Leading to Learn: One Executive's Commitment to Personal Development

Case Study: Steve Watts?

How one seasoned senior executive proves that a commitment to personal development is the key to making tangible progress in the quest to become an exceptional leader -- and develop an exceptional team.?

“Somebody promoted me — and it was cruelly crazy!”

That’s how Steve, my client and Leading to Learn Accelerator program alum, describes his step up the career ladder when he was first promoted to a senior executive position years ago. However, despite initially feeling overwhelmed and consciously incompetent in his new leadership role, over the years Steve has proven himself to be a thoughtful, dedicated, and truly excellent leader.

As the COO of California construction firm Walter & Wolf, Steve is committed to continuing to develop himself as a leader so that he can better develop and prepare his people as they too progress in their careers.?

Knowing that even the best athletes have coaches, Steve felt he’d benefit from having a guide to help him grow and progress as he attempted to unlock another level of leadership excellence. He reached and engaged me to support him with coaching for him and a direct report.

From coaching client to Leading to Learn Accelerator participant.

Several years later, always keen to continuously improve, Steve was interested in the Leading to Learn Accelerator program to deepen his leadership skills and learn alongside an international group of other committed leaders.?

However, as excited as he was to build on the work we’d already done, he was initially unsure about how he’d manage to balance his existing commitments and dedicate enough time to the course.?

He decided to join the Accelerator and happily was able to make the Accelerator work for him by combining self-paced learning with the program’s live components, attending around half of the live coaching sessions and catching up with the other half at his convenience.?

While he describes enjoying the live sessions, he also appreciated the different benefits that the recorded coaching sessions provided. He explains:??

“When you’re in it, you’re trying to respond, think, and answer questions. But when you’re offline, it gives you more time to think it through.”

He found himself looking forward to grabbing his headphones, hitting play on the next recording, heading out for a walk, and reflecting on the content as he went.

Listen to Steve explain in his own words the impact of the Leading to Learn Accelerator and working together with me has had on him -- and read more of his experience below.

Now accepting enrollment for the next Leading to Learn Accelerator with access to the program starting mid-October -- enrollment closes October 13th!

Leading with intention.

One of the most significant changes Steve describes making to his leadership approach since the Accelerator program is to practice intentional daily and weekly reflections.

Every Monday begins by determining what he wants to achieve during the week, setting his intentions, and deciding how he wants to show up as a leader. Then, each day, and more thoroughly on a Friday, he’ll reflect and conduct a mini progress report.

He’s discovered that:

“It's a key thing to try to be intentional when you go into your day or you go into a meeting. It's just that idea of looking at my day and thinking, ‘Okay, well, I'm going to have these interactions today. How do I want to show up?’”

Of course, he knows that not every interaction goes as planned and we don’t always show up in the way we had hoped. He now appreciates more fully how articulating your intention -- identifying the behaviors that align with your purpose -- in each interaction, and reflecting on what you learned when something didn’t go as you planned, is key to accelerating your improvement as a leader -- and as a person.

He now appreciates more fully how articulating your intention -- identifying the behaviors that align with your purpose -- ... is key to accelerating your improvement as a leader -- and as a person.

Learning to ask the right questions.

Learning to ask the right questions has been a huge aspect of putting Steve’s commitment to leading with intention into practice.?

He explains that in the construction industry:

?“Command and control are dominant. I think the most common thing is for people to either ask a question they already know the answer to or they're not really that curious of the answer you're going to give.”

In fact, I believe that’s a pretty common leadership habit whatever industry you’re in. We all need to practice how to get out of our habit of telling. (Get this free guide to help you on your own journey )!

Unfortunately it’s one that constantly places the burden of problem solving on the shoulders of leaders, and deprives others of developing the skills they need to do their own troubleshooting.

Steve’s now taking a different approach, one that will help empower the people he works with: balancing setting direction with providing support through asking questions.

Model the behavior you want to grow.

A key aspect of my teaching approach is to model behavior and label it in the moment, and Steve appreciated how I did that in the Accelerator coaching sessions. He told me:

“There was a moment where somebody asked you a very specific question and you said ‘Well, I have some ideas around that. But before I get into that, what have you tried so far?’ And they had to come out with their answers...and discovered that they already had the answer within themselves. That was really great modeling.”?

Inspired by this approach, Steve feels he’s also getting better at asking strategic questions —? and at holding back when his team members ask him questions so they have the opportunity to engage in their own problem-solving.

He knows that by improving his own skills, he can model the behaviors he wants to see in others and create the culture of improvement and respect for people that he wants to cultivate.

Becoming consciously competent.

The biggest breakthrough over the two-month Accelerator program, by far, is the feeling that he’s making a shift from, as he describes it,? “unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence” — and even “conscious competence” is now very much in reach.

Even on those days when he doesn’t quite show up in the way he wanted to, or he wishes he’d done something differently, he now has an increased awareness that doesn’t just alert him to the fact that things didn’t go to plan, it provides him with direction on how to get it right next time.

And that, he says, is huge because it’s the first vital step to tangible progress.

And he appreciates the different perspective I bring to leaders wanting to create a continuous improvement culture:

“Lean can be very tools oriented but you bring a lot more of the people side of things: how people interact and how you can get things done with other people. You bring a lot of humanity to it. And that’s a great feature.

Accelerate YOUR leadership and coaching skills

If you’d like to unlock the next level of progression in your own leadership skills, and want to develop a people-centered approach, you can find out more about the Leading to Learn Accelerator Program here.?

The next cohort starts mid-October, with registration closing on October 13th!

The Accelerator is for leaders and coaches at all levels, from executives like Steve, to independent contributors, new managers, and continuous improvement practitioners.

Become a more intentional leader that leads from the heart and from the mind.

The?Learning to Lead Accelerator ?isn’t just a course; it’s an accelerator for your personal growth as a leader and a learner, and it has the power to transform yourself, your team, and your organization.?

Part book study and self-paced reflection based on the lessons within my bestselling book?Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn, part facilitated course, part group coaching, the Accelerator is designed to support you in becoming a more intentional people-centered leader in just 10 weeks.

Invest in yourself today -- enrollment to the next Accelerator closes October 13.

Here’s what’s waiting for you on the other side of the Accelerator:

• The ability to lead from the heart
• Greater clarity of purpose
• Tangible intentional, people-centered leadership practices to ask better questions, align priorities, and creating a culture of learning & caring
• The capacity and confidence to help others learn, grow, develop and succeed
• Alignment with your core purpose and passion of supporting people to be their true and best selves and to meet the most important challenges

I’ve had the pleasure of helping thousands of individuals and their organizations reach their full potential, and I’m ready to help you do the same.?

Enrollment is now open for those of you who are committed to become the leader and coach that they know they can be -- and their team deserves.

Join the Leading to Learn Accelerator ?today!

LET’S MAKE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE WORLD TOGETHER.

I’m Katie Anderson, internationally recognized leadership and learning coach, consultant, and professional speaker, and this is what I believe:

Intentional leadership and coaching is one of the most powerful ways to nurture transformation and discovery in your people, as they learn, grow, develop and succeed, while your business achieves significant results.

Intentional leadership is what I live and breathe every day.

I am excited to share my knowledge and passion for people-centered leadership and learning organizations with you so that—together—we can make a positive impact on the world.?For more information visit:?KBJAnderson.com