Archives 2021

You know you need to delegate. But do you know HOW to delegate? If you’re not getting the desired results, chances are this lies with you.

Most agree that delegation is critical to management success. If that’s true, why are we usually left unhappy with the results we get after we delegate?

“WHY! WHY! Oh why, do I not get what I asked for?” Sound familiar?

But before you go blaming those you delegate to, remember this:

Failed delegation is rarely the fault of the person to whom you delegated. Usually, it is the fault of the person delegating.

“Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too.” – Robert Half.

As for the common root of failed delegation? Well, 99% of the time, the leader’s instructions do not provide clarity for the person doing the work.

But you can change things and begin to get the expected results. And I’m about to tell you how.

How to Delegate: The #1 Secret

Okay, here it is, the number one secret about how to delegate:

GET (AND GIVE) CLARITY!

Without clarity, you’re leaving delegation up to guesswork. You’re expecting your team to read your mind. And when has that ever worked out? As lovely as it would be for our team members to know what we want before we even know what we want, this isn’t realistic. Or fair. With some effort in creating clarity surrounding expectations, delegation, in general, will become much more effective.

You will benefit from getting the results you want, and your team will benefit from knowing what their next move should be.

Here are four things to be clear on about how to delegate

You must be 100% clear on:

Clarity of objective: What exactly is it that needs to be done? Is an assignment as straightforward as it can be?

• • • • • If a report is required, what exactly is to be completed? An email? A 1-page summary? A 10-page brief? Or, a 40-page report?
        • When is it to be completed?
        • What are the resources that are going to be available?

Clarity of responsibility: Whose assignment is it? Who does what to whom?

Clarity of time: The request was for a “quick competitive analysis.” Well, how quick is it? A day? A week? Two weeks?

Clarity of communication: Who reports to whom? When are status reports and updates due? When do you, as the assigned, want to know about risks and problems?

Clarity is a tricky subject. It’s a challenge for many leaders. But it’s worth the work of creating it. For more on how to do that, try this post next: Be The CRO – 2 Ways to Communicate with Clarity.

So, what is the solution?

As for how to achieve this clarity? Personal charters!

There’s no guarantee you’ll end up precisely with what you want. But you can improve the odds by creating a charter between you and the person to whom you are delegating a task.

These ‘charters’ can be verbal, in an email or in a formal written document. The point is to clarify expectations, milestones, terms & timings, schedule accountability and establish reporting expectations.

Okay, now we’ve given you the secret for delegating and four things you need to be absolutely clear on. Now, it’s time to go out and make it happen. Communicate expectations, clearly define those expectations, and don’t assume the person you’re delegating to can read your mind.

Need some help with that? Let’s talk. Click here to start a conversation and get the results you want.

Did you learn a lot from this post? Try one of these articles next:

• Micromanagement: Are You Guilty?
• Motivation Sins: Get Off Of The Naughty Boss List
• Curiosity Killed The Cat, But It May Help You Survive As A Leader

Right-Sizing Leadership Teams

‘Right-sizing has to be one of the more detested words in modern business language, mostly because the use of it often indicates a lack of courage.

Rather than come right out and say ‘lay-off’ or ‘firing,’ too many leaders announce that they will right-size their organization, as though this will somehow change the reality of what they are about to do, which is to eliminate jobs and let employees go.

Of course, eliminating jobs and laying people off is a reality of business. No one can fault a leader who has to make those difficult decisions as long as they do it with appropriate discernment and gravity.

What is ironic to me is how often executives fail to step up to the plate when it is time to do what the term right-sizing actually means, particularly when dealing with their leadership team.

So many executive teams I deal with are simply too big.

Whether they have eleven or fourteen or eighteen members, they become gangly and cumbersome, making it impossible to be nimble and responsive in their responsibilities to steer their organization through rough waters or even relatively calm ones.

Why Your Leadership Team MUST Be Your First Team

So what is the right size for a leadership team?

Somewhere between three and eight.

Why?

Because groups larger than this almost always struggle to effectively use the two kinds of communication required of any team.

Chris Argyris, a professor at Harvard, came up with the idea years ago that people need to engage in both ‘advocacy’ and ‘inquiry’ to communicate effectively.

Advocacy states an opinion or an idea, while inquiry is asking questions or seeking clarity about someone else’s opinion or idea.

However, when there are too many people at the table, inquiry drops off dramatically, mostly because people realize that they’re not going to get many opportunities to speak. Hence, they weigh in with their opinion while they have the chance.

When the team is smaller, two things happen.

First, trust can be exponentially stronger. That is simply a matter of physics.

Second, team members know that they’ll have plenty of time to make their ideas heard, even if they make more inquiry than advocacy. This leads to better and faster decisions. Those large leadership teams can often take three times longer to arrive at decisions.

Decisions that prove to be poorer, often due to the quest for consensus.

Is Consensus A Dirty Word?

How does a leader go about right-sizing a team?

First, understand the reason for having such a large team in the first place.

They often put people on the team as a reward or to placate them for another unrelated issue. Or maybe, they fall for the inclusivity plea, trying to demonstrate to the organization that they are open to many different opinions and value everyone’s input.

Once a leader has come to terms with why the team has grown so large, it becomes time to right-size the team.

The key to doing this is to avoid the band-aid approach, which involves painfully choosing people to take off the team, one at a time.

A better method is to create a new team, starting from scratch.

That means if you have twelve people on the team, try forming a real executive team with just four or five and add one or two more from there if necessary.

Then unapologetically explain to the old team why the new one is necessary and why you’ve formed it the way you did.

You can keep the old team intact for other purposes, like communication and development, but not for making the regular decisions that must be made quickly and with the right mix of debate and decisiveness.

As A Leader, Running Good Meetings Is Your Job!

One of the things you’ll learn is that the people who are not on the new team will probably thank you.

In many cases, they see and experience the dysfunction of too many members. While there may be a temporary sting at not being on the new one, any good executive will be mature enough to see the benefits to the organization overall.

If they aren’t mature enough to do that, you probably shouldn’t have had them on the team in the first place.

Once Margaret Thatcher described consensus as to the opposite of leadership. 

She felt that consensus is an abdication of leadership obligations; true leaders take you somewhere the group otherwise would never go.

I believe, the need to “build consensus” can be an excuse to avoid making hard but necessary decisions. 

Read about tough decisions

At best it could be a well-intentioned but naive effort to achieve an impossible unanimity. 

Regardless of the cause, the search for consensus can leave the organization locked in inactivity.

At one time, consensus was a perfectly fine word and being a “consensus-builder” was a perfectly fine leadership characteristic.

Yet, in my opinion, consensus has become an excuse.

An excuse for not meeting the unpleasant duties of personal and organizational leadership.

The search for consensus creates an environment where the perfect has become the enemy of done and leads to organizational paralysis and irrelevance.

I have too often observed leadership teams where every action is agreed to by consensus, which causes the organization to be locked in constant and unproductive conflict.

Conversely, I have been part of teams where the debates are vigorous (sometimes even heated), and the decisive votes may be close but turn into action because the underlying values, principles and direction of the team are so strong that it results in an organizational and leadership culture that is robust and healthy.

Read about clarity to leadership teams

Consensus is different because it creates danger. After all, you might assume consensus just because you have the votes.

The real world of leadership is where divisions persist and where differences cannot be eliminated, only bridged.

A leader who understands the extent of the limits of consensus can take the organization where it needs to go.

The leader who knows how to maximize or even expand the scope of consensus is in a position to take their team and organization to new heights. 

Consensus used in the best sense of the word could be the key to unlocking the organization’s full potential.

Read about the First Team

Leading in a crisis presents an entirely new scope of challenges, and leaders of all kinds need to be prepared. I have given many workshops and keynotes in the past year where I relate my leadership experiences from the army and responding to disasters.

Leading in a crisis

There is one question that comes up at the end of almost every one of the bookings: How do you lead people during emergencies when they are scattered all over the place, and you have no idea what is going on?

The short answer? Trust and chance.

In 2011 there was a wildfire that tore across the bush in northern Alberta that forced the evacuation of 17,000 people. By the end, over 500 homes were destroyed, 300 of which were in the town of Slave Lake.

During the days of the main destruction I had a dozen teams of employees and volunteers that were deploying to the affected area to support the evacuation of all of these people.

The geography covered thousands of square kilometres of northern forest that covered most of northwest Alberta. Roads were closed and cell-phone coverage, spotty at the best of times, was down due to the raging fires. My people were driving into this maelstrom to deliver humanitarian services.

(For more on leading through fires, floods, earthquakes, COVID, and more, read this post next.)

In this day and age of instantaneous broadband and high-speed communications, I was utterly in the dark for most of the beginning days of the operations. My biggest fear was that my people were driving into the fires. My only instruction to those I could get a hold of was this: No one gets killed.

Chance was on my side, and no one on my team was hurt. In fact, there wasn’t a single fire-related casualty out of all of those people forced from their homes.

Trust was on my side, because of the work we had done to build our teams. I knew that these people would do the best job they could and knew that I had their back as they made decisions and took actions in the field.

(Leading in a crisis often feels like you’re trying to move forward without a map. Here are four ways to still make progress.)

How to build trust when leading in a crisis and beyond

There is little you can do to control chance. But there is everything you can do to build trust.

Here is the top three:

1. TRAIN your people well and in challenging situations. Military leaders have learned repetitive training builds muscle and memory triggers that win out over panic when emergencies take place.
2. NEVER, ever, discipline someone for making a decision; even if it is one you wouldn’t have made. Remember, they were there, and you weren’t. That said, when things have calmed down it is fair to review the actions taken with a coach’s or mentor’s eye around what lessons could be gained from that experience.
3. TALK to your people in calm tones. Imagine they are in front of you; imagine putting your hand on their shoulder and talking them through a scary complex situation.

Additional leadership resources

Do you want to talk more about leading in a crisis and beyond? My services include organizational consulting as well as one-on-one coaching for new or uncertain leaders who need help finding their way forward. Let me know about the kind of results you want, and we’ll schedule a call to figure out the best way to get you there.

Looking for more leadership content? Try one of these three posts next:

• What’s love got to do, got to do with it? – Is There a Place for Love in Leadership?
• 14 Secret Habits That Will Make You A More Effective Leader
• LEADING THROUGH SCARY TIMES

This article was first published in 2015 but it was updated in 2021 just for you.

I’ve been working with leaders for almost… a very long time. And in this blog, I’ve distilled down the “secret leadership habits” that define the best leaders I have ever met.

Before you jump into the 14 Habits, I want to ask you: Why do you want to be a more effective leader?

Your answer will be very personal to you. But I will tell you this: the best leaders have an answer.

I’m sure you’re asking, are these really secrets?

14 Secret Leadership Habits To Make You A More Effective Leader

Not really, because they’re in plain view. But since most people don’t follow these leadership habits, they might as well be state secrets.

So, what are these secret habits then?

HABIT #1: The best leaders are students of human behaviour.

They notice what people do. The best leaders read about human behaviour. They study human behaviour and pay attention.

They read books, not just about leadership, but also influence, communication and all manner of things about how the human brain works and why we behave the way we behave; because as leaders, we are leading humans.

HABIT #2: The best leaders are students of their behaviour.

They try to understand why they do what they do, when they do it, how they do it and what triggers them.

HABIT #3: The best leaders are students of organizational behaviour.

They are students of how teams work, of how large and small organizations interact and work; they study and understand the culture of organizations and what creates it and what it is and how it works. Because they are leading inside an organization, they understand the importance of continually studying and learning about organizational behaviour.

Speaking of organizational culture, here’s how to stop a work culture of harassment.

HABIT #4: The best leaders are students of communication.

When is the best way to communicate? How is the best way to communicate? Why do we communicate? They realize in the end, it’s not just about what they say, but how their message gets received. It doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes – quite the opposite. However, by being a student of communication, they’re continually getting better.

You’ll notice the first four leadership habits all use the word ‘student,’ so all those habits in effect are about the learning that leads us to skills.

HABIT #5: The best leaders are observant.

Being a student of your behaviour requires you to be self-aware, and being a student of organizational behaviour requires you to be observant. And it’s all about noticing what’s going on around you.

HABIT #6: The best leaders are self-aware.

They know about themselves; they know what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. They are honest enough with themselves to be aware and to work on strengthening their strengths and minimizing the effects of their weaknesses.

(While you’re here, don’t miss 5 Leadership Actions That Will Drive A 7% Increase in Profit – And Who Doesn’t Want More Profit?)

HABIT #7: The very best leaders are extraordinarily reflective.

This takes us back to my original question, why do you want to be a more effective leader?

Being reflective is one of the keys to being more effective at anything, to allow us to learn from our experience, and it’s true for the very best leaders.

HABIT #8: The best leaders are proactive.

They act. They don’t sit back and wait.

This doesn’t mean they fly off the handle, but it does mean though that they have a bias for acting. The best leaders are proactive. They know there are things to do and — they are getting them done for themselves, for their teams, for their organization.

HABIT #9: The best leaders are accountable.

They are accountable to themselves.

They realize that for everything that happens, they have some influence on it. And they ask themselves and think about what they need to do to make this better, what part of this belongs to them. They help others be accountable, too, of course, but it all starts with them.

HABIT #10: The best leaders are learners.

They are learners first and foremost through building leadership habits (including the very ones we’ve discussed here). They’re aware of the power of habits, and they recognize doing that is an essential part of how they learn.

They also look for opportunities to learn. They’re looking at the world through the filter of, how can I use this to be a better leader.

And because they know training is an important part of their learning journey, they don’t assume it’s enough, and they don’t wait for someone to offer training.

They know their learning does not equate to how much training they have had. This doesn’t mean they don’t value training; it means they know it’s only part of the puzzle.

They’re willing to invest in themselves, whether that’s time or money. And even if the organization doesn’t initiate it, even if they must negotiate with their boss or organization to get what they want.

HABIT #11: The best leaders are readers.

Reading is a tremendous opportunity to learn (yep, that leadership habit again). Whether reading a blog post, whether reading a book, the best leaders are readers.

HABIT #12: The best leaders seek out feedback.

The best leaders want to know how to improve. They seek out feedback – from their teams and others around them. The reason they improve is they want to improve. And they improve through being open to, seeking out, and listening to feedback.

HABIT #13: The best leaders have high expectations of themselves.

And even if they don’t, they’re working to build them because they realize their belief in themselves and the expectations they place on themselves matter.

HABIT #14: The best leaders have coaches.

The best leaders, the best people at any skill, have a coach. Coaches provide so many things for us, and it doesn’t matter what the experience level or field of expertise – the best want to get better, and that hunger for knowledge drives them to look for a perspective outside of their own. They look to and have coaches.

The bottom line goes back to the question I asked at the beginning of this report: Why do you want to be a more effective leader?

The best leaders have a crystal-clear answer to this, and that clear reason drives everything. Period.

Now you may have thought I would tell you the best leaders were great communicators or have this set of skills or another. But the magic, the opportunity, happens when you combine skills with the habits we’ve reviewed here.

Put these leadership habits to work.

So now we come to the real question of – what should you do with these leadership habits? These secrets?

The first thing you should do is get started. Which of these leadership habits do you need to be practicing but aren’t?

Which one is something you’ve heard feedback from others on or is an area you can improve?

Whatever it is, pick one and act.

Did you like reading about leadership habits? Here are three posts to read next:

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

The High Cost of Poor Leadership
10 Signs You Have a Scary Boss
People Pleasing Leaders & Soup Sandwiches – 5 Messes You Make When You Try to Make Everyone Happy

For more help with putting these leadership habits to work, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

This article was first published in 2018, but it was updated in 2020 just for you.