think the next steps should be?”
“What would be a good outcome here?”
“What would you like to do?”

The point to remember is that we need to get into the habit of supporting our people to think through the possible solutions for themselves, to clarify what they mean, and to be clear on the outcome they are looking for.

Master Delegation

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 19:55:02 GMT

Effective Delegation

“The inability to delegate is one of the biggest problems I see with managers at all levels.“

(Eli Broad)

Find out how to delegate more effectively to motive, drive performance and increase efficiency.

Why do we find it difficult to delegate?

It is often one of the hardest things for a new manager to let go of a task and to trust someone else to do it. Let’s unpack the reasons why it is so difficult for many people to delegate before we get on to how to delegate effectively.

At the root of people’s reluctance to delegate lie three emotions of control, fear and trust and a practical element of time and efficiency:

· They don’t trust the person to do the job they need doing.

· They fear losing control of the process and output.

· They fear the consequences of things going wrong, mistakes, or deadlines missed.

· They fear it not being done in exactly the same way they would have done it!

The final element that puts people off delegating is time and efficiency. The view that it takes longer than doing it yourself by the time you have explained what you want and how do to it and therefore what’s the point.

If you are going to get the most out of people and maximise their potential, you need to let them get on with it.

· Empower and support them to do their best, make decisions and deliver results.

· Trust them to come to you when they need to and trust you will be there for them.

What We Will Cover:

· Understand the capacity and capability of your team members.

· Clearly define roles, responsibilities, objectives, and expectations

· Practice Effective Delegation – What, Why, When, How

· Get out of their way and Empower and Support them to own it.

· Deliver the environment, culture and resources that Enables them to succeed.

· Prioritise your workload so you can delegate the important non urgent stuff ahead of time.

Definitions

Effective Delegation is empowering, trusting, and enabling someone to take responsibility for the delivery of a task or project, with minimal supervision safe in the knowledge they have the capacity, capability and support needed to succeed.

Empowering means giving someone the responsibility to make decisions to deliver something with the necessary support, but it does not include a full transfer of accountability. You can make someone fully responsible, but you have to maintain shared accountability.

If you own this idea of joint accountability, you will delegate much more effectively because you are jointly accountable for the success or failure, and you will do all you can to fully enable them to succeed. Good feedback throughout the process is also an integral part of effective delegation.

The Critical Components

1. Capacity and Capability

You need to be sure that the person has the capability and capacity, to be empowered with a specific task.

· Capacity is a finite resource. Think of it like a single bucket. Once it’s full you need to stop adding to it otherwise it will overflow. It is not divided between work and personal lives.

Build awareness of the capacity of your team and they should feel comfortable raising any issues around capacity, without fear of retribution in a psychologically safe environment.

You can help build capacity and support people who are at their limit by doing the following:

· Providing more time, if possible, to complete a task.

· Give additional resource or delegate tasks to someone else.

· Providing a culture of support and psychological safety.

Capability refers to the skills and knowledge required for a particular task. A person may have the capacity to change but lack certain key capabilities. It is important to be aware of the capability of the person before delegating responsibility for a task.

A lot of experience and knowledge comes on the job, which is where ongoing coaching and mentoring support are a crucial ingredient to effective delegation and true empowerment. In many cases, building capability can expand their capacity.

2. How You Delegate

Always be clear on:

1. What it is you are delegating

2. Why you need it doing.

3. When it needs to be completed by

4. How you want the work to be completed

WHAT needs to be as clear as possible and you need to allow for questions and challenge. Setting clear objectives is critical to good delegation. I use Lock and Latham’s 5 principles as a check list for determining an objective. The first three steps are how you set the objective and the last two steps are about how you help with its implementation and follow through.

The five principles are:

Complexity – break down into the least complex steps
Clarity – Clear, unambiguous, and precise
Challenge – the sweet spot of stretching but achievable.
Commitment – check and recheck commitment to goal.
Feedback – progress feedback and course correction

Applying these principles helps to ensure that the objective for the delegated task is something that can be achieved and measured, i.e., we’ll know when it’s done.

What about SMART objectives?

You can’t argue with the basic principles of SMART but over 30 years I have never been able to fit my objectives consistently and successfully into SMART, particularly broad-based strategic objectives, or long term multifaceted ones. I personally find it time consuming and inefficient attempting to crowbar objectives into it, so a set of principles work better for me.

The Why is critical to effective delegation. Motivation is driven by the why not the what. Explain why the task is going to help the team achieve its goals, why it matters and what the benefits are. People want to feel their effort is part of something bigger and want to understand how it fits into achieving the team or company goals.

Even mundane tasks need to be set in context, you may not be able to truly motivate and inspire with every task you delegate (let’s be real about it) but you can always explain how it helps you, the team, or the company.

Alternative examples of how you could delegate a relatively simple task:

“I need you to complete this spreadsheet for me every week to log the instances of invoice errors that we are experiencing. It’s important it gets done every week by Friday at 1 pm and sent to me for review and inclusion in my report. I appreciate your help on this one. Let me know if you have any questions.”

This is not bad. A lot of managers will be worse. But alternatively, you could explain the importance of this relatively simple and mundane task and the benefits it can help deliver.

“One of our team objectives this year is to reduce the number of invoice errors to improve our customer service and reduce costs within the business, it is part of the wider company initiative to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

To be able get on top of the issue we first need to know the scale of the problem and to be able to analyse the data to look for patterns, without this we won’t be able to achieve our objective this year so it’s really important we gather this data.

In order to help with this, I need you to complete this spreadsheet for me every week to log the instances of invoice error that we are experiencing. It’s important it gets done every week by Friday at 1 pm and sent to me for review and inclusion in my report. I’d value your input into the process and spreadsheet layout, as well as any insight you can glean from the data, which would be invaluable. Do you have any questions or suggestions at this point?”

When the work needs to be completed should be transparent and realistic, without ambiguity. We all know plans and timings change. Being honest and straight forward about timings is a key determining factor of the level of motivation of the person delegated to.

It is frustrating and demotivating when the person who delegates a task messes around with timing, the opposite of the feelings we want to inspire.

· Don’t be the boss who pads lots of time into the deadline for themselves.

· Don’t be fuzzy about deadlines and then all of a sudden the deadline is “missed”.

· Some things are genuinely urgent, but don’t be the boss where everything is urgent.

So make sure to:

· Always give a deadline even if you are relaxed about when you get something back.

· People need to plan their work and you have to respect their time.

· Be up front and honest about your timing. Trust your people to work with you on it.

· Make sure you always acknowledge the work when it comes to you.

· For urgent, and important work, give a clear deadline and explain why it’s urgent.

· Plan your delegation so that you can avoid everything being urgent.

You should be creating a culture and relationships that enable your team members to ask you if the deadline is still the same, to suggest new deadlines based on their workload and to feel like they can communicate with you as needed.

How you want the work to be completed is critical. Remember the more you can provide clarity upfront the better things will go and the more trust you can have in the person you delegate to.

Beware the perfectionist and micro manager, this is not an invitation for you to tell people exactly how to do something! We want to empower people to do things their way, but we may have some requirements around the format, layout or specific regulations or professional guidelines. Now get out of the way!

3. Empower

The person delegated to needs to own the task fully and have full responsibility for its delivery.

· You have to feel comfortable letting go and letting them get on with it

· You have to trust them to come to you when they need a question answered, additional resource, guidance, or support.

· You have to trust in your effective delegation that they know what to do, why they are doing it and how to do it.

Responsibility is a duty to perform or complete a task. Accountability is an assurance that an individual will be held to account and be evaluated on the completion of their responsibilities.

You are still ultimately accountable for the work. Shared accountability is an important precept in delegation as your team member needs to feel they will not be hung out to dry! The assumption is that the person delegated to works with in the normal ethical boundaries and is transparent with you, flags mistakes or problems early and openly and is not knowingly negligent in anyway.

4. Enabling

Importantly empowering people is not just handing things over without the support, training, resources, and guidance required. To properly empower you need to enable people to succeed by giving them the what they need. This includes knowledge, skills, and tools they need to be successful, including coaching, resources, guidance, and training.

It also includes creating the right culture with high levels of emotional safety and a growth mindset to ensure that people feel safe and secure in their ability to flag bad news early, highlight delays and mistakes and call out any practices that are hindering their progress.

If we enable people to take ownership in the knowledge of why they are doing their job and with clear expectations established in an environment of emotional safety, then you will get highly engaged motivated people giving their best and delivering results.

Feedforward

owright244@aol.com (Oliver Wright) — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 15:02:40 GMT

Future focused feedback for positive development

The importance of feedback

Feedback is a critically important part of delivering effective leadership. It is necessary to be able to give effective feedback and receive feedback well, as a learning moment with a positive growth mindset.

For most people I think, feedback is both difficult to receive, particularly if given poorly and difficult to give. It is particularly difficult to give feedback well and for it to be a positive experience for the giver and receiver of the feedback.

When we hear feedback that challenges our view of ourselves, we have a natural tendency to feel we are under attack by the feedback. This is particularly true if the negative feedback received goes against a strong view, we have of ourselves and therefore challenges our ego.

When we react badly to feedback, we tend to stop listening and we are no longer present, therefore we stop learning. The person receiving the feedback may not really hear or be able to process anything you say immediately after giving the feedback.

So, it’s difficult and it can go wrong, but we do need to give feedback, both positive and negative so we have to work on how we do it as well as we possibly can. What does effective feedback look like and what are the key ingredients?

Feedback is not just for Annual Reviews!

There are so many organisations that still operate the tick box annual / half yearly review model. With tortuous forms to be filled in and awkward annual review meetings to be had for many.

Those leaders or managers who feedback regularly and have good relationships with their team do not need the annual or half yearly review.

Those leaders who are underperforming and bad at their job need to change their leadership style, not sit a room once a year giving out of date and stilted feedback on a person’s performance who they haven’t spoken to meaningfully all year.

“In a survey of 30,000 employees, only 29% claimed to know if they were doing a good job based on reviews from their bosses. CEB research found that more than 9 in 10 managers are dissatisfied with how their companies conduct annual performance reviews, and almost 9 in 10 HR leaders say current appraisal models don’t yield accurate information. When it comes to helping others succeed, traditional feedback hardly draws rave reviews.” (Hirsch)

Specific feedback focused on growth

Feedback should be a regular, ongoing part of a relationship feedback should be focused on the things that will make a difference to a person’s behaviour and performance, specifically for the individual in question.

It should be focused on helping deliver change that makes a difference in their job and helps them grow into future roles.

Feed Forward

This is where a different way to think about and practice feedback, which is focused on the future. Feed Foward can be really powerful.

“Feedforward is a unique approach to giving feedback that improves performance, boosts productivity, and keeps teams on track. Unlike traditional feedback, feedforward is timely, continuous, and focused on development – a refreshing change from the typical feedback fare that rarely makes a positive difference or offers much insight about how work gets done.” (Joe Hirsch,)

This approach differs from the traditional approach to feedback, in that it focuses on the future and future development, rather than getting bogged down in what went wrong or right in the past, which doesn’t help development and growth into the future.

Traditional Negative feedback focuses on shortcomings, and behavioural issues that occurred in the past

Negative Feedforward:

Focuses only on those behaviours may affect future performance, success, or achievements.
Focus is on correcting or neutralising behaviours that may get in the way of your future development and progression.
It has a future focused emphasis on the benefits of changing or stopping behaviours, rather than critiquing the behaviour.
The person is motivated by future benefits of modifying or stopping these behaviours.

Traditional positive Feedback focuses on past successes or desired behaviour, a well done or a good job.

Positive Feedforward:

Focuses on future benefits of behaviours that will enhance outcomes and results
Will help the person achieve their career and performance goals.
Understands why developing an area of strength or putting more time and effort into something can benefit them or the team in the future.

The core elements to feedforward are:

The feedback given should be timely, continuous and specific,
Focused on future development
Action orientated.

There are also some other key elements to giving effective feedback which are the strength of the relationship, where you give feedback, and your body language, tone of voice and facial expressions.

The Relationship

Ideally you need to have a good relationship with the person you are giving feedback to, built on mutual respect and with a level of trust.

You need to build rapport, listen, and ask open questions, the fundamentals of coaching, to get an understanding of the persons ego state and pinion of themselves and where they see their strengths and weaknesses.

You need to respect them as an individual and ideally, they need to respect you and to know that you have their best interests at heart. These are key building blocks for a relationship in which feedback has the best chance of been taken in the spirit of learning and growth rather than criticism and threat.

Body language, facial expression, and tone of voice

The person receiving feedback will have heightened awareness of any signs that you don’t mean what you say, or that you are angry or disappointed when giving the feedback. This will cause a defensive reaction and will not help you land your feedback nor help the receiver grow and develop.

It is important that you control your body language, facial expressions, and one of voice to give feedback in a neutral or positive way so that the words are what carries the weight and meaning, giving the receiver has a better chance of taking the feedback neutrally or positively.

Thinking about how give the feedback is as important as what you say. Being present, self-aware, and making sure you are relaxed when giving feedback will help you achieve the right tone and approach.

The mindset that you have is really important, it should be one of helping the person learn and change rather than one of disappointment, anger, or frustration.

Place and Time

Feedback should be giving at the appropriate time in the appropriate setting.

Where you should give feedback, it is partly dependent on your relationship and the nature of the feedback, but always make sure it is sufficiently private, quiet, and away from the desk and daily work. If it is serious negative feedback that is touching on a potentially difficult area, then this should be more formal and structured, and you should leave plenty of time. Other feedback can be given over coffee or in a short meeting but as long as you focus on feedback and learning.

In terms of timing, this should not be immediately after the event or witnessed behaviour, unless it is a quick “well done”, any more detailed feedback needs to be done after a small gap in time. But just as importantly it should not be left for too long. This reduces the ability to accurately recall and reduces the impact because it is less vivid in the mind of the receiver.

So ideally you are looking at feedback being given regularly and close in time to the events or behaviour in question. I would want to have feedback given within a few days ideally, and no more than 10 days out. That way it is fresh in people’s minds and the recall is easy for both parties and how things “felt” can still be accessed, which is important.

Feedback early feels relevant and important and not an afterthought or tick box exercise in a scheduled annual or half yearly review. If it’s worth giving feedback on, it’s worth doing now.

Specific and relevant areas for development

Managers should focus in on the details and behaviours that matter and not worry about feedback on those that don’t or that are not critical to job performance or future development potential.

Keeping feedback specific, focused, and regular makes it easier to give richer more relevant feedback and makes it more actionable.

Actionable Feedback

By keeping feedback specific and forward looking it becomes easier to also make the feedback actionable. It must be something that the receiver can do something with.

Broad based generic comments or platitudes are not helpful because the receiver can’t action a change…either stop or develop.

You should be aiming not to overwhelm people with lots of areas of change or with big steps, rather think about how to break down feedback into actionable chunks that are uncomplicated steps on the road to improvement and that can be demonstrated, measured, and reviewed.

For example, if we are trying to work on a behavioural change to improve someone’s collaboration with others, we need to break this down into less daunting and more actionable feedback objectives than “You need to be more collaborative”, by building a plan of actions that will lead to greater collaboration. For example, the first two steps could be:

1. Bring one issue or question to each team meeting and ask for input

2. Join a project team that needs your specific skills to help resolve an issue

Growth Mindset

owright244@aol.com (Oliver Wright) — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 08:42:09 GMT

Find out more about how having a growth mindset, can help you face challenges and continue to develop throughout your life. Most successful people continue self-improvement even after they ‘make it’ in life.

What is Growth Mindset?

A growth mindset, is the belief that a person's capacities and talents can be improved over time and are not fixed.

The theory was developed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and explained in her 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Underpinning the idea is the belief that skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence and that we are not fixed with a certain level of intelligence or innate ability at birth.

Dweck found that some people have a fixed mindset, whilst others exhibit a growth mindset, and people can therefore be placed on a spectrum from having a fixed to a growth mindset.

People with a growth mindset embrace challenges, build resilience through perseverance when faced with hurdles, learn from constructive criticism and their mistakes, and take inspiration from others.

Those with a fixed mindset tend to see things as in a deterministic way and have a belief in natural ability and innate talents, that you either have or you don’t.

So, for someone with a fixed mindset you can grow or improve if you don’t have the talent, so hard work and perseverance will not be rewarded with growth and success.

Individuals may not necessarily be aware of their own mindset, but their mindset can still be discerned based on their behaviour.

It is especially evident in their reaction to failure. Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a negative statement on their basic abilities, while growth mindset individuals don't mind or fear failure as much because they realize their performance can be improved and learning comes from failure. These two mindsets play an important role in all aspects of a person's life.

Dweck argues that the growth mindset will allow a person to live a less stressful and more successful life. People with a growth mindset are determined to learn irrespective of failures or successes. More often than not successful people continue on their self-improvement journeys even after they ‘make it’ in life

As Dweck states:

In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it. "Stanford University's Carol Dweck on the Growth Mindset and Educatio n OneDublin.org. June 19, 2012. Retrieved May 2022

Fixed Mindset

Those with a fixed mindset believe "intelligence is static" and there is very little to be done to improve ability. (Bates, Bob 2016).

For someone with a fixed mindset feedback is not seen as a positive chance for growth or development but as an "evaluation of their underlying ability" as they believe that their performance is based on their innate ability. For these people the fear of failure is one of their biggest concerns because it affects their self-image and "suggests constraints or limits they would not be able to overcome". Yousefi, H., & Khalkhali, V. (2020)

A those with a fixed mindset believe talent is everything and that you have it or you don’t, as such they are highly judgemental of themselves, and others. They assume everyone is judging them, and so are very self-conscious of their performance and of being the smartest person in the room.

Their sense of self is tied up in how well they perform and how few mistakes they make, they feel like one mistake or failure could brand them as useless for the rest of their life’s. This leads them to seek approval from others to reinforce their self-image and protect their egos.

Growth Mindset

Those with a growth mindset believe "intelligence can be developed" and their abilities can be enhanced through the learning process (Bates, Bob 2016).

They understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, teaching, coaching and persistence. It is not about thinking everyone can become the very best at everything or that everyone can be as good as everyone else, but it’s about believing everyone has the ability to learn if the put in the time and effort.

Feedback and failure are seen as opportunities for increasing ability and learning new skills. This means people with a growth mindset are more likely to persevere and keep going through adversity and difficulties.

Keown and Bourke (2019), added the notion of Grit to this field, which is a combination of determination and perseverance, with this concept of Grit seen as critical in succeeding with a growth mindset.

This concept of the growth mindset is also found in the bestselling book Outliers: The Story Of Success (Gladwell, 2008) in which Malcolm Gladwell describes the sheer amount of hard work and time the very best in their field have to commit to become exceptional. In other words, even those who are often ascribed as having “natural or god given” talent, such as Tiger Woods, Cristiana Rolando or Yo Yo Ma, have all put in many thousands of hours of practice to become exceptional at what they do, and they continue to do so throughout their career, always believing they can become better.

What factors affect our Mindset?

Mindset development begins at birth. Babies come into the world with a growth mindset and you can observe babies and young children trying new things again and again with no innate fear of failure, with the mindset to learn and develop and try new things.

However, as children grow, and they interact with parents and teachers so their mindset can be influenced.

If parents exhibit a growth mindset and encourage learning, trying new things and to learn from mistakes or failure, then they encourage a growth mindset. But parents who limit and judge their children or who over praise them in everything they do can limit the desire to want to continue learning. Either because they become afraid of failure and being judged so they limit the risk, or they come to believe due to all the praise they receive for everything that they are perfect and do not need to try too hard to improve.

Adopting a growth mindset

Adopting or improving your growth mindset is possible, having a fixed mindset is not “fixed". But changing to a growth mindset from a fixed one isn’t an easy task.

But we can train our brain to think more in a growth mindset kind of way, but you need be self-aware of your own thought patterns and habits, and you need to be willing to step outside your comfort zone to accommodate changes.

Develop a growth mindset:

You don’t need to know it all

Internalising the fact that you do not need to be perfect as a leader and you do not need to know everything or have all the answers is critical not only for success but for your mental health.

Being perfect or having all the answers should not even be a goal, it’s not possible nor is it desirable.

Perfectionists tend to be micro managers who are afraid to delegate and empower, they also tend to procrastinate for fear of getting the decision wrong or not perfect. And no one knows everything, which is why great leaders surround themselves with great people, they admit what they don’t know and listen to understand and learn.

Don’t seek others approval

This is a difficult one for many, if not most people, to a greater or lesser extent. We often obsess over what people think of us, in work it is usually our boss or the “higher ups”, but also, as a leader, our team.

Let me stress it is important to be aware of how you come across as a leader and you should be conscious of the words you choose and the behaviours you display, but your motivation should not be for others approval, it should be because this is what you believe is the best way to be successful as a leader.

Seeking others’ approval can prevent us from learning, and from getting to the best solutions. It can stifle innovation and stop you trying things.

Purpose and Long-Term Goals

Having a sense of purpose leads to setting goals for the longer term. This helps provide direction and motivation by giving us a reason to keep going, to keep trying and to keep learning.

We can set learning objectives and be open to new experiences to help us achieve our goals and purpose.

It takes time to grow and achieve meaningful goals. Learning a new behaviour and changing the way we think is like learning to play a new instrument, it’s a journey and takes practice. A growth mindset teaches you that progress and effort towards success are what’s important.

Learning Opportunities

Look at failure, rejection, and mistakes as learning opportunities.

That’s not to say we don’t lick our wounds and we definitely need to reflect. So, take the time you need to get over the initial disappointment but then you need to learn and move on.

There will be times when you make mistakes or don’t perform well. People will give you feedback and tell you how to do better. Don’t look at feedback as a criticism of your abilities. Be open to suggestions and strive to do better.

Professional sports people are brilliant at this, they need to be able to go through the process quickly during a game, the very best moving on from an error or disappointment immediately or in minutes putting it behind them to focus on the game. Even the great Roger Federer had unforced errors in every game he ever played. After the game the reflection and learning process takes place, but not recrimination or dwelling on the error or disappointment.

Assertive Communication for Better Outcomes

owright244@aol.com (Oliver Wright) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 20:10:59 GMT

Being truly assertive, using neutral language, is highly effective for managing difficult and sensitive conversations, asking for what you want and for dealing with conflict.

I’m sure, like me, you’ve had times at work or in your personal life where you have had to have difficult or awkward conversations or perhaps try to manage conflict.

Maybe it was a difficult team member who was not playing ball, or asking for a promotion or raise, or perhaps it was a conflict situation with a customer.

These situations are difficult for most of us because they are emotionally charged. This means we often find it difficult to react in a calm and unemotional way, and the true reasonable meaning of what we want to say can get lost. This can lead to defensive or negative reactions from the other person and resolution or getting what we want is hard to achieve.

The reason I wanted to write about assertive communication is because it is such a useful and practical tool to have and it comes up a lot in my coaching sessions whether it is directly or indirectly.

What is Assertive Communication?

Firstly, let’s start with what it is not!

It is not in anyway aggressive or pushy and its not about making demands. In fact, it is the opposite of aggressive. It is about controlling how we communicate, our body language, the words we speak and the tone we use.

So how do we define assertive communication?

Assertiveness can be understood as relational style that treads a middle path between being passive and being aggressive.

Assertiveness is the ability to express positive and negative ideas and feelings in an open, honest, and direct way. To assert your rights and needs, whilst still being considerate and empathetic to the other person.

It’s also about taking the judgement and negative emotions out what is said, and about understanding and empathising with the other persons point of view.

Using an assertive approach to communication we aim to express our feelings and needs in a compassionate, and non-judgemental way, but at the same time in a way that is direct and unambiguous.

What are the benefits of being assertive?

It can help build self-confidence and provide lead to with a greater sense of empowerment, because you can express clearly what you want and want you don’t want so its easier to get things done.

Assertive communication can help make you a better leader, because you are clear, honest empathetic and fair minded in your communication. You treat people with respect and people know where they stand with you and what you expect.

It's also an important part of negotiating with and influencing customers and internal stakeholders.

By listening to understand and being empathetic and explaining your needs without creating a defensive reaction it is easier to negotiate a win / win and build positive relationships.

How can I become more assertive?

Set a goal to become more assertive

Think about how you express what you feel, need, believe, or want.

Use clear I statements to ensure you are understood. For example:

“I need you to listen carefully to what I have to say in this meeting as it is important that you understand.” Or “I believe that we should invest in the new marketing plan because it will boost brand awareness.”

Be persistent and don’t be put off by the reaction of the other person or allow them to divert the conversation to another topic.

Repeat yourself if you need to and if need be, use even more direct and firm communication, always remaining calm and clear in what you want.

Remember you are not responsible for how the other person reacts to our assertiveness.

Prepare in advance, if possible, think about what and how you are going to say something, and also ensuring you get to say what you need to say.

If you can’t prepare and it’s a spontaneous conversation or moment, don’t’ be afraid to ask for time or choose to respond later. You can always say:

“I hear what you are saying but I need time to think about it before I respond”

Listen carefully to understand and empathise with the other persons point of view so that you can be conscious of their thoughts and viewpoint whilst still being assertive.

Practical Steps to assertiveness using NVC

In my opinion the best place to start to help understand and build a model for assertive communication is Non-Violent Communication developed by Michael B. Rosenberg (Nonviolent communication: a language of compassion, 1999).

As Rosenberg states: “When we express our needs indirectly through the use of evaluations, interpretations, and images, others are likely to hear criticism. And when people hear anything that sounds like criticism, they tend to invest their energy in self- defence or counterattack” (Rosenberg 2003)

Using Rosenberg’s work, we can call on a framework of steps that help us develop an assertive non-violent communication style.

1. Observe and assess the situation

The first step is to listen and observe effectively.

Listening attentively and closely enables us to better understand what the other person is saying rather than just hear what they are saying, it’s only through understanding others can we empathise effectively with others.

The next thing is to observe without judgment, which is much easier to say than to do. One way to help express your observations without judgement is to be as specific as possible.

So, for example:

“You never listen to me.” Which is a judgemental statement and likely to illicit a defensive reaction, becomes:

“The last three times I have tried to talk to you about my concerns regarding workload you have not listened to what I was really saying.”

Or “You are never around when I need you.” Becomes:

“You have a lot of meetings at the times when I am free, and it is difficult for me to find time with you.”

Both are specific and free of explicit or implied criticism or judgement of motivation, which is much less likely to provoke a defensive reaction. But both comments are still direct and unambiguous, neither are they passive.

2. Express how you feel

The next step is to express our feeling in a clear and open way to enable the other person to know what we affect their behaviour is having on us. Many of us are not used to expressing feelings specifically or in detail and will need to practice and think about what we are going to say.

As with observation the first step is to be specific to help the listener understand what’s going on inside.

“This makes me feel annoyed.” is quite vague and can lead to misunderstanding. So we need to try to explain in more specific detail what is we are feeling.

To continue our example:

“The last three times I have tried to talk to you about my concerns regarding workload you have not listened to what I was really saying.”

“This makes me feel like you do not take my time and work life balance seriously”

3. Communicate your needs

Again, the theme of being specific and unambiguous is important here.

It is really important to communicate what you would like to happen or what you need the other person to do, or both, in clear unambiguous terms.

This helps you feel good that you are getting your needs heard and importantly it gives the other person a chance to do something about it. They may not agree with everything, or they may not be able to give you what you want or fix the problem, but they will at least know what the need is and be able to address it directly.

So, building on our example expressing need clearly and in detail would be:

“The last three times I have tried to talk to you about my concerns regarding workload you have not listened to what I was really saying.”

“This makes me feel like you do not take my time and work life balance seriously”

“Work life balance and managing my time effectively is really important to me and I need this to be respected.”

Again, this is a clear statement that puts a reasonable statement of fact across to the other listener that should not illicit a defensive reaction, it is not passive and crucially it tells them precisely what your need is.

4. Express what you would like to happen

This is where we make a specific request to change something or for something to happen. Using the phrase “would you please” or “could we please”,

The request needs to be as clear and specific as possible and presented in positive language. The clearer we are about what we would like the more likely we are to get it.

Positive language means asking for something to be done or action to be taken, rather than stopping something.

So instead of saying “I want to stop going to so many meetings.” We say “Could we please review and agree which meetings I need to attend as a priority?”

So, completing the example:

“The last three times I have tried to talk to you about my concerns regarding workload you have not listened to what I was really saying.”

“This makes me feel like you do not take my time and work life balance seriously”

“Work life balance and managing my time effectively is really important to me and I need this to be respected.”

“Could we please agree my work priorities for the next 3 months and which meetings I really need to attend, so I can better manage my time and workload?”

An example of dealing with a difficult team member might be:

Instead of saying:

"Your behaviour is creating a bad atmosphere in the team, you are being aggressive and rude. I and others have noticed it and it's not how you should be behaving towards others. For example when you interrupted Sue in the meeting and called Bob's idea terrible".

We could try:

"In todays meeting I witnessed you interrupt one member of the team and be rude to another member of the team

This makes me feel that you are not considering others needs and the team members in question have told me it makes them feel frustrated that they are not being listened to and their ideas are being shot down

Listening to and respecting others opinions is an important part of the expectations for your role and of being a member of this team and I need this behaviour to stop.

Could you please take time to consider your behaviour and talk to me about why you are behaving in this way and what you could do differently."

Find out more about NVC:

“Upon developing the Nonviolent Communication process in the 1960’s, Marshall B. Rosenberg strove to teach people of any age, gender, ethnicity or background an incredibly effective alternative to how most people were taught to communicate.

Marshall routinely used Nonviolent Communication to solve disputes, and he could envision us using it pre-emptively to promote understanding between neighbors…. be they two human beings or two bordering nations.”

(PuddleDancer Press. Please visit www.nonviolentcommunication.com to learn more about Nonviolent Communication.)

ROSENBERG, M. B. (1999). Nonviolent communication: a language of compassion . Del Mar, CA, PuddleDancer Press.

Coaching or Mentoring for personal growth and development

owright244@aol.com (Oliver Wright) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 17:19:11 GMT

Coaching or Mentoring?

There are coaches and mentors or those who offer both. So, what’s the difference?

Firstly, within the context of business or organisations the aim of both is broadly similar. That is, to help people in organisations develop the necessary self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and personal resilience to learn, build on their strengths and ultimately improve their performance.

Both coaching and mentoring can be defined as “learning relationships which help people to take charge of their own development, to release their potential and to achieve results” (Connor & Pokora, 2017, p.111 ).

Defining Coaching

The first thing to say is that there is no one universally agreed definition of coaching! Sir John Whitmore covers many key aspects in his definition and the CIPD add some useful elements.

I like to use a combination of elements that I believe capture the essence of coaching, as distinct from mentoring or other interventions such as training. The following definition works well for me:

Coaching aims to deliver optimal performance at work by empowering people through facilitation to acquire new knowledge, develop new skills and build new behaviours. It is goal orientated with a focus on setting objectives and identifying actions that deliver personal growth and improved performance. Coaching does not direct, teach or pass on specific knowledge but promotes self-discovery through self-directed learning, stimulated by the coach.

The key thing to take from this definition that distinguishes coaching is the fact that the coach does not direct, teach, or tell.

Defining Mentoring

Having reviewed a number of definitions this is a relatively narrow definition of mentoring in an organisation setting as distinct from coaching, and is often what informal mentoring looks like..

A professional guiding relationship between a more experienced or senior person and less experienced or younger person, focussed on imparting knowledge, giving advice, and providing direction to help them to acquire new knowledge, develop new skills and build new behaviours that deliver improved performance.

The key take out here is the fact that the mentor guides, directs, gives advice, and imparts knowledge, in contrast to the coach who facilitates and empowers the coachee to discover their own answers.

Coaching and Mentoring are by no means mutually exclusive activities and in fact European Mentoring and Coaching Council core competencies for professional coaches and mentors does not distinguish between them. But Mentors do add to the skills of coaching by using their relevant knowledge and experience more directly. Mentors are also more likely to be role models and sounding boards and may help the mentee more directly in answer questions and building networks. (Clutterbuck, 2020)

Another way to view coaching and mentoring is to see them as two ends of a spectrum, with professional mentors and coaches operating more closely together than at the extremes. Miles Downey (2014) has developed a useful spectrum to highlight the types of intervention that can be used in the practice of coaching and mentoring.

Coaching often aims to be more at the pull end of the spectrum, for more of the time and mentoring more at the push end in simple terms. In reality effective mentors need to use the skills present at the pull end of the spectrum and some coaches may well use their experience to guide and direct, with the permission of the coachee. But generally avoid giving advice, as do many mentors, still preferring to guide and facilitate their mentees to reaching their own decision and making their own choices.

What are the key differences between coaching and mentoring?

Both effective coaches and mentors should be using the skills at the pull end of this spectrum.

That is, they should be listening attentively and actively to understand what the other person is saying. They should also be reflecting back to ensure they clarify what the other person is saying and should be asking open questions to delve deeper into the subject to generate insight.

In reality the differences between coaching and mentoring can is blurred and it may be what people experience is a combination of the two in many instances. Some coaches may be more directive than others and some mentors may employ a lot of coaching techniques.

The main difference between coaching and mentoring, however, is in how the coach or mentor moves forward with their client or mentee once they have reached a level of understanding about the issues at hand and the clients objectives.

The mentor will look to offer guidance, and wisdom using their knowledge and expertise to offer suggestions and even solutions, although they should leave room for the decision to be the mentees. The coach, however, will use further questioning, listening and reflection to facilitate the coachee to find their own answers and empower them to determine their course of action and find solutions.

Formal vs. Informal

Another difference is that coaching in organisations tends to be more formal and time bound, with a coach being brought in for an allotted amount of time to help the coachee develop and take specific action towards achieving their objectives.

Mentoring, although not always, is often more informal, the relationship may last for months or years and can be on and off depending on need. Mentoring, because it is less focussed can be appropriate for more informal chats and catch ups, where valuable insight and knowledge may be imparted. Coaching sessions however are always scheduled and tend to take place in more formal settings.

Although it should be noted that the atmosphere in a good coaching session is a relaxed one and the effective coach creates a safe environment where the coachee feels very comfortable.

The level of specific industry, functional or subject knowledge required varies between coach and mentor.

In order to offer advice, guidance and suggestions a mentor will need to have sufficient relevant knowledge and experience. Whereas a coachee is facilitated by the coach to discover things for themselves through self-directed learning, stimulated by the coach. This means the coach does not need to come armed with specific industry or functional knowledge.

Sir John Whitmore (a performance coach) famously taught a golf swing to a novice golfer without giving any specific instructions on the swing or imparting any knowledge about golf. The result was that the novice golfers swing was at least as effective as the swing of another novice who had been mentored by a golf professional (who was instructing, advising and teaching based on detailed knowledge and experience of golf). (248) Sir John Whitmore demonstrates coaching vs instruction - YouTube

Coach or Mentor?

Given the definitions discussed here there may not be a big difference between the two in reality, but assuming that the coach and mentor are operating at different ends of the spectrum, albeit both using listening, reflection and questioning, there is definitely a need for both and in the modern organisation with the wide array of challenges faced by business and other entities in today's increasingly volatile and uncertain world.

Having a seasoned operator or subject specific expert on hand to act as a trusted advisor and mentor can be very helpful for leaders and others to lean on, either regularly or on an ad hoc basis. Increasing their knowledge base and giving them a sounding board for ideas and decision making.

Likewise working with a coach to make sense of everything that is happening, to help define strategic objectives and to help increase self awareness can bring real benefits to leaders and their organisations.

Gaining insight to grow personal understanding, develop effective interpersonal behaviours and optimise your ability to meet challenges creatively, as well as focusing on specific objectives, is where coaching can add real value.

Coaching can help teams also. Team coaching is becoming increasingly popular as teams and team leaders look to create the best possible circumstances for the teams to thrive and to maximise their potential. Coaching is ideally suited to help with the critically important interpersonal dynamic in a team, which helps build a culture of support and psychological safety, the most important factor in determining high performance. As David Clutterbuck (2020) says,

"...team coaching promotes the social dialogue that builds rapport, stimulates understanding of self and other team members, and develops the skills to avoid negative conflict and enhance positive conflict within the team."

References:

Connor, M., & Pokora, J. (2017). Coaching and mentoring at work: developing effective practice. London, England: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education

Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance. 5 ^th ed, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Peterson, D. (2011). Executive coaching: A critical review and recommendations for advancing the practice. 10.1037/12170-018. www.researchgate.net/publication/232527868

CIPD (2020) Coaching and Mentoring Factsheet. On the CIPD website www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/development/coaching-mentoring-factsheet#gref

Clutterbuck, D (2020). Coaching The Team at Work. 2nd Edition. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Ganesh, A. Bozas, A. Subban, M. Munapo M. (2015) THE BENEFITS OF MENTORING AND COACHING IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR. Journal of Governance and Regulation. Volume 4, Issue 3, 2015

10 Practical Leadership Tips Tailored to New Leaders

owright244@aol.com (Oliver Wright) — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 15:09:36 GMT

So, it’s your first leadership role or you have just taken on a new team.

It’s a daunting prospect, right? Becoming the person everyone is looking to for guidance, direction, and wisdom!

These tips are designed to focus specifically on the first few weeks and months as you form the team and set the tone for a positive high-performance culture.

I’ve been in the hot seat as a new leader a number of times, whether it was my first team leadership role, or moving to a new company as the new leader of a much larger team with an existing culture. I now work with leaders and teams as a coach helping to engender positive change and learning new things all the time.

What can you do to help get off to a positive start on your leadership journey?

There are so many things to think about and not least how to get the best out of the team, because you are now measured by what the team delivers and how they deliver it.

I have detailed 10 practical tips, and suggestions here to help you get off to a great start and to help reduce the stress!

Hope you find this interesting and most of all useful.

1. Get to know your team

It’s really good to get to know about your team as individuals as soon as possible in the process of building a relationship with them.

Speaking to them directly by scheduling a one-to-one meeting is highly recommended as soon as you can after your appointment. Do this with at least your direct reports, but preferably the whole team if practical.

It is not always practical to meet individually in a short space of time, particularly with a large team. You also, have to be aware of the different personality types in a team. Whilst some will open up easily to you, others may not be comfortable opening up to the new boss in meeting number 1.

So, why not develop a simple confidential questionnaire that asks key questions up front so that you can build a picture of who they are and where they are at? It will give you guidance on where to start and how to pitch your opening conversations and meetings with your team.

2. Ask the team what they need from you

One specific question is to ask the team is what they need from you as a leader.

This is a powerful question that recognises you are there to work with and for the team to create the best possible circumstances for the team to succeed.

In other words, making sure you don’t get in their way, even with the best intentions, and that you can add the most value possible to the shared endeavour and responsibility of delivering results.

Then you can exercise your judgment as a leader on what you hear and focus on those things that help you build a high performing team and meet your objectives.

3. Share Yourself

To help set the tone of an open culture with high levels of psychological safety it is important to share something of yourself and to open up to the team.

None of us are perfect, no one knows everything. The good thing is as a leader you don’t need to have all the answers. Opening up and showing some vulnerability will help people connect to you and will help them open up too.

Leading by example you can help build high levels of psychological safety, where people can share what they think, make suggestions, and give bad news early without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career. Psychological safety is the secret to workplace success - The Reporter | UAB

4. Shared Purpose

Central to being a successful team is having a shared purpose, vision, and mission with shared goals that the team buys into.

The best way to ensure this happens is to develop and create this with the team. It’s great as a leader, to have a vision and to share it with the team, but it is another thing to impose it without a chance for the team to input, feedback and develop a shared vision.

Do this in a fun open way that works for you and the team.

5. Team Charter (Contract)

This is a great exercise to do early in the forming of the team and the establishment of you as the leader. It can be updated and refreshed as things evolve.

The charter is something created and agreed by all team members that defines the norms for team behaviour. It enables the team to align on what’s expected of each other and what’s not expected or acceptable!

Use a brainstorming and open session, facilitated by someone internally or an external coach, to help ensure everyone is heard and all opinions are captured as a team. And use a format that suits the team to capture and display your agreed contract.

Good team contracts support psychological safety and the development of a learning culture. All people in the team have something they can use to help them challenge inappropriate behaviour in a non-confrontational way. Just by saying “hey, that’s not how we all agreed we would behave.”

For example...

6. Focus on Strengths

Understanding the team and the team understanding each other, allows you as a leader to focus on using people’s strengths. This can help the team self-manage more effectively and can take the pressure of you as a leader. Playing to people’s strengths is also highly motivating for the individual and they tend to perform better.

Make sure you ask yourself if people are in the right job role, or if the role is defined properly to best play to their strengths. If not, are there changes you could make to use their strengths more effectively?

I have found underperformance is often because the person feels frustrated in their role due to lack of fit and / or a lack of real clarity on what’s expected of them and about why their role is important to the team and organisation. Making sure each team member has role clarity and is sure about what is expected of them helps them perform to their best.

7. Delegate, Empower and Support

The reason I have not just called this simply Delegate is because delegation without proper empowerment and support is simply passing on work and setting people up to fail. Delegation of tasks works best when people feel empowered.

Empowerment happens when they know exactly what is expected of them, have genuine ownership and the freedom to get on with it, and are supported with the resources, training and coaching necessary to do their job to the best of their ability.

Delegating effectively means getting out of the way and empowering people to manage themselves and their teams effectively and is a core part of leadership. It is a recognition that trying to control or closely manage a complex team is a futile and unproductive exercise. Decision-making: how leaders can get out of the way | McKinsey & Company

It frees your time up as a leader to support, mentor, champion, network and find the resources your team needs, as well as focus on the future.

8. Take Decisions

Decision making is a critical part of leadership. Ultimately you need to make the decision when the time for listening, and debate is over.

As Staya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, comments, “listen more, talk less and be decisive when the time comes.” (219) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: How I Work | WSJ - YouTube

If you have listened well, taken in the debate, and thought through the issues you should then trust yourself to make the call. Great Leaders are Great Decision-Makers - A Peer-Reviewed Academic Articles | GBR (pepperdine.edu)

9. Champion the team

The team’s success is your success, your people are the most important resource so you should be supporting them, championing them to others and protecting them so that they can get on with their job.

You must not let the pressure just flow straight through to the team, its your job to absorb, process and filter the pressures and demands so that you can give clear understanding of the pressures and clear direction about what the team needs to achieve.

10. Challenge

One of the benefits of creating a positive, open, no blame culture using some of the things I have covered here, is that you and your team can challenge more. This is because you have created an environment where there is a framework to challenge and a support structure so people can stretch themselves and try new things.

So, challenge yourself, ask for feedback, and create a culture of challenge in a safe and supportive environment.

And one last thing…it’s as much about HOW you do things as a leader with your team as what you do…so have fun, involve the whole team, take time out to do things together, celebrate success and learn from failure or mistakes. More on this next time.

Oliver Wright Leadership Coaching works with leaders and teams to to facilitate personal growth, maximise potential and improve performance.