Productivity is high; Stress anxiety is low; Morale is great; Customers are beating down your doors; Employee turnover is non existent (except when its your idea), and; Profits are rolling in so fast the owners and bankers are all asleep. Congratulations - and Id really like to study your organization to learn how you do it. In the real world, most organizations have concerns about at least some of those things and often while training leadership we find that a manager's inability to focus or concentrate is simply because he's "too close to the forest to see the trees". When youre up to your butt in alligators, its difficult to concentrate on draining the swamp. We call it the focus factor. Often the answer is a professional coach. As an outsider the coach can help managers focus on developing the leadership skill required to produce results. Ive seen a thousand definitions of leadership over the years but none better than John C. Maxwell's. Leadership is the ability to get people to follow you - nothing more - nothing less. Maxwell also said, If you think your a leader and you have no followers, youre not leading, youre just going for a walk. Typically the coach will work with the CEO and the Senior Management Team helping them to develop and put into place the skills required to make the management team better, more focused, more functional leaders. Individually and collectively. Such leaders become initiators of change rather than victims of it. They, in turn, coach and mentor their subordinates in the development of the same leadership skill. "From the top floor to the shop floor." In any organization you will see that people emulate their superiors. If the CEO is a tyrant then tyranny is likely to be found throughout the organization. If the CEO is a pushover you will find a lack of decisiveness everywhere. Leadership skill consistently demonstrated at the top produces self confidence, decisiveness and effectiveness as though by osmosis everywhere you turn. The coach has the role of getting this process started and of helping everyone to develop the skills to keep it growing. Like yeast, it will soon feed on itself. A few thousand dollars invested in coaching can return hundreds of thousands to the bottom line, and do it in an improved, more relaxed, less stressful atmosphere. Len McNally |
