Are You Building Your Lighthouse?
In my mind a lighthouse is a guide or a reference point that allows people to find their direction while reducing their "danger". It is not a map, or a set of instructions, it is a guide. So I ask the question are you building a lighthouse for those you care about to guide their way?
I look at it from several levels. I recently posted a question on LinkedIn on where are we are teaching the important skills people need to live and work in our complicated society. Interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork and "playing well" with others, leadership, and followership. In many cases people told those skills need to be developed in the home or on the playground, that waiting till someone enters the workforce is too late.
I also heard from graduates and employers that we are not teaching skills like giving feedback, setting expectations, taking corrective action, and similar skills in our top management skills with any consistency. And what about coaching, which is different from these others skills?
I asked another question about whether or not these skills are "universal" as applicable in all cultures as in the West. Most agreed that these along with a series of "attributes" that we call leadership are desirable even if in some cultures they would be more aspirational than immediately transferable. How about building and giving trust, where do we teach that?
I don't know about others who have had the opportunity to hire and train employees and "emerging" managers, but I have encountered a few who didn't come to the job with this "toolkit" in hand.
A colleague recently said in discussion that he found the Gen Xer's and Millenials to be unreceptive to mentoring. I mused that maybe they had never experienced it and didn't know how to accept it or ask for it rather than rejected it.
I am pondering a theory that we need a three level approach to "Coaching":
I look at it from several levels. I recently posted a question on LinkedIn on where are we are teaching the important skills people need to live and work in our complicated society. Interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork and "playing well" with others, leadership, and followership. In many cases people told those skills need to be developed in the home or on the playground, that waiting till someone enters the workforce is too late.
I also heard from graduates and employers that we are not teaching skills like giving feedback, setting expectations, taking corrective action, and similar skills in our top management skills with any consistency. And what about coaching, which is different from these others skills?
I asked another question about whether or not these skills are "universal" as applicable in all cultures as in the West. Most agreed that these along with a series of "attributes" that we call leadership are desirable even if in some cultures they would be more aspirational than immediately transferable. How about building and giving trust, where do we teach that?
I don't know about others who have had the opportunity to hire and train employees and "emerging" managers, but I have encountered a few who didn't come to the job with this "toolkit" in hand.
A colleague recently said in discussion that he found the Gen Xer's and Millenials to be unreceptive to mentoring. I mused that maybe they had never experienced it and didn't know how to accept it or ask for it rather than rejected it.
I am pondering a theory that we need a three level approach to "Coaching":
- The most currently applied model is "executive coaching", which as it implies is working with someone at a senior level to prepare them or "rehabilitate" them and increase their effectiveness in a management or leadership role. This is generally one on one, expensive, and limited to a select population. Enlightened entrepreneurs are embracing this technique as well as they move from "founder/owner" to CEO.
- Some organizations have "leadership" academies or programs for mid level managers who have been identified for potential advancement. I have participated in developing and implementing these programs with a degree of success, especially when you combine "training" with ongoing reinforcement from their immediate supervisor and management chain of command.
- The last level is aspirational. It is what I call a true coaching culture. The skills sets of front line management: setting expectations, giving and receiving feedback constructively, taking appropriate corrective action, recognizing positive results, and generally "blocking and tackling" for your team are foundation skills for everyone in the organization. Additionally, senior managers including the C level are spending time coaching and interacting with "emerging" leaders as mentors and coaches. It is embedded in the culture.
I think if you create this culture you have created the essential foundation for engagement. It doesn't remove the need for vision, strategy and leadership; but it provides one Hell of a foundation to build on.
I like to think I began building my "lighthouse" with my children years ago and I have built a few others I hope, only time will tell.
If you are ready to build your lighthouse, we would like to assist you. The Business Case for Engagement says it all, commitment is simply better than compliance.
Labels: coaching, commitment, leading, mentoring
posted by Mark at New Paradigms LLC at
3:55 PM
2 Comments:
Having had limited exposure to a corporate world where many lower level supervisors and managers don't implement the skills that cause employees to move from compliance to commitment. It has been my experience though to have moved from an entry level position to middle management before I graduated high school and was the youngest person in the history of an unnamed company to hold a position that had me at 16 supervising employees that were well older than twice may age and some that had children older than myself. But the success that I experience I feel is a result of what I would the leadership and management intangibles that I have had the privilege of learning from my father and a pair of mentors that have all shaped my growth. So it is from that paradigm that I agree that many "Gen Xers" don't know how to look for mentors or for the support that those relationships provide. Rather than not wanting those relationships I feel it would be more accurate to say that they don't understand the true purpose of the relationship or don't have a means for understanding the value of those relationships.
Regardless though of how you feel about the role of mentoring youth, it is obvious to me that any company that were able to effectively implement and foster an environment that supported it's management at every level from C -level executives to line supervisors implementing and learning " giving feedback, setting expectations, taking corrective action, and similar skills". In addition though I would advocate a strong need for those individuals to demonstrate a high level of personal integrity and accountability which I personally feel fall under "basic blocking and tackling". Skills that should be taught by parents, or learned as youth, but recognizing that children don't spend all of their time at home and as such necessitates that those skills be taught in both school curriculums and later in B schools and graduate courses.
We need to be developing a generation of leaders to follow in the steps of the visionaries who are our parents, predecessors, and hopefully mentors. Though these things take time and effort to implement I personally feel that the return on that investment will be invaluable as you craft a generation of managers and leaders that not only perform effectively and produce results in the workplace, but that represent the opportunity to keep our country and big business to avoid the moral bankruptcy that has recently been plaguing corporate America.
Great Mark.
I am building my own lighthouse each day of my life.
Thanks for you great insight
Regards,
Ricardo
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