You Need Leadership and Coaching Process

You Need Leadership Process to Maximise Business Performance

I’ve been lucky enough to observe and interview hundreds of high performing first-line and middle managers over the last 20+ years. I’ve noticed some commonalities across this #leadership group. I call these commonalities ‘The 7 Habits of World-Class Leaders’. These habits are:

• Drive for results
• Focus on critical work behaviour
• Providing positive feedback to reinforce behaviour
• Willingness to confront poor performance
• Having a system for noticing what people are doing
• Developing others
• Linking work to its organisational impact

If you think about those disciplines in a little more depth, you’ll realise that some of them have to do with mindset, some of them have to do with skill, and some with process. When it comes to recruiting managers, we often select on mindset, and we can train for skill. But here’s the question – what do you do about process?

Many businesses in many industries use process to optimise performance. Prior to World War 2, aircraft became so complex to fly that even highly skilled pilots couldn’t fly them safely. The solution was to create documented processes for them to follow; step-by-step checklists to follow pre-flight, during taxiing and take-off, in-flight and for landing. 

Actually, if you think wider scope, you’ll notice that processes are used a great deal; engineers use blueprints, builders use plans, chefs use recipes. Their employers don’t leave it to chance that performance will be optimal. They make sure they have processes in place; even for highly skilled professionals.

I’m going to suggest that you consider doing the same for your people managers, if you haven’t done so already.  Document the step-by-step #coaching activities you require of your managers to optimise the performance of their teams. In particular, focus on the day-to-day and week-to-week activities, within the frame of the 7 Habits, of your first-line and middle managers.

#performancebreakthru

About the author: Geoffrey Wade is the founder of Onirik World Group, a consultancy that helps organisations duplicate the expertise of high performers to drive performance improvement. Among the elements of their solution are systems and analytic tools to provide radical transparency of leadership and frontline on-the-job behaviour (with special attention upon the 5 to 7 habits that drive results).