Leadership is not a role; leadership is a practice. One does not assume the role of doctor, attorney, CPA, engineer, artist or musician. One practices medicine, law, accounting, engineering art or music. Great leadership is the result of great practice.
At it’s essence, leadership is a set of concrete skills such as selling the vision, delegating, building relationships and coaching. In fact, recent research has revealed that leadership is a set of 22 core skills made up of 79 micro-behaviors.
Smart Leadership Coaching works for a variety of roles and professions including business owners, executives, executive directors, administrators, operations SVPs, district store managers and regional VPs, store managers, sales directors, sales coaches, engineers, accountants, police chiefs, attorneys, real estate managers, IT directors, maintenance managers, wealth advisers, HR managers, harbormasters, risk managers, regional operators, marketing directors, title company managers, strategic planners, and safety and emergency managers, medical doctors, and nurse managers. The recipients of SMART coaching work in a variety of industries and organizations including retail, shipping, distribution, sales, restaurant, financial services, real estate, production, healthcare, county governments, nonprofits and more.
CHECK OUT WHAT SMART LEADERSHIP COACHING CLIENTS ARE SAYING...
Peter is an amazing leader, and accomplished trainer. I honestly don't think we could have led the expansion of TJ's nationally without the program that Peter developed and ran for the TJ crew. It allowed TJ's to accelerate the development of the crew, which then allowed for the business to successfully grow much more rapidly. He built the trust of the TJ team through long hours/days together over several years. He was an invaluable partner, both in thought leadership, and personal crew coaching. The program that he and Roger developed was like a personal MBA course in leadership development and training for the TJ crew.
Peter is one of the smartest trainers and leadership coaches I've ever met. He's always hungry to learn, open to new ideas, and willing to really listen and engage with both the team and the organization. People immediately trust Peter, and quickly learn to respect his wisdom and experience. And all of this is delivered in a warm, fun, and engaging interactive environment. Hundreds of management leaders at TJ's today owe much of their success to the tools, training and experience they received working with Peter. And, they had fun while doing it....
I can wholeheartedly recommend Peter as an Engaged Trainer and Leadership Coach!
--Doug Rauch, Former President of Trader Joe's & Founder/President of The Daily Table
At its core, an organization’s culture is about relationships and conversations. In his role as organizational coach, Peter has elevated the conversational intelligence at the Port Authority. I believe this will have a lasting impact on all the Port Authority’s stakeholders.
Today’s world is calling for leadership greatness. I’m confident that Peter could assist any organization to tap the greatness of its most important resource—its people.ly,
Sean C. Strawbridge
Chief Executive Officer
PORT OF CORPUS CHRISTI AUTHORITY
I often thought it was hard to find good talent until I realized I had all the raw materials for great talent already inside my company. What was missing was someone to unlock and develop the talent, skills and mindsets that was lying dormant inside our future leaders.
Peter Mclees knows how to do this and I am so grateful for the having the opportunity to work with him to develop and grow many of our leaders today by helping them understand, practice, game film and put into play things like servant leadership, self awareness, walking your talk, managing to behaviors (not metrics), etc and doing it real life situations that have meaningful consequences on the line. If you are looking for your leadership team to grow I highly recommend and would be happy to answer any questions around Peter's ability to grow talent.
"In 1991 I had been the Chairman & CEO of Trader Joe's Company for three years. All of our stores were located in California, but I thought that we had the capability of expanding nationally. We had a highly motivated store management team, but most of the individuals were not college educated. However, we had one major problem - we had no internal leadership training or coaching program to develop personal relationship and leadership skills.
I was very cognizant of our company's culture and wanted to preserve it as we expanded. I wanted to make sure that no matter where a Trader Joe's store was located the same inter-personal, training and leadership development skills would be in place.
I came across Peter Mclees and Roger Moore with Smart Development, which at that time was called Smart U. Working with their people we developed a customized leadership coaching and training for our Trader Joe's people.
Our people responded very enthusiastically to these leadership training and coaching sessions. The skills that they learned were put to immediate use. The program had an immediate, positive impact on the organization. Individuals eagerly looked forward to each session. They saw the immediate results the leadership coaching and training enabled them to accomplish.
In 1991 we had 35 stores in California and approximately 800 employees. As of this date we have 180 stores in 14 states and approximately 8,000 employees. I attribute much of the success of our expansion and growth to the skills brought to our people by the Smart Development process. We continue to send our people through the program.
I strongly recommend this program to any organization seeking to improve its effectiveness."
---John Shields, Former CEO & Chairman Trader Joe's Company
Peter takes a holistic approach when developing individuals, teams and organizations. For example, he facilitated the Port PD in crafting a three-year vivid vision statement aimed at becoming a world-class police department. In his 1:1 leadership coaching with our command staff, Peter equipped the PD leaders to use the vivid vision as a beacon to guide the officers in their charge. Peter coached nine of our command staff leaders with the resulting outcomes:
+ Optimized shift briefings.
+ Developed a field plan to improve officers’ efficiency, safety, and customer engagement while on patrol.
+ Helped the command staff leverage the SEAPORT values to get the best from their direct reports.
+ Elevated the emotional intelligence of command staff and officers.
+ Reengaged tenured officers who had become complacent.
+ Improved the coxswain and dispatch center training programs.
+ Resolved interpersonal conflicts between and amongst officers and command staff.
+ Increased the personal productivity systems of the command staff.
--Daniel J. Koesema, P.E.
Port Corpus Christi Director (PCCA) of Channel Development
"I have had the pleasure of working with Peter off and on over the course of the last 15 years. Peter is an excellent leadership coach without a doubt. I particularly admire his sessions on leadership in general that are both theoretical as well as practical. He strikes a great balance there with professionalism and humor. He connects quickly with his coachees and has always been willing and able to push them in new and more positive directions. Peter has a thirst for knowledge himself as well which makes him open minded and a flexible thinker. I have a ton of respect for what Peter can do."
--Glenn Backus, Managing Partner, Revolution Brands
"My one-on-one coaching sessions with Mr. Mclees provided valuable leadership training that I will carry with me on and off the job. I gained better awareness of my supervisory coaching, mentoring, leadership responsibilities, and the importance of prioritizing my time to meet and coach my subordinates.
Through these coaching sessions I learned that subordinates are all different and as such require different methods of coaching; or as Mr. Mclees puts it, “one size does not fit all”. This I found to be true in my coaching sessions with two Sergeants. One exhibited a Growth Mindset while the other a Fixed Mindset, each required a different coaching approach to help build better leadership habits.
We also saw a change of heart in an officer during the second workshop. The officer explained that during the first workshop he had not bought in to the training and was reluctant to participate. He explained that his attitude changed when he realized the benefits and knowledge to be gained through the Best Practices Workshop.
Once more I want to thank you for facilitating this invaluable training. I look forward to the next round of leadership training."
--Police Lieutenant
--Kent Britton
Chief Financial Officer
“Smart Development created bottom-line results for our team of production and distribution supervisors and managers. At the end of the coaching program the reduction in overtime, the gains in production, and cost savings in just one work day were enough to cover the cost of the program.
We continue with these savings daily. In terms of safety and sanitation our food production facility has never looked better. Their supervisors are confident, competent, fully engaged with company goals, and work together as a team.”
--Mark Harding, Former SVP of Production Farmer Bros.
Peter is many things, among them an excellent leadership coach, master motivator, and great storyteller. He has a rare ability to energize and invigorate his audience when speaking about topics ranging from the grandiose to the mundane. I have enjoyed each session spent learning from him, and look forward to more in the coming years."
--Collin Carson, Store Manager Trader Joe’s
I have attended two SMART Training Programs while at Farmer Brothers and have personally benefited tremendously. These courses have reshaped my thinking on motivating others to perform at their very best, and to become a better sales leader. In this day in age of declining human interaction skills because of technology, this course is vital to any sales organization that is interested in their employees. I realize that many do not like to attend seminars because they assume it will be boring but this course is far from it. Peter is a master at making his presentations lively, entertaining but yet educational. I particularly enjoy the fact that Peter engages the entire group in the material and discussions. My only regret is that I will not be able to attend the third SMART Training program because I have shifted my career focus; however I know that the entire Farmer Brothers sales team will continue to benefit from the program. It is with great confidence and my privilege to highly recommend Peter McLees and the Smart Development Program.
I have also started training other managers and employees how to use OneNote by using the Prioritization process as an example.
I appreciate the coaching I received from Peter regarding my Key Performance Indicators. The KPI’s enabled me to focus on desired outcomes such as planning and prioritizing, setting goals, keeping your boss informed, coaching for new employee, etc. In turn, this has tremendously helped me and the organization become more efficient and effective.
Peter helped me with ideas on how to manage and keep our vendors on track. We now have bi-weekly conference calls to discuss their progress and action items."
--Manager
Hi Peter. I was so thoroughly impressed with your facilitation skills and the program you developed for our group. This was the best offsite that I have attended during my tenure at the Port. There is hope! I’m anxious to review with my team the materials from the retreat.
---Heather Morris, former Director of Communications
Port of Long Beach
--Sarah Garza
Port Corpus Christi Director of Environmental Planning and Compliance
Former VP, Store Operations Maly's Salon-Centric Stores
My first engagement with Peter McLees from Smart Development was on a project for the development of a new brand within the family of Giant/Martin’s Food Stores. Our vision was to develop our brand and culture, so our customers would have an inspirational food shopping experience. Peter spent numerous sessions before our formal team training getting to know our aspirations and goals for this new approach to food retailing. From these sessions, Peter was able to custom design a week-long training session with our project and team leaders and the results were incredible.
The feedback and results from the training were phenomenal and beyond our expectations. Compared to previous group training (s) and team formation events; Peter’s program delivered highly interactive and engaging sessions that were custom built for our vision of our brand/culture fusion.
All the participants expressed their appreciation for Peter’s level of preparedness, his facilitation skills and his creative and skillful delivery of the learning objectives. Peter brings a level of personal touch and business experience which is both refreshing and inspirational. I would recommend Peter for any of your coaching and development needs.
The team at Giant Heirloom Market has had an exceptional experience with him and we will continue to utilize his expertise in providing ongoing coaching and development for our leadership team. I strongly recommend his services.
--David Goodyear Human Resource Business Partner Giant Heirloom Market
Such a detailed Post!. Thank you for a really enlightening article.
ReplyDeletePhysician Life Physician Coaching
shorturl.at/kuyz2
Excellent read! The examples you provided really helped to illustrate your points.
ReplyDeletePersonal development coaching