Helping you make a difference as a leader
Managing key relationships
Personal alignment
Leadership profile and presence
Coaching direct reports
Thinking smart about your time
Career development
New manager integration
Personal presentation
Creating a compelling
vision
Prioritising your key initiatives
Managing key relationships
The desire to improve stakeholder management is often a key reason that
a client seeks executive coaching. Sometimes management wants to promote
a talented specialist, but is concerned about the ability of the person
to manage a more complex political environment. At other times, it is
you as a leader who realizes that the business objectives at stake are
so important that you want expert help in working out how to manage a
complex web of key stakeholders. The higher up the organization you are,
the more relationship management is the key to success.
As a leader, you need to identify key "upward" stakeholders,
such as your boss and your peer group; and your boss's boss, and his or
her peer group. Once these people have been identified, you can begin
to identify the needs of the stakeholder, their preferred communication
style and the way that they measure your effectiveness as a leader. A
stakeholder management plan needs to be developed implemented and adjusted
over-time as the different, interdependent relationships unfold. Relationship
management is an ongoing, dynamic process, full of twists and turns and
shaped by shifting criteria. Effective stakeholder management delivers
effective business results smoothly, and increases the credibility of
the leader.
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Personal alignment
For people to get excited about where you want to take the business, they
need to believe in you.
Their level of trust will both depend on the extent to which you include their needs as stakeholders, and will also depend on the extent to which you inspire confidence. Knowing who you are, what your personal values are, what your personal mission is, having the appropriate competences, walking your talk and reflecting all of this in the working environments you create - all of this will have an impact on your credibility. Flexible and creative behavior based on character that has authenticity and integrity - this will enable people to trust you and to follow your leadership. Additionally, the fact that you will be feeling fulfilled and aligned will increase both your effectiveness and your personal charisma.
At PPD Consulting we have a unique methodology, used by all our coaches, for helping leaders enhance their leadership stature. We call it "logical level alignment" and it is based on the work of Robert Dilts. (For more on this, see our book, Alpha Leadership: Tools for business leaders who want more from life, Chapter 4, "Leading Through Embodiment." If your sense of who you are is aligned with your values, competencies and behaviours, others will see and respond to your leadership charisma. "A leader knows who they are and where they want to go, and has the skills to take people with them."
Leadership profile and
presence
Sometimes a company wants to promote a talented person into a more senior
leadership position, but is concerned about the leadership profile of
the individual: How do their own peer group and the peer group of the
executive making the promotion perceive the potential leader? Does he
or she have sufficient leadership stature and presence?
Personal alignment (discussed above) will increase stature and profile, and this can be dovetailed with an understanding of what quality leadership "looks like, sounds like, feels like" from an organizational culture point of view.
PPD Consulting can help you as a company increase the value to your business
of your most talented people by helping them increase their influence
and leadership profile and capability.
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Coaching direct reports
The more you as a leader are concerned with influencing and delivering
the agenda of your boss, and other upward stakeholders, the less time
you have for hands-on management of your own department. The secret, then,
is for you to have such competent direct reports, that you can then let
your team manage the day-to-day delivery, while you focus on broader strategic
objectives.
Thus, recruiting, coaching and developing direct reports are a key agenda
for an effective leader. You may need help in thinking through your development
plan for each direct report, and deciding on the appropriate coaching
style to help improve the skills of the people responsible for preparing
the direct reports. (For more on this, see our book, Alpha
Leadership: Tools for business leaders who want more from life,
Chapter 5, "Task Through Relationship.")
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Thinking smart about
your time
The job of a leader is to spend time working on agendas that are of the
highest value to the business, while delegating agendas of lower value.
- The Pareto principle says, "20% of what you do provides 80% of the value."
- So what is your 20%?
- What do you do with the other 80% of your tasks that only provides 20% of the value? You can delegate them, out-source them, create a system that manages them, or quietly forget them. (See Alpha Leadership, Chapter 7, and "80:20 Leadership.")
The leaders of a business are it's most important asset. The better you
use your time, the more value you create for the business.
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Career development
We coach key talent on how to interview successfully for internal appointments.
HR professionals approach us and say "we want this individual to
have the greatest chance of getting appointed, so we would like you to
coach them for this appointment process as if you were coaching them for
an external appointment."
We can also help you:
- Develop a strategic sense of your career
- Develop your cv
- Rehearse for interviews
- Learn how to network inside an organization
We have proven experience that shows that the secret to creating a high
performing organization is to have leaders do jobs they really like. If
you are excited and motivated, you will offer much greater discretionary
energy to the business. However, firms are not always good at helping
individuals map out the internal career path they would really like to
live and to take proactive steps to make it happen. That's where we can
help.
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New manager integration
The most risky time for you as a new leader is the first year in a new
role. You will want to:
- Understand the politics at the new level of authority
- Identify and manage the key stakeholders
- Understand the type of thinking needed at this new level
- Know the way that you need to divide your time between management and leadership responsibilities (The difference between management and leadership)
If you have become a leader through an external appointment, you will want to:
- Understand aspects of the company culture that are already obvious to people who have been in the organization for a number of years
- Learn the unstated rules of the organization
- Get help in understanding the implicit decision-making processes - the way decisions actually get made, as opposed to the explicit decision making processes?
Coaching greatly increases your success in a new appointment and ideally
starts before you take up your new appointment. Make sure that you are
a success in your new role right from the outset with no hitches or loss
of momentum.
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Personal presentation
The way you present yourself at group meetings and at 1:1 meetings creates
a significant impression about your ability to lead. PPD Consulting offers
1:1 presentation skills training, with video-feedback as well as voice
coaching.
When communicating to a wider audience of people who have little personal contact with you, the way you present to them will be a major factor in how they evaluate you as a leader as well. We also coach people who need to make presentations to very large groups of 50 people or more, a setting that requires special skills for success.
Even though many aspiring leaders know that people "judge a book by its cover," they don't bother to dress the part. PPD coaches provide training in personal presentation and dress. We teach you how to match the dress code of people in your organization at the level you aspire to while at the same time expressing yourself to your best advantage.
The first impressions you make can determine the extent to which you
are able to influence stakeholders.
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Creating a compelling
vision
Personal alignment and influence don't count for much if you aren't going
somewhere useful. Effective leaders have a living business plan that is
well specified at all levels. The vision will be clear -what Collins and
Porras call a BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (Harvard Business Review
1996). There will be strategic goals and an implementation plan to deliver
it. Blockers to success will have been identified and plans created to
overcome them, Critical success factors will be measured. And everyone
will know what the key priorities are.
Effective vision, strategy and delivery plan mobilizes the organisation
to succeed.
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Prioritising your
key initiatives
In a big ship, the captain may be on the bridge, but turning the wheel
doesn't change its direction much. Sometimes messages to the engine room
don't seem to have much influence on speed either. Know what your key
initiatives are and doggedly persist until the new behaviours are embedded
in the organization. (See Alpha
Leadership, Chapter 9, " Dogged Persistence and Knowing Where
to Stop.")
Increase your ability to create real change in the organization.
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