by Liz Lord CEO Virtual Dental Solutions
After a particularly challenging meeting with a client that I have been trying to help focus on their leadership style and its effect on the outcome of the business, a friend sent me a thought that is appropriate for the entire leadership discussion; ‘every day we either affect others or we infect them. ‘
We all have heard and read many authorities speak of leadership but how do we begin the journey toward becoming good leaders and affecting the change we wish to see in our organizations? Also, if many of us do read and study leadership at varying degrees, why then do so many of us go into auto-pilot when we return to our leadership roles in our organizations?
First, what does it mean to be a good leader? Though the answers to this question are numerous, I think that being a good leader is like being a good coach. If we think of organized teams we may have participated in, our children participate in, or those we love to watch (let me just put out my disclaimer that I am a huge New England Patriots fan) what separates the consistently winning teams from the struggling teams is usually NOT the talent of their players. Coaching is the deciding factor. Coaching is the process of challenging, encouraging, and correcting your team and most importantly trusting them enough to let them take independent action and even to fail. Coaching is the process of letting your people know that what they do matters to you according to The Practical Coach by Media Partners Corporation. What I love about well organized teams (business and athletic) is that when high levels of trust are in place, coaching comes from every part of the team, not just the officially titled leaders – in fact, the job of the leader becomes much easier the more they choose to entrust others to coach. Bottom line…Coaching is trusting.
Trust? How do we get from Leadership to Trust? How can trust grow our businesses and our bottom lines? Well, where does trust start? Within ourselves. As a business coach, I’ve had situations where owners would work out an issue with a team member but before they made a final decision, they would instruct the staff person to check with me first. Why wasn’t the owner willing to make the decision without my final ok? What’s the worst that would happen if they made the wrong decision? It may seem small but if a leader is regularly second guessing their ability to make decisions, their team will never become empowered to act independently because for that to happen, the leader has to trust that he/she can handle any mistake. If the team cannot act independently, they are always looking to the leader for answers because they don’t trust that it is safe to make mistakes. When the leader has to make all the decisions, much bigger and costlier mistakes will happen. Let’s take the football team as an example. A coach must train his players to make split second decisions independently in the heat of the game. Imagine if the quarterback drops back to throw a pass and as he’s reading the field he observes that his first, second, and third strategized plays are not possible. That quarterback then has to make a leadership decision in a split second to possibly run himself, throw the ball away, try to squeeze in a different pass option, or possibly another play. If the quarterback were to look to the coach on the sidelines and say “what should I do, we don’t have a plan for this” or “is it okay if I try this play instead”, two things would happen. First, he would likely be sacked for a loss of yards, and second he would be benched and watch someone else take his place on the field. Additionally, if the coach trained him to check with him before making decisions by regularly questioning or criticizing independent decisions the quarterback made, he would be fired. Why – because performance like that costs the entire organization. It costs the ability to achieve their outcome – winning games. Lost games cause fans to go away, which causes loss of revenues to the ball club which causes more firings and the downward spiral begins. The coach must notice and acknowledge good work, positively and privately correct poor performance, and keep everybody’s eye on the desired outcome by making clear observations and asking for solutions.
When a leader demonstrates that he trusts his people to make good decisions, he asks questions to identify challenges, decision making processes, and solutions. The leader listens thoughtfully and asks clarifying questions to understand better and gain insights – nothing is assumed. The leader is open to wherever the conversation may go and has no attachments to a particular outcome or decision. The leader’s job is to facilitate the conversation to its natural outcome, not to lead everybody to a pre-determined destination. A leader can guide though asking questions but must remain open to differing perspectives and not judge another, not defend an idea, and not justify decisions. Unattachment is key to perspective. When these skills are exercised, the staff feels safe to be open and honest and not threatened by where the conversation may lead. When the same football coach studies video of the games, he is looking for training opportunities for his team. If he observes an action that needs correction, he will show the player the video and ask for his insights. A good coach will not simply point out “you did this, and this and that and you should have done this and that” because that is simply judgmental – it does not teach it criticizes. By opening a discussion based upon observation with the desired outcome on our radar screen, the player is able to correct the behavior and learn from the experience and use that knowledge in the future to perform at a higher level and even possibly coach others.
1. Use ‘Open-ended’ questions to gain insights instead of ‘Closed’ or yes/no questions.
a. “What do you think of that…” instead of “Do you understand that?”
2. Begin questions with ‘How’ instead of ‘Why’ because how is a process and why is a reason (that needs defending).
a. “How did you make that decision” instead of “Why did you make that decision”
3. Use phrases like “Help me understand your process…” instead of “What were you thinking…”
4. Focus on the future instead of living in the past.
a. “What can you do to get (the desired outcome)” instead of “You keep doing (behavior that needs correction)….”
If you want to grow your business, begin with your leadership first. When leaders coach, trust grows. Where there is trust, people grow and performance follows. Results show up and organizations consistently perform regardless of economic conditions, who the individual players are, or even if they have the highest individual skill level. Through leadership, systems and staff all achieve higher levels of results. Without leadership, you will only infect your business and your team with the very flaws you see and wish to cure.
