Blog - Page 20 of 60 - Wheeler Coaching Systems

Oct

2021

Leaders Are Readers

Ok, I am a little biased because for all my life I have enjoyed reading. Now I must admit as technology has advanced and life has gotten busier I struggle to sit and read. This may be my desire to always be productive or internet-influenced ADD.

I have seen it said that 33% of High School graduates never read another book and 42% of college graduates. I am not certain of the validity of this and quite frankly am not overly concerned. What I want to do is take a minute to suggest the value of continuing to read as leaders at work, home, and in our communities.

Improves Communication

Every day we communicate with others. Now more than ever this communication is in written form such as e-mails, text messages, or some other form of messaging. As we spend time reading books, professional documents to help us grow, and other sources of literature we expand our vocabulary.

When I was a strength and conditioning coach, I would read industry journals. I had no clue what a lot of the technical research meant at first, but over time I learned. Increasing my vocabulary helped me be able to communicate with others in the industry in a more educated manner. This same principle has held true in any area I don’t understand. I read, learn, and improve my ability to communicate effectively with others.

Expands Knowledge

This one does not need a lot of explanation. I heard leadership expert John Maxwell say he was told when he was younger if he spent an hour a day reading any single topic that in five years he would be an expert. This proved true ten-fold for John. He has been recognized as the world’s top expert on leadership by INC magazine and other sources.

The pace of change is so fast we need to continually be learning to stay relevant in our industry. The best way for this to occur is by spending time reading. As an aside I would suggest we can also learn by attending events in our industry and learning from other experts. If you want to be that expert and leader in your industry, then read.

Provides Mentoring

When I was younger, I spent most of my time reading fiction but as I became an adult that shifted. My bookshelves are full of books on topics such as leadership, personal development, communication, and biographies. The last one is an example of how books can mentor us. I may never get a chance to sit across from John Wooden, C.S. Lewis, or any number of other authors and leaders who are dead or alive, but I can learn from them.

Throughout the years by reading biographies, I have learned from people’s pains and successes. Also, through reading books written by or about these leaders I have had the opportunity to be mentored and gain wisdom I would have never received had I not created the time to read.

I hope this encourages you to find a way to read or at least listen to books more. I can’t end without providing you a resource I have found valuable to help me read more in less time. If you go here you will be able to see the latest book summary available. If you want to receive notifications right to your e-mail inbox sign up for a free leadership e-book here and receive the weekly update of the summaries available and other leadership tips. Keep reading, learning, and growing and lead well.

Oct

2021

Leading When People Want to Leave

I was talking with an organizational leader recently. During our conversation we discussed why people leave a company. This leader suggested the desire to leave could be a symptom of something else.

Before going any further allow me to suggest examining your response when a team member wants to leave. Do your people feel comfortable to let you know they are looking? This leader wants his people to feel comfortable so he can help them in any way possible. Also, this gives him an opportunity to explore why they want to leave. Below I am going to highlight a few reasons people may want to move on.

Growth

Each organization is structured uniquely and employees have various tenures. A team member may come ready to leave and after some questioning you may realize they feel stuck. For example, if you are in a young and flat organization with a founder/CEO and technicians, this individual may feel there is no room for growth. The roles are either worker or owner. This can also be true in a department in a larger organization. There are no steps for growth.

As the leader you have at least a couple options. First, would it serve your organization and the individual well if you created a structure with an opportunity for a next step? Some form of leadership role that serves both the individual and the organization. Another option is to help this person move into a more challenging/leadership role in another area of the organization or at another company. Either way, be the leader who helps him or her succeed and grow.

Glass Ceiling

This idea can be explored in multiple ways, but one primary way an individual may experience a glass ceiling is by not having opportunities. This individual may have reached his or her capacity within the organization and there is no next step. The next step may not open for years, or he or she is not qualified and needs to grow in some way.

This is not the “political” glass ceiling based on circumstances out of the individual’s control. Leaders can help the individual facing this ceiling by discussing how he or she could break through either at your organization or somewhere else. Hopefully this is an opportunity for candid conversation to help the individual realize blind spots and opportunities for growth. On occasion the ceiling may be harder than glass if people above are going to remain. The leader should encourage and support the desire to leave in this situation.

The Leader

This is the harsh reality as a leader you may not want to hear. You may be the reason they want to leave. How you lead, a personal issue, or several other reasons may create the desire for this individual to leave. If you are the reason, I encourage you to create space for a candid conversation to learn what you do not realize about your leadership.

My friend, we all have blind spots and when team members leave because of us we need to embrace the feedback as a blessing. An opportunity to learn, grow and develop to prevent this from being the reason in the future. How to handle that feedback . . . that is a blog for another day.

How are you at creating an environment for your team that they feel free to come to you? Ask them and adjust how you lead so they know you will support them and help them succeed. Ultimately if we lead others as we would like to be led, with compassion and care then both of us will be successful even when things end. Lead Well.

Oct

2021

Learning From an IT Services Leader

I was sitting across from this Lebanese leader in a coffee shop learning about leadership. Fadi began his career as trained electrical engineer, but soon shifted to programming and writing software. While growing his business he had the opportunity to learn how to lead a team of people to achieve greater results.

Through over thirty years of leading The Brookfield Group Fadi has learned many leadership lessons. Throughout the years a few principles have guided his experience to build and sustain a successful business in the technology sector.

Help others achieve their goal

Leaders have vision for the organization’s direction. They may even have specific steps they expect people to take to reach the goal. Clarity of purpose for the organization is essential, but Fadi emphasizes the importance of helping others achieve their goal.

As leaders understand what their people want they are better able to align the organization’s vision with what is important to the individual. This alignment creates a learning atmosphere where the leaders and those being led continually learn from one another. This culture also helps people feel welcome, encourages teamwork, and everyone accomplishes more.

Customers are part of the organization

Imagine being a coach on a sports team. If you believe the team’s job is to help you win and look better how might that make the players feel? What would happen if your mindset shifted to seeing each member as an integral part of the organization? Let’s take this further. What if a coach saw each fan as a part of the organization.

You would probably have the New England Patriots or Cleveland Browns. Loyal fans and relentless ambassadors even regardless of the team’s performance. Fadi was not suggesting having a poor organization or service with this principle. What he suggests is leaders look for ways to make the customer profitable.

When we seek to serve those we lead they feel a part of the organization. One specific way Brookfield Group creates this environment is by understanding the client’s needs so they can provide a solution that will make the other organization profitable.

Give Back

Fadi is not the only leader I have talked to who lives by this principle. I have found great organizations live by a principle of generosity. Small businesses to large corporations. When a leader not only values generosity, but also models it this behavior has a positive impact throughout the organization. This idea reminds me of the famous quote by Zig Ziglar:

“You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

This is the mantra of giving back. As leaders give, they reap the rewards of generosity which are goodwill, appreciation, and respect among others.

One final major lesson Fadi has learned as a leader that he was willing to share is:

“Be true to you and own your own issues.”

As leaders we must be authentic and self-aware enough to accept responsibility for the problems we may create. Show up each day as your most authentic version of yourself because there is only one you and no one else can be you. Be great at you and lead as you while continually growing and adapting.

When you look at these areas what is one way you can grow in any of these areas? Need help thinking into this? Contact me for a thirty-minute thinking partner session to grow your leadership. Lead Well.

Sep

2021

Three Primary Roles of Business Leaders

Often when I am helping small business owners think into their business I have to help them think at the third of these three roles. Why? Because they may get stuck in the other two and fail to create time for the third.

Not long ago I re-read the book The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I will not go into the details of this book, but the following ideas are based largely on his thoughts. I have found whether a startup business leader, growing business leader, or an established organization all leaders go through these three phases. Depending on their role and the size of their company each of these hats may be worn at different times.

Technician

Whether you are a start-up business owner, solopreneur, or leader in a large organization you started here. We all are good at something and have expertise in a specific area. It may be engineering based, sales-based, service-oriented or something else, but you know that subject well. As a leader if we remain at the technician level we run into two problems.

Micromanagement. We think that the way we have done it should be done by everyone. This can lead to unintentionally disempowering those we lead.

Micro-focus. If we still love to provide the service, build the product, etc. then we struggle to see the bigger picture. If being the technician is your sweet spot, then get people around you who can help with the other roles or grow into the next two roles.

Manager

The manager role requires building systems and processes that make the business sustainable. A business cannot survive if one person does everything. Even successful solopreneurs realize they need to automate and create systems to accomplish everything. Whether a single person business or multinational company we all have to make this first shift in thinking.

This is the shift from being a diligent productive worker to thinking into more efficiently producing. We are raising our thinking to the first level of understanding how to work on the business. This is where we think how to accomplish the technical work and keep getting it done in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

Leader

You may be thinking these are the same. Yes and no. Yes in that both have to think beyond just doing the work, but when you put your leader hat on this requires, as leadership expert John Maxwell puts it, “seeing more before.” Leaders in start-ups and small businesses are the most prone to fail at this area unless it comes natural, but multinational organizational leaders get stuck at the second stage if they are not intentional.

When you are thinking like a leader you are working on the business as you see it in the future. Let me illustrate. If you have a team of one now, but want to see your company, department, team grow then think beyond what you see. What roles and responsibilities must exist for you to have a larger team, department, or organization? What systems and processes must you create? What is your vision? What are the values that will guide who you hire? These are just a few of the questions you need to think into when wearing your leader hat.

So where are you investing most of your time now? Where do you need to invest more time? I need others to help me think at the leader level. If you need help like, contact me and let’s set up a no cost to you thirty-minute thinking partner session to help you think into your results. I challenge you not to stay where you are, but raise your level of leadership thinking so you can improve your results. Lead Well.

Sep

2021

Leaders Let Go

Are you a control freak? Do you like to make sure everything is done perfectly? Do you quickly take work from someone else because “it’s faster if I do it”? If you are honest with yourself, would you say you try to have your hands in everything? If you answered yes to any of these, you may either be an unknown control freak or a recovering one like me.*

As I was thinking about my battle to let go in many areas of life a few ideas came to mind which I hope you find valuable.

Recognition

The first step to dealing with a problem is recognizing it. This may require getting feedback from others who will tell you the truth.** The biggest sign I see both in myself and in clients I work with in helping them develop their leadership is the temptation to do everything.

I understand it is quicker to do it yourself, but let’s think about this on a personal level. Imagine you take an hour to train your children how to do the dishes even though it only would take you fifteen minutes to do yourself. How much time will you ultimately save by them doing the dishes over the next number of years?

The same applies professionally. Leaders frequently express concern about the time it may take to equip another employee. First, recognize you may have a control issue of wanting the task done exactly how you do it. After you have accepted the potential of that, then think about equipping another person which will build leaders for your team/organization while freeing your time for responsibilities more aligned with your role.

Know Your Real Job

In his book Procrastinate on Purpose author Rory Vaden interviewed successful entrepreneur Troy Peple about managing time. During the interview Peple stated:

“My job isn’t to do; my job is to make sure it gets done.”

Vaden described how Peple had become so good at delegating that people worried if he was doing the work. As the leader you see the job and organization from a much higher level. When examining what you do there are some essential questions we will cover in the next section. One helps determine if this is really your job to do.

As an aside, this is not a statement of being above a job, but a question of if you do this daily is it the best use of your time. Good leaders are willing to do any job.

Each of us may not have the same ability to delegate as Peple, but what we can learn from this statement is understanding his real responsibility was not to do all the work. I would guess he had learned to tame his control freak as he saw the value of letting go. Let’s explore how you determine what you do need to keep on your plate and control.

Three Key Questions

When I do masterminds helping professionals apply the principles in John Maxwell’s book Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 we discuss priorities. In this section John challenges us to answer three critical questions. These questions will help us prioritize and determine what our primary job is as the leader.

What is required of me? – Among all the responsibilities you have, what must you do. Peple would say casting vision is his number one job. Depending on your organization this and maybe a few other items are what are required.
What gives me the greatest return? – If the task is not giving you a great return on your time maybe it would be better to let go of control and give it to someone else or not do it.
What gives me the greatest reward? – Not all of us can operate in this area depending on the stage of our team/organization. We can get clarity on what we enjoy doing the most and this can give us clarity on why we are trying to control it. If we enjoy it, we may not want to let go of it, but does it serve the overall vision?

The Role’s Requirement

In this final section, allow me to get nerdy for a brief minute. There are three skills leadership require: technical, human, and conceptual. All three are required but depending on your role more of one may be required than the other. Knowing which of these is required helps determine if you are controlling areas you should not be.

Let me illustrate, the skilled worker who becomes a manager may try to teach his team to do everything exactly like he or she used to. In this new role more time needs to be dedicated to building people and looking at the bigger picture. Micromanaging the how of what your people do may frustrate them and not tame the control freak within.

So where do you need to let go of control? Need an outside thinking partner to help you discern where you may not be leading as well as you could. Contact me and let’s set up a time to think into your results. We all fight this battle and we all can improve. Lead Well.

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*As an aside years ago I read a book called The Control Freak by Les Parrott which not only helps with dealing with control freaks around you, but also the one within. A small recommendation if you want to dive deeper in this topic.

** If you want tips on getting or giving feedback you can go here for the first part of a short three-part video series.

Sep

2021

Leading as a Laborer

This is embarrassing. I have been alive for quite awhile and experienced multiple Labor Day holidays, but never knew what it was about. So I did what any modern person would do . . . I Googled it.

In case you were wondering, here is a very simplified version of what I found. During the late 1800’s at the height of the Industrial Revolution the average American worker experienced twelve-hour days for seven days a week. Even children as young as five or six experienced these conditions including extremely poor working conditions.

Over time there came a tipping point as marches, riots, and strikes occurred throughout America. Tensions rose and Congress passed a law making Labor Day a legal holiday which President Grover Cleveland signed into law on June 28, 1894.*

This is where it originated from, but what does this have to do with leadership? As I was looking into this, I thought of the fact that more people do NOT have a leadership title than those who do. Let me suggest a few ways those who do the labor, whether a labor-related job or those who sell a product or service, lead.

Innovate

Imagine a manufacturing plant where everyone has a role they fulfill. The people on the line see a problem. They have two choices: ignore it because “that’s not my job” or solve it. When a person without a title sees a problem and provides a solution they are innovating.

I realize some leaders insist every idea come from them (that is a topic for another day), but “laborers” can lead from their position by creating solutions. Who is the person most aware of the problem on the assembly line or out in the field? The person daily doing the work. Step up, provide a solution that will make the work easier or more efficient for everyone and demonstrate your leadership.

Demonstrate

“The truth is that credibility is the foundation of leadership.”

James Kouzes and Barry Posner

If you have been following what I write or talk about for any amount of time you hopefully know I believe all of us are leaders because leadership is influence. A person who is a technician in their industry increases influence by how they demonstrate what they do.

Are you a salesperson who is a great closer or great at making new relationships? Are you a technical worker who is excellent at what you do? Are you consistent in who you are and what you do? All of these are ways to increase credibility. This credibility comes from the demonstration of excellence in what we do and consistency in who we are. Over time our example leads others to seek us out for advice and our influence increases.

Facilitate

Those without positional power must master the art of influence. Imagine trying to assemble a product and your peers are slowing you down. You can’t boss them around because you have no power. Maybe you’ve gained credibility with them through your relationship, results, or what you have brought to the team. Through this relationship you can facilitate conversations to help everyone produce at a higher level.

This higher production may keep the boss off your back. Maybe you create a game out of your work so all of you enjoy it. If you are in sales, maybe you facilitate a friendly competition with a co-worker that increases production. All these are ways people without positions can use their influence to lead.

You may or may not have a position of leadership. Hopefully this has helped you identify ways you can recognize those who do the work on your team. If you aren’t in a position of leadership now, I hope this helped you see how you can lead from where you are. Whether you have a position of leadership or not, thank you for how you serve and labor every day in whatever you do. Please, let me know any way I may be able to serve you or those you lead. Lead Well.

* https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/labor-day-1