Truth is, many leaders in the workplace fear conflict and confrontation. They’re worried about potential reprisal and retaliation. Or they don’t want to cause slowdowns in the workplace or other negative backlash.

Maybe Joe is an under-performing employee, yet gets just enough work done to scrape by. Perhaps Marsha is an argumentative, overly assertive type who intimidates everyone she works with – including you. And while Victor is a nice guy, he’s always late for work and never meets deadlines.

It looks like many leaders are experiencing challenges like these.

In April 2011, The Conference Board of Canada issued a report about how Canada performs in the area of labour productivity growth. The news isn’t good. Canada holds a “C” grade and has fallen to 12th spot with a productivity growth rate of negative 0.9 per cent.

But the news isn’t all doom and gloom. When it comes to productivity, the report states, a key firm-specific factor is human capital. As one of your organization’s leaders, this is an area where you can make a direct, positive impact.

How?

One hour. Once a month.  A Monthly One-on-One. That’s right – schedule individual, regular updates with each of your employees.

After all, as a leader it’s your job to create an atmosphere of trust, collaboration and motivation. It’s also your job to make sure your employees are clear on departmental and organization goals, and motivated to do the best job possible. What more effective way to achieve those goals than by getting to know your employees better? And let’s not forget about recognizing when people do a good job.

I’m not suggesting you invite them over for Sunday dinner or to watch your kid’s soccer game. But making an investment of one hour per month per employee might just be the best thing you can do for your organization, your staff – and yourself.

Five Tips for Making the Most of a Monthly One-on-One Update:

1. Update each other on what’s important to know; follow up from previous meeting(s)
2. Focus on what is going well – from both perspectives
3. Ensure alignment with organizational goals, values, departmental and individual performance plans
4. Offer each other one suggestion to make a more significant impact
5. Keep a simple, easy to access record of your conversations

It’s important that communication is ongoing, mutual and respectful.

Engagement is individual.

The BlessingWhite research paper, Employee Engagement Report 2011 – Beyond the numbers: A practical approach for individuals, managers and executives, substantiates this point. A key recommendation: “To reap the rewards that a more engaged organization promises, your entire workforce needs to be accountable for their piece of the ‘engagement equation’ every day“.

Employee engagement has a direct positive impact on your company’s productivity and bottom line results. As a leader, you can actively contribute to success by learning how to enhance communication and collaboration with your employees. Before you know it, those tough conversations will become positive and productive dialogue.

More ideas on making tough conversations easier

• Kathleen Redmond’s book, Leadership by Engagement: Leading Through Authentic Character to Attract, Retain, and Energize is full of ideas, insights and real-life scenarios. Order your copy today.

• Need help getting started on your Monthly One-on-One Updates? Here are some engaging ideas for dialoguing with your employees.

For more information, contact Kathleen by email or phone: 905-478-7962

© 2012 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

“Leadership by Engagement” is a powerful yet simple how-to guide that provides the tools, insights, and resources you need to attract, retain, and energize the best of the workforce and ensure sustainable success.

Whether you’re a new or experienced leader, “Leadership by Engagement” is a must-read. You’ll discover how to:

• Create a leadership legacy built on engagement intention, principles and values
• Apply the 12 proven Leadership Engagement Behaviors
• Provide results-focused feedback
• Develop strategies to deal with bullying behavior and other types of conflict
• Practice self-care to ensure that you are staying engaged and energized
• Communicate to achieve maximum alignment and build trust

“Some very powerful insights into engagement, trust and the impact of our behaviors. With the willingness to change, some hard work, a little patience and truly listening to others we can transform ourselves not only into better leaders but better individuals as well.” – Dan Whitley, Manager, Siemens Canada Limited

Learn how to build a culture of engagement and trust in your organization. Order your copy of Leadership by Engagement today.

Leadership By Engagement: Leading Through Authentic Character to Attract, Retain, and Energize

© 2012 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

Best wishes,
Kathleen Redmond, Don Cousens
John Rogers, Lois Tori
Rick Dominico, Fred Faber
Cindy Capobianco and Mary Baker

We congratulate the companies who recognize that giving back to the community not only supports good causes, but it actually builds positive emotional connections with employees. There is evidence that social responsibility correlates to stronger engagement with employees which translates into improved customer service, less turnover and added attraction as an employer.

Source: Towers Perrin.

Would you like to explore how an Executive Coach can help you engage your team for respect, responsibility and results?

Harvard Business Review January 2009 “Executive coaching does appear to be creating a space for itself in the corporate landscape, particularly with the shift toward coaching high performers.”

Read More.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments. Please post them below.

Step back to the 60s and 70s for a moment. Organizations were traditional hierarchies and part of the leader’s role was to mentor their direct reports. In those days of message slips silently waiting on your desk there was more time to spend observing and “curbside coaching.”  Tribal management – being mentored upwards through the organization was the order of the day.

Fast forward to 2011. You are bombarded with information by a variety of technologies. Administrative assistants rarely guard the door and time of their bosses. Who actually has an administrative assistant and a door, never mind an office?

Today’s organizations are flatter, leaner and faster. More laws, regulations and guidelines.  Which leaves little time to mentor and develop others.

Who is helping leaders navigate their way to actions they feel confident about, balance and achieving their own goals?

That is where coaches step in. The Globe and Mail tells us that “today, it is more about development of high potential managers than remedying problems, and smart self-starters at the middle level come to see coaching as key to their advancement”.

Research tells us coaching is more powerful and effective than training alone. Here is some data on actual return on investment.

What I often hear in my role of Executive Coach is “it is very helpful to have someone to talk to, particularly someone objective who has experience in dealing with employees.”

Please click Executive Coaching more information. 

Two Approaches for Leaders to Develop Coaching Skills

1.  Leadership by Engagement 2 Day Coaching Workshop

Your leaders learn to coach in a proven, supportive, effective manner. The session is customized for your workplace. Learning is supported by post workshop coaching sessions. Please see Coaching for Engagement for more information.

2.  eLearning Coaching for Leadership Program – University of Guelph

Leaders who can coach effectively have a definite advantage. Bringing out the best in others benefits the person, your team and the organization. Check out the one year Coaching for Leadership Program, a Certificate offering by the University of Guelph (which I have been developing for over a year).

Discover how to create a coaching culture for sustainability, hone your coaching skills and apply the coach approach in challenging situations. Learn with leaders from a variety of organizations using SKYPE to practice coaching skills in small groups, an interactive website and rich resources to support your learning.

Please click Coaching for Leadership for more information.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

But how can an organization flourish in the face of such uncertainty? In a crisis, proactive leaders ensure success by strengthening your team’s performance; by focusing on where the challenges lie, in the market and inside the organization.

Here are 5 Strategies for Leading to Engage during a difficult time, to engage both your customers (potential as well as current) and your team.

1. Seize the External Opportunity
Dire economic straits can present an opportunity to create a new customer base as well as strengthen loyalty with your current customers. Rather than panic, clarify your strengths. What can you do to leverage them even more powerfully, to train your staff to function even more effectively? This is a time for everyone to be as attentive and skilled as possible. Focus on what your team does best, on building loyalty/revenue rather than cutting costs which is a defensive reaction that can diminish your talent and send the company into a downward spiral.

2. Seize the Internal Opportunity
Speaking of talent, remember that during challenging times people are more open to considering improvements, particularly if they understand the connection between working smarter and their job. Consider the “Stop, Start, Continue” exercise to ferret out unnecessary or outdated processes. Bluntly ask yourselves: “What are we doing that doesn’t make sense?” This is a time to streamline and be as effective as possible.

3. Be Visible and Accessible – Leaders of Courageous Character Required!
Tell the truth. Rumours abound when there is a lack of accurate information. Share what you know and what you don’t know, emphasizing that you must find solutions together. Explore all the modes of communication. Town Hall meetings, departmental meetings, One-on-One conversations, and email announcements are some obvious choices, but podcasts, webinars and other forms of broadcasts are examples of ways you can leverage technology to maximize your message. No one will complain that there is “too much communication” as long as it is honest, properly cascaded, and consistent. Leaders who communicate their intentions effectively build trust, and trust is more crucial than ever during challenging times. A recent study by Watson Wyatt revealed that companies with the most effective employee communication programs provided a 91% total return to shareholders, compared with 62% for firms that communicated least effectively.

4. Talk about Emotion
Uncertainty breeds fear. Courageous leaders confront this reality by asking tough questions such as:

• How is this situation affecting you?
• What support do you need from me?
• How can we best get through this time as a team?
• How can we create more camaraderie and a stronger team in order to flourish at this time?

Listen, listen, and listen. If you’re going to take the time to ask tough questions, take even more time to understand the answers you receive. Empathy is required in order to talk with your team. A leader who says “it is normal to be unsettled, let’s find opportunities together to thrive” will gain trust and support. Leaders who expect the team to just get on with work as normal will perpetuate fear, perhaps even resentment.

Reveal your own emotional state: “I am certainly concerned and need to know that everyone of us is looking for and communicating ways to improve the business” is more honest and authentic than pretending you are obliviously optimistic. As long as your overall   focus is on understanding, solutions and success, you stand on solid ground.

5. Communicate Results
Creating solid plans, tracking results and communicating progress will keep your team informed and encouraged. If your results are less than desirable, review them together and create a new plan. Consider shorter plans to match the volatility of the moment.

Inclusiveness is a key ingredient to success in tough times as well as good ones. The 2007/2008 Watson Wyatt Communication ROI Study showed that high-performing companies are 10 times more likely than low-performing companies to give their employees a voice. Being involved, focused and aware of results will help keep your team as assured and energized as possible.

The challenges of economic uncertainty needn’t overwhelm you and your people with fear. Smart and courageous leaders foster these same qualities in their organizations, creating teams that seize opportunities to improve during difficult times, to ensure success well into the future.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

Emotion is an element of determining our behaviour. Pretty or not, this is an undeniable fact. The current economic situation is probably having an effect on all of us, one way or another. And this is fourth quarter with all the budget scrutiny that annually occurs. If your team members are worried about their job in addition to everything else, your team and organization will feel the impact.

This is a time for leaders to lead through engagement. What does that mean right now?

1. Be Visible.
2. Ask the right questions*.
3. Listen openly and empathically.
4. Share your own perspective and ask for the support you require from the team.
5. Create a plan together.
6. Update everyone regularly and adjust the plan as required.
7. Explore ways to enhance enjoyment, camaraderie and a sense of fun.

The Right Questions*

• How is this situation affecting you?
• What support do you need from me?
• How can we best get through this time as a team?
• What should we stop, start and continue doing?
• How can we create more enjoyment in our workplace (without adding cost)?

Let’s take a breath, consider what we have to be grateful for, build on our strengths and become even stronger and more focused teams during this challenging time. Now is a time for leaders to truly engage!

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

Hard working employees are more engaged when the leader rewards good performance and deals appropriately with deficits in performance. Dynamic, committed, productive people want to work with people like themselves. Don’t you?

Engagement research states that employers who are able to manage performance issues create a greater sense of engagement and therefore productivity on their team. No surprise. The surprise lies in how many leaders struggle with this issue.

Here are 3 key questions to help you determine your Accountability Culture.

How effective are we at:

1. Clarifying Performance Expectations in tangible, measurable terms?
2. Creating a positive consequence for a person who meets or exceeds performance expectations?
3. Dealing with the person who does not meet performance expectations in one or more aspects of their job?

Lack of consequence, positive or negative, breeds mediocrity or in other words, disengagement. Engaged people equal engaged workplaces brimming with energy, focus and results.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

What is expected of me in this job? Common question. Your response will engage – or not.

Does that mean that you as the leader must know how to do the job of every one of your employees?

Significant question – especially as the spans of control broaden and leaders guide professionals from diverse disciplines. Here is the contemporary thinking.

What Leaders need to know:

• The expected outcome – what success looks like
• How performance links to organizational goals – impact of the job, well or poorly performed
• How performance is measured – internally and externally
• Appropriate workplace behaviours – Rules of Engagement for your team
• How the job interacts/is interdependent with other teams

Leaders don’t need to:

• Possess the skills to get the job done
• Understand the professional expertise
• Have specific content job knowledge
• Have formal education in the subject matter

Armed with this information may we please present a powerful example of an engaging leader.

Leadership Character Attribute – Courage

I stand up for my beliefs, principles and face challenge, fear and difficulty with fortitude. Ontario Character Community Movement Definition

Courage is a requirement of leadership.  As a leader you are under a spotlight. Everything you say and do is amplified, discussed and dissected. It takes time, energy and reflection to consistently do the “right thing.” You are in the middle – sandwiched between senior leader’s (or shareholders) direction, peer demands, client expectations and your employees.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

Do the right thing. Sounds easy. Isn’t always. It demands good information, reflection and confidence.

It is also often time consuming, potentially politically in astute, sometimes unpopular and frequently expensive to do the right thing.

Leaders are often more appreciated in retrospect for making difficult choices. One of the many reasons why leadership is challenging.

Think of Jean Chrétien’s stand to not send our troops to Iraq. Time has proven that controversial choice to be one of the most cited and appreciated resolves of his leadership. That one decision flavoured his legacy.

You are your character. You know (or should) why you do what you do. You work hard to be intentional and manage your thoughts and feelings to lead in alignment with your intention (core beliefs, values and goals). This is called authentic, inside out leadership. Much more powerful and sustainable than pandering to the popularity vote or the buzz-flavour of the month.

And that is why character is at the heart of our leadership resources.

© 2011 Centre for Character Leadership

We welcome your feedback, suggestions and comments.  Please post them below.

And so it is in the workplace. How do we choose our leaders? This edition of Intentional Act of Character sheds (with evidence!) some light.

Intentional Act of Character
Tom Oliver on Leadership Research

Dr. Charles Evans, Tom Oliver and Kathleen Redmond
Teaching team at University of Guelph MA (Leadership) Program

Tom is persistently pursuing his PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Guelph, with a special focus in the area of leadership assessment. One of the questions that Tom is frequently asked “is leadership born or learned?” Like many researchers and practitioners, Tom answers “both”.

To answer this question, Tom points to his current research project with the Ontario Veterinarian College. Leadership is an important requirement for veterinarians. In a single visit with a client and her companion, a veterinarian needs to effectively engage the client in order to understand the pet’s condition, empathize to help her cope with the illness of her beloved pet, and educate and motivate her to engage in the best active care practices in order to maximize her pet’s well-being.

Traditionally, veterinary schools have selected candidates based on their previous academic performance, with little consideration for candidates’ leadership competencies, such as interpersonal skills and problem solving abilities. The result has been that veterinarians entering practice frequently report that they are unprepared to demonstrate the range of leadership behaviours that are required of them.

In order to produce stronger leaders, Tom recommends we select for leadership competencies, and develop through experiential learning.

Research with elite athletes and musicians has found that it takes at least 10 years of daily practice and frequent feedback to achieve a high level of performance. Tom notes that “the ability to lead is no different then the ability to hit a baseball – both skills take time to develop”. Therefore organizations should select for leadership competencies because an individual high in a skill is years of developmental experiences ahead of an individual low in the skill.

The expert athlete and musician research also points to the importance of daily practice and feedback. For leadership, this must come on the job. To develop leaders through experiential on-the-job learning, organizations need to expose leaders to a number of different leadership challenges through their careers. To do this most effectively, Tom recommends that organizations identify the leadership lessons and the opportunities for feedback within each job assignment.

5 Thoughts for Developing Leaders

1. Identify leaders through evidence based competencies (see an example in “What’s New Section”)
2. Identify the important leadership lessons in job assignments
3. Match a person’s developmental needs with the experiences they need
4. 360-degree feedback can provide excellent feedback and tracking of development
5. Development can be further enhanced by well-timed coaching

Coaching and Developing Others Competency

The ability to coach and develop others is a critical competency for today’s leaders. Please contact us to explore the best tool for developing this competency in your leaders. Tools include Individual Coaching Assessment, Organizational Coaching Culture Assessment, Coaching for Engagement Workshop, group or individual coaching, development of individual coaching plans as well as an array of self awareness assessments.

Wishing you every success,