Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Leadership Challenge: Finding More Hours in the Day (Time Management)

September 5, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: This is 3^rd installment in The Leadership Challenge series, and perhaps the most important. Time management is a grave leadership challenge… meaning that it can be very serious if not attended to, or cause you to crawl into one! So much has been written and spoken about Time Management that you need to spend a lot of time studying it! But since Time Management is crucial to leadership development, here are five (5) essential tips on making more of your 24-hour days… Enjoy!

Tip #5: Defining Terms

To use time to your advantage, you first have to clarify what time really is. If you read books and download apps on managing clock time, then you are not going to achieve anything. All time is relative. Time for a leader is any duration where they get work done. Everything else stems from this definition.

Tip #4: Analyze your Time

Take a sample duration of how you currently spend your time, let’s say a week. For seven (7) days, monitor your schedule and track all your conversations and activities. This will enable you to see how much time in a work-week you actually spend doing things that produce results and justify your position in the organization. Step-by-step, you have to maximize the instances where you are productive, and vice versa.

Tip #3: (Don’t) Test your Limits

Let’s face it; you are not Superman. There is only so much you can excel at with a human mind and body. So instead of pulling yourself in all directions (like handling marketing, HR, and customer relations on your own), focus on what you do best and leave the rest for others on your team according to their expertise. Leaders are not good at everything, they just work with the best people and delegate/hold accountable for results.

Tip #2: Plan your Time Off Work

It has often been seen that people in leadership roles take too much work on themselves and only take off when their bodies give up. That is no way to live. You should be proactive and manage your breaks. This doesn’t only mean your annual vacations. You should take brief (yet focused) breaks throughout the day to give your muscles and brain cells time to rejuvenate.

Tip #1: Plan for Interruptions

Even the best managers cannot control changes in government policies, adverse weather conditions, changing economic climate, and personal problems (Remember that Open Door Policy you enacted?) Just like you get yourself insured for emergency situations, leave some space in your schedule for these interruptions. Otherwise, you will be caught unaware/unable to fulfill commitments made.

Summary

To sum up, time is a luxury for a leader. In order to keep yourself productive without burning out, follow these five (5) tips to manage it efficiently. And keep following the Tip of the Spear blog to learn how to be a better leader!

For more information about Tip of the Spear’s Business Advisory Services, including Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, and Communication Skills Training for Leaders use the Contact Us page of this website.

Results from Stakeholder Centered Coaching

September 4, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: The demand for leadership training is growing by the day, and there are dozens, if not thousands of training programs out there attempting to meet this demand. But which one should you choose for your organization? In the end, it all boils to one thing: RESULTS! In this article, we are going to discuss Stakeholder Centered Coaching (SCC) and identify real results you can expect if you engage in an initiative with Tip of the Spear… Enjoy!

Stakeholder Centered Coaching: The Basics

SCC works as follows: Under the guidance of a coach, a leader asks stakeholders of the organization to assess his strengths and weaknesses (A 360-degree review). Once results are tabulated/analysis is done, one (1) or at most two (2) areas of “opportunity” are selected to improve upon.

As the leader works towards their goals through executive coaching sessions. Additionally, they ask for regular feedback from the stakeholders on their progress. This helps the leader work towards/accomplish behavioral change. After the coaching engagement ends (the typical executive coaching engagement lasts a year), the same stakeholders assess whether the leadership development goals have been achieved or not.

The program design is simple and it is highly effective. You may be thinking that such centered executive coaching would already be doing rounds in the corporate world, but that is not the case. That is why Dr Marshall Goldsmith’s SCC is truly revolutionary in its offerings.

Purported Results

SCC brings improvements in various leadership development areas, such as:

Communication

You learn to be more articulate, and also more assertive of your opinions. You also learn to become a better listener. Conflict management is also a goal that SCC can help you with. All of this helps in timely decision making that is typically welcomed whole-heartedly by your team.

Mentoring and Disciplinarian

This follows from becoming a better communicator. You learn to manage teams, nurture talent, and use disciplinary measures when needed.

Leadership

SCC ultimately helps you become a better leader as you learn how to delegate effectively, take calculated risks, hold others accountable for results, and deal with performance issues on a timely basis.

Real People | Real Results

But while all these benefits look great on paper, are there any success stories?

As per Marshall Goldsmith’s SCC website, 95% of leaders who pay heed to what their stakeholders have to say experience measurable improvements. The conclusion was based on a survey that involved more than 10,000 leaders from around the world, some of whom have gone on record to testify to the effectiveness of Stakeholder Centered Executive Coaching. Our own results at Tip of the Spear regarding our Centered Executive Coaching mirror such successes.

Summary

The results are in! SCC really helps leaders lead better, provided that it’s done by a certified coach. So, if you want to bring measurable improvements into your leadership behavior (and hence your organizational goals), you need to hire a certified coach right away.

For more information on Centered Executive Coaching, the other Tip of the Spear Business Advisory Services, and/or information on leadership development through our affiliation with The Javelin Institute, use the Contact Us page.

The Leadership Challenge: Crucial Conversations with Your Worst Employees

September 4, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: We’ve all been there before as a leader… How do you effectively manage your worst employees? Every organization has them, right? They come in with a negative attitude and spread out like the ebola virus. The more negativity in the workplace, the less productivity there will be for you/your organization. So how do you effectively manage these “difficult” employees is a crucial leadership challenge. Here are some practical steps you can use to successfully identify/overcome this leadership dilemma… Enjoy!

Identifying Problem Areas

There are some defining traits of bad employees. To start off, they exhibit negative emotions toward the organization, and never miss an opportunity to make snide remarks about company leaders or co-workers. As mentioned above, such negativity can easily spread like the ebola virus in the work place.

This could eventually turns into insubordination, where the employee might refuse to perform a task, and in doing so, disrupt the entire workflow.

Secondly, bad employees also start or aggravate disputes in the workplace, thereby creating an uncomfortable team setting. This also makes problem resolution harder.

Thirdly, even if an employee isn’t overly negative and exhibit the traits described above, they may still be lazy and unmotivated. They neither focus on their work, nor let anyone do the same.

Assessing the Costs

Whenever you start to think that dealing with bad employees isn’t worth your time, remember that doing so can save your organization the expense of unnecessary hiring costs. The average cost to replace an employee is estimated at 150 percent of their annual compensation, and the cost is higher if they hold a leadership role.

Dealing with Bad Employees

Finding the source of bad employee’s bad attitude can help you manage behaviors without making them more upset. You have to consider factors like how does the employee interact with others in the workforce. You should also assess whether the change in attitude has followed a change in company policy, or their individual/personal workload. Many times, something happens in the individual’s life that triggers their bad attitude.

Once you know the root cause, confront the difficult employee privately and respectfully. Let the employee know how his or her behavior is negatively impacting the team and productivity. You have to be firm and discipline bad employees, but make it a point to keep the conversation professional and constructive!

Summary

To sum up, having crucial conversations with bad performers in your workforce is critical not only to the smooth working of your organizational operation, but also to your success as a leader.

To find out more about Tip of the Spear’s Business Advisory Services, including Leadership Development through The Leadership Challenge, please use the Contact Us page.

5 Benefits from Stakeholder Centered Coaching and Centered Executive Coaching

September 3, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Stakeholder Centered Coaching (SCC) is the brainchild of Marshall Goldsmith, a UCLA PhD, and one of the most well-respected leadership executive coaches in the world. His SCC method is considered highly effective and efficient by diverse voices in the business world. Even we at Tip of the Spear hold on to the SCC principles (It formed the foundation for our Centered Executive Coaching, consisting of Leader Centered Coaching, Stakeholder Centered Coaching, and Business Centered Coaching). Here we outline the top 5 benefits of this centered executive coaching methodology so you know a little more about why it can work for you/your company as well… Enjoy!

It is Simple…

Goldsmith is often quoted saying ‘Coaching is simple, but not easy!’ But SCC is easy to understand and highly practical as well. Not to mention, Stakeholder Centered Executive Coaching also differs from popular leadership training programs. Most leadership coaches teach that success owes itself largely to inherent traits. While Stakeholder Centered Executive Coaching doesn’t deny this, but it explains how sometimes these inherent traits can actually stand in way of you/your organization’s success.

On the Job Development

SCC is both cost and time effective, and you are able to accelerate leadership growth on the job. By integrating stakeholder feedback as part of the training, the coach is able to bring about sustainable behavioral change without exhausting company resources.

A Change of Attitude

A recurring theme of SCC is helping leaders understand that the mindset that helped them achieve success in the past may now actually be disastrous for the growth of the company in the face of present complexities. Marshall describes these as ‘belief barriers’ to a leader’s success.

Measurable Impact

Most leadership development and executive coaching programs focus assessing leadership effectiveness and action planning so that the leader comes to recognize their strengths and weaknesses. But while this is a critical step to initiate the coaching process, it can result in a list of areas of improvement areas that is so long that it hinders any action from being taken.

Stakeholder Centered Coaching on the other hand ‘takes the action’ right into the leader’s work environment with the stakeholders. The stakeholders then provide important and insightful suggestions for behavioral change to help the leader become more effective for the organization.

And this valuable feedback is not brushed aside for future deliberation, instead it is implemented and followed through to achieve sustainable behavioral change, thus creating more effective leadership behaviors and habits. If the change implemented is not sustained, recognized, and acknowledged by stakeholders in the workplace, then the coaching program has failed. Simple as that.

From Trainee to Trainer

Finally, once leaders themselves have been coached for about a year, they themselves become equipped to coach their own subordinates. Hence, the behavioral changes further become sustainable to the point they become engrained in the company culture.

Summary

For all these leadership development reasons, SCC is a ‘must have’ leadership development skill for effective leaders. For more information on Centered Executive Coaching, the other Tip of the Spear Business Advisory Services, and/or information on leadership development through our affiliation with The Javelin Institute, use the Contact Us page.

The Leadership Challenge: Calling Employees Out

September 3, 2014 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: One mosquito, one damn mosquito can ruin the peace of the entire household. The same is true of a bad employee in your business. No matter how large your organization may be, a single lazy, unmotivated, and gossiping employee can negatively impact the performance of the entire workforce. Are you facing problems dealing with such people in your organization? Read on to learn some effective tips to handle this leadership challenge… Enjoy!

Identifying a Bad Employee

When a policy is violated, or when there is persistent underperformance, you may clearly have a bad employee in your midst. However, what about all those workers who are just passing along and are not working to unlock their true potential? They only work enough to get by, and secure their position in the organization due to their experience.

When you are building a business from the ground up, or when you are trying to keep your company afloat during economic crises, such employees, no matter how good-natured they are, can actually hinder the growth of the company. As a leader, you have to call them out and have an honest discussion with such employees as part of your leadership development.

Why You Should Call Out Bad Employees – Top 3 Reasons

Reason #3: Send a Message

When you don’t discipline trouble-makers, you are setting a negative precedent that bad performance goes tolerated in the organization. You have to send the message that if an employee refuses to follow your rules and the company vision, leadership (or management) will not spare the rod. This is especially true in times of economic crises, where high levels of unemployment mean that each employee can be replaced with someone equally, if not more talented. This statement is not made to be a threat, because a person working under fear may underperform. Think of it more as a promise that they will be held accountable for not living up to their potential.

Reason #2: Solve Problems

Problem resolution is a major component of leadership. You can’t simply overlook an issue and expect the company to propel towards success. If this was a product issue, you’d probably develop a new one based on market feedback. Why wouldn’t you do the same with a disruptive employee?

Reason #1: You Lead as a Leader, Right?

Ultimately, everything reflects on you as a leader. If you let a problem get out of hand (which does happen when you ignore calling out bad employees), you will destroy your resume as a business manager and leader.

Take Action!

Instead of waiting until the last moment and letting things get out of hand, you should deal with employee performance proactively. Set the expectations of each team member in writing and ask each employee to create a plan of action showing you how they plan to succeed. After some deliberation, put them into action, and review them on a cadenced basis (daily/weekly or bi-weekly).

Congratulate employees that achieve their goals to boost their morale, while hold those employees accountable that are not fulfilling what is required of them. This will help to solve problems as they arise.

Like everyday life, ignoring a small problem only makes it bigger as time goes on. The same holds true when managing poor performers in your organization!

Summary

To sum up, you shouldn’t shy away from confronting bad employees. Disciplining bad employees is not an afterthought for leaders, something that they have to do as a last resort, but it is actually crucial to leadership development.

For more information on Tip of the Spear Leadership Development programs, including those leveraging The Leadership Challenge use the Contact Us form on our website.

Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

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