There is a hard truth about leadership development that many practitioners in this field prefer to ignore: Much of the work done promoting a particular set of leadership practices or competencies is for naught because it fails to influence the leader’s thinking. It falls on deaf ears. Workshop facilitators and leadership coaches may as well save their breath to cool their porridge because any behavioral changes are short-lived unless there is a sustaned change in the way the leader thinks. In fact, there is so much focus on practices and competencies these days that we neglect the leader’s mind and it is from here that all great leadership emanates...
To read more, click here & complete the form to download a PDF copy of Gregg's full article.
Great leaders seem to have the uncanny ability to readily create large networks of people who help them and their teams get things done; approvals are given, resources are provided, projects are financed, decisions are made. Other leaders seem to struggle at getting the smallest things accomplished within the organization. What's the difference between these leaders?
Great leaders understand that their real power comes not from their position, but from their ability to build strong, lasting connections with others in the organization.
Bluepoint Leadership Development is excited to share this new video in which Gregg Thompson shares a four-step process for Building Leadership Connections.
Forget the notion that you will be idolized, universally admired and richly rewarded. When you choose to become a leader, you are choosing a road plagued with failure, disappointment, confusion and resentment. Your best decisions will be mocked, your friends will abandon you and loneliness will become your constant companion. Others will take credit for your work and you will be blamed for their failures.
Still interested? I hope so because you have never been needed more.
Bluepoint Leadership Development is excited to share this new video in which Gregg Thompson shares The Sacrifices of the Leader.
Leadership coaching is an expensive, time-intensive process and unfortunately it is impractical to provide every organization member with an external coach. Many progressive organizations are making great strides in equipping their managers to be skilled coaches through programs like Bluepoint’s Leader as Coach Workshop.
But the problem is that today’s organizations are extremely frenetic and managers face near limitless demands on their time. Also, we often hear managers complain that they have team members who are simply 'uncoachable'.
That is why Bluepoint Leadership Development is excited to share this new video in which Gregg Thompson shares his strategy for Coaching The Uncoachable.
Click here to discover how to Coach The Uncoachable.
Leadership coaching is a highly effective way of accelerating your development as a leader. But it also requires a significant investment of time and money. So how do you know if your investment is worthwhile?
Bluepoint Leadership Development is excited to share this new video in which Gregg Thompson shares 10 characteristics of great leadership coaching.
Click here to discover What Great Leadership Coaching Looks Like!
Coaching is an expensive, time-intensive process and it is impractical to provide every organization member with an external coach. Many progressive organizations are making great strides in equipping their managers to be skilled coaches through programs like Bluepoint’s Leader as Coach Workshop.
But the problem is that today’s organizations are extremely frenetic and managers face near limitless demands on their time. Even the most well-meaning and committed managers have enough time to coach only a portion of their team members.
So why can’t 
everyone be a coach? They can!
In his recent article, Gregg Thompson shares seven steps you can take, and introduces the Each One→Coach One™ program, to make sure that Coaching Is Everyone's Business. Click on the link to download a copy of Gregg's article - Coaching Is Everyone's Business.
While coaching is a highly effective way of accelerating your development as a leader, it also represents a significant investment of time and money. So how can you make sure that you get the most out of your leadership coaching experience?
In his recent article, Gregg Thompson shares fourteen ways to make sure that you get the maximum benefit from your leadership coaching experience. Click on the link to download a copy of Gregg's article - Getting the Most Out of Leadership Coaching from Bluepoint's Leadership Development Resources section on our homepage.
Leadership is difficult. Coaching is tougher!
There’s no simple, multi-step coaching process that you can follow to become a great coach (or leader for that matter). Coaching is a way of being, not doing. Despite what many authors will have you believe, there is no universal formula for coaching – it’s far too big an endeavour to be compressed into a finite number of steps. Coaching is a complex human-to-human process that needs to be adapted to the countless different ways that humans interact with and respond to one another – much to the frustration of those who set out to coach!
Now for the bad news...you have to change. I wish I could give you better news, but I cannot. You must change. Being a great coach is primarily about who you are in your relationships with other people. Think for a moment about your staff, co-workers, boss, and customers. Think about your interactions with them, about your influence on them, and the impact you have on their working lives. Are you important to them? Do they perform better because of their relationship with you? Would others call you a coach? Do the people with whom you interact trust that you have their best interests at heart? Do others attribute their success to you? If you continue following the same course, you will keep getting the same results – or lack of results – you are getting now. Are you happy with these results? No? So a change is required. Since who you are with others is the key factor in determining your ability to coach others for high performance, the change must start with you.
Take a long, hard look at yourself as a leader. What do you see? Is it time to change? Are you ready to be a different leader? Are you ready to be a leader coach?
In the last few years, coaching has moved away from being the exclusive domain of professional coaches. Now, leaders at all levels are being asked to become more coach-like with their team members and colleagues. And yet, despite its growing popularity, certain misconceptions about coaching are pervasive. Contrary to the popular view, coaching is not a nice, neat cognitive process involving the exchange of feedback, insights, and action plans. It might better be described as a muddled, awkward expedition full of chaos, experimentation, self-learning, disappointment, and elation. And coaching is certainly not easy. It requires a considerable investment of time and energy to help another learn and develop. Leadership coaching demands more than the basic communication and interpersonal practices such as relating well to others and providing constructive feedback. Leadership coaching is not about doing more of the same traditional management practices. It’s about building intense, development-focused relationships and engaging in risky, performance-changing conversations.
There are many important skills that leader coaches need to develop. Listening, giving feedback, and performance planning are high on this list. But most importantly, each leader coach must answer three crucial questions before setting out to coach:
- Have you earned the right to coach?
- Are you capable of establishing the kind of relationship necessary for coaching?
- Are you willing to engage in the kind of conversation that stimulates changes in performance?
These questions form the foundation of the Great Expectations model of coaching which has been used by professional coaches and managers alike to produce remarkable results.
More to come on leadership coaching next week!
By Tricia Reese - Senior Facilitator with Bluepoint Leadership Development
There’s a social group that I’ve been a part of for over a decade, and I’ve recently stepped back to observe the group from the perspective of a leadership practitioner rather than as a participant. Viewing this group through a different lens, I was struck by the power secured by the group’s unofficially elected, highly charismatic leader. This triggered me to reflect on the charismatic leaders that I’ve encountered at the helm of both formal and informal social and organizational structures, and to consider the impact of these leaders.
The leader I’m referring to isn’t one who can be labeled by a style, model, or theory. It’s the leader who operates by charisma alone, personifying the dictionary definition of charisma - “a special personal quality or power of an individual making him capable of influencing or inspiring large numbers of people.”
Charismatic leaders are chock-full of self confidence and emotional intelligence. They are masters at reading verbal and non verbal cues then shading their actions and words to influence appropriately. They become attuned to individual’s passions and publicly proclaim their own passions. Charismatic leaders bestow acknowledgement heartily and frequently. As expert storytellers, their delivery is energetic and their message is full of conviction. These tools support the leader in connecting with others, resulting in the quick assemblage of followers and a distinct group identity. Charismatic leaders get peoples’ attention and generate energy that produces momentum. Followers become emotionally engaged and feel involved in something monumental.
Many times I’ve been captivated by such a leader, readily bequeathing them my admiration and witnessing others swell with admiration too. Regarding admiration, seventeenth century playwright Joseph Addison had an important observation: “Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its objects.”
Admiration has an expiration date.
When I reflect on my experience participating on teams led by a charismatic leader, my most vivid recollections are about the results (or lack of results) we produced. It seemed as though the team of followers was galvanized by the leader but failed to become mobilized. The team was roused but not motivated enough or directed toward action that could achieve substantial results. Is it possible that lackluster results were symptomatic of the team members’ waning admiration for their charismatic leader?
For a leader to produce long term, sustainable results, it is essential that team members’ admiration be prolonged, and this can be accomplished if admiration is coupled with or converted to respect for the leader. Wherein admiration holds the recipient in awe, respect embraces the beneficiary with honor. Respect garners loyalty and long term commitment, and once an individual adopts the mindset of long term commitment, they’re willing to donate discretionary effort to the cause.
Respect is imbedded in integrity, and integrity is the cornerstone of successful leadership. Integrity encompasses many elements, but perhaps the most important is trust. Research indicates that these three leadership behaviors have been shown to build trust:
- Consistency – Leaders must follow through and do what they say they’re going to do.
- Caring – Leaders need to show that there is genuine concern for the needs of employees.
- Competence – People like to work with leaders who can demonstrate their skill and knowledge.
If an individual with such magnetic personality makes people feel good, builds connections, and forms an entourage, have they automatically established the trust that would earn them respect? As a means to answer this, I offer some of the actions I’ve repeatedly experienced in the presence of charismatic leaders:
- The leader focused only on making people feel great in the moment rather than building greatness in others for the future.
- The leader dispensed repeated recognition that felt mechanical and misplaced.
- The leader wore a facade rather than showing others his or her authentic self.
- The leader implied rather than demonstrated that they had capability or skill.
- The leader spent excessive time promising something big that never materialized.
When measuring these actions against the three trust building behaviors, trust falls short. There are hints of caring behaviors and a scant display of competency and consistency. The point here is not to imply that charismatic leaders lack integrity. Instead, it’s that perhaps in their zeal to engage followers, these well-intentioned leaders misallocate their time, spending an excess on exhibition, neglecting to build trust, and ultimately sacrificing results.
To leaders who use charisma as their primary lever, on behalf of many of your current or future followers, my message to you is this. You will win my admiration, but don’t bask in that for too long. Promptly redistribute your focus from the window dressing to employing trust-building behaviors. I have a plethora of people and things vying to secure my attention. Trust will keep me tethered to you. Earn that and you’ll be abundantly rewarded.
Tricia Reese is a Senior Facilitator with Bluepoint Leadership Development and welcomes your comments. She can be reached at triciareese@bluepointleadership.com