Leadership development

Rising to the Top

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In a time of crisis, we look to organizational leaders with the expectation that they will guide the rest of us and navigate the way through the extremely difficult times. We expect our leaders to be able to lead.

There is a saying that good leaders, like the best cream, always rise to the top. In a time of crisis, however, what happens to the weak leaders, who may not be prepared and ready for the rise? If they proceed with a lack of development, will they, like cream gone sour, curdle and fall to the bottom? Will they take the rest of us with them?

Unfortunately, crisis does not wait for the completion of a management training program for the leaders who continue to need development. There is no time in the midst of a crisis to develop a crisis management lesson plan. There is no time for long-term management development planning. There is no time to complete a needs assessment so that a proper skills-based approach can be implemented.

Out of all the management skills development models that we study in theory, the most applicable approaches during the reality of a crisis appear to be on-the-job training and error management training. The textbook speaks to the positive aspects of error management training as a leadership development tool, because it requires “constant adaptions to an ever-changing environment” as a “norm.” This results in the immediate application of problem-solving skills with the hope that the error rates are few, and error corrections can be applied immediately.

During a crisis, many of the negative characteristics of on-the-job training models are heightened for leaders who are still in the stages of development. These include the lack of structured training approaches and the lack of effective resources in the form of coaches or mentors who have time to provide active feedback and reinforcement. On the other hand, as noted in this article from Human Resources Director-Canada, the current pandemic crisis has provided some with “the best leadership development program ever.” The author speaks to this moment of crisis as an opportunity to assess both the strengths and weaknesses of our leaders. Most importantly, it allows leaders to focus on the continuing need to develop their best skills, which come from the heart, to promote a culture of trust and care.

Clearly, the pull to the top should prevail in developing the best leaders, now more than ever.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What do you expect from leaders in your current organization during this time of crisis? How are leaders meeting (or not meeting) your expectations?
  2. What type of leadership development tools would you need for yourself if you had to lead a team through a crisis?
  3. Besides on-the-job training and error management training, what other training tools should be put in place to bring out the best in organizational leaders in a time of crisis?

Leadership Lessons

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What do leaders really need to know in order to inspire trust, create connections, and motivate others? Usually we look for methodologies and lessons that fall into ‘traditional’ leadership development categories. While these approaches to leadership continue to be valid, we live and work in untraditional times where organizational chaos resulting from constant change is the norm. As organizational leaders, Human Resources professionals need to know how to lead through the currency and consistency of change.

Patty McCord, ‘iconic former chief talent officer at Netflix’, provides us with some blunt lessons in her TedTalk – The Way We Work.

From a Human Resources (HR) perspective, at first, Ms. McCord’s approach seems almost blasphemous! She advocates for the tossing out of the precious acronyms, rules and processes, to which HR clings, to ensure order, system controls and best practice implementation. Upon reflection, however, the values Ms. McCord speaks to are about respect, excitement, passion, modeling, and collaboration.  While she advocates for the tossing out of the formal, once-a-year performance review, Ms. McCord reiterates the need for proactive and ‘in the moment’ feedback based in truth. When we treat our colleagues as adults in the workplace, we can all handle the truth, both positive and negative, because it paves the path to continuous improvement.

Understanding the business, living company values, building excitement for change into the future are ideas that are not new. These are lessons that we, as HR leaders, must continue to learn repeatedly, traditionally and untraditionally, until one day, we may be able to get them right and inspire others to do the same.

Discussion Questions:

  1. When is the last time you were told you are doing a good job at work by your boss?
  2. When is the last time you told a colleague that they were doing something right?
  3. As a leader and an HR professional, how do you inspire others in the workplace?
  4. How can you improve your own capacity for handling change?

Employee Training Matters

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Jirsak/Shutterstock

Here is a great little lesson on workplace improvement. If you want to improve your workplace, train your employees.

Employee training matters. Paying for employee training also matters.

Organizations should be committed to the ongoing upgrading of employees’ skills, and part of that commitment is paying employees while they learn new skills. This training will make the organization more successful.

It seems that many Canadian employers are not committed to helping their employees learn. According to a recent Robert Half survey of financial officers, only 24% of employers allow professional development during a work day.

Click here to read about this report in more detail.

Daniel Pink, a leader in workplace motivation, believes mastery is a key factor in improving workplace performance. The fact is, people want to have a continued sense of progress at work. This is a desire for mastery.

Click here to watch Dan Pink talk about Mastery.

Let’s think about Pink’s organization performance equation. Organizations want motivated workers; workers want to feel a continued sense of forward momentum. Therefore, organizations who support workers’ learning get more motivated employees.

The logic of Dan Pink’s equation seems simple enough, and it’s worth noting that there is empirical research from Harvard that supports his thesis. The question that must be asked, then, is why do 75% of Canadian employers not support paying for employees to learn?

To improve workplace motivation, productivity, and retention organizations need to start committing to employee development by supporting training. It is time to join the minority.

 

Discussion Questions:

Investigate and find research that illustrates a positive Return of Investment (ROI) on employee training.

Develop a 3-minute presentation on the added employment benefits of continual employee professional development.

 

Pink Ops — Self-Leadership Gaining Traction

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When you see the words “Pink Ops” you might think of some covert military operation that has a cute name to distract you from its real mission objectives. However, “Pink Ops” is what the Brenda Rigney, Vice President of Nurse Next Door Inc., a provider of home health care services, calls her department. It is an interesting term that includes people, marketing, operations, care services, and IT.

What is interesting about Brenda Rigney and her Pink Ops department is her philosophy on leadership, training, and employee engagement.

Click here to read about the Nurse Next Door Inc. self-leadership training.

To get a deeper understanding of Brenda Rigney’s philosophy we first have to look into her thoughts about active questions. It is that philosophy that leads into her company goal of self-leadership and employee engagement. Nurse Next Door believes in “intentional conversations”. According to Rigney, that means staff being trained to communicate with customers more effectively, and to listen to and connect with people better, rather than depending on managers to do it for them.

The above is really their core training outcome for their frontline employees’ self-leadership development and it seems to be working.

Rigney expands this concept of intentional conversation from her reading of Marshall Goldsmith’s book, Triggers, which advocates moving from passive questions to active questions. According to Goldsmith, organizations can achieve intentional conversations, which will create better employee engagement.

Click here to read Brenda Rigney’s summary on Marshall Goldsmiths’ active question technique.

Every year organizations spend millions of dollars on employee training — maybe it is time to consider moving from passive conversations to active conversations to get better employee engagement results.

 

Discussion Questions:

    1. In order to deepen your understanding of the power of active questions click on this link, watch the video, and try to answer Marshall Goldsmith’s daily questions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWpUqXFe4Fw
    2. You have been asked by your VP of HR to create a short presentation about how to improve employee engagement using active questions. Create a five-minute executive summary on this topic.

 

From Checkers to Checkmate

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All the right HR moves.

playing wooden chess pieces
Sergey Peterman/Shutterstock

Move toward, move away – very specific and directive, vague and creative. This is what a manager should be thinking about if they want real performance out of an employee. Marcus Buckingham who is a leading management consultant and performance coach emphasizes the concept; if you let people play to their strengths they will perform better for you at work.

He expands on that concept in his Harvard Business Review (HBR) article called “What Great Managers Do.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Marcus Buckingham brings in the analogy that good managers are playing checkers but great leaders are playing chess. If you think back to Fredrick Taylor and his theories of scientific management, all managers should be playing checkers: each job is subdivided into the smallest unit that anyone can understand, make all workers the same and interchangeable. Scientific management parallels the concept of the checkerboard very nicely. That concept may have flourished during the early years of the industrial revolution but not anymore with knowledge workers and fierce competition of globalization demanding higher level skills from workers and managers.

In today’s organizations leaders need to play chess, each worker has a differing purpose, a different move and interacts on different levels with individuals in the organization. Buckingham talks about the three levels every leader needs to know about their direct report:

  1. Learn your direct report’s strengths.
  2. What are the triggers that activate those strengths?
  3. What is their learning style?

Doing the above with every person you work closely with will give the HR professional the ability to leave the checkerboard behind and work with individuals like a chess master.

Discussion Questions

  1. The first step in any great workplace performance is the ability to know yourself. Ask yourself what are your strengths? What triggers those strengths into exceptional performance? What is your learning style?
  2. Now imagine you are having a meeting with your new boss. Create a written two-minute speech on how the boss should manage you to get your best performance.