Great Leaders Act Like a Teacher - Master the Art of Skillful Questioning

In my previous posts, I drew parallels between leadership and teaching. I have deep regard for the skills of a good teacher and good leaders seem to naturally integrate teacher skills into leadership.

This past week, my plan to discuss the five critical behaviors of a teacher take a small detour, the results of an interesting and related post by Mike Myatt on the N2Growth blog. In Overcoming Hero Leader Syndrome Myatt proposes that hero leaders who need to swoop in to save the day, are not doing well for their employees or organizations. He proposes,

Great leaders don’t subscribe to a “Do-It-For-You” methodology of talent management, rather they lead, mentor, coach, and develop team members by getting them to buy-into a “Do-It-Yourself” work ethic.

Myatt stress that great leaders are always teaching, always coaching, always mentoring.

A key tool for the leader in this teacher role is the art of questioning. Myatt offers five tips to enhance your skills in questioning:

1. Be sincere in your questioning.
2. Learn to ask effective questions.
3. Use questions to stimulate and challenge.
4. Get personal in your questioning.
5. Demonstrate your competency without giving the answer away.

I recommend the Michael Myatt blog post to learn tips on the use of questions in leadership. These tips remind me of the lead-by-questions approach proposed by Minnesota author Gary Cohen in his book Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions. I first wrote about Gary's book in Just Ask Leadership - Do You Look Good from Below.

The final paragraph of the Myatt post was a great reminder about the role of teaching in great leadership.

If you want to become a great leader, master the art of teaching and coaching through the application of skillful questioning.

The quote clearly defines the type of link between leadership and teaching that I have discussed in recent posts, Great Leaders Should Behave Like a Teacher and Great Leaders Act Like a Teacher - Lead to an Objective.

Thanks for reading. Lead quietly and act like a teacher with skillful questions.

don

Great Leaders Act Like a Teacher - Lead to an Objective

In my previous post, I drew parallels between leadership and teaching. I have deep regard for the skills of a good teacher and good leaders seem to naturally apply their skills. Here are the five critical behaviors of a teacher and the same behaviors applied to leadership:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your misison.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed.Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

In this post, I focus on the the first critical behavior of teachers and leaders who act like a teacher and employ the objective as a leadership tool.

When a teacher teaches to an objective, it calls on the teacher to not only formulate an objective before instruction begins, but to also declare the objective as an element of each lesson. There is a planning element to the objective but it is also important to communicate the objective not only at the beginning of the lesson but also to restate the objective at the end of the lesson.

In my own role as a teacher, this eventually became a natural element of my instructional approach. Interestingly, as I watch training lessons in the business world, it is common to see a trainer dive into the content of a lesson without the statement of objective. Most "amateur" trainers are more concerned about the content and forget the packaging, i.e. the statement of objectives at the beginning and end of a lesson.

In "Act like a teacher" fashion, it also falls naturally that leaders should lead to an objective. The primary purpose of this post is to explore of the "objective" as a leadership tool. I have chosen to explore the use of objectives in three areas:

1. The objective as a planning tool.
2. Using objectives as a meeting agenda.
3. Using objectives to organize communication.

The Objective as a Planning Tool

Just as the objective is part of a teacher's lesson plan, the statement of objectives is a useful and influential part of the planning process. The process can start as simply as asking the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?"

In the business world is is very common to find conversations about problems that start with solutions. It is kind of like doing software development without requirements. It is easy to begin "solutioning" before the objectives are actually stated. As a leader, you can influence the conversation by simply stating, "Let identify what we are trying to accomplish here." This leads to your list of objectives.

For teachers, learning objectives describe "what students should know or be able to do at the end of the course." (MIT Teaching & Learning Labratory) and are distinguishable because the begin with an action verb like demonstraction, report, compare, etc.

For the the purpose of business planning, I feel that your objectives, stated as little more than a bulleted list of what you are trying to accomplish, is often adequate. A simple bulleted list might be DUMB (doable, understandable, manageable & beneficial) but still can add direction to the conversation. Many objective-setting experts propose that you improve your objectives by making them SMART, i.e. Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. In a quiet leader manner, I propose that any objective used in planning and that answers the question, "What are we trying to accomplish?" is a significant and leaderly step.

Using Objectives as a Meeting Agenda.

In business, we participate in hundreds of meetings every year. Unfortunately, many meetings start and end with no statement of purpose or agenda. People leave those meetings frustrated and wondering why the meeting was needed.

It is very simple to state the objectives in the meeting the meeting invitation and restate the objectives at the beggining of the meeting. In prefer a statment of objectives over an agenda. Whereas, an agenda would provide a sequence of topics, a list of objectives can do the same while also providing purpose and direction to the meeting.

The meeting experts at the Effective Meeting site offer Six Tips for More Effective Meetings where they state the importance of meeting objectives in tip number two, immediately behind their first tip where they propose that the best meeting sometimes is no meeting. In talking about meeting objectives they state,

One benefit of setting objectives for the meeting is to help you plan the meeting. The more concrete your meeting objectives, the more focused your agenda will be.

You can lead with objectives by using objectives as a meeting agenda.

Using Objectives to Organize Communication

A few years ago when I was teaching a college critical thinking class for IT students, it was common for these new students to submit papers that were unorganized and meandering. The writers would often jump directly into the content discussion with no statement of purpose or hint about their plan. My primary message to those students is essentially my recommendation in this post. Leaders can use objectives to organize and more effectively package written or verbal communication. A simple declaration of your objectives or purpose in either a written paper, memo or presentation goes a long ways to organizing the communication and giving it a purpose.

I could not have stated this any better than white paper specialist Jim Lodico in his post, Ten Days to a Better White Paper – Day 1: Define Your Objectives where he writes

One of the most important yet most overlooked steps in creating a white paper is to clearly define the goals and objectives of the project. ... The paper may provide valuable information and truly solve an industry problem but without a clearly defined objective at the outset, the white paper doesn’t work.

The same message can be made about presentations. A statement of objectives adds direction and purpose to your presentations. It also gives the presentation a teacher-like quality. This idea is validated by presentation specialist and author, Andrew V. Abela at his The Extreme Presentation(tm) Method blog. Speaking of presentation objectives he writes,

Your objectives should not be about what you—the presenter—intend to do in your presentation. Those are not objectives; they’re an agenda. Your objectives should be about how your audience will change as a result of your presentation: how will they think and act differently after they leave the room.

You can avoid unorganized and meadering communication by adding a statement of objectives to your written communications and presentations.

The primary purpose of this post is to explore the "objective" as a leadership tool. Just like a teacher, quiet leaders will benefit by leading to an objective in planning, meetings, and communications.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly with objectives.

don

Great Leaders Should Behave Like a Teacher

There are some obvious common elements at the intersection of leadership and teaching. Perhaps the most obvious is that good teachers are leaders.

However, the intersection took a different direction last week after reading an article on brain health on the Lifehacker site. The post, Top 10 Tips and Tricks to Train, Exercise, and Better Your Brain describes ten activities that can exercise your mental muscles. Sodoku, math exercises and writing are good examples.

The tip that took me in a different direction was the post's suggestion to "Act Like You're Teaching." The post encourages us to exercise our brain by pretending "as though you're teaching yourself how to do" something.

This tip caused me to consider the intersection of teaching and leadership. I'm a proud, former teacher who values the skills of a good teacher. During my days as a teacher I was part of an instructional skills development program that introduced me to the work and teaching techniques developed by Madeline C. Hunter. Her work and research demonstrated that effective teachers have a methodology and exhibit key critical behaviors when planning and presenting a lesson.

Although Hunter is best know for her Instructional Theory into Practice teaching model, part of her work also included the Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher. To this day, I can recite those five behaviors as:

1. Teach to an objective.
2. Select the right level of difficulty.
3. Focus on the learner and the learning.
4. USE without abuse the Principles of Learning
5. Monitor and Adjust

I have always thought that those same behaviors of a teacher can be applied to leadership. There are teacher behaviors from this list that I use every day. However, until now, I had never lined them up directly as I have done below where I associate each critical teacher behavior with a related leadership behavior:

Five Critical Behaviors of a Teacher	Five Critical Behaviors of a Leader
Teach to an objective	Lead to an objective. Have clarity in your misison.
SELECT an objective at the appropriate level of difficulty.	Put people in a position and role where they can succeed. Pursue clarity in roles.
MAINTAIN the focus of the learner on the learning.	MAINTAIN the focus on the follower.
USE without abuse the Principles of Learning (Active Participation, Motivation, Closure, Reinforcement)	USE without abuse the Principles of leadership (Active Participation, Motivation, Engagement, Trust)
MONITOR and adjust.	MONITOR and adjust.

The five behaviors can very nicely align with corresponding behaviors that we expect from leaders.

In the next few posts on Lead Quietly, I intend to explore the intersection of teaching and leadership through this aligned set of behaviors.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and act like a teacher.

Don

Quiet Leaders Prove Better Leaders

There is new research about the effectiveness of introvert leaders that validates many of the concepts I discuss here. 

As I have written before,  I'm an introvert and contrary to the belief of some, being an introvert isn't crippling.  It is more about energy and how you gather and use it.  As an introvert, I gain energy with solitude and expend energy with people.  

I have proposed in previous posts that quiet leadership is effective.  For example in The Best Leaders Are..., I cited the work of  Executive coach Jennifer B Kahnweiler who wrote on Forbes.com about the strengths of the introvert leader.  She proposed key characteristics that  make an introvert a better leader: 

1. They think first, talk later.
2. They focus on depth.
3. They exude calm.
4. They let their fingers do the talking.
5. They embrace solitude.

This topic and related research was explored recently on the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog.  The post,  Introverts: The Best Leaders for Proactive Employees reviews the work of Business School professor Francesca Gino.  Professor Gino's research will be published next year but the early results indicate that:

• Extraverted leaders can be a liability if the followers are extroverts, tending not to be receptive to employees who make suggestions and take initiative.
• Introverted leaders are more likely to listen to, process, and implement the ideas of an eager team.
• Leaders need to adapt their style depending on the type of group they are leading. With proactive employees, leaders need to be receptive to the team's ideas; with a more passive team leaders need to act more demonstratively and set a clear direction.

The notion that leaders need to adapt their style is the biggest takeaway in the post for me.  I'm looking forward to reading about the research when it is released later this year. 

Thanks for reading.  Please lead quietly.

don

 

 

 

Building Trust Every Day - It's Important, It's Easy

Trust is an essential element of leadership.

To me, there is a solid link as validated in some of my previous explorations where I cited the work of James M.Kouzes and Barry Z.Posner from The Leadership Challenge and discussed the absence of trust as note as one of five team dysfunction in my review of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

This post expands my reflection on trust from a couple of recent discoveries on the blogosphere. First, exploring the importance of trust in collaboration and work performance, and secondly, to offer easy quiet leader-like tips for trust building. You can work on trust every day.

The Importance of Trust

Bret L. Simmons in a post "Why We Trust" at the Leader Lab site, cites two compelling studies that link the role of trust to collaboration and general task and job performance. Two quotes from Bret's post summarize the study's findings:

Trust increased an individual’s task performance, risk taking behavior, citizenship behavior (doing more to help others at work), and decreased counterproductive behavior.

If teamwork is important in your organization, then ....you should select and promote individuals with a high propensity to trust.

The Simmons post validates my previous thinking on the importance of trust. Good information from the LeaderLab. You can get more from Bret Simmons at his Positive Organizational Behavior site, both great leadership resources.

Building Trust

The importance of trust is clear. Now how do you build trust? Are there quiet leader-like approaches for building trust?

I discovered a very nice trust building tip list from the Thinking for a Change blog of Pascal Van Cauwenberghe. In the post, he summarizes a 2007 presentation from David Anderson titled, Building a high trust culture in your software engineering organisation.

In the post, Pascal suggests, "Do you want to work better, faster and get more satisfaction out of it? Increase the trust level in your team."

He offers a quiet leader-like list of tips for building trust, an actionable list that reminds me that you can work to build trust every single day.

Here is Pascal/David's tip list:

• Trust begets trust
• Be humble and respect the other
• Vulnerability disarms
• Apologize for poor results; take responsibility, even if you weren’t involved in the delivery of the poor results; promise better; deliver.
• Keep delivering, regularly, predictably.
• Deliver daily on your personal commitments; deliver daily or weekly on team commitments
• Demonstrate competence; rehearse and practice for perfect delivery
• Be transparent
• Encourage learning from failure
• Get rid of command & control
• Build up a reputation
• Define clear values and principles; let them guide decision making

I like this list. There is something on this list that you can work on every single day. The result of this daily attention will be the expansion of trust and the increase in job performance.

Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly and build trust every day.

Don

The Learning Zone - Everyday Action for Learning

Learning is key to leadership. It's a simple idea. However, we also know that learning is complex with many styles, approaches, and theories. It is easy to propose that learning is essential but how does one simplify the concept into everyday action.

Everyday action about learning recently came to me as I read Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss by author David Cottrell. Monday Morning Leadership (MML) is a short book of practical advice that is set as a story where a manager named Jeff becomes a student of leadership through weekly discussions and coaching with his mentor. Tony, the mentor, takes his student down a journey of sage and practical advice for leaders and managers.

Tony's advice throughout the story is solid and accessible. His advice is consistent with the insights offered here on Lead Quietly. However, no section of MML reasonated more than Cottrell's exploration of "the Learning Zone."

As leaders, it is easy to become stale. Cottrell cautions leaders to avoid becoming complacent within your comfort zone, a space that he proposes is a "forceful enemy to your potential." He proposes that you avoid complacency by entering the "Learning Zone."

Cottrell's Learning Zone is comprised of three rooms, the Reading Room, the Listening Room, and the Giving Room. These three rooms present an approach for everday action from the Learning Zone.

The Reading Room

Your everyday action that brings you to the reading room is simple. Read every day. When you commit 10 minutes per day, you will learn from over a dozen books every year. I'd propose that books are important but that a regular scan of the leading leadership and management blogs will also serve you well. My action plan is simple, set aside time everyday for reading.

The Listening Room

Listening is key to learning, leadership, and collaboration. Listening is inexplicably linked to learning, conversation and sharing which as noted by learning expert Jay Cross, become the "stem cells for learning." Your everyday action? Take time to listen and learn. Listen intently to every conversation.

The Giving Room

Give back by teaching and helping others succeed. By teaching others, you become more accountable for the approaches that you are teaching. Aristotle wrote, "Teaching is the highest form of understanding." Your everyday action from the Giving room? Take the time to give back by teaching other.

I like simple learning actions. Learn by reading, listening, and giving. With these daily actions, we don't need to think that learning has to be complex.

Thanks for reading. And don't forget to read, listen and give.

don

Influence, An Introvert's Perspective

I am an introvert and unfortunately, live in a world that tends to like heroes. But I treat it as a challenge. I feel that I can lead and influence without the power, charisma, or advantage that extroverts commonly seem to possess.

In the book Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy, book contributor Don Frederiksen, (I heard of that guy) provides six recommendations for introverts who want to quietly influence without leaving their introvert zone. The essential message; leverage your introversion. Use your natural tools to talk less but communicate and influence more.

1. Be friendly. Say hi and bye. Don’t forget to smile. People will say yes to people they like.
2. You are an expert in silence. Use it. A pause in your words adds powerful punctuation.
3. Look people deeply in the eye. People will nod in agreement.
4. Communicate on paper. Think of the times you go to meetings lacking an agenda? Influence the discussion by outlining your thoughts and distribute the paper as a discussion aid. And because you bring paper, volunteer to record and summarize. As Tom Peters says, whoever “writes the summary…wields great power.
5. Follow-up fastidiously. Simply put, do what you say.
6. Show gratitude, say thank you. Go a little out of your way with this simple message.

Influence doesn’t have to be loud. Influence can emerge from someone who is not the life of the party. Introverts can leverage their introversion to wield more influence. As Jonathon Rauch wrote in Caring for your Introvert, “If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place.”

Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy is a crowdsourced, collaborative effort of 171 contributing authors on topics such as influence, social medea, innovation and more. Proceeds of the book benefit the mission of charity:water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

charity:water is also a participating partner in Blog Action Day. Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action.

I encourage you to purchase Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time to Get Busy. Your purchase today will bring improvement to you and the greater good.

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Thanks for reading. Please lead quietly,

don