Category Archives: Leadership

Bridging the Leadership Divide

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The last thing leadership relationships should do is stand in the way of productivity.

At HRDQ, we often make the assertion that leadership is pretty straightforward – it’s a specific set of skills that can be learned by anyone. (And we’re right.)  But that doesn’t mean that every leader behaves the same way, or is regarded in the same way.

Bridging the Leadership DivideAnd when differing behaviors are perceived by others, they may come across as “incorrect” or non-beneficial.  They may be dismissed altogether.  Often, these differing behaviors are displayed by leaders of different generations – forming a rift in leadership teams.

With this in mind, it’s important to find ways of capitalizing on legacy strengths from incumbent leaders and new potential from emerging leaders without compromising one for the sake of the other.

It is possible to have the best of both worlds – it just takes effort from both sides.

Bridging the Leadership Divide is a self-assessment and soft-skills training program that addresses generational differences in leadership style to improve leadership practices within an organization.  It offers two models for addressing leadership skills in a multi-generational workplace.

Bridging the Leadership DivideOne model is about change (and transformation).  Improvement doesn’t happen without change, and this model shows leaders how to make positive changes in themselves, between individuals, and as members of an organization.  Transformation needs to occur within and between individuals to create new leaders – individuals need to “become” leaders and they need to establish leadership relationships with others.  This three-part model helps leaders choose a stance (a set of behaviors to practice) and reach across the divide (acknowledge and accept the leadership of others).

The second model illustrates six patterns of problem behavior between incumbent and emerging leaders and offers an approach to managing each.  With these problem patterns highlighted, leaders of any generation are able to recognize them in action, and replace them with productive behaviors – improving relationships between leaders and making strides in the overall quality of leadership in their organization.

Using one or both of the models presented by Bridging the Leadership Divide to create awareness of leadership behavior through experiential learning will place your leaders on level, common ground, and start them off on the best foot for leading – no matter how long they’ve been doing it.  You’ll improve performance, relationships, and culture in your organization while helping each individual participant better their work-life.

Get started with Bridging the Leadership Divide today!

Send Your Coaches to Camp!

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It’s not always apparent when one of your coaches is out of shape.  Glamour muscles might be hiding a bad habit, or a marshmallowy exterior might conceal a rock.  Sometimes you just need to take a closer look.

Everyone benefits from the coaching process.  Employees improve their skills, learn new things, and feel better about their place in an organization.  Coaches improve their relationships with teammates and benefit from improved employee performance.  And organizations flourish with highly skilled employees that are working together towards a common goal.

Make sure your team has all of these advantages by keeping your coaches at the top of their game.

Get Fit for Coaching

Coaches need to remember that competition on an organizational level starts with individuals – and that they have the opportunity to improve and align employee performance on an individual and team scale.

While coaching is sometimes necessary for targeted issues in the short term, it’s also an ongoing process in the relationship between coach and employee. Training doesn’t stop after the game – it picks up in anticipation of the next.  To stay competitive, everyone needs to keep the question “how can I be better?” on their mind all the time.

That’s not to say that coaching should focus on deficiencies and problems.  Of course, they need to be addressed in a timely manner but they shouldn’t dominate the relationship between coach and employee.  Coaching is about creating positive changes in an employee’s performance and work life.

The Get Fit for Coaching Assessment and Skill Practice Game introduce a cyclical model for the coaching process:

 Get Fit for Coaching

By assessing their current abilities and practicing the appropriate skills in a non-threatening experiential learning activity, coaches will not only know what they need to improve, but how – and how to measure the results of their development.

“Needs Improvement” is not a negative!  It means progress is being made, and that the benefits of that progress are proliferating.  So give your coaches a “needs improvement” and send them back to camp.

Get Fit for Coaching Trainers' Bundle

Bundle and save by pairing the Get Fit for Coaching Assessment and Skill Practice Game!

I Am Going To Train You To Be Accountable – NOT!

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Linda GalindoBy Linda Galindo, author of The Accountability Experience, first posted on her blog 12/14/12

Imagine yourself sitting with your leadership group as an Executive Retreat on the topic of Accountaility is about to start. In your mind it’s going to be some type of training. Are you bored, excited, nervous, ready to engage?

The speaker is introduced and begins with a question: “How many of you would experience a much better work life if the people that worked for you had a higher level of personal accountability?” Every hand in the meeting room goes up.

Why? Why would everyone around you demonstrating a higher level of personal accountability make your work life better? What benefits could possibly ensue if tomorrow you walk into your organization filled with employees who have upped their level of personal accountability?

If you cannot specifically answer this question as the CEO, COO, CAO, CIO, or C-whatever, don’t bother with accountability training in your organization.  WHY?! Everyone usually “senses” the better results in work culture that would emerge but only a rare and exceptional leader will brave the mirror being turned on her or him to ensure personal accountability starts at the top.  The shock and horror of learning that “I am remarkably unaccountable for a person of my status, when all this time I thought I was very accountable” is more than the run of the mill “leader” can take. They prefer spending resources to train everyone else to be accountable completely clueless that without demonstrating personal accountability themselves, they are on a fools errand.

There is no doubt in my mind (and experience) that accountability education is the foundation for long and sustainable success if leaders are willing to face the downsides that come with upping personal accountability. Yes, downsides.

Just as you can imagine all the great stuff that comes with people being more personally accountable, you must understand how dramatically your life will change as a leader when personal accountability really takes hold en masse among employees.

It’s similar to the out of control feeling as the roller coaster car crests then…DROPS. That fantastic, giddy, fun, scary RUSH!!  You know you will be fine (with that tiny doubt the whole thing could go off the rails).  Some won’t even get on the ride, positive they will never master their fear, or the urge to barf.

For those of us engaged in connecting personal accountability with desired results through educating and facilitating, not training, success is guaranteed. It’s a giddy, scary, wild ride. Accountability “training” is safe. If it’s the outcomes leadership can name that an organization is after, start with where you are using the Accountability Assessment and then educate and facilitate.  Be the personal accountability train to avoid getting run over by accountability training.

The Accountability ExperienceStart here: The 85% Solution, then here The Accountability Experience, and download the free recorded webinar Accountability Now! From Top to Bottom and you’ll find out how your organization can successfully instill and apply the mindset of personal accountability in the workplace!

Molding Consensus – Leading Across Differences

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“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.”

This past Monday, we celebrated one of our country’s greatest leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As one of many enduring gifts, Dr. King showed us the necessity for and effectiveness of direct recognition and action when faced with social conflict.  This type of conflict can shed light on overarching structural issues, and incite positive change.  Decisions may be coming from a perspective that seeks to retain power and control, regardless of the detriment that may be to an entire system (in the case of civil rights, certainly, but also on a smaller scale within a group or organization).

While we don’t all manage conflict on such a grand scale, we do experience the challenge of working with others whose goals do not match ours on a daily basis.  Diversity makes for a well-balanced, strong team.  But with a wide range of perspectives comes conflict.  And conflicts rooted in social identity differences can be emotionally charged and difficult to understand.

It’s hardest to understand diversity conflict when we are personally involved.  It isn’t always an easy or instinctual thing to do, but we need to look at how our own social identity shapes our goals, preferences, and reactions.

Self-awareness is the first step toward healthy and efficient diversity-based conflict management – awareness that we have socially-based perceptions and goals.  And so does everyone else.  Once that’s established, we can identify what, exactly, is conflicting and how we can work together towards the best result.  How do each party’s goals relate to organizational goals, and how can we create strong, common goals to work towards in the future?

Leading Across DifferencesLeading Across Differences is a self-assessment and training program that allows leaders at any level the opportunity to improve their conflict management skills.  It specifically addresses the challenges of leading a diverse team – what to expect, and how to manage conflict.  Promote diversity and leadership and help your diverse team work together for a better future for everyone.  Get started today!

You’re Already a Leader!

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You can be a leader.  It doesn’t matter what your job is, what your title is, how old or young you are, or what your field and specialties are.

But you may not feel that way.  You may feel that your rank or place within a hierarchy prevents you from stepping into a leadership role.

Learship

You’re wrong.  No one needs to tell you to be a leader.  Leadership is a set of skills, not an inherent state.  When you develop leadership skills and display leadership behaviors, you are a leader.  No question.

The Leadership Practices Inventory is a 360-degree assessment that not only shows how you and your peers view your current leadership skill level, but provides a model for developing your leadership further.

Authors Kouzes and Posner break down the behaviors into five categories:

  • Model the Way – determine and clarify values, adhere to them, and communicate them to others in a demonstrative, rather than prescriptive way.
  • Inspire a Shared Vision – communicate an image of the future, encourage others to see the possibility of that future, and highlight the communal benefits of positive change.
  • Challenge the Process – be willing to take risks and experiment, to learn from failure, but commit to possibility.
  • Enable Others to Act – create teams, build trust, and learn to rely on the abilities of others.
  • Encourage the Heart – give positive feedback, celebrate values and victories, and encourage happiness and enthusiasm.

The assessment shows if you think of yourself as a leader and how and why.  Does your view of yourself match with the views of your peers?  Are you identifying the correct behaviors as leadership abilities?  What actions can you take to display leadership behaviors more often?

The more leaders your organization has, the better chance it has of reaching its goals, and moving forward as a strong and well-aligned team.  And the Leadership Practices Inventory can help develop those leaders.

New to the 4th edition of the LPI are:

  • Leadership Practices InventoryA fresh, modern look to the materials (including the Feedback Report)
  • A group comparison report page
  • A shorter workbook – specifically designed for debriefing and understanding the Feedback Report
  • The latest data on the LPI’s model
  • An updated Facilitator’s Guide that focuses on LPI administration, debrief, and how a facilitator can develop one’s leaders from there.

Click here to get started with the Leadership Practices Inventory, 4th edition today!

Communicating From Earth to Mars: Averting Communication Disasters

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In 1999 the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up as it entered the Martian atmosphere after $125 million spent in development and nine months of travel.

The cause? A lapse in communication.

It all came crashing down because the navigation team and the designers of the spacecraft weren’t communicating essential information in a common language; one used English measurements and the other used metric to relay vital data.

“It is very difficult for me to imagine how such a fundamental, basic discrepancy could have remained in the system for so long,” John Pike, Space Policy Director at the Federation of American Scientists, said about the incident in a Los Angeles Times article. While it may be hard to imagine, it happens all the time to organizations around the world and employees at every level. The good news is such an enormous, costly communication disaster can be easily averted.

It starts by making sure information is continuously and precisely conveyed to all involved in a project, both within and between teams. In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Georgia Everse reminds leaders that “there is no such thing as over-communication.” She urges them to avoid jargon, build a common language, and “be explicit about using terminology that resonates with everyone in the organization.”

In Personality Style at Work, Kate Ward suggests that in order to convey your message clearly and accurately one should avoid sweeping generalizations and check for understanding to make sure the message was understood in the way it was intended. Following such simple steps can keep the lines of communication open and prevent chaos in the future.

HRDQ’s What’s Your Communication Style can help identify communication problems and improve communication skills, BEFORE they result in the crash landing of a promising project.

Avert a communication disaster and see how HRDQ can help today!

Read more about Kate Ward’s advice!

Build a Better Business by Building a Better You

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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

- Barak Obama

The growth and development of a business can be seen as continuous organizational change – seeking out improvement and evolution of practices by questioning existing norms and expectations.  While the overall direction of a business may be determined by a CEO or other formal leader, it needs to be translated into actionable items and tasks by his employees.  Leadership, then, becomes the place of the practitioner – the man closest to the action and the man whose actions are the change.

But this requires an organizational paradigm that does not reward complacency – which many do.  If the organization’s – or even its teams’ – leaders do not foster a supportive learning environment in which dissatisfaction is seen as the first step toward improvement, it will not reap the benefits of its employees’ true abilities, but only glean the mediocrity produced by their obedience.

In order for positive changes to stick, and have to have team support behind them, certain skills need to be developed in individuals – everyone involved needs to find the purpose of the change and communicate the vision of the desired future.

Leading Change at Every Level, a self-assessment and training program developed by HRDQ, identifies five soft skills instrumental to successful organizational change, and how employees at all levels can put them into practice.  By taking stock of behaviors exhibited during times of change, employees will see that interpersonal skills are invaluable to effective transitions.

Make sure your team knows that they all can and should be leaders throughout their careers:

Stay Solid

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Change is not an easy thing for most organizations to deal with – especially when paired with conflict.  Maintaining high performance in a changing environment is a challenge, but it’s one that can be overcome by starting with the individual.

Resilience in individuals extends to teams’ ability to handle conflict.  When an individual sees the value in issues or problems identified, conflict and change can be seen as opportunities, not obstacles.  But, not everyone is naturally disposed in this way.  Some need leadership to guide them through times of fluctuation.

A good leader provides transparency throughout processes – he encourages others to address conflict and change, doesn’t shame disagreement, and gives direction after failure or setback.  He recognizes and communicates that resilience does not mean being aloof or unaffected – it means keeping a tenacious spirit and setting realistic goals to improve difficult situations.

Now, of course, leadership does not have to come from one’s supervisors or management team.  Anyone in your organization can be a leader and a champion for resilience – and you can help them step into that role with resilience and change management training.

Our best-selling Reproducible Training Library title, Resilience: How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough, is a great way to give your team the tools they need to prevail through change and conflict.  Offered in both classroom and e-learning formats, Resilience can be used as a group training workshop or a self-guided course for individuals.

The Reproducible Training Library (RTL) offers a wide range of  other titles to help guide your team through difficult times.

Get started on improving performance today – click here to learn more about what the RTL can do for your team.

Rounding Out a Job Description

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The actual scope of a job is more than the tasks we perform every day.  Especially for those of us whose positions center on interpersonal relationships, there are added responsibilities that are less tangible.  Sometimes, these responsibilities can be more important than our daily tasks – and they require soft skills.

In a recent study of nurse managers, 80 percent reported that they seek new hires with informatics, communication, and leadership skills.  In the same study, 98 percent of practicing nurses reported a desire for more education and training in these areas.  Of this new data, Sheryl Sommer, director of nursing education and curriculum at ATI Nursing Education, said “Nurses require a special set of skills to provide safe, quality nursing care. While historically not the focus of nursing education programs, skills such as communication are critical to improving provider outcomes, lowering healthcare costs and improving the patient experience.”

It’s clear that even jobs heavy on technical skills, like nursing, require additional training and education.  When taking on a role with added interpersonal responsibilities – particularly a leadership role – there is a lot to consider when redefining our position.  It can be a real challenge to take on and adapt to a new job description.  When considering what’s involved in an elevated position, leadership expert and HRDQ author Kevin Eikenberry explains,

“There is one job description and one title, but the role is more complex than that…

[A person in a supervisory role] will have management responsibilities.  These generally include…forecasting, planning, budgeting, monitoring, and managing processes; and communication around these important activities….

[They] will have leadership responsibilities, too.  [They] will be coaching others, facilitating meetings, influencing others both in and outside of [their] group.  [They] will have goal setting responsibilities and will be expected to engage [their] team successfully – so that they get great results.

Admittedly, these two roles (management and leadership) are interconnected, yet they are fundamentally separate, too.  One role is focused on resources and things, the other on people and helping them succeed.

…this still isn’t [their full job].  …[Few people] are full-time managers/leaders (regardless of what the job description says); [they] still have other work to do, too.  It is likely they still have responsibilities more closely connected to [their] past comfort level and expertise.”

He’s created a 3-sector venn diagram to illustrate the many roles of an individual in a leadership position:

Even prepared with the most thorough of job descriptions, new leaders need additional skills to adapt to a change in responsibilities and goals.  Kevin’s training series, Remarkable Leadership, is an all-encompassing guide to integrating the soft skills needed for leadership and management with the hard skills of any technical position.  Make sure your new leaders are prepared to round out their job description with HRDQ leadership resources!

Get started with Remarkable Leadership today!

Mastering Change

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“Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes — it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm.”

~Peter Drucker

How does your company, department, or team handle change? Are employees and leaders agile and open to making changes as they pop up, or is everyone reeling – unable to get their footing in a leaner, often unpredictable climate?

Sometimes change is inevitable. The positive outcome of successfully orchestrated change includes short-term improvements, while boosting capacity to learn and keep changing over time. Here are change-shaping questions to ask yourself and your team members or colleagues. Working through these questions will result in smoother change for now, and a robust organization later.

1. Do we really know where we’re going, and are we ready to get started now? It’s amazing how few leaders take the time to actually ask this one out loud and invite employees to take part in considering the full reply. Focus on setting an aspiration that lies at the intersection of market opportunities and current capabilities of your organization or department. Many leaders fail to set the foundation for successful actions. What can you do to gear up between inspiration and action?

2. Have we made a “Not-To-Do” list? Sometimes the steps we decide not to take are just as critical as those that we do. What should be on your “Not-To-Do” list?

3. How have we managed the change process in the past, and what can we do to improve? Research shows that most people, regardless of educational level, geography, or socio-economic standing tend to underestimate the resources needed to accomplish large goals – including implementing change. Here are three keys to a successful rollout:

  1. Communicating consistently and across the organization about the role and influence of each stake holder;
  2. Feeling a meaningful degree of ownership in the change process; and

  3. Setting practical goals that can be measured and shared with everyone involved.

Once achievable change goals have been set, the process is underway, a “Not-To-Do” list has been given just as much priority as the “To-Do” list, and the process has been shaped according to past learning, the last step is to manage sustained change. Make sure that your organization, department, team, or client is on the winning side of large-scale change management! Click here to learn more about how you can master change in your workplace.