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Mastering the not so basic basics of leadership
In the last two articles I set out what for me are the essential foundations of effective leadership coaching, namely:
o Being clear about how people learn to perform effectively in challenging business situations, and then applying this understanding to facilitate learning and change in the pursuit of organisational goals and financial returns.
o Using support and challenge to get people to stretch beyond the reassuring security of their current capabilities. Challenging norms, habits and routines, including your own. Insisting that people do things differently and that they do different things, and provoking them to stretch their capabilities.
In this and the next article in the series, I would now like build on these foundations by discussing the essential practical skill set of the leader as coach. The ones I will specifically address in this article are:
o Rapport building
o Questioning
o Listening and attending
These are simple, seemingly banal skills, but they are at the heart of great leadership. They also require constant work and self critical attention if you are to get them right. Sadly, in my experience, the more senior people get the more they neglect these core skills, especially those of fully listening and attending.
Let us be clear therefore, mundane though the subject matter may seem, if you ignore every other idea and tool presented in this series and simply focus conscientiously on improving your grasp of these key skills, you will transform your leadership capability and your contribution to your business.
Rapport building
It is the quality of working relationships that delivers results in business. It is the basis for everything. Many leaders focus too much on tasks and do not make enough links at a personal level. However, relationships are the essential precondition for consistently reaching targets in a sustainable way.
As was stated in the previous article, you have to earn the right to challenge someone by building up a relationship and a significant level of rapport. There are different strokes for different folks. Your support and challenge must be tailored to the needs, capabilities and motivations of each individual. You have to take the time to get to know your people, to talk to them, to get to understand them.
In other words: “Effective leaders ... can empathise with those they lead, step into their shoes, get close to them. Yet they also seem to be able to communicate a sense of edge, to remind people of the job at hand and the overarching purpose of the collective endeavour.” (Goffee & Jones 2006)
This means getting to know what makes your people tick, understanding their thoughts and feelings, what has made them who they are and what they are about. This approach is best captured by the word empathy. Leading with empathy requires that you motivate people by acknowledging their thoughts and feelings, that you are approachable, that you want hear what people have to say and that you listen carefully.
Daniel Goleman (1998) puts empathy at the heart of his concept of Emotional Intelligence. He describes it as the individuals “social radar” through which he or she senses others’ feelings and perspectives and takes an active interest in their concerns.
Questioning
You need to learn to ask the right questions and then shut up and listen. Your aim should be to get people used to thinking robustly and clearly rather than doing their thinking for them.
If you are serious about improving you leadership capability through incorporating proven coaching skills, mastering the appropriate use of questioning should be your constant preoccupation. You should always be asking yourself: “How can I take what I want to express and turn it into a question?”
Not just any kind of question will do. Some styles of questioning can be positively harmful and amongst these I would particularly highlight the “are you bright enough to guess what I have got in my mind?” technique and its close variant, “have I got through to you yet that you haven’t really thought this through?”, or “would you like me to make you feel even smaller?”
Rather, your questioning should be conducted in the spirit of dialogue. Dialogue is about engaging in an open and free exchange during which we fully suspend our own judgements and prejudices. It is a spirit of collective exploration and discovery out of which something new and creative is likely to emerge. It is collective sensemaking.
In developing your questioning skills you should bear in mind that:
o The use of open questions will encourage a thoughtful and analytical response rather than one word answers.
o Open questions usually start with: who, what, when, where, why (beware of over use), how, or “tell me……….”
o Probing questions should be used to follow up on responses to your initial questions. You could, for example, ask for more detail on a specific incident or issue which the individual may mention in passing.
o Closed questions should be used sparingly. That is questions that can be answered with a yes, no or other minimal response
o Leading or multiple questions should be avoided
Listening and attending
Think for a moment of someone you know who makes you feel listened to, someone who gives you their full and undivided attention, someone that demonstrates that they have really heard what you have to say, someone who gives you the encouragement to fully express and explore your thoughts and feelings, someone who is fully present with you, in that instant.
How do they make you feel?
Now think of a significant person in your life who although present with you in person is clearly often elsewhere in their head whilst you are speaking, only really being focussed when they are trying to communicate their own thoughts and feelings to you.
How do they make you feel?
Need I say more?
In developing your listening skills you should:
o Ensure that the individual does the majority of the talking – especially at the outset
o Set aside any preconceived ideas – listen to what is said, not what you expect to be said
o Clear your mind of other preoccupations – give them your full attention
o If what is said is unclear to you, seek clarification
o Use active listening
o Be aware of using appropriate body language – especially posture, eye contact and facial expression
o Be aware of what the individual’s body language is telling you
In order to master the art of completely attending to someone, you need to be fully aware of what is going on around you and of other people. It is a non-verbal sensing or knowing what is happening here and now. You feel fully alive, exquisitely conscious of being in the moment, with a sense of connection, spontaneity and freedom.
For a good illustration of this, think of a young child playing. They seem to inhabit a world of boundless awareness and enthusiasm and have an aliveness and spontaneity that is often lost in adulthood.
Such an awareness could be said to be consciousness of my existence here and now in this body. Blockage of awareness often manifests itself as a lack of energy and vitality, or rigidity of responsiveness. Awareness leads to personal presence and impact. Presence means being fully present in the here and now – fully conscious of what is going on outside and within, but in a non-judgmental way.
Further skills
In the next article in this series I will continue my exploration of the core skills of leader as coach by discussing the skills of:
o Giving and receiving feedback
o Summarising
o Focusing on key issues
o The strategic use of silence
If you have followed our series of coaching articles to date, or are simply already aware of the potential power and effectiveness of a coaching methodology, you will be aware that the giving and receiving of honest, open and objective feedback can be very powerful and empowering, as well as being potentially very damaging if you get it wrong. I will fully explore these important issues in this forthcoming article.
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