If you’re a manager, you likely hear a lot about not only leading and organizing but also being a coach for your team. And, it can be hard to know exactly how to make that happen in the midst of everything else you have going on.

Today on Asking for a Friend I talk with Sara Canaday about tips from her new book “Coaching Essentials for Managers.” She shares her expertise around how to coach your team to do their best work and help them achieve their highest potential.

Sara reminds us that employees “want to learn, want to grow, and want to progress.” Employees want to make sure they are getting the skills and knowledge they need to get grow in their careers.

Sara explains the importance of being both a developmental coach and providing performance coaching.

As a manager, you supervise and organize the workload for those you are managing. You set the expectations and give performance feedback.

As a coach, the goal becomes empowering your employee to be the best they can be by helping them identify and achieve their own professional goals. Just like with any human-centered leadership development, learning how to be a good coach takes effort and being willing to be coachable ourselves.

Developmental coaching is a vital approach to developing potential in your employees

Performance coaching is when you help someone improve in a specific area. With developmental coaching, you can help employees identify their professional goals and empower them to engage in the process of learning and growing. Instead of evaluating their performance, you become a partner for their success as you coach your team.

You’re the person who’s going to ask great questions to help them discover their potential.

Practical Ways to Coach Your Team

Here’s a practical list of Sara’s Dos and Don’ts from Coaching Essentials (pages 206-207)

Do:

• Build trust and nurture strong relationships with your coachees
• Position yourself as a partner in their success
• Be fully present
• Set the intention up front
• Confirm confidentiality- and keep that promise
• Maintain clarity about your role and your purpose as a coach
• Use a framework as your guide
• Ask open-ended questions
• Suspend judgment
• Finish with an action plan
• Hold them accountable for their commitments

Don’t:

• Confuse the role of coaching with training, counseling, or discipline related to poor performance
• Rely only on your coachees to identify their needs
• Fail to set ambitious goals that align with your coachees’ strengths motivations and interests
• Talk in code (e.g. “you need to be more strategic) rather than translating your recommendations into actionable steps with examples
• Neglect to enhance your own self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• Assume you wouldn’t benefit from insights and feedback provided by your own coach or mentor
• Underestimate the potential of your direct reports
• Underestimate your own potential as a successful coach.

What would you add? What is one of your best practices or approaches to be an effective coach for your team?

More articles related to how to coach your team:

Empower Your Team to Make Better Decisions

How to Coach Employees to High Performance When Time is Limited

Your turn. What is your best practice for being a coach for your team?

The post Coach Your Team and be Even More Effective and Helpful appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

This question came in from a member of the Let’s Grow Leaders community and it’s such a fantastic opportunity to lead that we wanted to share it with you. The question is about leading other leaders without excess drama.

Here’s how Maria describes the situation: “We work in a 24 x 7 environment with multiple shifts. Each shift has responsibilities to clean, restock, and prepare our workspace for the next shift. Sometimes, my team will find something isn’t done quite right. No big deal. But it often happens that we show up to a situation that causes real problems in our ability to do our job. I want to bring it up in our leaders’ meeting, but I worry about creating nitpicking or shift vs shift dynamics. Do you have any suggestions?”

Maria’s challenge is common. Leaders at a peer level experience challenges with one another’s work product and it affects their work. Perhaps your manager can’t or won’t address it right now. This is one of those challenges that creates a fantastic opportunity to lead. Specifically, you have a chance to lead other leaders and build a collaborative culture.

Leading Other Leaders Starts with Confident Humility

Before the conversation, take time to center yourself in confidence and humility. You see a genuine issue. You didn’t imagine the negative effects on your team.

It takes confidence to bring it up with the other leaders–to share a vision of what’s possible or address a breach of understanding. Temper that confidence with the humility that you don’t the other leaders’ realities. Come to the conversation with a genuine curiosity and hope for what’s possible.

Assume Good Intent

Another mindset shift that can make these conversations collaborative and help you to lead other leaders is to assume other people want to do a good job. It’s unlikely that another leader woke up that morning thinking about how they could make life difficult for your team. They’re struggling through and trying to make it work.

This isn’t a conversation about blaming others for problems. It’s a chance to look forward together. Starting with confidence and humility while assuming good intent will help avoid nitpicking or antagonism. There’s nothing to pick at…just an opportunity for us all to help one another succeed.

Tap Into a Shared Understanding of What Success Looks Like

Where you start the conversation depends on what standards, agreements, or expectations already exist. If there is a defined process and one leader isn’t following it, you might talk with them directly and have an INSPIRE conversation. (Check here for more on how to hold an effective INSPIRE conversation to address performance challenges or misaligned expectations.)

For example: “I want to make sure that we are setting one another up for success. Three times over the past ten days we’ve come in and here’s what we’ve found. I know our expectation is that we’re doing X. Here’s the impact on our team. I’m wondering how it looks from your perspective?”

And then, “Is your team experiencing anything similar from our team? What do you think we can do to ensure we’re putting one another in the best position to succeed?”

When you have these INSPIRE conversations, the more detailed S-Support you can bring the conversation, the better. Photos and specifics about the impact on your team’s work can help.

Finally, make sure you don’t put it all on their shoulders. You might ask, “What can I do to help? I want to make sure my team’s setting you up similarly. Are there any opportunities you see?”

Leading Other Leaders When There Is No Shared Understanding

However, when there is no agreement or expectation for how things should work, you have an opportunity to create a shared understanding. Start these conversations with shared realities.

For example, “I’ve noticed that my team spends forty-five minutes doing X with a consequence of Y. I’m curious what you’re experiencing?”

As the conversation proceeds, you can suggest a solution. “What if we were to agree to always set one another up for success by doing these three things? If would take our teams 15 minutes but save everyone a ton of time.”

Escalate When Necessary

Sometimes you’ll discover that your peer doesn’t have the same understanding you do. They might say something like “That checklist is a suggestion if we have time, not a commitment we have to do every day. When things get busy, I’d rather my people focus on taking care of our clients.”

In these situations, it’s appropriate to invite them to talk together with your manager. You have different views of what your manager expects and need to resolve that difference.

For example, “Got it–sounds like we understand the expectations differently. Let’s go talk with our manager and sort it out.”

They may not choose to go with you, but you’ve given them respect by inviting them. You’re not going behind their back or complaining about a peer. You had a direct and transparent conversation. You’ve approached the scenario with confidence and humility, focused on relationships and the results you need to achieve.

Your Turn

It’s easy to be frustrated when a colleague’s team isn’t performing at the level you expect. But it’s also an opportunity for you to build a shared understanding, influence your peers, and create collaboration.

We’d love to hear from you: what’s one of the most powerful ways you’ve seen someone (or maybe you did it) leading other leaders to address performance issues.

You Might Also Like:

• How Leaders Make The Most of Complaints
• The A.R.T. of Advanced Accountability (Video)
• Building a Cultural Oasis
• Leading Friends and Former Peers
• 9 Mistakes That Sabotage Collaboration and Destroy Trust
• Addressing Problems with Your Peers
• How to Solve the Right Problem (Video)

The post Leading Other Leaders to Solve Problems appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Leading Through Invisible Dissent

3:00 – Why leaders must meet people where they are

7:51 – How leaders create respectful conversations

10:51 – The role of clear expectations with regard to what’s possible

11:55 – Creating clarity about what you can control and influence

13:28 – Applying these concepts to the current conversations about remote workers returning to the office

15:55 – Why the most effective leaders spend 80% of their time focused on their people and 20% on the work. (Average leaders flip these ratios.)

18:48 – How to avoid misreading non-verbals and invite people into dialogue

23:45 – Defining invisible dissent and how leaders can decide what to do with it once they’re aware of it

25:51 – Why you should humanize upper management – and how to do it.

30:00 – Skills for communicating unpopular or poorly understood decisions

31:42 – Listening without owning the other person’s emotions

33:05 – Why it’s so important to define who owns a decision when asking for input

34:00 – An effective way for leaders to move through dissent without asking people to change their minds or emotions.

Connect with Kellie

Twitter

LinkedIn

The post Leading Through Invisible Dissent with Kellie Beattie appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Leading When Things Break

0:22 – Last chance to get your Kindle edition of Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates at a crazy-good price.

1:12 – Why do light poles and stop signs break the way they do when hit by a car? Why do they break at all?

2:53 – How engineers plan for things to break to avoid more damage and minimize time to repair.

3:44 – As leaders, you can deny that things will ever go wrong or you can plan for it. Effective leaders engage in planned recovery.

4:15 – One area where planned recovery is particularly effective is in human relationships. You and your team members are going to let one another down, you will hurt each other’s feelings, and step on toes. It’s unavoidable. So how do you plan for it?

4:58 – How you can model planned recovery and help your team restore relationships when things break.

5:30 – Extending planned recovery to customer service breakdowns

6:00 – Do what you can to minimize errors and breakdowns, but plan for them so that they don’t cause catastrophic or collateral damage when they happen.

The post Leading When Things Break appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Leading a Performance Conversation without Losing Your Cool

0:58 – Be sure to pick up your discounted copy of Courageous Cultures through the end of June 2021.

2:00 – Why leading a performance conversation without losing your cool is a vital leadership skill

3:44 – Why these conversations can produce anger

4:22 – How to identify the thinking that undermines your cool

5:31 – The first step to keeping your cool – reframing what’s happened.

6:07 – Next, the second step to maintain your composure is to prepare for the conversation.

7:13 – Then, the third step for a productive conversation is to understand what provokes anger in other people and ensure that you’re not escalating conversations unnecessarily.

8:07 – Choosing sad over mad and avoiding mind-reading

8:56 – Next is the fourth step: when to call a timeout and rejoin the conversation later.

9:44 – Finally, your goal in every performance conversation and its role in helping you maintain your composure

11:34 – How to get your leadership or management question answered in a future episode (email David)

The post Leading Performance Conversations without Losing Your Cool appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

As a human-centered leader, you might just be tempted to hold onto an obviously bad hire too long.

And, holding onto a bad hire (after you’ve done all you can) is one of the biggest leadership mistakes you can make.

We see so many managers hold on to false hope, increasing the agony for everyone.

The Bad Hire Question I’ve Asked Hundreds of Times

“When did you know he was a bad hire?”

“Pretty much from day 1.”

“And when did you first have a frank conversation about your concerns?”

“Err… yesterday.”

“And now you want to terminate them?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s been a performance issue for a really long time. He’s got to go!”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this scene play out–both in my HR exec days and now in the frustrations of our clients looking to add more rigor to their performance management processes.

The worst mistake you can make with a bad hire is being overly patient
and withholding important conversations.

Why are so many people overly patient with a bad new hire?

Well first off, we hired them, and it’s just freaking awkward that they’re this bad.

So we convince ourselves they’ll be okay, and hold our breath and wait.

Or, we know how hard it can be in a new job … so we just give them time and space to get better and assume it will all work out. All the time sending the message that their performance is just fine.

Of course, most people don’t hit the ground running overnight.

But if you’re REALLY worried after the first few customer interactions or they just don’t seem to pick up anything you’re putting down, don’t wait too long.

Better to lose the diaper drama as early in the game as possible– and tell your bad hire the truth (see more about diaper drama in our video interview). 

Or, even better watch our kid explain it 😉 (worth the watch and yup he’s heard it that many times).

5 Reasons to Be Real With Your Bad Hire

If you’re looking for a bit of courage and inspiration to be real with your bad hire here you go.

1. They’re As Frustrated As You Are

No one starts a new job with the intention of really screwing it up. If it’s not working out, it’s likely they’re more frustrated than you are.

It’s a good idea to be having “How’s it going?” conversations with all your new hires--and particularly those who are struggling.

A few conversation starters:

• Why did you choose to work here? What most attracted you to this company/job?
• Is the job what you expected it to be? Why or why not?
• What do you find most satisfying with this role? What is most frustrating?
• Where do you need some extra support?

2. You’ve Got a Limited Window to Clarify Expectations

Don’t assume you’ve been perfectly clear with your expectations.

If you wait too long to articulate and reinforce your standards, your new hire is likely to assume you just aren’t that serious, or that what he or she is doing is acceptable.

It’s fine to give some time to ramp up to be at full performance–but you always want to be reinforcing the end-goal and what success looks like.

I can’t you how many times I’ve had crying employees in my HR office saying,

“But my supervisor never told me …” And the truth is, often there was some truth to that. Be sure expectations are clear.

3. Bad Habits Are Hard To Break

Enough said. Be clear about the most important behaviors for achieving success, and reinforce those until they become a habit.

What you tolerate, your bad new hire will assume it’s fine to replicate.

You get more of what you celebrate and less of what you ignore.

4. Your “A Players” Are Taking Notes

If the new guy comes in and gets away with less than productive behaviors, you will instantly lose credibility with your strong performers. Even if they’re strong in other ways (see also our perspective on arrogant high performers).

5. HR Can Help

Your HR team can help you get extra resources to support your new hire’s success.

AND, they can also help you deliver (and document) the conversations you are having. I’ve never met an HR professional who complained about being notified too early about a problem.

The best way to give a bad new hire (and your team) the best chance of success is to be real with them as early in the game as possible and work together to a brighter bolder future for everyone involved.

Your turn.

I’m curious.  As a human-centered leader, what are your best practices for helping a bad new hire succeed at your company or helping them move on?

The post The Hidden Cost of Retaining a Bad Hire appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Leaders play a vital role in employee development and that includes sharing developmental feedback. But an effective performance conversation requires an even temper. Keep these five principles in mind to help you keep your cool.

We’d just finished a live online leadership discussion about tough conversations when a private chat message appeared from one participant.

“How can I have these performance conversations without getting angry? I get so frustrated at people who I think should know better or say they will change, but don’t. Any suggestions?”

It’s a frequent question we hear from leaders. If you feel frustrated, angry, or exasperated with a team member, you’re not alone.

But I love this question because the person asking it recognizes that approaching these conversations with that anger or frustration won’t work. You might get temporary compliance, but the other person hasn’t grown, they’re just placating your anger.

Why Are You Upset?

Before you try to talk with your team member, it can help to understand why you feel the way you do.

Frustration is normal. You want the situation to be one way, but it’s not. That frustration often turns into anger because of the way you interpret what’s happening.

Anger is a normal response when we feel threatened. So what makes you feel threatened by the need to have a performance conversation?

The first common reason is that the employee’s failure becomes personal—we perceive it as disrespect or an attack.

The second reason people often get angry at an employee’s poor performance is that it threatens our performance, which, in turn, can threaten our sense of achievement, the impact we make in the world, or even our livelihood.

Thoughts like these are a sign you’re feeling threatened:

• “How could they treat me like this?”
• “What were they thinking?”
• “How could they do this—again?”
• “They’ve got to know what this is doing to the team—to our numbers. What’s wrong with them?”

Now what? How can you deal with this frustration and resulting anger without damaging the relationship or preventing the employee’s growth?

How to Manage Your Emotions for a Productive Performance Conversation 

1. Depersonalize their behavior.

The first step to keeping your cool is to remove the threat. You do this by reframing what’s happening.

Yes, they showed up late. They failed to document the account. Or they didn’t do what they said they would.

They did it, but they didn’t do it to you. What happened isn’t about you. There is almost zero chance that your team member woke up that morning asking themselves, “How can I really aggravate my boss today?”

They didn’t wake up thinking “How can I tick off my boss today?”

The person you’re talking to is doing the best they can to get through life. Maybe they don’t know what’s important. Perhaps they don’t know how to do it. Maybe they know, but don’t want to. You can help with those things, but none of them is an attack.

Depersonalize by recognizing that it’s not about you. The conversation is about how you can help them to succeed.

2. Prepare for the conversation.

Once you’ve reframed the conversation and your role, use a tool like the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Method to plan the conversation. Be sure to focus on observable behaviors, invite them to the dialog, and schedule a follow-up. Preparation breeds confidence.

Or if you have someone who keeps coming to you for answers, try the 9 what’s coaching method to help people take more accountability for their problems.

Having a good plan will help you manage your emotions in the conversation. It’s hard to both manage your emotions and think through the conversation. With a plan, you won’t have to worry about what you need to say or where you wanted to go.

3. Understand what provokes anger in others.

One of the most powerful ways to manage your own emotions is by understanding what escalates the emotions of conversations and actively working to prevent that from happening.

You already know that anger results when people feel threatened. So how can you lessen the perceived threat level? Here are a few ways to help:

• Keep it low and slow—focus on speaking quietly and slowly.
• Choose sad over mad—concern for the other person and sadness that they’re not succeeding prevents reactivity.
• Choose curious over furious—genuinely ask what is happening from their perspective. When you really want to know, you’re not a threat. Curiosity also helps uncover hidden insecurities. Eg: the team member who uses anger to cover up their inability to use needed software.
• Focus on behaviors and their impact—avoid mind-reading. You don’t know what another person is thinking or feeling. Claiming that you do is arrogant and feels like a threat.

4. Call a timeout.

There will still be times where one or both of you escalate the conversation and, despite your best intentions, you’re angry and likely to say something that will hurt the relationship. In these moments, taking a break to allow both of you to cool down and find the good in one another will help.

5. Recognize that growth doesn’t have to happen in your team.

Their success might not happen on your team. Sometimes, the role isn’t a suitable match for them. Or they lack the motivation.

The best help you can give some people is an opportunity to move on and explore their abilities elsewhere. That is disappointing, but ultimately, better for them and for your team. When you focus on that work, rather than thinking of a battle to win or lose, you’ll have a more even-tempered approach.

Your Turn

Leading a healthy performance conversation is a critical leadership skill. Your ability to keep your cool will help your employees achieve success more quickly—and build better relationships.

What would you add? Leave us a comment and share one way you keep your cool during challenging performance conversations.

5 Ways to Lead a Performance Conversation without Losing Your Cool

1. Depersonalize Their Behavior
2. Prepare for the Conversation
3. Understand What Provokes Anger in Others
4. Call a Timeout
5. Recognize that Growth Doesn’t Have to Happen in Your Team

Creative Commons photo by merwing✿little dear

The post How to Lead a Performance Conversation without Losing Your Cool appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You start to hear concerns from your team. Or your colleague’s team, who you rely on for your own performance, isn’t getting it done. Or maybe you’ve observed the dysfunction firsthand. No matter how you became aware, it’s clear that your peer’s team is struggling.

Now what?

In this episode, you’ll find out what not to do – and how you can be most helpful in these tough situations.

The post What To Do When Your Peer’s Team is Struggling appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

You see it differently. You’re concerned about a missed opportunity or a strategic mistake. Stay silent and you miss a chance to build your credibility and reputation. But disagree without tact or grace and you can permanently damage your career. In this episode, you’ll get the tools you need to disagree with your boss in a way that gets results and builds your relationship.

The post How to Disagree with Your Boss appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

I was seething. The CEO had just asked my team to do something that I felt lacked integrity, was unprincipled, manipulative, and put our clients in a bad position. On top of all that, it involved an external stakeholder with whom I had my own separate relationship. There was no way I could face my friend in this circumstance. But how do you talk with your boss when you radically disagree?

He was the CEO, and I was a team leader. What could I do?

When we lead workshops to help leaders lead courageous cultures and have tough conversations at work, the question of how to talk with your boss always comes up.

Why It’s So Hard to Talk with Your Boss

On paper it shouldn’t be that tough—just have a conversation and share your concerns. But if you’re like most people, talking to an executive, senior leader, or board member feels daunting.

Most of the time, when you fear talking with your boss about an issue where you disagree, it’s because of the power they have over your employment. Self-preservation kicks in and you don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that paycheck. That’s normal for most people.

The problem is, when you don’t speak up, you’re not advocating for your people and it limits your influence and reputation as a strategic thinker. Speaking up can be a career-building move when you do it well.

The good news is that with a few tools and a little practice, you can address both concerns and have meaningful conversations with leaders at every level of your organization.

Talk to Yourself First

As upset as you might be, don’t charge into your boss’s office and unload your righteous anger. That may feel good for a moment, but that’s a career-limiting move.

The first conversation is one you have with yourself.

Come back to the Winning Well model: start with your own confidence and humility—confidence to stand up for what matters and humility to recognize you don’t know what you don’t know (and you’re not as perfect a leader as you might feel). Focus on results and relationships. How can you approach the conversation to build the relationship and achieve meaningful results?

For me, it begins with reminding myself that the person I’m upset with didn’t wake up intending to ruin my day. They’re doing what makes sense to them.

My CEO had his reasons for the way he had approached the situation. I didn’t like what I saw and believed it was wrong, but I knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t trying to be evil. Reminding yourself that there’s always another side to the conversation and that you don’t have all the information helps to lessen the grip of strong emotions.

Do Your Homework Before You Talk with Your Boss

What strategic objectives are at play? What data do you need to bring to the conversation? Learn as much as you can about the issue. You’re not complaining—you’re making a reasoned business case why your boss should consider another course of action.

Time to Talk with Your Boss

Create space for the conversation. If you have access to the person, schedule it. Catching them for three minutes in a hallway while overcoming interruptions and distractions doesn’t give you the best chance to talk.

To start the conversation, be direct and respectful. One of the most powerful openings you can use is to frame your concerns in terms of outcomes you know they value.

For instance, when I approached my CEO, I knew that he prized the organization’s reputation in the community. To start the conversation, I thanked him for the meeting and said, “I am concerned that we aren’t putting our best foot forward regarding the event next month.”

When you’re able to start the conversation about a topic that matters to them, you have a greater chance to be heard. Often, the other party will follow up with a question—after all, you’ve let them know that something they care about is at stake. That question allows you to share what’s on your mind.

This approach also helps you overcome the most common fear about how to talk to your boss when you disagree. By putting the discussion in terms of something they value, you are approaching them as a strategic partner, not as a complainer or antagonist. Even if they don’t agree with your perspective, they know you were trying to help.

Time to Listen

As you finish sharing your concerns, invite them into the conversation. It takes humility to acknowledge that—as right as you may feel—you don’t have all the information and you don’t know their perspective.

For example: “Those are my concerns. I’ve got some thoughts about how we can do this differently, but I’m curious about how the situation looks from your perspective and what I might not see.”

As they share, actively listen. Try to reflect what you’re hearing in your own words. Eg: “So our number one goal is to acquire new customers before our competitor launches their product, even if we need to temporarily reduce our response times to existing customers? Do I understand that correctly?”

From there, you may propose solutions that meet both of your goals.

When I spoke with my CEO, I was young and didn’t know how to do this. He was the one that brought it up. He said, “I hear what you’re saying and, although I don’t see the ethical concerns the same way you do, I also don’t want us to do anything that violates your ethics. How can we do this event in a way that achieves the purpose and that you would feel good about?”

It’s a smart question. You’ll often find the best solutions in answer to “How can we do A and B” when A and B seem to be mutually exclusive. When he asked this question, I came up with a way to meet his goals and satisfy my values.

Results and Relationship—but Not Always In That Order

Let’s be real: just because you approach the conversation this way, it doesn’t mean you will get the change you want.

You may get some, you may get all, or you may get nothing. Regardless, you’ve built a relationship that will help you be more influential—and you’ve learned more about your business from a senior leader’s viewpoint. That can inform your work, your decisions, and future conversations.

It’s also possible that you’ll discover a massive clash in values: an irresolvable difference that you just can’t be part of.

Excellent!

It may not be comfortable, but it’s better to know. Now you can make a conscious decision about your future—whether you’d be better off in a different role, different department, or a different company. Either way, you’ve come out ahead because you had the conversation.

And it might surprise you at how much influence you have when you take the time to have the conversation.

Your Turn

When you can have a healthy talk with your boss about areas of disagreement, you build your influence, clarify values, and become a more valuable strategic partner.

Leave us a comment and share: What’s your number one strategy to talk with your boss when you totally disagree? (We’d also love to hear a great story about a time you had the conversation and the results.)

The post How to Talk With Your Boss When You Totally Disagree appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.