Monthly Archives: October 2019

No Trace of Injury

29 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Feelings, Leadership, Uncategorized

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I was watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Worf (the big, scary Klingon) fell off a catwalk and broke his spine. Luckily, a friendly alien with healing powers was on the scene. He put his hands on Worf’s head and fixed the broken spine. Dr. Crusher scanned the now breathing Worf and declared that there was no trace of injury.

The phrase really hit me: No trace of injury. My first thought was “I want that.” As I move forward in life, I want no trace of past injuries. Of course, that can be impossible for physical injuries. My ankles will always have some stiffness and tons of broken blood vessels from multiple sprains while playing basketball in high school.

However, what about emotional injuries? Do we need to carry those scars forward with us throughout our lives? I began to ask myself what was keeping me from living a life with no trace of injury.

I have felt for some time that I am resistant to being happy and successful. It infuriates me when people say, “You look good. Everything must be going well for you.” The immediate response in my head is, “You try restarting your life from scratch at 58 and see how well it goes, Donkey Head!”

In truth, life is going well! I have work that I love. I’ve bought a condo that is beginning to feel like home. I have friends and family who love and support me. My life is not the life that I planned and worked on for 35 years, but it’s pretty darn nice!

So why do I resist joy and peace? It took some soul searching and navel-gazing to come up with the answer. I feel that I am minimizing or even forgetting the trauma of my divorce if I look like I’m doing great. Several years of my life were awful, bordering on unbearable. If I look good, I believe that others think it couldn’t have been that bad if I’ve managed to recover so well.

If I look depressed and miserable, I am showing the world just how yucky the experience has been. I wear my misery as proof of my suffering. Yes, I know, that sounds very melodramatic. I have never denied my gift for hyperbole. What’s surprising is that I actually felt that way. It was a bit of a self-revelation.

I know that I am not alone in dealing with the curveballs that life throws. Many people have suffered much greater traumas than the ones that I have experienced. We all have experienced situations and events that just weren’t fair! Absolutely not our fault and totally unfair! The injustice of life can really get my blood boiling.

However, blood boiling is not all that productive. In reality, the only person suffering from my suffering is me. Can’t I just let the injustices of the past disappear? After more soul searching and navel-gazing, the answer for me right now is no. I cannot let it go completely. I want all the injustices I’ve endured to live on.

I want them to live on, but I’m tired of carrying them. So, I decided to write them all down. When I think of a time that I’ve been harmed, I write it down. If I start to think of that particular event again, I stop and tell myself that I don’t need to hold on to it in my brain anymore because it’s written on paper. The process is a blend of release and cognitive restructuring.

I told my therapist about my coping mechanism, and he asked me to make a list of all the “shaping events” of my life. Those include both positive and negative events that have made me who I am. We got into a lively discussion about whether or not we get to choose how we are shaped by an event. I feel that we get to choose to some degree. I can choose to become bitter and resentful, or I can choose to process the @(*#%/! emotions, learn the lesson, and move on.

For the record, I do not like processing emotions. I spent a good deal of life stuffing them and ignoring them. Also for the record, that is not the healthiest way to deal with them. It’s best if we name the emotion, claim the emotion, and then tame the emotion, which means we integrate the feeling and emotion into who we are now.

I like the idea of creating a list of shaping events for several reasons. First, it’s a balanced list of good and bad life events that helped create the me I am right now. That’s some good information to bring to light and discuss. Second, our beliefs are based on our experiences, and I am ready to look at those beliefs and see if they are still serving me. Third, I like that an objective person is going to read my list. It makes me feel seen and heard. Someone else will see my traumas and triumphs. As a result, I don’t feel like I have to hold on to them so hard.

I will definitely be asking my coaching clients to do the shaping event exercise. Coaching is about raising awareness and providing support. I look forward to being their witness to life’s triumphs and injustices. I will be keeper of their experiences so that they don’t have to carry them around anymore.

If we hold onto the past, we cannot move forward with joy into the future – with no trace of injury.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Leading Change

22 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Change, Leadership, Uncategorized

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Great leaders must have a solid foundation of mindsets, perspectives, and tools in order to effectively lead a change. During a leadership series, I talk about Intentional Change Theory (ICT), Leadership and Self-Deception, the power of choice, communication, the discussion outline, handling conflict in a positive way, using a coaching style of management, and motivation theory before we begin to talk about leading change. We start with the change theory from the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by,  Chip and Dan Heath which uses the model of the Rider, Elephant, and Path. You can read about all of these topics by following the link to the appropriate blog.

Here are some other considerations when leading others through a change:

  1. When facing a change, we want to clearly understand what is going to happen and why so that we can pass that information along to our subordinates. People are uneasy during a change, and knowledge makes them feel more comfortable. We want to create a clear picture of where we are going and why. People really like to know what the rationale is behind a change.
  2. We create buy-in by asking for people’s opinions and perspectives. It’s okay if they express negative feelings; it’s important to acknowledge those feelings and keep everyone focused on what they can do. We want to ask for input about the change as much as we can. However, it’s best not to ask for input if the change is set in stone or if we already have our minds made up; it breaks trust.
  3. Maintaining a positive attitude about the change, whether we like it or not, is crucial. Leaders set the tone for organizational change with their own attitudes. We create unnecessary hardship on people when we impose negative feelings about something that is going to happen anyway. We help the people around us when we stay positive.

If you have some people who aren’t really on board for the change. You can read about how to help them here.

Leading others through a change is the pinnacle of exceptional leadership that requires a solid base of foundational skills and knowledge.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

The Importance of Being Reliable

15 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Leadership, Team Building, Uncategorized

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Trustworthiness is the cornerstone of exceptional leadership. If people don’t feel that they can trust us, we do not have psychological safety or the positive relationships required for organizational success. However, trust is a difficult thing to cultivate and maintain because it relies on us being consistent. Great supervisors are consistent, dependable, and reliable.

Honestly, none of us are going to be reliable and consistent all the time, but we need to manage it most of the time. Our employees need to know that we aren’t going to yell at them when they come to us with a problem. They need to feel confident that we are going to be calm and reliable. We’re going to ask questions and figure out how to fix the situation. We want our employees to feel that we are a stable, reliable force that is going to help them. Until employees feel confident that their leaders are reliable and consistent, they are going to be tentative and watchful—maybe even subversive or dishonest in order to avoid an unpleasant confrontation.

Keeping our emotions and, more importantly, our actions in check takes a great deal of emotional intelligence. Specifically, we must exercise self-discipline. We don’t get to fly off the handle and yell whenever we get angry. When we talk about this in workshops, participants ask me if I ever lose my temper, yell, and say hurtful things. My answer is “rarely.” Actually, I can’t think of a time in the last ten years when I’ve hurled mean-spirited insults at anyone. I do get angry, and I sometimes raise my voice a bit and sound stern, but my words are still intentional and measured.

The first reaction that I get is incredulity, and then there is a definite belief that to control one’s temper is not healthy. One does need to express anger, but we don’t need to damage people, walls, furniture, or relationships to do it. Exercise is a great way to release pent-up anger. When my boys were young, I would hold sofa cushions while they hit on them and yelled. I’ve used both of those techniques.

I’ve also walked through my home ranting and yelling. I have a friend or two that will allow me to vent to them. One time I called a good friend and fellow coach and said, “I need you to say, ‘What an ass!’ every time I pause for breath for about three minutes.” She did, and I felt better. Recently I bought an ax-throwing kit for children. Think Nerf when you visualize it in your head. Throwing foam axes can be very cathartic.

The bottom line is that we can manage our anger so that we don’t intentionally harm others. Words can be powerful weapons. We want to express our anger in appropriate ways to others, and then go home and take it out on the sofa cushions.

Fortunately for us, people have a tendency to extend trust to others in the beginning of a relationship. The trust is a gift that we need to appreciate and work to keep. We want to avoid breaching trust because once it’s gone, trust is difficult to gain back. However, all is not lost if we lose someone’s trust. There are things that we can do to regain it as quickly as possible.

The first thing to do is to admit that we’ve done something disappointing. If we made a bad decision, forgot something, or lost our temper, we should admit it. The second thing to do is to apologize. Some old-school thought states that leaders should never apologize. It’s based on the belief that leaders have to be perfect to be great leaders. The problem with that thinking is that none of us are perfect. We are human, and we make mistakes. We only make matters worse if we don’t admit them and apologize.

We also need to do whatever we can to fix the problem if that’s possible. An apology goes a long way, but we also want to do what we can to make things right. If we forgot to do something, how can we get it done and deal with the results of forgetting? If a plan doesn’t work, it’s time to regroup and try again. We help to rebuild trust when we do what we can to repair any damage that we’ve done.

After we have broken trust, we will have to continue to behave in a consistent, reliable manner until everyone feels comfortable again. It may take some time, so we need to be patient.

In summary, when we break trust, it’s important to acknowledge it, apologize, and do what we can to fix it. Then we continue to be trustworthy until whoever was affected decides that they can trust us again. However, the best course of action is to do our best each moment of every day to be reliable, consistent, and dependable.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Delegation and Exceptional Teams

08 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Delegation, Leadership, Uncategorized

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In workshops, I talk a lot about psychological safety, which Project Aristotle identifies as one of the required traits for exceptional teams. However, psychological safety wasn’t the only thing on the list of findings. The entire list is below.

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Structure and clarity can be a particular challenge for leaders transitioning from a “doing” role to a “delegating” role. However, delegation in alignment with clear roles and goals is a crucial skill to develop.

First-time supervisors are usually promoted because they are very good at what they do. Generally, they were successful employees with a lot of knowledge and ability. Once they become leaders, it can be hard to let go of the “doing” part. It’s difficult to let other people try and maybe not do it quite as well as they could have done it. However, as a leader, it’s important to help employees be successful by not jumping in and doing the tasks for them. It’s a leader’s responsibility to develop employees’ skills and experience.

When we are employees who are responsible for only ourselves, we are judged on our own actions and abilities. We can create our own success by how hard and how well we work. As a leader, we aren’t just judged on what we do alone anymore. Our success is dependent on the success of everyone who works for us. That’s a big difference.

The first step in delegation is to let each employee know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and what outcome needs to happen for the employee to be considered successful. Essentially, we are saying, “These are your tasks. When you do these tasks like this, you will be successful.” It creates a wonderful environment where everyone knows what they’re responsible for and what they’re supposed to be doing. Clarity on tasks helps employees grasp their roles and stay in their own lanes.

Once everyone has a clear idea of the tasks that they need to perform, it’s important to make sure that they have all the resources that they need to do those tasks. Sometimes employees don’t have the authority or ability to get the resources that they need. It’s our job as leaders to make sure that they have everything that they need to be successful. Resources could mean information for a report or parts to keep a manufacturing line running. Leaders are responsible for securing resources that employees cannot get on their own.

Another responsibility of leaders is to remove obstacles that keep employees from performing their assigned tasks. An obstacle could be a process requirement that slows things down or a person who is being uncooperative. If something is making it difficult for a person to do his or her job, it’s the leader’s responsibility to change the situation.

In summary, the first steps to consider in the delegation of tasks are:

  1. Make sure that everyone knows exactly what tasks they need to perform and why those tasks are important.
  2. Clearly define what success at each task will include.
  3. Ensure employees have the resources that they need to do their assigned tasks successfully.
  4. Remove any obstacles that are hindering employees in the performance of their tasks.

Clear and specific expectations for successful behaviors, along with the proper support, are foundational elements when building an exceptional team or organization.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Delegation and Situational Leadership

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Delegation, Leadership, Uncategorized

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A supervisor’s level of involvement in an employee’s task is dependent on two things: 1) How important the task is, and 2) How experienced the employee is in performing that particular task. Those two considerations are represented on the graph below, which is a modification of the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model.

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The left scale of the graph represents the level of importance of the task. At the bottom of the graph are tasks that are not important. Near the top of the graph, the tasks are very important. Important tasks are high-visibility tasks with major consequences if not done successfully. The scale along the bottom of the graph shows how experienced the employee is at the specific task you are delegating. If the person has no experience, he or she would fall on the left side of the graph. If the employee has done the task successfully before, he or she would fall on the right side of the graph.

The terms in the middle of the graph are the same ones that are used in the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model. Each category represents a different amount of instruction and monitoring of employees.

It is appropriate to coach when the task is not important and the employee doesn’t have experience performing the task. Coaching includes giving a clear and detailed description of the expected outcome. However, we want to give employees some room to try and figure out the details on their own. If they make a mistake, it’s not a big deal because the task isn’t crucial. In coaching, we are creating a learning experience. We will tell them what success looks like and then check in with them periodically to make sure that they have the resources they need and that everything is going okay.

If we move up the page along the Importance of the Task scale but stay to the left on the graph, we’re still talking about employees who are not very experienced. However, they are working on something that’s really important with high visibility. In that situation, we want to direct. We are going to tell them exactly what to do, and then we are going to keep very close tabs on their actions. We would probably establish timelines and benchmarks and ensure that those requirements are met because we want to make sure that they succeed and the organization benefits.

Experienced employees will fall on the right side of the graph. If the task is not very important, we are going to delegate. We know that they can handle whatever task this is. Ultimately, a great supervisor’s goal is to have minimal involvement in the accomplishment of tasks. We want to tell them what success looks like and have them let us know when they are done. Of course, it’s difficult to attain that standard all the time because we get new employees, new tasks, and other changes.

Even experienced, trustworthy employees need support on important tasks. We have a lot of confidence in them, but because the task is important and may be highly visible, we want to make sure that we’re checking in with them to ensure everything is going well. We will provide a timeline for complex tasks and ask for updates. We aren’t directly in the nuts-and-bolts of the task, but we are keeping track of how it’s going.

In summary, our level of involvement with employees doing tasks is dependent on the person’s experience and the importance of the task. As supervisors, we aren’t going to maintain one level of involvement across the board all the time. We are going to gauge the level of involvement that we need based on the specific circumstances.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.