What if we turned our leadership development program upside down? What if we looked at developing our organizational leadership skills and capacity from the bottom up, not from the top down? Let me explain. In the United States alone, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every single year on top line management, middle management, down to frontline leadership to become better leaders. There is nothing wrong with that. Here's the challenge. We have a major percentage of our people that are typically individual contributors or employees. Typically there's about a ratio of one to seven, maybe one to 10 leader to a number of employees that a leader would be managing. Now, with that being said, here is the funny thing, every organization we've gone through and worked with, and every leader that we've talked to bring up the same things that they go through when they're trying to lead their employees.This does not mean they do a flawless job of leading their employees. What it means is there's an opportunity to look at this differently. Let me explain. Every company will say, well, have you ever worked in this industry? You know, our industry is really different. Every single industry, every single company from across industries bring up the same things: Feedback, attitude, motivation, teamwork, etc. Here's the funny thing. Think about high school. Think about college. You entered this thing called the workforce, the workplace after high school or college, maybe eight to 10 years later, or if you're right out of high school, four years, and you are thrust into this submissive position for lack of better description. You're now in front of someone called a boss as corny and as theatrical as this sounds. Think about that.Wanna Learn About How to Develop an Upside Down Leadership Approach: click here

First of all, realize one thing conversations are powerful! What we say and how we say it has a major impact whether fair or unfair.Let's look at how conversations can negatively affect the workplaceThe water cooler - gossip central.Come into to my office - uh oh what did I do wrong?So-and-so told me… - ahhh not going to the source always create issues.The emotional interpretation - people react emotionally versus rationally asking themselves what ca I learn when getting feedback.The Maniac response - my boss ALWAYS attacks me or they never give me a chance. Now let's look at how conversations can positively affect the workplaceFrom water cooler to coffee break - lets just chat and learn about one another to deepen our connection.Come into my office - you are doing a (specific) great job! Now the positive stuff can spread.So-and-so told me so I want to learn from you ... - connections learning from one another can spread connections and knowledge.The written communication - send a card praising and that message will last a long time.The self-actualized question - "what will you do successfully ... fill in the blank" and watch them react positively as the questions helps frame out their response and reaction.Also please Register for Our First Edition of Our NEW Publication The Talent Times: https://form.jotform.com/220913443091045

Conversations are hard. The cool thing about what's happening in the training and development and talent world is that leaders and organizations are finally realizing coaching is not just something we'd like to do if we had time. It is now moved into an arena of, We Must Coach Our Employees. This requires leaders to have conversational ability, the ability to ask questions, to truly listen, to actively listen, and to cooperate in a process where somebody feels like somebody is invested in them. Now, this sounds easy on the surface yet it requires practice. Think about sales people, a longstanding profession for decades. Sales people have been taught how to ask open-ended questions. Yet, if you ask a customer, what's the one thing they dislike about sales people? They typically say they talk too much. Think about that decades of training and a whole industry, still battles what leaders now have to gravitate from. Coaching is asking questions of what people can or cannot do. Ultimately. leaders facilitate participating in scheduled sessions where skill and behavioral improvement is sought. This is not easy as conversations need to be open ended with active listening and not thinking about what we want to say while somebody is talking. This is much more difficult than people think. It's okay not to be a great conversationalist. It's not okay to not practice and work on this craft.Checkout Our New Digital Publication The Talent Times : Click here to get on the waiting list: https://form.jotform.com/220913443091045

Recently, I was conducting a workshop and one of my participants was an ex-bartender. She never hesitated to participate or offer her thoughts or converse with people or dare I say, role play. She's quick on her feet and really listens well during the workshop. I asked her where those skill sets came from. She said, I bartended for 15 years. As I thought about her response, I thought what a wonderful experience to be able to wait on people, not knowing what they're gonna say, not knowing what they're gonna do, not knowing what their behaviors are, not knowing if they have a jaded attitude or a positive mentality. You have to be on your feet ready to go or you know, you won't make tips. The same skillset is needed in leadership today. Having conversations fluently and thoughtfully, navigating waters of conflict and negative attitudes and coaching people who wanna be promoted, but yet are not ready, and coaching those people who are performing really well so they don't get complacent. All of these require foundational conversational skills. How does one go about developing such skills, practice, practice, practice! Bartenders, and wait staff, a special breed of people working their butts off, always on the spot, always on the stage, always having to be on, always having to have the ability to converse and create a great experience so they can earn money. These are the same attributes leaders have an opportunity to possess through practice and repetition.Get on Our mailing List for Our NEW Digital Publication: The Talent Times: https://form.jotform.com/220913443091045

You often hear the concept that feedback is a gift, and it truly is yet we cannot use that approach as some reactive way to facilitate a positive relationship with feedback when so often it is perceived as negative. A positive cadence of feedback structured by the recipient is the secret sauce. There is such a simple concept called WIIFT, what is in it for them.Recently I was teaching this concept to a bunch of individual contributors at a client of ours. I said think about feedback as something that you need to structure and receive before somebody needs to provide you feedback. After making this statement people looked at me very puzzled. I said think about your childhood when you knew you were going to get in trouble, but you went and told your parents before they could even get angry about it. After this comment people started to nod. I said how many of you know what your strengths are and have those been validated by your manager? Everybody in the room started to shake their head. I then asked how many of you know areas where your manager feels you need to improve through some feedback you have received? All the people started to nod. Therein lies the problem.

There are 5 actions of feedback a leader can use and this episode also teaches how to teach employees to get feedback on their terms. Feedback is a loaded issue and if carefully crafted from both end of delivery and reception workplace cultures and team will dramatically improve. Join Our LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/coaching-conversations-6886642999321862144/

I think we have it wrong when it comes to developing leaders within our organizations. If leaders make up let's say 15% of the organization and we have 85% of the organization who needs to receive that leadership we need to cultivate the mindset and the reception of that 85% so the 15% can be heard and accepted.  People go through high school and college never attending classes on how to seek and accept feedback thoughtfully and professionally. People go through high school and college never attending classes and what it means to be a fantastic teammate once they reach the workplace. We inherit people who for eight to 10 years have no idea of what it's like to accept feedback or what it's like to be great teammate within a workplace organization. This ultimately creates discord within the workplace often leading to leadership challenges that I daresay are quite unnecessary. What if we taught employees how to accept and seek feedback on their own terms? What if we taught employees how to accept feedback openly and honestly even when they disagree with the feedback? What if we taught employees the value of not only accepting but also learning how to provide coaching as a skill set? These three attributes would lead to greater workplace engagement and talent development

The triangle of coaching is a very simple concept yet there are some unique attributes of each stage we encourage organizations to adopt. One of the most fundamental mistakes I think organizations make is we spend so much money on a top-down approach specifically teaching leaders how to lead their employees. When you think about a traditional organization of let's say 100 or 1000 people typically about 80% of the people are employees or individual contributors. This is where the opportunity really exists for organizations to also build a bottom-up approach.

Feedback is a very tough subject for people. It is our contention here at Progress Coaching people dismiss or accept feedback based on their agreement germane to the feedback. What most people don't understand is feedback is not a literal thing yet it is also morphed in perception. When somebody provides an employee feedback such as you are coming off negative and the employees first responses no I'm not. They are taking it literally when in fact the leader is providing an opportunity to alter perception which obviously leads to greater collaboration and teamwork for the employee.Get Info on Our Feedback Progression Training Program Where We Teach How to Seek & Receive Feedback Professionally as Well As How to Deliver Feedback Professionally So Its Accepted. Click here:  https://form.jotform.com/220773349332052

Feedback is a very tough subject for people. It is our contention here at Progress Coaching people dismiss or accept feedback based on their agreement germane to the feedback. What most people don't understand is feedback is not a literal thing yet it is also morphed in perception. When somebody provides an employee feedback such as you are coming off negative and the employees first responses no I'm not. They are taking it literally when in fact the leader is providing an opportunity to alter perception which obviously leads to greater collaboration and teamwork for the employee.Get Info on Our Feedback Progression Training Program Where We Teach How to Seek & Receive Feedback Professionally as Well As How to Deliver Feedback Professionally So Its Accepted. Click here; https://form.jotform.com/220773349332052