Lack of Buy-In from the Board/Executives

Often, it is the people at the very top who need the training first. However, board members and executives tend to feel that they already know what they’re doing and don’t need training. They adopt a stance that there is nothing more for them to learn. This leads to a situation where the board inevitably fail to adopt the recommendations of the programme.

While you can still train those lower down, without the will at those of the top to make changes, the programme ends up failing to deliver results.

The Generic Approach

A great training programme reflects the market sector, the customer needs, the business culture and environment. A coach spends time getting to know the business before the training takes place to understand real-life challenges and use common language, relevant examples, and a range of practical activities.

Unfortunately, there are trainers out there that sell ‘off-the-shelf’ coaching solutions. They don’t take the time to know the business, so they will try and use the same programme for a B2B technology wholesaler that they would use for a retail pet supplies outlet.

If your leadership coach isn’t suggesting preparation and research, then you should look elsewhere.

An Outdated Approach

You wouldn’t send your child to a school that still taught them that mercury was a fantastic cure-all or that piling on the carbs is a great way to lose weight. There are many things that we once accepted as fact, but we now know are not true.

The same applies to leadership theory. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is still a staple of many leadership programmes, despite being written in the 1940s and widely disputed today. Worse is when coaches parrot a common but gross misunderstanding of concepts such as McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. They didn’t understand it to begin with, and now the incorrect interpretation is accepted as accurate.

A lot of content still used in leadership programmes was written decades ago, and much of it is no longer relevant. Leadership coaching is a science, and just as you’d be horrified to go to the doctor and find they wanted to drill a hole in your head, you should be very wary of any leadership coach using outdated textbooks and techniques.

A Militaristic Approach

“Break them down and build them back up!”

It’s called attack therapy and is a prevalent method for training recruits in the United States Army. During the 1980s, attack therapy became a popular method for leadership programmes, which it really should not. If you’re going to war, then sure, you will need to confront pressure and phobias, but despite much macho posturing, business isn’t warfare unless your business is organised crime.

The biggest problem with attack therapy is how proponents disregard the individual’s stresses, fears, and mental makeup. I have seen people in tears after a session with a wannabe drill sergeant who evidently never watched past the halfway point of Full Metal Jacket.

Yes, people want to be, and should be, challenged. Overcoming challenges is vital for personal growth, and experience can make us stronger. However, not everybody is up for a Bear Grylls-style survival weekend in the Peak District. You need to respect your people’s boundaries and tailor your programme in a way that ensures those boundaries are not violated.

A Poor Spread

Believe it or not, food is important. Food gives us energy, and that energy is what ensures our people are engaged and motivated. Hungry delegates are rarely receptive or engaged in the content. Snickers are not what I would suggest, but they are right – you’re not yourself when you’re hungry.

If you’ve hired a great leadership coach, then you should support them. Part of that support is ensuring that your delegates have good, healthy food available at lunchtime. Make sure you’ve accounted for dietary requirements, and try and avoid bloaty foods like sausage rolls and Scotch eggs.

If your budget can stretch to it, consider bringing in a catering company to provide something a little bit exciting. The more comfortable your people, the better your results.

Lack of Pre and Post-Work

A great leadership coach should be sending through pre-work and follow up-work. If they don’t, then the training exists in a bubble. It just becomes a day you’re expected to “get through” before you return to your regular job. The training needs to be embedded, and the best way to accomplish this is to make the delegate’s think about it before and after.

Pre-work aids the training by giving the coach an idea of where the people are. What are their skills, what needs improving, what challenges are they facing, etc.? Post-work demonstrates to what extent they’ve understood the training and how they will be implementing it.

Both provide a key set of metrics that a coach can use to assess the impact of the training. Great coaches don’t just deliver a day’s training and leave you to it. They continue to provide an after-care service to ensure that your people maximise their potential and your investment.

Additionally, delegates must be informed about the training, structure, expectations, etc., before it occurs. Don’t just send them to the venue on the day and expect results. Encourage them, excite them, and work with them to ensure they’re ready to start learning new things.

Too Much Theory

Think back to school. Who were your favourite teachers? I would wager that the majority of your favourite teachers were the ones who engaged the class. Very few people respond well to a pure theory approach. PowerPoint is a crutch for some coaches. They overuse it. A coach that stands and talks for hours isn’t going to engage people. Eventually, your mind will wander because you are bored, and once that happens, very little will stick.

The most effective training is only about 30% theory. The rest is practical application – roleplays, scenarios, relevant games, and similar. When you’re looking to bring a leadership coach in, you should ask them what they do to keep your people engaged. It’s not your people’s fault if the coach can’t keep their attention.

With that in mind, some organisations think that their people shouldn’t be having fun when training. There is an incorrect assumption that if your people laugh during training, they must be mucking about. That isn’t true. When we’re having fun, things stick. A real-life example is how most of us will remember more lines of dialogue from a comedy show than we’ll remember from a gritty drama. We remember them more effectively because they brought us joy, and our brains are hard-wired to seek joy out.

Therefore, your coach should be making your people laugh. The training itself should be fun and interactive. The more fun a person has during a training session, the greater the likelihood the training will stick long-term.

Are you interested in Leadership Training? We have the skills, knowledge, and experience to deliver a world-class training experience to your business that will deliver tangible results and a fantastic return on investment. Just drop us a note here, and we’ll get back to you soon.

The post 7 Reasons Why Leadership Training Can Fail appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Retaining Your People

A key demographic that benefits from Emerging Leader programmes are millennials. It’s fair to say that ambitious younger people are always looking to get ahead quickly. With high house prices and rents, the millennial generation is less inclined to stay too long in one organisation if a more lucrative opportunity presents itself.

However, this causes issues for many businesses; the constant reshuffling of people within an organisation, the revolving door recruitment process, and the morale hit when someone leaves for presumably bigger things. It is a natural reaction when one person moves on for others in the group to wonder if there are greener pastures waiting for them too. Another concern is with team unity. While it’s true that you cannot expect everyone in a business to get along, most people learn how to work with others regardless of personal differences. When you are constantly needing to introduce new people into a team, however, the dynamic rarely has a chance to settle. As a side-effect of being unable to retain people, you may struggle to create a cohesive and productive work environment.

Furthermore, without someone in place to take over a senior role when it comes available, an organisation has to risk costly outside hiring or a ‘crash course’ training programme for someone within the organisation.
 

Emerging Leadership Academy

An Emerging Leadership Academy can help with these issues. By grooming people for future leadership roles, you’re giving them a clear indication of their value to the business and indicating that they have strong future prospects if they stay with you. While a more financially rewarding opportunity might present itself to an individual, you may make them think twice about jumping. After all, if they know that in a few years they will climb the ladder in your organisation, then the immediate incentive to move on may no longer seem as attractive.

Running an Emerging Leadership Academy also says a lot about your organisation. It shows you’re invested in your people as well as your bottom line. When it is necessary to recruit new individuals, such a statement might make you more attractive to a candidate. Emerging Leadership Academies serve as evidence of a career path and of opportunities to develop existing skills and build new ones. Ambitious people are always looking for ways to improve and learn, and you’re offering them the chance to do just that with you.

An Emerging Leadership Academy comprises of taking a group of rising stars from within your organisation, across various departments, and putting them through a structured and modular development programme. A mixture of group workshops, individual coaching, online learning and experiential mentoring is offered.
 

Strengthening Bonds

Because you’re developing people across your organisation, you can help build a sense of togetherness and strengthen bonds within your group. You might think of it as the mid-90s Manchester United team that was built around a core of youth players who all filtered through to the first-team at around the same time and went on to be the foundation of much of the club’s success heading into the new millennium.

The results of Emerging Leadership Academies can have a startling effect on talent retention, succession, engagement and morale. People who feel they are being actively nurtured and developed often have a more positive view of the company they work for. You may even instil a sense of pride in individuals, which may cause them to speak more positively about your organisation to friends, family and online areas such as Glassdoor. Over time, you can broaden their responsibilities as their skills grow, further cementing a mutually beneficial positive relationship.

Businesses often report a greater degree of collaboration between Emerging Leadership candidates as the programmes put a heavy focus on teamwork. Many organisations further empower their Emerging Leaders with a business-related project such as acquisition, transformational business initiatives and improving culture and wellbeing. You may also find that meetings are more productive as your people feel they now have more of a voice in the organisation. They may well bring new ideas and perspectives to the table that previously they would keep to themselves.
 

Find Out More

If you’re interested in establishing an Emerging Leadership Academy within your organisation and want to explore your options, then please feel free to get in touch here.

The post The Benefits of an Emerging Leaders Academy appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Transformational Leadership: A Brief History

The concept of transformational leadership was born from James MacGregor Burns, a leadership expert and presidential biographer. He argued that transformational leadership can be seen when both leaders and followers engage one another in a way that advances both to higher levels of motivation. This theory was later expanded upon by researcher Bernard M. Bass to develop the Transformational Leadership Theory.

Bass suggested that there were four primary components of transformational leadership.
 

Intellectual Stimulation

Transformational leaders are those that stimulate creativity among followers. They encourage those working with them to explore new opportunities to learn and consider new ways of doing things. If you cast your mind back to your days at school and/or college, you might be able to identify the teachers and lecturers who seemed to better engage with students. Those who encouraged considered debate around a subject, and harnessed innate creativity, may well have been employing a form of transformational leadership. It’s also quite likely that regardless of your feelings or fondness of a subject, a class that was taught on such an open platform was one that you looked forward to and enjoyed, more so than a class that was taught within much stricter, less-engaging confines.

The transformational leader will foster and encourage an environment that does not simply seek to emulate the status quo but to challenge it. They encourage reasoned, critical discourse on preconceived notions that will help illuminate new pathways to innovation and success. By encouraging such a climate, their followers grow more confident, feeling they can speak up and present radical new ideas without fearing dismissal or ridicule.
 

Individualised Consideration

Transformational leaders also offer support and encouragement on an individual basis, as opposed to only considering the requirements of the group. This allows for an individual member of the group to speak freely, communicating their personal ideas on a particular subject or project. By encouraging individual input, you make your people feel more valued because they’re not just another voice lost in the crowd – they have a voice that is being heard. This can be extremely beneficial to a business. In the short-term, you’re able to provide your people with individual recognition for their efforts which fosters greater motivation because being recognised is rewarding. In the long-term, you may well be able to identify the people who possess the abilities of leadership themselves.

Transformational leaders may look for opportunities for their followers, such as training courses that could enhance an individual’s own abilities. They will also refrain from too much bulk communication, favouring personalised notes and using personalised language to make their people feel more valued which boosts self-confidence. Most of all they will listen to a follower’s needs and concerns and will distribute the workload fairly.
 

Inspirational Motivation

This is where a transformational leader is able to communicate a clear vision to their followers, while also driving passion and enthusiasm for the work. It ties in quite nicely with the above. If you’re passionate and excited about the work your business is doing, and you’re engaging your followers in such a way that they feel valued and energised then you will also pass on those feelings of motivation. You will inspire them in such a way that they feel part of your business, and they share in your business’s success.

By using language designed to appeal to people’s desire for self-improvement, a transformational leader can inspire people to attain goals within a business and even in their personal lives. This leads to greater fulfilment which informs greater personal investment in the performance of the business.
 

Idealised Influence

A transformational leader engenders trust, loyalty and respect among followers. They lead by example by placing themselves within the group and not simply barking orders from afar. The transformational leader should seek to become a figure of admiration within the business by emphasising values and ensuring that their actions symbolically reinforce those values. They should also display a high level of ethical and moral conduct, both professionally and in how they interact with their followers.

This takes a great degree of self-confidence on the part of the transformational leader but such confidence breeds further confidence in others, which drives forward a business on all levels.
 

Some Simple Steps

For those looking to become a transformational leader, there are some very simple things that can be done straight away. For example, consider how you communicate with your people. When you send an email to an employee regarding something you wish to see done, do you tell them to do it, or do you ask them? It’s the simplest of things but language such as “I was wondering if…?” engenders a much more positive reaction than “I want you to…”.

Similarly, ensure that your people are recognised for their efforts. Even praise for something small can make a person feel inspired, valued and motivated. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to lose the power of a congratulatory message by sending them out all the time, but if a person, say, dealt with a matter much more quickly than you expected then a little bit of praise for it would likely be very much appreciated.

Most simply of all, communicate to your people that you’re always happy to listen to their input. It may well be that someone has a new idea that they feel would be beneficial but lack the confidence to bring it to you. Let them know that they can! And even if you feel that their idea doesn’t work at this time, thank them for it and encourage them to continue to be forthcoming with ideas that they feel strongly about.
 

Want to Know More?

If you feel that you, your business and/or your people could benefit from transformational leadership training then please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or get in touch via the contact form on this site.

The post An Overview of Transformational Leadership appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

Business mentoring is often confused with business coaching or consulting.

Coaching focuses on harnessing the innate skills of the client. It assumes a capability and seeks to help the coachee find and develop their own abilities.

Consulting uses the expertise, skills, knowledge and experiences of the consultant to educate. You can think of it as similar to the relationship between a teacher and a student. The expert teaches; the client learns.

Mentoring is about the personal development of the client. An individual may have a great understanding of one skillset, but require assistance in developing others.

Furthermore, mentoring is more of an ongoing process. The mentor adopts a supportive role, becoming a source of advice and knowledge for the client. Often, they will seek opportunities for development of the mentee, such as networking events, or introductions to relevant people. While coaching aids an individual develop their skills for their current role, a mentor helps to develop the individual for their next role.
 

Friend and Confidante

Because of the personal nature of mentoring, it is often the case that a mentor will become a friend and confidante. The mentor will help the client navigate the murky roads of office and corporate politics. They will establish frequent communication with the mentee, listen to what they want to achieve and guide them on the right path. A mentor will have vital skills, experiences, and a desire to see the mentee achieve them. The best mentors share in both the joys and disappointments of their clients.

The mentor also acts as an unbiased third party to approach with ideas. Because they invest in a person’s success, they will not simply try and massage egos. If an idea seems unworkable, a mentor will not just dismiss it but attempt to guide the mentee towards considering whether they can make the idea more workable. The mentor will be experienced, and have a perspective that the client may not. They will bring that perspective into their work with the mentee, to help them look at problems differently, and find solutions more effectively.
 

A Vital Sounding Board

Perhaps the often unspoken benefit of a mentor is that they can act as a sounding board. Business is rife with stress, and much of it could be avoided if people were more mindful of others. In business, we cannot vent to our colleagues, our customers or our business partners. Most prefer not to vent to our spouses because we do not want to take negativity into our home life. A mentor can be invaluable in providing a safe release for the day-to-day headaches that emerge, but more importantly, can help the mentee devise coping strategies to come out on top.

A business mentor will not simply mould a client in their own image. Although the mentor will have their own experiences, methods and strategies to call upon, they will encourage the mentee to develop their own. You can think of some meetings with mentors as a brainstorming whiteboard session. The mentor will ask questions; they will give the client the opportunity to think and consider for themselves. Through this, the client will grow as a person, and they will become their own person.
 

Introducing Mentoring Into Organisations

If you’re considering introducing mentoring into your organisation, you should ask yourself some questions. For example, what are the organisational goals? When, where and how often will the mentoring take place? Who do you think will benefit? Do you have appropriate potential mentors in the organisation or will you outsource?

With regards to that last question, it is often useful to bring in an outside mentor. Mentoring is often most successful when a client feels they can open up to their mentor. Depending on the office culture, a mentee may be reluctant to fully utilise the range of mentoring services if they have to see their mentor every day.
 

Keeping People on the Bus

Introducing mentoring into an organisation can be invaluable. I’ve written before about getting the right people on the bus and putting them in the right seats. Once you have the right people on the bus, you want to keep them on the bus. Mentoring develops people for a career. By giving them the opportunities for a career within your organisation, you encourage them not to get off at the next stop. You give them a purpose, and you make them feel valued. Furthermore, the mentees of today could be your mentors of tomorrow. They could very well be the ones guiding the next generation to success as your business grows.

The post The Benefits of Business Mentoring appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.