I’ve talked a lot about how leaders can help people succeed through day-to-day coaching. In fact, our company recently offered a webinar called The Manager Who Can Coach: Bringing Coaching Skills into Your Organization, which you can view here. For my blog today, I wanted to share how coaching has helped me to be […]
The 3 Types of Training Leaders Need in 2022
In our recent 2022 survey of learning and development leaders, we asked people to list the training topics they felt were most important in the new year. The top three topics listed were coaching, leading teams, and change management. All three of these topics are near and dear to my heart. Why? Because they are […]
SLII®: The Magic of Varying Your Leadership Style
Millions of people the world over know the massive positive impact SLII® leadership training has had on leaders at every level and their team members in every industry. If you’re not one of these people, I’d like to introduce you to the basics of SLII®. SLII® is based on these two beliefs: People can develop […]
Training Plus Coaching: A Formula for Success
Several years ago, someone asked me a thought-provoking question: “What has been your biggest disappointment in your career?” After careful reflection, it occurred to me that what bothered me most was that while my books were widely read and our training programs were used around the world, people were not following through on the concepts […]
You Don’t Have To Do It All Yourself
As a leader, do you feel like you have to do everything yourself—that you can’t count on anyone to take on some the things that need to be done? Perhaps it has occurred to you that you need to delegate some of your work. Why haven’t you? Is it because no one is ready to […]
Day-to-Day Coaching: The Best Way to Help People Get an A
An effective performance management system consists of three parts: performance planning, day-to-day coaching, and performance review. Most organizations, unfortunately, devote the greatest amount of time to the third part of the performance management system: performance review. This is where manager and direct report sit down and assess the direct report’s performance since the last annual […]
When Is It Time for a Career Coaching Conversation?
My wife, Margie, says managers have three roles—doing their own job, working with people to help them develop and accomplish their current goals, and talking with people about their career aspirations. The third role Margie cites is one that is often either forgotten or squeezed in at the end of an annual performance review meeting. […]
Coaching—the Most Essential Part of Performance Management
Performance management has three elements—planning, day-to-day coaching, and evaluation. When I ask managers which of these elements takes the most time, they almost always say evaluation. Sometimes I hear long statements full of frustration about the forms, activities, and deadlines involved in the evaluation process. It makes me realize that people are putting the emphasis […]
Coaching: The Key to Being an Effective Manager
Why is it important to use coaching skills if you want to be an effective manager? Because when people get the coaching they need, they perform better. Managers who provide day-to-day coaching have more effective teams, grow and retain their key people, and experience higher productivity overall. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Over the years when […]
One Simple Strategy to Be More Effective as a Manager
People often ask me how they can be more effective as a manager. One approach I recommend is to meet one-on-one with each of your direct reports for 15 to 30 minutes at least once every two weeks. Having one-on-one meetings is a simple strategy and just plain common sense—but it’s not common practice, according […]