Secrets to Building Great Leaders
If you plan to achieve great things you must develop great leaders.
How to fail:
The break-fix model seldom develops greatness. The break-fix model is problem-centric and backward-facing. Break-fix works for systems and processes but not for people.
Fix organizations – develop people.
Closely related to the demoralizing break-fix approach is the ever faithful but always useless, blame-relief model. Blaming enables us to wash our hands – relieve ourselves – of responsibility. “Phew! It’s not my fault; it’s theirs.”
Experience shows fixing and blaming creates defeatist, problem-centric, demoralizing orientations. Blaming and fixing aren’t the path to greatness.
How to succeed:
When it comes to people, don’t fix the past.
6 Things you can do with the past:
- See it.
- Accept it.
- Take responsibility.
- Learn.
- Let it go.
- Begin where you are – stand on it.
The past can never be changed, improved, or ignored. Stay in the past briefly but don’t camp out. Everyone had good reasons or excuses for past choices. Proving they were dumb doesn’t motivate. Help them see their mistakes for themselves. You can’t learn for others.
Create success, quickly. People say, “I see what I was doing wrong,” in the light of current success. If you can’t help someone find fresh success, you’re just a pain in the ass. (when it comes to developing people)
Employ a start-step model. Developing leaders always starts in the same place, where they are not where you wish they were. An immediate step toward a preferred future always improves attitudes, enhances performance, and creates positive momentum. Start where they are and step toward their future.
Result: People radically improve in as few as two working sessions because we begin where they are and create success quickly.
What are key components to developing both yourself and others?
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Post in a picture by Larry Coppenrath: Building Great Leaders
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Dear Dan,
It is true that past can never be changed. We can learn from the past. Besides your suggested points, I would add some more: unlearn, adapt and act. We need to unlearn that did not work in the past. Only accepting is not enough. Willing acceptance and working to overcome such ideas that never worked is great. Action plays key role. Many times we only accept but fail to act. I think, great leaders have two things in common. Thinking and anticipating: they think about ideas and action. They also anticipate outcomes. They are inspired by ideas. So, key components to develop yourself and others are nothing but ideas that is workable. Ideas create raw platform and our action and passion shape them. Passion connects hopes to materialize ideas. Thus idea gets life by action and passion.
Dear Ajay,
Thank you for sharing your insights. I enjoy your comments and like to share one of my own take-aways.
This morning “unlearning” jumps out at me. Its a powerful but difficult concept. If I may suggest, perhaps using a different method that enhances success helps us unlearn an old ineffective method. It’s hard to reject (unlearn) a current operating system without a clear replacement.
As always, thank you for joining in.
Best,
Dan
Developing others requires direct observation of their performance, and then providing meaningful feedback. In my office, my managers do regular observations of their supervisors to see how effectively they’re coaching associates. And then I will periodically observe the managers and their coaching sessions with the supervisors. Everyone receives observational feedback and it helps me ensure we’re delivering a consistent message.
Hi Jae,
I love that you added feedback to the conversation. We never improve if we don’t know how we’re doing.
Thank you for adding value. Do you have tips on how to give useful “observational feedback?”
Cheers,
Dan
I like the point where you mention that we need to start where the candidate is and not where we want them to be. This is an eye-opener for me!
Hi Eddie,
I remember when I realized many of my frustrations with others were about where I wanted them to be… Where I want people to be can cause me to ignore where they really are…
Thank you for sharing something you saw.
Best,
Dan
Thanks Dan! We created an Observation Feedback Form which allows the observer to rate the coach on their effectiveness in various components of our coaching methodology. Leaders are free to coach according to their own style, but there are specific things that should be a part of any coaching session, and by coaching from a common framework we get closer to having everyone rowing in the same direction. Ideally our new supervisors are trained on the methodology in small groups in a classroom setting, although that isn’t always possible. And all of our sites in North America do the same thing, giving us a common coaching & development language.
When talking to our leaders about coaching we make a point of talking about “fixing.” We tell them they can’t fix the staff because they aren’t broken. Instead, they need to help the staff work through thier own development issues.
I recently learned how important the issue of staring where the person is now rather than where you want them to be recently. I started coaching a young staff member who showed up at the meeting with goals that were not what I would have chosen for him. I realized that I was trying to push him further than he could imagine at this point in his career.
Great methodology for developing others. In some of the supervisory training I have been involved in we teach the coach to use the phrase “I have observed…”. This focuses the conversation on what is happening not on what the coach wants. It has been highly succesful in redirecting behavior and developing skills at all levels of the organization. By focusing on observed behavior we are starting where the person is at that time and using it to build the future.
Again, thanks for the simple methodology.
Don’t know how you keep knocking them out of the park Dan! Another excellent post that broadens horizons.
It seems leaders too often may not see themselves as coaches or mentors, when that may be more effective than many other approaches.
To add on–> Model it. Keep asking for feedback, be explicit in what you are doing (trying to improve my own skills) and you need that feedback to improve. Don’t ask for in depth critiques of the the past 20 years or even last week, ask for observations from the last meeting, the last interaction…and doing so sooner than later is even better. As you wrap up a meeting, ask for feedback about the meeting and about your presentation. Ask for one suggestion to improve on in the future. (credit to Marshall Goldsmith)
Find a Collaborator–someone else who wants to improve and meet once a week and focus on what you are improving on, get feedback from your collaborator.
Dear Ajay Study the past if you would divine the future.Study and reflection of the past is like fuel injection.Your present should be build on the realisation of the past.Open eyed optimisim pays.