The Blue Pea Leader

How do you find a great leadership coach, and do you do the coaching face to face, phone, what’s the best frequency, duration, industry?  There are so many questions to consider when you choose your leadership coach.

If you’re someone who wants to do the best by your staff, for the business you lead and of course yourself.  Then you’ll be going places you’ve never been before, and this will challenge your knowledge and your mental models.  The latter of which can be done so much faster with the help of a leadership coach.

You can do this through recommendation.  Ask your mentors, ask other successful leaders who they have used.  You can, of course, search the internet or use LinkedIn etc. If they have a website, you can get a feel for their experience or style.

When you find someone, ask them what their background is.  Who do they typically work with, i.e. level of leadership? What are some of their successes?

One question I get is, does the coach have to have experience of the industry.  The answer is, maybe.  This is coaching not mentoring, so technically, the answer is no.  However, sometimes it can be advantageous as they are aware of the language, the challenges, the possibilities.

Probably what is more advantageous is whether the coach is a cultural fit for your organisation.

It helps you and the potential coach if you have a clear idea of what outcome you’d like to achieve, the reason you have chosen coaching.  What are your expectations?  What are your constraints (if any)?  What else have you tried to reach your outcome?  It all helps the coach determine if they can help you achieve your results.  What level of change is required and do they work at that level.

This way, as you’re doing your research and having conversations, the best fit can be determined on both sides.  You’re choosing them as much as they’re choosing to work with you.

There have been times I’ve known that while I could work with the person technically; I also knew there was a better person to coach them from a personality fit.

This is a tough one because it depends upon what you want to achieve as an outcome.  In some cases, the length is a few hours, which can be done as an intensive ½ or 1 day together.  In other instances its say an hour a month over the next 6-12 months.

If it’s the latter route, then what is important is commitment.  Protect those coaching slots as precious gold.  It’s all too easy to let an urgent bit of work take over and ask can we just move our slot.  We often confuse urgent and important.  Your coaching session is important to you achieving your outcome.  Whatever is urgent is, but forfeiting your coaching slot is often not the best decision to handle the urgent.

No one will value your coaching more than you do.  My clients often say that these sessions are their lifeblood, their time to get perspective, to reassess and recharge.  Initially, they may have let urgent takeover but not anymore. Instead, they looked at what was happening so that urgent kept coming up — root cause analysis rather than surface treatment.

Coaching doesn’t have to be face to face to work.  I’ve got clients all around the world, and we often chat on the phone.  Of course, with advances in technology, we can skype or facetime, but it’s more a nice to rather than have to.

When I do my intensive coaching sessions, they’re either on the phone or face to face.  I have several clients who again make the trip to see me and use that travel time to prepare for the session or to begin their action plan post the session.  They prefer to come to me rather than me to them because of this reflection space.

As an aside when I run leadership retreats many comment on the benefits of being in a different place.  Of the impact, a walk on the beach has while answering some tough questions.

What is vital is the level of relationship, connection and trust.  If that’s not there, then it’s tough to help the coachee make the shifts required to achieve their outcome.  However, it’s the coach’s responsibility to begin to build the relationship and establish trust.  They’re trained in this, so they know how to do it.

Ready to take your leadership to the next level and release more of your potential?  You could be ready for our resilient leader programme.  Then again our ½ day VIP session might be just the ticket.  And the best thing to do is contact us for a no obligation discussion.  We can find out if, where and how we can support you on the next phase of your leadership.

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As leaders, we know we don’t have the answer for everything, and there will be times when we’re more unsure than others.  What our team are looking for isn’t that we know everything, it is that we’re confident we can find the answer from somewhere.

Here are 6 things you can do that will help build your confidence and for others to have confidence in you.

You’re going to have a different opinion than others at some point.  And people will disagree with you.  When they do, if you lack confidence, then a common reaction to the first is not to speak up, and the second is to feel defensive.  Alternatively, stay curious.  Wonder what is it that this person sees different to you.  What data might they be in possession of that if you knew that, you might have a different opinion too.  Equally, if you’re not speaking up, ask yourself what data you have that the other person might not be aware of and share.

When you lack confidence or are uncertain, you tend to hang on to things that you should be delegating.  That way, you don’t show your vulnerability, and you get to stay in control. If you’re doing your job right, there will be someone in the team who you could still delegate to and share the concerns you have. It stops you micromanaging; and here are 5 reasons to stop micromanaging. Also, make sure you aren’t using these crazing excuses not to delegate either.

Feedback isn’t just what didn’t work.  It’s also what went well.  To increase your confidence, ask for input from a variety of sources.  Again when we lack confidence, we tend to seek feedback from those we think will say what we expect, or just plain be kind to us. In case they don’t know how to give feedback ask them:-

What did I do well?

What can I do better?

What can I do differently / stop doing?

That way, you find out what you can still work on developing, and you also become aware of where you’re already succeeding.  Nothing erodes confidence faster than just being told what didn’t work.  Nor does hearing what we expect to build our confidence too.  We’re bright enough to know we’re tricking ourselves.  The thing is while I’ve called it feedback; in many cases, it is someone’s opinion, which means it can come with flaws.  Here is an excellent article in Harvard Business Review that discussions the distortion in feedback.

When a leader lacks confidence, they take credit for others work or ideas.  They can also struggle to share the spotlight for fear that others may be noticed or share ideas.  This behaviour is usually done, so they appear valuable or required.  You’ll notice confident leaders use we, the team, our, more than me, I.  They praise, give credit, shine a light on other people.  The more you do this; the more people enjoy working with you and the more likely they are to contribute great ideas and excellent work.  I enjoyed reading Abby Wambach’s book Wolfpack; there are some great stories that beautifully illustrate working together.

Confident leaders ask questions and listen to the answers.  They happily ask for help and support.  They know this is a route to continuing their growth and learning, which leads to an increase in confidence.  Read our post on 6 ways to improve your questioning skills.

Insecure leaders want to protect themselves and so being vulnerable and either owning mistakes or sharing their failures is far too scary.  Confident leaders are big enough to admit to their mistakes and intelligent enough to correct them.  It’s not all perfection and success.  If that’s all that was shared, then people benchmark their leadership against something unreal.  This causes the thought “I’m experiencing x, this doesn’t appear normal, I’m doing something wrong.” When I’m helping leaders expand into their full potential, I will share stories of my mistakes and weaknesses.  And the relief on their face as they realise they are normal and they’re doing better than they thought.

There will be times when you’re uncertain, feel insecure and lack confidence, check it’s not impacting your ability to lead, or endangering the retention of valuable staff.  If you want to strengthen your leadership, so others have increased confidence in you, then working with a coach/mentor can be a worthwhile investment.

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Developing future leaders can be an expensive business.  You’re second-guessing in some ways what’s going to be required in the future of a leader and how you can begin to equip them so they can deal with this future with confidence and clarity.  Whilst in other areas, you clearly know what’s required.

The next challenge is how you blend this learning together so that real change and integration takes place within the leader.  The easy part is the skills they need to learn and practice.  The hard part is the qualities they need to develop and embody.

Leadership development is a mix of on the job, in moment opportunities to practice what they’ve read, seen others do, learned in the classroom, the boardroom, the coaching and mentoring sessions.  Too often though it’s seen as separate bits that are never integrated. #blendedlearning

Initially, all leadership development is via osmosis.  They soak up what they see other leaders do and imitate.  Monkey see monkey do.  Not the most refined way of developing the future of your business.  Now they’ve picked up good and bad habits and as we know habits are hard things to break.

Then we might send them on a 3-day leadership course.  This can be very hit and miss depending on how it was designed, who it’s really for, what it can and can’t realistically achieve.  It also massively depends on the attendee’s reason for being there.  Sometimes a leader will show up on a course and they don’t really know why they’re there.

“I’ve heard it was good.”

“I wanted to visit the city / my friends who live here” (well at least that’s honest).

“My boss told me to come (but I don’t know why)”.

Not the most powerful start for them, or for someone like me who really wants to help them take their leadership to the next level.

Of course, more established and senior leaders don’t always do much better.

“I need to role model learning/show this topic is important, so I thought I’d better attend a course”.  This is fine assuming the person also wants to implement what they’ve learned rather than just attend a course.

“My 360 showed I needed to X and so I’m here”.  Do you agree with your 360?  “Nope but attending this will shut them up.”

Developing a skill in someone when they don’t see why is hard.  Developing a quality is a far tougher challenge and often better done through coaching and mentoring programme rather than a short training course.

The challenge for leaders then is supporting the developing leader in becoming aware of what will be needed and why rather than waiting until it’s well and truly needed, and problems are already ensuing.

If we wait, it’s easier to get the person to want to learn, they can feel the pain of the problem and see the need, but it can come with a sense of I’m drowning a little here and I really don’t want to make any more mistakes.  Which means they often return from the course and get sucked into the day to day stuff and old habits.

Comfortable and known, even when it brings problems, is oddly easier than going back and feeling uncomfortable practicing something they’ve learned but not yet got down as natural .

Over the years of developing resilient and authentic leaders, the route that tends to get the most ROI for the business and for the individual leader is a year-long program that’s a mix of intensive training and powerful 1:1 coaching and mentoring sessions.  That way both skills and qualities can be addressed and there is the opportunity to tailor to the individual’s requirements.  Before it begins the CEO or whoever is the leader of the participant explains why they want them to attend and what they expect from it.  During the programme, they continue to have conversations.  It’s not we’ve sent you on a programme and that’s it, hands-off approach.  That rarely delivers value and results for the business.

All of this takes forethought, planning, and commitment.  Honestly, there are many leadership development initiatives in business that aren’t fit for purpose, but they’re established and again it’s easier to stick with what is than bite the bullet and create something that you believe will work but don’t have proof yet that it will.  And truthfully no business is going to invest at this level in all its leaders, there is some element of selection and cherry picking.

When you know you’d like to keep the person as you believe they’re part of the future success of your business, then it’s certainly time to invest in developing their leadership.  Don’t wait until they’re bored, slightly restless, feeling appreciated but not valued and then hope this will keep them.

There is the beautiful dilemma, what if I develop them and they leave: what if you don’t and they stay.  I’ve known leaders stay with companies after this level of investment who without it would have certainly gone.  I’ve known others go on to leave, and they credit the investment in their leadership as a reason for their success.  They also have a fondness for the company that invested in them, they’re an advocate for the company.  So, whilst they may no longer work there, they do still want that company to succeed.  And occasionally they come back, all the richer for working elsewhere.

One final thought.  What about your ability to lead in the future?  How are you keeping yourself in the mix, staying ahead of the curve, ensuring you’re relevant for the business you lead now and the one you want to lead in the future?  That is the sneaky challenge for some leaders, they get to a certain point and forget about themselves.  And slowly, creepingly, they become less relevant, less agile, less valuable.  Don’t do that to yourself.  One solution could be to invest in 1:1 session with a good coach and mentor.  In the space of either half a day or a day you could be back ahead of the curve.

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I recently had a client tell me they felt stuck in their career.  A sort of career stagnation or sense of spinning wheels.  I know this sensation isn’t a rarity, so just what do you do when you feel stuck in your career? Firstly make sure that you don’t make the feeling wrong or bad.  When you do this you demonise feeling stuck and then ironically the stuckness prevails, once you stop demonising the feeling very often, you then discover what’s underneath it.

There are a variety of reasons why we can feel stuck in our career.

We don’t necessarily have a career ladder anymore.  You know that nice straight-line path, all the moves and promotions mapped out.  Now it’s more likely that a career starts off in one domain and ends up in a completely different one.  My career has spanned 30 years.  I started out working in a laboratory with chemicals.  It’s also included running a technical library, searching patents, managing projects, working in different countries, leading teams and departments.  For me, there is a theme, analysis, and releasing and utilising the potential from the ‘bodies’.  Whether that was a chemical, a company, a business or an individual; but on the face of it given some of my job titles, it wouldn’t necessarily look like a logical career path.

Having read the common reasons we feel stuck, you may have identified which one fits.  If you want to put yourself in a space that feels more useful and productive then I suggest you do anything that energises you.  Daily do something, anything that makes you feel alive.  It doesn’t even have to be work or career orientated.  Then secondly look at what’s going on in your head.  What’s the narrative that’s running?  What’s the overall attitude you’re walking around with?  Maybe it’s time to re-write the story.

Allow yourself to reconnect to your imagination.  Watch young children, and their imagination lets them be all sort of things.  One minute they’re making pizza, the next they’re a doctor fixing you up, and as they leap around the garden they’re a superhero saving the world.   Now you could recall all those jobs you fantasised about when you were 4,5 or 6 and see what the theme was.  And you could tap into your imagination now through creativity.

Create anything you fancy, just for the fun and pleasure of it.  Don’t make it a big deal; it doesn’t have to be about your career; it doesn’t even have to be perfect.  You could paint, draw, take photographs, write poetry, do woodwork, make a cake.  Just do it in a relaxed, non-judgemental fashion.  At the very least you’ll have some fun.  And very often it helps unlock something within you.  I’m not saying it will instantly solve your career stuckness, but it will take you forwards.

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Have you ever wondered how many times a day you are distracted? And it’s not just because you are procrastinating over writing a report or avoiding having a challenging conversation with one of your team.  

Take a moment and think about it: how often does the following happen?   

Moreover, let’s get real; all these can happen in the space of an hour or less.  

Udemy In–Depth 2018 Workplace Distraction Report showed that 70% of workers felt distracted when they were on the job with 16 % admitting they almost always felt distracted. The figure rose to 74% for Millennial and Gen Z employees.  

The reality is when we are so distracted; our productivity decreases significantly. However, our to–do list doesn’t get shorter; it gets longer as it is continuously being added to.  

This is a recipe for increased stress, and I have only referred to this one contributory factor to workplace stress. In this article, rather than list many more I want to share some ideas on how you can handle stress at work whatever the cause. 

A great place to start is to look at how you can prevent stress before it happens.  

Tony Schwarz wrote a book called the Power Of Full Engagement (I would recommend it).  In it, he shares how working in 90-minute cycles followed by a brief recovery period clears any build–up of stress. Short breaks can include taking a short walk, doing a 10-minute burst of exercise at your desk or even walking up and down a few flights of stairs. 

Managing your energy includes thinking about what you eat and drink. While a sugar or caffeine–fuelled snack may taste good and give you a spike of energy, in the long run, this is short–lived, and your energy levels quickly drop. It also causes your body to develop a self–perpetuating cycle of then needing another sugar/caffeine boost.  This biochemical response will eventually lead to a whole host of other problems for you to sort out. 

Remember, healthy snacks, and drinking water will help fuel you and help you focus for longer.  So on the plus side, your body is living biochemistry that is far healthier.

While there are different schools of thought on sleep, the fact is your body, and that includes your mind, needs time to recover. 

You may not feel you need the regular 8 hours that some of your friends and family do but burning the candle at both ends will not help set your day up to start with energy and focus.   Matthew Walker has written an insightful book on Why We Sleep, which I’ve recommended to many.  As we get more time–pressured it’s easy to believe we can cut back on sleep and there not be any significant detriment.  The thing is there isn’t a noticeable one if we lose an hour a night.  Well, not immediately but over time it impacts things like our creativity.  A valuable asset for most leaders I know.  

If you find your mind is racing and preoccupied when you get to bed, test this simple breathing technique for yourself, recommended by Sharon Melnick PhD, a business psychologist. 

Cover your right nostril and breathe through your left for 3-5 minutes.  That’s it; you don’t switch nostrils.  This left nostril breathing technique activates the calming part of your nervous system. 

Did you arrive at the number of distractions and interruptions you experience across a typical working day?  However many it is, you can reduce this and reduce your stress levels. 

Of course, I am not naive enough to think you can eliminate them all, and there are places you can start.   

I could continue, but I would suggest you change a few habits and build from here. 

You may or may not have a good handle on what contributes towards you becoming stressed. If not,

From your journal, you will notice specific patterns. It may be that when there are numerous disagreements in a meeting that you get angry and it comes across as impatience, and your speech becomes clipped and short. Maybe you withdraw. 

Either of these responses has the potential to impact your working relationships, which can add to your stress levels. Instead, explore and commit to some different behavioural responses that serve you, your colleagues and the outcomes you want to achieve better. 

With mobile technology, it’s easy to feel that you must be available 24/7. It is, however, totally unrealistic. Success isn’t all about work ethic; in fact, if you’re following the work ethic principle success isn’t going to be anything like it could!

Make it important to yourself and your loved ones and establish boundaries, both work-life boundaries but also boundaries in work. (This begins to relate to my earlier point about working in blocks of time and communicating this to colleagues.) 

Some new habits would be that: 

Different strategies will work for each of us. Decide what’s best for you and work with it. 

We each have different stress triggers and ways of handling stress. Preventing stress from occurring will serve you well. Knowing exactly what your triggers are, how you currently react and deal with your stress is next. Finally deciding to introduce some new responses will result in your stress decreasing and contribute towards you being more comfortable to work with and be with at home. 

Here’s to a less stressful life. 

Thanks, 

Ruth 

At blue pea POD, we are in the business of enabling leaders and organisations understand who they are, their identity and purpose, creating the profitable future they desire now.   

Blue Pea POD works internationally with a client base that includes the FMCG, Retail, and Pharmaceuticals sectors. You can subscribe to our podcast here and then if you would like to find out more about how we can help you get in contact here. Or call +44(0) 845 123 1280 

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Lifelong learning and leadership are two phrases destined to be together.  

Lifelong learning is a phrase that’s been around a while, and the thinking behind it was that knowledge, education and learning aren’t only confined to our childhood and the classroom but takes place over the course of our lifetime. 

Here is a fascinating quote from Brian Tracy, the well-known sales and leadership trainer. 

“If you read only one book per month, that will put you into the top 1% of income earners in our society. However, if you read one book per week, 50 books per year, that will make you one of the best educated, smartest, most capable and highest paid people in your field. Regular reading will transform your life completely.”   

If this doesn’t inspire you to jump on, leaning, nothing will.

Now that we know what we mean, and that lifelong learning isn’t just a buzzword, but a route to understanding and capability, let’s explore it further. 

Over recent years we have seen a shift in leadership thinking. Gone are the days when senior leaders were “authority figures” who were the font of all knowledge based on their intellect. We have since discovered that leaders who achieved sustained success were not necessarily those with the highest IQ, but those who had high EQ, more commonly known as emotional intelligence; we have written a piece on this recently which you can read here.

We know that change is a constant and leaders have realised that to deal with the continuous change in today’s business landscape, they need to keep developing: 

Brian Tracy, who shared the quote above, is one of the first personal development teachers I came across in the early stage of my career. He still lectures and consults with organisations today and is a real example of lifelong learning, running a thriving global corporation based on learning at 75 years of age. 

He describes three types of learning that I want to share with you.  

Maintenance learning is primarily about you staying up to date in your industry and area of expertise, whether that is as an HR Director, MD, Operations Director or Head of Talent.  

The aim is that this type of learning keeps you up to speed and prevents you from falling behind.

Many leaders I talk to mention reading an occasional book and keeping current with industry blogs and believe that this equates to adding to their education and development. 

Think again: Let’s talk about exercise briefly to illustrate this example. 

Say you know that a 30–minute mild work out twice a week will help you maintain your weight and a general level of fitness, which is one good goal to have. 

However, what it doesn’t do is build your cardiovascular fitness further or allow you to build more strength and muscle.    

Do you get my point? 

Maintenance learning is vital, and yet it will only keep you up to date, not move you forward. 

Now, this is where you start to build your knowledge and skills in areas that you haven’t experienced before. This could be building existing capability further as well as developing new skills and expertise.  

Maybe this is platform speaking or coaching at an advanced level. 

Growth learning is about continually expanding your mind in a way that enables you to do things that you could not do previously. 

Brian Tracey describes this as “learning that contradicts or reverses a piece of knowledge or understanding that you already have.”  

So often companies have success with a product as a result of an unexpected problem or as a by–product of a failure. Take Viagra, for example; this was known as the first “lifestyle” medication when it was launched in the mid-’90s.  

What many people don’t know is that Pfizer initially developed the compound (known as sildenafil) for the treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure) and angina (chest pain due to heart disease). However, during trials, male patients experienced a side effect, and the rest is history.  

Shock learning can give you insights that enable you to either take advantage of a significant change in your company or marketplace. In Pfizer’s case, a product which brought in $2 billion in annual sales in its first ten years on the market.  

However, many people are creatures of habit and leaders are no exception. Too often when something happens that is completely unexpected, it’s more comfortable to ignore it and stay with the norm.  

Maybe it’s time to take the lesson from Viagra and embrace shock learning too. So how can you take your learning to a new level? Let’s explore this next.

Here are a few ideas to get you started, remember new habits take time to become part of your daily way of doing and being so set yourself up for success and commit to consistency in whichever 

Finally, dare I say that some of your development is you investing in yourself. It isn’t always about your company funding your development. Decide to invest financially in you.  

Plan what you want to learn and how you want to grow, then start. There is no time like the present. 

Until next time. 

Thanks  

Ruth 

At blue pea POD, we are in the business of enabling leaders and organisations understand who they are, their identity and purpose, creating the profitable future they desire now.   

Blue Pea POD works internationally with a client base that includes the FMCG, Retail, and Pharmaceuticals sectors. You can subscribe to our podcast here and then if you would like to find out more about how we can help you get in contact here. Or call +44(0) 845 123 1280 

The post Life Long Learning the Mantra for Modern Leaders appeared first on Blue Pea POD.

I have heard a phrase used many times in leadership training and when coaching one to one.  

It’s said with sincere conviction and a genuine belief that “it’s just me and who I am”, yet it is, without doubt, one of the most damaging habits a leader can have and one of the most challenging to break.  

The phrase? “I am just a control freak, that’s all”.

It’s often said as a throwaway comment that justifies why a leader is shall we say, “excessively meddling in their team’s day to day activities”. 

So if you ask to be cc’d into all your team‘s emails, have a need to know all the minutiae of what each team member is working on and insist that things are done your way, then I am afraid to tell you that you have a severe case of “micromanagement”. 

Moreover, it’s a habit well worth stopping now if you have ambitions to progress your leadership career to the next level. 

Today I want to share five reasons to stop micromanaging now and what to start doing instead. 

First though, let’s get clear on what we are talking about here. 

“A management style whereby a manager closely observes and controls and reminds the work of their subordinates or employees.” 

Apologies – Wikipedia seems to like the word subordinates! 

Having worked in many organisations with teams from functional groups such as operations to marketing, research and most in-between, I have seen examples where teams adapt to a micromanager. Generally, it’s been in one of two ways;  

The consequence of setting up this way of working is your team spend an inordinate amount of time firefighting instead of focusing on high priority and essential tasks that only you as a leader can action. 

The result of continued micromanagement is a complete breakdown of trust. 

No longer will you be seen as the role model leader, instead you will be viewed as someone who gets in the way of your team members using the talents they were hired for in the first place. 

Several things happen when people feel they are not trusted:  

Research by Drs Gene Dalton and Paul Thomson in their Four Stages Of Contribution model demonstrates there are four stages an employee can transition through as they look to increase their individual contribution to an organisation.  

Stage one is known as the ‘Contributing Dependently’. Now the reality is when an employee starts a new job in their existing or a new company, they spend some time being dependent as they begin to learn new systems and processes, get to know the ins and outs of their new role as well as potentially building relationships and networks. 

Over time and with appropriate management, the aim is for a person to develop towards an Independent Contributor. However, micromanagement sets up an environment where an employee

Micromanagement makes employees feel like they can’t perform their job on their own without guidance. It’s worth remembering employees are recruited because they bring new expertise and/or knowledge to a team. 

If you don’t use your team‘s talents and insights, your risk a couple of things happening; your employee starts to lose the skills, through lack of practice, you employed them for in the first place, or they get so cheesed off they leave to join an organisation where they can utilise what they know and are respected too.

There are only so many hours in a day. If you are looking at the minutiae of each team member and controlling what they do day to day, how on earth are you going to have time to focus on the strategic side of your role? 

Earlier I mentioned the Four Stages of Contribution Model, stage 4 is known as Strategic Contribution. Unless you build your skills, delegating and developing your team, how will you free up time to contribute more widely in your role? 

This answer is simple. You won’t. If you do not increase your capability to add more value in your position while your management colleagues are, be prepared for some uncomfortable conversations. 

Finally, reason five, and it’s a biggie. 

While many leaders I have worked with over the years eventually realise that their controlling, micromanagement style impacts the development of team members, it often takes longer for them to appreciate, that ultimately they are limiting their growth too.

We have spoken already about time. Unless a leader learns to delegate tasks, responsibility and extends trust to employees, they will not create the space, time or energy to apply themselves to new projects and opportunities delegated to themselves as part of their development plan. 

So, what can you do to remove micromanaging as your go-to strategy? 

Start by :–

Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a management technique which provides all the useful elements of micromanagement without the need for total control.

These are the words of an old mentor of mine. When I first heard them, I remember thinking, ‘but I don’t want to do work that is just good enough’. However, over time, I realised that my perfectionist streak, (Yes, I have been guilty of having one too) didn’t serve me. Moreover, it isn’t helping you either!

As part of developing people, of course, you need to tell people what they can improve to get better results.  

How you give feedback can be the difference between a demotivated individual and a person who is inspired to do their work and make you and consequently themselves, proud. Remember, feedback is also about telling your team what they are good at doing and what you would like to see them doing more of.  

What next? Start by identifying if you recognise any of the micromanagement behaviours highlighted in this article. Which habits are particularly strong? 

Plan what you want to change and where you will start.

Until next time. 

Thanks,  

Ruth 

At blue pea POD, we are in the business of enabling leaders and organisations understand who they are, their identity and purpose, creating the profitable future they desire now.   

Blue Pea POD works internationally with a client base that includes the FMCG, Retail, and Pharmaceuticals sectors. You can subscribe to our podcast here and then if you would like to find out more about how we can help you get in contact here. Or call +44(0) 845 123 1280 

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Employees around the globe are reporting that change is a constant in organisations today, and while the focus may currently be on how technology is driving change mainly through artificial intelligence, the reality is different. 

Change is happening at an unprecedented pace due to mergers and acquisitions, leadership transitions, which is frequently followed by restructuring. Add to this, regulatory changes 

Mckinsey reports that 70% of change management programs fail so we know that leading change isn’t easy. However, when a leader understands the different levels of change that are happening in their organisation, they can plan and prepare to lead the change in a way that sets their organisation up to be part of the 30% of change programs that succeed. 

In this two–part article, we share the six levels of change that great leaders take time to understand.

Robert Dilts is an organisational psychologist who has researched change and organisational learning. His research demonstrated that:  

Let‘s take a closer look at each level and what they refer to in an organisational context. 

Here you can think about things such as the office environment that your teams work in, remembering that for virtual colleagues this could mean working from home, a local office hot desk

Also, consider the environments of your different clients. The environment influences how people work.  

Today, we are so familiar with open plan offices. This hasn’t always been the case. Pre the “noughties”, if you worked in an office, it was highly likely that you would have your own office. The downside was that colleagues didn’t communicate and departments were even more siloed than they can be today.  Moving toward open–plan offices encouraged communication and collaboration.

Ironically, recent research shows that large open plan offices are now impacting productivity as the number of distractions is so great.

The point here is: make changes to a person’s work environment, and it can change their results.

This corresponds to what you are doing. Remember those early days as a leader when you thought you had to have the answer to all your team‘s questions? Then you realised you were being asked the same questions 6 months later. It was only when you stopped answering their questions and started coaching them using indirect questions that your team started coming up with their own ideas!

Change what you are doing, and you get a different result.

The simplest way to think about capability is ‘how well a person does a behaviour’. 

When you first became a manager, some of you will have found it so easy telling your team what to do. However, when it came to coaching and asking questions, that wasn’t so easy, was it? You could understand why your team wouldn’t just do what you did; after all, you were so successful!

Conversely, others reading this will have found coaching and asking some great questions a breeze. 

Both are examples of how each leader has developed their capabilities over time.  

What Robert Dilts explains in his research is that it isn’t just about the skills a person has, but how we use our brains that is important. Only when we choose to use our brain can we develop our capability to use a skill, which in turn will result in changing our behaviours.  

In part two of this article, we’ll take a look at the 3 deeper levels of change: Values and Beliefs, Identity and Purpose. 

For now, take some time and reflect on –  

Then consider which of these challenges relate to either or more than one of the three levels described so far. The next step is to read part two and discover how you can take your understanding of the six levels and support your team to make the changes that will result in greater success. 

Until next time. 

Thanks  

Ruth 

At blue pea POD, we are in the business of enabling leaders and organisations understand who they are, their identity and purpose, creating the profitable future they desire now.   

Blue Pea POD works internationally with a client base that includes the FMCG, Retail, and Pharmaceuticals sectors. You can subscribe to our podcast here and then if you would like to find out more about how we can help you get in contact here. Or call +44(0) 845 123 1280 

The post Why Great Leaders Understand The 6 Levels of Change appeared first on Blue Pea POD.