Future Leaders or Replacement Leaders?

Future leader or replacement leader? This is an important concept I've come to realize most organizations (aka company owners/leaders) don't get.

Remember: our bottom line is succession planning. We want ready, capable leaders in the pipeline so that when succession occurs naturally (or unnaturally, maybe someone has an accident or an illness,) you will not panic because you know that you have someone in the pipeline (preferably more than one someone) who can step up to the challenge.

When you are preparing future leaders, you need to have an eye towards the future of your business. You don't want replacement leaders; you want future leaders. Think of it like this: Let's say your dishwasher spews water all over your kitchen floor, requiring it to be replaced. You think to yourself, Now is a great time to upgrade my cracked ceramic to luxury vinyl plank, right? Wrong. The insurance company dictates that your home will be fixed to the condition it was in at the time of the leak. In other words - you are stuck in time. Similarly, when you are talking about the future success of your organization, you don't want a replica of what you already have. You want leaders who will ensure your company adapts to the future.

Here are three practices to help you identify the future and the employees that will get you there.

The first is to look to your industry association. They spend millions of dollars a year to have their finger on the pulse of what is happening in your industry, and they should have identified where the industry as a whole is going. For instance, if the construction industry is moving to 3D-printed homes - what skills will be required to seize that future when it arrives? Who should you recruit now so that you have future leaders with the right skills? Given the speed at which business moves these days, you will not have time to catch up.

Secondly, look at the job descriptions of key roles in your organization. Have they been updated recently? Most job descriptions I look at, inside companies that we work with, are not up to date. The first thing I do is give the job description back to the person currently doing the job and ask them to bring it up to date. If someone is in a job long enough, say three years or five years, the job grows, people adapt and take on new skills and new responsibilities, but nobody thinks to go back and look at the job description!  While they are updating the job description, also ask the incumbent to identify what future skills will be needed. It's probable that you won't find these skills today, but you will be able to interview for someone who is thinking ahead, will experiment, and who would rather learn something new than do the same job over and over again.

The third tip for securing future leaders is: In interviews, ask potential future leaders, How do you see this role evolving in three years? Ask this question whether you are hiring from outside your organization or you're looking to promote someone who is already in your company.  If they have future-leader potential, they have thought it through. They should have their thumb on the pulse of the industry and know what the role should be focusing on. So ask people, what is the future of this role? What should we be looking at as an organization? How would you help us get there? What tools or resources would you need to help us to get there?

Succession planning is a forward-thinking process that ensures you have a pipeline of ready and capable leaders. These three practices can help to ensure you are preparing your company with future leaders, not replacement leaders.

Centralized or Decentralized Succession Planning?

One of the important strategic decisions you'll have to make when determining how to approach your succession planning is whether you want the execution of it to be centralized or decentralized.

Centralized

If you choose the centralized route, HR will be the hub of the succession planning. They will know who is in the pipeline, they will oversee or even prescribe the professional development that those people will need in order to be prepared, they will sign people up for classes, send them to conferences, hire them coaches, and make sure that they are progressing along a career path and/or a learning path.

Decentralized

In the decentralized approach, all of those responsibilities just listed will be taken on by every department head, whatever title you want to give that (manager, director, VP, etc.).  In the decentralized approach, each individual department will plan their own succession pipeline and keep HR in the loop. HR will not have individual sightlines into each department’s or each individual’s succession plan. Instead, HR will be kept apprised of the plan and act as a consultant to the department head.

The role of HR is very different in the centralized versus decentralized approach. In the decentralized approach HR is more of an advisor to each individual department, as opposed to owning the process and making sure that the company, as a whole, has succession planning in place.

Example

If a department head says “I want my folks to have more industry knowledge,” HR would say, “OK, give me a week and I'll come back with a couple of options that might fit your goals.” What HR won't do is assess where people stand now, what development they need, or be involved in the development process in any way other than an advisory role.

HR’s Responsibility

The responsibility that HR has when the process is decentralized is that HR has to make sure that all department heads know what they're doing.

·        Do they know how to plan a career trajectory?

·        Do they know how to delegate?

·        Do they know how to identify special projects or stretch assignments?

·        Do they know how to coach?

·        Do they know how to teach their people how to coach?

·        Are they willing to let people go from their department in order to advance their career and make a more well-rounded contributor to the organization?

The centralized versus decentralized decision depends on how your organization prefers to manage the process and how much time and dedication you think your individual department heads will give to the process. Also, consider if a department head leaves, will the next leader be on board with this responsibility?

Warning: There is one glaring problem when succession planning is decentralized, and that is: if a particular department just drops the ball. HR may not be apprised of the fact that there may be a big gap in the succession pipeline of a particular department. In the centralized scenario, HR will make sure that every spoke in your company hub has a succession plan in place, and people are progressing through that plan.

What Defines a Leader?

This article is NOT about our usual – Succession Planning - but rather it’s about one of the things you really have to think about before your company starts succession planning.

And that is: How do you define “leader” in your organization?

When I speak, I always start my presentations with the question: What does a leader look like? I flip-chart the responses, then ask my audience to “step back” and look at the list.

I ask them: Can you give this list a label? Is there a theme?

I see lightbulbs go off over people’s heads: Oh, these are behaviors or characteristics.

I point out that we talk about “leadership skills” and the need to teach people leadership skills… but the lists almost never contain skills!

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Let’s look at the leadership “skill” of ethics.

We expect our leaders to behave ethically, don’t we? But when do we ever teach ethical behavior? It’s kind of a hard thing to teach, right? “Ethics” is more like an internal motivation or mindset. As a society, we are shocked when a “leader” behaves unethically, but we never teach ethics as a skill, do we? (Yes, some executive leadership programs include this topic, but rarely does typical schooling or training address it because it’s hard to teach a behavior!)

Another interesting wrinkle is this: the concept of ethics could be different for every company. If you run a manufacturing firm, ethical behavior can be very different from, say, a hospital and what ethics means in that setting. In a manufacturing firm, you don’t have to deal with the concept of ethics too often. But in a healthcare environment, ethical behavior can come down to every individual patient, every day.

When it comes to defining leadership, we can’t say “these are the behaviors we expect of our leaders,” without further defining what those behaviors actually look like in practice.

And every company needs to define that for themselves.

Why?

Because you can’t “raise up” leaders internally or hire them externally if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

So here is a starter list of leadership behaviors.

These have been collected from presentations that I’ve given in just the last year.

It’s amazing how long the list is! It confirms that “leadership” is wide-ranging.

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When I ask clients, Tell me what a leader in your organization looks like, tell me how they are defined, so that we can create more of them, or find more of them, they are generally dumbfounded. They just haven’t thought about it before. While the list I’ve offered is a good start, you have to be more definitive about what these words mean for your organization.

Generally, leadership teams are not united on the definitions of “leader” because no one has ever asked them to have this discussion.  Here’s a great analogy: Ask three people to describe the same color. One will say “teal,” another “aqua” and the third “blue-green.”  They all know what that term means in their own heads… but they aren’t in agreement, are they?

I’m prompting you to have this discussion with your senior leadership team.

Conduct a “brainstorm-like” meeting and ask: What does a leader look like in this organization? How do they behave? How do we know they are behaving in a leader-like manner? What do we see?

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Let’s circle back to how this relates to succession planning.

To conduct succession planning without this definition is futile. In order to develop employees into future leaders, you need to know what that means for your organization. In order to hire from outside your organization for a leadership role, you want to be confident they will be a fit with your culture and values.

To conduct succession planning without this definition is futile.

If that means leaders in this organization behave ethically, describe it:

·        Don’t lie

·        Don’t take bribes

·        Don’t operate behind other’s backs

·        Act without bias

·        Act without malice

·        Put the good of the company before one’s own needs or ambitions

So, start with the list I’ve supplied. Have your senior leaders work with it, discuss, and narrow it down to  5 - 6 leader behaviors from the list (or add your own), and then add 6 – 8 descriptions to define what each looks like in action. You don’t want more than 5 or 6 behaviors because it becomes too cumbersome; pick those that are most important for your organization to function repeatedly in the way that you want it to function.

Once you have these defined, you can start identifying and grooming future leaders who will continue to fit the culture of your organization.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.

The Importance of Clarifying Leadership Competencies and Skills

• Are you a great communicator? 

• Do your employees trust you? 

• Are you able to inspire people to do more than they themselves thought they could? 

These are all behaviors of a leader - yet most interviews for senior leaders never screen for these qualities. 

In this issue of Succession Planning Tips we are going to focus on the critical differences between behavioral competencies and skills - because without understanding the difference, you cannot hire leaders who gel with your organization.

Why is it important to define the competencies and skills of a leader? 
Differentiating between competencies and skills is important because a lot of organizations are finding themselves having to hire senior leaders from outside their organizations. The current senior leaders have been on the job for decades and companies have not had the foresight to prepare younger generations to step into senior roles. If you are looking to fill senior leadership (aka C-suite roles) roles you need to know what you're looking for in terms of cultural fit with the organization and its values - and 99% of that fit has nothing to do with what the potential new leader knows but rather with how they behave. 

What’s the difference between competency and skills? 
A competency encompasses various skills; skills that put a finer point on defining a leader. 

For instance, one of the competencies you might want your senior leaders to possess is “excellent communication skills.” Who among us has not seen that on a job posting, right? But what does that look like in terms of actual behavior? Is “excellent communicator” one thing or many things? It might mean:

• “In this organization, we speak respectfully to one another.” 

• “We welcome feedback and we act on it.” 

• “It's okay to speak truth to power in this organization.”

Here's a different way of looking at it: Say you have a child who needs a bit of behavior modification.  Saying, “You need to be a good boy,” isn't very specific is it? But breaking down what “good boy” means in terms of skills or behaviors is something you can identify, he or she can comprehend, and you can recognize and reward in practice.

Back to the world of work:
A good rule of thumb is to identify 6-8 competencies and beneath them, 5 to 6 skills/behaviors that further define what that competency looks like in practice. So you might have potential competencies such as:

• critical thinker

•  excellent communicator

•  thinks strategically

•  works collaboratively

•  team-first attitude

•  ethical

Then you’ll need to define the skills/behaviors that demonstrate those competencies - as the “excellent communicator” example does, above. 

When you are interviewing for senior leadership roles your questions should be more about how the person fits within your definition of your company’s critical competencies and not about what they’ve accomplished in their previous roles (we can presume that if they made it to a senior executive interview they have conquered the requisite performance). Rather, ask clarifying and probing questions to determine if someone will be a fit with your organization and continue to promote the values and goals your company and your people work toward. 

Get help crafting questions that get at behaviors and fit. 

Defining competencies and the skills that make up those competencies puts a finer point on what you expect of a senior leader in your organization - both those who are already with you and those you are inviting to join the organization. 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

The Importance of Breadth and Depth in Your Succession Plan

Succession planning 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀; it's about creating leaders. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮l within your organization today, to ensure a strong leadership pipeline for tomorrow.

In all the years I helped companies with their leadership development there was always one burning question: Can you really teach leadership? 

The answer is yes – but it’s not easy and it’s not fast.

The same is true of succession planning. 

Although I would say it IS easy – if you have the right plan… but it’s still not a fast process.

Part of the reason it is not fast is the need for breadth and depth in succession planning.

Breadth of Organizational Knowledge/Experience

Breadth in a succession plan refers to the variety and diversity of experiences and expertise that individuals in the succession pipeline possess. It involves having a pool of potential successors who have gained a wide range of experiences across different areas within the organization. These individuals should understand the functioning of the organization as a whole rather than simply being experts in their specific roles or departments – which is what “leadership” looks like in most organizations today.

Having individuals with diverse experiences and backgrounds in the succession pipeline is crucial for several reasons:

1. Holistic Understanding of the Organization:

Employees with diverse experiences throughout the organization have a comprehensive understanding of how different departments and functions operate and intertwine. This knowledge is vital for effective decision-making at higher levels when organizational decisions must be made.

2. Adaptability and Flexibility:

Exposure to various roles and functions fosters adaptability and flexibility in future leaders. They are better equipped to respond to changes, challenges, and opportunities, which is especially important in today's dynamic business environment.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration:

Individuals with experience in multiple areas can bridge invisible barriers and facilitate collaboration between different parts of the organization. Collaboration fosters teamwork and innovation which in turn enhances overall organizational performance. 

Depth of Generations

When you have depth in your succession plan, you have multiple layers and generations of potential successors. It is important to cultivate talent at different stages of their careers and identify individuals who can step into critical roles as they progress within the organization.

1. Long-Term Talent Development:

Identifying and nurturing talent early in employees’ careers allows for a long runway of development opportunities, which is crucial for learning behaviors. If you expect a future leader to be knowledgeable in the operations of the whole company – that will require many years of experiences to achieve.

2. Employee Engagement and Retention:

Employees are more likely to stay if they know that your company offers a future for them and a path for career growth.

Incorporating both breadth and depth into your succession plan ensures a comprehensive and robust approach. It's about not only having a diverse pool of potential successors but also nurturing them at different stages of their careers for a seamless leadership transition.

Remember, succession planning is about preparing for a sustainable and thriving future.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

Step One in Your Succession Plan

When I work with clients or even when I am speaking at an event, I always incorporate an activity where I ask people to name things that they think leaders need to possess or demonstrate and ask them, What does a leadership skill look like?

Typical responses are...

* They have emotional intelligence.
* They are open-minded and willing to change.
* They have a growth mindset.
* They are charismatic and have influence.
* They are people focused.
* They are selfless.

Then I ask the audience to take a mental step back and look at that list overall and see if they see a theme or a label that they can give it.

Inevitably, there is an a-ha light bulb that goes off and they say, “These are all characteristics or behaviors.” These are not skills. So why are we always hearing in the popular press, in advertisements, in marketing that you must teach your folks leadership skills when really the ‘skills’ are behaviors?

We know a ‘leader’ because of his or her behavior. One of my favorites to bring up for discussion is “A leader is ethical.” When do we ever teach somebody to be ethical? How do you teach someone to be ethical? Across the board we expect a leader to demonstrate that they have ethics, but we never really define it or teach it to them.

That is step one in your succession planning.

First and foremost, you must define what a leadership characteristic or behavior looks like in your organization. The last part -in your organization- is the important part because every organization has a different style and culture, not to mention different stakeholders with their expectations. Ethics in a healthcare organization is going to have a little different flavor than ethics in a manufacturing organization or in a broadcasting organization.

So step one is to be very purposeful about defining how leaders in your organization behave so that you A) can start teaching it or B) know what you are screening/interviewing for if you must hire people from outside to fill leadership roles. Having a defined set of leadership behaviors (think of it as a leadership avatar) gives you peace of mind in knowing that you are hiring people who will align with the values and the culture of your organization.

Having a defined set of leadership behaviors (think of it as a leadership avatar) gives you peace of mind in knowing that you are hiring people who will align with the values and the culture of your organization.

One last thing to consider: The thing about behaviors is that you really cannot teach them. We develop behaviors based on experiences or belief systems or reflecting on things that have happened to us, that shape us into who we are.

You can see -just looking around you in society- that not everybody demonstrates the same behaviors. So please begin your succession planning by defining what leadership behavior in your organization looks like, so that you can train to or hire it from the outside if you need to.

Does your organization have a clearly defined set of leadership behaviors (most don’t)?

This article was originally published on LinkedIn

The 3 C’s of Leadership Development

With record numbers of people quitting their jobs, the mass exodus of Baby Boomers, and the current report that more than 10% of all leadership positions in organizations are currently vacant, there is an urgent demand for leadership development in all kinds of industries.

From the kinds of inquiries we get each week, we’ve realized that most organizations are not approaching leadership development in a strategic way. They are looking for coaching or courses without a real plan for how they will roll them out, what they expect the benefit to be, or who is ultimately responsible for them.

Here are the three C’s of leadership development which are necessary BEFORE you actually begin any development approach:

1.      Culture

2.      Communication

3.      Coaching

Note: It may take a year or more to get these things in place, but it is time well-spent if you want your leadership development efforts to be successful.

1.  Culture

For decades organizations in the US have had a “top-down” culture. There are natural progressions from individual contributor, to manager of others, to leaders of departments, divisions and more.  For organizations to be successful going forward, however, leadership is less of a position and more of a capability.

This is a significant change in thinking, in practice, and in organizational culture. And organization’s (and society for that matter) do not change their cultures quickly.

The leader’s role now is to develop others. The perspective must shift to “How far can this person go? What can I help him/her achieve?” rather than “What skills do they currently have and do they serve a specific purpose?”

The pandemic has brought this shift to light more quickly. With so many individuals working from home without direct “supervision,” everyone is essentially leading themselves; and for everyone to be successful (the individual and the organization as a whole) they need the ability to grow their capabilities in many ways, with their leader’s support.

Bottom line: Organizations need to shift their culture from control-and-command to guide-and-support.

2.  Communication

The next critical practice is communicating - not only communicating the shift in culture but constantly, loudly, reinforcing it. The shift in thinking and practice must cascade from the top of the organization to the bottom. Not only do managers need to know what is expected of them, but employees need to know what to expect of their managers.

This is not a fast process. Much like in marketing, where the maxim is that someone needs to hear or see your ad at least 7 times before it even “registers,” you’ll need to keep communicating the role of the leader is to develop his/her employees.

Additionally, you’ll need to explain why this shift is happening. When everyone does better, the organization itself does better. Increased capabilities means increased creativity, productivity, and agility – all of which contribute to increased profitability. When individuals are supported to grow within a company, it is easier to retain (and recruit) employees.  You pick the “positioning” which would work best for your organization and stick to it.

Bottom line: Expect to explain and reiterate your message over the course of a few years. There is a quote from (former) President Obama in which he stated his biggest surprise about being president was how much he had to repeat himself.

3.  Coaching

Coaching is a skill that needs to be imbued in all managers because it is the only way that a culture of developing others will come to fruition. BUT FIRST the organization must commit to a culture of developing every employee to be able to do their best work (#1), then that commitment must be communicated and reinforced (#2), and finally, the skills to fulfill the commitment can be taught to the managers who will actually make it happen.

Coaching is a time-intensive approach to managing because it requires really getting to know one’s employees and investing time in regular 1:1 conversations with each individual. By developing deeper and more personal relationships with one’s employees, you begin to understand who is more analytical and who is more social…which leads you to be able to identify “perfect fit” roles and development opportunities for them. If you have children you get this concept – every child has a different personality, different skills, different passions, different things that make them “tick.” You only know this because you spend so much time with them. And, because you want the best for them, you help them to pursue and develop their capabilities.

Bottom line: It is the managers in your organization who will truly develop your future leaders – not classes or curriculums.

For companies to be successful in the fourth industrial revolution, it is imperative that “leadership capabilities” are present throughout the organization; this will only come to fruition through an intentional culture of developing others and a reskilling of today’s managers to be proficient in coaching.  

Note: This article first appeared on LinkedIn 12/10/21

Leadership Skills for All

What do you define as a “leadership skill?”

Is it being a good communicator?

Or helping other people to increase their skills and capabilities by being a coach?

Is it understanding strategy and your company’s business goals?

Or is it working collaboratively across departments and divisions to achieve the best outcomes?

Here’s another question to ponder: Why do we label ANY of those things “leadership skills?”

It’s much easier to learn leadership skills as a young working professional than it is for someone who has been on the job for 10 or 15 or 20 years. At that point in someone’s career, you’re actually working harder to UNdo behaviors they’ve been practicing for a decade or more. Yet companies typically wait until someone is promoted to leadership and then start developing their “leadership skills.”

Here’s a list of things we typically label leadership skills:

Critical thinking     Decision making     Risk assessment     Continuous improvement     Strategy     Forecasting     Influencing others     Behaving Ethically     Understanding Finance     Project management Workflow planning     Ethics

NEW Question!!

What makes those “leadership skills” and not general business skills and how hard is it to teach those skills to everyone?

Here are the answers….

• They ARE general business skills, but for some reason we don’t teach them UNTIL someone is promoted to a leadership position. And THAT’s why we label them “leadership skills.”

Are companies afraid to make their employees more capable? Would they rather have someone with limited knowledge and skill - who can only perform a finite task?

There’s a famous quote by Zig Ziglar in which he asks: What’s worse? training your employees and losing them? Or not training them and keeping them?

Perhaps companies are afraid of investing in their employees for fear of the employee going elsewhere…But here’s the kicker – if you DON’T invest in them – they WILL go elsewhere. There have been numerous studies conducted by SHRM and Deloitte and others, that all come to the same conclusion: Millennials and Gen Z workers – those workers under the age of 40 right now – want the same things

-        A job that they believe is purposeful and fulfilling, and

-        Professional development

Above all else. Above promotions, above pay raises, above titles… So if you AREN’T providing skills development, they WILL leave your company to find it.

• It isn’t hard to teach leadership skills to everyone in your organization. There are small, organic things that you can do every day to instill leadership ability.

By teaching leadership skills to all of your employees, you’ll be raising the capability of the whole organization.

More capable people means more productivity; more productivity means more profitability.

So – from this point going forward – let’s all embrace the concept: Leadership skills for all – leadership from day one.

Why We Have to Start Leadership Development at Day One

“The more decisions we make ahead of time – the less decisions we have to make in high-stress situations.” 

This statement was uttered by a financial planner who was counseling customers to understand what the fundamentals of their stock purchase were – what attracted them to the company… were they in it for the long term or short term…. at what price point would they believe it was wise to sell the stock….

Here’s how we relate the quote: “The more decisions we make ahead of time – the less decisions we have to make in high-stress situations” to leadership…

In today’s business environment, we are under the gun all the time. Things are in constant flux … and we can never count on tomorrow being the same as today. Therefore a lot of decisions are made on the fly. Which may not be based on your company’s values or principles – and which may actually hurt your business or your reputation.

Look at what happened at Wells Fargo. Somewhere along the line, someone in a leadership position decided it was OK to commit fraud in order to make sales quotas. To hell with ethics. To hell with serving the customer responsibly.

What if – long before that high-stress situation in which they made that decision – they already had a fundamental belief or value, that ethical behavior was of utmost importance?

How or when would they have had to develop that belief system?

Early on in their career – when they were not in a high-stress situation and when they were not in a position of authority. If they had that fundamental belief system early on – it would simply carry with them – through their career.

Here are two analogies to further make our point:

The “first job” analogy.  Many of us continue to practice behaviors or hold fundamental beliefs that we learned through our first jobs. Think about that for a minute.

What was your first job and do you find yourself operating today – in a way that you learned decades ago from a manager or a leader who said “this is how we do things.” We might dress a certain way, address customers a certain way, define “quality,” a certain way… all based on learning those principles in our first jobs.

So – why don’t we teach leadership skills and behaviors to your employees at the START of their careers? Why do we wait decades and then have to undo basic principles or value systems that they hold? Teach them what your company values and what is acceptable leadership behavior – from the get-go; even before they become leaders.

And even if they don’t become leaders – you still have a BUNCH of people who are operating under the same principles and with the same understanding of your business values and how they should conduct themselves accordingly.

Which brings us to our 2nd analogy: Baby manners.

Right around the same time that your baby learns to talk – you start teaching manners. Do they know what manners are? No. Are you going to wait until they UNDERSTAND what manners are before you teach them? No. Do you have to EXPLAIN why what you are telling them is appropriate behavior? No.

You say: Say goodbye to Grandma! And you say it over and over until, as the child gets older, they are able to independently say “hello” and “goodbye” to people they encounter.

Which is good manners.

You say: Don’t hit the dog! Don’t hit your sibling! And you say it for 7, 8, 10 years! until eventually, as your child gets older, they recognize that that is not an appropriate behavior; and most of us grow up to be people who don’t smack the crap out of one another.

You teach your children to speak politely, to share with others, to be cognizant of other’s feelings and many, many more fundamental principles of being a responsible human. And you start teaching those principles even before they know what they mean or why they should or should not behave that way.

You start to teach those things even before they are verbal.

So why are we not teaching leadership skills to everyone who walks in our doors? Why are we reserving that knowledge for a ‘select few’ … and why are we waiting so late to start?

This is the foundation of Leadership From Day One.

If you teach EVERYONE to be a better communicator, to work cooperatively with others, to understand that they contribute to the greater good of the organization – and at some level are fundamentally responsible for it – to behave in an ethical manner…. The list goes on and on of things that we consider “leadership skills,” which really aren’t.

They are the basic, fundamental manners of being a worker in a business and YOU – as their leader – business owner, director of operations, GM, department head… are responsible for teaching them that.

Think of how differently your company would be operating – and how confident you would be in your employees and your organizational capabilities – if you knew that everyone operated in the same way and embraced the same principles and values.

Help them to make the right decisions, early in their career.

We can help you do that.

The ROI of Leadership Development

Last year I invested in an up-and-coming technology company. In less than one year, the stock rose 201%. WHAT?!  Where else can you get that kind of return-on-investment in such a short period of time?  I know of one other place…

Here’s my hot “stock tip” for business owners: Invest in leadership development.

Every dollar you invest will return 300% - 500%, nearly immediately – here’s how.

There are three distinct ways that leadership development pays back the organization:

1.      Reduced turnover and greater retention

2.      Easier recruiting

3.      Leadership benchstrength

Let’s take a look at these in a little more depth.

Reduced Turnover and Greater Retention

With the exodus of Boomers from the workforce, there will be a rapid rise in leadership roles fulfilled by Millennials. What’s important for every employer to know about this group of employees is that they value professional development above money and titles. They are most excited about continually learning and advancing their career.  By initiating a leadership development program in your organization you minimize the risk of losing an employee who will leave simply to learn something new.

Another advantage of providing a steady stream of professional development is that it increases productivity. As people learn more and are more capable, they can produce better outcomes and work with others in the organization more cooperatively, which leads to higher productivity.

A 10% increase in productivity can increae the profits of most organizations by 50%

Peter Drucker

Finally, employees are more committed to an organization when that organization provides professional development and a career path.

Easier Recruiting

One of the most expensive activities for any company is the recruiting and hiring process. Recent data from SHRM has determined that it can cost anywhere from $3000 to fill an hourly worker’s role, to as much as two-times the salary of an executive to replace that individual. Since so few organizations provide well thought-out professional development, it is seen as a real perk by employees and potential employees – lessening the need for recruiting efforts and costs. Oftentimes organizations that embrace professional development are listed in their local “best places to work,” lists – which is worth more than any advertisement to attract quality workers.

Leadership Benchstrength

 As mentioned at the start of this article, Millennials will be moving up the corporate ladder sooner than expected (the US Census had predicted that the Boomers would be out of the workforce by 2030, simply based on their age, but the pandemic has accelerated that exodus by a decade) and will not have the years on the job to learn organically as the Boomers have. There must be a purposeful and concerted approach to develop your next generation of leaders’ skills such as decision making, problem-solving, teaming, risk management, stakeholder management, and a myriad of others.

By having a group of prepared individuals at the ready, organizational leaders can sleep better at night knowing that there will be continuity in performance and culture as younger professionals step into leadership roles.

Leadership is not the nebulous topic that most people make it out to be. It is a skill that can be taught - but it must be taught over time, which is counter to the typical methodology for leadership development in the last fifty years.  There are significant benefits for forward-thinking organizations that provide leadership development as discussed above; any one of which can save a company tens of thousands of dollars a year. Smart investors (aka business owners) will make the minimal investment today in order to reap amazing return on investment in both the short and long-term.

Future-Proofing Your Organization - Now is the Time to Strike

Companies have downsized dramatically in the last few months. As the economy turns around (as it will) and companies begin to rebuild, the smart-move is to methodically and purposefully build for the future by maximizing the productivity each employee is capable of. To do so, you’ll need a development plan in place before a hiring plan.

Step 1

Don’t think about the skills and positions you need to fill today – think about the ones you need to meet tomorrow. The World Economic Forum just published their 2020 Jobs Report (which looks ahead to the skills that will be needed in the next five years), and of the 15 skills listed, 11 are soft skills like creativity, negotiation, and self management.  (Note to job-seekers: these are the key words you’ll want to weave into your resume as well.)

While the skills they list may not align directly with your organization’s needs, you should spend some time identifying not just the skills, but the capabilities of your future workers. This is not an exercise that can be done in ten-minutes nor one that should be considered a “brainstorming activity.” The compilation should be something you let your subconscious work on as you observe present-work and consider where you want your business to be in the future.  One idea is to set up a whiteboard or post-it note area and as ideas occur to you, add them to “the wall.”  After a month or so, review the wall and see if you can bring the capabilities together into themes. For instance, “emphasis on the customer” and “collaborative teamwork” might both fall under a communication theme. With increased verbal communication skills your employees will be able to both form better relationships with the customer as well as work with their colleagues more effectively.

Step 2

Create a purposeful, long-term plan for developing the skills that your organization will need. Every organization is unique in terms of the soft skills they need to embrace.  For instance a hospital system may need to weave ethics and critical thinking into every development opportunity, while a manufacturing organization might need more emphasis on creativity and stakeholder management.

From the moment your newly-hired employees walk in the door, they should have a development plan, a career path, and an understanding of the five or 10 key skills needed by the organization (such as ethics or stakeholder management, as stated above).

What is most critical in this approach, however, is that the skill development is done consistently and that it is woven into the fabric of work responsibilities. What training and professional development has done to its own detriment, in the past few decades, is deliver skills training in isolation from on-the-job application.  Training classes have been reduced to mere hours instead of meted out slowly and methodically as the knowledge and concepts are needed (think of an apprenticeship model as the ideal), so employees are barely acquainted with the knowledge and skills they need to do their work and advance their careers.

In my 2017 book, Future-Proofing Your Organization, I provide an example of teaching risk management which isn’t focused on the concept of risk management so much as the command of risk management. Ensuring employees have a command of risk management requires teaching it from different angles and in different scenarios over time, not just in one short training class.

Step 3

Weave mentoring and coaching into all management and employee development activities. One of the most critical linchpins to developing capability is the use of mentoring and coaching as an on-going development process. Too often companies see these methods as “programs” that take time away from “the business.”  With just a few tweaks it is possible to integrate mentoring and coaching into the normal course of business and accomplish outsized ROI in comparison to the time, effort, and logistics required of training programs.

Going forward into 2021 and beyond, companies will do themselves the most good by re-thinking what professional development looks like and how it is delivered, so that they can create a fully-capable, maximum-output workforce that will future-proof their organization.

Guest Blog: Leadership is Not a Title – It’s a Conduct

Linking leadership behavior to a job title is a misconception. You do not need a title to behave in a way that is admirable by all.

Leadership is not linked to a job role, a function, a department or an industry. Everyone should adopt leadership behavior and conduct themselves in a just, honest and supportive manner. Leadership cannot be claimed neither, it is awarded to you by those around you.

There are many examples of good leadership vs bad leadership.

Let me share an old war story of a general and his soldiers. Legend has it that a man riding on a horseback came up on a battlefield and saw exhausted soldiers digging defense trenches while their commanding officer barked orders and threatened punishment if they did not complete the job in time.

The man on horseback asked the commander why he was not helping the soldiers dig if the work was that important, to which the commander replied: “I’m in charge! The men do as I tell them. Help them yourself if you feel so strongly about it”.

To the surprised of everyone, the man dismounted from his horse and helped the soldiers dig side by side until the job was completed. He then congratulated the soldiers for a job well done and approached the puzzled commander. The man said: “Next time your rank prevents you from supporting your men, you are to notify top command and they will provide a more permanent solution”. Upon a closer look, the commander recognized the man as General George Washington

Take a moment to imagine with me that kind of leadership replicated throughout an organization. What type of organization will it be? What would it feel like to work in such an organization and do business with its employees?

A successful organization is one where all employees embrace and breath the same leadership air into their lungs, regardless of job titles. For this to happen, the board of directors and executives need to walk the leadership talk.

We cannot expect an individual to excel in all leadership competencies from day one. Rather, skills are developed over time, as a leader continues to strengthen their leadership muscle.

Guest blog, penned by Awatif Yahya, founder of AWE Horizons, LLC

The Biggest Mistake in Leadership Development is...

The biggest mistake in leadership development is waiting to do it.

Too may (all?) organizations wait until they promote someone to a leadership position and then start to apply leadership development.  And that’s for the lucky folks. Most organizations don’t offer any kind of development to their new leaders and instead let them struggle to figure it out all on their own. I know that’s what happened to me the first time I was promoted to a managerial role. I was flattered that the organization thought I had the potential to lead a department of eight at the tender age of 25, but then I panicked because the only “training” I had was modeling the good leaders I had had in my life and anti-modeling (yep, I made up a new word) the bad ones. I was flying by the seat of my pants. This was especially terrifying because at least two of my employees were old enough to be my mother.

This approach is really unfair to the individual and detrimental to the organization.

There are plenty of things we learn through the school of hard knocks – not to speed through a yellow light, not to cheat on an exam, not to lie on our resume… and most of the time the only person we hurt is ourselves.

Often, in the midst of the pain, we’ll think, “If only someone had warned me…” But in the workplace, there are other individuals that are impacted when a new leader is rattling around trying to find their footing. And without good guidance, new, unskilled managers can really do damage.

Don’t know the difference between constructive and critical feedback? Perhaps you’ll figure it out when your employees start to defect. Don’t recognize your personal bias in a performance review? The HR department can bring you up to speed when one of your employees lodges a complaint. Think it’s OK to hang with the boys (but not the women) after hours? Lesson learned. Lesson learned. Lesson learned.

What’s truly unfair to the new leader is that the organization is expecting him/her to also take on new functional responsibilities like scheduling, project planning, budgeting, and more. This is too much to ask of a new leader all at once – to be functionally responsible for a department and to change their behavior at the same time. As a training and development professional for decades, I know that the hardest thing to “train” someone to do is to change their behavior. Yet organizations consistently drop the ball on shaping individuals’ leadership behaviors early on.

This is detrimental to the organization as well because when push comes to shove, the new manager will need to focus on their functional responsibilities – it is what they will be judged on after all; and in all likelihood, it is what got them promoted in the first place. So without a focus on leadership and interpersonal skills early in one’s career, there is a lot of heavy lifting that is required of a new leader – and any failings impact both the individual and the organization.  

The Solution is Early Leadership Development

In a perfect world, leadership development would begin the moment a new employee walks in the company’s door. They would be handed their HR paperwork and a development plan for the next 3 to 5 years. Not  only would this approach benefit the organization by ensuring everyone has “baseline skills” (of your choosing) such as business writing, giving and receiving feedback, understanding how the company makes (and keeps) money, and more, but think of the impression made on the new hire! “Wow. This company is investing in me from day one? Amazing!” 

In today’s business environment, a need for and a confidence in employee’s self-leadership skills is critical. I’ve seen a number of articles lately that discuss company’s monitoring their employees while they are working at home. This seems perfectly reasonable if your company has not set and trained for a certain standard of behavior. It’s like trusting your child to stay home alone for the first time. The parent who hasn’t trained for good decision making and responsibility is a lot more worried than the parent who has.

In the long-term, the company that has trained for leadership skills at the start of their employees’ careers will have a ready and capable pipeline of leaders who can fully focus on their functional responsibilities because their leadership abilities are standard-operating-procedure by the time they are promoted.

At The Training Doctor we specialize in preparing your employees for future leadership roles. Apply early and often, for best results. Give us a call to discuss your needs. It never hurts to ask… is another truism my mother taught me.

Interviewing for Leadership Potential - 5 Questions to Ask

Lately the business news has had various announcements of companies laying off large swaths of management, for example, at the beginning of June American Airlines announced it was laying off 30% of management while British Petroleum announced just two weeks later that it was laying off 50% of their senior leadership. When these companies – and others – rebound, they’ll slowly rebuild their leadership layers.  Companies can help themselves to identify “future leaders” by asking questions that suggest leadership potential. Because the most important skills for a leader are soft skills (e.g. behavior),      the responses to such questions will help to determine if the interviewee thinks like a leader, even if they aren’t interviewing for a leadership role today.

The following questions are behavioral interview questions that ask the individual to provide an example from their own experience. In these questions you are listening for the response and the thinking behind it, not the situation; therefore the responses don’t have to be work-related, especially if you are interviewing a younger individual who might not have enough work experience to draw from.

Collaboration

You won’t find a genuine leader who will say “I did this all on my own.”  But we all know individuals who will take undue credit for themselves or present other’s ideas as their own.

At the leadership level, one’s work is only accomplished through others, so screening for the inclination for collaboration, as well as the maturity to appreciate other’s contributions is critical

Interview questions to ask:

• Tell me about a person or a department you’ve collaborated with, in your work.

• Tell me about an achievement you are proud of and how you accomplished it.

Listen for the interviewee giving credit to other individuals or departments. Give bonus points if they express appreciation or gratitude, as in “thankfully, Jennifer in Marketing …”

Creativity

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Work Report, creativity is in the top 10 necessary business skills for the foreseeable future.

Interview questions to ask:

• When you are stumped – what do you do?

• Tell me about a problem you were able to solve, and how you went about it.

Listen for the interviewee to mention something that would not be the norm, such as saying, “When I’m stumped I’ll just put the problem aside for a day or two and let my subconscious work on it.” You may not want a worker who stops pursuing a problem, but you do want to hear an approach other than “I asked my boss for help.”

Ethics

Unfortunately in recent years there have been many instances of companies acting in unethical ways (Wells Fargo, VW). While the companies pay the price, clearly it is individuals and their poor decisions that impact the companies’ reputations and often their fortunes. 

Interview questions to ask:

• If you were asked to do something unethical would you do it, if it ultimately benefited the customer?

• Have you observed someone doing something you considered unethical? What was your response? (Be sure confidentiality is preserved.)

Listen for the interviewee to express an allegiance to their intrinsic value system or to the overall good, such as “That’s not fair to the people who…”

Big Picture

Leaders need to make decisions based on what is best overall, not only for an individual stakeholder or constituent. This often makes decision-making difficult because there are never decisions that will benefit or please all.

Interview questions to ask:

• During the pandemic, a number of cruise ships that were out at sea were denied ports of entry where they could unload passengers and get them home. What are your thoughts on that?

• During the pandemic, many companies laid off or furloughed employees in order to conserve resources. What are your thoughts on that?

Listen for the interviewee to be able to articulate both sides or the gray area of the situation without anger or bias. Give bonus points if they acknowledge that these are difficult decisions with no “right answer.”

Curious, Thoughtful

Leaders should never be satisfied with the status quo. They should be questioning or challenging the current state in order to stay ahead of the competition or market forces and continually move the company forward.

Interview questions to ask:

• In preparing for this interview, is there anything you’ve learned about our company that you’d like to clarify or have questions about?

• In preparing for this interview, did you spot any opportunities for us as a company?

Listen for responses that show the person has done some research into the company, its competition, or its market position.

Whether or not a new hire will go on to lead others, it is helpful to screen for leadership-related thinking and behaviors during hiring interviews. If nothing else, employees are responsible for leading themselves and acting in the best interest of their organizations.

Mentoring - Now More Than Ever

Note: This article was originally published on Forbes.com

The workplace has changed drastically in the last few months; I don’t have to tell you that. People are figuring out how to manage their time, maintain personal connection and remain productive, all while working remotely. One crucial item that has fallen by the wayside is professional development – especially the development of future leaders.

Leadership skills development is most successful when it is an immersive and visceral experience. Therefore, most leadership development programs are dependent on in-person meetings and collaborative activities with others in the organization. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to teach the soft skills required of a leader via an impersonal online learning experience.

Some organizations are beginning to grapple with how to have the same success via an online format, since, for the foreseeable future that is all that is available to us. Other organizations would rather take a “gap year” in leadership development and wait for the return to their normal development activities.

An immediate solution

One thing that can be done immediately, and with great success, is to embrace mentoring.

Mentoring is the cheapest and most effective method for developing future leaders. It has always surprised me how few organizations employ it.  All it takes is time and a little bit of structure.

One benefit of most business professionals working from home is that it is easier to schedule time to work together and to work with others across the organization. You don’t have to find an open conference room, or even be in the same building or state to work with a mentor who can help you to develop your career.

With all meetings conducted online these days, the playing field has been leveled. A younger colleague can be invited to sit in on a management meeting, a sales call, or a performance review to listen and learn with less scrutiny about why they are there. “I’ve invited Shonda to sit in today,” is less concerning and more comfortable than a clearly junior person showing up to an in-person meeting. After the meeting, the mentor and mentee can discuss what occurred, why the mentor made the decisions that they did, or took control of the conversation when they did, and what might happen next with pros and cons.

Mentoring: is a system of semi-structured guidance whereby one person shares their knowledge, skills and experience to assist others to progress in their own lives and careers

Because of the convenience of meeting remotely, there are more opportunities for mentoring and learning conversations. Again, all it takes is time and a bit of structure. Here are some suggested steps to start mentoring in your organization if it’s unlikely the workplace will reopen soon:

• Assign all leaders the responsibility for mentoring 1 – 3 younger colleagues. Managers might be required to mentor one individual while senior leaders such as directors or VP’s could accommodate up to three.

• Require at least two meetings a week. One meeting is a 1:1 between mentor and mentee to ask questions and receive coaching, and the other is a meeting to which the mentee is invited to listen and learn.  The 1:1 meetings can be as short as 15-minutes. What’s important is to have a consistent dialogue based on what is currently happening in the wider organization.

• The mentor must be tasked with asking open-ended questions more than giving advice and guidance. What do you think should be our next move? Is more instructional than What I’d do next is…

• Each individual – mentor and mentee – needs to keep a journal so that they can see the progress made over time. This is also a place for the mentee to reflect on what they’ve learned (because the best growth comes from reflection and introspection) and jot down questions for their next 1:1 meeting.

If Needed, Start with Training

If your organization has never utilized mentoring, the best place to start is with training to define the role of a mentor. Most individuals in leadership positions are comfortable with assessing situations and giving answers, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you want a mentor to do. A mentor’s role is to listen, facilitate, and gently guide an up-and-coming colleague. So, it is important to learn the role’s expectations and how to tamp one’s natural instincts as a manager / leader. This is a little easier when the mentor and mentee are in different disciplines such as finance and research; when the two are from different disciplines the conversation stays at a higher level of business knowledge as opposed to the brass tacks of the work being done.

If your organization DOES have a mentoring process in place, this HBR article offers excellent advice on how to shift the mentor’s role from in-person to online meetings, how to validate feelings of uncertainty and overwhelm, and how to authentically share one’s own experiences.

Until professional development as we know it is able to resume in-person, purposeful mentoring relationships are the best approach for developing future leaders. An added bonus is that the mentees will form stronger bonds with the organization, have higher job satisfaction, and perceive greater support from the organization[1], which are all vitally important when one is working from home, alone.

If you would like help developing leadership pipelines in your organization, please get in touch with us, at The Training Doctor. We can help to future-proof your organization. 843.647.6304

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20401322/

Three Keys to Develop Leadership Skills - for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

Developing leadership skills is often an afterthought at small and medium-sized companies.

When companies start-up, and then launch into growth, there is little time to think about how the company will sustain itself long-term – survival is the immediate focus. Once things are humming along smoothly, many company founders begin to relax their control and would like to enjoy the fruits of their labor but then realize there are few other leaders in the organization because they haven’t thought to groom them.

Thus begins a period of attempting to promote leaders from within or hiring potential leaders from outside the organization; rarely does either approach work well.  When potential leaders – who have not been groomed to ascend in the organization – are promoted, they often lack the full complement of skills needed to lead because the owner / founder has been filling the decision-making role(s) for so long.  As a point of pride, rarely does a newly appointed leader admit they are in over their head or ask for more support from the owner / founder. Instead, these leaders often leave within the first year of their appointment.

When more fully capable leaders are brought in from outside the organization, they may find they are butting heads with the owner / founder because they are introducing new ways of working – informed from their external experience. Leaders brought in from outside the organization often fail faster than internal candidates, frequently leaving organizations in a matter of months. A 2019 study conducted by PriceWaterhouse Coopers found that successors to long-serving CEOs have short tenures and are often forced out of office. (Here is a recent example from AutoNation who replaced an “outsider” CEO after only four months.)

Every small or medium-sized business owner / founder should have a needlepoint sampler in their office that reads “The true mark of my success is to be able to walk away from this business and for it to continue to thrive.”  Adopting that mindset early on enables future leaders to be brought up from within the organization. This is the best scenario because they have organizational knowledge and relationships with others in the organization.

If you hope to exit your business without having to sell or close it, here are three ways to ensure you build a capable leadership pipeline.

First, begin leadership development earlier rather than later. Think of youngsters who begin T-ball at age five. There is no telling who among them will be a star athlete come high school or who will go on to a college or professional career; but rarely will one begin softball / baseball as a high schooler and go on to great success. When the skills and responsibilities are taught early and practiced for a decade or more, it is more apparent who is capable of further success.

Second, include everyone in leadership development opportunities. Don’t presume to know who among your workers will be a future leader – assume everyone will be. This will ensure you are more egalitarian about leadership development and, in the long run, will help your organization the most. Central to this approach is ensuring that there is a mix of learners in every offering. For example, a course on feedback skills should include individuals from all departments and all levels within the organization. This comingling nurtures relationships among everyone in the organization (a key capability of a leader) and enables every one – in every role – to be capable of giving back to the organization. Continuing with the sports analogy, when every new player is nurtured with the assumption that they are capable of becoming a stellar athlete, some will demonstrate a natural talent or drive to move to the “senior-leader team,” but everyone on the team will have increased their capabilities.

As an example, consider Tom Brady’s career vs. Johnny Manziel’s. One was a ninth-round draft pick and the other a Heisman Trophy winner. One went on to a stellar career and one flamed out after two seasons in the NFL.  Presuming who will be a leader is often a losing proposition – in sports and in business. 

Finally, don’t make the development of leadership skills another “thing” people have to do. Integrate skills development with real-world responsibilities. For instance, if a department holds weekly meetings, rotate the responsibility for facilitating the meeting. Why must the leader of the meeting always be the manager? Everyone should be able to follow an agenda, keep conversations on-topic, summarize decisions, and make sure action items are claimed.  This type of development ensures that when one does become a leader, they already possess the ability to manage a meeting.  There are a myriad of other skills which can be developed in this way, without an onerous (and often contrived) training process.  

In order to develop the skills of your organization’s future leaders, make a list of the ten skills you feel are critical to success, such as communication, an understanding of financials, customer service, etc., and identify ways to work the development of these skills into everyday work responsibilities. Assume everyone has the ability to lead, start early in people’s careers, and do formal training in mixed groups so that people can build relationships throughout the organization. These simple but important steps will help to ensure a ready and capable leadership pipeline for any organization.

Note: This article was previously published by Forbes.com.

Helping Small and Medium-sized Businesses to Prepare for the Next-Era of Leadership

Free 4-day Event

Every business - small to supersized - has changed significantly since the start of 2020.

Leadership teams are turned upside down.

Companies are being forced to downsize, right-size, and sometimes capsize.

Your company’s future depends on having strong a leadership plan in place as you adapt to the workforce that lies ahead.

We are here to help, with a series of leadership conversations. All FREE.

Meet with fellow business people, hear from experts with long tenures in developing organizational leaders, ask the questions you need answered.

Check out our roster of speakers

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Patricia Carl

June 3 3:00 pm EST

Re-imagining / Redesigning Your Leadership Team

Patricia Carl has 20+ years’ experience in Human Resource leadership for both private and public companies, across multiple industries. As President of Highland Performance Solutions, she coaches and consults with executives in order to help them build high-performing teams.

Lee Eisenstaedt

June 10 3:00 pm EST

What Skills Are Needed in the Next 3 - 5 Years?

Lee has been the Chief Operating Officer of a number of top companies included 22 years with the SC Johnson family of companies in the U.S. and Western Europe.

Lee has authored four books, co-authored one, and is a frequent contributor to Forbes.com

Jeff Harmon

June 17 3:00 pm EST

The 5C Method to Create Sustainable and Scalable Leadership Development

Jeff Harmon has over 20 years of experience building relationships to equip and mobilize leaders to achieve their most important goals.

He helps company leaders to identify their strengths as well as the strengths of their team.

He is the author of “Become a Better Leader, 10 Minutes at a Time.”

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Nanette Miner, Ed.D.

June 24 3:00 pm EST

Creating a Master Plan for Leadership Development

Dr. Nanette Miner founded The Training Doctor in 1991 to help organizations to grow and thrive by a developing worker capabilities.  She is on a mission to help organizations to sustain their success through developing their future leaders from the moment they walk in the door. 

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It's Time for All Hands on Deck

Many companies are going to find themselves with a different leadership landscape when business is able to resume and employees are able to return to work.

In addition to the usual pressures of competition and the relentless pace of technology, I predict that many companies are going to experience a shift in their leadership roster either because the Boomers (and some GenX), who were close to retirement decided “enough is enough,” and choose not to come back to work after the Covid-19 crisis, or because organizations will have to greatly reduce their workforces as they come back online, and the easiest way to downsize and remain solvent is to not bring back the more experienced, higher-salaried personnel.

So what can an organization do to identify its future leaders and successfully return to profitability?

Identify Successors

If your organization faces the situation where senior leaders choose to retire, ask those individuals to identify their replacements. They will have the most knowledge regarding who on their team is capable of taking the reins. It’s a good idea to also ask the self-selected retiree if they would come back for three or four months to ease the transition.

If you are choosing to let the senior leader go, again, ask them who on their team would be most capable of stepping up. Also ask them for the top three to five priorities for their department, at this time. This will enable you to pass this knowledge on to the next leader and also allow you to keep track of the priorities yourself.

Begin Mentoring

The best-case-scenario would have been for your company to utilize mentoring already, but if that is not the case, begin a mentoring program immediately. You need a way to transmit institutional knowledge as well as business acumen from more seasoned workers to the younger ones, and the best way to do that is through personal relationships that can adapt immediately to changing pressures.

Circulate a Skills Assessment

Now is the time for all-hands-on-deck; trouble is, most organizations have become so silo’d that they don’t know what individuals are capable of doing (vs. what they are being paid to do, today).  Start with a simple survey using Google forms or a subscription survey tool, if your company has one. You’ll want to be able to collect individual responses – not aggregate responses. Ask for name, email, phone number, department, current role (e.g. marketing / graphic designer), and the top 5 skills (fill in the blank) they use in their current role. THEN ask them for 5 additional skills they are capable of deploying. You may find your graphic designer is also great at copy editing or has experience in SEO. To really get the most from this assessment, also ask each individual what soft skills they excel at – because leadership capability is heavily dependent on soft-skills.

If your company comes back online with a reduced workforce, this assessment will enable you to move people around, if necessary, rather than simply eliminating a role based on its title.

This article is admittedly practical and how-to. It does not venture into the best ways to have these conversations or the need for empathy and compassion at this time. It is purely focused on the organization as an entity.

Leadership Pipeline Assessment

If you’d like to assess what your organization’s current leadership pipeline looks like (and indicates for your future) click on the Leadership Pipeline Assessment, at the top of the screen, in the blue bar. It contains 13 questions and will only take about a minute to complete.

Your Competitive Advantage

Not only are humans your only competitive advantage (in business) but you can't just bribe or steal them from some other company! To TRULY have an advantage, you must nurture them yourself.

One Critical Leadership Skill

Many young business people aspire to become future managersand leaders but there is often a lack of leadership development available until one is promoted to a leadershipposition. Of the myriad of skills that leaders need to master such as criticalthinking, problem solving, and working collaboratively with others, one skillcan be learned independent of a formal learning process. This skill is not onlyused daily, as a leader, but mastering it early in one’s career helps to mark oneas “leadership material.”

That is the skill of asking good questions.

If you aspire to leadership you’ll want to purposefullythink about (and practice) the way you ask questions. When most people ask aquestion they are asking for facts or details such as What happened next? Whatare my options? What would you like me to do? But a leader needs to gather critical insight through his / herquestions in order to make decisions that move the business forward. There arethree types of questions you can practice, this week, that will help you togather critical information and to be viewed as a thoughtful up-and-comingleader.

Open ended questions

Open ended questions require the other person to respondwith their thoughts or beliefs. it is a personal response rather than a factualone. A common mistake of new managers is to give an instruction or directionand then ask “Have you got that?” which only requires a short yes or noresponse and doesn’t help the manager to assess if the instructions really wereunderstood. If instead the manager were to ask “What are your thoughts onthat?” or “How can I help you with this assignment?” he / she then elicits moreinformation from the other person and learns if they are confident, concerned,or confused.

These kinds of questions can move the whole organizationforward by forestalling miscommunication and failed actions based onassumptions.

Clarifying questions

Too few individuals take the time to ensure that they trulyunderstand a speaker. I have always found that anytime I ask someone “Did youmeans this, or this?” what I hadoriginally assumed the answer to be was wrong.  Clarifying questions are important for leadersto master because they can save an organization from disastrous results.

Example: Shelby, a salesperson for a media company, wasreviewing a proposal with her manager before presenting it to a new client. Atthe end of the conversation her manager said it would be OK to cut the cost ofthe proposal by 5-10%. Shelby asked, “Do you mean you want me to cut the costnow? Or to use that as a negotiation strategy?” Her manager replied, “I’m glad you clarified that! I mean to use it as anegotiation tactic, if you need to. Good luck!”

High gain questions

High gain questions are used rather rarely as they tend tostop a conversation while the respondent considers their response; however,high gain questions are the mark of a true leader in conversation. High gainquestions require the respondent(s) to apply critical thought beforeresponding.

Consider the difference between

• What are the obstacles you foresee? (open ended) and

• What are our two best options going forward? (high gain)

While the open ended question is good for gathering more information,the high gain question returns a carefully considered response.

Being able to utilize each of these types of questions – open ended, clarifying, and high gain – is a skill that can be practiced early in one’s career in preparation for moving into a leadership role.

Note: This article was originally published by Forbes.com