Leadership – Page 3 – Avenue Leadership Consulting

Tips for Leading Remote Teams in Times of Change

There is no better time than now to evaluate and adjust the communication practices on your team and at your organization. Communication during crisis and uncertainty is of vital importance to keeping everyone in the boat, rowing in the same direction, and calm. As your methods of work change, and for many, spending more time away from being physically together, evolving your leadership and approach to communicating will need to evolve too.

As we coach leaders through these uncertain times, they inquire about what they can do to show support to their teams during change and how their communication practices can be a vehicle of support. A few of our recommendations are:

· Communicate to your team your intention to support them and the importance of staying connected and establishing good communication practices. Add to your messaging that the practices and technology being utilized or established now for communication will likely serve the team well when things evolve to the new normal.

· Ask your team about what their needs are right now and what communication practices can support them for example, more frequent touch bases or formally scheduled time since chances to meet organically are minimized. Do this through one on one meetings, surveys/polls, and/or team meetings.

· More frequent communication is necessary during rapid change and/or crisis because day to day interactions and watercooler discussions may not be there to enable a normal pace of exchanging information. This can create a gap in team cohesion. For example, a monthly in person meeting could morph into weekly shorter meetings with some time set aside for less formal conversations on how everyone is doing.

· Gain agreement on what should be reserved for individual, versus team meetings, versus email. Distinguish between what communication methods are most appropriate for things that are not urgent, those that are urgent, and those that are an emergency.

· Use video communication as much as possible. Body language adds necessary color to the conversation and offers greater connection.

· Create digital chat-like channels for less formal or rapidly evolving communication. For example, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom chat. These won’t clog email.

We are here to support leaders and teams through this ever-changing landscape. We are happy to offer free consultation to leaders on communication practices or help them lead team discussions on establishing and refining communicating practices. Give us a call at 269 220-0053.

Leadership

The Antidote to Anxiety, Choosing Your Mindset

Uncertain times open the door for opportunity. We always have the opportunity to reset, to reflect, to reconnect, and to plan to be the leader we want to be, whatever new realities come our way.

The resilient leaders we coach and observe have mindsets that set them apart as trusted leaders and allow them to weather storms and uncertainty. Here are just some of the beliefs and attitudes of those leaders.

· As a leader, others are looking to me for guidance; my mindset and actions matter and are intentional

· Caring for myself is my foundation and enables me to care for others

· Now is more important than yesterday or tomorrow, because we only have power over this moment

· As a team, we acknowledge our anxiety, yet it is within us to be intentional and calm

· I/we chose optimism over negativity

· Emotions change and evolve – it is possible to be present with our emotions without having to react to them

· In turmoil, our team’s best practice is to pause, reflect, and plan, before taking action

· Everything eventually changes to something new; we can positively influence what comes next, no matter how challenging

· Joy exists in difficult situations; we will work to find the joy in this moment

· When in doubt, we default to kindness; to ourselves and each other

As coaches, we are here to help you navigate a rapidly changing work environment and are here to help you, your team, and your organization create a culture that thrives, even in uncertain times.

Career, Leadership

Career Sponsorship

Career sponsorship is a strategic leadership development and diversity, equity and inclusion practice that is gaining attention and being deployed in many top performing organizations.

This post is dedicated to the key aspects of career sponsorship including: what sponsorship is and how it differs from mentorship; benefits to the organization, protégé and sponsor; how to begin being a sponsor; and how to receive sponsorship.

What is career sponsorship and how does it differ from mentorship?

Developing others is a significant part of a leader’s role. Career sponsorship is another tool to aid in doing this effectively.

Career sponsorship is a practice of advocacy and support that is distinctly different from mentorship. Where mentors give advice and coaching, sharing lessons from their experience, career sponsors endorse individuals to help them obtain new career opportunities and assignments. Many refer to this as a sponsor – protégé relationship.

To illustrate the distinction in this function, think of a mentee, who is high potential. This person may be learning and growing quickly, but not quite ready for the next level. It is possible in time that he/she would become your next protégé as they grow their proficiency. Protégés are individuals who already have the skill, competency, and motivation, yet are underutilized and/or lack exposure in the organization. Mentees can become protégés, but protégés do not always require mentorship.

What are the benefits of sponsorship?

Untapped talent is a significant risk for organizations, correlating to turnover and disengagement. Career sponsorship accelerates careers, makes better use of the organization’s talent resources, and retains talent. Through sponsorship, proteges have increased job satisfaction and stronger commitment to their organization, because they feel valued. In essence, sponsors help get high potential employees noticed and create opportunities for them to advance, benefiting both the organization and the individual.

There are also benefits to sponsors. Those who take a sponsorship role experience greater loyalty and transparency from the protégé, helping the leader keep a more realistic pulse of what’s happening at all levels of the organization. Additionally, we have found that leaders feel more connected and satisfied when it’s apparent they’ve had a positive impact on another person’s career path.

How to become a sponsor

Sponsorship starts with building trust. This means finding opportunities for potential protégés to build your confidence in their potential. You can start by offering opportunities to potential protégés to see how they do. Some examples are: ask him/her to serve on a committee or cross-functional project team; connect them to a key individual in the organization and see how they are able to build that relationship — do they incorporate any insights gained into their work, and what did key the individual think about the conversation/interaction?

Look for top performers who have good ideas, demonstrate loyalty to the organization and think about long term organizational success, have an appropriate amount of candor and will provide honest feedback, and have a strong reputation with others (although this is not necessary). Keep your eye out for possibilities in meetings, gatherings, presentations, etc. Invite one or two individuals for coffee or lunch, then build a deeper relationship with them and develop rapport by find something you have in common- passion, values, hobbies. Finally, ask them where they want to take their careers and how they want to develop.

Avoid falling into the trap of picking someone who reminds you of yourself. Sponsors will learn so much more from someone whose experience is different from his/her own. Consider sponsoring women, minorities, and veterans. Studies show fewer of them are selected for advancement, which perpetuates leadership gaps.

How to become a protégé

Start by demonstrating good ideas, loyalty, candor, and honest feedback. Request a conversation with potential sponsors, offer to help where they need it, let them know about your experience and your aspirations, and ask for feedback or thought partnership on something you are working on. The goal is to over time help them want to put their name on the line for you, help them know what experiences you desire, and ask them to look out for opportunities for you.

Lead the way

Perhaps you or someone you know felt forced to switch organizations in order to move up or find a dream job. Considering the benefits for all involved, the payoff of career sponsorship is worth the investment. You can lead the way – be a sponsor and/or find a sponsor.

Contact us for career sponsorship workshops for your executive team including why sponsorship is important and how to do it.

Leadership

6 Dimensions of High Return Leader Development Programs

Developing leadership talent is foundational to the sustainability of any organization. The Association for Talent Development’s 2019 State of the Industry Report still ranks manager and supervisor training as the top learning content area for organizations – a substantial investment for most.

As external consultants supporting leadership development efforts, we’ve found that several of our clients feel their leadership development is lacking something or they are unsure they are targeting the right content.

We share practices top of mind for us when assessing programs to ensure our clients yield the highest return on their investment in leader development. When framing or re-framing an organization’s leadership development efforts, here are questions we ask and some examples of how others have implemented it:

1. Is the content linked to key objectives, business needs, and your Mission?

If you are unsure, ask those who already know, your executives and top performing leaders. Combined with best practices, this input helps narrow and prioritize the skills and behaviors that are mission critical.

Ask top leaders what skills, competencies, or behaviors are critical day to day in achieving his/her goals AND how those skills directly contribute to achievement of the overall mission and business objectives.

Time is a precious commodity for most leaders, so it is important that the relevance and significance of your courses are compelling and communicated.

2. Are leaders applying learning?

An implementation plan is fundamental to a program’s ROI.

For example, after attending a course on coaching, the implementation plan might be to conduct 10 coaching conversations with direct reports over the next three months.

Communicating a plan for implementation from the beginning of enrollment helps learners know what is expected; promoting integration and accountability.

Additionally, your learning environment is a perfect opportunity for real application. Have learners work on complex problems that need to be solved in your organization.

For example, ask participants to solve a recent supply chain delay or an ongoing customer concern or complaint. You might also have participants present their solution to a panel of executives or senior leaders, making sure you have an avenue for structured feedback. Our clients who do this are amazed at how often long-standing issues are resolved or evaluated in a compelling new way.

In addition to being a great way to learn, this approach eliminates content development time on creating or working through complex made-up scenarios or role play activities.

3. Is the content expanding the leader’s toolkit?

Participants should be given simple materials to use in their day to day work.

Some examples of tools are: acronyms, flow charts, conversation guides, templates, reflection questions, checklists, etc.

These tools may also be used to teach the concepts covered in class to their teams and others. The concept of “learn, do, teach” cements learning, develops teams, and scales the impact of the development solution.

4. Is there an opportunity for both fine-tuning and hard-wiring?

When trying something new, providing a low-stakes environment to discuss what’s working and what isn’t, unrelated to his/her performance, makes all the difference. A few coaching conversations with a seasoned coach or internal mentor, who does not manage or supervise the learner’s work, is best practice. Coaching, in addition to the classroom, creates higher learning outcomes. In fact, coaching makes application 4 times more likely.

When a learner knows that they will have a conversation with a coach about application, they will more likely take action based on what they learned.

Simple questions like, “how is it going with X skill or behavior?” “what is going well?” “what would you like to do differently?” are effective.

This coaching can be done on a 1:1 basis or in a group with internal or external coaches.

5. Does the leader have ongoing support and accountability?

Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum – real integration and ROI takes the whole organization’s commitment to keep learning priorities and practices top of mind. Involving the learner’s manager is a fundamental part of this.

Involving the leader’s leader/manager with an outline of the learning objectives, learning goals specific to the leader, takeaways from conversations with his/her coach, and the plan for implementing new practices in their work, helps the manager support the learner and ensure accountability.

This closes the loop on organizational integration of your program.

6. Is it inspiring and fun?

Inspiration and fun are often what draw us to want to gain new knowledge.

After the course use inspiring articles, YouTube videos, Ted Talks, fun quizzes, and/or short practice sessions to combat the forgetting curve.