I know what you’re thinking. Who has time for a six-month leadership development program? Can’t we just do a lunch & learn?
However, the behavior experts at The Metiss Group have found leadership training that only lasts an hour, or even a day, isn't as sticky as our six-month Leadership Acceleration program.
So although your employees may come away from a Lunch & Learn feeling very enthusiastic, once they get back to work, what they've learned is lost in the chaos of their desks.
That’s why our Leadership Acceleration program for individuals is a six-month process with eight practices.
It starts with self-discovery. In this initial phase, each individual will take assessments to identify their behaviors, motivators, and cognitive abilities. The behavior experts at The Metiss Group will use these results to personalize the Leadership Acceleration program to your unique organization and leaders.
Then over six months, individuals will advance to the next stage of the Leadership Acceleration process in the order detailed below. Keep reading for insight into each step of the process.
1. Empower your direct reports with proven delegation techniques
The first step in Leadership Acceleration is to teach the Empowerment Model, which can be used to help you delegate projects to your direct reports.
The Empowerment Model teaches you how to make sure you’re giving your direct reports all the tools, resources, and information they need to complete the projects you assign to them. You’ll give your direct reports more autonomy, and as a result, you’ll spend less time micromanaging.
You’ll also learn ways to teach your direct reports how to ask for help. Your intention is to give them autonomy, so if they’re still feeling stuck on a project, they’re obligated to communicate that with you.
You can start small with the Empowerment Model, but as you see its success, you’ll want to use it for larger and larger projects. Your employees will feel significantly more engaged and willing to go the extra mile.
2. Give feedback that is frequent, timely, and specific to all employees
As the leader, it’s your responsibility to ensure your direct reports stay on course.
If you were in the passenger seat during a cross-country road trip with your best friend, you wouldn’t wait until your friend was 10 miles down the interstate before saying, “Oh by the way, you missed your exit back there.”
Through Leadership Acceleration, you’ll learn how to give feedback that is frequent, timely, and specific. Sometimes it’s celebrating a win; other times it’s a course correction.
You’ll also learn how to tailor feedback styles to the individual style of your direct reports.
For example, maybe one individual is an introvert and the other is an extrovert. The introvert may need a softer feedback approach, while the extrovert needs a more direct approach.
If you flipped feedback styles, the extrovert would brush you off, and the introvert would feel attacked. That’s why you must keep individual behaviors in mind while delivering feedback.
3. Prioritize personal development
When you develop your direct reports, you’ll get a much better ROI than if you’d only focused on developing yourself.
That’s why you need to make sure your direct reports have measurable, time-based development goals. And you as their leader must support these goals by checking in often and helping them prioritize their development.
So let’s say you’re in a weekly one-on-one with your direct report. You ask, “How’s your personal development going?”
“Fine,” they answer. Which could mean a wide range of things. Have they read one chapter of a personal development book, or have they finished the book? Have they received a certification in a new course, or have they only researched potential courses to take?
If you don’t have a way to measure development (i.e. Complete one certification course every month), then you’re going to struggle with keeping your direct reports accountable to their goals.
On the other hand, maybe they’ll say, “I just don’t have time to develop myself.”
That’s when you need to step in and help them prioritize personal development. Because if they can’t develop themselves, you can’t prepare them for the next step or delegate new tasks to them.
During this phase of the Leadership Acceleration program, we’ll prepare you with the tools you need to develop for the unique individuals who report to you. You’ll understand how to check in, how to hold them accountable, and how to help them prioritize development with a busy schedule.
4. One-on-one meetings should focus on relationships
Relationships are the foundation of trust. And you can’t get to high performance without trust.
Your one-on-one meetings with your direct reports should have relationship-building as the No. 1 priority. Not status updates.
There are plenty of other meetings throughout the week where you can get a status update from your direct report. But during a weekly one-on-one, your direct report can tell you if they’re struggling, what excites them, what’s going on in their personal lives, etc.
But they’ll never share this information if they don’t trust you. So during Leadership Acceleration, you’ll learn how to build that trust and how to structure your one-on-ones in a way that keeps your direct reports engaged.
5. Communicate expectations with a job scorecard
In this stage, you’ll develop job scorecards for your direct reports. You can download an example job scorecard developed by The Metiss Group.
Job scorecards allow you as the leader to be on the same page as your direct reports about day-to-day work expectations. Your direct reports will understand how to prioritize different tasks, and each task has clear success factors so employees can know whether they’re on track.
The result? When employees know exactly what defines their success, they’re much more likely to exceed your expectations. No one wants to mark the checkboxes for “off track” all the way down their scorecard.
The Metiss Group can help you develop a scorecard or we can work with what you have. It doesn’t have to be perfect at this stage – it can be developed over time.
6. Give timely performance reviews
Pop quiz: which is better, quarterly or annual reviews?
I’ll give you a moment to lock in your answer. Now, think about the last performance review you did. What did you talk about?
If it was an annual review, did you feel like you remembered everything that employee deserved to hear? Did you congratulate the employee’s entire year of work, or did you default to what was top of mind because you're managing multiple people and they start to run together?
We’ve found that the typical supervisor only remembers the last six weeks or so (in the absence of something dramatic or traumatic happening). So if you’re only meeting annually, you’re probably only going to be reviewed on the most recent month or so, not the entire year.
That’s why quarterly reviews with your direct reports are more effective than annual reviews.
During each quarterly review, you’ll go through your direct reports’ scorecards and check whether each task is on track, off track, inconclusive, or not applicable. Most checkmarks should be green (on track), but if an employee is new to their role, they might have more yellow checkmarks (inconclusive) as they continue learning their job responsibilities.
You might see check marks in the Not Applicable column if your team had to reprioritize – for example, maybe a major launch that quarter caused other smaller tasks to go on the back burner.
You’ll also discuss the following topics with your direct reports:
What did you accomplish outside of the day-to-day work?
What will you accomplish next quarter?
How did you develop yourself?
How did you demonstrate our core values?
During Leadership Acceleration, you’ll learn the most effective ways to hold these reviews and what to accomplish each time.
7. Align individual goals with company goals
Let’s say one of your company's No. 1 goals is to reduce expenses by 10%.
Maybe the C-Suite or VPs at the company care. But chances are the individual contributors at the company don’t know what steps they’d need to take to help the company hit that goal. Or maybe they just don’t care.
This may come as a surprise to you. Why wouldn’t they care about the company goals – especially when you as a leader care so much?
But when it’s hard for them to see how their actions make an impact, or if they feel like their hard work often goes unnoticed, then making them care is going to be a tough sell.
The best way for a company to achieve its goals is to have a direct line of sight between every individual’s goals and the company’s goals. In other words, if the company has 3-5 specific goals, then every department should have 3-5 goals that support these overall goals.
Not only should they be connected – they should also be measurable and time-based.
So instead of saying, “Let’s reduce our expenses by 10%!” and hoping every employee cares enough to do that math, you can now say “Let’s reduce expenses by $300 this year.”
And one department can make it a goal to reduce their department’s expenses by $100, which is directly in the line of sight of the company’s goal. Now, those individual contributors can easily see how they’re helping the company reach its goals. And as a result, they’ll be able to celebrate their wins and see how they’re making a difference at your company.
During the Goal Alignment phase in the Leadership Acceleration program, we’ll help you uncover these strategic goals and find a way to tie them to the departments within your company.
8. Make a plan for team succession
The team succession phase isn’t about finding a replacement for your key leaders.
Instead, it’s about finding ways for employees to cover for one another in a crisis. It’s about making sure all of a person’s tasks can be delegated if that person were to fall ill or take an extended leave for any reason.
You need to document not only what an employee’s responsibilities are, but how to do them. Then, in the event someone needs urgent time off, there’s a plan for who can cover. This ensures business continuity and seamless delivery of your products and services to your clients.
Something to keep in mind – you’re replacing the work, not the person. If you try to replace the person, you’ll never find a good replacement. A lot of what a person contributes is unique to that specific person.
By planning for team succession, you’ll prime your direct reports for their next promotion. In fact, one sign of a successful leader is how many direct reports have been promoted within the company. Unfortunately, many leaders avoid this because they have no succession plan.
Get started with Leadership Acceleration
The six-month process isn’t a quick fix. It takes time and effort to develop your direct reports. But in comparison to doing a leadership lunch & learn, this Leadership Acceleration program incorporates structured learning, practical application, and personalized coaching. It will actually stick with your direct reports.
This means you’ll develop leaders who not only meet their goals but exceed expectations and drive ROI within your organization.
Ready to get started? Fill out the Contact Us form to schedule your discovery call with a behavior expert at The Metiss Group.
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