We were recently asked what role personality plays in the effectiveness of leaders. A good question and one that needs to be asked more often!
 
There are many facets to a leader’s capability including cognitive and other skills, experience, and personal traits and characteristics. All of these are related to executive success. Too often, however, critical hiring or promotion decisions focus on intellect and a successful track record at the expense of the behavioural output of personality.
 
Ram Charan, in his book Know-How, says that there are dozens of personality traits that separate leaders who perform from those who don’t. For example, he suggests a healthy level of ambition is a necessary to push self and others to achieve, personal drive helps keep priorities in focus and tenacity allows a leader to get to the heart of an issue and find solutions.
 
On the flip side, a characteristic such as the need to be liked can limit a leader’s ability to make tough calls on people, resulting in tolerating nonperformers or even promoting people for the wrong reasons. Or, a person who is risk averse may find it hard to set goals for fear of making the wrong choices.
 
Behavioural expressions of personality are the essence of a person’s leadership style. Readily observed by others, the sum total of these observations amount to a person’s reputation. Most people value their reputation highly as it shapes the way others treat them and influences the type of opportunities that will be made available to them.
 
When Kouzes and Posner wrote The Leadership Challenge, they noted that certain kinds of reputation are associated with successful leadership, such as being known as honest, competent, forward-looking and inspiring. They found that these characteristics amounted to personal credibility, which they described as the foundation of leadership.
 
In a review of the empirical literature on personality and leadership, Robert Hogan and Robert Kaiser noted a common theme was the connection between personality, leadership and employee attitudes. They reported a causal link, personality predicts leadership style because who we are determines how we lead. They concluded that leadership is about the performance of teams, groups and organisations and that good leadership promotes team and group performance, whilst bad leadership degrades the quality of life for everyone associated with it.

In summary, the impact of personality and reputation on leadership cannot be underestimated – it determines the quality of leadership and, starting at the top, leaders should be aware of the interplay between personality, team dynamics and performance throughout their organisation.

It would be hard to find a successful leader who couldn’t think of a person who had provided the right words of counsel or encouragement at an opportune moment in their career. Yet, the opportunity of having experienced leaders guide and mentor others is often left to chance.

Mentoring partnerships can and do develop spontaneously when driven by the needs and interests of two people. But organisations need to play a much more proactive role in facilitating good mentoring practices if they are serious about talent development.  

Why is Mentoring so Important?
Robert Thomas, in his book Crucibles, points out that to enjoy increasing returns from leadership investments top management must actively cultivate next-generation leaders and this means their immediate successors and at least two generations beyond them.

There are other compelling reasons to put mentoring at the heart of a business growth (or, survival!) strategy. The level of ambiguity in today’s business environment demands the sharing of experiences and best practices. The looming talent crisis as baby boomers exit the workforce requires speedy transfer of expertise to those who will follow them. And, as if all this wasn’t enough, mentoring can be instrumental in delivering three key drivers of employee engagement: career support, opportunity for development and trust in senior management.

How can Mentoring Relationships be Encouraged?
Mentoring comes in various forms from structured programs to more informal approaches. There is no hard and fast rule; what will work best is what your people are ready for. Simply, put the right ground rules in place and allow participants the freedom to manage the mentoring partnership in the most appropriate way for them.

The expectations of mentoring need to be realistic. A single, long-term relationship with one mentor can seem a daunting commitment for the mentor and a limiting one for the mentee. The truth is that job and career mobility are higher than ever before and this calls for shorter, situational mentoring.

Offering the mentoring experience to the right people is important. There is plenty of evidence that high-potential individuals are very willing and eager to tap into the expertise of more experienced people. Similarly, an experienced leader who has skill and interest in helping others grow can impart wisdom as well as the care needed to build a special bond in the mentoring partnership.

Driving High-Impact Talent

The Leadership Transformation Conference held in Chicago On 27-28 September lived up to all expectations! A great line-up of speakers delivered thought-provoking challenges to the way we accelerate the development of young talent.
 
Bob Eichinger, co-founder of Lominger, shared reflections on his four decades of research with a review of the most critical skills for leaders today – leverage yourself, leverage others and stay agile in the face of change. For those charged with leadership development, he recommends building self-awareness exercises into all courseware and offsites, developing a feedback rich culture and building a change management curriculum. Doing so will enable you to grow the adaptive and flexible leaders you need now and for the future. As always, Bob dazzled with his wit and colourful slides!
 
Mark Huselid, Professor of HR Strategy at Rutgers University, made a strong case for managing investments in talent like a portfolio – disproportionate investments in the jobs that create the most value. This means focusing on three things – business strategy (how we grow), workforce strategy (the culture and capabilities we need) and HR strategy (what HR should do). For more on this see Mark’s latest book The Differentiated Workforce. Mark injected some fun into the session by engaging in a spirited discussion with iPhone owners in the audience. It turns out that not one of them (and there were many) had been able to throw out the beautifully designed box it was delivered in. A great way to illustrate Apple’s strategic positioning as a quality product that feels good to touch, right down to the box it came in!

Why coaching? I enjoy coaching because it’s stimulating, intellectually and socially invigorating, rewarding and quicker than walking. There are many benefits to be had from coaching, both for the person coaching and the person receiving the coaching (the coachee). As a coach I am stimulated by the variety it brings – assisting people from different industry sectors and functional areas and in various situations is both satisfying and challenging.

During my years spent in the consulting arena, I was expected to come up with answers and recommendations and to focus on specific areas of concern. Coaching provides a welcome change in approach – as a coach I assist the coachee themselves to define the desired outcome and the path to that outcome, rather than prescribing a solution.

In order to guide and coach most effectively, I follow a coaching process. The major components of that coaching process are: observing, listening to the coachee; gathering information from the environment, perhaps via stakeholder surveys and/or 360° surveys and sharing that information with the coachee; observing interactions between parties and disseminating the information with the coachee; providing feedback in a manner that allows the coachee to receive the message, without debilitating them. The coach has the advantage of a lack of familiarity with the environment and therefore takes little for granted and consequently asks defining questions.

While coaching happens in the present, it deals often with the past and is concerned with the future. It concerns people and process. It requires intellect and feeling, and benefits from humility.

As an “I” from an MBTI perspective, my relationship building is a conscious process. Coaching requires the ability to develop trust, so that confidentiality is assured, judgement is suspended and impartiality is assured and whilst, as coach, there is sometimes the temptation to come up with “the answer”, that is always the prerogative of the coachee.

Employee surveys focused on satisfaction, engagement and climate are a common feature in the life of many organisations. Typically, these surveys provide insight into what staff think about life at work and areas that are working or not working in the deal between employer and employee.

In many companies, these surveys provide feedback broken down by organisational unit and quite frequently survey results are factored in to the remuneration of managers and executives. The big question this raises for managers presiding over units reporting less than desired results is “So…. what can I do about the issues identified in the survey?”

Many organisations do follow-up diagnostic work to give more specific meaning to survey outcomes and provide managers and executives with information that will help them target actions that will make a difference to employee engagement.

Approaches we have seen used effectively include:

• Unstructured focus groups that ask employees to identify specific issues they are concerned about

• Aggregated results from 360 degree surveys that give managers and executives a clear view of what employees want to see more or less of from them

• A team diagnostic that measures the attributes of work-place teams that contribute positively or negatively to employee engagement.

Lominger has released the latest FYI book designed to fulfil an important need – helping people increase self-awareness so they can make the best decisions about their development.

Managing a career is easier for those who are self-aware. FYI for Insight™ paints a clear picture of the leadership characteristics that matter most for success—and helps a person reflect on how to reach their full potential.

You can learn about FYI for Insight™ by taking a simple three-step assessment in just 15 minutes. It will give you a personalised report with a self-awareness score and highlight hidden strengths and blind spots. To see more visit the Lominger website.

An important consideration when choosing to work with a coach is understanding a little more about them as a person, as well as their style and approach, so that you can decide if the coach is the right ‘fit’ for you. Here are some reflections on my own coaching style, experiences and the beliefs that influence and inform my work today as a leadership coach.
 
During my 25 years in organisational development and human resources management roles, I’ve had the opportunity to coach senior leaders in some of Australia’s leading organisations. From this experience, I realised that I loved working with managers and executives to enhance their leadership effectiveness.

In 2008, I completed a coaching accreditation program and this, combined with my background in organisational psychology and human resource management, now underpins my work as an executive coach. Over the last few years, I have continued to hone my skills as a leadership coach (which I consider to be an ongoing process) - this has included undergoing accreditation in the suite of Leadership Architect® Suite of tools.
 
My coaching style is both supportive and challenging.  I focus on building rapport and establishing a trusting working relationship with each client. This then becomes the foundation for development and growth.  Whilst my coaching approach is tailored to each client’s situation, there are some common elements:

• Focused attention and listening to the client’s needs and agenda

• Asking questions to explore established behaviour patterns and their impact

• Working together to diagnose the ‘real’ need and determine the best path to increased effectiveness (using assessment tools, where appropriate, to explore and analyse behaviours/skills/preferences/drivers)

• Supporting clients in moving from awareness to action

• Agreeing coaching goals and developing action plans to achieve desired results

• Promoting sustainable learning from experience

The Leadership Development Series of workshops held earlier this month were a success! Participants told us they found great value in the practical resources provided and left with numerous tips for using them back in their organisations.

As always, our facilitation team members were energised by the enthusiasm of participants and we would like to acknowledge the interesting questions, comments and ideas that guided discussion. The debate reinforced the fact that the Leadership Architect® tools can be applied effectively in diverse types of organisations and cultures.

For those who missed out on the workshops, we will be posting some implementation ideas online as a useful resource – which will be available to our subscribers of our monthly newsletter.

We will be holding our next Leadership Development Series in April of next year – details to be advised.

How often do we experience a new recruit not working out because something is not quite right about how they have come on board or engaged with the organisation? Recruiting and getting the right person selected for a position is a constant challenge.  

Naturally the focus is on getting the person with the best technical skills; at first glance this can make sense. The reality is that most of the time new hires to senior positions fail because an aspect of their style or behaviour does not fit with their new work environment. At senior levels, deficiencies in technical knowledge or skill are usually not the main factor in unsuccessful hiring. Improve your organisation’s hiring success rate with these practices:

1. Define the behavioural competencies that are most important to success in the role:

• Does it depend on strong relationships with customers and stakeholders?
• Is there a lot of conflict or negotiation involved?
• Does the job require extensive problem solving or presentation skills?

If your organisation doesn’t have a competency model, consider developing one. A number of suppliers have well researched competency frameworks and can help you build one quickly and reliably

2. Be aware of skills that are in short supply in the market – design your recruitment process and set key stakeholder expectations around it accordingly. Critical skills are scarce so you may need to search broadly and spend longer generating a pool of candidates that matches your needs.

3. Select for the skills that are hardest to find, and hardest to develop – this makes sense because if you hire someone deficient in skills that are hard to develop, they may struggle to master the most challenging demands of the role.

The Career Architect Development Planner 5th Edition was created for deeper and more detailed development initiatives than FYI For Your Improvement. The content provides in-depth research that lets users create the development experiences that meet their unique needs.

The 5th Edition introduces new content that makes it even easier to identify development needs and create targeted development plans. It is available online via the Lominger website. When purchasing material online please ensure you select "Hilary Sayers"  in the associate drop down box! Thanks.