Category: Beyond Leadership

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 into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • Want to be a millionaire? A Good Leader? Manage Your Time First

    Want to be a millionaire? A Good Leader? Manage Your Time First

    Want to be a good leader? How about a millionaire? Manage yourself and your time first.

    What does it take to think like a millionaire? In reading The Millionaire Mind, I was struck by what seemed to first be a contradiction. Based on the study of almost 1000 millionaires, it was obvious these individuals as a group managed their expenses just as wisely, if not more, than their revenue generation. Most bought at discount retailers and had very small or non-existent mortgages by buying older homes that retained or appreciated in value.

    Keeping costs low is a priority in the millionaire household, except with what the book described as “do it yourself” projects. Most millionaires captured in the study did not cut their own grass and if something broke in their house, they didn’t fix it, they called an expert.

    At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a managing cost approach. However, upon further inspection, it is not a matter of keeping costs down, it is a matter how your time is best spent because time is money. If the cost equation involves devotion of ones time, especially for someone who has learned how to generate revenue (as most millionaires have) through their time, best to outsource those non-essential tasks to someone who can do them more effectively. Which actually saves money.

    What does this have to do with leadership? Maybe leaders could learn a thing or two from the millionaire mindset. One thing I find that is a frequent area for tactical leadership coaching of what is really personal leadership (instead of actually leading others) and that is the issue of time management.  It is difficult to lead and guide the work of others if, as a leader, we have difficulty managing our own work and time.

    We’ve devoted several blog posts over the years to this topic that you can view here:

    Personal Leadership on Purpose

    A New Take on Time Management

    5 Ways to Find Your Productivity Sweet Spot

    Saying ‘No” to Something is Saying ‘Yes” to Something Else

    Schedules Communicate Priorities

    But what can you take from all of these, and what do we work with clients on helping them manage their time better? What does the millionaire mindset teach us? It’s pretty simple:

    • Define Your Purpose see the mission statement and goal setting links in this post.
    • Vet how you spend your time by that purpose. A helpful way to do this is by looking at Covey’s approach- is it urgent/not urgent, important/not important. The goal is to be in the green on this grid- or in Quadrant II by spending your time on tasks that are important, but not yet urgent. It’s simply being proactive. Notice that many of these items in Quadrant II deal with developing others – values clarification, relationship building, empowerment.

    Image source: https://www.franklincovey.com/blog/manage-your-time-and-energy-effectively/

  • All Leaders Need to Develop Others

    All Leaders Need to Develop Others

    Tactical leadership coaching should be customized based on the person being coached and his or her development needs. You waste your time trying to focus on areas that are not critical to the person’s success or aren’t about maximizing strengths or minimizing weaknesses when you cover the same topics for the same person regardless of the situation. This is why assessment and feedback seeking is so important, and it is also why, oftentimes, one-on-one coaching is more value-added than group training.

    All that being said, though, a leaders’ primary role is to make more leaders. It doesn’t matter what industry a person is in, what skill sets they possess, or what job title they hold.

    I’ve found that the Situational Leadership approach developed by Hersey and Blanchard provides an excellent framework for helping leaders think through people development and implement behavioral-based methods for developing others. The clutch of this approach is that you don’t develop everyone the same way. One-size does not fit all, or in other words, the most unfair thing in the world to do is to treat unequals as equals.

    The approach (as illustrated here) is grounded in two dimensions of the person being developed:

    1. Their competence level (I like to call this their “skill”)
    2. Their commitment level (I like to call this their “will”)

    (See more on skill vs. will)

    Based on the combination of a person’s skill and will level, a leader then responds based on leading that person with a combination of a directive and/or supportive style to drive results.

    Although a fairly simple model (compared to others out there), an example might help to illustrate how this approach would be applied.

    Let’s say you have just hired a new college grad. He is an energetic, “eager beaver” so to speak. He’s ready to save the world, and he is ready to do it through your company and his job. High commitment or will. However, he lacks training on your company’s processes, does not have an understanding of your industry and lacks some level of confidence in dealing with others, whether co-workers or customers. Low competence or skill. He needs to develop his skills in order to be successful or his will/commitment will end up going out the window.

    Based on looking at the model below, which style would this leader employ to develop his new employee? He would begin by being very directive with the employee. But what does being directive mean? What behaviors would the leader exhibit?

    The leader would be best served by “providing specific direction (what to do, how to do it and when) and closely monitoring task performance” (italics mine) from Leadership and the One Minute ManagerThis means training the employee thoroughly, meeting with him regular to monitor the accomplishment of tasks and providing very frequent feedback. 

    For new hires, having a training and development plan complete with tasks and measurements for those tasks is a great complement to directive leadership style that is usually needed at this stage in an employees’ tenure.

    But you don’t do this forever. An employee should move through the progression of their competence and commitment level where both are high if the directive approach is implement correctly and timely. A leader employing the Situational Leadership approach, if done correctly, should help with this progression of growth and development and should know when to adapt their style based on the person’s skill and will level to help them continue to grow. Keep being directive forever and you will kill a person’s will too.

    As a leader, how do you adapt your style to develop people?

    If you want to learn more about Situation Leadership and how it is applied, take a look at Leadership and the One Minute Manager as well as the other One Minute Manager booksAll are short and very easy to read and follow. You can skip the scholarly journals on the theory and go straight to the application of it in about a 30 minute read with these books.

    situational-leadership1

     

    Image source: http://www.12manage.com/images/picture_blanchard_situational_leadership.gif

  • The Top 10, Wait 9, Leadership Coaching Needs

    The Top 10, Wait 9, Leadership Coaching Needs

    What would you guess to be the Top 10 most common topics covered in leadership coaching? Maybe we can get Letterman to do a Top 10 list on leadership coaching needs (oh, what humor we could probably find, it wouldn’t take much creativity), but in all seriousness, by reviewing many, many 360° leadership evaluations and coaching individuals on maximizing and improving their performance, here is my list- and I could only get to nine:

    1. Developing Others
    2. Time Management
    3. Delegation
    4. Thinking Strategically
    5. Managing Upwards
    6. Communication
    7. Planning/Organizing
    8. Managing Conflict
    9. Empowering/Motivating Others

    I’d love to hear what would be in your Top 10 list of your needs for improvement as a leader, or better yet, what areas you think the person who leads you or manages you needs! Maybe by comparing my list to yours, we can get to 10. And better yet, send them to me in David Letterman style! How would he phrase them?  Email me your list or post it to our Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter Feed.

    Over the next several weeks, we’ll be writing on ways to address these common areas. We’ll phrase them in your Letterman style and add to our list based on your feedback. If we use one of your submissions, we’ll send you a $25 Visa Gift Card. Submit away!

  • 6 Steps for Maximizing Feedback Through Feedforward

    6 Steps for Maximizing Feedback Through Feedforward

    Described by Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, feedforward is a process to solicit help in improving your performance once you’ve gotten feedback on what you need to improve upon. In our coaching process, and in many others, this is done through a 360° feedback assessment. (If you want other tips on how to solicit feedback yourself, Goldsmith’s book has a methods you can employ, or you can read ideas we recommend here.

     

    How to do it:

    Once you get feedback, you then follow the feedforward process as Goldsmith describes by:

    1. What do you stink at? Pick the behavior you want to change or improve based on the feedback you’ve received. In our coaching process, this should be reflected in the goals the individual sets as a previous step in the process.
    2. Tell people what you stink at. Describe the behavior you want to change one-on-one with anyone. It could be co-workers, your boss, your spouse, anyone. They do not have to be an expert.
    3. Ask for help. Ask the person for two suggestions on how you could improve in this area in the future. There should be no discussion of the past- only the focus on the future.
    4. Shut up. Listen to the suggestions, take notes if you desire, and thank the person for their suggestions. Don’t comment or judge their suggestions, just thank them.
    5. Repeat steps 2-4 with other people. As many as you like, the more the better.
    6. Stop stinking. Once you have a list of suggestions, commit to implementing what will work for you and regularly communicate your efforts to those involved.

     

    Feedforward at first can appear to be a process that leaves one vulnerable, and many people think that others won’t provide honest input when asked. But if done correctly, it can build your capabilities as a leader not only to help improve your performance but engaging in the process will convey humility, which is a trait many people actually seek in a leader they are want to follow.

    Have your ever sought someone’s input on how to improve? If so, what were the outcomes of you implementing their suggestions?

  • 3 Ways to Seek Feedback as a Leader

    3 Ways to Seek Feedback as a Leader

    In leadership coaching and training, there are several key areas where people seek help for maximizing their performance. Over the next few weeks, we’ll focus on one a week and provide you with some tools and tips to help you if the area is one in which you seek to develop as a leader.

    Last week we pointed to feedforward and feedback as one of the steps in our coaching process. We often find, however, that this topic is also a tactical approach for improving performance. Many people in leadership roles, don’t seek feedback for themselves and do not provide adequate feedback to those they lead, which inhibits the ability to maximize performance.

    Here are some tips and methods for seeking feedback for yourself:

    1. Ways to seek informal feedback for yourself:

    -Simply ask those around you what they see as your strengths and areas for improvement. Ask “What can I do better?” This shouldn’t just be done at work. It should be done at home as well.

    -Listen to what others say or comment about you whether in humor or not. These comments are often a good indicator of how they perceive your strengths and weaknesses.

    2. Ways to formally seek feedback for yourself: There are variety of good books out there that list questions relevant to leadership performance that can be found in 360° questionnaires. Use these questions to develop your own 360° evaluation and solicit someone’s help to distribute it to those you wish to gain feedback from. Have that person also compile the results for you in order to protect people’s confidentiality and provide better results.

    -Books with good questions for consideration:

    What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

                Successful Manager’s Handbook

    Another way to seek formal feedback for yourself is to simply take your performance evaluation process seriously. Hopefully your company has one. Utilize the feedback you receive in your review.

    3. Hire someone to conduct a 360° evaluation for you: Make sure you vet  this person/firm appropriately. Although you can gain meaningful insight into yourself by seeking feedback on your own, this method may provide the most objective, and therefore the most actionable plan for maximizing your strengths and developing as a leader if you can afford to hire someone to conduct the review.

    What is the best method you’ve used to seek feedback for yourself?