Of all the jobs a manager/leader has, one that we often feel we could do better, is coaching.

Experience shows that it is the part of the role we often feel gets ignored or isn’t done as well as we’d like. Your employees, especially those who work remotely, most likely agree with you.

So, what can we do about it?

Here are some things you can do to make your coaching more effective when you can’t be face-to-face.

Decide to have a real coaching conversation.

A coaching call is not a “check-in.” Good coaching requires focus on both ends of the line, planning, and attention to detail. Look at it this way: if you were going to coach someone in the office, you’d take them somewhere private. You’d sit down, maybe have a moment of casual conversation and demonstrate relaxed, positive body language.

When coaching virtually, the same things apply.  Be somewhere you both can relax and not be distracted. Take enough time that you’re able to engage in some social conversation before you dive in. Any conversation that starts with, “Let’s not waste time, let’s get down to business,” is probably going to restrict real conversation and the chance to explore what’s going on with the other person.

Read How Silence Is Critical To Good Conversations

Make coaching conversations as rich as possible.

Coaching can be an emotional experience. When we are face to face, we can hear the tone of the person’s response as well as their facial expressions and body language. The best results happen when you’re having rich, real-time conversations. For that reason, you want to have as “rich” a conversation as possible.

You want to make sure you are communicating effectively, and are understood, and any unspoken objections or questions get surfaced. This is almost impossible to do over the telephone alone, so use your webcams. Get both parties used to the idea of being on camera when the stakes are low and the conversations casual, so you’ll both be less self-conscious when your discussions get deeper and more important.

Read How Coaching Is More About the Person Than The Problem

Have a list—but not a checkbox.

A rich, constructive coaching conversation has a lot going on. You need to know what you’re going to discuss, have supporting evidence or questions you need to ask, and there’s a process to a well-run coaching call. Most of us can’t keep everything clear in our head and wind up hanging up and then thinking of all the things we forgot about or could have said or done differently.

So having a list of topics and reminders is a good thing. On the other hand, if we treat it like a checklist, with the goal just to tick off boxes, we often focus on that, rather than listening to the other person for clues that we should probe deeper, or some things aren’t being said. It’s a fine line, but an important one.

Open the call to possibilities.

Coaching means you must actively listen to the other person. One of the challenges for a lot of us is that people will answer the questions they’re asked. Many of us start with well-meaning requests for information that prematurely focus the discussion and don’t always open the door to more productive conversations. For example, there is a difference between “What’s going on with the Jackson account?” and “What are you spending most of your time on?” 

Get Our 27 Open-ended Questions

Here are some open-ended questions to kickstart coaching conversations:

What’s up?

How’s it going?

What’s working?

Where are you stuck?

How can I help?

Notice that you’re leaving the responses up to the other person.

You may want to get to the problem at hand, but if there are other priorities, or challenges or the person has something they need to discuss first, you’ll have a better talk when you get to it.

 

For more information on coaching at a distance, consider our Coaching Services.

Better Coaching is a critical skill development that we offer to help you become a Better Leader!

 

 

… of all the things that can cause ripples in our ‘pond,’ changing leaders should be considered the equivalent of doing a cannonball dive into the water …

A quick note from Steve:

This article focuses on the new manager or leader, but the discussion can apply to anyone taking on the role of ‘New Boss.’

Enjoy.

 

As leaders, we often consider organizational changes that impact our culture or progress toward successfully achieving our goals.

The change could be a location change, IT changes, new strategic plans, economic downturns or a myriad of organizational changes that can cause ripples in our corporate waters.

In my experience, one of the least managed organizational changes is a leadership change.

And of all the things that can cause ripples in our ‘pond,’ changing leaders or managers should be considered the equivalent of doing a cannonball dive into the water.

An additional complication is that boards of directors increasingly seek leaders from outside their organization. 

In 2017, 44% of US companies & organizations searching for new leadership hire from outside the organization.

Often, outsiders are chosen to deliver strategic course corrections, restructures, mergers, culture change, or digital transformation, and under short timelines, incoming leaders or managers need to have a deep understanding of their leadership competencies and effectiveness. 

 

The new leaders or managers as an organizational change challenge.

Most incoming leaders or managers, internal or external, get off to a rocky start. 

Society for Human Resource Management research shows that 58% of senior leadership hires struggle in their new positions after 18 months. 

18 months!

Therefore, carefully planning a new chief executive’s integration is crucial. 

 

What is the key to success? 

Your success must be gained by building momentum across the whole organization.

Not by acting frenetically but by thoughtfully choosing the speed to help the organization mobilize, execute, and transform effectively. 

The incoming leader or manager must need to:

• gain knowledge of board expectations,
• understand the bench strength of the leadership team, and,
• appreciate the organization’s culture.

This will help leaders or managers understand when to gather insights when to make fact-based decisions, and when to execute quickly.

 

Five steps to speed up new leaders or managers’ integration

In my experience, new leaders or managers who take the following five steps have the best chance at successful acceleration.

 

1. What are your unique strengths?

The characteristics that have served you well so far may not lead to success in a new role as a leader or manager. 

Success in your new role depends on navigating the organization’s current cultural context and quickly understanding the roadblocks to performance. 

Self-awareness is crucial. The ability to reflect upon and assess one’s strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style will enable proper planning on how to change the culture and increase performance.

Consider the following questions to help align your and the organization’s unique strengths: 

• Why was I hired for this role; what is my differentiation?
• What is my vision for this organization? 
• What distinctive strengths can I leverage in this context? 
• What might derail me within this organization?
• How do I become more self-aware and plan for my blind spots? 
• What do I hope my legacy will be?

 Read the seven career-saving questions you should ask before starting a new project.

2. Build an adequate influence base.

External leaders or managers are typically brought in to drive transformational change.

Everyone expects change, so every move of the new leader or manager is evaluated and scrutinized for meaning. 

Understanding the formal and informal sources of influence within an organization takes time.

You need to talk to your people to get a clear view of what they love and hate, what they see as most broken, and what excites them. 

As a new leader or manager, you will be under a lot of pressure—from the board, your leadership team, and the culture itself—to show up and make change happen quickly. 

Don’t fall into the trap of making big decisions too quickly—you don’t know enough to know whether they are the right decisions. 

Getting to know the key stakeholders will help new leaders or managers develop a plan to build relationships that can quickly transform influencers into advocates.

Addressing the following questions is a significant next step: 

• How do I identify the key influencers? 
• Where are the real influencers within the organization below my leadership team?
• What questions should I ask key constituents to build my knowledge base?
• How do I effectively structure a listening tour?
• How will I structure my story and share my vision for the organization?

Want To Explore This Topic Further?

Join the Better Leader Inner Circle On Thursday, May 23 at 11:00MT/1:00ET

Click Here To Register And Get A Recording If You Can’t Attend 

3. Define success and priorities.

Incoming leaders or managers typically align highly with the board and other senior executives regarding what constitutes success and what the priorities are. 

The new leaders or managers need a detailed definition of success and what needs to be addressed first. 

It is essential to take the time to define the high-impact opportunities that will impact customers, products, systems, and people. 

Careful management of the first 100 days is critical to the success of the new leaders or managers. 

This is the time when the stakes are high for both the organization and the reputation of the incoming leaders or managers. 

Ideally, the 100-day playbook will accelerate the integration of new executives into their new environment while prioritizing quick wins and longer-term strategic capabilities.

Addressing the following questions will get leaders or managers started on this step: 

• What are the performance indicators for this role?
• How will my performance be evaluated in six months and a year? 
• How (and from whom) will I receive feedback?
• How will I get oriented to our markets, customers, and organization?
• How will I get clarity on and manage board expectations? 

Read more about managing competing priorities.

4. Mobilize the top team quickly.

Most often, a new leader or manager makes changes to the senior team. 

In 2017, 91% of S&P 500 companies indicated that changes in leaders or managers would accompany changes at the director or senior executive levels.

Given the change agenda, new external leaders or managers need to develop an understanding of the senior team’s performance and quickly make decisions on how to bolster the team’s effectiveness.

Addressing the following questions will help new leaders or managers shape and mobilize their top teams: 

• How will I assess my team’s baseline level of performance?
• What are the business goals or outcomes for which my team members are mutually accountable?
• How will I determine membership on my top team?
• What operating norms do I think are needed on this team?
• Who will support me in developing my team to accelerate performance?

 

5. Shape the culture

Organizational culture is a crucial driver of change and a barrier to execution. 

In my experience, everyday cultural strengths and liabilities have become so ingrained and automatic that they are not questioned. 

If the cultural fit between the new leaders or managers and the organization is off, execution can feel like pushing a rope.

This challenge has been defined as the Culture Eating Strategy’s lunch because dysfunctional cultural habits can chew up any improvement the new leaders or managers try to make. 

A major study shows that 70% of all change efforts fail to achieve their objectives. 

The new leaders or managers must quickly become familiar with the cultural values, unwritten rules, and practices of their new organization. 

Addressing the following questions will give new leaders or managers a cultural grounding:

• What are the strengths and liabilities of the current culture?
• How do I shape the culture to align with our new strategic direction?
• How do I improve high-performing behaviours such as accountability and collaboration?
• How can I better understand the shadow of my leadership team?
• What is the execution effectiveness of my organization?

 Read more about culture.

Conclusion

Newly appointed leaders risk failure unless they address the obstacles to their organizational and personal success. 

If poorly made, a new leader or manager’s initial set of decisions and actions will create unintended consequences that will be difficult to reverse. 

Therefore, initial actions and decisions must be carefully planned.

An acceleration requires new leaders or managers to:

• assess and develop themselves to be most effective in the new context; 
• understand their organization’s influencers and culture, 
• how to leverage both for success; 
• develop a detailed and shared understanding of success and priorities, and 
• mobilize their top team. 

Those who take the time to do so put themselves on the best path toward lasting success.

Want To Explore This Topic Further?

Join the Better Leader Inner Circle On Thursday, May 23 at 11:00MT/1:00ET

Click Here To Register And Get A Recording If You Can’t Attend 

We often think of trust as a fixed, static idea, such as “We trust the Union” or “The Operations Team doesn’t trust us.”

However, trust is more complex than that, and oversimplifying our understanding of it prevents us from applying the proper techniques to improve it. Instead, leaders should consider the three fundamental raw materials on which trust is built: competence, benevolence, and reliability.

How these materials mix will depend on context. However, effective leaders need to assess which of these trust components is lacking within their teams and follow steps tailored to that specific component of trust.

It’s time to abandon generalized, generic models for building trust. Below, we share the three steps you can follow to build trust. First, identify which of the raw materials of trust your teams lack and then use the proper methods to increase them.

 

Step 1: Make Sure Everyone Knows What They’re Doing (Competence)

 

What It Is: Competence is the ability to do something efficiently and successfully. It includes hard skills, such as technical knowledge (the ability to create and deliver a product or service), and soft skills, such as social knowledge (understanding people and team environments). In short, competent people are “good at their job.”

How You Know It’s Missing: In many ways, competence is often the easiest to assess, as people either possess the necessary skills to execute their jobs or don’t. However, poor performance is not always a direct result of incompetence, as other factors may be at play. Someone may know how to get the job done but lack the capacity due to many factors, such as having too many tasks, personal stress, or not being given the proper tools to succeed. Determining which factor may be at play as a leader prevents acting on faulty assumptions.

What To Do About It

Provide targeted feedback. To give effective feedback, you must first clarify what “good” looks like. This might be a job description or a conversation at the beginning of a project to clarify expectations for each team member. Establishing that benchmark first allows you to provide targeted feedback by comparing actual performance to already agreed-upon expectations. Once you understand the gap between performance and expectations, you can work with your team members to develop an improvement plan.

Ask questions and coach. The best way to change someone’s behaviours is not to tell them the answers but to ask questions that help them find the answers themselves. Try asking a struggling team member: “I saw x and y this week, and I am concerned; can you tell me what’s going on?” and “What do you think should happen next, and how can I support you?” Asking – rather than simply directing – empowers your people to act and builds a relationship of mutual respect.

The Six Questions You Must Ask To Be A Better Coach

Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses and openly share that information with others. Demonstrating self-awareness regarding your skills will give others confidence that you understand your limitations and the value you can add to the team. Then, proactively take steps to mitigate those limitations, either through personal development (training, mentoring, practice) or procuring the support of others who can ensure no balls are dropped.

 

Step 2: Build your Team into a Community (Benevolence)

 

What It Is: Benevolence is the quality of being well-meaning and the degree to which you have others’ interests at heart. Benevolent people care about others. The more a teammate can demonstrate the motivation to serve others or the team, the greater trust is built.

How You Know It’s Missing: A lack of benevolence can show up as siloes, where people consistently choose themselves and their team over others. Other subtle ways include team meetings where people may respond to others with what seems like agreement before following up with “but,” interrupting speakers or ignoring requests for help.

Read more about how one word can impact your culture 

What To Do About It: Avoid judgment when you notice a lack of benevolence. Every person believes they’re doing the right thing under the circumstances. So, leaders should understand why they took a particular action that appeared self-serving. Techniques to improve benevolence include:

Active listening helps demonstrate that you’re paying attention, wish to understand someone else, and care about their answers and, by extension, them as a person. Active listening can be broken into three subskills, all of which you can start implementing today to understand your people better:

• • Paraphrasing- Restate what the person said in your own words.
    “Let me say that back to you to make sure I understand…”
  • Labelling- Identify the emotion being shown by your team member
    “Seems like that is frustrating.” or “Sounds like that made you angry.”
  • Mirroring- Ask someone to explain what they mean by certain words or phrases: “I just don’t understand what they think they’re doing. It’s so confusing.” Or, “What do you mean by confusing?”

Get your copy of the 27 open-ended questions ‘cheat sheet’

Ask for help when you need it. As a leader, your willingness to share and request assistance sets an example for others to follow and signals to everyone that this is where we help each other. First, start with small tasks that may not take much time but might make a considerable difference in freeing up your capacity. Be sure to recognize and thank those who step up to help.

Step 3: Build Consistency Into People and Processes (Reliability)

What It Is: Reliability is the ability to be dependable and behave consistently. Reliable people do what they say they will.

How You Know It’s Missing: The easiest way to know reliability is lacking is when timelines are not respected. However, a lack of reliability can also manifest in other ways, including treating others inconsistently (showing favouritism or being particularly hard on someone) or being hypocritical in asking people to do something they wouldn’t do themselves.

What To Do About It: Reliability begins with accountability and transparency.

• • If someone is not delivering what they’re supposed to, when they’re supposed to, explicitly have that conversation about expectations and consequences. By mutually agreeing on objectives, responsibilities, and expectations and putting them down in writing, you now have a vehicle to hold people accountable for something they decide to own. If they need more support, create frequent check-ins, but lessen the oversight as they develop a proven track record of delivering.

• • Create transparency in what decisions are being made and why. Any time a request is made, it includes an explanation of the ultimate objective to help people understand why they are being asked to do something. That deeper understanding lets individuals know where/how to deviate from the project should circumstances change. People like having reasons, so give them the ‘because’ behind a request so they can figure out what the team needs without being asked.

Learn more about better results through communications

Unfortunately, these actions will only change your teams’ trust after some time.

Trust is hard to build and happens slowly, so it is essential to start now.

And even if the returns of these actions are down the line, there are slow, smooth actions that you can implement today that build the capacity for fast action when needed most.