Learning is an integral part of the leadership process. Learning may happen formally and informally, Informally through action, conversations with mentors, our bosses. Formally we may be exposed to formal leadership training and undertake skill development around some of the core leadership skill areas (discussed earlier at this leadership a-z blog post).
I regularly speak on the different modalities of learning and some of the distinctions between Supervision, Coaching, Mentoring and Training. This stems from my own experience as a senior leader working in the domains of coacing, mentoring and training. As a consultant and leadership coach today, I continue to work with partner organizations across these varied disciplines.
My latest book, From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching, addresses the topic of leadership capacity development, and learning in part 3 of the book.
The following Iconograph comes from ASTD's 2013 State of the Industry report:
Coaching Questions:
* How much time have you dedicated to learning this year - for you? For your team?
Which skill areas could you benefit from sharpening or learning more about?
* What do you find you need the most useful - Formal learning opportunities? Informal learning opportunities? Support from peers or others in your industry? Mentoring?
* What one learning activity would have the greatest impact to your work, and your life, in the next year?
Have a great week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Read more about our coaching, retreat and leadership development offerings and support
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership
in the area of group and team coaching. She has spent the last 25 years supporting teams and groups real their full potential. She is also a former leader and
team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within
the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From
Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked
to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually
many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on
leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training/
Friday, December 06, 2013
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Leadership a - z: N is for New Hire Orientation
The first 90 days of any employee's job is critical to
success, for them, as well as for your team. What
Consider these items:
1. Schedule time to welcome them to your team. Introduce
them to all team members, as well as other influencers and connectors in the
department/organization.
2. Create a series of meetings to:
Set expectations What do they expect from you as a
leader? What do you expect from them? How do these align? You may also want to have dialogue about expectations on the team level, depending on their role.
Review the job description. Spend time reviewing the
person’s job duties and responsibilities. What are the performance expectations? What does good performance look like? Time spent at the start of a person’s
placement is well spent in clarifying behaviorally what is expected of them.
Discuss how their role fits into the work of the entire
team, unit and organization. The more you can share about the bigger picture,
the easier it is for many employees to see the connections, and know what can happen to others when work is not completed on time or in a complete manner.
Discover their preferences and share yours. Discuss what they can expect with
communication, feedback, performance discussions.
Many HR departments will have a
pre-established on-boarding program. As a leader or manager the time spent up
front building relationships, clarifying expectations, and providing clear
information abou the role and priorities can be invaluable.
Questions:
What do you want to communicate
about yourself as a leader. The direction they will receive?
What are he goals and
priorities of the team?
How does their work will fit into the bigger picture of the
team and the organization?
What can they expect in terms of
feedback and support?
What should they know about your
style? What should they know about yours? (Learn more about styles through the Everything DiSC profile).
Have a great week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Read more about our coaching, retreat and leadership development offerings and support
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Read more about our coaching, retreat and leadership development offerings and support
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training
Monday, December 02, 2013
Leadership a-z: M is for Motivation and Micro-monitoring
Today we are a the letter M in #leadership a through z. Two words in particular jumped to mind for me -
Motivation and Micro-monitoring
Motivation: What motivates you as a leader? What motivates your staff? A great book on this topic is Dan Pink's book Drive. In the book he explores what motivates us and proposes that we are motivated by three things - autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Questions to consider:
Looking at ourselves, where do we get motivation from? Is it an internal driver like purpose, or an external driver like money or recognition? Consider your team members - what are their motivators? What can you do to align their motivators with tasks that need to get done?
How do goals support motivation for your team members?
Resources around motivation:
Motivation 123 website - a website dedicated to motivation. You can visit it here
Jim Riley presents various theorists around motivation including Maslow (remember his Hierarchy of Needs) and others. You can read Jim's overview here.
An animated video by RSA based on a presentation Dan Pink gave. View it here.
Micro-management versus micro-monitoring: A common statement in any leadership development training process is that you don't want to micro-manage.
As a former co-facilitator of mine, Doug McLaren, always stated "as a leader you want to micro-monitor, not micro-manage". Micro-monitoring is about being aware of what your team members are working on, and making sure that you are there to provide support, resources and troubleshooting as needed. Micro-management, in contrast, is about taking over and not letting your employees work autonomously. As indicated earlier in this post, what is a major driver of motivation? Autonomy. Consider the implication
Questions to consider:
What does micro-management mean to you? What does it look like?
What does micro-monitoring mean to you? What does it look like?
On a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being none, and 10 being high) where are you as a micro-manager? A micro-monitor?
What support does each one of your staff really need at the moment to be successful with a particular task or project?
Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Read more about our coaching, retreat and leadership development offerings and support
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training
Motivation: What motivates you as a leader? What motivates your staff? A great book on this topic is Dan Pink's book Drive. In the book he explores what motivates us and proposes that we are motivated by three things - autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Questions to consider:
Looking at ourselves, where do we get motivation from? Is it an internal driver like purpose, or an external driver like money or recognition? Consider your team members - what are their motivators? What can you do to align their motivators with tasks that need to get done?
How do goals support motivation for your team members?
Resources around motivation:
Motivation 123 website - a website dedicated to motivation. You can visit it here
Jim Riley presents various theorists around motivation including Maslow (remember his Hierarchy of Needs) and others. You can read Jim's overview here.
An animated video by RSA based on a presentation Dan Pink gave. View it here.
Micro-management versus micro-monitoring: A common statement in any leadership development training process is that you don't want to micro-manage.
As a former co-facilitator of mine, Doug McLaren, always stated "as a leader you want to micro-monitor, not micro-manage". Micro-monitoring is about being aware of what your team members are working on, and making sure that you are there to provide support, resources and troubleshooting as needed. Micro-management, in contrast, is about taking over and not letting your employees work autonomously. As indicated earlier in this post, what is a major driver of motivation? Autonomy. Consider the implication
Questions to consider:
What does micro-management mean to you? What does it look like?
What does micro-monitoring mean to you? What does it look like?
On a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being none, and 10 being high) where are you as a micro-manager? A micro-monitor?
What support does each one of your staff really need at the moment to be successful with a particular task or project?
Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices of Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: (416)996-TEAM
Read more about our coaching, retreat and leadership development offerings and support
As an author Jennifer Britton is known for her thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching. She is also a former leader and team builder who spent the first 13 years of her career working within the United Nations as well as the international aid sector. From Boardroom to jungle, beach and forest to mountains, Jennifer has worked to develop teams and leaders in more than 18 countries, and virtually many more. She founded Potentials Realized in 2004 and focuses on leadership, teamwork and coaching skills training
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