Building Better Leaders Though Communication: An Overview To The Leading For Results Program

Have you ever thought about just how effective you are in communicating? As a leader, it’s core to what you do, but have you ever undertaken a formal review of how you approach it?

For the last few weeks, I have been unpacking “4C” approach to team development, looking at Clarity Squared, Commitment, Cohesion and Coherence. Check out the summary here.

Over the next six weeks, I am going to overview our Leading For Results program and share some tips and tricks to help refresh and extend leadership capability. Great leaders are great learners. Leading For Results is an applied leadership development initiative that builds leadership capability around fostering a great place to work and grow that delivers sustainable results.

The Leading For Results program is about helping leaders with mastering five interrelated and mutually supportive conversations:

1)????Aligning Expectations and Cultivating Commitment (setting ourselves up for success).

2)????Reinforcing Desired Behaviours (fostering emerging talents)

3)????Improving Performance (working out the niggles and sore spots)

4)????Reviewing Performance (a holistic check-in)

5)????The Coaching Conversation (building capability).

They sound simple, yet in my experience, they are not always executed well. For example, the most popular conversation is usually around improving the conversation, which is essential yet can be confronting. If you delay that conversation or conduct it poorly, problem behaviour can easily turn into the perception of a problem person. It’s unfair when that happens. I also notice that often we often talk about people in trouble yet not to the person. So this part of leadership is often executed poorly, yet it can facilitate a turnaround for the person and performance.

Good leaders are like magnets, attracting the best performers. People deserve to come to work, for meaningful work, and work that matters. To know how they are going against benchmarks and not deal with not vague opinions alone. They also deserve to be developed for today and tomorrow, and to feel supported in a positive culture.

So, at the heart of the Leading For Results program is Whole Brain Leadership. This is a lens for self-awareness and working well with others, and putting a premium on leader flexibility to connect, build rapport and communicate with impact.

I believe leaders cast a long shadow and are essential to creating a collaborative culture where people thrive at work, rather than simply survive. Getting the basics right with great conversations is a start. Next week we will kick off with aligning expectations and cultivating commitment.