These are common complaints we have been hearing on a regular basis from some of our top leaders in our biggest North American companies.  The other day an associate coach and I were sharing and she said that “the higher the position in an organization, the less power they have”  What an interesting comment, it is almost counter intuitive.  Let’s consider it for a moment….who do you have less power with?  After some discussion with her she shared that at the top, our leaders have less power with their clients – because they are not client facing.  After I thought about it for a while I thought it was a very accurate statement.

Our organizations want to grow, some exponentially and yet our leaders are saying that targets are too high and if they don’t do the work themselves targets will be missed.  They don’t take the time to develop their teams so that everyone is more skilled with the clients.  Imagine, if this is the case, how many of your clients are not getting the “client experience” you intend?  This mentality is the exact mentality that causes bottlenecks, escalations and line ups outside your door.  Leaders that have this thought process also complain that they have no time, all they do is put out fires, some even think their team is under qualified or incompetent.

Take a moment and think, do you ever hear theses comments running through your mind.  Let’s consider what the emotional status of these leaders is.   Under this type of pressure and lack of team, these leaders also share that they are frustrated, upset, disappointed, worried, angry, anxious and concerned….they are FUDWAAC’d.  Being FUDWACC’d is an emotional state that our leaders are dealing with that causes tiredness, rash decision making, unapproachability and ultimately costs us our organizational results.  In the background what is screaming is “I don’t believe this can happen”.

Think about that, if our leaders don’t believe in the targets then how will our teams?  If the leaders are not buying into the vision, then how will they empower our teams to be engaged and aligned?  Most often we hear our leaders complain that their teams complain the targets are too high.  We say, ask yourself, as their leader do you think they are too high?  Engagement and Alignment start at the head of any organization.  During our leadership workshops, leaders start to realize that they too don’t believe, that they are not buying in, that their engagement is purely driven from from fear of failing.   Take a moment….is this happening to your organization, your leaders, your teams?

Consider the higher you are in an organization the more “Coach-Like” and focused on developing your people you have to be.  Those leaders we coach to embrace coach-able moments and take the time to develop and expand their team’s leadership capacity share that they have more time, higher results and a sense of fulfillment.

Coaching Questions:

Thinking of the targets you are faced with, what is your belief?

What are you doing to be “Coach-Like” and develop your teams?

What do you spend your time on: Doing the Work, Making Decisions or Developing your People?

What impact does “Doing the Work” vs. “Developing your People” have on the organization’s results?

What learning would make the difference to develop you as “Coach-Like”?

As business people and as human beings we are continually seeking to successfully adapt.  We all innately want to be successful.  We want our business to flourish, our families to prosper and our communities to thrive.  What we don’t notice is that our old ways of making our decisions from logic, rational analysis, control, order and certainty is no longer sufficient to support our futures.  Our old belief that we can know how the world really is through science has misguided us and has left most of us dissatisfied and experiencing and a sense of emptiness in our work and in our lives.  Essentially, our people have become disconnected to what is important to them.

What this means for our organizations is that people no longer see value in what they do on a day-to-day basis.  Without being able to identify their value they pull away from the strategic vision which results in low engagement.  People then start to form small groups and gossip, sabotaging their leaders and the organization’s performance or they get consumed by numbers and act as lone rangers, hoarding information and disseminating all sense of team.

Our output is minimal and subpar compared to what is when we have purpose and meaning to our work.   When our souls are nourished the organization is nourished.  When we have purpose and meaning to our work and our lives we are more creative and innovative, ideas flow freely, new energy enlivens us, we find shortcuts to productivity and we experience more fun and ease as a team and as an organization.

What is it going to take to have us find meaning in our work so that we can thrive as organizations?

It is time to look at our mindsets, how we approach change, how we perceive situations, how we interpret challenges, what we see as opportunities and the actions we take.  Shifting from a fixed mindset to one of being flexible and adaptable is going to support our success.  Consider, how we learn is in question.

We are now in a time where are leaders have the opportunity to provide coaching, learning, community and companionship to our teams.  We are now in a time where our leaders are in a position to empower and enable us to develop new ways of perceiving, thinking and communicating.  Those leaders that leverage their teams and create community and collaboration on their teams will provide their people with a sense of togetherness which supports a sense of purpose and meaning.  Results will be silo busting, increased engagement and innovation.  People will feel connected to their work, experience a sense of pride and seek out opportunities for their organization.

Leaders now have an opportunity to create new ways of learning for their teams, new ways of having team members hold each other accountable, new ways of interacting with one another.  These new ways of interacting and communicating with each other is what people are yearning for.  Those leaders that have the insight to see this will be the catalyst for their organizations.

Coaching Questions:
Describe what type of leader you are?

What type of leader do you want to be?

What do you want people to say about you when you are not present?

What do you want your legacy to be?

What is important to you about leading and developing people?

What learning and development do you need to support your leadership?

• For some it looks like silo busting
• For others it’s about navigating change or growth
• For some it’s hitting sales targets
• For some it’s about hitting tight deadlines or completing a big project
• For others it’s about elevating the professional maturity
• For some it’s about getting a new team up to speed
• For other sit’s about increasing engagement and alignment

What we have found is that the highest point of leverage in high performing organizations is with it’s leaders and that many organizations have not invested enough time or energy in developing their leaders.  Leaders are expected to take their teams to higher levels of performance and yet they never really get the development they need.

We coach and develop leaders to take a strategic look at the HOW:

• How their team communicates and share information
• How their teams interact and relate to each other and
• How engaged and aligned their teams are to the strategic vision

When organizations look at the HOW they learn:

• Where they are really spending their time
• What conversations are necessary and which are missing
• What’s working and not working
• What’s hidden from their view
• How to work together differently and
• What they really want

From the new learnings leaders and their teams find:

New energy, new ideas and innovative and creative ways of doing things that save time and money, increase productivity and revenue and have everyone experience more fun and ease.

The issues of performance and productivity and profit cannot be divorced from how people relate to each other in the workplace.  The ways people communicate, relate and cooperate with each other in doing their work impacts what does and does not get done, the quality of what gets done as well as creativity and innovation.  How the team relates and interacts determines what the team sees as problems, what is seen as possibility and what solutions are thought of.

How your teams think, communicate and interact will either support or sabotage your organizational strategy!

How are you developing your leaders so that you hit your 2012 goals?

Steve Jobs
1955-2011, Co-Founder of Apple Computer

Carnelian Sage

Self Expression is the freedom to be giving of oneself fully to all of life.  Give yourself permission to let go, express what is authentically there and experience the joy of participating in life fully.  Consider that your community and the people in your life, are the one’s who interpret and create perceptions of what and how you express your self.  So, to ensure that you are being heard and listened to the way you intend, share what you are committed to, what you are passionate about, what you love and what you stand for.  With everyone knowing your commitments in life, everything you do or say, in every way you express it will land as authentic and as an expression of your love and commitments.

Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993, Author of The Power of Positive Thinking

- John W. Teets

Samuel Ullman

What future are you living into?  Have you created a future worth living for? Have you created a future worth getting up out of bed and working for?  What is the context you hold the purpose of your work in?

Create an empowering future to live into and watch how everything occurs as magic!