August Leadership Development Round-Table Challenge

August 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It’s time to put on your coaching hat and offer your best guidance for the latest installment of The Leadership Development Round-Table Challenge.  This month’s vexing dilemma is being served up by Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire-CS.

In case you’re not familiar with this now three-month old series, there’s a regular cast of characters who rotate the responsibility to create and host a leadership development challenge. The regular members plus one monthly guest have 200-words or less to share their ideas on how to handle the situation. Readers have the opportunity to not only vote on which answer they believe works best, but they are encouraged to chime in and show us all the error of our ways! This is full contact blogging!

Our regular Round-Table members are indicated below, and thanks to Sharlyn Lauby, HR Bartender and some quick coding, you have the option of subscribing to all of the blogs with a single click.

OK, Mary Jo did all of the heavy lifting this month, so take a few moments to check out this short but very real case, share your ideas and cast your vote. Of course, I’m way above vote tampering, but I am from Chicago where “vote early and often” is a way of life. And I’m feeling pretty good about my response… .

Enjoy the challenge!

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Lend a Coaching Hand to Your First-Time Leaders

June 14, 2011 By 9 Comments

I was promoted to my first supervisory job because the last guy didn’t show up that day. The manager said, “You’re in charge here. Don’t muck it up.” (The word he used wasn’t “muck”)

Yeah, I know that no one was there to show you the ropes when you were drafted into your first supervisory role. And yes, instead of sinking, you figured out how to swim. And of course, we’ve all heard the saying, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Putting all of those experiences and maxims aside, the only right thing to do is to support your first-time leaders by paying attention and offering frequent feedback. I’m not suggesting that you provide the answers and I’m certainly not suggesting you micro-manage. I am however, encouraging you to take on the coaching role that is so often not a part of the confusing universe of our newest supervisors.

“I was told about the new position on Friday, and my boss left for a month-long overseas tour on Sunday. Those first few weeks with the team were uncomfortable to say the least. Fortunately, only one person quit.”

You might have great faith in the ability of your newly promoted leader to figure it out, and that’s good. However, faith in this setting doesn’t replace the need for you to support this person all the way to success. He or she is an extension of you and your brand, and you are not doing anyone any good by releasing a poorly prepared and generally lost new leader on your team.

“I was excited that she saw leadership potential in me. It’s too bad that my inexperienced interpretation of how a leader was supposed to act resembled something between a despot and a dictator.  Once my boss finally caught on, it took several months to unwind the damage.”

Few first-time leaders have proper context for their new role and how to effectively carry it out. That should come as no surprise, as the only true way to learn how to lead is to actually gain experience doing it. Good coaching leaders recognize the need to allow people to make mistakes with the reality that proper and timely involvement can shrink the learning curve and in some circumstances, lessen the potential for new-leader fallout.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Choose your new leaders carefully. Provide ample context for the journey. Serve as a sounding board for ideas while resisting the urge to provide all of the answers. Offer your positive and constructive feedback liberally, and most of all, pay attention.

Your presence as a coach and a stakeholder in the development of the new leader will have a significant impact on the outcome for this emerging leader. And your positive example will be visible to all to learn from and emulate.

Filed Under: Leadership, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , ,

Dealing with Active Resisters and Apathetic Loafers at Work, School or in Workshops

December 1, 2010 By 3 Comments

Note from Art: I’m on the soapbox. Great cultures and great performance comes from building teams with strong shared values and a hunger to learn and grow. Too often, we let toxic people linger and the result is….well, it’s toxic.

I spend a great deal of my professional time working with various groups in different settings,ranging from MBA classrooms to workshops, keynotes and executive meetings.  Every group and every setting takes on its own personality, however, I’ve noticed that as the faces change, a few of the core characters remain the same across all of the meetings.

Active Learners Fuel Teams and High Performance:

There are those that are eager to learn, inquisitive, participative and genuinely excited to hear something that challenges their pre-conceived ideas or that expands their thinking. These Active Learners bring energy to the situation and they raise the quality of the engagement for everyone involved. It is those active knowledge seekers that every good leader and instructor seeks out and thrives upon in their work.

Give me a management team or a classroom filled with these characters, and I guarantee vigorous, healthy debate, good ideas and meaningful outcomes.  Everytime!

The Rest: Aggressive Resisters and Apathetic Loafers:

Unfortunately, it’s common in many settings to meet the alter egos of the Active Learner. They come in several shapes and sizes, ranging from Aggressive Resisters to Apathetic Loafers.

The Aggressive Resisters know it all and find anything that contradicts their self-anointed “correct” view of the world or situation to be a personal affront  to their existence. You get the impression that their sole reason for being present in the situation is to identify and dispose of heretics that dare to contradict their obviously perfect perspectives.

Apathetic Loafers on the other hand, are just there.  They provide little to no value and they consume valuable resources, including space, air and snacks. They are present because someone told them to be there or worse yet, because they perceived that to not be there would create a political black mark on their permanent corporate record.

What’s a Manager or Educator to Do?

The vexing dilemma is that every educator, every good leader/teacher is passionate about serving Active Learners, and every good leader or educator struggles with what to do about the rest.

The behaviors of the Active Learners…their curiosity, thirst for knowledge, creativity to propose alternatives and their willingness to build upon the ideas of others is rocket fuel for ideation, innovation and the pursuit of excellence.

The other characters suck the life out of groups, classrooms and organizations.

Internal Settings:

In corporate settings, Aggressive Resisters are the toxic employees. Those that are closed to new ideas and those that guard the status quo through power and politics are best  disposed of quickly, cleanly and fairly. Obviously, you’ve got to follow procedures and always deal fairly with people. And I don’t mean to over simplify the issue, but the solution is pretty simple. Get rid of toxic people.

While you might not have the organizational heft to resolve this problem universally, you do control the make-up of your team. And if you’re the big boss, what are you waiting for? I’ve watched organizations with high potential be systematically destroyed by these toxic, value-less characters.

Apathetic Loafers  often merit some investment in coaching. I frequently find that there are some good people hiding behind a veil of apathy, mostly due to being burned by lousy leaders in the past. Give these people a shot, invest time in coaching and mentoring, provide some unique challenges, and some will shake off their leg irons and begin to move forward. For the rest…see my note above on quickly, cleanly and fairly.

External Settings:

In an external learning environments including classroom settings or workshops, dealing with the dysfunctional and nonfunctional  characters is a bit more challenging. While I like fast executions (hire slow/fire fast), it’s darned hard to do this with workshop participants or students.

Find opportunities to get Apathetic Loafers involved and engaged with groups. Mix groups up to keep the people fresh, and blend activities that include solo work to ensure that everyone gets a metaphorical voice.

The Aggressive Resister can destroy an external event if you let him/her. As a facilitator or educator, it’s critical to maintain control and to avoid being intimidated by these characters. Treat them with respect, but don’t patronize them.

Ensure that you draw upon others and provide them a safe haven to express their opinions. Cry foul on any reprisal comments from the Aggressive Resister and if necessary, marginalize the individual…still while being respectful.  “John, we’ve heard your opinion. We’re here to find ideas to move forward not reasons to run in place. What do the rest of you think?”

If all else fails, at a break, feel free to have a robust discussion with the Aggressive Resister and encourage him/her to pursue other opportunities if this one is failing to stimulate some new thoughts.  And then shut-up and use silence as your exclamation point.

I’ve never failed to either facilitate an attitude adjustment or, to the relief of everyone in the room, to have the person take his very big brain and even bigger bag of opinions the hell elsewhere.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I’ve yet to meet a successful professional or leader that didn’t have a strong thirst for knowledge and a commitment backed by discipline for learning.  Alternatively, I’ve met plenty of marginal performers that used brawn and bullying to assert their false sense of superiority.

You make the choice everyday to be an Active Learner, an Apathetic Traveler or an Active Resister.  Which one are you?

As a leader, you have the obligation to form and frame an environment that fuels high performance. My high performance environments include people hungry to learn, grow, challenge and engage. They can disagree and they can challenge each other and me, but they cannot lead with toxic tactics.  Chances are, you’ve got work to do here. Get on with it!

Filed Under: Leadership, Performance, Values Tagged With: , , ,

New Leader Identification: Exploration Before Promotion!

August 28, 2009 By 7 Comments

I talk with a great number of leaders at various levels and stages of their careers about their own experiences in “becoming a leader,” and I’m constantly fascinated by their start-up stories.

Fascinated, that is, the way many drive past a car wreck. Shocked and curious at the same time.

Many describe their initial promotion into a formal supervisory role as one of “time, place, and opportunity.” Someone left or was fired and the manager needed help and offered a battlefield promotion.

An overwhelming majority of this “Opportunistic” crowd, describe their first leadership experience as horrendous. Several used the term “nightmare” to communicate the essence of that experience.

Another group I call the “Fast Trackers.” These individuals indicate actively pursuing promotion into a leadership role in the drive to increase earnings and gain entrance to the “fast track” in their organizations.

A follow-on question for this speedy group highlights that many of the individuals report working in environments where the “system” required you to lead others and manage budgets in order to earn higher job grades and compensation.

Similar to the “Opportunistic” group, the reflections of the “Fast Trackers” on that early experience are often less than happy.

“We Select Randomly and Try to Train Our Way Out of the Problem!”

Most report getting some training as part of the promotion, but few describe being part of anything formal or informal that helped them (and their managers) assess whether leadership was a good fit.

Talk about a breakdown in the quality system! It’s no secret that the costs are high when we put the wrong people in roles that they are ill suited for…especially leadership roles. Everyone suffers, including the errant leader, the team being poorly led, the manager that mishandled this promotion, internal and external customers and the broader organization.

And yet, we do this over and over again.

Training after promotion is no substitution and no cure-all for poor selection!

Exploration Before Promotion-A Real World Example:

A simple solution is for the manager to ensure that he/she is looking for and talking to prospective first-time leaders about the role, and importantly, providing them low-risk opportunities to try it on for size before buying.

One of my favorite examples comes from the world of software development, where people tend to become software developers because they are creative and want to ply their creative talents in this exciting and ever-changing medium.

Leading others is rarely (if ever) the motivation for becoming a software developer, and as a consequence, large technical teams struggle to develop leadership bench strength. It’s common for an experienced developer to find himself/herself thrust into a management role, more out seniority than anything that resembles desire or capability. The consequences are often as expected.

This Manager Gets It!

One creative Group Director recognized this as one of her core challenges and set about actively identifying those on her team that seemed to do well in helping groups solve problems and identify and implement improvements. She talked with these individuals about career aspirations, raised the “L” word, and for those interested, she collaborated in designing some informal opportunities to get a feel for the work and role of a leader.

What I loved about her approach was how she started small and based on observation and expressions of continued interest from the aspiring professional, she would ratchet up the informal leadership challenges to provide more experience and exposure and more time for observation and coaching. 

Her stepped approach might include having the individual help organize the department’s quarterly meeting and then later chair a problem-solving team. Again, if the results were positive and interest remained, she would provide a capstone challenge such as leading a strategic development team as an informal leader (project manager).

At the end of this period of leadership exploration, and based on feedback from many parties, she would work with the aspiring leader on creating a forward looking development plan, schedule formal training and begin the movement into the first official leadership role.

Of course, at that point, her job as a mentor and coach was just starting, but that’s a topic for another post.

The Bottom Line:

The manager in that very real anecdote understood the benefits of getting leadership identification right and the costs of mucking it up. She created and managed that program without the benefit of a formal company-mentoring program, and she didn’t use training as the crutch of the lazy manager. The idea of promoting first and training later was not something this manager would ever consider.

Exploration before promotion. Try it and let’s break the back of our propensity to make the same leadership identification and development mistakes over and over again.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Leadership Caffeine for the New Week: Are You Mentor Potential?

April 27, 2009 By 2 Comments

It’s a stormy spring morning here in the greater Chicago-area and I confess to brewing my second pot of a dark Guatemalan roast to help spur some energy.

This week’s topic focuses on the plight of the first time leader and a call to action for experienced leaders everywhere to step up and do a better job mentoring and coaching.

For the past three years, I’ve been formally and informally polling leaders at all levels and in all industries on their first-time leadership experiences.  The feedback is frightening.

  • A majority of individuals indicate that they became a leader for the first time by accident not by design.  There was a gap, someone left and the manager at the time made a battlefield promotion.
  • A majority of the individuals that I’ve spoken with indicate that as a first-time leader they received little support or mentoring from their immediate manager.  Many indicated that their best support and source of feedback came from a peer or another manager, but not from the person that they directly reported to. 
  • A surprising number of those that lived through this ad hoc promotion to leadership report engaging in the same practices of promoting upon need and leaving people to sink or swim.  While no one comes out and says this directly, I get the impression that it is almost a rite of passage. “Hey, no one helped me out and I did OK.”

With practices like those described above, it’s no surprise that a fair number of first-time leaders fail and end up leaving their organizations.  Imagine the collateral damage that they create in the process of failing. 

As my teenager might say, “This is messed up.”

–

Take Initiative-Don’t Wait for Senior Management to Figure this Out:

Instead of the traditional path of attack that I take on this issue—start at the top, convince management that creating a culture of leadership development will pay dividends for years to come etc., my suggestion is for those of us that have gained some experience in this experience-driven profession make the time to help out an early career leader.

While we’re all waiting for the message to sink in with top management, there are ample opportunities to make a difference now.

Become a mentor.  Some suggestions and feel free to add your own:

  • If there are new leaders on your own team, focus here first.  Break the “sink or swim” cycle on your own team and focus on engaging with, observing and providing feedback to these first time leaders.
  • Depending upon your organization’s dynamics, approach HR and ask for their help  If you are working around an old-school HR function, you might get shot done, but I’m willing to bet that in the majority of the cases, you will find someone that would love to support this idea and even get involved.
  • Some inexpensive but effective programs for first time leaders can include Book Clubs, moderated round tables and other forms of peer networking.  If you/HR are taking a semi-formal role in the process, provide support for improvement ideas and suggestions emanating from the first-time leaders.
  • If HR is not much help, talk with your peers and see if they are open to the idea of an informal mentoring program.  Identify those in need and assign them to someone other than their manager to gain a slightly more objective view and level of support.

After a period of time, the individuals that once were first-timers become experienced.   Introduce them into the mentoring process by having them take leadership roles in the various programs.  Instead of perpetuating “sink or swim,” you perpetuate good practices in developing others.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

More often than not, we have the power and ability to solve many of the problems that we complain about.  It’s time to step-up, reconfigure your calendar just a bit and put some effort forth in developing the next generation of leaders in your workplace. 

If you don’t, chances are no one will.  Start a mentoring revolution today!  

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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