Blanchard LeaderChat

Join Ken Blanchard for a special complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern). Dr. Blanchard will be speaking on the topic of From Recovery to Prosperity: The Power of Vision and Leadership. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 1,500 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Dr. Blanchard will be answering questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the online discussion, follow these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

1. Click on the COMMENTS link above 
2. Type in your question for Dr. Blanchard
3. Push SUBMIT COMMENT 

It’s as easy as that!  Dr. Blanchard will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

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

One of the primary reasons why change efforts fail is because leaders do not consider change from an employee’s perspective. If you’re considering a change initiative in your organization, make sure that you take into account the six predictable concerns that people have when they are asked to change. By addressing these concerns early, you can reduce resistance and build momentum for moving ahead.

1. Information Concerns—What is the change and why is it needed? Make sure that you’re telling instead of selling at this early stage. People want direct, honest answers instead of being “sold” on the change and why they should accept it.

2. Personal Concerns—How will the change impact me personally? Leaders need to create an atmosphere of trust and genuine concern for how the change will impact people personally.

3. Implementation Concerns—Once their first two concerns are out of the way (and not before) people are ready to hear about the details of the change process.  

4. Impact Concerns—At this stage people want to know about the impact that the change is having.  

5. Collaboration Concerns—Once people understand the benefits of the change, they are ready to spread the word and encourage others. At this stage, leaders need to shift roles and allow others to run with the ball.

6. Refinement Concerns—With the first stage of change successfully implemented, your role at this point is to encourage refinement and support further innovation.

Change Readiness Quiz

Change happens one person at a time. By taking the time to address the concerns that people naturally have when they are asked to change, leaders can surface these issues before they occur. Is your organization ready for change?  Take our Change Readiness Quiz and find out where you stand. (Please note that one-time registration at The Ken Blanchard Companies web site is required to see results.)

Join Dr. Dick Ruhe, Senior Consulting Partner and co-author of Know-Can-Do right here on LeaderChat beginning at 10:05 a.m. Pacific Time for a 30-minute Q&A session.

Dick will be stopping by immediately after he finishes his WebEx sponsored webinar on We’re Still Here … Now What? In this special event, Dick will be sharing six strategies to help leaders re-focus and re-energize their organizations by adopting a growth—instead of survival—mindset.  Over 400 people will be participating in the webinar and most will be gathering here to ask follow-up questions.

If you have a question that you would like to ask Dr. Ruhe, just click on the COMMENTS hyperlink above. (Once you’ve typed in your comment hit SUBMIT COMMENT.)  Dick will answer as many questions as possible during the 30-minute online Q&A.

If you can’t stay for the entire 30-minute chat, but would like to see all of the questions and responses, you can always stop by later or click on the RSS FEED button on the right-hand column and you’ll receive updates automatically.

McKinsey & Company just published the results of a series of interviews with 14 CEOs and chairmen of major companies (including 3M, Cardinal Health, Travelers Insurance, Pepsi Bottling Group, Procter & Gamble, Macy’s, Sysco, and Northrop Grumman) asking them to reflect on the current recession and previous challenges they had faced in a turnaround or a crisis. What emerged from the interviews are six principles that all leaders can reflect on to guide their behavior in the executive suite and the boardroom, as well as interactions with employees, customers, and investors. 

1. Confront reality
2. At board meetings, put strategy center stage
3. Be transparent with employees
4. Be transparent with investors
5. Build and protect the culture
6. Keep faith with the future 

You can access the complete McKinsey article here.  (It’s free, but registration is required.) While you’re there be sure to check out the McKinsey archives and also sign up to begin receiving the free McKinsey Quarterly, a great business strategy resource.   

For more information on leading in the new business reality, also be sure to check out Blanchard’s recent articles on Making the Shift from Survival to Growth and Creating a Change-Ready Organization.  Both are available at no charge at the Blanchard website.

I was surfing various leadership blogs the other day and ran across an interesting post from Tony Morgan on 4 stages of leadership. Rather than looking at a leader moving through various stages in his/her career, I prefer to look at it as various “hats” that a leader has to wear, given the context and need of the situation.

The first hat of leadership is self leadership. This is a hat for all seasons! Self leadership involves developing the skills and abilities to set goals for yourself, to recognize the points of power you have to help you accomplish your goals and influence others, and to recognize and move beyond the assumed constraints, or self-limiting beliefs, that you’ve created for yourself over the years. Self leadership is independent of any formal position of leadership. If you can breathe, you can be a self leader!

The second hat of leadership is leading others. This hat utilizes various styles of leadership to influence others in order to help them accomplish their individual goals or the goals of the organization. This hat is often used when a leader is in a formal position of authority with direct reports, but it can also be worn by an individual contributor who has to collaborate with and accomplish work through others. A leader in this context needs to flex his or her style to meet the developmental needs of the followers. A second hat leader uses a combination of directive and supportive behaviors to bring out the best in his or her people.

Leading teams is the third hat of leadership. When two or more people are mutually dependent and accountable for achieving a particular goal, you have a team. Wearing the hat of team leadership involves not only using second hat leadership in your 1 to 1 interactions with team members, it involves managing the productivity and morale of the team as a whole. The team leader has to monitor team dynamics and modify his or her leadership style to keep the team moving to higher levels of performance.

The fourth hat is leading organizations. Leaders in this context have to be acutely aware of their own leadership points of view, setting the vision/mission of the organization, the nuances of managing other leaders, and how to implement and manage change within the organization. Competencies of fourth hat leadership involve strategic thinking, innovation, creativity, and having a global mindset.

Any one particular type of hat isn’t appropriate for every social situation. Nor is any one particular type of leadership appropriate for every organizational context. You wouldn’t wear a top hat to a baseball game would you? No! A baseball cap would be much more appropriate. The same is true with the hats of leadership in organizations. You have to develop the skills and abilities of each of the leadership hats so that you can quickly switch between them as the situation demands.

So which hat are you wearing? Is it the right one?

Join Dr. Pat Zigarmi, co-author of the new book, Who Killed Change? right here on LeaderChat beginning at 10:05 a.m. Pacific Time for a 30-minute Q&A session.  

Pat will be stopping by right after she finishes her WebEx sponsored webinar on Leading People Through Change.  This is a special government-focused webinar that looks at the unique challenges encountered when leading change in a government setting. Over 200 people will be participating in the webinar and most will be gathering here to ask follow-up questions. 

If you have a question that you would like to ask Pat, just enter this thread or click on the COMMENTS hyperlink near the title of this post.  Type in your question in the space provided and hit SUBMIT COMMENT.  Pat will answer as many questions as possible until she has to leave at 10:30 a.m. Pacific. 

And if you can’t stay, be sure to stop by later and see all the questions that were asked.  Or better yet, hit the RSS FEED button on the right-hand column and receive updates on a weekly basis.