Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Leadership Development

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step in your own leadership development (or if you’re looking for resources for someone else).

  • Measuring Leadership in the Classroom

    Measuring Leadership in the Classroom

    By guest blogger: Scott Mayo

     

    Schools love to measure things. With accountability being the buzzword in educational circles, measurement has become an even greater priority. However, we often fall trap to measuring things that are easy to measure, not because they are the most important things. Leadership is one of those important things – we all want it – that has been notoriously hard to quantify. How do I know that I have a teacher who is a leader?

    Kris Dunn, HR professional and blogger, has suggested we consider the ideas of Leadership Gravity and Leadership Birth Rate to judge leadership results. Leadership Gravity describes the phenomenon of a manager whose department consistently generates the most internal transfer in requests. Simply put, leaders attract people who want to be part of what they are doing. Likewise, Leadership Birth Rate looks at the number of people influenced by that manager who go on to become leaders themselves in the future.

    How would those concepts play out in a school setting? Are those appropriate categories of thought for measuring leadership among teachers? Leadership Gravity wouldn’t be the same thing as saying which teachers are the most popular or have the most students requesting their elective.  But leadership in education isn’t a popularity contest. However, if students did flock to a teacher while also providing feedback of  “challenging” and “rigorous,” it might be a sign of classroom-based Leadership Gravity.

    Likewise, if students come into contact with a leader in the classroom in such a way as to make a lasting impact (e.g. major choice in college, career path), that could illustrate the concept of Leadership Birth Rate in an educational setting. In schools, some feedback on progress comes at every test and every report card. However, much of what schools do doesn’t come to fruition until years down the road.

    The long-term impact on leadership development in the students may be one of those harder-to-measure things. It is easy enough to track who steps up for student leadership roles (e.g. class and club officers) during the students’ tenures at the school. To neglect to take a longer view, though, might miss the impact faculty are having as they attract students to their disciplines and guide their life choices into adulthood.

    Maybe we need to take a more longitudinal approach to measuring leadership in education by measuring student success at various intervals post graduation. Longitudinal studies have been done to show the value of Pre-K . Could it be done to show the value of various other facets of education including teacher leadership?

    What can educators and private business learn from each other to develop more leaders in the classroom and in business?

  • Should we measure leadership by popularity?

    Should we measure leadership by popularity?

    “The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.”

    What departments and/or managers do people in your company clamor to get into?  What drives this clamor? I’ve seen it before. No one wants to work in finance, but everyone wants to be in marketing. Or everyone is trying to figure out a way to work for manager A instead of having to report to manager B. What is driving the popularity of the department or the person, and should we pay attention to it?  Is the number of people who want to work for you a good way to measure your leadership strength?

    Kris Dunn calls it “Leadership Gravity” in his Workforce Article. But I think we need to get to the root of what causes the gravitational pull before we bank on it as a way to measure leadership success.

    Some recent coaching examples I’ve encountered may give us some insight on the pull….

    1. Leaders that are everyone’s best friend
    2. Leaders that hold people accountable for results and because they are held accountable, they grow. This is what Kris is talking about when he says,

    “All that interaction and observation means your employees know which managers in your organization are the best at developing talent, giving them interesting things to work on, challenging them, giving them the credit for great work and always approaching employee development with an eye on what’s best for each employee.”

    I’ve had a couple of clients who have brought us in to say, hey, we think something is up with John/Jane Doe’s performance as a leader. We need a 360o evaluation of them. Can you do one and then let us know what’s up?

    Sure we can.

    In completely unrelated instances, the “perception” of the leader in question is he/she being the guy/gal no one wants to work for. He/she is usually compared to a counterpart middle level leader in his/her area. The counterpart seems to be best buds with his/her direct reports- i.e., the popular one.

    We do the 360o. And we look at it by those that report to this person and those that don’t.   In both instances, the people who report to the boss in question don’t say he/she is the jerk. They cite he/she as being focused on accountability, and, surprisingly, they don’t complain about it. They may say something about wishing he/she was a little “warmer” as a person.  A little less closed off, but not a jerk.

    In contrast, those who are looking from the outside, i.e.-those that don’t report to this manager, and sometimes it is his/her own boss-  cite he/she as being the jerk.

    Maybe the manager in question needs to improve his/her interpersonal skills by lightening up a bit, seeing the personal side of things. We can coach on that. But, at the end of the day, they challenge people to get stuff done and hold them accountable for it, and the people who are held accountable don’t mind it. They grow. Maybe they just want the boss to ask about how their day has been a little more, but they are better because of their leader.

    So maybe the better question about how to measure leadership is not by popularity but by measuring what DRIVES that popularity.

    Is it because he/she is best friends with people and lets them coast or is it because he/she creates a vision and drives people towards that vision and holds them accountable for it?

    If I were the boss’ boss, I’d choose the latter. That one is making more leaders, and 9 times out of 10 those who are following, aren’t complaining about it. And the ones who are complaining, you may not want around anyway.

    What popularity contests do you see in your workplace?

  • Before You Can Measure It, You have to Define it: What is Leadership?

    Before You Can Measure It, You have to Define it: What is Leadership?

    We’re talking about measuring leadership here at Horizon Point this month.  In an increasingly prove-it-to-me through data world, one of the things that we don’t do a good job of measuring, and I wonder if we ever really will, is leadership.   It’s so complex.

    I think part of the reason we have trouble measuring it is because we have trouble defining it. What is leadership? What is great leadership?

    Most people will tell you that leadership is some form of influence.  It’s getting work done through others. True, but what do we want to accomplish because leadership is at work?

    Here at Horizon Point, we define the crutch of leadership as “Leaders make more leaders.”  It is both the definition and the measurement all in one.

    But how do you measure leaders making more leaders?   Leave it Kris Dunn to help us solve the conundrum.   He defines it as “leadership birth rate”.  Check out his Workforce Magazine article here for some more insights on this measurement here.

    Although we advocate for a multiple hurdles approach to leadership effectiveness measurement, if we need one measurement to look at whether it is leadership or any other dimension, go by how you define that dimension and measure that. For us, we’ll measure “leadership birth rate”. What about you?

     

     

    If you like this post, you may also like:

    All Leaders Need to Develop Others

  • Measuring Leadership- How Many Hurdles Do You Have?

    Measuring Leadership- How Many Hurdles Do You Have?

    “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it.” Peter Drucker

     

    When you talk to people about selecting anything, especially people or talent, they are usually going to advocate for a multiple hurdles approach. This means you don’t just look at the resume and hire based on it, you have several steps in your hiring process all of which come together to help you make the best hiring decision.

    In measuring training effectiveness, we have Kirkpatrick’s model (a multiple dimensional approach) by measuring 1. Reactions (did they like it?), 2. Learning (did they learn something?), 3. Transfer (did their behaviors change because of it?) and 4. Results (did outcomes change in a positive direction as a result of the training?)

    I think one of the reasons why we all seem to hate performance appraisals is that they seem to be a single hurdle approach.  One person’s opinion doesn’t get it.

    So we do something more and conduct a 360o  evaluation to measure multiple views.  Maybe we do an employee engagement survey that may lend some further insight for a more well-rounded view, especially when it comes to measuring leadership. This is better, but not perfect.

    Then we look at the results the person achieved.  Some of which they should be given credit for, some of which may be out of their hands because so many things factor into results.   It’s the one I lean towards- measuring results, especially for leadership- but I realize there are some limitations to this approach as well.

    So maybe we need a multiple hurdle approach to leadership (and overall employee evaluation) measurement.   We do it in most other talent management practices (selection, training), but we tend to rely on one method over another when measuring leadership.  We pick one- a boss’s appraisal, a 360 evaluation type measure, or results- and bank our leadership measurement on just one thing or tool.

    As my tried and true Leadership textbook from college (Leadership: Enhancing the Lesson of Experience insert link to it by Hughes, Ginnett and Curphy) states:

    “Practitioners need to understand the advantages and problems associated with the different measures, and that multiple measures often yield the best information about leadership success.”

    People are complex, and I think we would all agree that the reason to measure anything is to be able to then make better decisions off that information.  So, when it comes to leadership, let’s measure more instead of less, and then use that information to make better leaders.

    Then those leaders will do what has been done to them- examine their team members from a multiple hurdles approach and use that to guide them in developing each individual towards results (see my bias in measuring results?).

     

    What is your go-to method for measuring leadership?  How does your measurement help you and your organization make better decisions?

  • How to Handle Mental Health Issues in the Workplace

    How to Handle Mental Health Issues in the Workplace

    I had a reader send me a suggestion for a blog post a little over a month ago. It said:

    “With the terrible shooting in VA yesterday, maybe an article on how HR can better handle identifying, coaching, counseling & later termination of disgruntled employees if coaching is not effective. I am sure HR departments are concerned about their own employees. Just thoughts.”

    With all our content written for the month, I told him I’d add it to the roster even though this shooting would be old news. The sad thing, though, is that I silently thought there will be something else like this happen again before I get ready to post something. And course, the news has covered other shootings since then.

    In thinking about how to address this topic, I kept trying to avoid talking about a very personal encounter I’ve experienced with this issue. However, I just kept coming back to it. Our marketing guru told me I needed to write about it in order to more effectively and personally address this topic, so here it goes.

    To make a long story short, a former pastor at our church upon leaving our congregation for another church (in the Methodist church pastors are moved by the conference, they aren’t hired by the congregation), shot and killed his wife, attempted to kill his daughter, and tried to kill himself. If you live close to where I live, you are familiar with this story, even though it has been a while since it happened. He was found not guilty by reason of mental defect and is in a psychiatric hospital.

    I could have told you ten years before this happened that he had mental health issues.  Serious ones. Through some personal dealings with my family and then similar stories that came to light through others, it is obvious he needed help.

    His actions led to much anxiety, bitterness, anger and resentment for me and my family. Our first reaction was not to help the man who had hurt us so much.  We talked to some people about the issues, but he had another side that many people saw and loved.  Through this, I believe he was able to mask some of the issues. It also led people to dismiss others who saw the issues and tried to bring them to light. So, we stopped trying to bring them to light and just retreated.

    Ultimately I believe the lack of confrontation with these difficult issues on the part of all of us including our church congregation and our United Methodist Conference led to the loss of life.

    From this personal example, here is a list of advice in dealing with mental health issues in the workplace:

    1. Don’t avoid

    Listen to people when they bring issues to light.  Don’t dismiss them.  Often there are many yellow flags before the red flag appears.

    Talk first hand and immediately with the employee who is disgruntled, having anger management issues, or acting suspicious on the job.  Give them specific, behavioral based feedback and specifically state the consequences of what will happen if the behavior continues.

    Make sure you have a process in place to hear both sides of the story.

    Do an investigation if needed.

    Terminate employment if issues don’t stop and/or one issue is large enough to put others at risk.   Have a specific process for doing so (some of the other tips below may help you think through this process).

    2. Put systems and structures in place to bring issues to light

    This is only possible when employees are comfortable coming to their boss and/or HR with issues; creating an open door environment is critical.  Knowing your employees and caring about them is the best way to keep a pulse on difficult issues and to mitigate them before they become a problem.

    Have a confidential reporting mechanism in place for people.

    3. Protect yourself

    Document everything.

    Always have someone else present when speaking with a disgruntled employee. If the person is a member of the opposite sex, have someone of the same sex as the employee present with you.

    4. Get people the help they need

    Although the person may not see it like this at the time, unacceptable behavior on the job may be a cry for help, make sure you have referral sources (EAP, mental health agencies, your occupational health provider, etc.) to provide more in-depth help and support when it is needed.

    Don’t let HR take on the role of clinical counseling.

    5. Fund and get involved with agencies and causes that combat mental health issues on a broader scale.   

     

    Ultimately, we never know when a genetic predisposition and/or life experiences could put any one of us down a road of mental instability. It is time we all move away from the stigma of mental health, especially HR professionals, by getting to know and care for others. The first step to truly caring for others is realizing that we’ve got to confront the issue head on. It’s a matter of life and death, literally.

    In my personal example, the situation, at times, made me and my family want to loose our religion. Dealing with this inside the church was difficult. However, I firmly believe, at the risk of some people discounting the post, that we can find more answers and solutions to mental health issues inside the walls of the church than out.  For an honest and very personal view on what I think the world needs to combat mental health tragedies in our workplace and in our world download this podcast. Come, Holy Spirit, come.