Instant People Skills: Coach Yourself & Others

Command or Coach?

Command and control or charismatic leadership is what most of us think of when we hear the word leader. The picture is giving orders, galvanizing action, powerful motivation. While there are definitely times when that makes sense - mostly in a crisis - as a standard mode of leadership it is ultimately counter-productive. Consultants often recommend this when you want to change an organization - saying you have to "create a burning platform." In other words, you have to make people believe (true or not) that if they don't change it's as if they're standing on a platform burning away under them.    Bull.

Of course, burning platforms, crises and a common sense of urgency force people to pull together, but how soon will it be before the leader becomes like the boy who cried wolf (saying there was a wolf and there wasn't, until one day a real wolf came along and ate him up, but no one paid attention). People stop responding to crisis after crisis. Burnout also takes a toll even if there's truth in it. The goal in organizations should be to avoid burning platforms in any case. Create one for effect and it may truly get out of control and burn you up.

What this means is that another mode of leadership is better for every day use: coaching or servant leadership, in which the leader ignites team members individual and common interest in projects through logic and by knowing what interests people, and then helps them find ways to get the projects done. People are very highly motivated by the feeling they're making a contribution. Show them how and help them and they'll leap through barriers to make things happen.

I recall several times managers coming to me saying their entire department was eager to work several weeks till past midnight. Incredibly they were telling the truth. The team had set itself goals to get a project finished. I supplied hotel costs in one case to enable it, plenty of pizza in others, but only after checking to make sure it was truly voluntary and reminding every one personally to take time off when they needed it during and after the project. No one asked them to do this. But they always knew they could organize the way they wanted to get stuff done and that they'd get total support on any reasonable request.

People become incredibly creative, more than I could have in many, many cases, when they feel it's up to them, it makes a real difference and it's appreciated. I never felt the need to mention a "burning platform" unless it was real, and thankfully that was rare.

Starting idea: Core skills make effectiveness easier

The goal of this blog is to illustrate just one simple observation with examples and wide-ranging references:  that to be effective at leadership or "people skills and strategies" (including formal human resources and business strategies) requires practice with just five key concepts that become five dependable core habits (or as we often call good habits: skills).

To avoid suspense, here they are:
1. be positive (building confidence shouldn't be hard, but takes many people a lot of practice),
2. be honest (the greatest failing of many otherwise excellent leaders, especially isolated CEOs!),
3. choose a strategic direction (by asking yourself how 1 and 2 combine logically at the same time   
    to form a direction to take you from where you are now [your reality] to your goal),
4. build habits/skills slowly and steadily through practice so you progress based on this direction
5. keep these in sight and in balance, aligned with other your other strategies... until two things
    happen - you build momentum and these become automatic, almost unconscious habits.   

Each of these five habits can be developed by anyone. Everyone can lead, lead life successfully and use these positive skills to achieve more than they ever dreamed both at work and in the rest of their lives. If we can show people how, they can change the world for the better at every level.

I learned this over seven interesting careers and jobs in different industries, all involving helping people develop skills, usually the skills to manage, lead or deal with other people. Throughout the 14 years I headed Human Resources for a national retail chain with 70,000 people, developing nearly 4500 managers and executives, I found myself explaining these skills over and over. Over time you find simpler ways to see them and explain them. This is it. Now I pass them on to audiences of all sorts through my public speaking, coaching and strategy consulting business.

When you need to make moment-to-moment decisions dealing with people, as leaders always must, you need a manageable mental picture of what to do.

Once these five skills become automated as habit they can be applied virtually without hesitation in almost every single situation you encounter.

Through trial and error, I saw how I could develop confidence and show others how to as well - confidence that anything is achievable, given a reasonable amount of time. Anything any person can do is something any one of us could do with enough time - and it's usually far less time than we ever imagine!