Here’s a gift of 5 actions you can start right now in service of strengthening your Leadership capabilities!

1. Build greater trust. You do this by ensuring that you follow up when you say you will. Lack of follow up, putting promises on the back burner because your busyness is the priority, or dismissing the promise to follow up as not really that important can dramatically erode trust. Instead of espousing intentions to follow up, commit to doing so and DO IT, whether you are managing up or down.
2. Put on your big set of listening ears. People want to be listened to, they want to know that you care. Practice harnessing your energy that hungrily wants to take over every conversation and anxiously move things into action. Just decompress for a moment a really listen to your staff, customers, peers, team members . . . hell, even your boss. If you want to develop high contributors, they need space to be heard and acknowledged . . . by you!
3. Increase your self-awareness. How are you showing up for others as a leader? Don’t know! Contact your Human Resources people, Organization Development professionals or your RWBA executive coach to be in service of your finding out what processes, instruments or other support might be available to help you understand yourself better and leverage that knowledge into stronger top and bottom lines!
4. Be a better relationship builder. Vertically, horizontally, and diagonally . . . throughout the organization.
5. Model great leadership to others. You’ve got to walk the talk. Your direct and indirect reports emulate the leadership that they experience with you. Are you proud of everything that you do? If you had to pick one leadership behavior to work on, what would that be? How can you assure you can successfully change that behavior?

Most importantly, have fun with these thoughts and enjoy yourself!

“Bob, I’m a little shocked!” This is how my executive coaching client, Danny, the Vice-President-Production Operations with a large energy firm in the oil patch responded at the beginning of our conversation when asked, “How are things back at the ranch?” He went on to explain that when he had been nudged by their Human Resource function to get a sense of forecasted turnover over the next few years through retirements, attrition, etc., his people had collectively come to the conclusion that 70% of the staff in Danny’s division would turn over in the next 3 years. “Well, what are you planning to do to prevent the potential adverse consequences?”, I asked.

In response, Danny stated, “We clearly have to start identifying successors to the key Production Operations leadership positions, and in parallel with this identify and accelerate the development of High Potentials.” “What are your other glimpses of the obvious?” I asked him. “That’s a darn good question. I guess we’ve got to review other critical roles and specifically any flight risk staff!” 

“What generally would be the outcomes you and your leadership team would likely look for by doing this?” I asked again. He quickly responded with increased energy, “Well for one, identify key talent at the senior levels of our division, get a solid sense of our bench strength, get those we identify to be clear on their needed development activities, and agree with our senior team as to what exactly the key succession management metrics should  be!”. Danny had quickly created excellent strategic direction around this challenge that’s common to most private and public sector organizations.

When asked, “What’s really driving all of this?”, Danny said “That’s another great question. We’re anticipating continued strong growth once the economy gets back on its feet and obviously anticipating turnover of our key people. The increased challenge of filling these key roles along with our questionable current bench strength and readiness to backfill are clearly wanting, as well as our lack of being able to identify HiPo’s right now and having them ready to step into senior leadership roles when we need them to surface. I think these are the real concerns here.”

“How do you feel about all of this?” I asked. “Quite frankly, I’m disappointed, mad as hell for allowing ourselves to get into this position, and I’m damned anxious about what might happen if we don’t get on top of it . . . and yesterday! It’s now one of our top priorities!”

“So, what do you want to do about it?” I asked him. “Well, it’s clear that we’re engineering experts and not Human Resource experts so we’ll need to get together with HR and soon. I’ll put this at the top of the list at our next Production Ops executive leadership team meeting this coming Tuesday.”

“If you thought you knew what needed to be done in terms of the overall process for moving this forward quickly, what might that be?” Being the quick thinker he naturally is, Danny stated, “OK, do you just make these questions up? Well first, I would think that we need to scope out what actually needs to be identified through our succession management initiative. Second, we would no doubt have to assess and review our current engineering talent for levels of performance and potential. Third, we’d obviously have to start figuring out what key leadership and individual-contributor engineering roles need to be replaced and when. Last, I’m thinking it’s about making sure we have a top notch development action planning process in place that can be quickly designed and implemented. Does that make sense?”. “More importantly, does it make sense to you?” I responded. “You know, it does. Thanks.”, said Danny.

“So what’ll your next steps be given what you’ve said so far?” I asked him. “Again, the questions Uncle Bob!”, Danny said jokingly. “Well let me see. I’m thinking we start right away by initiating a succession planning meeting between us and HR early next month to agree on role expectations, determine critical roles in the Production Operations division, identify high impact engineer flight risks and begin a talent review to develop a list of HiPo’s.” “Then what?”, I asked. “OK”, Danny said, “Later in the month, we’ll make sure we have a talent replacement plan in place. In the following month we can shoot for having a development plan nailed down, and the month after that have our succession metrics in place with a solid progress plan established. Yeah, that’s sounds like it would do it.” 

Lastly I asked Danny, “So how will we know you’ve done what you’ve said?” “Again, with the questions!” he responded tongue in cheek. “I’ll send you a one page copy of our general plan for making this happen with target dates. I’ll send you an email once I believe each of the key milestones have been achieved. We can also carve out a small portion of some of our future executive coaching calls for us to discuss what’s happening. Will that work?” “It’s sounds like a plan my friend.” said I.

What insights in the foregoing were there for you? What one word captures your reaction? How do you feel about the subject of talent management and succession planning. What do you want to do with it? I would love to receive any gems this may have conjured up for you. For those interested, a wonderful book on this subject is ‘The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company’, by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel. Take care and have a great day!

Well, it’s no secret that The Benwicks are huge animal lovers! To build on the current theme of Bob’s recent blog on Beau Benwick, I would like to share another perspective on leadership based on the human interaction with canines as we seek to establish the “leader in the pack” not unlike establishing our role as leader in any organization or community.

Cesar Millan, is an incredible animal behaviorist. You may have seen his show on the National Geographic Channel…. The Dog Whisperer…. I tend to tune in the wee hours of the morning on those nights when sleep escapes me – too much late night caffeine! I always get “take aways” from each show….not just in regard to our canine house mates, but I see such parallels to leadership amongst human kind. Cesar’s coin of the phrase “Leader of the Pack” has great meaning regardless of what species provides the context.

While several leadership pathways emerge from observing and reading about Cesar’s choice of methods [read Be the Pack Leader, Millan, C. & Peltier, J.(2007)], I am taken with the emphasis demonstrated on the value of calm assertive energy as a means to bring about desirable outcome…..in canine world this showcases the need for self regulation of the leader’s energy as dogs are all about reading this. It is what they respond to. If we as leader exhibit anger, excitement, anxiety, and/or fear while working with our canines, what will we bring about for them? Clearly we are modeling unbalanced behavior of which they will emulate or respond to. Watching those on TV who reach out to Cesar to bring solution to their canine problems, he is very clear as to who needs the help….the leader! It is interesting to note that those coming from a leadership position that demonstrates anxiety or excitable behaviour also tend to struggle to achieve the bottom and top line results, results they are looking for as their messaging. Just as with canines, they will often come across to others as perhaps reactive and confusing, or unpredictable, intimidating, lackluster and incredulous, often eroding that most important aspect…..trust! 

So what does this mean for us homo sapiens? In our human experience under conditions of stress (that’s constantly around us), the question is, ‘as leaders how do we show up for others and what messaging are we sending to those that we lead? If our anxiety, anger, and/or fear are not well self-regulated, particularly in these challenging times….. can you, the organizational leader, really expect to get desired contribution and performance from your people once you’ve made key decisions? Under continuous growing demands from all around you, in such a state can a you, as leader, clearly produce the best balanced decisions for the organization and its constituents? What tools could your organization provide you with to fully support you to better self-regulate, thus maximizing your leadership effectiveness and providing the leverage for you to become a highly respected “leader of the pack”? 

And….to Cesar Millan, …… it would be a sincere pleasure to eventually have the opportunity to meet a true developer of leaders!

Are there any Cesars in your organization? Are you one? What do you need to say yes to in order to create the possibility! What do you need to start saying no to in order assure its happening?

I’m quite excited to share a recent newletter created by Jake Jacobs, a global leader in the field of organization development, specifically in the area of large-scale, real-time system change. It’s a pleasure to share with you his comments on ‘Collaborating to Create More Value: Leadership Coaching and Large Scale Change’. Enjoy!

“Given my focus on collaboration, I wanted to share with you one way in which my clients and I have benefited from partnering with others. I have known Bob Benwick for 15 years. We first worked together on a Real Time Strategic Change effort at a bank where he was the senior HR executive. Now he and his wife Bev have a global corporate coaching practice based out of Vancouver.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Bob and Bev to talk about synergies between their coaching practice and my large-scale change work.  Bob, Bev and I share the same goal: people and organizations achieving their full potential. The difference is in how we do it.  Bob and Bev (and other coaches) focus on individual leaders’ development. I (and other large-scale change consultants) focus on the overall organization’s development. When we partner, our clients get the best of both worlds.

Bob explains, “I had exposure to the RTSC approach many years ago. It helps businesses that need to turn on a dime (competitively) like the bank I worked at. It is absolutely crystal clear to me how much coaching and large-scale change complement each other.”

Bev continues, “A goal of our coaching is for leaders to bring greater depth to their relationships. Organizations that use us a lot want to make big changes and make them fast. We often get asked to help leaders work together across departments.”

It’s tough to tell whether Bev is talking about her coaching practice or my large-scale change work.

Bob adds, “We contract with leaders for a minimum of six months. There has to be serious commitment or it won’t work. Leaders (and all of us) have taken years to develop our current habits. It will take time to change them. The more people change, the easier and faster it is for the system they work in to change.”

My take on Bob’s comment: the more the system changes, the easier and faster it is for the people in it to change.

Putting leadership coaching and large-scale change together is a “win-win-win.” Leaders can make big changes happen faster – and sustain them over time. And we do a better job for them than either of us could do  alone. “

Jake Jacobs is co-founder and partner of Winds of Change Group — a consulting firm specializing in fast and lasting change.

What are your feelings about change and coaching? What intrigues you the most about Jake’s comments?  What are the possibilities?

I happen to be at what is referred to as a ‘Real Time Large Scale’ change event that EDS was engaged in. They had brought together their top 400 leaders within their global operations a number of years ago to meet over a two day period to gain a collective understanding where they were at strategically, obtain a clear picture of what better would look like, agreement as to what they needed to do to move forward and achieve what it was they wanted, and to work on initial plans to develop their capability to successfully make it happen. 

As the Vice President-Human Resources & Organization Development of a large financial firm at the time, I had brought with me the CEO and the Vice President-Finance of the organization. The objective was to provide my associates with the opportunity to watch a large-scale event happen first hand and then decide whether to bring this particular approach to our own organization.

The experience absolutely bowled my associates over when they experienced first hand the enormous level of collaboration, the open sharing of thoughts, feelings and wants by all participants in a way that was designed to fully engage their hearts and minds. The level of positive high energy, caring, and openness was palpable in a very large meeting room organized specifically for this unique event.

At one of the breaks on the second day of the event I approached the two Organization Development consultants who had been contracted to lead the design and delivery of this amazing event. They were Kathy Dannemiller and Jake Jacobs. Both global leaders in the field of organization development, and in particular, the facilitation of large-scale real-time strategic change events such as this one. These events range from facilitating anywhere between a couple of hundred up to thousands of organizational participants at a time. Both are remarkable people. Unfortunately Kathy is no longer with us, but is key to my next experience.

I walked up to both of them and asked. “So how do you think the process is going? Are the participants . . . the organization . . . where you think they should be?” I thought this was a pretty mundane question that would beget a simple response. But that didn’t happen. Instead I received a very perfunctory comment from Kathy that literally made me step back. Learning doesn’t always come in pleasant doses. She turned around and simply said to me, “Listen my friend (we knew each other relatively well), they are exactly where they should be! It ‘s irrelevant where we think they should be! It’s where they are now that we need to work with. They will move forward at a speed that works for them. So what’s your next question.” Jake was sitting to the side and just smirked. This was Kathy-forthright, authentic, completely honest and tended not to pull punches. That’s why anyone who was open to truly learning and growing loved her. She was always free in the gift of her skills, knowledge and experience and never hesitated to be there for you and give when asked. She never hesitated to cut to the quick and call a ‘spade a spade’ as they say.

From this I developed a profound understanding of what it takes to ‘be’ with clients and work with them at their readiness level. Even if you want them to be two light years ahead of where you think they should be, it’s where they are ‘now’ that is most important. It’s about them and not you. When that happens, it takes enormous pressure off you as an agent of change whether you are a leader, manager, consultant or coach. Work where with where your clients, staff, boss, customers, etc. are at.

I’ve found this gold nugget has paid off huge dividends. Does this experience resonate with yours? What’s in working with others’ readiness for you? When you honor this, what’s in the payoff? If you ignore this, what are the consequences? Where might this be of value ‘back at the ranch’? I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings?