Michael Beck

Over my 20+ years as an executive coach, I’ve worked with and assessed lots of smart, experienced senior leaders.  And with each assessment I did, a pattern began to emerge.  I noticed that there were several important competencies that almost always are among their weakest.

This pattern is interesting, because these leaders are very
smart, have many years of industry experience, and are responsible for many
millions of dollars of revenue and profit. 
They’ve been CEO’s, presidents, owners, CFO’s, CTO’s, VP’s and
directors.  And yet… these competencies
regularly show up as some of their weakest competencies.  These three competencies are their ability to
coach & mentor, their ability to
influence others, and their ability
to resolve conflict.

Why are these competencies so often among the weakest?  I believe it’s because the skills necessary
to excel at them don’t come naturally to most people – regardless of
intelligence or experience.  Here’s why
these three competencies are so critical to a leader and how to go about
improving each one.

Coaching &
Mentoring

One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to
develop the people below him or her. 
There is tremendous opportunity and satisfaction as a leader in
developing others.  By effectively
developing the people around us, we elicit excellence in a number of impactful
and far-reaching ways. 

Study after study has shown that an important factor in
driving engagement is having the opportunity for professional growth.  When a person becomes stagnant, they become
bored and disengaged.  As a leader helps
someone expand their skill set and knowledge base, they make them more valuable
and more versatile.  In addition, when a
leader coaches and mentors someone, they demonstrate their belief in them,
their abilities, and their potential, which nurtures loyalty and
responsiveness.  One additional benefit
of developing others is that it allows a leader to groom someone to take their
place, thereby paving the way for the leader’s promotion.

Given the impact and far-reaching implications of developing
others, it is critical to master this important function, and adopting a
“coach-like” attitude and manner is the fastest and most effective
means of accomplishing that.

What does a coaching style of leadership look like?  Coaching embodies a number of competencies
and strategies.  Many of us, in an effort
to help someone “get it right” (and in the name of expediency), tell
others what to do and how to do it.  And
while this does get the work done, it does little to develop the other person,
their skill set, and their confidence.

The alternative – the coaching approach – is to ask rather
than tell.  Instead of starting off by
telling them what to do, ask them what they would do and how they would do
it.  This strategy serves a number of
very important functions.  Firstly, it demonstrates
that you have an interest in what they have to say.  When you listen to someone, it acts as a sign
of respect because it demonstrates that you value what they have to say.  The next benefit of asking is that their
answers will give you a sense of how they think.  The answers will reveal their level of
insight and judgment and will illustrate their problem-solving abilities.  And lastly, listening to the answers to your
questions will provide clues as to how best to help them develop.  It helps you understand which aspects of
development they need help and guidance with.

Influencing

Mastering the ability to influence others is critical to the
success and effectiveness of a leader.  A
strategy, no matter how well thought out, will get mediocre results if there
isn’t strong buy-in.  A leader will
always get compliance because of his or her authority.  But compliance and commitment are two
different things.

If people are compliant, they will generally do just enough to
keep from getting fired.  The consequence
is that a strategy will get results, but not nearly to the level of a strategy
executed by a committed team.

How do you influence people? 
How do you change their perspective so you get buy-in?  People “buy” emotionally.  It’s true whether you’re selling TV’s, cars,
ideas or strategies.  They buy
emotionally and then rationalize logically. 
There are two tools to employ in order to change someone’s perspective.  They are the use of question-asking and the
use of analogies.

Asking good questions is an art.  It took me many years to master it, with lots
of practice and plenty of missed opportunities. 
I’ve found that there are two sets of questions that need to be asked.  The first set of questions are those that
give you insight.  They are curiosity questions that help you
better understand why someone sees things the way they do, thereby allowing you
to effectively change or correct their perspective.  The second set of questions are those give them insight.  They are questions that help them rethink
things.

The second tool for influencing people is the use of
analogies.  Analogies are an excellent
vehicle for bringing someone around to your way of seeing things.  Generally, you’ve been giving the issue at
hand far more thought than they have and therefore have a deeper understanding
of the problem and/or solution.  Using an
analogy helps people “see” and “feel” the concept you’re talking about and does
it in such a way as to keep them from becoming defensive with respect to their
position.  Once you’ve come up with a
meaningful analogy, it’s much easier for someone to shift their thinking and
their perspective.

Resolving Conflict

The ability to resolve conflict is essential to a leader’s
effectiveness.  If conflict is allowed to
fester, it erodes engagement and erodes the respect a team has for its leader.

Workplace conflict tends to arise from poor communication, unmet expectations, differing perspectives, and stress.  Ultimately, these each can be minimized or eliminated by improving interpersonal skills, setting clear expectations, shifting people’s perspectives, and helping to reduce stress.  But the stage has to be set before the issues can be resolved.

The blueprint for resolving conflict starts with acting to
avoid further escalation.  The more
frustrated and upset a person is, the more difficult it is to resolve a
situation.  The next step is to
de-escalate the situation.  I’ve found
that an excellent way to begin that process is to “state the obvious”.  “Stating the obvious” means simply to
acknowledge that the frustration and/or disagreement exists.  It’s often the perfect way to open the door
to resolve conflict.  Just by starting
with, “Look… we’re both frustrated by this,” sets the stage for a
resolution.  It acknowledges that you
recognize the other person is frustrated, it doesn’t point a finger at them,
and it implies that you’d like to work things out.

Once the stage is set for coming to a resolution, the next
step is to understand the other person’s perspectives and or motivations.  As discussed above, the most effective means
of accomplishing this is through the use of good questions.  In this case, a “good” question is one of
curiosity about why they feel the way they do, phrased and asked in a manner
that keeps them from becoming defensive. 
A simple example of what a good question might be is, “What am I doing
that frustrates you?”, followed by, “Why does that frustrate you?”  In contrast, a question that would cause them
to become defensive would be, “Why do you have to get so angry?”  Once you gain insight into the underlying issues,
you can work together to resolve the conflict.

If you’d like help improving your ability to coach &
mentor, influence others and/or resolve conflict, please give me a call.