BUILDING CONFIDENCE AS A LEADER – PART 2

Julie entered John’s office the week after they last met. John could tell that Julie was full of energy. As she sat down she started to talk.

“You asked me to what success’ looks like for me and the team. I found it really hard to do but I think I finally nailed it. Do you want to hear it?” Picking up on Jill’s enthusiasm, and pleased that Jill had put some things into action, John smiled and nodded. After Jill had read out her success statement John was suitably impressed.

John exuded, “Excellent, what I love about your picture of success is that it takes into account the operational/delivery part, the people/development part and the process/how part. I always try and think about those three parts. If you get one of those wrong then it will undermine the other parts. For instance, if you get the operational part right but you cut corners within your processes then you may undermine safety or the quality. Or if you cross every t and dot every i but are not helping people to develop they may become disengaged and unmotivating effecting productivity.

Do you remember the first two parts of building confidence in yourself and others in you?”

Jill responded, “T.R.A.C. was what you talked about. We talked about two things engaging in transparent communication and respecting the past. I am really keen to hear about the next two. I am seeing how having a model to follow is going to be really helpful for my confidence, but also I can see where I might not have being helping my team have confidence in me.”

“Okay let’s go,” said John, “The third one is….

APPRECIATE PEOPLE’S UNIQUENESS

By ensuring that the right people are in the right roles, you, as a leader, can feel more confident. Putting people in roles that fit their competencies also increases their self-confidence and the confidence of others on the team. In order to do this, support those who are, move those who are not.

90% of your success as a leader is about getting the right people into the right roles. Many leaders don’t take enough time in selecting the right people. The pressure to get someone into a role overwhelms the need to get the right person to fill the role.”

Jill looked worried, “John the issue I have is that everyone has been selected and appointed by someone else. I can’t get new people right now.”

John was nodding his head, “I understand. What I am trying to do is help you understand the importance of the right people in the right roles when you do have an opportunity. Given your situation what you need to focus on is two things:

• Understanding what the people on the team are individually geniuses’ at.
• Develop the skills and attitudes that you need for them to succeed.

Encourage and recognize people regularly. Specific encouragement and reward gives your people the courage to stretch, take risks and achieve new levels of performance. Don’t wait for scheduled meetings, reviews, or ceremonies to give people feedback and recognition. Every interaction you have with your team is an opportunity to energize people and encourage them to move them in the right direction.

For instance Jill, what I noticed about you when you were working for me was your ability to summarise complicated discussions in meetings, quickly and put the ideas into an overarching framework or context and make a suggestion about the next steps. You are brilliant at that. I doubt anyone taught you how to do it, you just can. That is what I mean by noticing people’s genius.”

Jill looked a bit embarrassed getting all of that praise. John decided to push on.

“The fourth area is….

CREATE A CLEAR OBJECTIVE AND PLAN

Far too many leaders are great at giving specific directions, but neglect to remind everyone on the team of the greater direction and vision of the team. Offering a strategy without a meaningful goal is like providing a map, pointing out a direction and telling people to “just get started” and you’ll fill them in later on the destination. The journey quickly becomes meaningless, and if the travellers encounter any roadblocks or detours, they’re likely to just give up, since they don’t know the greater goal. People are goal-directed organisms. Providing a meaningful goal or vision taps into people’s natural motivation to succeed. As a new leader, you need to rapidly identify your prime goals for the first part of your tenure and get buy-in from all stakeholders. For any goal to inspire team confidence, everyone must truly share it. When people are confident of the clear, overriding purpose for their activities, they can respond flexibly, rapidly and confidently to unanticipated obstacles, changing circumstances and new opportunities. As a leader, you need to take responsibility for keeping people connected to the direction and vision of the company on a regular basis. This keeps people from getting lost in daily activities and losing momentum. This relates to the first part of T.R.A.C. Transparent Communication. You can never over-communicate the goals you are heading towards.

No football coach who wants to inspire the confidence of the team is going to suggest they can win without a clear game plan. In the same way, you can’t expect your players to get out on the field without a strategy. Can the plan change along the way? Of course. But it’s having a plan – a roadmap for action – that inspires players to get out on the field and get started. It’s important to engage people in developing the strategy. Not only will you gain valuable information, but you’ll increase people’s feeling of ownership in the plan. When people participate in creating a plan, they feel more invested in bringing it to a successful outcome.

Does this make sense so far, I feel like I’ve been talking a lot? Do you have any questions?

Jill was so entranced and deep in thought that she didn’t even hear the question. Suddenly she realised that hadn’t responded.

“Oh, yes makes perfect sense. I see that I haven’t been clear enough about outcomes, goals or strategies. I have been managing work; if I am honest, it is busy work, which probably isn’t getting us towards a clear goal. What is worse, I have been coming up with all of the plans and telling everyone to follow them. I did try a team planning meeting but I realised afterwards that I most of the talking.” Jill is shaking her head, ruefully smiling to herself, “I don’t know how confident they are going to feel in my ability to lead them. T.R.A.C. is giving me a great framework.”

“Great, the next one follows on really well and is very simple, it is….” says John.

“CREATE EARLY WINS
It’s important that you communicate both positive and negative information regularly and rapidly, to avoid surprises. There’s nothing worse for your credibility than to have your employees learn bad news about the organisation from another source.

A great way to build credibility and mark the beginning of your leadership is by solving simple problems that get in people’s way:

• Eliminate bureaucratic barriers and meaningless work that causes people to stagnate.
• Improve systems,
• Upgrade technology — whatever is necessary to support people in their work.

The best way to determine which small changes will have the biggest impact is to get out and talk to people. When you decide on the changes to make, make them quickly and publicly. People need to trust your motivations and feel confident that you’ll keep your word. The more exposure they have to you and the more you show interest in their concerns, the more likely you are to build trust. Demonstrate that you care by listening to what’s going on without judging or reacting. Encourage disclosure. This rapidly increases confidence in your leadership. Maintain this confidence through ongoing visibility and transparent communication.

It’s important that people feel momentum building during the early period of your leadership. The best way to accomplish this is to focus people on achieving early wins. It’s important to avoid initial challenges that carry the risk of failure and instead identify goals that can be achieved within a short time frame. Seeing tangible results boosts motivation and encourages further effort. Leaders need to identify milestones that lead the organization in the direction of the overriding objective. Achieving these milestones constitutes early wins and gives the organization and leadership team something to celebrate. Achieving these early victories builds the leader’s credibility, the organization’s motivation, and the team’s confidence in its own ability to win. Not only do you need to identify milestones and create a path to achieve them, you also need to celebrate victories, even the small ones, from the very beginning. Celebrating not only creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy, it bonds your team members together in the spirit of shared accomplishment. This inspires further confidence in their ability to collaborate and to win.

Okay that is it. Does that help? You do it your way. T.R.A.C. has helped me stay focused on building my own confidence and also build the confidence of others in me….go for it!”