Leadership development – can I do it myself

Numerous times in my 12 years of coaching and leadership development I've been asked by clients whether I think they'd have got to the conclusion they reach by themselves. I almost alway say 'yes'. When an answer needs to be found and layers of assumptions need to be let go to find it, that process will inevitably happen. Conversations will set you thinking, choices will present themselves, learning opportunities will occur, people will leave your team, others will join and gradually the vision you were holding will get closer and closer.

 

So what's the point in investing time and money with an executive coach if you're going to get there anyway? The answer is clarity and speed! Everyone learns a methodology of thinking and of working that comes to them with the education they've had and the experiences they've accumulated. Successful corporate leaders recognise that the process of acquiring more knowledge and refining what they know is ongoing (sometimes on a daily basis because change can happen so fast). A committment to lifelong learning inevitably sets the super-achievers apart from the pack.

 

Along with the specific wisdom you acquire you also collect specific assumptions and habits. They may have served you well last year or in your previous role, however today those tools might be the exact thing that's going to slow you down on your journey to achieving the big goal.

 

I had the priviledge very recently of talking with on of the UKs top masters squash players. He has national and international events coming up over the next 6 months and was talking about his training program. It included daily gym work for stamina, court work for accuracy, and sparring with other equally-levelled opponents for reactions and maintaining match fitness.

 

'Who's your coach?' I asked. 'I don't have one right now' he replied. (What?!!). I shared that 'all the training you're investing in right now is great for sustaining your fitness and perhaps even slightly improving you game over the next 4 months. However, by yourself you will quickly reach a plateau and you'll cease to be stretched by your sparring partners. When the World Masters arrive you absolutely want to bring your 'A' game. You can do more and be more by hiring a coach. This will allow a trained, experienced eye to observe your game from the outside, to make some small (or perhaps significant) changes and to partner you in defining and achieving some stretch goals giving you the best competitive advantage when the tournament season comes round.'

 

As much as this makes sense in sport, it makes the same sense in business. Directors, CEOs and team leaders can fast-track their growth and their 'business muscle' by partnering with a great executive coach. This coach isn't going to run your business day-to-day, nor will they put in the hours that are required to reach your ulimate vision. What they will do is to ask you some excellent questions, challenge some subtle assumptions, push you to stretch your comfort zone. 

 

The knock-on effect of working with an experienced executive coach is that your clarity will grow, you'll have key conversations more suscinctly and confidently, you'll know who to draw closer to you and who to distance yourself from and instead of achieving your goals in a year or two's time, you'll notice them taking form in just a few short months. Leadership development is an ongoing investment in keeping key directors clear, motivated and action-orientated. If one of those leaders is you, the ultimate result is that your productivity soars and you achieve twice the success in half the time. 

See more at: http://www.jenniferbroadley.com

The top 5 benefits of working with an executive coach

A decade ago it was still relatively rare for corporate senior team each to have an executive coach; that’s not the case now. Human resource professionals have long championed the concept of keeping their key leaders clear, confident and collaborative by supplying them with regular external coaching conversations.

Executives themselves are now sharp to the fact that they perform better and are generally happier when they have an independent, confidential place to work things out.

In over 12 years of delivering executive coaching in media, retail, medical, technology and energy industries here are the top 5 benefits I’ve noticed in executives who have regular conversation with their executive coach:

1. They are more productive

Someone who thinks clearly can filter out the distractions faster, communicate with purpose and target the most important next steps first time round. Also, a director with clear goals can monitor their progress and get other team members and stake holders to buy in to the effective delivery of those goals.

2. They make decisions faster & with more confidence

When a leader plans things in their mind, or even talks them out with their fellow directors, there can still be a blinkered, corporate approach to the ‘route to success’. When a strategy is discussed with an independent person from outside the company (and confidentiality is guaranteed), assumptions are challenged, new angles are explored, great ideas are affirmed. All these elements contribute to the forward motion of a project as you’ll realise ‘I am clear’; ‘I do know the answers’; ‘this is a great product/service and we need to let people know that’.

3. They communicate clearly and with awareness

Communication is key to getting any sort of high level business results. Whether that’s with your team, your peers, your CEO or with customers, clients, readers or viewers – they have got to be clear why engaging with you is a good idea day after week after month. So tailoring the same message a new way so that it’s equally as inspiring is a skill worth developing. Talking through who to influence, when and how is something all great executive coaches will ask their clients to be clear on.

4. They see opportunities ahead of time

You’ll have seen certain people spot a niche, a trend or an idea way before the rest of the pack are any where near, right? Well when a mind is primed for patterns of activity, or it spots a common question being asked by the company, the customers and the market generally, it’s going to form those commonalities into an action plan more quickly than someone who’s still focussed on last year’s activity. Investing 30 minutes every fortnight with an executive coach keeps you sharp, aware and open minded – the return on that investment can be off the scale.

5. They are happier

It’s a funny thing to measure happiness. Does someone laugh more, do they get more things right, do they lift the mood of a room just by being there? Who knows. What 12 years of coaching executives has shown me though is that a single conversation asking the right type of questions and allowing the right sort of information to come forth can change a person’s life for ever. A huge statement I know, however I see leaders, CEOs, MDs and senior directors who appear to the outsides world to be already successful (because most often they are!), take their personal and professional lives to a whole new level. They listen better, ask more constructive questions and acknowledge the changes and the progress in a way that makes their corporate and home life altogether lighter.

Executive coaches are not for the faint hearted. They are for corpporate pioneers, games changers and  team champions. If you’re a leader in business and are considering what ‘more’ could look like – the right executive coach will open up new ways of thinking, new choices and new life results.

See more at: http://www.jenniferbroadley.com

A CEO’s legacy

Leaders define success in any number of ways – increasing turnover, launching innovative products, hiring world-class teams, going global, changing lives.

Some CEOs are credentialed and experienced to the hilt; others are risk takers and their own best PR machine. Some step in to lead a share-held company; others start from the ground up turning millions into billions in a single decade. Whatever their style and character, every CEO holds the intention that they leave a company and its people – employees and clients – healthier, happier and richer for them having been involved.

How do you train for leadershipthough? What are the lessons? Can anyone make it to the top of a medium or large company? Is it about qualifications, contacts, networking, character, good-fortune, divine-interventions? Who knows … in reality a heady mix of all of it probably.

The skills of a good CEO include:

• awareness – what attracts a customer to their brand and how do we provide more of that
• advanced people skills – spotting talent and influencing and motivating with sincerity
• a vision for the future of the organisation – its products & services, its people and its customers & clients

Exceptional skills would be:

• servant leadership – a proactive empathy with each person involved in the business cycle and an full-time investment in empowering their greater expression personally & professionally
• active life-long learning – where personal development is ongoing and equally sought out in times of challenge and of success
• collaborative mindset – where it’s not about ‘more for us’ it’s about ‘more for all’ – where knowledge, resources and route-to-market are shared in order that financial and environmental benefits further reward the customer  as well as the companies’ involved

And those leaders who move forward the fastest and surest:

• have an exceptional leadership team supporting the shared company vision
• actively expand their ceiling of understanding – intellectually (where are the next technical and people innovations coming from), inspirationally (how do I manage this newest team dynamic to continue to sustain high performance in my directors), intuitively (how do we best respond to the rapidly changing market place, purchasing styles and global clientelle) – and put in place stimulus that keep them thinking at the edge of their comfort zones (mentors, executive coaches, what-if hubs, mastermind groups)
• cultivate a culture of creativity, diversity, authenticity and integrity – which cascades from the CEO through the leadership team to the mangers, teams, collaborating companies and out to a market which responds in kind by repeatedly investing in the products and services of that brand.

More for all and less to none – that’s an overall winning CEO legacy!

See more at: http://www.jenniferbroadley.com

How to talk to your CEO …

How easy is it to get to talk with your CEO or board directors? If you’re like most people in medium to large corporates you won’t have clear access to the majority of the senior leaders. And to some extent it has to be like that. Heirarchy’s are not there for the vanity of the directors, but to protect their time so they can think and deliver in ways only they can do.

We’ve all heard the water cooler chat about ‘they should stop spending money on the marketing and spend more on the product’ or ‘if I was running this show I’d never pay those contractors to be on call – save the money and hire some permanent staff’ – the expert opinion of those not in the know.

However, sometimes there can be priceless feedback from employees –  and that different business angle from a new view point can be insightful, simple and financially rewarding to a company. How does that employee get their idea from their head, up 4 levels of management and still have their concept be as authentically represented as when they thought it up? Plus, how do they ensure the acknowledgement of the idea comes back to them and doesn’t get allocated to a career-hungry senior manager somewhere up the line?

So there are a few things that probably need to be in place to get your ideas to your CEO. Your success with this might well be influenced by:
• the size and culture of your company
• the professionalism of your manager (and therefore his/her ability to influence)
• your capacity to grasp the big picture within which your idea sits (especially if your company owns many brands or has a number of different products or services)

Here are 5 ways to get your idea tothe CEO:

1. Write the concept down and email it to a colleague or a friend so that there’s written confirmation that the idea originated with you
2. It’s always a right first steps to talk with your manager and ask him or her for their feedback and whether they think the idea has value enough to go to whatever height of leadership has the decision making power. This may be all that’s needed and once progress is made, or the idea adopted, the acknowledgement comes straight back to you
3. You can email or phone the CEO’s assistant and ask what whether you can have some time in the diary. Be prepared to explain what it’s for as it’s a PA (or EA)’s job to gate-keep for their boss and to make a first judgement as to whether this will be a valuable use of their time. If that answer is to send something to the PA first so she/he can review it, by all means do that then follow up in a day or two to check what he next step might be.
4. When you get time with your CEO, make sure you’re prepared. Your conversation may make a lot of sense to you and you may be very passionate about the area of the company in which you work. The Chief’s job though contains a responsibility for every employee within the organisation, plus the production and delivery of the product and service of your company, and the satisfaction of the clients who access those products and services. Her (or his) time is precious so you must know your information and how to answer reasonable questions around it.
5. Relax. Remember that the CEO has work his or her way to where they are with victories and challenges along the way in the same way that you’ve had those. You’ve got the meeting because it sounded like it was worthwhile so be yourself and speak from the heart.

- See more at:http://www.jenniferbroadley.com