Intentional Leadership: Leaders Growing Leaders

I haven’t yet heard a business owner, executive, or manager who hasn’t expressed a need to have stronger leaders in their organization.  Everyone wants more and better leaders.  Unfortunately, some employees don’t view themselves as leaders and neglect to grow their leadership capacity.  What these employees may not realize is that their DNA rubs off on others as their colleagues observe them, have conversations, and work alongside them.

Although I believe everyone is a leader, I admit that the ability to influence may be easier for some. From my experience, these perceived “natural leaders” already possess a high degree of certain personal traits they build upon to grow in their leadership strengths.  Yet, even these emerging leaders need the partnership with more experienced leaders to help them grow their leadership brand.

Organizations that emphasize leadership development for all their employees will foster stronger employee engagement.  I propose that part of an organization’s intentional mission should be to identify and raise up the next generation of leaders. Some business leaders may ask, “What’s the best way to start investing in our emerging leaders?”  Growing leaders can be broken down into a few simple steps:

1. Make the decision that you will invest your time and resources in growing new leaders. Leadership demands intentionality, which means you will take on this assignment as part of your job description.
2. Identify potential leaders that have some level of the characteristics you believe will make for great leadership within your organization. Bill Hybels (2009) mentions five key qualities that he looks for in potential leaders: (1) influence, (2) character, (3) people skills, (4) initiative, and (5) intelligence.  You may select all five or modify; however, you should be clear on the criteria by which you will base your selection.
3. Invest in potential leaders through coaching, mentoring, training, and wise counsel. Storytelling is a powerful way to learn, so share your stories of successes and challenges and what you learned. Be aware that just listening to leadership stories does not grow leadership; therefore, it is important to have them put to use what they know.
4. Create opportunities for potential leaders to practice leadership. You need to trust they will become stronger leaders by figuring out leadership through their own trials. Leaders grow by moving from theoretical to practical experiences through a series of more challenging assignments.

Management typically justifies leadership coaching for an identified few, because the investment payback can be roughly calculated.  With relatively high turnover rates at lower levels in the organization, management does not want to invest in these employees only to have the competition realize the benefits.  Decisions in leadership investment can be a difficult decision, but I can make the argument that if companies invested more broadly in leadership development, they would keep their best employees and also have the competitors’ employees want to join.

Reference

Hybels, B. (2009). Courageous Leadership. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and leadership consultant with an extensive background in business development.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all their employees.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Leadership: Collaborating Across Generational Cohorts

Based on my birth date I am a confused Baby Boomer/Gen-Xer, because I sit in both camps depending on what study defines the age range for each generational cohort. By my self-assessment, I primarily identify with the characteristics of the Gen-Xer. However, no one fits all stereotypes, and I see my profile as a bell curve with my tails in the Boomer and Millennial camps. What concerns me most about the current workplace dynamics is the lack of collaboration and appreciation that cohorts have for one another. Has there ever been such an emotionally charged divide?

How Technology Impacts Generational Cohorts Attributes and Collaboration

Studies show that having the authority and left to their own preferences, people promote and invite into their ranks those who have similar values, interests, and styles. What might this mean for all employees? The likely assumption would be more cohort division and clustering of similar thinking and approaches. When these dynamics are interwoven with current communication platforms, one would naturally forecast that there would be fewer cohorts sitting across the table from one another. Does technology allow shared-thinking groups the ability to silo themselves and hang onto preconceived ideas and stereotypes? Would the absence of web-meetings, working remotely, iPhones, call-in conferencing, etc. force the generations to collaborate and appreciate each other more?

No doubt, technology has expanded the width of our network, yet has it come at the expense of the depth in our relationships? Companies bring more colleagues together through technology platforms, yet have they invested the corresponding resources to foster effective collaboration?

How to Build Bridges toward Collaboration

How can generations learn to appreciate and collaborate more with each other to deliver superior solutions? Part of the answer involves understanding the impact of mindset.  Will people hang onto their beliefs and look for evidence to support how they feel, or will they choose to engage, brainstorm, and build a superior team?

Where would one start? First, acknowledge that technology will continue to be a force that shapes team collaboration across all cohorts. Second, appreciate that generational cohorts are shaped by their macros experiences that form their worldview. Third, be cognizant that people are individuals and some do not hold the same characteristics of their birthed cohort. Fourth, choose to respect and actively work with each style to extract the best of what it can contribute to the situation.

As the table suggests, cohorts’ preferences differ in what and how to communicate, problem-solve, decide, and lead. Most would agree that good communication is a key competency in influencing outcomes and achieving goals; therefore, colleagues need to answer three questions regarding their communication: (1) how much, (2) how to, and (3) to whom.

Given how technology has expanded access to information and communication platforms,  it should come as no surprise how cohorts’ styles and mediums have evolved. Baby Boomers have a more guarded view of information and prefer face-to-face communication; whereas, Millennials are more collaborative and utilize social media to communicate information. Each style has its merits and drawbacks. Millennials readily share information so teams can make decisions.  Baby Boomers prefer to make more decisions within their peer group and inform the team. The argument could be made that the Millennials’ preferred communication style lends itself to better decision-making because of its increased diversity and inclusion. However, the drawback is the increased risk that sensitive information would be leaked as more employees are involved in the collaborative process.

How to Collaborate through Consensus with the End Goal in Mind

Generational cohort preferences are rooted in human judgment in how best to work towards a goal.  For example, many of my work processes are classic Gen-Xer. My leadership style takes the form of coaching, and when I am asked to lead a meeting, my first inclination is to create a PowerPoint slide deck to lead the discussion.

I propose that cohorts will only increase in collaboration when they choose to de-emphasize a preferred, prescriptive process and focus on developing the best way to meet the objectives. Teams should allow their members some nonjudgmental space and flexibility to carry out their best work. Every member must learn to appreciate and find value in the other work styles as well as remain flexible. The surprise outcome may be the discovery of a hybrid team work style that delivers the right product at the right time.

Generational cohort conflict cannot be solved, because it is rooted in different values and worldviews. Poorly led organizations ignore cohort differences. The better organizations seek ways to manage this conflict, and the best companies leverage these differences to win.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in leadership and business development. She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ specific business needs. She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees. Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Leadership Starts with Self-Awareness

Many clients want to know how they can become better leaders.  My typical response is to answer this question with a question: “Where would you start?”  Clients respond with “improve my communication skills,” “have a clear vision,” “give better direction,” and “build stronger relationships.”  No doubt all of these answers have elements that can contribute toward improved leadership.  Yet, these answers leave people still wondering, “How do I really start the process?”

I propose that a serious effort to grow leadership capacity starts with an honest self-assessment.  Until a client understands who he* is and how he shows up in the world, he will be challenged to sustain leadership growth. People should be aware of where they are, where they want to stand, and how large of a gap exists between the two.  A deep-dive into self-awareness allows one to determine how he presents himself to others, which reflects a combination of worldview, skills/competencies, knowledge, attitudes, and appearance/behaviors.  Clients need to appreciate how each dimension works for and against their ability to influence, so they can choose to change in ways that drives toward increased leadership.

As an example, a sales person struggles with securing new clients and business growth.  One of my priorities as a leadership coach is to help him understand his worldview, which reflects how he believes the world works or should work.  Where does he land on the continuum of “fate plays a major role in my life” versus “I control my destiny”?  If the client tends more toward fate, he may stop pursuing a relationship with a prospective client sooner than a salesperson who believes he controls his destiny.  The sales person, who believes he strongly influences his outcome, may not as readily accept defeat and find other creative strategies to bring on the customer.  Another worldview perspective to consider is “people must earn my trust” versus “people are inherently trustworthy”?  How might a sales person, who embraces either extreme, be perceived by a potential customer?  Answers to these and other worldview questions will likely determine how a sales person engages in the sales process and with his customers.

Worldview is only one dimension that influences leadership growth.  I encourage clients to take a deep dive self-assessment in the other dimensions. Once a client has established a personal baseline and defined his leadership goals, he can work through the change process.  Focusing on purposeful change to improve leadership also helps to build learning agility, which is an important skill to be competitive in today’s global market.

*[”he” or “his” as personal pronouns are also intended to reflect “she” and “her”]

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in leadership and business development.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees. Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Coaching: How to Calculate Your Return on Investment

Have you thought about the return on investment (ROI) of personal coaching? I would probably guess not as this investment decision is somewhat analogous to the early days of personal computers.  With every new product or service, there is a small portion of the population who are the early adopters.  In the case of computers, they were likely the technology gurus, who were excited to upgrade their TI or HP hand-held calculators for 256 kB of desktop memory.  I propose this analogy parallels personal coaching.  There is a small portion of the population who are driven towards self-improvement, so hiring a coach is a no-brain decision.  What about the others?

In the early 1980’s, when IBM computers were first launched, companies struggled with the financial decision of whether to buy their employees personal computers. They intuitively knew their employees would be more productive, but did not grasp how to calculate a ROI.  Is personal coaching following the same path? Most people believe they would benefit from coaching, but they struggle with how to justify it.

How much would you pay for coaching services if you thought you would get promoted within the year, add an extra 10% to your base salary that carries forward for 20 years, or have more job opportunities?  What value would you place on coaching services that solidified your performance in a position where you felt overwhelmed? Can you calculate that value and weigh it against the cost?  What about the intangible benefits such as greater fulfillment and your impact on others.  An increase in your leadership abilities helps others lead better.  Accurately measuring all the downstream benefits would prove difficult, so I suggest focusing on what can be measured and let the unquantifiable extras be the cherry on top of the sundae.

My 5-step process to calculate coaching ROI involves answering a series of basic questions to define the opportunity, determine the gap, measure the performance, and calculate the value.  These steps are:

1. Define the need/opportunity and determine the gap
   • What specifically do you want to accomplish?
   • What is your baseline?
   • How big is the gap?
2. Calculate the benefit
   • What are the parameters that need to be addressed that will deliver value?
   • What is the quantifiable value if the performance gap is closed?
   • Is the growth in value linear, exponential, or binary?
3. Develop a coaching approach
   • What is the coaching strategy and tactics to achieve the target?
   • How will progress be measured (the metrics)?
   • How frequently will progress be measured?
   • Who will be responsible for collecting and reporting the data?
4. Implement the coaching plan
   • What is working well?
   • What needs to be adjusted to meet target?
   • What is the interim analysis and value?
5. Calculate the ROI
   • What is the total cost?
   • What is the monetary value of the improvement?
   • What is the ROI (net benefits/coaching costs)?

Putting this model into practical use, a client may have a goal to develop and lead more effective project meetings.  After a review of the client’s work and process, the coaching plan may focus on strategies and tactics to improve preparation, organization, and execution that results in fewer, shorter, and less attendees needed at all meetings.  The costs savings is easily calculated by the reduced man-hours in meetings multiplied by salaries over the project life.  The true cost savings are immeasurable as the upgrade in the client’s skills will carry forward into future projects.

When was the last time you attended a meeting and wished the meeting leader was better at preparing himself and the team as well as more effective in leading the meeting and staying on task? Ask me how I can help? The ROI is off the charts.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in leadership and business development.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Networking: How to Think of It as Fun When You Think It’s Not

You probably read the title and didn’t necessarily agree that networking is fun, but you were intrigued enough to read more. If you don’t think it’s fun, we probably have a different definition or approach of networking.

I know plenty of people who are highly networked and consider it a necessity of doing business, yet I know far more who say they need to start networking in case they lose their job. Sadly, many people don’t practice networking until they need something such as a job lead, referral, or recommendation. Networking then becomes a fearful activity as they live in a tight time frame to secure a job while managing the risk of rejection.

I propose that the definition of networking extends beyond a job and the industry connections where one earns a living. Networking is a life skill and a fun one to practice across all life relationships. Why? Because networking is not about asking for anything but about giving to others.

People were designed for networking, because people were designed to be in relationship with one another. Networking is about building and sustaining relationships. People get off track when they approach networking as a give and take or a score to be kept. Ninety-nine percent of networking should be giving and blessing others without the expectation of receiving anything in return. When we give, how can we be rejected? If you approach every contact as an opportunity to help, you will be surprised how your relationships strengthen.

So how do you start networking with sincerity? Ask powerful questions to learn more about people, where they are from, and their interests. You might find some interesting common ground off which to build. You might deepen the conversation by asking “-est” (extreme) type questions such as: 1) What is the biggest challenge you have faced? (2) What accomplishment are you proudest? and (3) What is your best piece of advice?  You may then ask, “How can I help you?” You’ll be surprised how easy and fun it is to have a conversation when you only have a desire to connect and serve. When you do eventually find yourself in a position of need, you may find that your network turns around and asks you, “How can I help you?”

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in leadership and business development.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

What is Your Level of Leadership Engagement?

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I occasionally hear clients express that they do not think of themselves as leaders.  When I ask how they came to that conclusion, their typical answer aligns with the message that they do not manage, supervisor, or oversee a team.  Since the idea of leadership and its definition are routinely portrayed by a position or person, is it surprising that people remain confused and tend to assume they are not leaders?  With the hope of dispelling any confusion on leadership and who is eligible, I define leadership as influence and propose that everyone is a leader.  Leadership is a choice.

Leadership is also a muscle.  Like all muscles, leadership needs a good workout to stay strong and fit. The first step in growing leadership is to assess and establish your leadership baseline.  On a continuum of 1 to 10, where is your current level of leadership engagement?

1. I am unsure of the definition of leadership and the characteristics of a good leader
2. I question whether I am a leader
3. I believe I am a leader but do not often practice leadership
4. I have doubts about my leadership abilities but still try to lead
5. I know I am a leader and am fully aware of my leadership strengths and growth areas
6. I educate myself on leadership and welcome those few opportunities to practice it
7. I routinely accept leadership opportunities presented to me
8. I purposefully seek opportunities to strengthen my leadership abilities
9. I create opportunities for me to lead and grow my leadership
10. I create or provide opportunities for others to increase their leadership capacity

A leadership rating of 10 signifies a leader who is growing the next generation of leaders through coaching and creating opportunities for them to practice. Great leaders know there is a time to lead and a time to follow, and even great leaders know when they are to follow and not lead.  When they follow, you might assume they are leading from behind.

Growing leadership capacity and strengthening leadership ability is a lifelong journey and available to anyone who chooses.  The second step in growing leadership is to ask yourself these questions:

• What will I lead?
• How will I lead?
• When will I Iead?
• Where will I lead?
• Will I choose to lead?

Answers to these questions help a leader formulate a leadership vision and goals to increase their leadership capacity and abilities.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in leadership and business development.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees. Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Leadership: How to Help Curb iPhone Distractions During Meetings

As a leadership coach, I hear clients express annoyance that they cannot lead an hour-long business meeting without attendees looking at emails, texts, or other information sourced on their iPhones.  Some senior leaders even resort to posting a sign on the conference room door that reads “no iPhones, this meeting” or “check your iPhones.”  In my opinion, those leaders are putting a Band-Aid on wound instead of addressing its cause.  You may be thinking, “We can’t take away our employees’ iPhones.”  I agree, however, what I am proposing is that leaders pause and question what they are contributing to the problem.

Spend a few moments and reflect over the past month on the meetings you attended and did not lead.  After the meeting concluded, how many times did you say to yourself at least one of the following statements:

• “That was a non-value-add meeting.”
• “I’m not sure what the point was of that meeting.”
• “We hardly accomplished anything.”
• “We could have taken half the time to discuss what we did.”
• “Wish we could have a meeting where we don’t get off topic.”
• “I don’t know why I was invited to that meeting.”

My guess would be that at least half the meetings you attended had some elements of the above ineffectiveness.  In these meetings, were you bored, sneaking peaks at Facebook and returning emails and texts? If so, what did these meetings have in common?  I would propose they lacked one or more of the following:

• A defined or succinct purpose
• An upfront definition of what decisions, if any, needed to be made before leaving the meeting
• An agenda and topics clearly mapped to scheduled time

When leaders have not clearly defined the purpose and the decisions that need to be made during their meetings, they typically invite more people than required as a means of covering all bases.  When a leader does not prepare well, invite the right people, or conduct the meeting effectively, attendees will naturally disengage.  It is the leader’s responsibility to prepare and lead a meeting in a way that the right attendees will choose to participate.

How can a leader lead an effective meeting?  Consider the following:

1. Define and clearly articulate the purpose of the meeting (i.e. information, brainstorming, or decision-making).
2. State at the beginning of the meeting what decisions need to be made by the group before the meeting adjourns.
3. Issue an agenda with items #1 an #2 at the top as well as the topics that will be discussed, who will lead them, and how much time has been allocated to each activity. When possible, issue the agenda several days in advance, so attendees can prepare and ask any questions.

When leaders develop and clearly communicate their meetings’ purpose and decision requirements, they can more easily determine who needs to attend.  Distributing an agenda in advance helps to set expectations and gives attendees time to prepare. Assigned prereading can reduce meeting time as attendees are current on the topic. Meeting time can then be productively used to answer questions, debate, and build consensus.

I acknowledge that some employees’ technology addiction can undermine even the leader’s best meeting management. These cases warrant a conversation outside of the meeting.  Strong leaders are comfortable in respectfully addressing meeting behaviors that undermine team performance.  Strong leaders also welcome feedback.  One of the best closing questions a leader can ask before dismissing the group: “How could this meeting have been more effective?”

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in business development and leadership.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ specific business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations fully engage all its employees.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

Workplace Leadership: Bridging the Generational Cohorts

Gender inequality in wages and promotional opportunities used to be the hot topic in HR meetings and workplace chatter, but this issue has been overshadowed by the office talk about the Millennials (Gen Y) and how to manage their job expectations and performance.  With Millennials accounting for ~ 50% of the American workforce today and growing to 75% by 2025, businesses are wrestling with how to assimilate Gen Y with older employees who span several generational cohorts (Maturists, Baby Boomers, and Gen X).  Instead of focusing on gender inequities, many office conversations and Facebook posts make fun of the Millennials.  Might this be a broad form of cyber bullying?  Do these pokes help to bridge the gap or do they solidify what we believe to be true and allow us to vent some frustration?

Leaders should be asking themselves, “How can our company help our employees build stronger and more productive relationships across generational cohorts?”   I propose the first step is for all employees to understand the workplace landscape and appreciate what each generation brings to the team.  Questions that should be answered are: (1) what are the different generational cohorts at play within the organization, (2) what are these cohort characteristics, strengths, motivators, needs, values, and preferences, (3) what can each generation recognize as value-add from another, and (4) how can work and communication be constructed that honors and values all contributions.  A leadership coach can facilitate constructive conversation that starts the process; whereby, each employee becomes educated about the generational dynamics and actively looks for ways to productively engage the other generations.

Personal judgment should be suspended of other cohorts’ attitudes and behaviors, because good/bad or right/wrong are only relative assessments. People are products of their culture, and each generation, including Gen Z entering the workforce today, has been raised within their own unique global experiences and technology platforms.  For example, Maturists (born pre-1945), who grew up during the Depression and WW II, lacked many basic necessities and a sense of security.  As a result, Maturists drove toward the preference of “jobs for life.”

The dynamics of the generational cohorts have been compared to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, where Maturists entered the workforce at the first levels with the expectations that jobs served to meet their physiological and safety needs.  On the other hand, Gen Y has been culturized during a time of American abundance and within families where children were given a priority in the family structure.  Gen Y’s parents raised them with a strong sense of love/belonging and provided activities and rewards to build esteem. Having had the first four levels of Maslow’s needs met, it should come as no surprise that Millennials entered the workforce looking to achieve the next level—self-actualization. A need for self-actualization would easily translate into the need for a job that provides meaning and a higher purpose rather than just to collect a paycheck.

Debating the fairness or reasonableness of what each generation expects from work drives wedges among cohorts rather than fostering the conversation in how to bring the generations together. Businesses need to openly talk and act constructively in bridging the generations, because each cohort has a unique ability to offer value.  Leadership coaches can help businesses facilitate these conversations.   A company cannot mandate a bridge be built, but it can encourage and provide a coach, who can help employees design and build the bridge they all want to walk across.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in business development and leadership.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ specific business needs.  She has a passion to help organizations engaged all its employees to their fullest potential.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.

What’s in Your Leadership Box?

You’ve likely heard the saying, “Big things come in small packages,” which can be translated into practical terms as: “Do not underestimate something’s value based on its packaging.” This concept applies as much to leadership as it does to a gift.  Leadership is not necessarily packaged in a big box with a boldly colored bow but likely wrapped in a modest box with a refined ribbon.

Although leadership expresses itself in casting vision, building effective teams, setting goals, solving problems, and inspiring teams to action, I propose most people would describe leadership by the attributes of a leader who casts vision and inspires people to change.  While many give leadership recognition to the person who articulates the vision, Hybels (2009) describes 10 key leadership styles that are required for any organization to grow.  Which ones can you identify on your team?

• Visionary: casts vision; draws people in
• Directional: chooses the right path at critical junctures
• Strategic: align teams and breaks an exciting vision into actionable steps
• Management: organizes people, processes, and resources to achieve the mission
• Motivational: keeps the team fired up
• Shepherding: builds, nurtures, supports, and listens to the team
• Team-building: finds and develops the right people with the right characteristics, character, and chemistry, and puts them in the right positions to get the right results
• Entrepreneurial: possesses many leadership styles but optimally functions in start-up mode
• Re-engineering: thrives on turning around teams who struggle because they are missing a leadership element
• Bridge-building: deals with complexity and brings many groups under a single leadership umbrella

I believe great leadership involves building an organization, where all the leadership styles are represented and recognized for their contribution.  No leadership style is more important than another, because failure in one area impacts a company’s ability to achieve their goals.  A company is only as successful as the sum of its parts or as strong as its weakest link.

Each leadership style has a critical mission to accomplish.  Do you know your primary leadership styles and how they impact your organization?  I suggest all leaders answer these three questions for themselves:

1. On a scale of 1-10, what is your ability on each of the 10 leadership styles?
2. Does your current position allow you to drive on your leadership strengths?
3. If not, how can you use more of your leadership strengths in your current role?

 

Reference

Hybels, B. (2009). Courageous Leadership: Field-Tested Strategy for the 360^o Leader.  Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional coach and consultant with an extensive background in business development and leadership.  She coaches individuals as well as designs and facilitates workshops that address her clients’ specific  business needs.  Reach out to her at sandra.s.dillon@hotmail.com or 281.793.3741 to further the conversation and determine how she can help you grow your business.