How to be a good leader – Why what you know may be wrong!

How to be a good leader?  Have you wondered about that? What you know about how leaders become leaders may be wrong!  According to the research by Herminia Ibarra, most traditional ways of leadership development have an incorrect approach!

Read further to find out more.

How to be a good leader? A perpetual leadership development problem

Jacob is one of the leaders and production head of a food manufacturer.  He complains that most of his day is filled with fighting fires.  He runs around the plant all day, just trying to fix things to meet the production targets and keep the plant running.  He realizes that he needs to get away from operational issues and focus more on strategic issues.  How to improve the plant’s efficiency, how to improve cross-functional collaboration, how to anticipate threats, and take advantage of possible opportunities in a rapidly changing business environment. His solution to this pressing problem is to find a two-hour time slot in his day to think.  And it seems like a good idea.  After all, having some time to think and reflect will help take a more strategic view.

Perhaps you are in a similar position as Jacob in your leadership role.  Maybe you are trying to wean yourself from operational issues and focus more on strategic initiatives.  You want to tackle more important matters that suffer due to non-stop urgent issues.  Does this solution – to set aside time to think – work?  Is it likely to make Jacob, or your own self, more strategic?  Almost certainly no!  Unfortunately, you can only learn leadership by doing things and not by thinking about things.

Real-life experiences from a leadership development expert on how to be a good leader

This perspective comes from Herminia Ibarra, the author of the book Act like a leader, think like a leader, and an expert on professional and leadership development.  She is a professor at London Business School. Previously she was a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. She also served as Harvard Business School faculty for thirteen years. Thinkers50 ranked Ibarra #9 among the most influential business gurus in the world.

Read: Future of Leadership – Are your leadership skills future-ready?

How to be a good leader? Why won’t the conventional wisdom on leadership get you very far?

The approach that most leadership training or coaching programs take is changing the leader’s thinking.  It is usually done through self-reflection and introspection.  Herminia Ibarra points out that an entire industry on leadership development is based on this faulty idea.  Books, training programs, coaching interventions, and courses are designed to help find your authentic leadership style and help you become an authentic leader.  The numbers on the effectiveness of such leadership programs are shockingly dismal.

Such programs may help you identify your leadership strengths and weaknesses, but that is exactly what may be the problem – as that only describes your current way of thinking. What is needed is a change in mindset, which a behavior change can only achieve.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than think your way into a new way of acting.” – Jerry Sternin.

Change happens from the outside in and not from the inside out. In other words, we act as a leader first and then learn to think like a leader (thus the title of the book).

How leadership growth really happens?

Throughout her career, Professor Ibarra observed how leaders dealt with important transitions at work. Most of what she learned about successful leadership transitions goes against conventional wisdom.

The traditional approach to leadership development is to identify authentic, innovative, or inspiring leaders and then to identify what they have in common. Researchers conclude that effective leaders have certain competencies – high self-awareness, a sense of purpose, authenticity, and so on. However, there is little understanding of the journey of how leaders got there.   She concluded people become leaders by doing the real leadership work – not by attending leadership training or coaching programs.

Becoming a leader: the traditional model (think, then act) versus the way it really works (act, then think)

She coined this “reverse” cycle of first acting as a leader and then thinking like a leader as “outsight” – as it is a change from outside in vs. the traditional approach of change from the inside out or “insight.”  Below are some differences between insight and outsight.

The difference between insight and outsight

Insight                                                                          Outsight

• Internal Knowledge                                         –    External Knowledge
• Past Experience                                              –    New Experience
• Thinking                                                        –    Acting

How do you approach your leadership development?

Many companies go about leadership development traditionally by sending leaders and potential leaders to executive education programs or leadership training and coaching.  There are several pitfalls to this approach.

1. Considering leadership training as an event – Not understanding that it is a process that takes time and reinforcement at work.
2. Overlooking the context – What works in one situation or environment won’t work in other situations.
3. Decoupling of reflection from the real work – Developmental activities look good in a simulated environment but not in the real world.

To quote Debbie Lovich, who has 20 years of experience in leadership development BCG, “People don’t develop skills from simply reading a book or going to a one-off workshop. They build skills by having to do something, failing, and trying again and again.“

Read: Why leadership training fails and the fail-safe solution for it

The fundamental problem with leadership development

The fundamental problem with most of the traditional leadership development and executive education programs is that they assume that if the leader knows about it, she will do it.  We know from personal experience – how flawed this kind of thinking is.  Knowing rarely equals doing.  We know a lot about many areas.  For example, I know a lot about losing weight and getting fit.  Does that mean that I do those things regularly?  This rarely is the case.  Think about any of the leadership skills.  You may attend a course on “Working with Emotional Intelligence.”  Does that mean that you will apply it regularly and become more emotionally intelligent when you come back to work?  I am willing to bet that it rarely happens!

A flawed paradigm about how to be a good leader

And yet, we operate under a flawed paradigm that more knowledge will help fix the leadership issues.  We chase the latest program, the latest buzzword, the newest bestseller – thinking that if I just read that or attend the course – I can improve my leadership.  Intellectual knowledge is rarely a problem in leadership development.  Application of the knowledge at work, consistent follow-up, and forming the right habits is definitely is the issue.

Our leadership coaching is designed to convert knowing into doing.  We take the leader through awareness, acceptance, action, and achievement (of their leadership growth).  The model we use is tried and tested worldwide – over 1 million leaders have undergone this process.  Large-scale research study of over 84,000 leaders on six continents has proven this approach to have a success rate of 95% – which is unheard of in training and coaching.  And best of all – it comes with a no-growth no-pay clause.

Want to know about a better and more cost and time-effective approach to leadership development?

Would you like measurable results from your leadership development investment?  How about guaranteed results?  We use the Stakeholder centered one on one coaching for leaders pioneered by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith – World’s No. 1 leadership Thinker and executive coach. This leadership development approach overcomes most of the pitfalls that derail the effectiveness of a leadership development initiative.

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study of 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader are aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results!: We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

References: “Act like a leader, think like a leader,” a book by Herminia Ibarra.

What is the most dangerous leadership problem?

What, in your opinion, is the most dangerous leadership problem?  Is it a lack of vision?  Or is it micro-management? Or lack of accountability?  Poor execution?  What if I told you that these are mere symptoms of a real and most dangerous leadership problem? It is most dangerous, especially because leaders don’t even know that they have this problem!  The story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss is an eye-opening example of this!  Let me elaborate!

A transformational leadership idea?

I wanted to share a transformational leadership idea that can completely and permanently change the way we lead. The idea comes from one of the most influential books on leadership – “Leadership and Self-deception” by Arbinger Institute. Since the book was first published in 2000, it has sold more and more copies every year just from word-of-mouth reviews and has subsequently been translated into 20 languages and has become an international bestseller.

Here is one of the numerous rave reviews from Dave Brown – former President and CEO of LensCrafters – “Remarkable. Arbinger possesses the hidden key to productivity and creativity. Do whatever you can to get your hands on this material.” Curious to know about the transformational leadership idea?

The infant can’t see that she is the problem!

Imagine a six-month-old baby girl who is just learning how to crawl. She starts by pushing backward and moving around the house. Unfortunately, she gets lodged beneath a sofa and is now stuck. She is visibly upset and hates being stuck. Just as any infant would, she starts crying. She tries to get unstuck by doing the only thing she knows how by pushing back even harder. But the more she pushes back, the more stuck she gets as she is now lodged way back under the sofa. Unknown to her – the more she tries to solve the problem, the worse the problem becomes.

If this baby girl could talk, what would she say? Probably something along this line. “I am stuck. It is because of this piece of furniture. It is the fault of this sofa. I am doing everything I can to get unstuck, but nothing seems to be working.”

What the infant cannot understand is that this is a problem that she created herself! She can’t see the problem. She is “trying hard” to solve the problem, but her efforts are compounding her problem. The real problem is that she cannot see the real problem! Until she sees the real cause of the problem, nothing she can think or do will resolve the problem.

The problem is that leaders cannot “see” the problem

This is an apt analogy to describe what self-deception does to leaders. It blinds leaders to the true cause of the problems. Once “blind,” any solutions that the leader can develop are likely to compound the problem rather than solve it. To quote the authors – “Whether, at work or home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make wise and helpful decisions. To the extent that we are self-deceived, both our happiness and our leadership is undermined at every turn, and not because of the furniture.”

Unless leaders learn to “see” that they are the ones who are the root cause of the problem, anything they say or do will not resolve the problem and probably make the problem worse. “Of all the problems in organizations, self-deception is the most common and the most damaging.” Almost all other organizational problems are just symptoms of this root cause.  Dr. Ignaz SEmmelseiss’s story is an excellent example of this.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss & Vienna General hospital in the mid-1800s

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss was a Hungarian doctor and a professor in the mid-1850s and worked at Vienna general hospital, a premier medical research institute. His duties included teaching, examining patients at the maternity ward, and doing research.

In Hungary and Europe in the mid-1800s, mothers had a high death rate during childbirth, especially among underprivileged women. To reduce this high rate of death, free maternity wards were being set up at many hospitals, including the Vienna general hospital. Offering free maternity services also benefitted the hospitals – as these women would become willing subjects to train the midwives (nurses) and the doctors.

Read: What are the ego traps and Leadership Derailers leaders fall for?

The high mortality rate in the maternity clinic run by the doctors

Two maternity clinics were set up at Vienna general hospital. The first clinic was run by doctors, mainly by Semmelweiss himself. The second clinic was run with midwives’ help (nurses), and no doctors were involved. The two clinics were more or less identical in all other aspects.

The first clinic run by Semmelweiss had a mortality rate of 10%. One out of every ten women admitted to this clinic for childbirth died! The main cause of death was not childbirth. It was “puerperal fever,” otherwise known as childbed fever.

However, in the second clinic run by the nurses, the mortality rate due to childbed fever was only 2 %. While still high, it meant that one of every fifty women admitted for childbirth died! This defied logic. The doctors were better trained than midwives. Hence, the doctor’s death rate in the maternity clinic should be lower than the death rate in the clinic run by the midwives.

Pregnant women avoided the clinic run by Dr. Semmelweiss like a plague!

Eventually, the general public found out about the difference in mortality rates between the two clinics. Pregnant women begged to be admitted to the second clinic and avoided the first clinic run by Dr. Semmelweiss! Many women preferred to give birth on the streets instead of being admitted to the first maternity clinic. What puzzled him, even more, was that the mortality rate among women giving birth on the streets was less than the mortality rate of the first clinic run by him!

He decided to get to the bottom of this conundrum, so he started a step-by-step process of eliminating all possible differences between the two clinics. It even worked to standardized everything – diet, ventilation, birthing positions, and even religious practices. Nothing made any significant difference in the mortality rate.

The unexpected discovery

Then, Dr. Semmelweiss took a four-month leave to visit another hospital. Upon his return, he found out that the first clinic’s mortality rate had fallen significantly in his absence. It had dropped almost to the level of the second clinic run by the nurses. Although he could not figure out the reason, he could not deny the facts. He kept investigating further. Eventually, he stumbled upon the reason. The doctors who worked in the maternity ward also worked in the hospital’s research department and handled cadavers (dead bodies) as a part of their research. Simultaneously, the nurses who only worked at the maternity ward did not come in contact with the cadavers.

The cause and the cure

Dr. Semmelweiss postulated that the doctors carried particles from the diseased cadavers to the healthy mothers in the first maternity ward resulting in childbed fever and death. This was the precursor to the “germ theory” of disease – which Louis Pasteur later postulated. Dr. Semmelweiss instituted the practice of washing hands with chlorine and lime water after handling the cadavers. To his delight, the first clinic’s mortality rate dropped to 1 in 100, which meant that the death rate was now half of what it was in the maternity ward run by the nurses.

Dr. Semmelweiss regretted the deaths of hundreds of the mothers admitted to his maternity clinic. Although he intended to help the patients, unintentionally and unknowingly, he was the cause of their deaths.

Leaders cannot “see” that THEIR leadership behavior is the problem

Leaders also inflict a similar kind of harm to the morale and engagement of the people they lead, often unintentionally and unknowingly. They carry the disease of “self-deception,” which blinds them because their behaviors are the root cause of most of the problems in their teams that are often just the symptoms – low morale, lack of accountability, disengagement, and low productivity. Unless this root cause of bad leadership behaviors is addressed, nothing the leader says or does will significantly impact the morale, engagement, and performance level in the leader’s team.

How do you help leaders “see” the problems they cause?

As was the case with Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss, leaders in organizations often don’t see that their behaviors are often the cause of many issues that they face.  There is often a huge gap between a leader’s intent and their impact!

The best way to help the leader “see” this problem is through a 360 degree assessment of the leader’s behavior on the 15 global competencies of an effective leader.  The 360 degree assessment allows the leader’s team members to anonymously rate the leader.  This candid feedback helps the leader see which of their behaviors are productive and helpful and which ones are not!

Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360) to help your leaders “see” the problem

The Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360) is rooted in groundbreaking research conducted by Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach), involving CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, global thought leaders, and international business executives of organizations on 6 continents. The GLA360 articulates and measures the top 15 most pressing competencies for today’s global leader. It shows leaders the areas they need to develop to succeed in a competitive business environment.

Read:  360 degree feedback A complete guide with questionnaire

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching to help leaders change

Awareness of the leadership behaviors and the problems they cause is just the first step.  For a successful adult, consistent behavior change is one of the most difficult things to do.  Support leaders with the most effective coaching program in the world.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results!: We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you simply don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

Reference – The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis (Great Discoveries)

Poor Leadership Behaviors and its collateral damage

Poor leadership behaviors and bad leadership qualities cause severe collateral damage that is often hidden. Low employee engagement, high employee turnover, low productivity, and lack of discretionary effort are all symptoms of a single root cause – bad leadership behaviors. On the other hand, good leadership is one of the most important factors in determining the success of an organization. It directly affects employee motivation, productivity, and, most importantly, their performance.  Tolerating bad leadership behaviors is costly for the organization.  Helping leaders overcome their bad leadership behaviors significantly increases engagement, productivity, and profits.

Read: The importance of Leadership: Business impact of good and poor leadership

Most employees have encountered bad leadership behaviors

Over the span of our careers, most of us have had the unfortunate experience of working under a bad leader.  What comes to mind when you think of bad leadership behaviors?  What poor leadership behaviors have you seen in leaders you have worked for? What are bad leadership qualities, you know? A survey of 1000 employees by Bamboo HR lists the following behaviors that employees list as the top 10 bad leadership behaviors – along with the percentage of employees who considered such poor leadership behavior as a deal-breaker.

Top 10 bad leadership behaviors

Top 5 poor leadership behaviors that make employees QUIT

“People leave managers, not companies” is more true now than ever. An employee’s immediate boss wields more influence on how engaged and productive an employee will be.  Manager impacts more than the culture, the salary, or any other factor that is within the organization’s control.  Here are the top 5 bad leadership behaviors that are a deal-breaker. for employees

The style of management a leader follows

The management style practiced by a leader influences the behavior of his/her subordinates. Different teams, projects, and businesses need different management styles. A leader should consider the needs of his team members to manage them effectively. The wrong management style hurts everyone. Your perfect leadership style needs to align with your own skills, personality, and experience. It should also suit the culture of your organization and adhere to the needs of your team.

The condescending attitude of a manager

The issue of a condescending superior runs rampant in the business today.Condescension is usually a tone of voice where the words of a person are not the main issue. A leader communicates to his team members can make them feel as if they are being spoken down to, like a child or a brand new employee in an organization who does not understand the work. This feeling creates a sense of dissatisfaction among the employees.

Bad temper of a leader

I have learned that to become a good leader, one must rise above the passions of the moment and maintain a level head. Even in very tense situations, good leaders should be quick to listen and slow to anger. Leaders need to be patient with their team members to win their trust. Angry bosses are rarely effective, and it creates a negative influence on the subordinates.

Inappropriate behavior

At an organizational level, bad or inappropriate behavior can have a tangible impact on profitability. As a leader, one should avoid practicing any such behavior, resulting in employee dissatisfaction or hindering their performance. A leader should be concerned about his team members and make them feel valued at work.

Harassed employees

It is up to an organization’s leaders to promote an inclusive culture with a zero-tolerance policy against any type of harassment. Leaders should be aware of their team members’ problems or issues and should make sure that the employees do not face any kind of trouble or harassment while at work.

Poor leadership behaviors and bad leadership qualities are a serious drag to your bottom line.

Many surveys over the years have corroborated the fact that bad leadership behaviors lead to poor employee engagement, poor organizational culture, and low productivity.  It’s safe to say that organizations’ money on leadership development is much more beneficial than the cost it has to incur because of poor leadership behaviors.

HBR Survey on the impact of poor leadership behaviors

Still, don’t you see bad leadership behaviors as a serious problem? Look at the numbers from a survey by Harvard Business Review.  The employees who felt that their leaders were disrespectful to them admitted to the following behaviors.

• 48% intentionally decreased their work effort.
• 47% intentionally decreased the time spent at work.
• 38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work.
• 63% lost work time trying to avoid the offender.
• 66% said that their performance declined.
• 78% said that their commitment to the organization declined.
• 25% admitted to taking their frustrations out on customers.

Bad leadership behavior is detrimental to morale and productivity, but it also negatively affects the entire team.

Some obvious effects of poor leadership behaviors or bad leadership qualities are

• Lack of teamwork
• Silos within the organization
• Low morale
• High turnover
• Status quo vs. continuous change and improvement
• Low or no innovation
• Personal benefits trump team or organizational goals

In a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) business world, poor leadership is a recipe for disaster.

The cost of poor leadership behaviors is often hidden but they are a significant drag to engagement and performance.

DDI research found that a single poor leader’s cost to a company is $126,000 per year!

Read: What are the ego traps and Leadership Derailers leaders fall for?

How to identify and rectify poor leadership behaviors or bad leadership qualities?

Every individual and every leader has certain behaviors that help them be a good leader.  On the other hand, every individual and every leader has certain behaviors that stop them from becoming better leaders. All leaders have their improvement areas.  The question is – How do you tell a successful leader what they need to improve?

One of the best ways to identify bad leadership behaviors before becoming a serious drag on employee engagement and productivity is to foster a culture of honest feedback. As most employees are uncomfortable offering feedback to their leaders, the best way to start is by having anonymous 360-degree feedback of all leaders regularly – at least once a year.  Once bad leadership behaviors are identified, give the leaders some coaching to address these behaviors.  If there is no significant improvement in the leader’s bad behavior, it may be prudent to let the leader go.  Sometimes, firing a single toxic leader is more than enough to improve the entire team’s morale!

An anonymous 360-degree assessment is the best way to make the leader aware of her improvement areas!  360-degree feedback aka multi-rater feedback is an anonymous survey of questions about the leader’s behavior at work.  The leader’s team members – subordinates, peers, and boss(es) fill the survey anonymously.  This ensures honest and accurate feedback.

Identify leaders’ poor leadership behaviors (and strengths)

As a leader moves up the career ladder, he/she gets lesser and lesser useful feedback.  People are uncomfortable sharing any critical or constructive feedback to the leader’s face.  In addition, rightly or wrongly, employees fear repercussions from the leader – if they shared honest feedback about the leader.

Hence the best way to identify bad leadership behaviors (or leadership improvement areas) is to conduct anonymous 360-degree feedback using a validated assessment.

Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360)

The GLA360 is a 360-degree feedback tool rooted in groundbreaking research conducted by Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach), involving CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, global thought leaders, and international business executives of organizations on 6 continents. The GLA360 articulates and measures the top 15 most pressing competencies for today’s global leader. It shows leaders the areas they need to develop to succeed in a competitive business environment.

To know more about 360-degree feedback and the GLA 360 degree assessment click on the following link.

Read: 360 degree feedback A complete guide with questionnaire

We offer the GLA 360 assessments starting from $99.  Click the image below to find out more.

Knowing vs. doing

The 360-degree feedback makes the leader of how others perceive her.  It helps her know her strengths and improvement areas.  Is that sufficient?  Knowing is only the first step.  Converting the knowing into doing is the key to change.

Four steps to improving poor leadership behaviors

• Awareness:  360-degree feedback makes the leader aware of how others perceive him/her and the strengths and improvement areas

• Acceptance:  Telling successful leaders that they need to improve in some areas is difficult.  Successful leaders may simply reject the feedback. Or they may justify it by saying that they get the job done and deliver results!  Convincing the leader to accept the feedback is an art best handled by an experienced coach.  An experienced coach helps the leader see the benefit in accepting the feedback and making efforts towards improvement.

• Consistent Action: If nothing changes, then nothing changes!  Awareness and acceptance are necessary.  But they are not sufficient to change the behavior.  An action plan and implementation of the plan are essential for lasting change.  Progressive organizations help leaders take consistent action with the help of an executive coach.

• Achievement: Awareness, acceptance and consistent action lead to achievement.  This achievement is improved behaviors at work, as anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Supporting the leader with executive coaching:

Is behavior change easy or hard?

I often ask this question to my potential leadership coaching clients.  On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy or hard it is to change the behavior of a successful adult?  I will pose the same question to you?  Then I ask – how hard or easy it is to change the behavior of a successful adult.  What number did you pick?  Usually, the answer ranges from 8 to 10, meaning that it is very difficult to change the long-ingrained behaviors of successful leaders.

Losing weight is simple but not easy!

Imagine that you have a goal of losing weight and getting fit.  Can you achieve this goal on your own?  Of course, you can.  Losing weight is simple!  Consume lesser calories, and expend more calories on a daily basis.  One of the most popular goals around the new year is to lose weight or get fit.  But a few people go beyond the initial enthusiasm.  By Valentine’s day, the goal is long forgotten and things go back to the status quo. Losing weight is simple, but not easy!

Hiring a personal trainer

Instead of a do-it-yourself approach to weight loss, what would happen if you hired a personal trainer?  Would your chances of success go up?  Of course, they would!  Studies have shown that hiring a personal trainer improves the chance of weight loss success by a whopping 1100%.  You are 11 times more likely to lose weight with the help of a personal trainer, vs. a do-it-yourself approach. 

An executive coach is a personal trainer for leadership development

A skilled executive coach takes the leader through the steps of awareness, acceptance, and consistent action.  Without the help of an executive coach, behavior change is possible but very difficult. An executive coach is like a personal trainer for overcoming bad leadership behaviors and helping the leader become a more effective leader. A leader may be able to reign in their poor leadership behaviors on their own.  But a leadership coach improves the chances exponentially.

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

We offer our New Age Leadership Triple advantage coaching that delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results!: We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you simply don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

Read: Is your leadership development effective? Or is the money going down the drain?

References

https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/infographics/bad-boss/

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/a-new-survey-finds-that-63-percent-of-employees-ab.html

Book – A leader’s gift – How to earn the right to be followed

Watch the Video on the Hidden costs of poor leadership.

Leadership lesson I learned from my son about feedback vs. feedforward

I learned a valuable leadership lesson from my son (many years ago) and got to practice feedback vs. feedforward.We know what feedback means. We give and receive feedback regularly at work and also in personal life. The concept of feedforward was pioneered by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is considered the world’s number one leadership thinker.  He also pioneered his highly effective leadership coaching process through the concept of feedback vs. feedforward.

My interaction with my son and the leadership lesson therein

I have two sons – both are now adults.  My elder son is three years older than the younger one.  This incident was from many years ago when both were much younger.

One day, when I returned from work, my younger son came to me.  He looked a little upset. I asked him what the matter was.  He replied in an emotional tone – “Dad, you don’t love me as much as you love my brother.  He is your favorite!” If you are a parent of more than one child, I am sure you must have had a similar conversation with your children!

The feedback came as a shock to me, as I truly believed that I loved both my boys equally.  It didn’t match with how I perceived the situation.

How do I respond to this feedback?  I had several ways to respond to this situation.

Option 1 to respond to the feedback – Reject it!

I could simply reject the feedback as it didn’t fit how I saw it.  My response would be – “Son – what are you talking about?  This is nonsense.  I love you both equally.  Don’t make such baseless accusations and never say that I love you any less.”

Here is a question to ponder.  Would this response help change my son’s perception that I loved him less than I loved his elder brother?  What do you think?  The leadership lesson here – If you are a leader, should you reject any feedback you disagree with?

Option 2 to respond to the feedback – reason with it

I could reason with him and prove how I treated both of them fairly and equally.  The conversation would be – “Look, son!  Whenever I bring candies or goodies, I bring them for both of you.  We celebrated the birthdays of both of you.  I bought birthday presents for both of you.  I treat you both equally, and I love you both the same.  Please don’t say that I love you any less.”

Again, the question is – Would this response help change my son’s opinion that I loved him less than I loved his elder brother?  What do you think?  The leadership lesson here – as a leader, does reasoning with people change their perceptions about you?

Option 3 to feedback vs. feedforward – accept and acknowledge feedback and ask for feedforward.

Here is the third option.  I could simply accept the feedback unconditionally and acknowledge my son’s feelings.  Here is how the conversation would go – “Son, I am sorry that you feel that way.  What can I do in the future so that you feel that I love you as much as I love your brother?”

Now, this is the feedback vs. feedforward approach.  Feedback focuses on the past.  It tends to blame the person for past actions that cannot be undone.  No amount of blame, regret, or guilt can change the past.

On the other hand, feedforward is future-oriented. It is asking for suggestions for the future to address the issue.  While nothing can be done to change the past (feedback), suggestions for the future (feedforward) offer unlimited possibilities.  Feedforward is action-oriented. Feedback is just talking about what has already happened.  There is a huge leadership lesson in understanding the difference and using feedforward vs. feedback.

So when I used the feedback vs. feedforward approach with my son and asked him for suggestions for the future – there was an uncomfortable silence for a couple of minutes.  He probably didn’t expect this response, which is not unusual.  People use feedback to complain and vent out.  I could see that he was thinking hard, trying to come up with an answer.  He then replied with strong emotions again – “Dad, you are always discussing all kinds of things with my elder brother.  Politics, technology, sports, and more.  You never discuss anything with me!”

My first reaction was to explain the fact that he was three years younger and probably wouldn’t understand many of the things I discussed routinely with my elder son. I wanted to assure him that in three years when he would be the same age as my elder son,  I would be happy to discuss those topics with him as well.  But I paused and thought about it.

Again the question is – Would that reasoning address his concerns?  Would that line of conversation change his perception?  What do you think?  I think probably not!  The leadership lesson here – do logical explanations help in changing other’s perceptions about you?

So I tried another response – feedforward vs. feedback!

Here is how the conversation progressed.

“Son – what topics would you like to discuss with me?  Do you like politics?”.

He retorted – “Dad, I don’t like politics.  I have no interest in discussing politics.”

I asked – “How about sports?.”

His eyes lit up.  He said – “Dad, I would love to discuss sports with you.”

I asked – “What is your favorite sport?.”

“I love cricket!” – he replied.

“Which team is your favorite?” – I asked.

“Indian national cricket team.” – he replied.

“Who is your favorite player?” – I asked.

“Virat Kohli,” – he said excitedly.

“What other teams do you like?” – I added.

“I love IPL.  Chennai Super Kings is my favorite team!” – He replied again excitedly.

“Who is your favorite player in that team?” – I queried.

“M.S. Dhoni.” – He reverted quickly.

“Great!” – I said.

And the conversation ended.

Changing my behavior and changing his perception through feedback vs. feedforward

Although I am not a big fan of cricket, I started paying attention to cricket over the next few weeks.  I started Googling for scores of the Indian national cricket team and the Chennai Super Kings team.  I also started checking how Virat Kohli and M.S.Dhoni had performed.  It would take me a couple of minutes of internet browsing to “catch up” on what was happening in the sport of cricket and especially with my son’s favorite teams and players.

I would then discuss the scores and the results with my son after I reached home from work—especially the performance of his favorite teams and the favorite players.  I would start the discussion, and he would excitedly fill in the rest of the details!  He was well informed about cricket as it was his passion.

So here is the question. Would this third option help change my son’s perception that I loved him a little less than I loved his elder brother?  What do you think?

Which of these three options are most likely to change my son’s opinion?  The answer is obvious. As actions speak louder than words, my efforts to implement his suggestions to make him feel loved would go a long way towards changing his perception.  If I continued working on his suggestions for a sufficient period, the change in his perception would be certain.

There are quite a few leadership lessons here.

First leadership lesson

If the people around you, family members or team members at work,  are important to you and regularly get feedback from them.  Without feedback, there is little chance of improvement – both at work and in personal life.

Second leadership lesson

As a leader, you have to ACT on that feedback regularly.

Third leadership lesson

Changing your behavior and changing other’s perceptions go hand in hand!

Read: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There-Marshall Goldsmith-Book summary

Another leadership lesson – Feedback is just that – Feedback!

Was my son’s feedback wrong? (that I loved him less than I loved his brother).   Was my perception wrong – that I loved both my sons equally?  Therein lies the interesting dynamics.  From his perspective, my son was right.  He saw me interacting with my elder son regularly and felt left out.  His perception was that I was ignoring him or that he was not important to him.  On the other hand, I was right as well.  I sincerely loved both my children.  I had no intention of loving one of them more than the other.  Both perceptions can be proven right, and both can be proven wrong.  Basically, feedback is just that. Feedback is feedback – it is neither right nor wrong!

Feedback is a gift

When someone is willing to share their feedback in your presence, it is a gift!  They could have chosen to talk about you or your performance behind your back, but they dared to share it with you.  It allows us to get better.  All feedback can be a gift if we can just put our egos aside and are willing to listen.  There cannot be any improvement without feedback.

Had I not listened to my son’s feedback, he could have carried the misconception that he was loved less probably for the rest of his life.  This feedback allowed me to course correct and address both my behavior and his perception.

Read: Feedback is a gift – leadership feedback is a huge favor

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s feedback vs. feedforward for coaching leaders

Although I didn’t know it back then, I applied the process of “feed-forward” pioneered by the world’s number 1 leadership thinker Dr.  Marshall Goldsmith.  Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has used this simple yet powerful process to coach CEOs at Fortune 500 companies.

The seven steps of feedforward are

1. Ask
2. Listen
3. Thank
4. Think
5. Respond
6. Change
7. Follow up

Our leadership coaching using Marshall Goldsmith’s Stakeholder Centered Coaching is based on three primary concepts.

1. Feedback
2. Feed-forward
3. Follow up

We offer Marshall Goldsmith coaching in India, around the globe  It is the best coaching program because it is the same executive coaching process used by Marshall Goldsmith to coach CEOs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. We guarantee measurable leadership growth or don’t pay at all.

Read: What are the best executive coaching programs & the top executive coaching firms?

Develop your leaders using feedback vs. feedforward

Most leadership development programs have little business impact.  The main reason is that they are intellectual in nature.  There is no application at work and little in terms of behavior change at work.

Our coaching program using feedback and feedforward has an effectiveness rate of 95%.  How do we measure success?  By measuring the change in leadership behaviors at work – rated anonymously by the leader’s team members.

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results!: We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

Below is the video version of the article

What makes a leader highly effective?

Think of a highly effective leader. What qualities, traits, and behaviors come to mind when you think of any highly effective leader?

• Did you think of a leader who stays calm even in stressful situations or someone who loses his temper often?
• Did you think of someone who listens patiently or someone who talks a lot?
• Did you think of an approachable leader or someone bossy?
• Did you think of someone who is open to suggestions and feedback or someone who is “always right”?
• Did you think of a leader who is open to trying new ideas or someone resistant to change?
• Did you think of someone who genuinely cared about your well being while completing the tasks or someone
• who only focuses on results while ignoring people?
• Did you think of someone who inspires or someone who irritates?
• Did you think of someone who easily picks up the team’s mood or someone unaware of how others are feeling?
• Did you think of someone who routinely appreciated your efforts and results or someone who only criticized your mistakes?

Read The single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success.

Emotional Intelligence

When we compare the behaviors and traits of highly effective leaders with average leaders’ traits, the difference is obvious. And that difference is emotional intelligence.

Salovey and Mayer (1990) defined Emotional Intelligence as the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’

Daniel Goleman brought the term emotional intelligence into the mainstream with his book Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ. The book was published in 1995 and became a bestseller.

Measuring “intelligence” and predicting future success

Scientists and researchers have been trying to define intelligence for many years. For almost the entire last century, intelligence was measured using IQ or Intelligence quotient. IQ is the measure of cognitive capability – one’s ability to think, reason, learn and recall. Intelligence quotient tests generally include reading comprehension, vocabulary, arithmetic, and reasoning. It was believed to be an accurate predictor of future success and was used in schools, colleges, and job screening.

Predicting future job performance is the primary reason for screening candidates using IQ in organizations. However, IQ seemed to be a fairly inaccurate predictor of future success. Many people with high IQ end up doing poorly in professional and personal lives, while people with below-average IQs often succeed and prosper. Howard Gardner came up with the theory of multiple intelligences that proposed that intelligence is more than just IQ. Daniel Goleman popularized the concept of Emotional intelligence measured by EQ or emotional quotient.

IQ vs. EQ as a predictor of success

Daniel Goleman proposed that EQ was a much better predictor of success at work and in life. He cites numerous studies to drive home the importance of emotional intelligence. People with the highest IQs and brilliant technical skills don’t do very well in their careers and life. On the other hand, people with average and below-average intelligence and technical skills are highly successful in their careers and personal lives. Numerous studies done over the years have validated that EQ is three times more accurate in predicting future success as compared to IQ.

IQ is like an entry ticket.

Technical skills are needed for any profession. To be employed in their respective professions – an accountant needs to understand the basics of finance and accounting, or an engineer must know the basics of engineering. Technical skills are like an entry ticket – they are needed to get in. However, once a person has entered the profession, how far she will move up the career ladder depends a lot on emotional intelligence. If two people with similar IQs and technical skills enter the profession simultaneously, who will move up the career ladder faster? The answer is the person who has higher emotional intelligence.

Read: What are the ego traps and Leadership Derailers leaders fall for?

Leadership and emotional intelligence

Leadership is primarily about emotional intelligence. By the time one reaches the leadership level, it is a given that they are technically sound. The differentiating factor, then, is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence competencies have a 3/4th contribution to a leader’s success. Successful leaders demonstrate the EQ competencies of self-awareness. They are calm and grounded, understand others’ feelings, build relationships, are driven and self-motivated, etc. Failed leaders often are critical, tend to lose control of their temper, are defensive, and lack empathy.

Read: How to become a better leader? What does it take?

The four main components of Emotional Intelligence

The four main components of emotional intelligence are

1. Self-awareness
2. Self-management
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship management

Self-Awareness

It is the ability to be aware of how we are feeling, what our emotions are at any given moment and what is the cause of these emotions. Self-awareness allows us to see ourselves as we are and identify our strengths and areas of improvement. According to Daniel Goleman, self-awareness consists of the following three competencies.

• Emotional Awareness: Recognizing one’s emotions and their effects.
• Accurate Self-Assessment: Knowing one’s strengths and limitations.
• Self-Confidence: A strong sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities.

Self-management

Self-management competency is the ability to respond instead of reacting. It allows us to remain calm even when we feel strong emotions like anger, frustration, jealousy, or other negative emotions. Without self-management, we may lash out at people and act on our impulses. Self-management competency ensures that we are aware of how our behaviors can affect relationships and, ultimately, our goals and regulate our emotions.

Self-management consists of the following six competencies.

• Emotional Self-Control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.
• Transparency: Maintaining integrity, acting congruently with one’s values.
• Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change.
• Achievement: Striving to improve or meeting a standard of excellence.
• Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities.
• Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.

Social awareness

Social awareness competency includes empathy – which is the ability to sense what the other person feels and understand their needs and concerns. Being aware of the environment, people, and situations and being able to manage social interactions.

The social Awareness cluster contains three competencies:

• Empathy: Sensing others’ feelings and perspectives and taking an active interest in their concerns.
• Organizational Awareness: Reading a group’s emotional currents and power relationships.
• Service Orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers’ needs.

Relationship Management

It is the ability to connect with others, build positive relationships, and positively influence others.

The Relationship Management cluster contains six competencies:

• Developing Others: Sensing others’ development needs and bolstering their abilities.
• Inspirational Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups.
• Change Catalyst: Initiating or managing change.
• Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion.
• Conflict Management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements.
• Teamwork & Collaboration: Working with others toward shared goals. Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

Emotional Intelligence is a pre-requisite and an essential part of becoming a good leader. Lack of emotional intelligence in leaders results in disengaged employees and reduces business performance.

Read:  Which is the best leadership development program?

Would you like your leaders to develop their emotional intelligence competencies? Would you like the leaders to stop the derailing behaviors that undermine team performance and cause disengagement?

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you simply don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

References

http://www.danielgoleman.info/daniel-goleman-how-emotionally-intelligent-are-you/
https://www.mbaknol.com/modern-management-concepts/four-components-of-emotional-intelligence/

Building a team culture where the best ideas win – Ray Dalio radical transparency

Building a team culture where the best ideas win is any leader’s top priority.  Would you like to do it for your teams? When I ask this question to leaders – almost everyone raises their hand.  When it comes to knowing how to create such a culture and commit to investing time, energy, and effort to achieve those goals – leaders are not so clear.  Ray Dalio and his radical transparency have successfully built a team culture where the best ideas win and has grown his company to be the largest hedge fund in the world.

[lwptoc]

Harsh email feedback

Take a look at the following email. It is harsh feedback given by one employee Jim to another employee Ray – in a large company.

From: Jim

To: Ray D

Cc: Lionel K, Greg J, Randal S, David A

Subject: Feedback on meeting

 “Ray – you deserve a “D-” for your performance today in the meeting … you did not prepare at all because there is no way you could have and been that disorganized. In the future, I/we would ask you to take some time and prepare, and maybe even I should come up and start talking to you to get you warmed up or something, but we can’t let this happen again. If you in any way think my view is wrong, please ask the others, or we can talk about it.”

Regards

Jim

Who is giving feedback and to whom?

What is your guess about the designations of Jim and Ray?  One would assume that Jim must be the boss and Ray must report to him. Hence the harsh feedback from the boss Jim to his employee Ray, regarding his bad performance during a meeting.  This is what happens in most organizational cultures, where a senior person gives such a candid feedback to someon junior.

Well, that assumption would be wrong! In this case, it is exactly the opposite!  Jim Haskel works for and reports to Ray Dalio, and Ray is the founder of Bridgewater Associates.  Started as a small firm in 1975 from his apartment, Bridgewater Associates is now the world’s largest hedge fund with more than $160 billion assets under management.  Ray Dalio himself is worth a cool $18 billion.

In most organizations, no employee would dare to share such critical feedback with someone higher up the corporate ladder. If they did send such a critical e-mail to their company’s founder, they probably would get fired!  But Ray Dalio did not fire Jim.  Instead, he shared this critical email internally with all the employees.  If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he then shared it openly at a TED talk for the entire world to see! You can watch Ray Dalio’s radical transparency TED Talk.  Ray understands that to build a team culture that learns, innovates and grows, radical transparency is essential!

Why would a top leader ask for such candid feedback?

Why do you think Ray would do something like this?  Was he out of his mind? Not really!  It is one of the guiding principles Ray Dalio follows at Bridgewater Associates.  He calls it radical transparency.  He encourages employees to openly share real-time feedback with anyone, irrespective of designations. 

However, there is a catch.  Share the feedback with the respective person – not with others. If they catch an employee talking behind someone’s back three times – she can be fired!  All meetings at Bridgewater Associates are recorded on video and seen and critiqued by anyone inside the company. 

Ray Dalio has the emotional intelligence to understand that leaders cannot improve without a culture of honest feedback.  Building a team culture requires honest feedback.  Leadership coaching and leadership development have a responsibility to create awareness in the leaders that feedback is important.  As Ken Blanchard puts it – Feedback is the breakfast of champion leaders!  

Ray Dalio and Radical Transparency principle

Ray Dalio credits this principle of radical transparency for the success of his company.  A culture of 100% honesty allows all ideas to be discussed and debated.  Ideas may win based on their merits and not based on the designation or the influence of the person presenting the idea.  Dalio says that this meritocracy of ideas has allowed Bridgewater to think independently and sprint ahead of many well-established fund houses to become the largest and most successful hedge fund in the world.  Ray Dalio has built a team culture and his  company where the best ideas win – by creating a culture of open and honest feedback through his radical transparency principle.   One of the most important leadership skills to develop is to be able to give and receive honest and constructive feedback. Imagine the employee engagement in any company where the leader solicits and accepts such honest and constructive feedback.

Successful companies build a team culture of sharing honest feedback. 

Bridgewater Associates is not alone in implementing a culture of honest feedback where everyone’s performance, and ideas, are shared and debated openly, leading to improved performance and meritocracy of ideas.  Pixar is another company that credits its success to having a culture of candid feedback.  Google founder Larry Page believes in brutally honest feedback. The purpose is to arrive at the best possible solution for a specific problem. Honest feedback allows all ideas to be discussed and debated to find the best solution.  In today’s fast-changing and VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world,  it is crucial to be agile and nimble. Without a culture of honesty, transparency, and open feedback, it would be difficult to stay ahead of the curve. 

Read Team coaching – Everything you wanted to know about it.

Build a team culture of candid feedback in your organization

• Would you like to improve the performance of your company? 
• Will you like to sprint ahead of your competitors?
• Would you like your teams to be more innovative and change-ready? 
• Then you need to improve the transparency in your organization? 
• How is the quality of feedback in your organization? 
• Do teams share feedback openly? 
• Do the best ideas win?  Or are people afraid to speak their minds? 
• Do they talk about the “elephant in the room” – the difficult problem and the real issue everyone knows about but no one wants to talk about?  Or do they just beat around the bush? 
• The equation is simple!

Read – Organizational Culture Change Example – Alan Mulally Ford Turnaround Story

Good leadership behaviors = Open and transparent culture = Business performance.

Would you like to improve the quality of the feedback within your organization’s teams and improve the engagement and performance of your employees and the team culture?  We offer Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching TEAM coaching – a yearlong intervention that helps create a culture of sharing open feedback.  In fact, it delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth for the teams. 

We offer our New Age Leadership – NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

References

Ray Dalio’s TED talk

If you prefer to watch the video version of this article, click the video. 

This article was originally published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creating-team-culture-where-best-ideas-win-tushar-vakil/

Google’s Project Oxygen – How Google identifies potential leaders

Google is one of the most successful companies today. It is also one of the most analytical and data-driven organizations. They rely on hard data rather than opinions. As leadership development is both science and art, how does Google handle leadership assessment and development?  How does Google identify if someone has the potential to be a great manager or leader?  Read further about Google’s Project Oxygen. Get the pdf file of Google’s Project Oxygen.  Google also updated the Project Oxygen questions to reflect the growth and complexity of the company and change in how work gets done.  The new list of Project Oxygen questions is at the end of the article.

[lwptoc]

Google’s Project Oxygen initiative to identify good leaders at Google

In 2008, an internal team of researchers started ”Project Oxygen” to determine what makes a great Google manager. They called this project “oxygen” as managers are the lifeblood of any organization.

Google’s employees are mostly engineers and do highly technical work.  Their tendency was to focus on core technical things – programming, coding, debugging, etc.  Their perception was that management was a distraction that took them away from “real” work!  When the company was small, the founders, Sergei and Larry, had a flat structure with no managers!  Everybody reported directly to them. 

Then Google grew and there was a need for managers and management. How do you convince the technically brilliant employees who make decisions based on data and information, and work in a company that believes in a flat organization – that managers and management are important and add value?  

The answer was to provide them enough data through research that clearly shows teh importance of managers and management! Through manager feedback surveys over an extended period of time, Project Oxygen identified eight behaviors that predicted managerial success. The success was measured through many factors and included employee turnover, employee satisfaction, and team performance. Later they added two more behaviors to the list for a total of 10 “Oxygen” behaviors and aligned their leadership and management development training programs to develop these behaviors. 

Although these 10 behaviors were correlated with managerial success, in statistics, correlation doesn’t prove causation! Google confirmed that these 10 behaviors were indeed the cause for better managerial outcomes in two ways –

1. They confirmed that these 10 managerial behaviors preceded employee outcomes and not vice versa. 
2. They confirmed by switching employees and managers that when an employee is working under a manager exhibiting these behaviors, her performance improves. 

What are these 10 behaviors, and how do we know if a leader has these qualities? As it turns out, asking just the 13 questions to the manager’s direct reports does the trick!  Twice a year, employees rate their managers on a Likert scale in an anonymous survey. The leaders who rate high on these 13 questions have a statistically significant correlation to future performance measured by turnover, satisfaction, and performance. 

Just 5 minutes to identify a good leader?

The feedback takes about five minutes for each employee’s time!   Jeff Haden, the contributing editor at Inc.com, wrote an article titled – Here is how Google knows in less than 5 minutes if someone is a great leader.  You may read the article here https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/heres-how-google-knows-in-less-than-5-minutes-if-someone-is-a-great-leader.html   This simple leadership assessment is very effective in determining the quality of one’s leadership.

Read – The single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success.

Here are leadership evaluation questions as part of Google’s Project Oxygen.

1. My manager gives me actionable feedback that helps me improve my performance. 
2. My manager does not “micromanage” (get involved in details that should be handled at other levels). 
3. My manager shows consideration for me as a person. 
4. My manager’s actions show that he/she values the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from his/her own. 
5. My manager keeps the team focused on our priority results/deliverables. 
6. My manager regularly shares relevant information derived from his/her manager and senior leaders. 
7. My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about career development in the past six months. 
8. My manager communicates clear goals for our team. 
9. My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., coding in Tech, selling in Global Business, accounting in Finance) required to manage me effectively. 
10. I would recommend my manager to other Googlers. 

Then Google asks employees to complete two other questions.

1. What would you recommend your manager keep doing? 
2. What would you have your manager change?

Click the link to download these question Google Project Oxygen pdf  –

Google’s Project Oxygen Pdf

Leadership is mostly about people, not only about technical skills – even at Google!

Although Google hires only the most technically sound employees, note that only one question (question number 9) is about the manager’s technical skills. All other questions are about the soft skills or the behavior of the manager or leader! Even for a company like Google, hiring only the most technically sound Engineers and programmers, what matters in their managerial and leadership effectiveness is behavioral skills or emotional intelligence. 

Daniel Goleman’s research has proven that emotional intelligence quotient or EQ is much more accurate in predicting future success than intelligence quotient or IQ.  IQ and technical skills are like the entry ticket to a career – technical skills are needed to get in the job. However, how far a person will progress in his/her job will depend on the behavioral skills and emotional intelligence exhibited.

The equation is simple: 

Leadership behaviors create culture, which in turn affects employee engagement, which in turn drives business results.  Leadership behavior (which creates organizational culture) is the single biggest factor impacting organizational performance. Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) labeled organizational culture as a lasting sustainable competitive advantage. 

Leadership development is critical for an organization to survive and thrive in today world’s ever-changing business environment. Would you like to assess and develop your leaders?   

• Identify and develop your high potentials?   
• Develop bench strength for succession planning?   
• Help leaders transition up or across through leadership development?   
• Deal with “derailers” (unproductive behaviors of otherwise successful leaders that cause team conflicts and holds them back from further success)? 

Global Leadership Assessment (GLA360) for your leadership team

The GLA360 is rooted in groundbreaking research conducted by Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach), involving CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, global thought leaders, and international business executives of organizations on 6 continents. The GLA360 articulates and measures the top 15 most pressing competencies for today’s global leader. It shows leaders the areas they need to develop to succeed in a competitive business environment.

We offer our New Age Leadership – NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching.

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you simply don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

21 Wayne Dyer quotes that are Life-changing

Wayne Dyer quotes are life changing and inspirational. Wayne Dyer was an author and a motivational speaker. He has written many books that have become bestsellers. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones, sold more than 100 million copies and is one of the top-selling books of all time. His talks and books have inspired millions around the world.

His quotes are both inspiring and insightful.  He has motivated millions around the world with his books and talks.

Here are some of the best quotes by Wayne Dyer – carefully selected.  Hope they inspire you as well.  Take some time to read the quotes, may be even read them twice.  And ponder over the meaning and insights in each quote.

Quotes by Wayne Dyer 1-10

1. You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

2. Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.

3. The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

4. Change the way you see things and the things you see will change.

5. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will keep showing up in your present.

6. If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.

7. The only limits you have are the limits you believe.

8 .Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

9. You will see it, when you believe.

10. You are important enough to ask, and you are blessed enough to receive back.

Wayne Dyer quotes 11-21 continue below. 

Two of the most inspiring stories are on YouTube as a video.  They are must watch.  You will see hundreds of people in the audience crying when he narrates them.

1. The story of Teddy

2. The amazing butterfly story

Quotes by Wayne Dyer 11-21

11. Don’t die with your music still in you.

12. My goal is not to be better than anyone else, but to be better than I used to be.

13. Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

14. Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

15. Heaven is a state of mind, not a location, since spirit is everywhere and in everything.

16. Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.

17. Let the world know why you’re here, and do it with passion.

18. The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.

19. Never underestimate your power to change.

20. There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

21. Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

9 Bonus Wayne Dyer quotes below

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If you are enjoying reading these Wayne Dyer quotes, you will love the following quotes articles

1. Galvanizing and encouraging John Maxwell quotes 

2. Inspiring and insightful Tony Robbins quotes

You will also enjoy reading these articles

1.  How to use the compound effect to supercharge leadership development 

2.  Top elements of leadership development  

3.  How to get promoted and avoid mid-career crisis 

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Bonus Wayne Dyer quotes

22. I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.

23. Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.

24. I am thankful to all those who said no. It’s because of them, I did it myself.

25. How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

26. When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

27. Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves.

28. It’s easy to be a critic, but being a doer requires effort, risk, and change.

29. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will keep showing up in your present.

30. When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that’s what’s inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.

Future of leadership – Are your leadership skills & your leadership programs future-ready?

I read the recently published “The Self-Disruptive Leader,” – a study by Korn Ferry, of 150,000 global private sector leaders and their leadership skills.  The future of leadership is transforming. The report revealed that only 15% of the leaders have the skills to be great leaders in a rapidly changing business environment to design a future leadership program that keeps up with this transformation.

You may read the entire report here  https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kfpublic/korn-ferry-disruptive-leader.pdf

I usually summarize the key points as it helps my learning, retention, and clarity.  Sharing and discussing with fellow professionals brings in diverse perspectives and new insights. I have found that this is an effective way to bring in / adopt some cutting-edge ideas in leadership thinking into our organizations.

Future of Leadership skills

Below are my brief notes from the report on the Future of Leadership skills

• Rapid change: The combined effect of global mega-trends has forced organizations to evolve rapidly, sometimes frenetically.
• Comprehensive study: Korn Ferry delved into 150,000 leadership profiles worldwide (18 major world markets)
• Only 15% of leaders are future-ready: The analysis revealed that, on average, only 15 percent of private-sector executives worldwide have what it takes to be truly great leaders in the rapidly changing business world.
• New skills for future survival: A majority of leaders can’t decide and take smart actions quickly enough, motivate people effectively or build trust—all of which is needed to ensure their organization’s survival into the future.
• “For the last hundred years, we have taught leaders that control, consistency, and closure are the principles of business leadership. They trained all of us in this approach.”
• Old models are outdated: Models of business leadership are based on what has worked successfully in the past, but we are not in the same business era anymore.
• Emerging leadership competencies: “But dramatic changes to the global business environment mean that this is no longer sufficient—trust, purpose and energizing others are now central.”

The future of leadership is  Self-Disruptive

The future of leadership is  Self-Disruptive and includes leaders who can: 

• Transform themselves
• Help their organizations transform.
• Question and shift their own and others’ mindsets
• Base their leadership success on their way of being rather than their skill at doing. 

This group represented the highest-performing leaders globally – as measured by factors that include compensation to company growth.

They defined the five leadership skills and qualities for future leaders from the analysis and turned it into an easy-to-remember acronym ADAPT. 

ADAPT – the ability to Anticipate, Drive, Accelerate, Partner, and Trust

Leaders will need to retain this self-disruptive outlook to succeed in the future.

• What can leaders do to inculcate the self-disruptive habit and competencies?
• How can leadership development professionals bring about the changes in curriculum or approach to get the leaders future-ready?

ADAPT framework is quite similar to agile leadership. It requires unlearning the ways that have made the leaders successful in the past. It requires letting go of long-standing organizational norms and getting into new and uncomfortable ways of doing things. To transform your organization from routine to agile ways of working requires courage from the top leaders.  

In today’s rapidly changing world – business is undergoing a continuous transformation.  Leadership needs to keep up and  “ADAPT” to such a world. Leadership development is critical for any organization in today’s VUCA world.

Read: Developing leaders to thrive in the new normal

How to design a future of leadership program for this new reality

Traditional leadership development methods involve using a defined curriculum, leadership models, case studies, and examples based on what worked in the past.  With the current business environment of rapid change, these models of learning are insufficient.  No curriculum can cover each situation’s intricacies that vary by the leader’s personality and experience, the position, the company, and the business environment.  No two leaders are in the same situation, and hence one size fits all leadership methods are ineffective.

Three things that can help keep up with the rapid pace are

1. Customized diagnosis

Every leader is different.  No two leaders are exactly alike.  They have different backgrounds, different upbringings, different life experiences, different strengths, and different areas of improvement.  A customized diagnosis is essential.

2. Individual help and support

Leaders are busy.  Leaders also have to portray a confident image.  We train them not to divulge their weaknesses. If they did, it might not go very well with investors and stakeholders!  Although they need help, they will rarely admit it in a public forum like a training program.  That is the reason that most leaders opt for executive coaching.  It offers confidentiality, individual help, and support to the leader.

3. Using team intelligence of the leader’s stakeholders (team members)

No one is as smart as all of us!  Leader’s stakeholders are in the best position to know the uniqueness of their own situation.  They observe the leader in action.  They are aware of the culture of the organization.  They have more combined knowledge about the problems and the solutions facing them than anyone else.  Hence their inputs are precious.  Their suggestions will help the leader a lot more than any new leadership model they may learn in a leadership training program or an executive education program.

Read: Organization-wide Leadership development plan example template – a real-life case study

Is there a future leadership program that meets these 3 requirements?

We offer Marshall Goldsmith stakeholder centers leadership program that meets all these 3 requirements.  It is a future leadership program that works in a disruptive world. It includes customized 360 diagnoses; it offers help and support in the form of one on one coaching, and it involves the combined intelligence of all the leader’s team members who know the right solutions suitable to the unique needs of the leader and the organization.

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader are aligned to the business strategy.

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.

Schedule an exploratory 15-minute conversation with our leadership adviser today

Click the button below.

SCHEDULE NOW!

A version of this article was originally posted on LinkedIn by Tushar Vakil https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/only-15-leaders-future-ready-tushar-vakil/