Leadership

16
mar
0

Why is Leadership Development Broken?

Posted by Leadership, Ryan GottfredsonNo Comments

By Ryan Gottfredson

Do you have leaders like Tom Coughlin in your organization? Let me explain.

Tom Coughlin is the former successful head football coach of the New York Giants, having won two Super Bowls with the Giants. Upon stepping down as the coach of the Giants, he took on the role of executive vice president of football operations for the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team that has historically been poor.

We have got to believe that in taking this new position, Tom Coughlin wanted to turn around the Jacksonville Jaguars to become a winning team and create an even greater legend for himself.

Unfortunately, Tom Coughlin’s influence was anything but positive.

Because there are 32 teams in the NFL, the NFL players on the Jacksonville Jaguars represent approximately 3 percent of the NFL. Yet, according to the NFL Players Association, 25 percent of all complaints filed by NFL players this past season came from the Jacksonville Jaguars.

This was so bad that the NFL Players Association publicly stated that they could not recommend that any football players play for the Jacksonville Jaguars, which promptly led to Tom Coughlin’s firing. He had all of the good intentions in the world, desiring to have a positive impact on a low-performing team. Yet, despite his good intentions and hard work, his influence was actually negative.

So, do you have any “Tom Coughlins” in your organization? Leaders who have demonstrated prior success, yet despite any good intentions and hard work, their impact is less than positive?

The statistics on leadership effectiveness suggest that you do.

The Current State of Leader Effectiveness

I have yet to meet a leader that wants to have a negative impact on the organizations they lead and the people they serve. Yet, the following statistics have been reported across a variety of sources:

And, if that doesn’t make you sick enough, despite organizations spending close to $356 billion globally on leadership development, 75 percent of organizations rate their leadership development programs as not being very effective.

It appears that organizations’ leadership development efforts are commonly broken, or at least are not having the full positive effects we would like them to have.

Can You Imagine?

Can you imagine how your organization might be different if all of the “Tom Coughlin” leaders in your organization created outcomes that were more closely aligned with their positive intentions? How would that reduce conflict, enhance engagement, enhance retention, and affect your organization’s overall culture?

If you are anything like me, it is difficult to imagine just how different and better your organizational life would be.

We Need Your Help

Unfortunately, we do not have all the answers related to how organizations can more effectively develop their leaders. Thus, we want to gather your thoughts and insights on how effective your organization’s leadership development efforts.

We’d like to invite you to participate in a 5-minute survey on your organization’s leadership development practices: https://fullerton.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cIsqbO1N3AVSBM1

As a thank you for your participation, your name will be entered in a drawing to win your choice of an $229 Audible Platinum Annual Membership, Apple gift card, or Amazon gift card of equal value.

Attend our webinar on how to develop a more agile workforce on May 5. Register here: https://www.hrdqu.com/webinars/agile-workforce-05-05-2020/

3
feb
0

Give People Permission to Be Courageous

Posted by Bill Treasurer, LeadershipNo Comments


By Bill Treasurer

Often the most powerful action you can take to provoke courageous behavior is to give people permission to be courageous. Before starting my own company, I worked for Accenture, one of the world’s largest and most respected management and technology consulting companies, as its first-ever internal executive coach. Before moving into the coaching role, however, I remember being petrified at the prospect of coaching the senior executives whom I worked with.

As a middle manager, I had reported to a few of them and knew how intimidating some of them were. I feared that my lower rank would cause my coaching guidance to be discounted and that eventually my role would be marginalized. Nearly all of the senior execs had more business experience than I had, yet I’d be counseling them. Safety for me meant preserving the positive reputation I had built up prior to that moment. Moving into the new coaching role, I feared, might threaten it.

I was so worried about failing that I strongly considered forgoing the opportunity, despite the fact that I wanted it badly. Now, admitting to your boss that you’re scared of failing is hard to do in any company. It is particularly hard to do in a company made up of hotshot consultants. But I was fortunate to be working for Hines Brannan, a seasoned and level-headed senior partner. Hines had a way of lifting my head up past the speed bumps of the moment so that I could view my career as a winding journey. So I went to him and said, “Hines, I think you should consider placing someone else in the new coaching role. I’m okay with coaching people at my level, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to coach people who are more senior than me. I mean, I’ve reported to some of these people in the past. The thought of coaching them is just too intimidating.”

Hines listened patiently. Then, instead of telling me what a wuss I was being, he simply said, “But Bill, you coach me.”

He was right. Like many of the senior executives I would be coaching, I reported to him. And over the years, I had become a bit of a confidant to him. In the process, I had grown comfortable offering Hines my perspective on issues and challenges that he was grappling with. I’m sure that Hines had far more impact on me as a coach than I ever had on him, but in the moments when I had coached him, he had drawn value from it. By pointing out the obvious, Hines gave me permission to see the opportunity in a different way. The confidence I had already established in coaching him could be extended to working with the other executives. His words helped me to cut myself a break. Moreover, his words helped put my courage to work. After all, if I could coach the most senior executive on the account, certainly I could coach the people who reported to him.

The most important thing that Hines did was to give me permission to express my fears without embarrassment. Unlike some bosses I had worked for, Hines didn’t make me feel small so that he could feel big. With him, I never felt dismissed or patronized. He never disrespected me by multitasking when I talked with him, despite his pressing schedule. To the contrary, when I approached him, I always had his full presence and attention. I felt valued, not intimidated. Because Hines’s disposition permitted me to express myself without fear, when I did, he was in a much better position to provide me with good counsel. Had I reported to another executive, I would have been much more reluctant to express my fears and concerns.

More tangibly, Hines gave me permission to be courageous by pointing out where I was already doing the very thing I was afraid of. This was incontrovertible proof that I could indeed meet the challenge . . . because I was already meeting it. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to build up a thriving internal coaching practice, eventually coaching thirty Accenture executives on a regular basis.

Permission enhances safety. Often workers avoid doing courageous things because their heads are telling them that they aren’t “allowed” to. As a manager, how you carry yourself will make a big impact on how safe they feel and, thus, on how expressive they will be. By giving them your full presence, you’ll cause them to feel valued and “allowed” to bring their fears out in the open. When they do, you’ll be better able to address their concerns and shift their thinking to all the ways they are prepared to meet their challenges.

Who on your team needs to be given permission to be courageous?

7
jan
0

Learn Walt Disney Leadership Style In Three Easy Steps

Posted by Leadership, Lenn MillbowerNo Comments

By Lenn Millbower

Walt Disney was an incredible leader. Learn how you can adapt Walt Disney leadership styles for yourself in this easy to follow guide from HRDQ-U!

A Surprising Notion

“I tear the hell out of them. I pound, pound, pound.” —Walt Disney

Surprised by that quote? Most people are. It was not Walt Disney’s finest hour. It was, however, an important part of Walt Disney’s leadership journey.

Most people remember Walt as the kindly, loving, mischievous, impish uncle on television via his Disneyland and Wonder World of Color TV programs. The Walt on television was, by most accounts, an extension of the Walt at that stage of his life. But Walt went through much trial and error to become that guy on television.

Walt Disney’s Evolving Leadership Styles

When distilled into these phrases, or “acts,” to use show business terms, and as explained in my book Care Like a Mouse, Walt’s journey provides lessons applicable to any leader. Those three acts can be described as:

  • Act One, The Pal
  • Act Two, The Boss
  • Act Three, The Guide

Act One – The Pal

In Act One, The Pal, Walt was, like his namesake Mickey Mouse, everyone’s best buddy. Walt Disney, likely for lack of funding and a young man’s naïveté, ran his business as a communal enterprise. With little income to pay salaries, everyone was expected to share in both hardships and success.

Walt would inspire his staff with a vision of creating a new entertainment art form: animation. His leadership style was communal, collaborative, and almost utopian. This style worked… as long as there were no profits to share. With the huge financial successes of Mickey Mouse and Snow White, it became increasingly difficult to maintain.

What’s My Leadership Style?

This validated assessment quickly and accurately identifies a preference for one of four behavioral patterns based on measures of assertiveness and expressiveness: direct, spirited, considerate, or systematic.

Shop Now

Act Two – The Boss

Walt tried to maintain his communal attitude. But at the studio, flush with money, resentment built up. Sacrifices seemed pointless in a studio raking in money. Individual identities resurfaced. A lack of organizational structure made for chaos. Perceptions of inequity, arbitrary pay raises, and hard work gone unrewarded fueled resentment. This resentment led to individual demands for better pay, better working conditions, and more individual recognition.

In one example, Walt Disney complained that employees who were happy to work on any surface and sit in any chair when there was no money were now complaining about who had the best drawing desk and chairs.

People quit. People went on strike. Walt, frustrated that his “boys” (as he called all of them) did not appreciate how good he had treated them, changed.

And then, World War II hit. Overseas profits were frozen. Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi did not perform well at the box office. The U.S. military took over the studio grounds. Disney was forced to make military training films.

In spite of Walt’s inspirational visions, artistic pursuit no longer made a profit and gave way to expediency. As Walt himself described it, “We’re through with caviar. From now on its mashed potatoes and gravy.”

Walt Disney detached. He became moody and dictatorial. Team members reported that he would either be sighing in tired frustration or growling in anger. They described him as distrusting, disgruntled and dominating.

Jack Kinney explained that he would “… giving you the evil eye, with his finger pointed at your chest, that was very intimidating.” Ward Kimball said needed “…to put somebody down. You learned early on never to argue with him or to cross him.”

If Walt Disney’s career had ended in the 1940s, he would have been revered for his animation breakthroughs, but not as a leader and mentor. Act Two, The Boss, just like Act One, had not been a good model for leadership. The real Disney model for leadership was in the future and would come to fruition in Act Three, The Guide.

It’s Okay to Be the Boss

This clear guide to becoming a strong manager challenges bosses to spell out expectations, monitor and measure employee performance, correct failure quickly, and reward success even more rapidly.

Shop Now

Act Three – The Guide

Walt Disney’s switch in leadership style grew gradually as the 1940s faded into the 1950s. A catalyst may have been the trip Walt Disney and Ward Kimball took to the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair. Walt had always loved trains. When animation no longer excite him, he removed himself from the minutia of day to day studio operations and turned to model training. We are all fortunate he did that because that tinkering led to the development of Disneyland.

Two other factors pushed Walt Disney towards a new view of leadership (1) Walt became a TV star thanks to his Disneyland TV show and (2) Walt had grown older, evolving from the passion-driven young man into a kindly, impish, wise old man. In this guise, Walt could weigh in on opinions where and when needed. He could support, guide, mentor, and coach without getting too deep into studio minutia.

Walt described his “Guide” role in this manner, “I think of myself as a little bee. I go from area to area and gather pollen and stimulate everybody.”

Freed from the daily grind, Walt Disney became the visionary everyone loved. Everything then fell in place. The product was well received, the studio made money and Walt’s people bloomed. From a leadership perspective, Disney was free to chart the course, touch the rudder when required and enjoy himself.

Flight From Savo

Send administrators on an exploration of their supervisory skills with Flight from Savo, HRDQ’s exciting hands-on adventure game.

Shop Now

What’s Your Leadership Style?

Think about your leadership style and the three acts.

  • Do you believe in a communal approach? This Pal approach is applicable for startups where you have to inspire people but have no real financial rewards to offer them. It can, however, be challenging when people feel they are being treated unfairly or not able to share in the rewards because of their efforts.
  • Are you The Boss? Do you control everything with dictatorial demands? Walt Disney was able to keep his studio together during tough times with The Boss approach, but the cost in acrimony and turnover was high. Bossing is applicable for tough times but may make tough times even tougher and encourage a talent drain.
  • Are you The Guide? – Do you share a vision and allow people to sail towards the horizon with direction only when truly required? For Disney, this approach worked best. The Guide is applicable when your employees respect you, know you know what you are doing, and really want your opinion. It does, however, require you to paint a vision and relax while others focus on delivering it.

Free Webinar

All three roles have their place, but the choice is clear. The Guide is the one leadership approach that yields the most benefits, the best teamwork and the best chance for an enjoyable life. It is, as Disney discovered, the recipe for success … with or without the trains. To learn more, view our webinar, the Caring for Castomers: A Disney Inspired Approach to Employee Engagement

27
sep
0

Leadership Skills That Are Critical to Success

Posted by LeadershipNo Comments

 

Leadership skills are critical to success. Unfortunately, however, it is easy for a leader to lose focus and end up struggling. There are many derailments that can lead a manager astray. The key is identifying the potential outcomes of complex situations and overcoming them effectively. Preventing being derailed is ensuring leadership success.

There are a few important areas that leaders need to work on when they are focusing on building their leadership skills. These include:

  • Organizing (Giving attention, focus and performing problem-solving)
  • Relationships (Information sharing, working with others, working as a team, being supportive, and coaching)
  • Learning initiatives (Competency development and enabling the learning application)
  • Emotional management (Perceiving emotional climate and the response to the emotional climate)
  • Career management (Making ethical choices and performing career anchoring)

Specific Traits and Skills Needed

The line between a successful leader and a derailed leader can sometimes be very thin. Common work situations can cause a good leader to get off track. But leadership failure can fortunately be predicted and be prevented. There are a certain behaviors that can derail any leader’s career, but knowing what they are can help. There are certain traits that show the difference between a good leader and one that is derailed.

Researchers have identified the below personal traits and skills that differentiate between successful leaders and derailed leaders:

  • Diversity of Experience. Having a limited range of experiences derails leaders and can create behavior challenges. A lack of experience creates issues with problem solving, working with others, learning effectively, and addressing the emotional climate of different groups. Having a diverse leadership experience brings success.
  • Emotional Stability and Composure. Being emotionally volatile can derail leaders and can lead to challenges with working with others, teaming up, and having supportive coaching behaviors. Leaders need to have awareness and effective management of the emotional climate. They must be stable and calm in order to lead their team.
  • Handling mistakes. Mistakes can happen, and successful leaders need to handle them with the right skills. They should not manage mistakes by blaming others, demonstrating defensiveness, and refusing to move beyond failure. Poor mistake management creates problems with working with others, learning applications, awareness of emotional issues with the team, attending to ethical challenges, and problem-solving.
  • Interpersonal skills. Being insensitive to others is a large source of derailment. Manipulative and insensitive behaviors interfere with building networks, fostering cooperation, and getting the most from team members. When communicating in ways that others experience as abrasive and intimidating, the leader is unable to develop them. These behaviors affect information sharing, working relationships, coaching opportunities, feelings awareness, and emotional climate reading. Leaders must be able to have good interpersonal skills in order to ensure the team is operating effectively.
  • Integrity breaches. Breaches like betraying trust, promise breaking, and being duplicitous result in behavior challenges in the ability to build and mend relationships, the ability to understand the emotional needs of others, and the ability to make choices that foster commitment from others to achieve goals. Leaders must be honest, transparent, and honorable to succeed.
  • Technical and cognitive skills. While leaders often have excellent technical and intellectual abilities, if overused, these behaviors may come across as overconfident and arrogant. Overplaying behaviors can generate difficulties with problem solving, relationships, learning new skills, and career opportunities.

Learning More

Watch HRDQ’s webinar “Leadership Skills That Are Critical to Success”.  You will learn the five key behaviors that can severely limit effectiveness, what leadership skills are critical to maintain and ensure success, ways to predict and pinpoint problems that can cause career derailment, how to develop and align critical competencies, and how to create an individual personal development plan.

For more information on how to prevent leadership derailment, check out “Leadership Unlimited Profile” by HRDQ. It serves as an “early warning” leadership development tool by quickly identifying trouble spots and building the skill sets leaders and managers need to stay on track and take charge of their careers. Participants will learn how to measure key career behaviors, understand the management skills needed to maintain and ensure success, learn how to predict problems and avoid career derailment, develop and align critical competencies, and create an individual personal development plan. Click here to learn more: Leadership Unlimited Profile.

 

 

25
sep
0

How to Become a Remarkable Leader: Q&A with a Leadership Expert

Posted by LeadershipNo Comments

Anyone can call themselves a “leader” but truly being one isn’t so easy. A remarkable leader has important qualities like honesty, integrity, courage, and dedication. They inspire their team and encourage growth and satisfaction. A remarkable leader is someone who people want to follow.

Being a remarkable leader doesn’t come down to just one trait. There are quite a few parts of being a remarkable leader, and some of their common traits include:

Champion organizational change
Build relationships and develop others
Solve problems and make decisions
Demonstrate collaboration and teamwork
Taking responsibility and accountability for the team
Manage projects and processes
Set goals and objectives for the team

The most important thing, however, is that the leader continually learns how to be the best manager they can be. Certain tools and products can help with this necessity.

Q&A with a Leadership Expert

Leadership expert Kevin Eikenberry is the author of the acclaimed book, “Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time,” which sets out to challenge participants to be more intentional about what, when, and how they learn. He shared a few thoughts with HRDQ on how to become a remarkable leader:

HRDQ: “How do you describe Remarkable Leadership and how does one become a remarkable leader?”

Eikenberry: “When you think about the word ‘remarkable’ it means that something is worth

talking about. Remarkable leadership is a choice that leaders make to become the best, most effective leader they can be. The goal isn’t to be talked about or to become the center of attention, but rather to be noticed for their skills and effectiveness so that they can make a positive difference for others and the organization. You become a ‘Remarkable Leader’ by making a choice to learn, by making a choice to improve, and by making a choice to make a difference every day.”

HRDQ: “How did you realize the need for a different type of leadership training solution?”

Eikenberry: “By talking to clients, observing the challenges that organizations have in helping

leaders grow. The challenge that organizations face is that training becomes an event. They build a workshop (or identify one to send people to), and then measure performance based on people’s attendance there. This is a fine thing to measure, but it doesn’t measure leadership development! We try to develop tools and solutions that match the way learning really happens. Training is an event, but learning is a process – so our goal is to provide solutions that become an ongoing learning process rather than a training event.”

HRDQ: “What is the advantage of the modular approach to training?”

Eikenberry: “Application! When people leave a general leadership workshop, regardless of how well-designed it is, or how skilled the facilitator is, they are in ‘overwhelmed mode.’ They have a ton of new ideas and a ton of work to do when they return. We like to say that when they get back to work, real life happens. By modularizing the material, people leave a short session with some specific and actionable ideas. While we as designers and trainers can’t guarantee they will go back to work and apply it, we have, through our design and the module approach, improved the likelihood that they can find one or more things to try right away. And success, of course, builds on success, so once people have successes they will be open to more learning and be more excited about the next module.”

HRDQ: “Who should participate in Remarkable Leadership?

Eikenberry: “While leaders at all levels, from new, first line managers to C-level participants, have had great success, the examples and situations are probably best matched to the first-line and mid-manager levels. Having said that, we believe the best success comes when organizations include a vertical slice of leaders in these sessions. While some of the more experienced or senior leaders may know some of the ideas, a refresher is always valuable and the interaction and relationships that can be built with a cross section of leaders involved can be a powerful part of the process.”

HRDQ: “What results can trainers expect to see after facilitating Remarkable Leadership?”

Eikenberry: “They can expect leaders to be better equipped to do the challenging and complex work of leadership. This program will not guarantee that people will try the skills and ideas they learn (nor will any other program). Remarkable Leadership will provide a platform for growth, extended materials to support it, and ideas for the trainers to help them support people outside of the classroom – where the application happens.”

HRDQ: “Are there any specific Remarkable Leadership stories you can share?”

Eikenberry: “We’ve delivered these materials in various forms and formats over the past four years. Because of that we have heard lots of feedback. The most powerful stories are of people who were encouraged and inspired by the ideas in Remarkable Leadership to go back and make a difference in their organizations and for their teams. We’ve heard lots of stories of promotions, improved working relationships, successful change and coaching efforts and much more. More important than my stories are the stories you will create as you use Remarkable Leadership with your leaders.”

Learning More

Attend HRDQ’s webinar “Leadership Development: 12 Ways to Develop Remarkable Leaders” on Oct. 16 at 2 p.m. EDT. Participants will learn the four reasons why many leadership development processes fail, 12 keys to a successful organizational leadership development process, strategies for developing targeted leadership skills in a relatively small period of time, and how to create relevant learning experiences to build leadership skills.

Click here to register: 12 Ways to Develop Remarkable Leaders .

This webinar is based on Remarkable Leadership: A Learning Series, which offers a flexible and practical learning experiences for leaders at all levels.

Click here to learn more: Remarkable Leadership

.

Page 1 of 7
12347