Category: Leadership Development

We’ve had the opportunity to begin training a group of leaders for a client using a global curriculum the client developed.  As facilitators, we have the opportunity to take the quality content developed and structure learning in a way that allows the participants to apply the content to impact their behavior at work. Hopefully, this will lead them to invoke positive influence on those they lead and interact with. 

Any good training frames learning around well-researched models or theories.  And there are a lot of models and theories out there! How you sort through them all and determine what to use can sometimes be difficult. 

The keys, we believe, are to do a few things: 

1. Create your content around key organizational values or outcomes you are trying to achieve.
2. Choose well-researched models that follow the scientific method.
3. Use models/theories that help convey the values/outcomes you are trying to achieve.
4. Less is more! Don’t overload people with theory! 
5. Encourage synergy across models and frameworks. How does one model connect with another, and more importantly, how do all the models connect with the overall training purpose? 
6. Engage participants in applying their learning during the training as well as post-training on the job. 

Here are some models that we rely on frequently based on these above recommendations. Some of these we will cover in more detail in the coming weeks!

For innovating:

• Design Thinking
• Growth Mindset

For leading effectively:

• Situational Leadership
• DiSC
• Servant Leadership 

For navigating team development and success:

•  Lencioni’s work
• Psychological Safety

What leadership models and frameworks guide the way you lead?

MYTH: Individual Contributors can’t shift the paradigm at the organizational level. 

Our team has a long-term partnership with a multinational company to facilitate leadership training for all of their Managers of People (MOPs) and Individual Contributors here at the local site. The program we’ve developed for them consistently receives glowing reviews, with one caveat: Individual Contributors are skeptical of a real shift among the “higher-ups”. The feeling is something like, “This is great and all, but unless corporate changes the way we do things, I can’t have an impact.” 

Let’s tackle the myth. 

Willie Pietersen, Professor at Columbia University and former CEO, refers to leading up as “The Neglected Competency” and says, “Leading up effectively is not easy to pull off. But I think we owe a duty to help each other learn and grow regardless of rank. We all have our blind spots. When I look back on my corporate career, the subordinates I valued most were those who helped me grow as a leader.”

Did you know that Starbucks didn’t always write customer names on the cups? Pietersen highlights this story as an example of small, incremental change that influenced a corporate shift: 

In 2011 an imaginative barista decided to enhance [the] personal experience by writing the first names of customers on cups, instead of just calling out the name of the drink that had been ordered. The idea raced to headquarters and today this simple practice happens four million times a day at 30,000 locations worldwide.

Individual Contributors can and do influence organizational change every day. Sometimes it happens slowly, with small, incremental changes within a team or a department. Sometimes it happens overnight on a global scale. In every case, it takes guts and it starts with leading the self. John Maxwell emphasized leading the self when he crafted a simple message nearly a decade ago with 9 Ways to Lead Your Leader:

1. Lead yourself exceptionally well.
2. Lighten your leader’s load.
3. Be willing to do what others won’t.
4. Do more than manage – lead!
5. Invest in relationship chemistry.
6. Be prepared every time you take your leader’s time.
7. Know when to push and when to back off.
8. Become a go-to player.
9. Be better tomorrow than you are today.

So we bust the myth; we learn to lead ourselves in such a way that we Lead Up and influence organizational change…and then we tackle the fact that we need our top leadership to Learn Up in order for our organization to be a living, thriving place. 

Pietersen says, “Arguably the most important learning is that which occurs from the ground up. When that circuit is blocked, an organization faces a survival problem. According to a Gallup poll, companies that listen to their employees are 21 percent more profitable than the competition.” 

Leaders who Learn Up are more likely to see higher profits! Organizations that encourage Individual Contributors to Lead Up and Leaders to Learn Up are likely to make. more. money.

Be a workplace of and for the future. Lead Up and Learn Up.

Are you a MOP? MOPs are Managers of People, and whether you are leaning into long-term remote work or reacclimating to an in-person work environment, here’s a 5-minute memo to help you stay on track. 

1. Go easy — on yourself and others. There’s been a shakeup. Remember that we are all People First. We are People First in the sense that we are not ______ first (insert managers, leaders, bosses, etc.), and we should be People First in the way we manage and lead others. 
2. Be inclusive — Everyone has a different story. Remember to acknowledge, respect, welcome, and celebrate differences. Try these 4 Exercises with yourself, your team, and/or organization. Use your influence to create a psychologically safe workplace. 
3. Be flexible — Have you ever needed to leave work early to pick up a child from school? Ever struggled to schedule a doctor’s appointment around your work hours? Do you or someone you know live with depression? Flexibility feeds physical and mental health for you and your team and directly supports organizational productivity and success.  
4. Train, develop, coach — It can be easy for MOPs to be laser-focused on people management and miss opportunities for people development. Think of the old adage: You can’t see the forest for the trees. Let’s be mindful of the forest and dedicate some time to training and developing our team members. 
5. Evaluate — Continuous improvement requires consistent, meaningful evaluation. What’s working well? What isn’t? Evaluation doesn’t have to be complex or formal; it can be as simple as stopping by a coworker’s desk and asking for feedback on a recent communication or project (note to self: time this right, when they’re not swamped, and depending on your work relationship, you may want to give them a heads up). 

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