Blanchard LeaderChat

HR and senior leaders play a special role in making sure that coaching is successful in an organization. One of the ways is by positioning executive coaching correctly according to Linda Miller in a new article for The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.

As Miller, a Master Certified Coach and Global Liaison for coaching explains, “It’s important that coaching is positioned as an investment in development and not as something punitive. You want executives to be looking forward to being tapped on the shoulder for coaching rather than fretting if they get that phone call that says, ‘Guess what, you have an executive coach who has been assigned to help you.’” Read more…

In a recent blog post at Harvard Business Review’s The Conversation, best selling business author Bob Sutton generated a lot of discussion with a post entitled Some Bosses Live in a Fool’s Paradise.  Bob’s basic premise is that leaders become more susceptible to a distorted sense of reality the higher they climb in an organization.  Why? Three reasons according to Sutton. Read more…

In the June 2010 issue of Ignite, Madeleine Homan Blanchard discusses how Leadership Strengths Are a Double-Edged Sword.  She goes on to explain that positive characteristics such as optimism, confidence, and intelligence can turn into delusion, arrogance, and unhealthy competitiveness if left unchecked. In her work with highly successful executives, this crossover from strengths to weaknesses can be subtle, and usually occurs over the course of years.  It can be especially hard to identify early in an executive’s career because the weaknesses that derail so many careers later in life are just shadow versions of the same attributes that helped executives succeed earlier.

The key, according to Homan Blanchard, is to maintain a healthy self-awareness of the way you are perceived by others.  To help with that, Madeleine recommends four strategies.

1. Create an imaginary “self observation person” and place them on your left shoulder.  Give this imaginary advisor one important task.  Anytime you feel yourself about to speak or respond to someone and there is some extra emotion behind it, have this advisor check in to ask, “Is this about your need to be heard, or is this in the best interest of the other person and you are saying it because it absolutely needs to be said?”
2. Get feedback.  Homan Blanchard recommends that leaders check in with colleagues (and direct reports especially) every once in a while to get a reading on how they are doing.  Madeleine especially likes three classic questions and recommends executives keep them top of mind: What should I start doing to be more helpful to you as a leader? What should I stop doing? Is there anything you think I should know?
3. Surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to challenge you. Let people know that you want to engage in useful debate. Encourage people to speak up when something you say doesn’t make sense or might not be the right way to go.
4. Consider working with a coach who can provide a reality check and keep you honest. It’s important to have someone who will call you out when you are deceiving yourself.

To read more about some of the ways that leaders inadvertently limit their effectiveness, be sure to check out the entire Ignite article here.  Also be sure to see the information about a free webinar that Homan Blanchard is conducting on June 16, Leaders: Avoid These Fatal Flaws

One of the biggest challenges HR professionals face when they propose new leadership development initiatives is convincing CEOs of the financial impact of the proposed initiative.  Without a clear sense of the positive financial impact, it’s easy to write-off a new proposal as too expensive, or that now is not the right time.  The lack of urgency to improve performance is based on the idea that that the current level of leadership skill in the organization is good enough.  But is it?  A look at most companies has shown that the typical organization is leaving millions of dollars in untapped potential lying on the table through less-than-optimal leadership practices. 

If you’re looking for some help in making the business case for a leadership development initiative in your organization, here are three resources that can help. Just click on the heading and you can access the information right away.

1. Whitepaper–The Leadership-Profit Chain 

In 2006, researchers from The Ken Blanchard Companies conducted a year-long study to identify the connections between leadership effectiveness, employee passion, customer devotion, and overall organizational vitality.  This resulting whitepaper identifies several correlations: 

• Effective operational leadership directly predicts positive employee passion
• Positive employee passion directly predicts customer devotion
• Customer devotion directly predicts organizational vitality 

2. Whitepaper–The High Cost of Doing Nothing 

In this white paper you’ll see why “good isn’t good enough” when it comes to the impact that leadership practices have on employee turnover, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity.  You’ll discover what your cost-of-doing nothing is in today’s dollars.  More importantly, you’ll learn a couple of ideas for identifying ways to recoup some of that untapped potential in your organization. 

3. Online Cost-of-Doing-Nothing Calculator 

This online calculator uses a couple of pieces of information—number of employees, annual sales, current turnover rate, and combines it with desired targets for customer satisfaction and employee productivity to generate a “cost of doing nothing” dollar amount.  It’s a great tool for identifying the impact of better leadership in an organization and also making the business case for a training initiative—especially leadership development.

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard, the co-founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Coaching Services Division has a soft spot for new managers.  She understands the challenges people face when they make the shift from an individual contributor to a supervisor. 

To help with the transition, Homan-Blanchard recommends that new managers take a minute to catch their breath and then review a couple of the new changes in their life. Three things—getting comfortable with being a beginner again, scoring some early wins, and learning how to ask for help—can make the transition smoother.

1. Being a beginner again.  This is the first shock that many new managers experience and it can be a big one.  Making the shift from being a highly-competent individual contributor to a new life as a rookie manager can be a humbling experience.  The important thing is how you react to it.  If you respond by acting like you know it all, you’re going to be in trouble.  If you recognize that your new at this, and need a lot of direction and support, you’ll increase your chances of success.
2. Score some early wins.  New managers need to establish some credibility and confidence among the people they’re leading.  One good way to do this is by finding a relatively simple project, something small that can generate an early win.  Nothing builds confidence like success.
3. Ask for help. Sometimes new managers fall into a trap of thinking that they are supposed to have all the answers now.  Remember that you’re new at this.  If anything, you’ve probably got more to learn than ever before. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.  Pretending you have all the answers, or stumbling ahead when you don’t, is.  Find someone in the organization you admire as a good leader and pursue a possible mentoring relationship.  (Not your new boss, by the way.)  Take them to lunch, pick their brain, and learn everything you can.

To read more about Homan-Blanchard’s thinking on how to start fast as a new manager, be sure to check out First Time Manager, It’s Not Just About You Anymore. You can also access a webinar that has even more advice on making your first year a good one.  Survival Skills for First-Year Managers webinar recording

Leadership is not something you do to people, it’s something you do with people. Letting people know what they can expect from you underscores the idea that leadership is a partnership process. It gives people a picture of what your behavior will look like under your leadership.

That’s one of the messages that Ken Blanchard highlights in a short article entitled Setting a Leadership Point of View for Yourself and Your Organization.  In it, Blanchard underscores the idea that leadership transparency is a key element of success in today’s organizations. That’s because transparency gives employees a chance to see the “person behind the position” in their organization.  This willingness on the part of leaders to share a little bit of themselves helps to build trust and confidence in a powerful way.  It also encourages people to share a little bit more about themselves as well. The result is greater openness and stronger bonds throughout the organization.  For leaders looking to get started with being more transparent with their people, Blanchard recommends three steps:

1. Identify your beliefs about leading and managing people. Who are the people that have influenced you in your life?  Most people think about traditional and famous leaders first, but the reality is that parents, teachers, and other important people in our lives are the ones who have usually influenced our thinking the most. Given what you’ve learned from past leaders and your core values, what are your beliefs about leading and motivating people?
2. Share your “leadership point of view” with others. How can you communicate what you believe and how it influences your behavior?  By sharing your leadership point of view with the people who report to you, they will not only have the benefit of understanding where you’re coming from, but they’ll also understand what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.
3. Think through how you will set an example for your people. Your leadership point of view lets others know how you will set an example for the values and behaviors you are encouraging. But as most parents know, people learn from your behavior, not from your words. Leaders must walk their talk. Developing a leadership point of view creates a clear path for you to follow.  Now you need to walk it.

To read the entire article, check out Setting a Leadership Point of View for Yourself and Your Organization here.

Effective leaders know that there is no one best way to manage people. Instead, they adapt their style according to the development level of the people they are managing. 

In The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Situational Leadership® II Model, managers are taught to modify the amount of direction and support they give to direct reports based on their skill and commitment levels for the task at hand.  To make this easier to understand, Blanchard uses four easy to remember descriptors to identify the four stages of development: Enthusiastic Beginner, Disillusioned Learner, Capable but Cautious Performer, and Self-Reliant Achiever. 

• Enthusiastic Beginner–Can you remember when you first started to learn to ride a bicycle? You were so excited sometimes that you couldn’t even sleep at night, even though you didn’t have a clue how to actually ride a bike. You were a classic Enthusiastic Beginner who needed direction. At this point you had enthusiasm for the task but not a lot of experience. You needed someone to show you how—in a step-by-step process. 
• Disillusioned Learner–Remember the first time you took a fall on your bike? As you were picking yourself up off the pavement, you might have wondered why you decided to learn to ride in the first place and whether you would ever really master it. Now you had reached the Disillusioned Learner stage, and you needed coaching. This is a combination of direction mixed in with a lot of support to help you get through this rough patch. 
• Capable but Cautious Performer–Once you were able to ride your bike with your parent cheering you on, that confidence probably became shaky the first time you decided to take your bike out for a spin without your cheerleader and supporter close at hand. At this point, you were a Capable but Cautious Performer in need of support. You knew how to ride, you just needed some extra encouragement to keep going. 
• Self-Reliant Achiever–Finally, you reached the stage where your bicycle seemed to be a part of you. You could ride it without even thinking about it. You were truly a Self-Reliant Achiever, and your parents could delegate to you the job of having fun on your bike. Just don’t let them see you jumping off of that ramp. 

Developing More Effective Leaders

There are still people out there who think there is only one best way of leading people. Experienced managers know that this is not the case. Take a look in your own organization. Notice what the best managers in your company are doing. Chances are you will see them adjusting their management style to meet the needs of the people they are working with. 

Effective leaders know that there is no one best way to manage people. Managers looking to improve their ability to lead people to higher levels of performance need to adapt their style to match the development level of the people they are managing. It is a proven approach that will help managers lead people to their best performance every time. 

To learn more about taking a situational approach to leading and developing others, be sure to check out the free, on-demand webcast, Managing and Developing People to Be Their Best: The 3 Keys to Becoming a Smart, Flexible, and Successful Leader

Making the bottom line your top priority may not be the best way to improve profitability. That’s the conclusion of recent research conducted by Mary Sully de Luque and Nathan T. Washburn of Thunderbird School of Global Management; David A. Waldman, of Arizona State University West; and Robert J. House, of the University of Pennsylvania, that underscores the risk of single-mindedly pursuing profit.

This finding is based on survey data gathered from 520 business organizations in 17 countries designed to test if a CEO’s primary focus on profit maximization resulted in employees developing negative feelings toward the organization. The result? Employees in these companies tend to perceive the CEO as autocratic and focused on the short term, and they report being somewhat less willing to sacrifice for the company. Corporate performance is poorer as a result. 

But when the CEO makes it a priority to balance the concerns of customers, employees, and the community while also taking environmental impact into account, employees perceive him or her as visionary and participatory. And they report being more willing to exert extra effort, and corporate results improve. 

These results aren’t surprising. When the definition of leadership focuses only on profit what tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Leaders wrongly believe that they can’t focus on both at the same time. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.  As this research points out, organizations perform best when they balance financial goals with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of everyone involved. 

The Four Keys to Better Leadership 

In looking at all of the great organizations that The Ken Blanchard Companies has worked with over the years, we have found one thing that sets these organizations apart from average organizations. The defining characteristic is leaders who maintain an equal focus on both results and people. In these organizations, leaders measure their success with people (customers and employees) as much as they measure their financial performance. 

In these organizations, leaders do four things well. 

1. They set their sights on the right target and vision. Great organizations focus on three bottom lines instead of just one. In addition to financial success, leaders at great organizations know that measuring their success with people–both customers and employees–is just as important as measuring the success of their financial bottom line. In these organizations, developing loyal customers and engaged employees are considered equal to good financial performance. Leaders at these companies know that in order to succeed they must create a motivating environment for employees, which results in better customer service, which leads to higher profits. 
2. They treat their customers right. To keep your customers today, you can’t be content just to satisfy them. Instead, you have to create raving fans–customers who are so excited about the way you treat them that they want to tell everyone about you. Companies that create raving fans routinely do the unexpected on behalf of their customers, and then enjoy the growth generated by customers bragging about them to prospective clients. 
3. They treat their people right. Without committed and empowered employees, you can never provide good service. You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well. Treating your people right begins with good performance planning that gets things going in the right direction by letting direct reports know what they will be held accountable for–goals–and what good behavior looks like–performance standards. It continues with managers who provide the right amount of direction and support that each individual employee needs in order to achieve those goals and performance standards. 
4. They turn the organizational chart upside down. The most effective leaders realize that leadership is not about them and that they are only as good as the people they lead. These leaders seek to be serving leaders instead of self-serving leaders. In this model, once a vision has been set, leaders move themselves to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as a cheerleader, supporter, and encourager to the people who report to them. 

The way to maximize your results as a leader is to have high expectations for both results and relationships. If leaders take care of the people who take care of their customers, profits and financial strength will follow. The result is an organization where people and profits both grow and thrive.

A significant gap exists between the leadership skills organizations have now and the ones they will need in five years, according to new research from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).    

CCL surveyed 2,200 leaders from 15 companies for its Understanding the Leadership Gap study. Researchers asked executives and managers from an array of corporations and government agencies to consider a set of 20 leadership skills.

Respondents then ranked those skills in terms of how important they will be for success five years from now and how accomplished their colleagues are at them today.  The biggest gaps?  Executives in the U.S., India and Singapore identified the four most important leadership skills needing work as: 

1. Leading People–knowing how to hire, direct and motivate talented staff
2. Strategic Planning–translating vision into realistic business strategies
3. Inspiring Commitment–recognizing and rewarding employee accomplishments
4. Managing Change–dealing with resistance to change and involving colleagues in the design and implementation of change 

As you look into the future, what do you see?  Are these the biggest gaps for your organization?  More importantly, do you have a plan in place for addressing them?

BNET columnist Jessica Stillman recently shared some reactions she got from readers to a blog she wrote on What’s the First Thing New Managers Need to Learn?  The original posting prompted so many responses that Stillman offered up a second column on the subject aimed at sharing some of the ways that recently promoted managers could avoid “new manager syndrome.”  According to Stillman, here are some of the symptoms that afflict the under-trained management newbie:

• Providing reports with too much “helpful” advice.
• Trying to show confidence by refusing to admit weaknesses or mistakes.
• Missing the mark with recognition through overdone or meaningless kudos to staff.
• Working 12-hour days to complete all work individually, instead of delegating.

You can read the complete second posting—plus see up-to-date additional comments by readers, at Readers Diagnose “New Management Syndrome,” Offer Cures

For additional thoughts on the challenges new managers face and some of the ways to meet these challenges successfully, be sure to check out two past articles featuring The Ken Blanchard Companies Madeleine Homan-Blanchard.  Madeleine is co-founder of Coaching Services and she shares her thoughts on the challenges new managers face in an article entitled First Time Manager: It’s Not Just about You Anymore and is featured in a second article for new managers on Providing Feedback and Direction.