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Will You Choose To Lead? A Question for Today’s Workforce

February 8, 2012 in Change Leadership, L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

Choose To Lead?

A Question For Today’s Workforce

With all of the focus these days on leadership skills and competencies, an additional question needs to be asked.  The issue is not so much how to lead, although that is important, but who should lead.

Organizations that focus on leadership at the top exclusively are missing a major opportunity and could be making a fatal mistake.

With flatter organizations, multiple generations comprising the workforce and a great deal of people working virtually, leadership is required at all levels in every organization.


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To build strength in an organization, they need to grow from the ground up.  In a rapidly changing, fast moving world, it is vital that non-leader individual contributors posses the interpersonal skills to complement their technical skills, and to learn to lead, influence and get things done through others.

These individuals may aspire to rise through the levels of the leadership pipeline or to be the very best in their area of expertise.  Either way, certain core “Smart Skills” are essential to their personal achievement as well as the organization’s business growth.

To develop individual contributors into leaders, companies must provide guidance, training and coaching.  People must be challenged to step up and lead and they must be provided opportunities and support.

In a recent Hay Group study, they identified six Megatrends for the future.

  • Accelerating globalization (globalization 2.0)
  • Climate change, it’s environmental impact and scarcity of resources
  • Demographic change
  • Individualization and values pluralism
  • Increasingly digital lifestyles
  • Technology convergence

People must develop their capacity to recognize and manage their own emotions and to react appropriately to the emotions of others.

Learning to manage interpersonal conflicts and redirecting inappropriate energy is key to building Emotional Intelligence. Additionally, as part of the leadership foundation, a technology knows, as Appreciative Inquire is essential.

Appreciative Inquiry is a technique for deliberately seeking to discover people’s exceptionality – their unique gifts, strengths, and qualities. It actively searches and recognizes people for their specialties – their essential contributions and achievements.

Appreciative Inquiry explores various ways to build relationships, ask great questions and surface the best possible solutions to problems and challenges.  As opposed to focusing on what is “wrong” in a particular situation, Appreciative Inquiry looks at what could be “right” and what may be possible in that same situation.  Appreciative Inquiry is the solution for augmenting traditional problem solving and integrating the newer approaches to solution finding.

This combination of Emotional Intelligence and practicing Appreciative Inquiry arms the individual with a foundation of insightfulness, flexibility and curiosity.

Next, people must learn the skills of influencing and negotiation.  With so many cross-functional organizations, teams comprised of vendors, customers and individuals from several companies and the global/virtual environment in which we must manage, learning to influence and negotiate is mandatory.  No longer can managers and executives edict outcomes and enforce rigid processes and procedures.  More modern agile methods are now called for.

Influencing is defined as the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.  Also, it is defined as the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.

Techniques for influencing others, methodologies for both formal and informal influencing and information and knowledge on various cultures will be required to influence while working with diverse cultures.

Next, a technique called Interest Based Negotiations represents a much more effective way to negotiate conflicting positions as it is based on expanding the mutual interests of the parties as opposed to the traditional Win/Lose model of position based negotiations.  People find these techniques extremely valuable as they allow them to gracefully navigate many of the difficult situations in which they find themselves.

Developing skills in conflict resolution, collaboration, understanding human emotions and negotiating for mutual gain is essential for the leader of the future.

Lastly, but definitely not solely, people must learn to manage outcomes and results and take responsibility, not only for their own work product but also for the ultimate success of projects, products and business initiatives.  Skills such as managing stress & change and high-level communications are required to manage up, down and across in organizations.

 

In order to effectively manage stress and change one must explore the physical and emotional costs of our 24 X 7 X 365 work world.  Understanding stress and the impact on our physical body & emotional well being, learning to minimize and manage stress, handling continuous, rapid change and maintaining a healthy mind/body/spirit balance are survival skills for today’s work environment.

 

People must develop the ability to communicate effectively in today’s complex business environment.  Many organizations operate “virtually” and therefore communication is even more difficult.  Identifying barriers to effective communication and learning how to overcome them along with understanding everyone’s role in communication is essential.  Developing deep listening skills and influence and persuasive communication are also part of the skills required for the new leader.

 

No longer can individual contributors wait to be told what to do and managers and executives cannot expect strict compliance to their orders.  A business culture based upon collaboration and mutual trust must be developed.  Leaders at all levels will learn to cooperate, collaborate and accept responsibility and accountability in new and different ways.

 

Never has there been such an opportunity to transform the work environment to take advantage of the skills and talents resident in every organization.  Never have the reasons for making these changes been so compelling.

 

The question we must all ask and answer is:

 

Will we, or will we not Choose To Lead?

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How SMART Goals Can Increase Employee Engagement: Guest Post

December 14, 2011 in Change Leadership, L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

This is a guest post by Erin Palmer, Erin Works at Bisk Education/Villanova University

 

How SMART Goals Can Increase Employee Engagement

Getting your company’s employees to be engaged can be a tough task. Deadlines and heavy workloads could lead to workers doing the bare minimum just to get by. However, there is evidence that employees who are more engaged in their jobs tend to produce a better end-product.

While there are numerous motivational “tricks” to keep employees engaged, most leave an individual feeling unfulfilled.  We recommend the use of SMART goals for a more thorough and reliable tool for increasing employee engagement.


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What is a SMART goal?

SMART goals are essentially detailed, measurable plans with a deadline attached to them. While a traditional goal such as, “I want to get a promotion” is nice in theory, it doesn’t include a concrete means to an end. SMART goals have five essential characteristics:

1. Specific – Goals are streamlined and specific. No blanket statements here.

2. Measurable – The goal’s progress is measurable in some concrete way.

3. Attainable – It’s one that you can actually achieve and is realistic.

4. Relevant – A goal should have some relevance to who you are. A goal that requires you to completely change who you are as a person might not be a relevant one.

5. Time Bound – An element of time has to be included, otherwise you have no deadline to push you toward obtaining it.

Why a SMART goal?

SMART goals promote learning for employees. Instead of just being rated on performance, individuals will work to understand weaknesses and try to improve when necessary. Employees embrace their goals as a benchmark for success. Having a clear objective is reassuring that they’re on the right path.

These goals are a way for employees to individually contribute to the company’s success. While they feel like a bigger part of the team, they also recognize that they’re achieving personal success and possible promotion within the company.

Interaction is another important reason why SMART goals help in increasing employee engagement. As they work toward their goals, employees will get feedback on their progress. Managers will interact closely with everyone and start developing better relationships. Workers are more likely to voice their own ideas and feedback when they’re having regular conversations with higher-ups.

Team morale will be better as well. It starts with the employee-manager interactions and trickles downward. Team members working on projects will begin to ask more questions and help each other when their work environment promotes such action.

Since everyone is trying to accomplishing their goals, employees will learn new tactics that help them in doing the job. They may even develop better ways to accomplish tasks associated with the job and increase overall productivity for the company. Brainstorming sessions between employees or with managers will become commonplace. The SMART goals help workers understand that others in the company may have better ways of doing the same tasks they’re doing.

Employees are looking for a chance to grow. Who wants to do the same job for years and years without ever learning something new or advancing within the company? SMART goals keep everyone motivated and striving for greatness. Coupled with encouragement from the company, SMART goals will lead to happier, engaged employees – something every business should seek to accomplish.

University Alliance, a worldwide leader in interactive education, provided this article. SMART goals are very popular in project management so to learn more about them consider taking a project management certification course or even an MBA in Project Management.

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Ready. Fire. Aim!

November 11, 2011 in Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

 

Are your employees committed to the company, aligned with its goals, and anxious to contribute.

 

Are employees, leaders and managers  frustrated by barriers that exist in the work environment confronting them from being the best that they can be?

 

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What I often hear from team members is that  their expectations for their roles  are not properly defined which leads  these individuals to become disillusioned, frustrated, and sometimes very angry.  Most of them experience leadership and alignment on the fly!

 

Yes, we are living in a new world of work where READY, FIRE, AIM is the daily mantra for leaders and managers who are asked to climb mountains with their teams.

 

The new world of work requires organizations to equip their people who are now leaders without titles in the DO -MORE – BETTER – FASTER WITH LESS workplace that executes with the READY-FIRE-AIM approach.

There has never been a more important time to invest in the skills development that enhances critical thinking, resilience, collaboration and self management.  This is the short list–there are many more skill and tools required for today’s workplace that most leaders, managers and employees do not possess.

From my perspective as an executive coach, leadership development facilitator, and trusted advisor to many teams it is time for soft and hard skills to become one.  We call them Smart Skills, those skills that equip each and every worker regardless of their titles, to get the job done, offer discretionary effort and high levels of engagement under fire.

Time to remove the categories associated with skill acquisition and focus on a more holistic approach to leadership, management and employee development!

 

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Choose To Lead

October 10, 2011 in Change Leadership, L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

With all of the focus these days on leadership skills and competencies, an additional question needs to be asked.  The issue is not so much how to lead, although that is important, but who should lead?

We have moved from “I decide” to  “We do”!

 

This change creates new opportunities for  new definitions and  a new context for embracing  leadership – now there is a need for focusing  on  “ the act of” leadership within organizations?

 

Who performs this act? Everyone!!

 

Perhaps “LEADERFUL” is a better context for us to embrace today.


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Leaderful offers a broader definition of  leadership for individuals and organizations. To be leaderful, you need not be the designated position leader of your organization. If you work with others in any capacity, you are capable of exerting leadership. All positions have leadership responsibility, most don’t have the authority!

Today’s leaders come from all levels of an organization and therefore companies need to rethink their approach to leadership development.  What is needed to provide development programs that touch each and every employee?  What needs to change in our thinking and behaviors to make this happen and how will we go about changing all that must change?  Working today means leading today!  We must all CHOOSE TO LEAD!

What are your thoughts?

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Leadership Challenges For 2030: The Competencies Required

October 5, 2011 in Change Leadership, L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

 

According to Hay Group’s Leadership 2030 research the leaders of the future will need a host of new skills and competencies if they are to succeed

 

Leadership challenges of the future revealed by the Hay Group–Building Leaders: Leadership Challenges of the Future Revealed- You can download the white paper here.


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“Leaders of the future will need to be adept conceptual and strategic thinkers, have deep integrity and intellectual openness, find new ways to create loyalty, lead increasingly diverse and independent teams over which they may not always have direct authority, and relinquish their own power in favor of collaborative approaches inside and outside the organization.”

To successfully develop this combination of skills and qualities – and adopt what is, in effect, a ‘post-heroic’ leadership style – they may need to abandon much of the thinking and behavior that propelled them to the top of their organizations in the first place.

But if they want their businesses to survive and thrive over the next two decades they have no choice. Unless they dramatically change their leadership style, starting from today, their organizations will lose out in the race for innovation, the march to globalization and the war for talent. They will be, quite simply, unsustainable.

This is the conclusion Hay Group has reached after working with Germany-based foresight company Z-Punkt to identify the mega-trends they believe will affect organizations and their leaders profoundly over the coming decades and analyzing the implications of each at a corporate, organizational, team and individual level.

In short, the study determined that this short list of competencies are an absolute must for leaders, managers and influencers in the next two decades.

The new leadership competencies

The new business world order will challenge leaders on three levels: cognitive, emotional and behavioral.

Cognitive

Leaders need new forms of contextual awareness, based on strong conceptual and strategic thinking capabilities.

They need to be able to conceptualize change in an unprecedented way, again based on conceptual and strategic thinking.

Leaders need to exhibit new forms of intellectual openness and curiosity.

Emotional

Overall, leaders will need to be much more sensitive to different cultures, generations and genders.

They will need to demonstrate higher levels of integrity and sincerity and adopt a more ethical approach to doing business.

They must also tolerate far higher levels of ambiguity.

Behavioral

Leaders must create a culture of trust and openness.

As post-heroic leaders they must rethink old concepts such as loyalty and retention and personally create loyalty.

Collaboration – cross-generational, cross-functional and cross-company – will be their watchword.

They must lead increasingly diverse teams.

 

At Glowan we are proud of the fact that our  L3 Leadership Learning Process combined with our Smart Skills: Leading Without A Title program prepares leaders, managers, project managers and Individual contributors to ready themselves now and for the future. These two programs are directly mapped  to the above competencies called out in the Hay Group research.  As I am writing this blog post we are working on a new program and process that integrates the two programs mentioned here. This new program is called Choose To Lead™, and will be piloted in early 2102.


 

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Coaching Culture: Take Four Actions To Create One.

February 8, 2011 in Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | 1 comment

ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REVIEWS (APRS) can be invaluable in maintaining alignment between employee performance and management’s goals and expectations. However, they do little to improve performance, enhance skills, or develop leadership qualities. Even so, most managers use APRs as part of their employee development! This is troubling. The one tool employers rely on most to develop talent is not going to deliver desired results. To make APRs more effective as a developmental tool, make coaching and mentoring (C&M) an integral part of your culture. C&M cultures inspire employees to give their best, to perform to the highest standards daily. You could hardly expect the same from a culture that checks in with employees once a year.

In C&M cultures, performance reviews happen all the time (at least monthly). The review becomes just that—a review of the challenges, issues and progress that managers and employees have talked about during the year. Using APRs in this way is just one hallmark of C&M cultures. To build such a culture, also take these four initiatives:

1. Assess and develop employees and organizational emotional intelligence. EI is the ability to understand, manage and respond effectively to your emotions and the emotions of others—a quality of effective leaders. EI helps create cultures where people collaborate and aspire to do their best work.

2. Hold regular one-on-one reviews. Having regular one-on-one reviews enables employees to make frequent adjustments to their performance and validates your commitment to helping them succeed. To transform reviews into a collaborative coaching relationship, offer developmental coaching inaddition to providing the usual feedback, and create a joint vision of ongoing goals and objectives during each review.

3. Develop your collaborative advantage. You gain strategic and competitive benefits when you cooperate with all stakeholders—inside and out—for the benefit of we, not I. To achieve these benefits, you need to institute policies and practices that spread responsibility, authority, and accountability.

4. Create a best place to work. Best places to work have high trust between managers and employees. As a result, their people are more creative, productive and loyal. And they attract and retain the best talent. Trust breeds pride,
enthusiasm, and peak performance. These initiatives bring greater profitability, improved productivity, and better retention of top talent.

The Fear and Trust Factor Continuum

January 14, 2011 in Change Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | 4 comments

How can we increase trust and reduce fear?

One of the most critical challenges for any group, team or organization is to reduce fear and increase trust.

The command and control systems of the old leadership and management styles and systems of the past reflect a deep mistrust of employees’ commitment and competence.  There is an inherent system of  forcing compliance, versus raising engagement. This is why so many organizations are filled with highly stressed and anxious  employees who are very hesitant to take the kind of initiative required to lift their own or the organizations performance and innovation.

Organizational flexibility, adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement can only thrive in a high-trust, low-fear culture.

Fear paralyzes, mistrust demoralizes!  Leaders and managers must learn to foster higher levels of trust between them and their direct reports and enlarge the circle of trust within teams, departments and the overall organization.

Let’s enlarge the circle of trust!

Rethinking Performance Reviews: Utilize Your Coachable Moments!

October 23, 2010 in L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | 2 comments

Personal performance— beyond raw talent, relies on feedback, adjustments and practice.  Feedback, adjustments, practice?  This is what coaching is all about. And, it works best when it is a key element of the relationship a manager has with their direct reports.  When leaders and managers develop a “coaching relationship” with their reports, the opportunity to offer feedback for adjustments, a contract for making these adjustments, and a safe space to practice the changes–are all possible!

You may  or may not know this, but you miss out, or take advantage of coaching moments every day.

These moments, when taken advantage of add up over time,  are way more powerful than your formal annual or semi-annual performance reviews. Way more!

Try this, dedicate a portion of each of your one-on-one sessions with your directs to be focused developmental coaching .  By doing this you will create a means for open dialog and partnership for performance forward.   Make sure you create a joint vision for the positive outcomes of your partnering for success. This will transform the “reviews” to a collaborative coaching relationship vs. one way assessment.

Am I dreaming or is could this become a reality?

Does Your Passion Match Your Aspirations?

April 7, 2010 in L3 Leadership, Leadership development, Management Training, Uncategorized by Marc Michaelson | No comments

I have been thinking about passion and its relationship to energy, focus, presence and performance.

Passion is the fuel for spirited and committed action.  Here are 12 questions that help us know if our passion and aspirations are at the proper intersection.

To determine whether your passion matches your aspirations, try these questions.
1. Do I feel strongly about the need for this to happen?
2. Does the idea fit my long-held beliefs, values, and convictions?
3. Have I thought about something like this for a long time?
4. Do I think that this is vital for the future related to the people and things I care about?
5. Do I get excited and energized when I think about it, and convey passion when I talk about it?
6. Am I convinced that this can be accomplished?
7. Am I willing to put my credibility on the line to promise action on it?
8. Am I willing to spend time to sell it and promote it to others who might not understand or support it?
9. Can I make this the focus of my activities?
10. Am I willing to devote personal time, above and beyond organizational time, to see that this happens?
11. Do I feel strongly enough to ignore negativity and stand up for this?
12. Am I committed to seeing this through, over the long haul?

If you have answered yes to most of these questions you are probably ready to align your passion and aspirations!

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Every Leader Should Have A Formal Influencing Plan

March 29, 2010 in L3 Leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership development, Management Training by Marc Michaelson | No comments

With all of the workload, the fire drills, the meetings, and the escalations, it is easy to lose site of our leadership and influencing responsibilities. The really difficult part of this dilemma is that through influencing we can actually decrease our workload.

Think of Influencing, both “Formally” and “Informally”, as another way to delegate work to a resource in the organization. It is through influencing others that our jobs become easier and, indeed, more fun.

When you have others operating on the same wave length along with you, good things tend to happen. When we are working in concert, both strategically and tactically, it is much more difficult to have disagreements, delays and re-do’s.

Begin with your Formal Influencing plan.

Choose project you are working on that is  in the early stages of implementation, or one about to begin, make a  list of people you must interact with regularly and build a plan for Formal Influencing.

Start by identifying the people who need to be influenced.  Determine where you are now in terms of influence and relationship.  Next, define where you want to be, and what next steps are required to get there!

How successful are you at influencing?

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