Courageous leaders coach to achieve high performance

In these current challenging times where we are being asked to do more with less - many organisations are relying on their managers and leaders to 'coach' others within the business to achieve high performance. I believe this can only work if there is a strong foundation for coaching. The foundation for coaching can be summarised into 3 critical types of 'real' conversations that people need to be having with each others. Leaders need to have a:
- delegating conversation to set the person up to complete the task
- supportive conversation while they undertake the task
- feedback conversation to inform the person on the adequacy of their performance.

If these conversations do not happen regularly, consistently and authentically then coaching conversations are not going to be succesful in changing behaviours and achieving the high performance you are looking for.

Courageous leaders negotiate differently!

I had an incredible experience last week facilitating business negotiation skills workshops for a client. When first asked to undertake this project I declined because I believed that I did not negotiate and cringed at the use of the word. Courageous leaders do not negotiate...........this was the inner chatter in my head and yet upon reflection and challenge I realised that courageous leaders DO negotiate and so did I - just on different terms to that of the stereotype I had in my head about what constituted an effective negotiatior! My upbringing in business had lead me to believe that an effective negotiator was aggressive, kept information and needs close to their chest, played manipulative games and walked out with the knowledge they had WON and the other person had lost! And this was not what I did and it was not what I ever wanted to do!This experience has allowed me to recognise that I am a great negotiator but that I do it with my style and now I am proud to refer to this as the courageous negotiator. The courageous negotiator is transparent, gives information freely and with the intent of finding the best outcome for all parties because they believe so strongly that it is win-win or no deal. I also now know that my style is very much based on the wonderful movie called "Pay It Forward" and counter to what many effective negotiators believe I make widespread use of generosity. This has created great outcomes for me and for others involved in the negotiation. So for me I am eternally thankful to this client as I have now totally reframed myself and are proud to say that I AM a negotiator - a courageous negotiator!!!

Can people be expected to manage and lead?

People in their organisational roles are being expected to manage AND lead. Yet in my experience these same people devote so little conscious time to explore how to build this capability - so little time spent reflecting to capture their learning, so little time reading about it and so little time spent talking about it with their colleagues and bosses! How can we expect people to get better at managing and leading when there is so little impetus, enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration around the importance of it. We need more people to have the courage to step up and challenge what is happening in their organisations and challenge the choices they make - to spend time reading about managing and leading instead of the latest tax legislation, the stock market movements, the latest breakthrough in technical research of their specialist field! People need to want to improve the way they manage and lead and actively build their knowledge, skills and desire to become the kind of leader they can be proud of!!!!

Courage to be YOU

In developing the content for my book I was reflecting on some new thinking and would like to share it with you..............I see the constant tension leaders need to manage between financial, brand and people sustainability - the constant push and pull between the short term and the long term; the external and the internal. And this tension permeates every decision leaders make, each behaviour leaders choose and every promise they make to any stakeholder. To harness the creative force that can lie behind this tension takes uncompromising courage from any leader. The Courageous Leaders Model clearly advocates how individuals can redeploy into a position where their courage allows them to harness this tension and unleash something truly creative.
How realistic does this feel. Can courage enable you to manage your way through the ever present tension in your daily lives? Is it sufficient if you have developed your self mastery to an extent that means you are clear on the kind of leader you want to be and now you just need the courage to "be" that leader?

Tough economic conditions catalyse the downward spiral of fear for leaders OR can it ignite the upward spiral of courage and hope

FEAR: is driving much of our behaviour right now as we do not know what to expect next. We are living in incredibly uncertain times. Our teenage daughter came home a few nights ago and said her history teacher had told them we were heading for a depression and she wanted to know what we could expect this to be like!!!! I received an e-mail from a "funky thinker" colleague who said stop reading the papers and read about the future 10 years from now and start to explore how you will fit into this - forget the doom and gloom of the here and now!!!! I sat with an executive team as they spoke of the risk aversion and the fear driving their choices in leadership behaviour - they have returned to the command and control style of leadership - where you control, protect and comply. Leaders demand things are done their way and the costs they think need to be cut are cut. And so they have catalysed people into the downward spiral of fear. There is an alternative to this approach - there is the Upward Spiral of Courage.
COURAGE: I witnessed a nation starting to embrace the Upward Spiral of Courage after Obama's speech last night - he provided hope and is showing the courage to change! Leaders in corporate Australia can do the same - approach the problems and the issues with interest, creativity and integrity. Facilitate others thinking so they can come to work and enjoy themselves, develop themselves and approach problems with creativity rather than constraint and fear. We have a generation of people who have not experienced such financial hardships before - imagine the ideas they might have if we only facilitate rather than constrain and close them down by telling them their ideas won't work!!!!
Fear is an unproductive and uncertain place to live in; while courage is where we feel energised and we believe and we have hope!!!!!
Join us on the Upward Spiral of Courage and leave the donward spiral of fear behind!!!!!!

Importance of emotional resilience

I have had an interesting few days exploring the criticality of emotional resilience especially given the current economic times. We read everyday how more and more people are losing their jobs or like a friend of mine having their salaries cut very severely so no one has to lose their job! Emotional resilience is fundamental to us as humans with choices and wanting control over our own destinies - we must be able to firstly recognise our emotions, then embrace and use our emotions constructively and then we must create thinking space so we can determine how best to use these emotions. This is where reflective thinking is just so important and you would all recall I use De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats to focus reflective thinking.

I am working on honing my emotional resilience so I do not allow my emotions to hijack me into actions I am not proud of later!!!!

We need far more courageous leaders

I walked away from a client meeting today filled with the overwhelming conviction that we need far more courageous existing leaders and until we have them, we need to realise that behavioural change within organisations is always going to be a mere ‘tinkering at the edges’.
We need existing leaders to step into a place of complete vulnerability where they are prepared to be challenged and most definitely prepared to change. And in my experiences to date I have far too little evidence of this happening. The even more frightening thing is that the more research I do on fear, the more I wonder how we can truly encourage more existing leaders to work constructively with their fear and jump into this place of complete vulnerability – where they do not have control and they do not have the solutions.
In these turbulent economic times we are seeing more and more existing leaders clinging to the Downward Spiral of Fear (link to previous newsletter) to protect, to comply, to regulate and to control. What we really need are leaders who are prepared to climb the Upward Spiral of Courage – to embrace vulnerability, to want their thinking challenged and to come to issues with creativity and an abundance mentality! We so desperately need our existing leaders to be courageous!!!!