Do you think that you a born leader? That is a myth.
The reality is that leadership skills can be taught and developed. By definition, leaders influence the behavior of others by describing a better vision of the future. The primary skill of effective leaders is public optimism. Leaders tell great stories and share optimism.
Those leadership skills can be taught in a workshop or program. The most effective leadership workshops include training and coaching, then more training and coaching, to reinforce desired behaviors over time. Repetition works.
Leaders must adapt to change. At a recent leadership workshop one executive stated, “We need to master this content in the next 3 days because we are each the CEOs of our business. We need to create our future business.” That urgency is common.
Many of the tactics that leaders were taught 10-20 years ago are obsolete today. Management by Objectives (MBOs) and Forced Rankings are now considered manipulative, ineffective, and counterproductive. That kind of “leadership” will limit your career.
We know that rigid managers and leaders prevent innovation and problem solving. We also know that agility can be taught and developed. We can teach agile leaders and managers to promote effective outcomes, efficiency, and employee engagement.
Today, many employees demand fulfillment and purpose. They want to feel inspired and know their place in society and their contribution to the world.
We know that leaders need to practice leadership, just as physicians practice medicine and attorneys practice law. All managers and leaders struggle.
A great leadership workshop should provide:
Leadership exercises and experiential activities that encourage open communication and sharing of ideas
Profound breakthroughs in understanding how to influence others.
Lectures, digital workbooks, videos, powerpoint slides, and activities designed to model engagement
Pre-assessments and Post-assessments to discover your strengths and track the ROI of your investment
Group problem-solving tasks that encourage conflict resolution through a better understanding of human behavior and group dynamics
Customized apps with content to download and distribute your consistent messages throughout your organization
A recent client stated, “This was by far the most useful leadership development program I have experienced in over 20 years of forced participation in some kind of training. The content was easy to understand. All of the sessions were customized for our organization. All of the consultants were experts. We were fully engaged in each session. We did our work. And now I have the skills I need to lead my team in a new and useful methodology.”
All of our leadership workshops use our trademarked positive psychology AD-FIT™ process. We typically include our leadership development coaching to assess your strengths and increase your probability of achieving your outcome-based results.
The best leadership workshops should ask you to take an honest assessment of your professional leadership style and define measurable outcomes. We typically use both quantitative and qualitative assessments. We offer both virtual and direct workshops with several exciting results-oriented topics to choose from. See the list of leadership workshop topics here.
We provide services throughout the U.S and Canada. We recently delivered programs in Chicago, IL, Charlotte, NC, Louisville, KY and Washington, DC. If you are near the Nashville, TN area, an executive coach in Nashville can help you.
How to make your next proposal better than your last one.
Let’s face it, of all the skills you can bring to bear to help your clients, the limiting factor is your ability to get proposals signed. You need to make money. You want to share your genius with the world world. You need to get your proposal written and sold. You need to deliver value at each step of the sales process. Here are three great ways to write coaching proposals that sell. You can be smarter than your competitors.
Less fluff, more value. Your job is to add value and solve your client’s problems. Nothing else matters. Your model, framework, tactic or magical gifts do NOT provide value to your client. Your solution is the value. Stay focused on the results you can deliver.
2. Fewer credentials, more results. Congratulations, your certification/ degree is a huge accomplishment. But nobody understands what it means. Make sure more space is devoted to results than credentials.
3. Make it easy to understand. If your buyer has to exercise their brain to realize how good your proposal is, then you haven’t done the work required to make it great. Keep the structure simple.
The Feedback Process
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Tom Stone
We all talk about feedback a lot. Most leaders think they do it well. But my opinion is that we simply don’t know how to give feedback well. The problem is our inability to give good feedback creates problems down the road.
A lack of feedback gives people unspoken approval for unacceptable behavior. This false approval encourages people to continue patterns of behavior that don’t help them or anyone else.
But it gets worse. Everyone in an organization is constantly evaluating competency. So a lack of feedback not only affects the person who needs to receive, but it also affects everybody else who knows that feedback should be given.
A leader is never out from under the microscope. Giving good feedback is one of the surest ways to encourage effective behavior and to demonstrate leadership competency. It is a skill that can be learned, and we can learn to teach it and demand it as part of our culture.
Feedback leads to learning.
The Leadership Wisdom of Dogs
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Krissi Barr
The attributes, traits and characteristics that separate leaders from the rest of the pack can be clearly seen in the behavior of dogs: loyalty, perseverance, friendship, teamwork, honesty, bravery, ingenuity, playfulness, curiosity and an unflagging desire for more information.I call it the Fido Factor.
Faithful leaders earn the trust of their team and their customers by doing the right things and living up to their word.
Inspirational leaders move people to do the meaningful and the extraordinary.
Determined leaders combine perseverance with a dose of fearlessness to keep moving toward goals.
Observant leaders are committed to taking in as much information as possible in order to make the best decisions.
Our Credo: (if you like these beliefs, then you’ll love us)
1. Chaos in the marketplace for “professional coaching” can be reduced with outcome-based protocols.
2. The strengths of professional coaches (e.g., integrity, fairness, collaboration, leadership, bravery) can be leveraged to co-create the future of professional coaching.
3. Teams are stronger than individuals. Collaborative projects reduce individual risk and yield higher rewards.
4. Expert leadership coaches and authors will contribute best practices and attract more users or followers.
FACT:
There are over 50,000 “professional coaches” in a $7B global industry that lacks professionalism. Literally anyone with a business card can self-declare that they are a “professional coach.”
OPINION:
The result is chaos in the marketplace, unethical practices, and a market ripe for disruption and consolidation.
The Process is a community of expert leadership consultants and coaches. Join us.
Your Next Steps (How you can help):
1. Are you subscribed to the Process? If not, click here
2. Forward this email to ALL the leadership consultants you know.
3. Are you an expert? Yes, you are. Submit some expert content and share your genius with the world. Click here.
Recently I was asked this question by someone who desperately wanted to be certified as an “executive coach.”
Be careful. Here are the facts.
There is not one “best coaching certification or methodology for those who work with executives,” for several reasons.
1. Executive coaching is a new approach with a short history (about 20 years) within psychology (about 100 years). The protocols that would be “certifiable” have not yet been well defined. There is no external board or established practices, as in other professions such as healthcare, finance or law. I often ask, “Who certifies the certifiers?” (And I have been certified by several coaching providers for decades.) One example of certification based on my dissertation research with global professional coaches is here.
2. The coach training industry is estimated at 53,500 global coach practitioners and over $7B in annual revenue, with 115 accredited coach training programs (ICF, 2016). The reality is that coaching certifications and silly acronyms abound. I co-developed one back in 1999, when there were only about 20 ICF accredited coach training programs.
3. There is market confusion about definitions and coaching outcomes. The result is that vendors have responded to the market confusion. A gap exists between theory and practice because executive coaching lacks rigorous measurement, evidence-based protocols and standard processes. The largest organization, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) stated “the top future obstacles for coaching are (a) untrained individuals and (b) marketplace confusion (ICF, 2016).” That survey understates the confusion. Your question illustrates the desire by many to “get certified.”
4. In any marketplace vacuum, competitors emerge. Countless colleges and universities will declare that their certification programs define standards. Be careful. That archaic model presumes that academics know best, and we are increasingly aware of disruption in the marketplace. I like academics. My dissertation explored the competitive advantage of coaching protocols, using global professional coaches. As the “coaching profession” develops momentum, I encourage you to study the practical market demands for coaching protocols. You may want to be cautious. “The top future opportunities for coaching are (a) increased awareness of the benefits of coaching, and (b) credible data on ROI/ROE/outcomes (ICF, 2016)”. In short, we need to define protocols for outcome-based coaching, including useful certification programs.
5. Certification programs exist. I favor the ROI methodology described at the ROI Institute, and a 2-level executive coaching certification process. Last week the co-founder, Patti Phillips, and I discussed certification programs that moved beyond knowledge to practical demonstrations of mastery. She encouraged me to focus on practical applications. (Disclosure: I trademarked the AD-FIT coaching protocol when some F500 clients asked “How do you operationalize what works?” Those details are at Products Archive – Action Learning (https://actionlearnin.wpengine.com/products/) and throughout this website. The fact is that “Many professional consultants or coaches do not adhere to evidence-based protocols (Foster & Auerbach, 2015; MacKie, 2014. Citation sources available upon request.)
6. Organizational clients may design their own executive coaching certification programs. They are cost-effective and foster cultural expectations. (Disclosure: I also serve as an engagement manager and executive coach at CoachSource | Executive Coaching Excellence (http://coachsource.com/), the largest global provider of executive coaching.) Those internal coaching certification programs are customized internally, with expertise from coaches like me, for specific business outcomes that are proprietary.
Bottom line: Certification for executive coaching implies a mature profession with protocols that satisfy a market demand.
If useful, please contact me here. I’d love to discuss your interest in executive coaching certification programs.
You may have heard about Positive Psychology. But, you may not know “What it is? Why does it matter to you? How can it help you or your team?”
Here are some quick answers and 5 riveting videos for you to share.
1. Let’s start with “What is Positive Psychology?”
In simple terms, it is the art and science of well-being. Think of you “at your best.” Maximizing your strengths. Asking, “What would make my life more meaningful” or “How can my team flourish?”
2. Why does it matter to you?
Here are some of the benefits of Positive Psychology:
Positive Psychology is a vast science with countless applications. The most inclusive model to describe well-being is called PERMA.
The PERMA Model was developed by my favorite psychologist, Martin Seligman. (We have met twice and discussed my research on positive psychology coaching.) I strongly recommend his seminal 2011 book, “Flourish”.
“PERMA” stands for the five essential elements that contribute to individual or team well-being. These are:
1. Positive Emotion (P)
For us to experience well-being, we need positive emotion in our lives. Any positive emotion such as gratitude, satisfaction, hope, curiosity, or love falls into this category. We each have subjective experiences of positive emotions.
I made a short video on Positive Emotion (P) for you. You can watch it here.
2. Engagement (E)
When we’re truly engaged in a situation, task, or project, we experience a state of flow. Time seems to stop, we lose our sense of self. We concentrate intensely on the present. We excel at challenging tasks. You can increase engagement for yourself and your team.
I made a short video on Engagement (E). You can watch it here.
3. Positive Relationships (R)
Humans are social beings and good relationships are core to our well-being. You can develop meaningful, positive relationships with others. We can measure fMRI images that describe the quality of your relationships. We can develop better relationships and accelerate behavioral or performance outcomes. (That was my dissertation research.) Curious about the details?
I made a short video on Positive Relationships (R). You can watch it here.
4. Meaning (M)
Meaning results when we serve a cause bigger than ourselves. Your meaningful outcome may be quantitative (e.g., earn $100k/year or give away 15% of earnings per year). Your meaningful outcome may be qualitative (e.g., care for your loved ones or serve humanity in some way.) We all need meaning in our lives to develop well-being.
I made a short video on Meaning (M) for you. You can watch it here.
5. Accomplishment/Achievement (A)
Many of us strive to master a skill, achieve a goal, or win some competitive event. Achievement defines us. Or not. Accomplishment is another element that contributes to our ability to flourish.
For specific details, I made a short video on Accomplishment/Achievement (A). You can watch it here.
Now that you understand the PERMA model, I hope you will use it to increase your well-being and help your teams flourish.
P.S. Let me know how you are flourishing?
P.P.S. Let me know if you like this long-form email or if you prefer the shorter ones?
Action leads to learning. What are you waiting for?
To contact Doug Gray, CEO, PCC, call 615.236.1892 or contact us here. Today.
Define a meaningful goal or outcome for the leader/ coachee. (A measurable performance or behavior)
Focus on the leader/ coachee’s agenda. (“I’m a little concerned about…”)
Intervention or possible action for the leader/ coachee. (“Have you considered…”)
Takeaways or next step for the leader/ coachee. (Model accountability and change.)
% of adherence to this model? (0-20%, 20-40%, 60-80%, 80-100%)
Understanding of Positive Psychology Coaching (PPC) protocols:
Introduction to Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology (PP) may be operationally defined as the science of well-being and optimal functioning. The phrase “positive psychology” was coined by Maslow (1954) and is rooted in humanistic psychology. Recent research in PP has defined five clusters of scientific findings, the PERMA model, that describe positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments (Seligman, 2011). The construct of signature strengths can be assessed using the Values in Action (VIA-72) questionnaire (Seligman & Peterson, 2011). The construct of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) can be defined as a dynamic, higher-order construct comprised of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan & Avolio, 2015).
Introduction to Positive Psychology Coaching
This Positive Psychology Coaching (PPC) program was designed in response to a perceived need for development of business leaders actively engaged in professional coaching. The confidential relationship between coaches and coachees will be maintained throughout this research. Autonomy and mastery are critical aspects of professional coaching relationships, and will be maintained throughout this research.
The goals of this PPC program include: (a) assessing and developing individual character strengths using validated strengths-based assessments, (b) adhering to a structured evidence-based protocol for positive psychology coaching, (c) developing a strengths-based goal attainment process customized for each leader (coachee), (d) measuring Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) by evaluating adherence to three goals that are personally meaningful and relate to business outcomes for the leader (coachee), (e) modeling action planning and accountability in each coaching session by evaluating adherence to the coaching protocols, (f) quantitatively and qualitatively measuring the effect of positive psychology coaching on coachee outcomes.
Coaching engagement goals
The goals for each coaching engagement will be defined by each client (coachee) and customized with their professional coach. Each coachee will be encouraged to define three goals that are personally meaningful, relate to business outcomes, and can be measured using the goal attainment scale (GAS). Representative examples of coaching engagement goals may include (a) driving retention and organizational performance through tactical execution, (b) developing strategic thinking and planning, (c) developing leadership capability in key areas to leader success, (d) aligning and integrating current role with desired future role, (e) developing executive presence, (f) aligning operations with other business sectors to drive shared accountability and measurable impact on business outcomes.
Coaching engagement outcomes
The outcomes of each coaching engagement are typically described by knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs.) Examples of knowledge outcomes for the coaching engagement may include (a) aligning the leader’s role with organizational vision, mission, and values, (b) defining how the leader’s role expectations affect collaboration with others, (c) understanding the strengths and values that describe each leader “at their best” and incorporating those strengths into regular vocabulary, and (d) defining key actions essential to reinforce business outcomes.
Examples of the skills outcomes of the coaching engagement may include (a) building capacity to manage resources and the productivity of others, (b) developing strategies for managing energy and time to improve productivity, (c) communicating the leader’s vision and key messages in an impactful manner, (d) developing skills in written messaging that focus on strength-based leadership, (e) modeling self-awareness by incorporating signature strengths into leadership and management activities, (f) applying conflict resolution skills to reach mutually beneficial and positive outcomes, (g) demonstrating effective active listening skills, (h) accurately reading a situation and projecting confidence, decisiveness, assertiveness and poise under pressure, (i) modeling collaborative leadership skills by creating actions plans that include partnering with other leaders, supporting performance goals, building key alliances, and implementing business outcomes.
Examples of the abilities outcomes of the coaching engagement may include (a) fostering innovation, (b) directing initiatives that build alliances and mutual respect, (c) communicating across business sectors by translating key messages between different groups, (d) leading alignment with others using strategic thinking, (e) enhancing problem solving ability to approach common issues/concerns with extraordinary thinking to foster innovation.
Possible activities for PPC engagements
The following list of evidence-based activities is a descriptive resource and is not intended to be prescriptive for any professional coaching or consulting engagement.
Encourage your coachee to take a validated assessment such as the Values in Action (VIA-72) assessment or the Psychological Capital (PSQ-12) assessment
Conduct a strengths-based interview of your coachee using results from the Values in Action (VIA-72) assessment
Conduct a strengths-based interview of your coachee using results from the Psychological Capital (PSQ-12) assessment
Encourage your coachee to describe their best leadership story (“At my best story”) using results from a validated positive psychology assessment
Encourage your coachee to determine three performance or behavioral goals, that are personally meaningful, that relate to business outcomes
Measure achievement of those three business-related goals using the goal attainment scale (GAS)
Encourage your coachee to develop a gratitude journal
Encourage your coachee to document “Three Good Things” for a day or a week, and note any contributing variables or patterns
Invite your coachee to practice multiple acts of kindness toward others, especially within 24 hours
Conduct a Best Future Self activity or guided meditation activity
Encourage your coachee to document the quantity and quality of physical activity, emotional shifts and cognitive energy, for at least 24 hours
My bias/ The bottom line:
The art and science of professional coaching requires that professional coaches adhere to the AD-FITTM protocol model.
See details in the products section.
For details on assessment, interventions, certification, training, or research contact us today.
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