Increasing Empowerment, Developing Reports’ Capability
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The document discusses a situation where a VP of Technology was facing challenges with a rapidly growing team of less experienced employees. His leadership style was intimidating and created fear in employees. The goals were to improve team performance, reduce the leader's frustration, and increase employee commitment. Actions taken included getting feedback on the leader's style, agreeing on goals and outcomes, and identifying key leadership behaviors to develop through coaching conversations. The results were improved team performance through open dialogue, increased ability to manage crises, the leader influencing at a broader level through coaching, and increased satisfaction for both the leader and employees.
Increasing Empowerment, Developing Reports’ Capability
- 1. INCREASING EMPOWERMENT, DEVELOPING REPORTS’ CAPABILITY Teleos Consulting 311 Westside Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-740-8872 919-929-2298 (Fax) www.teleosconsulting.com
- 2. SITUATION V.P. of Technology at a mid-size financial institution… Committed to delivering high quality service to internal clients Seamless technology operations critical to line management Unplanned crises and outages could provoke a regulatory “event” Facing Leadership Challenges… Rapid team growth and increased number of less experienced junior employees Employees demonstrated wide variety of capabilities and degrees of commitment to their work Leader’s style not enabling the employee performance he desired - frustrated when employees did not consistently meet expectations - his frustration showed up in ways that intimidated and created fear in others - employee fear of making a wrong move kept them from making any decisions Initial goals to improve team performance, reduce leader’s frustration, and increase employee commitment to work… Gain commitment to a shared picture of “good” performance Constructively confront gaps between actual performance and expected performance Jointly negotiate approaches to work in a way that creates shared commitment to actions Coach direct reports to demonstrate leadership skills – “step up”, coach others, offer their view on courses of action
- 3. ACTIONS Get insight into leadership style and impact Collect intensive feedback on leader’s strengths, weaknesses, and style Test feedback against leader’s intended effect Agree goals and observable outcomes Reduction in frustrations and employees’ feeling intimidation or fear Reports increasingly use own judgment when faced with crisis and/or decisions Shift from hero manager (jumping in to solve reports’ problems) to coach (building their capability to solve) Identify key behaviors to develop Inquiry and listening – to others’ interests, priorities, quality criteria Identify expectations in work “quality,” allow employees to use their judgment and decide how to achieve Use interactions with reports to develop their capability, help reports see the broader impact of their actions Treat emotions as data, and decide how to handle constructively Share insights and development plans with key stakeholders Negotiate new mutual expectations Engage in coaching conversations focused on relevant, timely work situations Plan how to apply new behaviors to situations, and debrief after action taken Surface internal barriers to change, test assumptions that block desired behaviors
- 4. RESULTS Improved team performance through “thinking together” in open dialogue. Reports sharing ideas, testing approaches, and seeking counsel, rather than feeling fear and intimidation Increased employees’ ability to identify and manage crisis. Employees operating in “self-directed” way with confidence in own choices Some turn-over of employees who were unable to operate in “self-directed” way Leader influencing at a broader level, creating new opportunities for value. Less focused on details of execution or “doing” reports’ roles More focused on coaching employees Increased leader and employee satisfaction. Leader’s actions and style aligned with values Employees’ capabilities were developed and utilized, even in time of crisis