Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

employee

Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?

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Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?
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A business can’t exist without meeting its bottom line.

But neither can a business exist without its people.

You’ve probably been in the room when budget is discussed, and someone diagrams the tension between dollars and people to get to an answer. The thought there is, too low on dollars, and we aren’t investing enough in infrastructure; too low on people and they won’t be engaged and produce.

But this is the wrong question.

What if I told you that in order to make your business perform at higher levels and meet the future more successfully, that you invest in people first, every time?

Can you really lead with heart first and get results?

Many misunderstand and think that leading with heart means taking on a maternal approach to leadership and offering a shoulder to cry on. Not so.

Leading with heart means leading with authenticity and service. It means putting people first. It’s having the ability to build trust and followership through influence and a genuine sense of service (and not because of position or power).

When you lead with heart, you get results.

Why?

Putting people first, building bonds, fostering their growth, and supporting their interests results in greater motivation. Your people become more highly engaged, and take more initiative. And this means more productivity. It means your workplace will experience a culture of creativity and fun.
All of this leads to a healthier and happier bottom line.

Instead of leading your decision-making with the dollar sign in front, keep your people as first priority.

What are the characteristics of leading with heart? Here is a short list to help you reconnect head and heart:

1. Lead with authenticity.

If you are attempting to emulate someone else’s style of leadership, or you haven’t taken the time to explore and discover your “inner leader” – your strengths, values, and personal mission – then you aren’t operating at your most powerful and best. Your natural gifts allow you to contribute at highest levels. Don’t play the comparison game – do the work to discover who you are as leader so that you are genuine in your approach to life, work, and relationships.

2. Serve with a sense of purpose.

Develop your why. Why do you do what you do? Why does the business exist? How do you and the business change things for the world? If you haven’t taken the time to answer these questions, then you don’t possess the drive that comes with purpose. Serving with purpose allows you to step outside yourself to connect and see how you can serve others. And that’s heart.

3. Develop capacity for love and caring in the workplace.

This may sound counter-intuitive. Yet, we are talking about the ability to build deep bonds and trust with others. This may sound rather esoteric, but stop to think for a moment: when human beings carry wounds and personal agendas fueled by a disconnect in character or poor experience, they step back, reticent to connect with others at a deep and personal level. This keeps others from trusting them, and staff will serve their leader out of fear and not out of love. If this is the case, motivation and engagement will take a deep dive – and so will your bottom line.

4. Foster growth and empowerment in others.

This may seem to be a given, but stop and think: are you someone who directs others and tells them what to do, or do you practice active listening and asking careful questions so that they can develop their personal growth? Are you someone who finds it difficult to trust others to get the job done, or do you take safe risks that allow others to flex their skills and learn to acquire greater tools?

5. Model and teach collaboration.

It’s easy to get the job done; it’s more challenging to allow others to participate and bring them along in the process. Do you find yourself saying, “Oh, I’ll just do this right now and we can move on,” or do you recognize the value in teaching collaboration? What else might get in your way of modeling collaboration? You’ll want to break through this so that you can create a powerful culture of team.

6. Confront courageously and in love.

Learn to love conflict, and to seek reconciling it wherever possible. Modeling this for your business will allow others to support reconciliation instead of forming silos and carrying the stress of unresolved conflict. Poor communication and conflict account for 87% of all productivity loss in the workplace. Learn to confront with courage and by being tough on issues and tender on people.

7. Celebrate creativity, fun, and initiative.

Are you having fun yet? Do your employees show they are enjoying what they do? If not, you will want to look at fostering a spirit of creativity and allowing more brainstorming and collaboration on areas you have considered closed. Cultivate the ability in yourself and your people to consider various perspectives outside the norm. Remember – the most amazing inventions have been born out of thinking outside the box. And thinking outside the box means stepping outside of it.

If you can master these seven steps, you will truly be on a strong path to leading with the heart. And in a world where technology continues to grow and impact our ability to lift each other up, cultivating the human spirit in love is more important than ever before.

Three Ways to Help Your New Employee Execute Well

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Three Ways to Help Your New Employee Execute Well
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Do you sometimes wonder if one of your managers made a mistake with their latest hire?

How can you tell?

The new hire’s transferable skills check out. Their attitude is positive. Team morale is high. And you can clearly tell the new hire is highly engaged and ready to go.

But he or she is not getting the work done.

Why is this?

There’s a handy, quick mental process I like to go through with leaders when they are second-guessing a latest hire.

Is it really the new hire, or is it your management?

Here is how you can tell.

1. Does the new employee show a clear understanding of their role, responsibilities, and your expectations?

Be careful not to downplay this. I have worked with many great companies whose new hires may receive a job description and a desk as their orientation. The manager counts on the team to fill in the blanks for the new person. If your company takes this casual stance, you are losing money and a potentially great employee.

What does the new hire’s manager truly expect of them and their area of responsibility? What are the goals set for them? Timelines? Metrics?

2. Does the new hire have the right tools and resources to do the job?

Again, most leaders will respond with an immediate “yes.” But they are basing this on what they think the employee needs to do the job. Has he or she been asked the question, “What do you need in order to achieve your goals here? Do you have the tools and resources you need?” Just test this. You may be surprised.

3. Has the immediate supervisor developed an accountability system with their new employee?

Can the employee access their immediate supervisor on a regular basis for help and questions? Does he or she get the regular feedback needed so they know they are on track? The opposite is more prevalent than you would hope.

In fact, according to one study by Dresser & Associates, HR, Payroll, and Management Solutions, only 7% of managers and 10% of senior executives in the workforce are held accountable consistently for developing their direct reports through performance management processes.

How do you compare?

5 Tips to Mentor Your First-Time Manager

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How to Help Your New Manager Show Who is Boss

Mentoring Others to Take Charge

Your new manager is a talented individual. If they were not, you would not have hired them. Even though a new manager has excelled in their previous position, they may not yet have acquired the skills of managing people to meet success in the new role.

If you don’t jump in to provide mentoring and guidance, you’ll be losing much more than face. Around 60% of new managers fail. And you’ll recall that when a new manager does not work out, you will lose an average of 6-9 months of their salary in replacing them (recruitment, training, team productivity, and more), as well as a lot of time and energy. This means that if your person is making $40,000 per year, you will lose between $20,000-$30,000 in the process.

This is a much bigger ticket than investing in some sound managerial training for new managers, which usually costs around $2,000.00.

I have heard from many who tell me of their bad experiences with supervising new promotions. One of the top concerns you’ve expressed is how to help new managers adjust to managing people by displaying authority in an effective way.

How do you help your new manager learn to show how to lead – the right way?

Leaders have reported seeing some pretty sad and frustrating behaviors as the new manager attempts to assert their role – all the way from apologetic language and cloudy directives to arrogance and micro-managerial tones and approaches. Many new promotions want to assure their team members that they are still friends. Others feel they need to divorce themselves from the pack to lead. Neither is right. And the fallout from either approach is severe.

Learning to manage people takes time and experience.

Here is a 5-step checklist you can use to help your new manager to begin, and to reflect a healthier way of showing authority:

1. Teach them to set clear expectations.

As the leader, you have no doubt drawn up an action plan for the department with goals, measurables, and key milestones. Ask your new manager to review this, and to define expectations for their reports. Have them work with you to do this a few times so that they receive the benefit of your coaching. Helping a new manager go through this exercise will flex their ability to see the large picture and the moving pieces that help to compose it. It will also give you a sense of where they will need additional support as they gain greater understanding.

2. Teach them to be proactive.

Talk to them about setting up regular meetings with each of their reports to review expectations and to set up a system for each to report back to them on a regular basis. This one move will help to minimize the tendency for the new manager to micromanage since they will know when to expect the reports, and will also allow a private forum in which they can explore with team members what motivates each, how they can best lead, and to answer any concerns or questions.

3. Teach them to deal with conflict in a timely manner.

Conflict should not be allowed to take over, or it will decimate the department. It must be addressed in a timely manner, and your new manager needs to learn to handle it well by separating out emotions, stories, and issues. Further, what seems to be an issue may really be a symptom. For more on how to get to the real issue and help them develop their problem-solving skills, see the article “Taking Your Problem-Solving from Good to Great: The Missing Step.”

4. Teach them to be even-handed.

Help them to be fair in the way they deal with requests such as raises, bonuses, additional resources, and other perks. Show them how to evaluate requests by leaning on policy, procedure, and performance. This will help them to avoid team members who beg favoritism based on past relationships or future promises. It will also help them to support their decisions as they provide these opportunities to those who merit them.

5. Teach them to role model leadership.

They may not know it yet, but everyone is watching. Your new manager got the promotion, and others are curious to see whether they deserve it. They are wondering whether they can trust following them based on what they see in their decisions and actions. Is your new manager coming in late because they are now salaried and feel they have a license? When they have their lunch with the same team members on most days, does this send the wrong message to others? These are things we as leaders know will inhibit our ability to be trusted. A new manager should have that judgment, but some still need the guidance.

Think back to your earlier days when you were a new manager. What was the best advice you received that helped you establish success?

What impact are you having in life and business?
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Patti Cotton helps executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and the enterprise. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, succession planning, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, leadership development, succession planning, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.

When Your Team Member is Stuck in Story:

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When Your Team Member is Stuck in Story

Helping Them Take Back Control

Do you love stories? So do I!

Stories are entertaining – and they help us make meaning of our world.

Some of my favorite stories are of the Sherlock Holmes type, where solving the mystery to bring solution is key.

But some tales are frustrating, like the kind in which your employee seems stuck. This kind affects everyone on the team. It slows down productivity… energy… motivation…

Is one of your team members holding you hostage to the same script? If you hear any of the following lines on a regular basis, you need to help your team member turn the page:

  • I can’t because…

  • It will have to wait until…

  • That would be nice, but…

  • I would have/could have, but…

I am often called to coach teams, and once coached a small, but key team to help them perform at a higher level. The talents were there. The desire was there. But the numbers were down. And the energy was low.

At one point early on, I asked them to walk me through a current project to see how they would describe the process of working together. And we hit the jackpot.

Terry, Laurie, and Martin began laying out the pieces of the project, and shared who was responsible for which part of the whole. Then I asked them to draft a timeline to show me how this would happen, and at what pace. At a certain point in the process, Laurie revealed that she was “stuck in story” – that she was unable to work around a chronic issue to move at a more acceptable pace.

“I can’t meet that deadline, Terry, and you know it. It will have to wait until I complete my part of the Blue project we are currently working on.”

“Oh– you still have that piece to complete?” asked Terry.

Martin joined in. “Can’t we figure out a different way to pace these things?”

“It’s not that – it’s just all the interruptions I get during the day. I can’t just tell people to go away.”

At this point, I interrupted.

“Are you saying that the interruptions are what is holding you back from being able to complete your work in a more timely fashion?”

“Yes,” Laurie answered. “The guys here know that my office is the first on the hallway, and that I’m seen as point person for the team. That means people coming in and out all day.”

I turned to Terry and Martin. “How does this slow down what you are able to complete?”

“Are you kidding?” said Martin. “We are constantly telling leadership they will have to wait because of this.”

“Okay,” I answered. “So what’s the solution to this?”

“You mean to the interruptions?” asked Laurie. “There is none. Like I said, my office is first, we are asked to be responsive, and if it isn’t office visits, it’s e-mails and phone calls. All day. I could be much faster – but I can’t because of this.”

Laurie was stuck in her story – the story that she had to operate in a certain way because of her role, even though it held her work back – which held back the entire team.

It was time to rewrite her story.

“Laurie, let’s brainstorm,” I said. “We need Terry and Martin’s help, here. If you weren’t there in that office to field interruptions, what would happen?”

“Good grief, if they couldn’t find me, they’d barrage me with e-mails and phone calls on my cell.”

“Your cell?”  I asked. “Colleagues here call you on your cell for work questions?”

“Well, yes – if they can’t find me. They know they can chase me down on my cell. And then, the e-mails keep coming.”

“Laurie, what would happen if you turned off your cell and scheduled time twice daily to look at your e-mails?”

Terry sat up. “I said that months ago!” he said. “Why does the entire work floor have to hold you hostage, Laurie?”

“Hostage?” responded Laurie. “That sounds like I’m a prisoner.”

“Well,” I said, “The way you describe things, you have pretty much said so. I mean, you’ve said you cannot control it. But…”

“But, what?” she said.

“But – you can control yourself and what you choose to do with the barrage coming your way.”

“But if I do that, I’ll have piles of e-mails and calls to return – and that will put me farther behind.”

“Laurie, it sounds like people are depending on you to drop everything and help at any time,” I countered.

“Hey,” said Martin, “Patti’s right. Actually, you have a bunch of people who look to you to help them out all the time when it’s actually not your job or place.”

“Well…” Laurie got still. “I guess it’s true.”

“What are you getting out of fielding these cries for help all day long, Laurie?” I asked.

She got quiet.

“Laurie,” I moved forward gently, “Are you getting some satisfaction out of helping?”

“Well, yes,” she said. “And if I am honest with myself, I guess that most of it isn’t even related to our department. I know I said I was point person – but it’s much more than that. In truth, maybe it’s just a way to feel valuable.”

“Valuable?” asked Terry. “You think you aren’t valuable to our team?”

And then, our real work began. And although we had to do some deep work, it paid off.

I’m happy to report that a few months later, the team members were working at top performance, with all members understanding and appreciating each other’s value.

Don’t you love a story with happy ending? I certainly do!

Patti Cotton helps women executives optimize their effectiveness in leading self, others, and enterprises. Her areas of focus include confidence, leadership style, executive presence, effective communication, and masterful execution. With over 25 years of leadership experience, both stateside and abroad, Patti works with individuals, teams, and organizations across industries, providing executive coaching, women’s leadership development, change, and conflict management. She is also a Fortune 500 speaker. For more information on how Patti Cotton can help you and your organization, click here.