Strategic Leadership Coaching

PAMPI 2011 Education Institute - Cultivating Productive Conflict

If you attended my workshop on Cultivating Productive Conflict today at the PAMPI 2011 Education Institute here are the handouts that I mentioned.

Download Tki-brochure

Download Conflict management handout

I will leave these handouts up for the next few weeks so feel free to share them with friends who may be interested.

Sabotaging Ourselves

Are you inadvertently sabotaging yourself from becoming an exceptional leader?  Gary Collins in his blog post Holding Ourselves Back outlines five ways that people commonly derail their own leadership potential.  He sites research from an article in the February 2011 Harvard Business Review.  Take a look and see if any of the five apply to you.

Steering Clear of Emotional Landmines: How to avoid explosive conflict on your team

Emotional Landmines are those unexpected conflicts that come out of nowhere to blow teams off course.  They get planted in the terrain ahead when a team member chooses to bury their ideas, opinions, and feelings instead of sharing them with the team.  The process of withholding genuinely held ideas often creates a sense of frustration in the team member.  Over time that sense of frustration can build increasing the likelihood that the team member will have an emotional explosion. Then before you are even aware of what has happened your team is mired in conflict.  Emotional Landmines often get triggered by what seem to be very minor things a comment, gesture, or behavior that leads to a reaction that seems disproportionate.  The real problem is the emotional pressure that has slowly built up in that team member from all the things they have left unsaid. Suddenly an idea or opinion that may have been harmless if shared in real time becomes supercharged with emotion. 

 So why would a team member leave their ideas, opinions, and feelings unsaid, the reasons are numerous, but it usually boils down to how a team handles conflict.  Have you ever been on a team that was characterized by major explosive conflict?  Did it make it difficult for the team to accomplish its primary task?  Did you just assume that the team had members with strong personalities who liked to defend their turf?  This is a common assumption when teams are defeated by conflict, but may not be the whole truth.  You see it is essential for healthy team functioning that conflict or unfiltered debate of ideas and opinions be allowed.  When teams do not allow for thorough expression of ideas from all the team members they are often laying emotional landmines that they will step on later.    

So how does a team leader avoid these landmines?  The key is to create an atmosphere of real time unfiltered debate that engages each team member.  Every team member needs to be heard on every issue even if they don't see it as their area.  Why is this important, two reasons?  The first is that it engages the wisdom of the team, which is why we work in teams to begin with, the combined experience and knowledge of the team, enhances the content and the outcome.  Second, it creates a space for every person to be heard, which reinvests their emotional energy back into the team instead of into landmines.  A simple way to incorporate this strategy into your team meeting is with the lightening round.  The lightening round is a quick check-in with each team member on the issues discussed in the meeting.  The goal is to encourage the team to not hold back on their honest opinions of the topics discussed.  If the lightening round surfaces items for further examination then spend some time processing those ideas.  The key is that everyone is heard from in the moment even if it is a brief comment.

When Tension is a Good Thing

When I say the word tension what do you think?  If you are like most people you think, "Tension is bad and I need to reduce it in my life" and you turn to any number of so-called stress reducers a bubble bath, a glass of wine, or zoning in front of the television.  And to a certain degree you would be right. Tension out of control can be damaging both mentally and physically.  However, in business and life we need a certain amount of tension to get things done what I call "productive tension". 

 

What sorts of things cause your tension to rise?  Usually it involves some kind of deadline on a task or an obligation to another person or group of people.  Now imagine that all those potential sources of tension just went away with the wave of a magic wand.  Life might feel very different with no tension almost tranquil, but let me ask you how productive you would be?  When you are lying on the beach on vacation it feels great for a few days maybe even a week, but after a while what starts to happen we get bored.  There is no sense of accomplishment while we are lying on the beach; our purpose becomes obscured for a time while we recharge.

 

Productive tension is about finding the appropriate level of stress or anxiety for particular mission critical activities.  Then operating out of an awareness of factors that might move our tension up or down out of the productive range and responding appropriately to stay in the sweet spot.  Are you paying attention to tension?

Creating Safety in Your Organization

I just found this very Interesting article on Creating Safety in Your Organization from the Success.com blog.  What are the consequences of having an unsafe environment in your organization?

Fall is Here, Happy Thanksgiving!

Many people see the fall as a time to refocus and get back into the swing of things.  Maybe it has something to do with being conditioned from an early age to buy school supplies in the fall.  Or perhaps it has something to do with football season kicking into high gear.  Whatever the reason, you may be feeling focused and ready for new challenges, but what about your team?  How focused are they?  Still more important are they even functioning like an actual team?  Patrick Lencioni in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team outlines the attributes that every team needs to master for a competitive advantage.  The Five Dysfunctions listed in order of importance are:

• Absence of Trust
• Fear of Conflict
• Lack of Commitment
• Avoidance of Accountability
• Inattention to Results

The key starting point to any teams success in these five areas is leadership.  Unless the team leader models the way, no team will fully leverage its competitive advantage.  How well are you modeling the way for your team?  If you would like to find out take our complimentary team leader assessment based on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model.  The assessment includes a free phone debriefing session to review the results.  We are only offering this free assessment to our blog readers through the end of 2009 so take advantage of this opportunity soon.

Just trust me.

"Trust is a peculiar resource; it is built rather than depleted by use." – Unknown

We have all heard it at various times from wide a range of leaders, "Just trust me". This simple statement uttered so casually begs the question, "why should I trust you?" a query every discerning follower should be asking. The statement also assumes a point of view that trust is exclusively dependent on the trustor a token given arbitrarily to any leader who asks. The reality is that trust is a product of our mutual interdependence on one another with each party contributing something to the relationship to build trust. The trustor contributes their belief in the trustee and a willingness to take action on the word of the trustee. The trustee contributes their observable behavior of trustworthiness. So instead of imploring followers to trust them leaders would be better served by asking themselves if they are displaying trustworthy behavior? There are three benchmarks that a leader should be aware of when calculating their trustworthiness Ability, Integrity, and Benevolence.

1. Ability – Do I display the knowledge, skills, and competencies that are expected of one in my position?

2. Integrity – Do my words and actions match up? Are my values consistent with the values of those who I would like to lead?

3. Benevolence – Am I concerned about the welfare of the people I am leading?

The more a leader displays these qualities the greater the likelihood that trust will grow with their constituents. So contrary to the commonly practiced belief that trust is an abstract condition that is beyond our control; trust has some very tangible components that are well within our control.  What steps are you taking to build trust with your followers? 

If you would like to further unpack the issue of trust I recommend you read the article by Roy Lewicki and Edward Tomlinson at the link below http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/trust_building/?nid=1210

Five Leadership Challenges

Leadership is a difficult responsibility in any context and leaders are called to walk a hard path. Dan Allender in his book Leading with a Limp outlines five universal leadership challenges that every leader will face in their journey: Crisis, Complexity, Betrayal, Loneliness, and Weariness. Allender goes on to discuss the continuum of common responses to theses challenges:

Challenge	Faulty	Response	Effective
Crisis	Cowardice		Courage
Complexity	Rigidity		Depth
Betrayal	Narcissism		Gratitude
Lonliness	Hiding		Openness
Weariness	Fatalism		Hope

For example when a leader is challenged by complexity they often respond with rigidity, which flows out of a desire to maintain control.  However, rigidity is static and obscures the opportunities often hidden in complex situations.  Allender says every attempt a leader makes to control a complex situation results in further change making the situation even more unpredictable.  On the other hand responding with depth frees a leader to hear the voices of those around him and consider their counsel even when it challenges the prevailing wisdom.  A leader with depth lets go of the false belief that they can or need to handle every complex situation by themselves.  They are no longer bound to convention or the dictates of maintaining a powerful image.

How are you choosing to respond to the leadership challenges you are facing? Where would you place your self on the continuum of responses?

Leadership Discussion

      My passion is helping people to maximize their leadership potential. I am particularly interested in seeing Generation X and the Millennial Generation come into their own as leaders. The more I interact with these two generations the stronger my sense that there is a genuine struggle about what it means to be a leader. My impression is that a desire to step up and lead exists and many are doing that, but for some the road just doesn’t seem as clear. I see my role as a coach to help people find their way on that road.

It is my desire that this blog would begin a conversation about what it takes to step into leadership as an individual and as a generation. My plan is to share some of my thoughts and theories about leadership through this blog so that others might interact with my ideas. If you have specific thoughts about shaping the next generation of leaders I would love to hear them.