On the other hand, inspirational coaches will find that their athletes will become less reliant on them over time.

“Being increasingly needed by your athletes as time goes on is not a good sign,” says Chou-Yu Tsai, assistant professor of management in Binghamton University’s School of Management adding, “if your athletes no longer need your leadership and guidance as time goes on, that should be seen as a positive sign that you’ve helped them in their development.”

Tsai, who studies leadership in a number of contexts, including athletics, worked with a research team consisting of San-Fu Kao of National Tsing Hua University and Robert Schinke of Laurentian University. They set out to discover how a coach’s leadership style affected athlete evaluations of their competency over time.

Insights gained from basketball players

The researchers evaluated how nearly 250 Division I collegiate basketball players felt about their coaches at different points over the course of a season. They focused on a coach’s ability to enact transformational leadership, or the ability to develop athletes to their full potential.

“Transformational coaches empower their players in ways beyond just playing a sport. They help players develop meaning and instill pride, and encourage them to go above and beyond for the good of the team,” said Tsai.

They found that coaches who enacted high transformational leadership had a decrease in perceived coaching competency by their athletes over time. In other words, the more a coach inspired a player to achieve their full potential, the less the athlete relied on their coaching.

In contrast, they found that coaches with low transformational leadership skills had an increase in perceived coaching competency by their athletes over the course of the season. This means that players may rely more on their uninspiring coaches over time.

“If you’re not gaining some sort of independence from your coach, you may feel like you need that coach even more,” said Tsai. “This probably isn’t a good sign.”

Perception is key

Tsai said it’s important for coaches to understand how their leadership style interacts with player perceptions of them.

“Coaches may incorrectly think they did something wrong if their athletes aren’t as reliant on them anymore,” said Tsai. “On the contrary, our research indicates that this kind of independence is a sign that you demonstrated good leadership behaviors.”

As for how to become a transformational leader, Tsai recommends that coaches focus on the personal development of their athletes.

“Transformational coaches don’t want athletes to only become better players. They mentor their athletes and help them become better people as well,” said Tsai.

♦♦♦

The study, “Investigation of the interaction between coach transformational leadership and coaching competency change over time,” has been published in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching.

The post A transformational coach makes players more independent, less reliant appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

A few years ago I was in Tajikistan, where I worked with a company that was struggling with both finances and motivating its staff. I was forewarned that the staff members did not have business sense because they had become accustomed to the Soviet system in which the state did everything. The private enterprise system was foreign to them.

My job was to motivate the staff, and I was given two full days to accomplish this. After flying to Tajikistan and getting a VIP welcome at the airport, I was brought back to reality when I travelled by jeep to the company’s headquarters. What was supposed to be a 12-hour drive in the mountains turned out to be a 19-hour commute with four flat tires and no real washrooms or restaurants along the way.

We reached our destination at 3am. The view of the mountains was nothing short of spectacular. Getting out of the car, high in the mountains, I was greeted by thousands of stars, each seemingly bigger than the earth. I was watching with my entire five-foot-seven-inch height. If I’d ever wanted to learn a lesson in humility, it was right there.

Getting out of the car, high in the mountains, I was greeted by thousands of stars, each seemingly bigger than the earth

“I won’t motivate them”

At 8am the CEO was knocking on my door, saying, “Hey, Mr Motivator, please come and motivate my people.” I told the CEO that I was not doing that. He was surprised because that was the purpose of my engagement.

I told him that what I wanted to do was spend the first of my two days interviewing his top 25 people. He didn’t think that was going to help because they had no idea about business. I told him that didn’t matter because I needed to understand the challenges from their perspective before I could motivate them. I did not leave him much choice.

I spent the entire day interviewing his top 25 people, many of them with the help of a translator. I asked them three questions:

1. Do you have a clear idea of the vision and mission of your company?
2. What are the big roadblocks preventing you from working at your best?
3. If you were the CEO of the company, how would you run it differently?

As they responded, I made notes and ended up with about 30 pages. In the evening I asked the CEO to assemble these top 25 people at 8am the next day. He asked me when I was going to start motivating. I told him, “Sometime tomorrow.”

I woke up at 2am and summarised the 30 pages into 10 key areas, which I wrote on a white board. At 7am I went through these 10 points with the interviewees to confirm that I had captured the essence of what they had stated the previous day. They studied the list hard and confirmed that the points encapsulated our individual discussions.

I woke up at 2am and summarised the 30 pages into 10 key areas, which I wrote on a white board

rom my interviews, I learned that no one had a clear picture of the vision and mission of the company. I decided to put them into groups of four to brainstorm about where they would like to see the company in five years’ time. I gave them approximately 30 minutes to do this.

Subsequently, I had one member from each group present their findings. As we went through each presentation, they were not only able to articulate a powerful vision and mission but also came up with a logo and branding proposition. Incredible! I had never seen any group that I have dealt with come up with all of this in a matter of an hour and have consensus around it. This was a group that supposedly had no business background. Absolutely amazing!

This example illustrates two key points. First, we underestimate people’s capabilities. We all have innate gifts. Second, without clarity of purpose and direction, there is no motivation.

Importance of clarity

If you don’t have a clear sense of your purpose and goals, you cannot use your innate gift well.

A few years ago, Harris Interactive, the originators of the Harris Poll, polled 23,000 American residents employed full-time in key industries and key functional areas. Among other things, they reported the following findings:

• Only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their team and organisation’s goals.
• Only 1 in 5 had a clear “line of sight” linking their tasks and the team and organisation’s goals.
• Only 15 per cent felt their organisation fully enabled them to execute key goals.
• Only 17 per cent felt their organisation fostered open communication that was respectful of different viewpoints.
• Only 10 per cent felt their organisation held people accountable.
• Only 20 per cent fully trusted their organisation.

In his excellent book, The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey explains these findings as follows:

If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only four of the eleven players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only two of the eleven would care. Only two of eleven would know which position they play and exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but two players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent. Can you imagine the personal and organisational cost of failing to fully engage the passion, talent and intelligence of the workforce?

A shared vision is an absolute must

Is everyone aiming at the same goal? If not, there will be scattered energy. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, often shared with his teams the GE philosophy for the organisation: Either they were #1 or #2, or they would fix, close or sell. His blueprint for transforming GE’s performance was to keep it simple. That is the power of mission and focus. It is important to have a common or shared vision. Once people buy into a vision, it is easier to implement. You need the contribution of everyone who is part of the vision.

Part of good leadership is to set a clear direction, find your employees’ innate gifts and encourage them to use those gifts. By doing this, you encourage your employees to work to their potential. You may lose some employees when they realise they do not belong in your team—but better to get them off your team early rather than late.

The post There Is More to Good Leadership That Just Being a Great Motivator appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

There is a misconception about effective coaching that Anita’s story highlights. Too many managers believe that effective coaching is about delivering critical feedback. And while part of coaching is about critical feedback, much of it is about reinforcing what is working and providing positive feedback. This balance is essential to being an effective coach, manager and leader. Consider the following techniques to help you improve your coaching:

Provide three pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of negative feedback

Research illustrates that in high performing teams, leaders and managers give as high as five pieces of positive feedback for every one piece of negative feedback [5:1]. While that is a high bar to hit, another research studying the “weight” of negative feedback has shown that negative feedback is three times heavier than positive feedback. In other words, if you want to have your feedback bank account at baseline, you need to give at least three pieces of positive feedback for every piece of negative feedback. Otherwise you’ll be working on credit. Eventually, your direct reports will close their emotional bank account.

Give at least three pieces of positive feedback for every piece of negative feedback

Provide feedback using a “Stop, Start, Continue” framework

Most of the executive coaching action plans follow this simple format. What are you going to stop doing? What are you going to start doing? And what are you going to continue doing? This simple coaching format not only helps to organise the type of feedback you might want to provide, but it also serves as an effective forcing mechanism to ensure that positive feedback isn’t getting lost in the shuffle. It helps us to know what not to lose as we make adjustments along the way.

Get curious

Curiosity is the key not only to effective coaching, but also to healthy workplace relationships. Several years ago, I was working with the president of a financial services company. Concerned about his culture, he brought me in to assess the situation. After interviewing a large group of employees, I went back to the president to share my findings.

I started the conversation with the following, “I’m going to go over the findings item by item, but the bottom line is this: your people love you. To the person, they said how empathetic you are.” Upon hearing this, the president ruffled his brow and said something I didn’t expect, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t think I’m empathetic at all. Work is work and personal is personal. I don’t want to talk about people’s personal lives at work. In addition, this is not my family. When the workday is done, I don’t want to spend any more time with my co-workers. I want to go home to my family.”

I didn’t know what to say. This did not seem like the traits of someone as consistently described as empathetic. The two of us sat in silence for what felt like an eternity. Then the president broke the silence and said the following to me, “But there is one thing I do that I think makes all the difference. I think the greatest compliment you can give anyone is to ask him or her about the work they do. So, I’m regularly walking around the office asking employees, ‘What are you working on? How can I help you? And where do you want to go in your career and how can I help you get there?’” It hit me! Curiosity and empathy are the same thing. If we want others to view us as empathetic, find something about him or her to get curious about. It is through genuine curiosity about others that we offer the highest compliment to someone—you matter.

What can you start, stop or continue doing to give your employees more positive feedback today?

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