Tag Archives: Business

Seven Steps to Your New Goal

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A goal worth achieving makes you place yourself in the crosshairs

When you aim for the right target, your goal becomes more possible

You already know that you need to have a clear goal in your personal development as a leader. Without a goal, you don’t know where you are going. And that’s exactly where you will end up… drifting somewhere… maybe it’ll be great, maybe it’ll be a waste of your time. Here are the seven steps to your new leadership development goal:

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6 Top Reasons Leaders Seek Coaching

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Why do leaders seek coaching? Over the past twenty years of coaching, I have found that leaders seek to a coach for six main reasons, and more urgently when two or more of these reasons combine:

So just what can a coach do for you?

A coach can help you:
  • Gain insight – particularly about how current behaviour is PERCEIVED by others through providing feedback and assessment.
  • Get Clarity of Purpose – Extroverted people who are outer directed (and rewarded behaviours in this world) tend to get their self-esteem from satisfying others’ expectations of them. This may cause them to lose touch with what is truly important for themselves. Without clarity of purpose, you may tend to rush through days not knowing what you want to achieve. Often asking what others want rather than seeming to have opinions of their own. Reflection and review through coaching can help here.
  • Help you improve relationships – changing behaviours in relationships changes their perception of the other party and you’ll get more open and honest feedback. Coaching that helps you conduct planned conversations with colleagues is especially useful here.
  • Broaden your perspectives – we all play a role and have a preference of the way we process…. increasing the diversity of opinions we consider in decisions broadens our perspective leading to improved and more acceptable decisions.
  • Develop your leadership skills – developing the skills each individual needs for their new position or a future role.
  • Help you Identify and overcome barriers to change – change occurs over time, unlearning is often resisted, especially deeply rooted habits, and stress causes us to revert to preference. Self-righteousness is often the biggest barrier. Coaching can identify and discuss the roadblocks developing strategies and new ways of thinking to overcome them.
  • Improve your ability to learn – dependence on your coach for feedback is a disservice. Internalizing the ability to learn and continuously grow, sustaining behaviour and results. Coaching uses a cyclical process, making this process explicit, the coachee becomes more skilled at using the same process on their own.

When is Coaching needed?

There are times in life and work when we would benefit from the experience, wisdom and knowledge of people who have been in similar situations. If you are looking for one such person, then you are looking for a coach. Most coaches are professionals, people with considerable experience in one or more sectors, more often than not trained in coaching skills. They choose to become coaches as they are willing to help others by sharing their experience and by helping their coachees to find solutions to their issues, following them through a plan of action.

According to a report published by CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development), one in five chief executives claim that having had a coach was critical for their success.

Young graduates report to have found their feet in the organisation thanks to the help of their most experienced colleagues. Even people coming up to retirement have been eased through this difficult stage of their life through people who have “been there before”. Within a work environment there are many situations where the help of a coach would be appropriate.
Typical Situations when having a coach will really help you
  • Starting in a new job/position when you are expected to hit the ground running.
  • Taking on a new role or responsibility, or starting in a new industry where you have little experience, but need to gain the skills and experience quickly.
  • When needing a personal assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses, and consider what you should be doing in order to maximize your potential.
  • When striving for promotion or a new position.
  • When needing to talk through your thought processes, strategies, and plans in order to move forward.
  • When struggling with certain skills and performance areas and you wish to improve.
  • When feeling you have reached a plateau in your career and want to explore options.

 

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What is Influence? | Book Yourself Solid

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Leadership is Influence, nothing more, nothing less – Dr John C. Maxwell

In the 20 plus years that I have been training, coaching and mentoring leaders across the globe, this is still true. But there are different ways to influence others, which is right for you? Michael Port reviews Bob Burg’s latest book:

I know a guy who gets (almost) everything he wants. Let’s call him Fred. He wins every negotiation. He successfully argues down every bill/invoice. He gets people to finish things when he wants them to. However, and this is big however, nobody wants to play or work with him ever again. He berates, bullies and threatens others into submission. It’s just easier to give him his way then deal with him.

To me, he seems miserable and he makes everyone else miserable as a result. But, he gets what he wants.

Is that influence? I suppose so. Is that the kind of influencer you want to be? I imagine not.

But what do you do if you’re not so tough? What do you do if your natural way of being is empathetic, kind and easy going? What if you don’t like to make waves?

According to Bob, in Adversaries Into Allies, there’s a much better way. It’s more fun, and a lot more effective. For both immediate and long-term, sustainable results, helping people make decisions that are not only in your best interest, but in alignment with their best interests as well, is the way to go.

Doing this effectively, consistently, and predictably, however, takes influence. In the book, Bob shows you how to:

  1. Control your own emotions: Responding calmly rather than allowing your emotions to get the better of you will ensure not putting others on the defensive but rather help them remain open to your ideas.
  2. Understand the clash of belief systems: Every individual operates based on an unconscious set of beliefs, experiences, and ideas, which are most likely very different from yours. Understand this and you can avoid confusion and numerous misunderstandings that stand in the way of most people’s ability to influence.
  3. Acknowledge their ego: People want to feel good about themselves; if you make someone genuinely feel good, you’re one step closer to making an ally.
  4. Set the proper frame: People react and respond to other people. Approach potential conflicts from a position of benevolence, resolution, and helpfulness and they will follow suit. Vital: being able to reset another’s already existing negative frame.
  5. Communicate with tact and empathy: While the first four principles are vital, this is what brings it all home. Saying the right thing at the right time makes all the difference in terms of moving people to your side of the issue and taking the appropriate action that benefits all concerned.
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Why use simulations? Because lectures and case studies don’t cut it!

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In spite of the extensive evidence, it seems that traditional lectures, use of static case studies and ‘knowledge transfer‘ continue to be the main methodologies used by teachers and trainers.

It is time to change. Gen iY is here and if we continue with last century methods, we have little chance of being their guides of choice:

 


Assesing and comparing the use of simulations, case studies and games for management development –

 

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LeaderShift – Delegate the fun stuff

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Delegate the fun stuff!

Many of you will have already read an article of mine called “Loosen Your Grip to Stay in Control!” Well, one of the areas that many of my coaching clients struggle with is effective delegation. So, this LeaderShift!, I’m going to get you to delegate. And to delegate something that you like to do yourself!

“But John, I don’t have anyone that I can delegate to!” Nonsense! You do, they might not be your staff, it could be your friends, colleagues, boss (yes your boss), spouse, kids…

  • Are you overburdened?
  • Do you have any problems with giving other people control over something?
  • Do you ever find that others were expecting something different even after you clearly communicated?
  • Is time your friend?

6 Steps to Delegation

Delegate [del-i-geyt]: to send or appoint (a person) as deputy or representative; to commit (powers, functions, etc.) to another as agent or deputy.

There’s a simple six step process to follow to delegate to someone successfully. You need to:

  1. Establish exactly what to delegate to whom
  2. Clarify the specific outcomes you want
  3. Clearly define responsibilities
  4. Communicate the scope and authority
  5. Establish a time frame
  6. Monitor progress

You know this right? Your challenge this LeaderShift! goes beyond this.

Leadershift!

Delegate something you really like doing!

  1. What’s the favourite part of your job?
  2. Delegate it!

Something that you personally enjoy. Perhaps it’s meeting a favourite client. Making that presentation. Cooking your best recipe. Taking the applause. Speaking to the team. Sitting in your office… Delegate it!

It’s easy to delegate (usually abdicate) stuff we don’t like doing. But to be the great leader I know that you are, you will give your best away to develop others. You will lose control… and once lost, you will find that you actually have more. Let me know how you get on.

John

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