The Point: At Tip of the Spear, we reflected during the Holiday Season on just how lucky we are to work with the leaders that engage with us… They are some of the smartest people we know, extremely hard-charging, and they’re looking forward to accelerating their 2015 achievements. However, we also know that there is another leadership population out there that doesn’t engage with us. So we asked one of our new 2014 leaders what the biggest difference is in heading into 2015 working with us versus last year when he was ‘flying solo’ without us. The following post represents his perspective, as well as an opportunity we know you’ll want to take advantage of… Enjoy!
5-4-3-2-1… Happy New Year 2014!
Flash back one year ago: John* was a senior leader for an INC500 organization. A quick learner, he wasn’t with his organization during their ‘good old’ startup days. Instead, he was recruited to come join the initiative after the founders had successfully gone through ideation, creation, formation, launch-pad and achieved sustainable lift-off. He came in at a senior associate position, but quickly rose through the ranks and was provided an opportunity to lead a team, then a department. Like so many leaders we run into, he was quickly promoted (relatively quick) but without leadership provisions (He had no idea what he was doing!) He remembers asking if he could participate in a leadership development program and one of the founders responded “You’re a quick study… You’ll figure it out!”
I Don’t Want To Get Out of Bed!
The year for John quickly went by… The good times didn’t seem to last nearly as long as they should have. The bad times seemed to last twice as long as was necessary though! As John approached Q4 2014, he was miserable… “I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning! It’s not that I didn’t love the work, or the company’s mission, it’s just that here I was a first-time leader and totally overwhelmed not with what my subject matter expertise (SME) is, but with the ‘softer’ skills of leading people.” Faced with the facts that something must change, John started searching the net for the best leadership development programs. He found several of our blog posts on leadership, the messages resonated with him, and he outreached to see what we might do together.
5-4-3-2-1… Happy New Year 2015!
So here we are, a year later and John has the following observations regarding what’s different about him as a leader this year versus last:
- Behavioral Assessment – We started John off with a behavioral assessment to determine what his strengths, as well as weaknesses are. This provided the ‘line in the sand’ regarding where he was, and more importantly where he wanted to go as a leader.
- Dashboard Development – As a result of conducting the behavioral assessment, John created a leadership development dashboard that specifically stated not only what we were to work on together, but where he ‘scored’ at each interaction with us. This dashboard is loaded not only with behavioral assessment items (Specific actions that would drive increased behaviors), but also measurable goals for his department/the overall organization.
- Leadership Development – We began a journey of reviewing Tip of the Spear’s leadership development offering using ‘The Leadership Challenge’ methodology over the first month with John. Conveniently segmented into 5 leadership ‘buckets’ for ease of understanding/implementation, this program was easily digested by John.
- Executive Coaching – To insure that John maintained the right direction, attitude, and altitude we structured a customized Centered Executive Coaching initiative with him. Meeting three (3) times per month for an hour each, the meetings allow structured progress reviews over consistent time intervals maximizing his organization’s return on investment (ROI).
So Now What?
If John experienced a ‘dog-chase-tail / tail-chase-dog’ moment prior to working with us in Q4 2014, he definitely is in position to conduct a much different 2015 campaign as a result. Setting the leadership bar even higher in 2015, he’s poised to have his best year ever!
So ask yourself the following Centered Executive Coaching questions:
- What am I going to focus on in 2015?
- How do I know that these are the most important goals?
- Who will help me along the way to insure successful completion?
- What do I need to learn in order to maximize my accomplishments?
- What will accomplishing my goals do financially for the organization? For me?
Summary
I hope you enjoyed the post. If so, don’t forget to click on ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons and tell others who may find it useful. Also, I would love it if you would take a minute to comment on this post (That’s the BEST encouragement for me to continue to write and share!) If you’d like more information on how you can structure an initiative like John, use the CONTACT US page of this website.
Sincerely yours,
Sam Palazzolo
PS – You may also enjoy some of the other recent posts I wrote:
- Leadership Amnesia: Should You Forget the Past to Move Forward to a Better Future?
- The Leadership Challenge: Are Your SMART Goals DUMB?
- The Leadership Challenge: Are You Climbing the Leadership Mountain?
- The Leadership Challenge: They Want You To Fail! 8 Leadership Tips to Overcome Failure
- The Leadership Challenge: Do You Exercise Your Moral Muscle?
- The Leadership Challenge: Conducting Post-Mortem Reviews
Sam Palazzolo is the Managing Director at Tip of the Spear Ventures, an agile Venture Capital and Business Advisory Services firm specializing in Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, and Communication Skills Training for Leaders.
* John’s name has been changed for the purposes of this post.