There are 7 Vital Principles that make Good Leaders Great. Knowing what they are and how to cultivate them is essential for success.
First and foremost it is necessary to appreciate that good leadership is about building positive, strong and cooperative relationships. In that light what is outlined below pertains to the building of relationship strengths.
The Seven Principles of Great Leadership are:
1. Learning to Listen:
If a leader is isolated from what is going on around them they’ll have shut themselves down to the flow of vital information about what is going on in the organization. Our feelings are that an isolated leader cannot keep a pulse on the day to day activities and does not have a good sense of the employee’s moods and overall morale. A great leader keeps tracks of these subtle vibes and can act quickly to avert bigger problems from arising.
2. Learning to Trust Your Self
Self doubt is readily perceived by one’s employees. A good leader exhibits great self confidence and employees pick up on this unwavering confidence; this in turn inspires the confidence needed by others in the workforce.
3. Learning to Empower Others
With power comes a feeling of responsibility that often makes the leader feel like they must do everything themselves. We feel that a good leader has developed their key employees and by empowering them their confidence and ability to perform at peak levels grows by quantum leaps.
4. Learning to be Resilient
Resilience is defined as the ability to not let the negativity in. Our experience has been that a great leader manages the organization in the best and worst of times without wavering emotionally.
5. Learning to Make the Difficult Emotional Decisions
All of a leader’s decisions ultimately affect many other people as well as the vitality and integrity of the organization. When we work with the leader of an organization we hone their ability to trust their their inner strength and knowing that their courage to move the organization forward will ultimately be rewarded.
6. Learning to Take Responsibility
A good leader realizes that they have been charged with significant responsibility for the vitality of the organization and ultimately for the lives of the individuals that are a part of it. We concur 100% and have found that great leaders recognize that their employees bottom line results possible and they treat these employees with the respect and responsibilities they have earned.
7. Learning to Communicate Effectively
Relationships that leave out the ability to communicate effectively are doomed to fail.This is such a critical point to the success of any organization. If employees don’t feel that their input is valued and encouraged; conflict and poor performance are often the results.

Our Leader Development Coaching practice  focuses on developing, or strengthening core business skills which provide a solid platform for leader development. The emphasis is not only on the specific leadership and management skills, or hard business skills such as strategic planning, analytical thinking and root cause analysis – often referred to as transactional leadership skills, but there is an enhanced emphasis on developing the depth of leadership, or softer business skills in areas such as conflict resolution, empathetic negotiation, effective communications and delegation.

But employee happiness for its own sake is not the right outcome for companies to seek. If paying employees more, giving them free lunches and providing them with employment perks like free laundry service and transportation to work were the answers; every employee in Silicon Valley would be “happy”. But, that’s not the case-employees of these firms become disgruntled and quit or move to another firm, why is that?

The author believes that happy employees are a result of a sense of fulfillment resulting from an important job well done, and is the direct result of acknowledgement and recognition from senior management. He also believes that employers should help employees achieve great things! In short, by earning our employees’ passionate advocacy for the company’s mission, organizations will reach their success goals by generating passionate advocacy with customers.

The author concedes that this is a very ambitious goal and it necessarily links employee engagement to customer outcomes, the ultimate source of a company’s success. To accomplish this, Markey believes the following is needed:

1. True ownership by line managers. Unfortunately, most large companies depend on HR to measure and manage employee engagement. Real engagement-passionate advocacy-comes from making customer’s loves richer, and there isn’t much that HR alone can do to help employees achieve that. Have you had the pleasure of going to an Apple store lately? How about dealing with the “Genius Bar”? I can tell you from personal experience that Apple is doing it right!

2. Simpler measurement. most companies gauge employee satisfaction through the time-honored annual survey, managed centrally and comprising a huge number of questions. This method is tired and really doesn’t work. The author recommends the actions taken by Net Promoter. They survey employees more often, ask just a few simple questions, and simplify the reporting. We find this to be very powerful and a great way to find out what’s really going on.

3. Direct feedback from customers. The bottom line is this: when front line employees and managers hear directly from customers-when they see how customers scored their experience, whey they hear what went right and wrong in the customer’s own words-the effect is dramatic.
In my opinion, organizations that maintain a culture of authenticity and appreciation, and inspire their employees to exceed performance expectations are ones that are able to build an environment of positive morale which results in employee loyalty. Loyal, passionate employees bring a company as much benefits as loyal, passionate customers. They stay longer, work harder, work more creatively, and find ways to the the extra mile!

What is your challenge? We at Transform Coaching look forward to working with you and discovering ways to transform your employees into passionate advocates.

Succession planning is a process of identifying and developing key talent in an organization, grooming them through experience, training and focused development for more responsible positions of authority. Many organizations believe that is an exercise strictly reserved for the highest levels of executive management and leadership. In reality, every position within an organization should have a successor candidate – which strongly depends on the organization and their specific strategic initiatives. For this reason, succession is a highly customized process.

SUCCESSION PLANNING PROCESS

At TRANSFORM COACHING, we believe that effective succession planning should be a key strategic initiative considered at all levels of strategic planning.  Identifying and developing the right successors should be done within a competency-based, structured framework, which is intentional and monitored regularly ensuring the candidates who are selected have the appropriate level of competency, development opportunity, experience and ability to be successful.  We have developed a succession management process which allows organizations to objectively identify and develop their successor candidates which are in alignment with their corporate initiatives, further guaranteeing their long term success.

EXECUTIVE OWNERSHIP AND COMMITMENT –  One of the principle reasons succession plans fail, or do not meet expectations within the executive ranks is that they are not owned at the executive level and don’t have executive visibility. The succession process is now recognized as a fundamental duty and considered to be a part of a much larger risk management scenario, to be developed intentionally and overseen within the highest leadership levels, in alignment with corporate objectives and financial performance.

Succession impacts many layers of any organization – shareholder and corporate boards, stakeholders and internal management continuity and those contained within the plan for insurance or a fluid transfer or authority and responsibility – and for these reasons, it is recommended that the succession process be developed and implemented with greater transparency and shareholder disclosure as to not adversely affect the well-being of the organization due to a vacancy in leadership.

To effectively develop a succession competency plan, you should consider a number of elements:

• Do you have a documented, long-term direction for your organization? Do you have an effective strategic plan guiding your course and direction?
• What are the key areas which require continuity and development of the people resources within your company?
• Who are the key people you want to develop and nurture for the future?
• Is succession planning considered to be a strategic initiative, included in your strategic planning exercises? How does the concept of succession planning fit into your strategies? Are you concentrating your efforts in the areas where the returns will be highest?
• Have you documented specific career paths that your most talented people should be, or are following? Is each path customized to fit the abilities and talents of the people involved?

SUCCESSION COMPETENCY MAPPING – Succession planning is a part of the process of preparing for the future of your company. Most succession planning involves only the highest levels in the organization; however every individual holding a key position in your organization is a candidate for a succession plan. The important impact is that it is virtually impossible to successfully promote someone unless there is a trained person to take over the position being vacated.

In considering the needed depth of the succession plan required to identify organizational bench strength, it is important to also consider the success competencies that will drive the future success of the organization in those roles.  Factoring in any strategic planning efforts and future directions, those competencies should be mapped to the initiatives required to achieve success in the long term. Developing a succession plan that is not dynamic, that does not include the consideration of the individuals’ involved, is not usually as effective as one that is tailored to each individuals needs and capabilities.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT – Our succession planning process uses assessment and performance processes to identify users who are highly qualified for promotion, and competencies necessary for promotion to a new job position, allowing organizational leaders to move the qualified candidates into vacant job positions with confidence.

Many of the candidates who are identified as qualified successors typically are selected based on their performance achievements within their current roles.  Professionals accumulate a series of experiences which they learn from throughout their careers, and then apply that learning into their daily execution of duties.  But sometimes, the success an individual has in their current role does not translate to more responsible positions. For this reason, competency based assessment and evaluation is necessary when selecting, ranking and developing successor candidates.

While assessments are important in this process, they are not the only criteria by which candidates should be considered. Subjective evaluation from peers, managers and executives may also prove beneficial, specifically when identifying perceptions of potential team members and subordinates. These are often the behaviors that manifest from skill gaps identified in competency based assessments and can be the critical portion of a high-potential development plan.

IDENTIFY AND RANK – Once you have identified the positions and competencies you are planning succession for, and you have assessed the identified candidates, it now becomes important to create a dashboard highlighting the positions, the competencies and score rankings for each candidate. By evaluating multiple candidates against multiple positions is also a way to identify your potential bench strength. In understanding the competency and readiness of your successor pool, you are then able to engage in developmental activities or rotations to determine how each candidate will perform in various positions. Having multiple candidates who demonstrate competency, capability and success in multiple roles allows leverage in utilizing the best candidates in the roles you need them to fill, when they are ready to be filled.

DOCUMENT SKILL GAPS – Once the data comes in, the organization then has the ability to analyze the strengths and shortcomings of the organizational talent pool, which may impact the competitive landscape for the future, or determine the issues which may have to be overcome in order to achieve their documented strategic plan. It is an opportunity to complete a Business SWOT analysis, highlighting the opportunities and threats in the market, and more importantly, what the future of the market looks like and what the special characteristics effective leaders will need. There is also the opportunity to create, or update an existing Strategic Human Resource Plan. This is where the rubber meets the road in documenting the leadership needs of the organization. It includes understanding your leadership needs, creating an organizational plan, developing comprehensive position descriptions to fill those needs and then comparing that to the experience and attributes of internal and external candidates. Internal successor candidates would then receive training to help them become the leaders they will be needed to be.

DEPLOY STRUCTURED DEVELOPMENT – The collection of talent management data, both objective and subjective, can then be used to co-create individual, customized leadership development plan for each candidate.  This roadmap, accompanied with leadership development coaching and targeted, competency based training and business assignments, is designed to be used to strengthen core competencies and leveraging already strong leadership skills, as well as to identify the poor leadership qualities and behaviors which may adversely impact their future success, and create systems to compensate or work around skill gaps which manifest into these undesirable behaviors.

EVALUATE PROGRAM SUCCESS AND MODIFY – Once a succession plan has been created and implemented, the process is not complete.  Succession planning is a living system in organizations and evolves along with the other key or strategic initiatives of that organization.  For that reason, organizations must monitor the plan through scheduled, intentional review at predetermined intervals. Events that impact the succession plan include the documentation of successor candidate improvements in capability and performance, ongoing performance and personal development reviews, modifications resulting from strategic initiative shifts, the loss of key successor candidates due to attrition. Another factor for consideration includes the shift, change or continuous input of ideas to improve the internal processes and procedures of the company, as well as the opportunities to improve the offerings and services of the company in the marketplace may impact the design of the succession plan.

ADVANTAGES OF SUCCESSION PLANNING

By taking the time to evaluate the needs of your organization in terms of future leadership needs, by understanding your market and the future needs you will have to deliver against, and thoroughly evaluating your talent pool, building solid bench strength within your organization, you will accomplish the following:

• Develop an ongoing supply of well trained, broadly experienced, well-motivated people who are ready and able to step into key positions as needed
• Build a collection of desirable candidates who are being integrated into the company with customized development plans established for them individually
• Create a flow of these capable people through various departments with the goals of educating them into the culture and processes of the company
• Achieve alignment between the future needs of the company and the availability of appropriate resources within the company
• Implement retention programs for key personnel, which will help keep them with the company and will help assure the continuing supply of capable successors for each of the important positions included in the succession plan
• Defined career paths, which will help the company recruit and retain better people.

In the article, “In Praise of the Incomplete Leaders”, the authors explain their distributed model of leadership which takes the incomplete leader into account. Their framework describes leadership as a set of four capabilities; sensemaking, relating, visioning and inventing.  These capabilities span the intellectual and interpersonal qualities necessary for leadership in our current business culture.  They argue that rarely will any leader possess strength in all four, thus creating a clear distinction between an incomplete and an incompetent leader: incomplete leaders “understand what they’re good at and what they’re not and have good judgment about how they can work with others to build on their strengths and offset their limitations.”

Sensemaking and Relating are referred to as the enabling capabilities within this model and set the conditions of motivation and sustainability. Visioning and Inventing are more creative and action oriented, producing the energy and focus to make real change happen in teams and organizational cultures.

• Sensemaking is the ability of the leader to contextualize, or make sense of the business environment surrounding them.  Leaders are faced with many complex business issues at any one time.  What they decide to focus on shapes the choices for what they decide to solve or produce – and given the same circumstances will often produce different results for different leaders.  Sensemaking tends to be more than a practice of analysis, but rather one of creativity.
• Relating is the ability of the leader to develop trustworthy, engaging relationships that yield effective leadership.  Effective leaders must now learn to relate to multiple sources of information and can accomplish this through the processes of inquiring (effective listening), advocating (effective communication) and connecting (developing a strong network of confidantes).
• Visioning is the ability of the leader to create and communicate a compelling image of what the future holds; not only in direction, but what each person’s/team’s contribution looks like in accomplishing the future objectives of the organization. These leaders know how to walk the walk, and embody the values and principles of the organization, setting an example for others to follow.
• Inventing is the ability of the leader to translate the vision into executable action and emphasizes the process of creating new methods for people to work together and to accomplish these new objectives. It is the recognition that people can’t continue to operate in the same ways and must conceive, design and implement new ways of interacting and organizing to achieve a single common goal.

This process closely aligns with the methodologies used in leader development at Transform Coaching. It emphasizes the human element of leadership and provides a framework for the holistic development of leaders, enhancing their strengths and developing systems to cope with their weaknesses.  Giving leaders visibility into their strengths and weaknesses allows them the ability to consciously choose the type of leadership they wish to pursue and implement, as well as the areas of personal development they wish to undertake.  It also demonstrates that diversity in thought and action is a good thing in organizations and encourages uniqueness and creativity in developing new ways of coming together to solve problems – too many leaders choose replacements, or successors who mirror their own actions and thinking, creating a significant imbalance and inability to adjust to the changing, and ever complex business environment.

Many thanks to these authors for celebrating the incomplete – or human leader.

In effect, the use of assessments should provide an additional validating read on candidates from a selection or development perspective, and never be used as the sole source of information in evaluating candidates for hire or for succession. While they can provide an invaluable view into the composition and capacity of an individual – their use should be to provide a road map on how to customize development or understand potential shortcomings or skill gaps which could manifest into undesirable leadership behaviors.

You will find that there are many coaches who rely on assessments for output and many others who prefer to approach client engagements holistically – using their skill, insight and intuition to help clients achieve their leadership development goals. From my perspective, the coaches who utilize all of the tools available to them in the best manner to serve their clients – typically provide the best value add for their clients, based on individual client need and expressed expectations around goals or outcomes.

I would welcome comments on your experiences and beliefs using, or not using assessments as a leadership development or talent management platform tool.

ANGELA D. TALLMAN

Principal

Organizations that understand the need to identify and cultivate a deep talent pool tend to ensure their organization’s success by establishing performance continuity and minimal disruption during times of leadership transition. They understand that planning for succession is a cyclical, strategic initiative within the boundaries of a core set of leadership and succession management competencies. This allows them to build a foundation for the implementation of strategies and the achievement of longer term goals and initiatives by identifying and developing their bench strength.

Thanks for joining us on this journey!