Emotional Leadership // Dr Mike Gosling

Delegate More Effectively

February 12, 2013 By Guest Blogger

By Marshall Goldsmith – Leading Executive Educator and Coach

When C-level executives are asked what change they could make to become a more effective leader, one of the most common answers is, “I need to delegate more!”

My caution to these executives is always the same: Don’t delegate more. Delegate more effectively.

Delegation is not a quality like “demonstrating integrity” or “complying with the law.” Honest, ethical and legal behavior is always appropriate — delegation isn’t. Inappropriate delegation can do more harm than good.

I saw an extreme example of the “empowerment is good” flaw in one of America’s largest companies. The CEO naively believed that his employees would always rise to the occasion and see the value of their learning through mistakes they made. He eventually promoted people to levels that were far beyond their capabilities. These people were not ready for the challenge. Perhaps they could learn from their mistakes when the mistakes cost thousands of dollars, but the company went bankrupt when the mistakes cost billions.

When feedback from direct reports indicates that a manager needs to delegate more effectively, the dissatisfaction could come from one of two causes: The direct reports may feel that their leader is micro-managing or getting overly involved with subordinates, or the direct reports may not feel micro-managed at all, but see their leader engaged in tasks that could be done effectively by someone at a lower level in the company.

To help leaders ensure effective delegation, my advice is simple:

Have each direct report list her or his key areas of responsibility. Schedule one-on-one sessions with each person. Review each area of responsibility and ask, “Are there cases where you believe that I get too involved and can let go more? Are there cases when I need to get more involved and give you some more help?” When leaders go through this exercise, they almost always find that in some cases, more delegation is wanted, and in others it is not. In fact, more help is needed.

Ask each direct report, “Do you ever see me working on tasks that someone at my level doesn’t need to do? Are there areas where I can help other people grow and develop, and give myself more time to focus on strategy and long-term planning?” Almost invariably, direct reports will come up with great suggestions. For example, for several of my C-level clients, team management has emerged as an area where letting go can both free up executive time and help develop direct reports. Too many top executives feel a need to schedule team meetings and then act as traffic cop during the meeting to ensure that the time schedules are met and that agendas are completed. This meeting management task can usually be delegated on a rotating basis to direct reports. This helps direct reports understand the agendas of the peer team members and allows them to develop their skills in building collaboration and reaching consensus.

In one example, a CEO was frequently traveling. He would not schedule any team meeting when he was on the road and was falling behind on some important projects. A team member suggested that he did not have to be present at every meeting and that the team could still get a lot done without him in the room. He was pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Decisions that involved cross-divisional cooperation were made effectively without involving him. Another advantage was that his direct reports were getting on-the-job training that could help them take on larger responsibilities in the future.

On the other side of the coin, a division president learned that his employees consistently wanted more direction on one key topic. The company was operating in a rapidly changing environment. His direct reports didn’t need to be told what to do or how to do it in terms of technical details. They needed to know how their work was fitting into the larger strategy of the corporation and how their efforts were aligned with their peers both in the division and across the company. By establishing regular bi-monthly check-in meetings with each person, the president was able to increase the effectiveness of the team and help them build better relationships across the company.

What are your next steps? When are you getting too involved? When do you need to get more involved?

Ask yourself these tough questions. Then ask the people who are working with you. The answers may save your time and increase your team’s effectiveness.

Originally published in The Huffington Post.
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Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has authored over 30 books including eWhat Got You Here Won’t Get You There – a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. Succession: Are You Ready? is the newest edition to the Harvard Business ‘Memo to the CEO’ series. Marshall’s latest book is Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It.

Join Marshall at www.LeadingNews.org

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You’re A Mentor… Now What?

February 12, 2013 By Guest Blogger

This guest post is by Dr. Patricia Wheeler of Leading News.

One of the top targets on my client Reynaldo’s development plan read: Provide effective feedback that helps others improve their performance. Reynaldo, a key global supply chain executive based in Latin America, was in the process of making performance management more robust and accountability-driven. Yet along with many of his peers, he was perceived as giving messages that were too soft and lacking any real-time follow-up.

My job was to help Reynaldo raise the bar on performance management. That meant helping him develop the discipline of giving messages in a clear and timely manner, articulating what his team (and their teams) were doing well, what had to change, and how to ensure that these important changes were, in fact, made. I’m happy to report that Reynaldo did a great job on this. In fact, he was so successful that a high potential leader asked him to be her mentor. He was thrilled, and accepted immediately. Then he called me and asked how he could do this well.

I’ve seen a lot of mentoring programs and relationships. Some are successful, others not so much. What makes the difference? I’ve come to believe that it’s not about whether mentoring takes place within a formal program or happens within an informal arrangement. I’ve seen both succeed and both fail. In my experience, the key criterion is making sure that you negotiate the relationship in a way that both parties benefit.

When Reynaldo asked me how he could be a successful mentor, I gave him the following checklist:

1. Agree on the process: It’s important to define the basic “ground rules” of the mentoring relationship. This is where so much of mentoring fails: we think we should know the rules already, but we don’t. Questions include the following.
– What does the mentee want from the experience?
– How did the mentee choose you specifically?
– How often will you meet?
– Who will initiate the meetings?
– How long will your mentoring agreement last (at least initially….you can always “re-up”)
– How will you create a “safe space” for candid dialogue?

2. Define the Direction: What is the end result you will aim toward? The process of self-reflection and identifying goals (which may change over time) is crucial. Questions and issues include the following.
– What are the mentee’s career goals?
– How do you help him/her identify opportunities and obstacles?
– What are the mentee’s strengths and gaps?
– Help them create a strategic career focus
– Remember: building trust takes time
– How will each of you measure success of this initiative?

3. Facilitate Exposure: One primary “deliverable” is the mentor’s connecting the mentee to others across the enterprise who are sources of influence and knowledge. Ask yourself:
– What connections does the mentee need to make in order to advance his/her goals?
– How could you facilitate these meetings?
– Will you participate in the conversation or only give the referral?
– What resources (books/articles) were helpful to you that may also add value to them?

4. Serve as a Champion: spread around your mentee’s good ideas and, when appropriate, become an active sponsor. Consider the following.
– How could the mentee contribute even more broadly and deeply to the organization?
– How/when might your mentee need your support and sponsorship?

5. Make it Mutual: many relationships fail because mentees worry about taking up too much of their mentor’s valuable time. So they are reluctant to engage fully in a relationship they perceive as one-way. Think about the following.
– What can you learn from your mentee?
– How will you consistently ask them for FeedForward about views from their level….and their generation?

The results are in: effective mentoring works, particularly as an assist to people moving into bigger and broader roles. And it works for mentors as well. For Reynaldo, mentoring sessions help him keep a pulse check on generational changes and perspectives. In this way, mentoring may be one of the best ways for executives to stay relevant as they move up the leadership pipeline.

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Dr. Patricia Wheeler is an executive and team coach who helps smart people become more effective leaders. As Managing Partner in The Levin Group LLC, she has spent 15 years consulting to organizations and coaching senior leaders and their teams. Her work helping executives succeed in new roles is featured in The AMA Handbook of Leadership. Join Patricia at www.LeadingNews.org

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Executive Transitions: The Importance of Relational Intelligence

February 12, 2013 By Guest Blogger

This guest post is by Dr. Patricia Wheeler of Leading News.

The rate of change has never been so intense as we have experienced over the past few years. Business is no longer “business as usual”. A recent Booz and Company report shows that companies across many industries and geographies are hitting the “reset button,” making changes to their portfolios, their business and operating models, their processes and infrastructure, all through a lens focused more closely on what truly creates value for their companies and their customers. Most companies acknowledge that their executive pipelines need to be more robust; indeed, this is seen as their Number One challenge as they move forward.

We’re seeing an upswing in the rate at which executives are moving into new roles; transitions take place as organizations merge or are acquired, reposition their business models, grow into different segments and geographies, and as the previous generation of senior leaders continues to retire. And we’ve been studying these trends since 2007, when our global coaching alliance Alexcel partnered with the Institute of Executive Development to study executive transitions: what makes them succeed, and what predictable obstacles leaders face as they move into more senior roles.

In our research, we examined how senior leaders (defined here as executives within the top five percent of their organization) best navigate these moves, whether they entered a new organization or were promoted internally, as well as how many of these senior leaders did not fulfill the promise of their positions. We gathered responses to an online survey from over 350 leaders and talent professionals across many organizations and geographies consisting of 18 multiple-choice questions plus over 50 in-depth interviews to gain additional insight.

So what did we find? In our second generation of research completed in December 2010, we found that the rate of failure at the top five percent of the organizations we surveyed continues to be unacceptably high. One in three leaders brought into these roles from other organizations were not successful in meeting organizational expectations by the two-year mark.

And the more disturbing finding is that we continue to hear that one in five leaders promoted from within to the top failed to meet their organization’s criteria for successful performance within two years. This means that twenty percent of leaders who were successful enough in their roles to earn a promotion or lateral move to a bigger and broader role did not succeed in their new role. They weren’t necessarily fired; companies tend not to dismiss many of these internally grown leaders; but their lack of success likely meant the end of the road for their upward mobility. And for the organization, it often means wasted time, energy and engagement as these leaders stumble.

So it’s still true, to paraphrase Marshall Goldsmith, that what gets you to one level won’t necessarily be sufficient at higher levels. Let’s take a closer look at our findings.

What derails leaders at the high potential and senior levels? Failure here is rarely about technical knowledge; it’s more about relational intelligence and cultural alignment. 73% of our survey participants listed interpersonal and leadership skills as a significant factor in executive underperformance. For one in three respondents, it was listed as the most important factor. So as individuals move into bigger and broader roles, keep in mind that relationships are an increasingly important factor in more senior roles.

If you’re thinking that this comes as no surprise, you are in good company. It’s a simple idea that we’ve all heard many times before. The truth is, however, that simple ideas are not so easy to execute. So many leaders know this, but neglect the daily discipline and practice of these relational competencies.

Remember that each move up the leadership pipeline increasingly forces leaders to get more done through others. So we always suggest that leaders practice daily actions to address this challenge. Actions include asking how others see you, developing conscious awareness of the culture, and learning to flex your leadership and communication style. In this way your good intentions have a greater probability of being perceived clearly by others, as it’s so clear that interpersonal behavior is the biggest differentiator of success at the senior level.

We suggest that you ask yourself and your team: what regular steps are you taking to increase your relational intelligence to prepare yourself to move into bigger and broader roles?

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Anthony Galie on Programming Yourself for Success

February 12, 2013 By Dr. Mike Gosling

Anthony Galie has been motivating people for more than 30 years and is an expert on teaching others how to achieve even the loftiest of goals. Anthony believes that a person can purposefully rewire their subconscious mind for success. Watch this video to hear Galie discuss some great ways you can program yourself to succeed.

Did you learn anything from this video? Did this speech motivate you to strive for greater success? Do you use any of the methods Galie promotes? After watching the video be sure to share your comments below.

The Divided Brain

February 12, 2013 By Dr. Mike Gosling

A sustainable emotional health solution is vital to human wellness, workplace productivity, and a healthier lifestyle. Never have the prospects been better. People are enthusiastic about the shift to emotional wealth and its potential to eliminate exposure to surges in negative emotion, reduce the impact of stress felt in the body, foster new personal development opportunities and improve one’s quality of life. Corporations are increasingly supportive as they look to strengthen emotional skills and revitalize individual and organizational performance.

In his recent video – The Divided Brain – Psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist, challenges the notion that the left hemisphere of the brain is all knowing. He asks that we question the left hemisphere talk, which is convincing, and reduce the need to control everything. The right hemisphere doesn’t have a voice and can’t construct all the arguments of the brain’s left hemisphere. He draws us back to what the right hemisphere, the seat of emotion and empathy, knows to a broader context and reminds us that the intuitive mind (the right hemisphere) is a sacred gift.

Working so much with the brain, as I do in my ELPro coaching model, this video offers a refreshing perspective on how the ‘right’ side of the brain – or the emotion side – is so often subsumed as the “poor cousin” of the left. In reality, emotion is the force of real life! What do you think? Please add your comments below.