You Can't Be A Good Leader If You're Not Coaching Your Team

 

"Leadership happens one conversation at a time. So be mindful with each one."

If you have room in your head for only one nugget of leadership wisdom, make it this one: the most powerfully motivating condition people experience at work is making progress at something that is personally meaningful. If your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.

To do so, you must understand what drives each person, help build connections between each person’s work and the organization’s mission, values and strategic objectives, provide timely feedback, and help each person learn and grow on an ongoing basis. Regular communication around development — having coaching conversations — is essential. In fact, according to research, the single most important managerial competency that separates highly effective managers from average ones is coaching.

Strangely, at most companies, being coach-like isn’t part of what managers are formally expected to do. Even though research makes it clear that employees and job candidates alike value learning and career development above most other aspects of a job, many managers don’t see it as an important part of their role. Managers think they don’t have the time to have these conversations, and many lack the skill. Yet 70% of employee learning and development happens on the job, not through formal training programs. So if line managers aren’t supportive and actively involved, employee growth is stunted. So is engagement and retention. When this happens business results suffer as well.

Can you teach old-school, results-focused line managers to coach their employees? Absolutely. And the training boosts performance in both directions. It’s a powerful experience to create a resonant connection with another person and help them to achieve something they care about and to become more of who they want to be. If there’s anything an effective, resonant coaching conversation produces, it’s positive energy. Hundreds of leaders have shared with me that helping others learn and grow is among the most rewarding experiences they’ve had as managers.

Starting today, you can be significantly more effective as a manager — and enjoy your job more — by engaging in regular coaching conversations with your team members. By the way, these conversation do not need to be long. As you resolve to support their ongoing learning and development, here are five key tips to get you started.

• Listen mindfully. Consider what it feels like when you’re trying to convey something important to a person who has many things on his mind. Contrast that familiar experience with the more luxurious and deeply validating one of communicating with someone who is completely focused on you and actively listening to what you have to say with an open mind and an open heart. You can open a coaching conversation with a question such as “How would you like to grow this month?” Your choice of words is less important than your intention to clear your mind, listen with your full attention, and create a high-quality connection that invites your team member to open up and to think creatively.

• Ask more, tell less. As a manager, you have a high level of expertise that you’re used to sharing, often in a directive manner. This is fine when you’re clarifying action steps for a project you’re leading or when people come to you asking for advice. But in a coaching conversation, it’s essential to restrain your impulse to provide the answers. Your path is not your employee’s path. Open-ended questions, not answers, are the tools of coaching. You succeed as a coach by helping your team members articulate their goals and challenges and find their own answers. This is how people clarify their priorities and devise strategies that resonate with what they care about most and that they will be committed to putting into action.

• Create and sustain a developmental partnership. While your role as a coach is not to provide answers, supporting your team members’ developmental goals is essential. Let’s say that your employee mentions she’d like to develop a deeper understanding of how your end users experience the services your organization provides. In order to do so, she suggests accompanying an implementation team on a site visit next week, interviewing end users, and using the interviews to write an article on end user experience for publication on your firm’s intranet-based blog.  

You agree that this would be valuable for both the employee and the organization. Now, make sure that you give your employee the authorization, space and resources necessary to carry out her developmental plan. In addition to supporting her, you can also highlight her article as an example of employee-directed learning and development. Follow-up is critical to build trust and to make your coaching more effective. The more you follow through on supporting your employees’ developmental plans, the more productive your coaching becomes, the greater your employees’ trust in you, and the more engaged you all become. It’s a virtuous cycle.

• Focus on moving forward positively. Oftentimes in a coaching conversation, the person you’re coaching will get caught up in detailing their frustrations. “I’d love to spend more time building my network, but I have no bandwidth. I’m at full capacity just trying to stay on task with my deliverables. I’d really love to get out to some industry seminars, but I can’t let myself think about it until I can get ahead of these deadlines.” While it can provide temporary relief to vent, it doesn’t generate solutions. 

Take a moment to acknowledge your employee’s frustrations, but then encourage her to think about how to move past them. You might ask, “Which of the activities you mention offer the greatest potential for building your knowledge and adding value to the company?” “Could you schedule two hours of time for developmental activities each week as a recurring appointment?” “Are there skills or relationships that would increase your ability to meet your primary deliverables?” “How could we work more efficiently within the team to free up and protect time for development?”

• Build accountability. In addition to making sure you follow through on any commitments you make to employees in coaching conversations, it’s also useful to build accountability for the employee’s side of formulating and implementing developmental plans.

Accountability increases the positive impact of coaching conversations and solidifies their rightful place as keys to organizational effectiveness. If your employee plans to research training programs that will fit his developmental goals, give these plans more weight by asking him to identify appropriate programs along with their costs and the amount of time he’ll need away from work, and to deliver this information to you by a certain deadline. (And then, of course, you will need to act on the information in a timely manner.)

 

What will coaching your employees do for you? It will build stronger bonds between you and your team members, support them in taking ownership over their own learning, and help them develop the skills they need to perform and their peak. And it also feels good. At a leadership seminar I led recently a manager said the coaching exercise he’d just participated in “felt like a bungee jump.” As the workshop leader, I was delighted to observe that this man, who had arrived looking reserved and a bit tired, couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day. He was far from the only participant who was visibly energized by the coaching experience.

So go ahead and take the interpersonal jump. You will love the thrill of coaching conversations that catalyze your employees’ growth.

Check out these related posts: 

Getting the Most Out of 1:1 Coaching

SMART Coaching Works. Here's Proof

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

How to Attract, Keep and Motivate Today's Workforce

 

 

 

Organizations face major challenges when they consider the increasing difficulty of finding skilled people, a younger workforce with different attitudes about work, and a growing population of older workers heading toward retirement.

Businesses can improve their ability to attract, retain and improve productivity by applying the following five-step PRIDE process:

P - Provide a Positive Working Environment
R - Recognize, Reward and Reinforce the Right Behavior
I - Involve and Engage
D - Develop Skills and Potential
E - Evaluate and Measure

STEP 1--PROVIDE A POSITIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Jim Goodnight is the co-founder and President of SAS in Raleigh-Durham, NC. SAS is the largest software development company in the United States. Their progressive work environment and host of family-friendly benefits keeps their turnover rate far below the national average. Jim said, "My assets leave work for home at 5:00 or later each night. It is my job to bring them back each day." Wise executives realize the responsibility for creating a positive work environment cannot be delegated. It starts at the top.

Have you ever worked for a bad boss? One of the main reasons employees quit is the relationship with their first-line supervisor. The fact is many supervisors and managers are unaware how their actions and decisions affect employee turnover. A critical aspect of an effective retention strategy is manager training. Properly trained managers play a major role in an effective recruitment and retention strategy. Managers need the skills, tools, and knowledge to help them understand their employees' retention needs and be able to implement a retention plan designed to increase employee engagement in the organization.

STEP 2--RECOGNIZE, REWARD AND REINFORCE THE RIGHT BEHAVIOR
Money and benefits may attract people to the front door, but something else has to keep them from going out the back. People have a basic human need to feel appreciated and proud of their work. Recognition and incentive programs help meet that need.

A successful reward and recognition program does not have to be complicated or expensive to be effective. Graham Weston, co-founder and CEO of Rackspace Managed Hosting, gives the keys to his BMW M3 convertible to his employees for a week. This creative way to reward employees has a bigger impact than cash. He says, "If you gave somebody a $200 bonus, it wouldn't mean very much. When someone gets to drive my car for a week, they never forget it."

At First American, managers present a Greased Monkey Award to the computer technician who is best in resolving problems with computer programs. The award is a plastic toy monkey in a jar of Vaseline along with a $50 dinner certificate.

An equipment distributor rewards each employee's work anniversary with a cake and a check for $200 for each year employed. Twice a year employees' children receive a $50 savings bond when they bring in their "all A's" report card. In addition, they reward employees with a "Safety Bonus Program." They screen each employee's driving record twice a year, and anyone who has a citation is removed from consideration. Those employees remaining at the end of the year divide $2,000. On Fridays, all employees rotate jobs for one hour. This builds a stronger team, unity, and improves communication within the company.

STEP 3--INVOLVE AND ENGAGE
People may show up for work, but are they engaged and productive? People are more committed and engaged when they can contribute their ideas and suggestions. This gives them a sense of ownership.

The Sony Corporation is known for its ability to create and manufacture new and innovative products. In order to foster the exchange of ideas within departments, they sponsor an annual Idea Exposition. During the exposition, scientists and engineers display projects and ideas they are working on. Open only to Sony's employees, this process creates a healthy climate of innovation and engages all those who participate.

TD Industries in Dallas, TX has a unique way of making its employees feel valued and involved. One wall within the company contains the photographs of all employees who have worked there more than five years. Their "equality" program goes beyond the typical slogans, posters, and HR policies. There are no reserved parking spaces or other perks just for executives -- everyone is an equal. This is one reason why TD Industries was listed by Fortune magazine as one of the "Top 100 Best Places to Work."

STEP 4--DEVELOP SKILLS AND POTENTIAL
For most people, career opportunities are just as important as the money they make. In a study by Linkage, Inc. more than 40 percent of the respondents said they would consider leaving their present employer for another job with the same benefits if that job provided better career development and greater challenges.

Deloitte is listed as one of the "Top 100 Best Places to Work." They discovered several years ago they were losing talented people to other companies. They conducted exit surveys and found 70 percent of those employees who left to take new jobs and careers outside the company, could have found the same jobs and careers within Deloitte. As a result they created Deloitte Career Connections, an intranet-based development and career coaching program for all employees. During the first week of implementation over 2,000 employees took advantage of the program and viewed internal job openings. Not only does the program provide new job opportunities, but Career Connections offers a host of career development tools such as self-assessments, tools to develop resumes, and articles on various job seeking strategies within the company. Skilled people will not remain in a job if they see no future in their position. To eliminate the feeling of being in a dead-end job, every position should have an individual development plan.

STEP 5--EVALUATE AND MEASURE
Continuous evaluation and never-ending improvement is the final step of the PRIDE system. The primary purpose of evaluation is to measure progress and determine what satisfies and de-satisfies your workforce. The evaluation process includes the measurement of attitudes, morale, turnover, and the engagement level of the workforce. Here is a checklist of items that should be included in your evaluation and measurement process.

• Conduct formal and informal employee satisfaction surveys.
• Initiate interviews and surveys concerning the real reasons people come to and leave your organization.
• Improve your hiring process to create a better match between the individual's talents and values with the job requirements and culture.
• Provide flexible work arrangements for working parents and older workers.
• Hold managers responsible for retention in their departments.
• Start measuring the cost of turnover.
• Focus on the key jobs that have the greatest impact on profitability and productivity.
• Examine those departments that have the highest turnover rates.
• Design an effective employee onboarding program.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Rebuilding Morale and Engagement: Creating a Happy, Committed Workforce

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to sociologist Alexander Leighton, "morale is the capacity of a group of people to pull together persistently and consistently in pursuit of a common purpose."

For your organization or team to thrive, it's essential to take the time to develop good morale and engagement.

Almost by definition, organizations or teams with high morale experience higher productivity and staff engagement, they show lower employee turnover and absenteeism, and they have a happier workforce. What's more, they find it easier to attract and retain the best talent.

While "raising morale" can seem to be a nebulous goal, many of these other effects are measurable, and directly affect the bottom line.

Last but not least, it feels great to work in an organization where morale is high!

Why Morale and Engagement Suffers

• There are many things that can cause team morale to dip. For example:
• Poor leadership.  
• Poor communication
• Lack of empowerment or autonomy.
• Inflexible working conditions.
• Damage to the organization's reputation or public image. 
• Losing a big contract or client. 
•  Difficult co-workers.
• Heavy workloads or stress, with no reward or gratitude.
• No sense of social value to the work being done, or a negative impact on the wider society.
• Layoffs and restructuring.
• Cancellation of team benefits.
  

Signs  of  Low  Engagement  and  Morale

Too often, managers don't realize that morale is poor. Whether or not your team or organization is facing any of the scenarios above, watch out for the following clues that morale may be slipping:

• Obvious unhappiness.
• Indifference towards customers.
• Increased complaints about work, or other team members.
• Increased absenteeism.
• An increase in conflict between team members.
• Insubordination or unruliness.
• Disorganized work environments.
• Increased employee turnover.
• Decreased productivity.
• Lack of enthusiasm. 

 

Leader  Engagement

Keep in mind that, if you're a leader or manager, your team's morale starts with you. It's up to you to be a good role model for your team. If your own morale is suffering, then it's vital that you work on rebuilding your own outlook and attitude first.

Start by identifying why your own morale is low, and then come up with ways to adjust your mental attitude.

Often, this starts with action. For instance, perhaps your morale is down because your boss is pressuring you to do a good job, and is threatening to fire you if you don't perform. You can make yourself feel more positive and in control of the situation by getting organized, and by achieving measurable goals that will put your boss at ease.

Work on rebuilding your self-confidence. Remember, your team is always watching you: if you're feeling positive and confident, they will too. Quick wins will also help build confidence - for you, and your team.

Team Morale and Engagement

If your team's morale needs rebuilding, there are several strategies that you can use. However, just as you did with your own morale, you need to start by understanding the problem. This helps you choose strategies that best fit your situation, which may include:

1. Reconnecting With Your Team

Morale is higher in situations where team members feel close to their managers. You can create this type of environment by developing good relationships with your team, and by reconnecting whenever possible.

Practice Management by Walking Around so you can "touch base" with team members often. With regular contact and communication, you can reestablish trust and rapport with your team.

It also helps to develop your emotional intelligence: the better you can sense the emotions and needs of those around you, the better you will be as a leader.

Keep in mind that lack of appreciation is often cited as one of the root causes of low morale. So, do whatever you can to show your people that you appreciate them. Reward your team by saying "thank you" for a job well done, or by offering benefits such as extra days off, or flexible scheduling when key goals are met.

You'll also want to give everyone regular feedback on their work. (See our blog on feedback - once a year just isn't enough!)

2. Developing Your Team

Another way of improving morale, especially after a round of layoffs, is by helping people develop their skills.

So make sure that you're offering your people opportunities for learning and development, as a way of helping them feel more secure and committed to the organization.

You can do this by understanding their developmental needs, and by using Training Needs Assessments to make sure that everyone is properly trained.

Cross-Training is another great way of building morale, and improving productivity, just as long as you explain why you're doing it. (Some may see it as a sign that layoffs are on the way!)

3. Improving the Workplace

Sometimes, morale can suffer because of the physical environment that your team has to work in.

Take a look at the offices, conference rooms, and break rooms that your team uses. Are these rooms safe and clean? Is the air quality good? Are the rooms bright and energizing? Do team members have the tools and resources they need to work effectively? Do what you can to improve the offices and other rooms your team uses every day.

You can also use Herzberg’s Motivational and Hygiene Factors to address the factors that cause dissatisfaction in your team.

4. Improving Communication

Poor communication can be another common root cause of low morale.

Rumors can spread quickly in the workplace, and these can destroy morale. This is why it's important to give people accurate, timely information, especially if sales are down, or if the company is restructuring or downsizing. (Just make sure that your communications are coordinated with those of other managers.)

Identify ways that you can keep your team in the loop. Perhaps you could send a weekly email with important updates, or devote a few minutes in your regular meetings to keeping people up to speed with what's going on. Communicate fully with your team, and explain how any changes or decisions will affect them.

Remember, the flow of information should go both ways. Encourage your team to come to you any time they have questions or concerns. Listen actively to what they have to say, and respond in a timely manner to problems or suggestions. If rumors do begin to fly around the office, address them immediately.

5. Setting Measurable Goals

Morale can fall when your people are unclear about what they should be doing, or what your expectations are. This lack of direction is disheartening, and disorienting.

Make sure that your people are aware of your organization's mission and vision, and of how their work contributes towards these. Understanding these gives members of your team a clear and (hopefully) inspiring view of what the organization expects, and helps them think about how they can use their own talents and skills to fulfill the organization's mission.

Next, look at the tasks and responsibilities of each team member. Set SMART goals for everyone on your team using Management By Objectives - having clear, achievable goals will help to motivate people, and will help them know what they should be doing.

6. Rebuilding Confidence

Perhaps your team just lost an important contract or project. If this is the case, people's confidence may be shaken.

Learn how to build confidence in other people. One great way to do this is to give them more autonomy to make decisions. Delegate tasks and responsibilities, and push them to work towards challenging but achievable goals. And when someone on your team has a success, celebrate it!

7. Focusing on Talent Management

If times are tough for your organization, you might have a problem keeping your best people, or enticing good new people to join your team. This is another reason why rebuilding morale is so important: if morale is reduced, your most talented team members are likely to be the first to walk. (After all, they'll find it easiest to get new jobs.)

Use talent management strategies to ensure that your people stay interested in your organization. For instance, use job crafting to make sure that their roles use their talents and skills fully.

8. Keeping People Motivated

Once you've rebuilt morale and engagement, it's important to keep people motivated so that your team can reach its objectives. Also remember that morale can be affected even when times are good. Regularly look for signs of low-morale, and revisit the strategies above when necessary.

Key Points

Team morale and engagement can suffer for many reasons, including downsizing, poor leadership, poor communication, or difficulty with co-workers. If you suspect that your team's morale is not what it should be, there are several strategies that you can use to rebuild it.

First, focus on your own morale and engagement. Then identify why team morale is low, and choose appropriate strategies for rebuilding it.

These can include:

1. Reconnecting with your team.
2. Developing your team.
3. Improving the workplace.
4. Improving communication.
5. Setting measurable goals.
6. Rebuilding confidence.
7. Focusing on talent management.
8. Motivating your people effectively.

 

Check out a related post: Leading a Struggling Team   (5 min read)

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Are the Best Leaders Like the Best Salespeople? (The answer may suprise you)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What images, thoughts and feelings come to mind when you think of or hear the word “salesperson”?

• Stereotypical, slick-talking, used car sales people
• Well-spoken financial manager
• The guy everyone loves who sells his wares on the golf course

Whether you have positive thoughts and feelings about salespeople or decidedly unpositive, the purpose of this article is not to suggest or defend any of these images or thoughts. Rather, my purpose is to state an iron-clad fact:

Leaders are salespeople.

And, more importantly, great leaders are great salespeople.

You may not buy my idea (after all, I am trying to sell it to you, but keep reading I plan to succeed). If you don’t buy this premise it’s probably because you have some beliefs/images/thoughts about sales people that contradict your beliefs/images/thoughts about leaders.

If you already buy my idea then you will love what’s to come. If you don’t, then let’s see if I can change your mind by the end of this post . . .

Salespeople can’t make you do anything; neither can leaders. Both realize they can inspire and inform, and they recognize the ultimate choice to take action belongs to the customer or follower. Great salespeople and leaders also realize that when they remember this fact they are less frustrated and more successful.

Salespeople are selling a vision and ideas; so are leaders. You may think salespeople are selling a product or service, but the truth is they are selling a vision of what that product or service will do or how it will make people feel as a result of their ownership. As leaders help people to see a vision of something different in the future, they are doing the same thing.

Salespeople know they are in the relationship business; so do leaders. Neither a great salesperson nor a great leader focuses on becoming friends with his/her Customers/followers, but all focus on building meaningful and trusted relationships. Why? Those relationships make their work easier and far more rewarding.

 

Salespeople realize they are in the change business; so do leaders. If no one buys, nothing changes. If no one follows, there isn’t much leadership. To be successful, salespeople and leaders study and understand individual and group/organizational change.

Salespeople are influencers ; so are leaders. Notice I didn’t say manipulators, but influencers and persuaders. When you sum up the other four points above you come up with influence. And influence is defined as the mental and emotional aptitude to change the actions, understanding, and behavior of other people without the apparent exertion of force.

Are there manipulative, short-sighted salespeople?

Of course. (The same can be said about some portion of the leader population.)

But, are those the salespeople that create long term success for themselves and their Customers? Not at all. (Not in the leader population either)

The best salespeople are persuasion experts who influence through relationships, insight, great communication skills, understanding people and more. They strive to support and improve the lives of those they sell to, knowing when they do, they have created a Customer for life.

Read that sentence again, and with just a couple of changes . . .

The best leaders are persuasion experts who influence through relationships, insight, great communication skills, understanding people and more. They strive to support and improve the lives of those they lead, knowing when they do, they have created a follower for life.

Those are just five reasons why the best leaders are great salespeople.

Regardless of what you might have been thinking at the start of this article, it is time to embrace your inner salesperson.

But only if you care about being a more effective leader.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.