11. Become a better-balanced leader

Business is on full speed again after the summer holidays. A perfect moment to focus on your professional roles as a leader and create an action plan to become a better-balanced leader.

Explanation of the roles:

Lets’ start with explaining roles that you need to live to be effective in your professional life.?Most companies are over managed and under led. Remember, you manage things but you lead and coach people.

We defined the following roles for a leader:

Managing

Administrative work, running the process, firefighting and fixing short time problems as Mr. or Mrs. Fix-It. You are actively involved in the execution and the details and you take ownership of the problem. Most people spend 80% of their time managing. This is more top-down telling; the old-fashioned boss.?

Coaching

The 1:1 time you invest with your employees to let them grow, by spotting and affirming their potential so that they can see it themselves. It involves empathy and understanding. A coach leads with quality questions to bring clarity and create action plans. Most employees feel their boss does not find enough 1:1 time for them.?

Clienting

Networking with a purpose where you find time to manage the relationship and get more closeness to your internal and external customers. This could be golfing, having dinners or drinks and eventually getting to know people on a private level. It’s all about connecting and being interested in the other person.

Leading

Involves creating clear values and a vision, and selling that vision by telling it so clearly that other people can see it as well. Also an important part of leadership is the development of the strategy to realize this vision and getting people involved in this process. Most senior leaders need to do a better job on team development and selling the ‘why’ behind what the company is doing, leading the change and facilitating a good workshop.

Selling

This role is lived by people who really go out and sell the products or services to the real customers. It includes understanding the needs and the business of the customer, finding the pain point and what keeps customers up at night, selling solutions by creating benefits, not just selling features, negotiating win-win agreements and closing the deal. A sales leader would perhaps spend 15% of their time in a selling role dealing with their key account customers.

Do some self-reflection:

Now you understand the different roles:

1.?????Take some time to fill in the matrix:

• Estimate how you spend your time today and how you would like it to be spend in the future. If you are not in a selling position, you divide the 100% over the other four roles.
• What are your personal strengths and weaknesses in each role??For example, as a coach; are you a good listener (strength) or are you rather inpatient and take over the conversation yourself (weakness)
• Think of a role model, somebody who is really good in this role, and what is this person doing??For example, as a coach; she asks open questions and has the patience to sit back and stay silent, so I have time to think about the real answer.
• What matters most thinking of this role.?For example, as a coach; empathy, which means that the other person really feels understood by you, which is something different as you thinking you understand the other person.

2.?????Coach yourself by answering the questions below:

• Decide what you like to do less of and were you like to spend more time and energy upon.?For example, I like to spend less time managing, and invest more time in coaching my direct reports.
• Brainstorm what will be the benefits if you succeed. What is in it for you? For example; higher employee engagement, better performance, less overtime for me solving problems….
• Create a concrete action plan, what will do stop and start doing? What can you do less and what needs to be done more? For example, I stop micro-managing and start showing confidence in my people to do the job. I will control them less by demanding detailed updates daily and ask them to give me an update of success and a shout out for help when needed instead.

3.?????Share the outcome with your team, so they can help you in creating new habits.

You will need your leadership brand, especially the EQ for coaching and the XQ to stay on track. It takes about 100 days to change a habit. So, if you start today and show discipline you can change the focus in professional roles and become a better-balanced leader before the Christmas Holidays. Start today and reach out to us for coaching whenever you like.?