Tag: leadership

The Mechanics of Tone Setting

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Initial Greeting

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Good tone setting requires a couple of basic behaviors and skills that are applied on a consistent basis. Some leaders utilize these skills on almost a naturalized level, while others must embrace the skills on a more mechanical level.

The first step of good tone setting is the initial greeting of team members. For most environments that is the “good morning” at the start of the work day. To pull this off correctly, the greeting must sound sincere, upbeat and not, on any level, forced. The great tone setters will also include some relational dialog about family, interests or just the drive to work.

One epiphany moment exists in the initial greeting of team members. Leaders have a significant choice at the start of each day. On one side they have their office or cubicle where all of their work lives. New email, yellow sticky notes, files and stuff. On the other side is the team. You know, the people who do the work so you can be the leader.

When a leader chooses to take a few minutes and go to the office prior to greeting team members, they are telling the team that, at best, they are secondary in importance. Don’t be naïve. Your team notices that choice.

Another great tone setting skill is to demonstrate interest in team members. One of the many tests that we often administer in leadership training is to quiz the depth of knowledge about team members. Most leaders can recite the family composition of team members. Some leaders can talk about the interests, passion points and motivations of team members and a few can provide insight into location of origin, pets or other details.

A leader’s ability to show interest is a powerful tool. When you are able to follow-up on a sick spouse, inquire about the results of a soccer tournament or check on vacation plans, team members feel connected, respected and valued. Those are the team members that will work harder, faster and stay with you longer.

Another weapon in successful tone setting is the ability to laugh and lighten the mood. We always do serious work but often take ourselves too seriously. When the leader laughs, especially when times are challenging and tough, the team will respond in a very positive manner. Tense people do not work well and are not very productive and that message of tense is set by the leader.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Common Ethical Challenges

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Rise Above the Situation

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Ethical challenges for leaders come in all sizes and shapes. The most common challenge relates to the appearance of favoritism and the impact of that in the working environment.

Real favoritism is a devastating phenomenon. Favoritism is the open disparate treatment of subordinate team members in favor of another or other team members. Favoritism can suck the life out of a working unit. It will kill morale. It will segment team members against each other.

As damaging as real favoritism is the appearance of favoritism. This most often occurs when a leader attempts to maintain a friendship with one or more of their subordinate team members. It begins as a peer level friendship and then one friend is promoted and they attempt to maintain the friendship.

This never works. It may look like it is working but it never works. People will say things such as “we know the roles at work” or “she respects that I am the boss at work and we never cross over into our personal relationship.” Those statements are self-serving and naïve. No matter how you try, a friendship with a subordinate will cause grief and create an ethical dilemma.

The first thing you must consider is what the other team members see and feel. Regardless of your protests, they will always see an insider and someone who has your ear. Every decision you make will be questioned related to the maintained friendship. Divisions and segments will develop that may not be able to be repaired.

To be effective and to eliminate this ethical challenge, the effective leader rises and separates from friendships at subordinate levels. They leave all questions about equitable and fair treatment behind by closing off the friend level relationships they had at a peer level.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Saving People from Themselves

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Valuable Lessons for Team Members

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

For those of us that are parents, we realize all the oxygen we used to tell the kids to not touch the stove when lit was absolutely wasted. We showed them. We told them it would burn. We said it was dangerous.

They touched it anyways.

It hurt. They learned their lesson.

And with that transaction, leaders should see a valuable lesson in how team members learn and grow. You will never be able to save your team members from themselves and you will never be able to warn them of all potential outcomes until they try something and fail themselves.

Like our children, the most valuable lessons for team members in their growth and development is often failure. Success teaches some lessons but the ones that stick with us the most are the points of our failure. As leaders, we need to allow our team members to fail for their ultimate growth and development.

Now a special note to those who may think this is reckless. When the risks associated with failure include physical harm, loss of organizational integrity or credibility, significant financial harm or even the loss of a great customer, the leader must mitigate this risk and prevent horrible things from occurring. By contrast, if the risks associated with failure are minor, even when you know the team member is going to fail, you must let them. They will never learn and grow if you do not let them fail.

Another area of allowing failure is in pure job performance. You cannot compromise your expectations of performance and behavior. If you compromise once, you will need to be prepared to compromise often. If the team member is not meeting expectations, they are not meeting expectations and need to receive your best efforts from a coaching perspective. If they are still not performing, the failure is theirs and not yours.

Not every team member is in the right job at the right organization. Effective leadership is not about saving everyone but about making sure the right people are in the right roles. It is not a failure on your part when you have to let a team member go after the right amount of coaching and teaching. If they have to go, they have to go. Both the team member and the organization need this transaction.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Personal Power and the Effectiveness Equation

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Personal Power

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Every leader needs personal power to operate in an organizational and corporate environment. Personal power is what a leader uses to get the job done and achieve results. Personal power is necessary and must be carefully balanced for optimum leadership effect.

There are five types of personal power for leaders. They include threat, reward, organizational or legitimate, expert and relational or relevant power. The effective leader must combine the use of all five and avoid the overuse in any particular power area.

This all leads to a very important concept and manageable competency. Leadership effectiveness is comprised of 25 percent job and technical knowledge, 25 percent integrity and ethical values and 50 percent relationships. The first two areas, job knowledge and ethical values represent core leadership credibility while the relationship piece is how a leader accomplishes his or her objectives.

This leadership effectiveness equation must be managed daily to insure that one area does not over-shadow any other. If technical and job knowledge is more in play than relationships, team performance, tone and loyalty will suffer. If integrity and ethics are at a higher than needed level, crusading and lack of approachability will occur. When relationships are weighted more than 50 percent, the team may not trust the leader. Balance in this effectiveness equation must be kept constant (LE = .25 JK + .25 I/E = .50 RE).

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

The Why Bother Phenomenon

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Take Responsibility for Your Decisions

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

At the end of the day, the decision was yours. Even with collaboration and using systems thinking, you made the call. The decision is part of your leadership record and legacy.

Effective leaders cannot run from their decisions. They cannot blame others. They cannot blame the economy. They cannot hedge or try to escape accountability. It was your decision.

When right on target a decision is a glorious thing. Your hard work paid off and you chose the correct course of action. Everything fell into place nicely and the return was better than anticipated. It is pretty easy to own that type of decision.

The harder decisions to own are the clunkers. The ones that don’t work out so well or the choice that just did not pan out. Those are hard to swallow and to have your name attached.

Effective leaders own decisions that are both good and bad. With good decisions, the leader will share credit with the team, those that provided valuable input and any stakeholder that gave clues about outcomes or consequences.

When the decision is a poor choice you are on your own buddy. Can’t blame the data or any person. It is all you.

With bad decisions, there are a couple of additional decision points that come into play. The poorest choice is to defend and continue to cheerlead for a bad decision. This is simply digging a bigger hole and drawing more attention and potentially, criticism to a bad decision.

The effective leader must admit the mistake and work diligently to fix it. Simply say that you made a mistake, you are sorry and you will get it fixed. Use plenty of personal pronouns to make sure the ownership of the decision is clear. You may not get beaten up for a bad decision but you will certainly loose credibility if you try to run from it.

When looking at a poor decision, first check and see if you gave yourself enough time to analyze and diagnose the situation and all of the potential impacts. This is the most common reason for poor decisions. Then, retrace the system thinking and seek a different and wider scope of input that focuses on why the first decision failed and that the issue still exists. Never compound a poor decision with a rash or arbitrary fix that is simply designed to save face.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Persistence and Resilience

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How Will You Respond?

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

When I was a child, I always wanted the blow up clown that when you punched his nose, he bounced right back up. Never got it but always wanted it.

That clown teaches us a valuable lesson in the resilience needed by effective leaders. The one certainty is that you will get smacked down. You will have obstacles. You will have setbacks and defeats. You will get criticized. You will not always be liked or even loved.

The true measure of an effective leader is not about the setbacks or obstacles but how you choose to respond after them. The effective leader must be resilient and bounce back just like the inflatable clown. Smacked. Right back in the game. No pouting time allowed.

Resilience is affected by many factors. Your physical health, emotional well being and rest all impact your resilience responses. When you are tired, worn down and beat up, resilience is hard to summon. If you have dysfunction in your personal life, resilience at work is difficult.

Restoring and maintaining resilience is often a matter of being in close contact with your physical and emotional status. How does your body feel and what is it telling you? How is your emotional composition? Do you feel sad, blue or down? When you hear these signs it is time for a recharge because your resilient responses will be down.

One of the best tools for restoring resilience is to immediately return to a productive activity. There is nothing like a full task list or appointment schedule to take your mind off of a set back or defeat like immediately getting busy. This strategy is also an important sign to your team that you will not be distracted by minor bumps in the road. When you are down, get right back to work doing something different.

The old saying goes that the best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer up someone else. As a skill, assisting others is a powerful method to restoring your own resilience. The self-satisfaction obtained by helping out someone or encouraging someone is a tremendous method to restore your own personal resilience. When beat up, down or losing battles, go an help someone else.

Another tool to restore resilience is to redirect energy into an area in which you know you will be successful. You have areas in your life in which you are very good. Go do those things and restore your confidence in your abilities. Maybe you are a good golfer. Go golf. Maybe you are artistic. Create a masterpiece. Maybe you coach a soccer team. Go engage with them.

A final tip for restoring resilience is about surrounding yourself with positive people and those whom you can rely upon to provide some positive feedback. When you are feeling a little down, seek out the trusted sources that can pick you up and restore your responsiveness.

Persistence is also a necessary ingredient in effective leadership. Leaders must persist in doing the right thing without becoming stubborn or pesky. You must have the judgment to know when to continue plowing forward and when to give up, defer and move to other issues.

One of the most common challenges to persistence is related to the disciplining or firing of a team member. In some organizations, the human resource function produces obstacles and barriers to eliminating a team member. The effective leader responds to these obstacles in a persistent manner and enhances documentation, completes another probationary period or provides additional coaching to the employee. Unfortunately, some leaders respond to the obstacles by giving up and declaring the team member cannot be terminated.

Persistence is also challenged by organizational realities and sacred cows. When a leader wants to innovate and they run headlong into a pet project or sacred cow, only through persistence can they achieve the desired change. Often the best persistence comes in the form of a temporary withdrawal followed by seeking a new path beyond the barriers or obstacles being faced. Poking an issue in the same manner over and over again is not persistence. It is stubborn and unyielding.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Stop Being the Answer Man (or Woman)

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Sheep-Like Behavior

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

One of my most frustrating childhood memories involves asking my mom how to spell a word and receiving her stock response of “look it up.” She knew how to spell the word and she knew that her answer frustrated me but she said it consistently and constantly until I stopped asking.

Stopped asking her to spell the word and looking for it first in the dictionary. She taught me how to problem solve and think. She could have answered my question but I would not have grown and learned on my own. Well done mom.

The first step in reducing and eliminating sheep and sheep-like behavior in your team is to cease being the answer man.

This is an area in which the enemy you fight has an outpost on the top of your shoulders. It is powerful to have the answers. People look to you as the brightest bulb in a room. You are a walking Wikipedia of work knowledge.

With every question that you answer, you are strengthening the chain of co-dependence to you and micromanaging the work environment. When you answer the question of a team member, you are subtly telling them that they do not need to think because you will provide all the answers that they need.

Don’t underestimate this ego battle. It is so cool to ride your white horse to the rescue of your team members and fix their dilemmas. They need you. They tell you how important you are. It feels good. You have the knowledge and the power and they love you for it. Bah.

The most effective leader will inquire behind team member questions about what they believe is right. That sounds like “what do you think you should do Leon?” Further ratcheting this up response you might say something like “Terri, you saw the same issue last week and worked through it nicely.”

Some leaders will hesitate asking questions back because they fear it will make them look weak and unknowing. The opposite is quite true. It is the leader secure in his or her skill set and competencies as a leader that will not rely on being the answer person and seek to grow the knowledge and abilities of their team.

The absolute most effective leaders create and share power and not just store it up. In the equation of forcing team members to think and articulate their own solutions, you are shifting power to them and creating real growth in your team.

When asked, ask back. Don’t be the leader with all the answers, be the leader with all the questions. If you persist in having all the answers, congratulations, you have made yourself invaluable and you are in the last job you will ever have.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

The Levels of Decision Making

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Reduce Rash Decisions

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

It is important to note that not all decisions are created equally nor do they require the same type of thought and analysis.

To improve the ability to make decisions, effective leaders must first analyze and determine the decision level in which they are dealing. There are basically five levels of decision making and each have a different set of consequences and impacts.

Rudimentary decisions are those base levels of decisions that you process on a reactionary and almost automatic mode. Should I go to the bathroom? Should I eat now or later? Should I use this word or another, more colorful word? These are processed in very quick terms with little thought and usually very little impact. The sphere of impact is limited usually to you and you alone.

Operational level decisions are those decisions that are usually produced in the day-to-day flow of business operations and many times dictated by a formalized authority matrix. Approving checks, signing requests for time off, authorizing refunds, providing credit and allowing overtime are common examples of operational level decisions.

A significant issue in many businesses is that too many operational level decisions require far too high of a level of approval. The most healthy organizations press down decision making authorities to the most appropriate level and require line level team members to make the bulk of operational decisions, especially those that affect customers or end users. When decisions are consistently pressed upward, organizational efficiency is dramatically reduced and the ability of a company to respond to customer needs and changing environments is impaired.

Ninety percent of all operational level decisions should be made at the team member level. If more than ten percent of operational decisions are coming up to a leadership level, there is wasted time and efficiency could be improved. Some leaders, not the effective ones, are very comfortable in making more than ten percent of the operational level decisions because it insures their importance and reinforces their need to the team.

Tactical decisions are those that affect how business is done. This is more related to the mission than to the vision of an organization. Common tactical level decisions include staffing levels, scheduling, budget submissions, procedural elements and processes. Tactical decisions should be left to the leadership level that is most closely connected to the front line team members. This level of leadership is most expert in the tactics needed to deliver products and services and should be charged with the lion’s share of tactical decision making.

Like with operational decisions, some more senior level leaders like to insert themselves into tactical level decision making. Even with one-up approvals on tactical issues, this will hamper effectiveness and neuter lower level leadership innovation, decision making and ownership.

The next level of decision making is strategic. Strategic decisions define overall direction of an organization or unit within an organization. These are the very important decisions with major impact such as strategic planning, growth or contraction, product lines, pricing, locations and overall corporate strategy. This type of thinking is not limited only to senior and c level leaders but it is most commonly associated with that level in an organization.

With each of the four levels of decision making identified above, there is an increasing bar of impact for each level. Impact increases as the decision level increases and with that, the amount of time, thought and analysis must increase as well. It should not take weeks to make an operational level decision and strategic decisions should not be made in thirty seconds.

Another dynamic of the decision making levels is the longevity of the outcome. Operational level decisions have short life spans while strategic decisions will have lasting and sometimes legacy levels of life. Also with these levels is the ability to unwind the decision. Operational and tactical decisions are relatively easy to reverse while strategic decisions are much harder, more complicated and have a greater cost to change.

As a strategy to reduce rash and arbitrary decision making, triage decisions into the categories above before moving into other decision making steps. This will assist the effective leader in determining the amount of input from others and time required to effect a great decision.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Corrective Feedback

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Establishing Expectations and Boundaries

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

The polar opposite of positive feedback is corrective feedback. The purpose of positive feedback is to achieve the replication of a valued event or behavior. Therefore, the purpose of corrective feedback is to reduce or eliminate a poor event or behavior.

Corrective feedback, in large part, is the process of establishing expectations and boundaries for team members. It is not punitive. It is not a form of discipline. It is rather a very direct response to a situation when a team member does not produce or behave in needed areas.

A great disconnect occurs in many organizations because of a hesitancy or fear in providing regular corrective feedback. When asked, team members will pretty universally want to know where they stand. They want to know what they are doing well and what they could do better. In the other corner, many leaders have trepidations and fears associated with providing corrective feedback and would rather defer or save the information for later. Some would rather put it in writing or surprise a team member with the corrective feedback in an annual review.

The remarkable thing about corrective feedback is that the many of the skills and techniques associated with positive feedback are used for corrective feedback. Immediacy in corrective feedback is very important to make sure that the risk of a poor piece of performance or bad behavior is not replicated. In corrective feedback, this risk takes on a multiplier effect because other team members see when a team member errors and is not coached about the event. This could cause greater performance slippage among the team and now you will be coaching multiple people instead of a single team member.

One of the reasons that immediacy of corrective coaching is often missed is because of an avoidance tendency in many leaders. Fearing a confrontation or not wanting to risk their likeability, some leaders will defer a corrective coaching interaction until later. Unfortunately, later rarely happens and some leaders use justifying statements such as “I will talk to her if she does it again” or “the next time he does that, I will talk with him” or “it really wasn’t that big of a deal.” These types of deferrals must be fought off and the feedback must be provided immediately when performance or behavior is unacceptable.

Another shared skill with corrective feedback and positive feedback is using a direct and matter-of-fact communication method. In positive feedback, a direct approach is used to improve clarity and make sure team members understand what they have done well in the most simple terms. With corrective feedback, clarity is also important but directness is used to make sure the leader does not use too many words or paint themselves into a corner. Simply indicate the failure point, iterate the expectation and make sure the message was understood.

In narrative form, that sounds like “Bob, you were late today. I need you here every morning at 8:00am. Are you clear with that?” Or in another form it is “Mary, your report is not accurate. You need to go back and check the numbers in the farthest right columns. This report must be accurate because of the impact it has on our financial statements. Do you understand what I need?”

Some people will look at this type of dialog and perceive harshness. Harsh is a tone element and not the words you use. Direct is necessary to insure the team member clearly understands the intent of the coaching interaction and clearly understands the expectations for performance or behavior. It is not harsh but just direct and to the point.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

What You Need is Not What They Need

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Model for Positive Feedback

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Another stumbling block in the correct application of positive feedback is using your own need for it as a model for giving to everyone else.

Leaders have greater self-management. Leaders have a greater resiliency. Leaders have greater mechanisms for providing honest feedback internally. You know when you have done well. You may even have a small, internal celebration. Unfortunately, many leaders assume that all team members have the same internal dynamics.

People need to feel appreciated and that their contributions are valued. This goes beyond a paycheck and they desperately want to hear some positive feedback from their leaders.

In a perfect organizational climate and culture, line level leaders are hearing positive feedback from mid-level managers. Mid-level managers are hearing positive feedback from division leaders. Division leaders are hearing positive feedback from senior executives. That is the way it should be.

Reality check. Sadly, in many organizations, positive feedback needs to be provided to team members even when that leader is not hearing any positive feedback. It is easier when you receive it but just because you might not, it is not an excuse to not provide it to your team members.

There is another message here as well. Some team members will attempt to rebuff or minimize any positive feedback. They will even tell you that they don’t need it. Don’t buy into their shtick. They want positive feedback and need it as much as any other person.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.