Category: Leadership

Get up and go with the GROW model

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If you:

  • Feel like you aren’t progressing when it comes to planning and achieving your goals
  • Get lost when structuring a coaching conversation
  • Want to help people achieve their potential but you just aren’t sure where to start

This article should be packed with value for you.

Based on John Whitmore’ book ‘Coaching for Performance 5th Edition’, we discuss WHAT the model is and HOW to use it. If you want to learn more about the benefits of the GROW model, consider subscribing to our blog as we will be discussing this with you soon!

For now though, let us begin to explore this widely used model and discover what it could do for you.

What is the GROW model?

The GROW model was created by John Whitmore as a tool to help coaches and leaders have effective conversations with their colleagues. Whitmore advised that the model should be used similar to a journey planner – find out where you want to go, understand where you are and plot the best path to get there.

The acronym GROW is broken down in to 4 easy to follow steps which stand for; Goal, Reality, Options and Will.

How to use the GROW model

The GROW model is a fantastic tool you can use alongside your coaching and facilitation skills, it gives you a framework to base your conversations around so that they follow a sensible structure. It isn’t a replacement for interactive coaching, so it’s important to stay engaged as you work your way through the model, being flexible in your approach will help the conversation flow and allows you to avoid an awkward and rigid tick box exercise.

Before you launch into understanding your coachees goal, it makes sense to set the scene. We don’t mean brief your coachee on the model but we definitely should explore the purpose of the coaching session. What is the end goal of the session and why is it important? Whether you have a specific agenda for the coaching sessions or not, it’s always a good idea to ask your coachee what they would like to get out of the time you are spending together.

Consider these simple, thought provoking introduction questions:

Do you have any impactful questions that you like to open a session with? Connect with us @DevelopTheEdge on Twitter or LinkedIn and let us know how you start your sessions off powerfully!

With the scene set, we can look at how we can use the model to guide our coaching conversations. The first part of the model we are going to engage with is Goal.

The first part of the model is extremely important as it focuses on what is to be achieved. Much like with Locke and Latham’ research, Whitmore advises that the goal needs to be stretching for the coachee. When we look at goal motivation, we see that when a goal is too easy or too hard, we give up on it because it is either not valuable (too easy) or not worth the effort (too hard).

If you only have a short amount of time to coach with, consider asking your coachee to have a goal in mind before the session.

Whitmore identifies 4 different types of goals:

  1. Dream Goals
  2. End Goals
  3. Performance Goals
  4. Process Goals. 

The different types of goals can impact motivation levels, goal success and accountability in your coachee so it is important to know which goal we are dealing with at any one point. If for example, your coachee is missing a Dream Goal, they may lack motivation and the inspiration to do their best. If they are missing Process goals, they may lose accountability and lose track of their next steps. Missing a goal type may not bode well for their goals success. With that in mind, let’s explore the 4 types in more detail:

This is the inspiring vision of the future, something that is not yet possible but in time and after a lot of focused effort, will be. This is real big picture thinking, it is a focus on who you want to be and what you want to accomplish.

This is your driving force of the goal and it needs to be exciting, compelling and inspiring. This can take a lot of exploring and reflection – you will likely need to revisit the Goal stage of the GROW model later as you refine your purpose.

Here are some valuable questions to identify and probe further into a Dream Goal:

  • Why do you want to do this?
  • What is it that you really want?
  • Why do you really want that?
  • What is the purpose of achieving this?
  • How will your life be different after you achieve this?
  • What will it mean to you once you have achieved it?
  • Who do you want to be?
  • Why do you want to be that future self?
  • What will achieving this allow you to do?
  • Why is this important for you in the long run?
  • How does this link to business goals (where coaching in the workplace)
  • What excites you about this goal?

Remember: this Dream Goal needs to be inspiring and motivating.

Similar to the Dream Goal, is the End Goal. The main different here is that we are looking for something a more tangible. We are looking less at the abstract dream goal and more at the measurable results we can achieve.

  • Consider framing the goal in the SMARTER format, more on that can be found here: https://www.developtheedge.com/securing-success-by-setting-smarter-goals/
  • How will you measure the goal?
  • What are the conditions for success?
  • When do you need to do this by?
  • How does this link into the Dream Goal?
  • How does this link into your values and mission?
  • Could you be more specific on what you want to achieve?
  • At this stage is this an achievable goal?
  • What would you need to do to make it achievable?

Whilst End Goals are important, they are not 100% in your control, there is typically an element that will be out of your control. For example:

Your End Goal maybe to win a 100m race – Which is measurable as the condition for success is clear. The goal isn’t entirely in your control, think about:

  • How hard the other competitors train
  • Any inherent skills or abilities they have
  • Who will sponsor you
  • The weather conditions on the day
  • An injury from overtraining

The list isn’t exhaustive but you can already see that this end goal of yours doesn’t just lie in your hands. Instead, you need to figure out how to position yourself to win regardless. What you need then, is a Performance Goal linked to your End Goal.

Performance Goals are part of your End goal. These are the goals that you believe will put you in the best possible position to achieve your end goal. They are more specific and more focused on the short term wins that get you to your longer-term End goal.

Your Performance Goals may look like:

  • By next week I will be running 100m in 25 seconds
  • I will ensure my brand is positive and engaging, by posting about my training, key related topics and speaking to people. This will help Sponsors see value in supporting me.
  • I am going to increase my leg strength by 10% over the next 3 months to aid in the 100m sprint
  • I am going to look after my body to prevent over training and injury

These goals are all within your control and will put you in the best position to achieve your End Goal. We can still drive to one more area of detail, if we think about the End and Performance Goals as the ‘What’, the ‘How’ outlines the actions we take to achieve it. These goals are called Process Goals as they outline the process you need to go through to achieve your Performance Goals.

These goals are the specific actions you are going to take to achieve your goal, sometimes referred to as the ‘How’.

Process Goals may look like this:

  • I will work out with weights 3 times a week, achieving at-least 1 personal best each session. This will help me to increase my overall leg strength by 10% within 3 months.
  • I will post on Social Media once a day – this will help me reflect on my performance and engage with my supporters. I will run these posts through an App that checks how positive and engaging my posts are before posting them.
  • I will practice the 30m sprint, 200m sprint and 300m sprint to vary my practice and get to know how my body feels during performance, this will help me with my 100m sprint time.
  • I am going to stretch for 30 minutes after each session and get adequate rest each night to help me prevent injury.

Now we have the Why (Dream Goal), the What (End Goal and Performance Goal) and the How (Process Goal) we will be ready to move onto the next step. The GROW model is a flexible approach, if you need to revisit this step or if the goal doesn’t seem quite right here, come back to it. As Whitmore says in his book:

Be mindful not to speed up this process just because of time-constraints. You may invest more time here than intended but consider what is more important: Getting the Goal set within your expected time-frame and later realising it’s the wrong goal or taking longer initially but setting the right goal.

How will this stage help with success?

Evidence shows us that when we find our goal engaging and worthwhile, we are more likely to achieve it!

How will this enable me to become an effective coach?

Practice the questions we have discussed and create your own in order to see the impact great questions can have in a conversation. Remember – great coaches don’t tick boxes, use the questions appropriately – have a fluent and engaging conversation.

With a concrete goal in mind that is inspiring us into action, the next stage we need to look at is Reality.

There are two great approaches you can use here, we love these techniques and will cover them in future articles but for now, consider researching them if you are unfamiliar with them:

  • The 6 Hats
  • The Ladder of Inference

The 6 Hats technique works by focusing on your goal and situation through 6 different perspectives: The Facts, Emotions, Optimism, Critical Thinking, Creativity and Process. This helps give you a well-rounded look at the situation and is great for both facilitated sessions and 1-on-1 coaching.

The Ladder of Inference works by evaluating where on the ladder your thoughts are, the higher up the ladder, the less grounded in reality you are. The bottom rung of the ladder is simply ‘Data’ – Facts with absolutely no beliefs or assumptions attached to them. When attempting to find the Reality of a situation, the bottom rung of the ladder is where you need to be.

One tactic here is to use ‘Chunk-Down’ questioning techniques to probe abstract thoughts and feelings to get concrete answers. Chunking Down is using open questions to get specific answers such as:

At this stage you are looking to find out:

  • Where the coachee is in relation to their goal (close or far)
  • What skills they have that will benefit them
  • What skills they will need to acquire to be successful
  • How Realistic the goals are

How will this stage help with success?

When we understand where we are, it makes it easier to plot the path to where we are going. If you want to know more about how this stage can impact your mental well-being, consider reading our article on the 5 stages of learning: https://www.developtheedge.com/demolishing-doubt-during-the-5-stages-of-learning/

How will this enable me to become an effective coach?

Help guide your coachee through the facts by recognising emotional language and bringing them back to the facts. Build a realistic journey to avoid disappointment and instill accountability.

With a solid grasp on the Reality of the situation and goal, the next part of the model is about the Options available.

This stage is all about creativity and exploration. You need to approach this believing that there are no barriers and there are no silly ideas. You can use mind-maps, write down lists or just have a back and forth conversation. The important thing here is to get creative, do not allow yourself or your coachee to be constrained by what they believe is possible.

In the below video from Star Trek’s 2009 film, Captain Kirk beats an impossible simulation created by Spock. He did this by installing a virus and technically cheating (although the rules didn’t say he couldn’t do it). Kirk later defends his actions by saying “I don’t believe in no win scenarios.”

Whilst we don’t condone ‘cheating’, this out of the box thinking is key at this stage. It’s this creativity in finding a solution that allows Kirk to beat the simulation. There are many activities that can help you get more creative with your problem solving skills so have a look around! Whitmore suggests the 9 Dot Exercise, which we will briefly cover here:

We challenge you here and now to complete the 4 line and 1 line 9 dot image before continuing.

Were you successful?

People can automatically respond to this challenge by saying it’s impossible. We limit our own potential with this kind of thinking. We need to look at all of the options available to us.

If you found it impossible, did I say you couldn’t:

Rearrange the dots?

Cut them out?

Copy and paste them into a better order?

Draw the line through the sides of the dots instead of the centre?

Folded the gaps in the paper to make the distance between the dots shrink?

Use a large highlighter and printed the 9 dots out on a smaller scale?

Get creative and ensure you are challenging limiting beliefs and assumptions here.

Here are some thought provoking questions to ask your coachee:

  • What would your future self say?
  • If you were me, what question would you ask?
  • What qualities would the person you admire bring to the table? How would these be beneficial?
  • What could you do if anything was possible?
  • If budget wasn’t an issue, what would you do?
  • If you had unlimited time to do this, what steps would you take?
  • If you were the CEO, what would you do here?
  • What attributes do people see in you?
  • What attributes would they say are missing?
  • What makes someone great at this goal?

Once you have explored all of the options available to your coachee, time to drill them down and review them. Take some time and encourage them to rate each option in terms of what will be the most effective way forward.

How will this stage help with success?

You will have more ideas in your head than you can ever really know, its about getting creative and finding solutions. This stage can help get you outside of what you think will work and push the boundaries on what is possible.

How will this enable me to become an effective coach?

This is a full-on facilitation session, use probing questions to explore ideas and ensure you stay out of judgement. Be encouraging but curious, explore all answers given to help your coachee find the best way forward.

Now that all Options have been explored, the next part of the model is about having a specific way forward and is called Will.

This stage focuses on accountability.

You have discovered your goal, understood the reality and engaged in finding options. The decision now needs to be made, ask the simple question: ‘What are you going to do about it?’

Whitmore suggests three simple questions to boost accountability and action:

  • What will you do?
  • When will you do it?
  • How will I know you’ve done it?

These questions will help give your coachee a concrete action plan – that they have created themselves. We know as coaches that in order to feel connected to a goal, it needs to come from the coachee – not the coach. Let your coachee tell you the answers and set their own path towards the goal.

The questions don’t need to stop here though, always let your coachee guide the conversation, questions are tools – not tick boxes. Here are some other considerations to discuss with your coachee upon setting your concrete plans:

  • Are there any obstacles for you to achieve this? If so, how can you manage them?
  • What support will you need?
  • How will this help you achieve your goal?
  • Do you have any other thoughts?
  • If you realise the goal will be delayed, when will you let me know?
  • How committed to this goal are you?

With the way forward set, it’s a good idea to schedule in a review meeting or meetings to see how your coachee is getting on. It’s important to remember that you need to stay out of judgement here – you are spending time with your coachee to see how you can support their progress.

When booking in review and feedback meetings consider the following:

  • How frequent they need to be (daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly etc)
  • Where the meetings should take place (face to face, phone, video call)
  • Keep in mind the role of a coach and be: supportive, challenging, open and understanding.
  • Use this as a learning and growth opportunity for your coachee
  • Consider if the goal is still achievable and relevant, revisit the steps of GROW if required

With your review and feedback sessions set out, you should be in a great position to support and encourage your coachee to succeed.

How will this stage help with success?

This is all about accountability and setting a concrete action plan. This is where you put yourself into action and reflect on what is working. If you don’t look at your progress, what’s working and what could go better, you could be missing ways to become more effective and reach your goal faster.

How will this enable me to become an effective coach?

Ensure that the coachee is accountable and focused on their next steps. Ensure your review meetings are about open and honest conversation. Be candid where you need to but stay out of judgement. A coach supports people to succeed, you cannot support someone whilst you are in judgement.

Summary

To summarise, the GROW model is a useful tool for any Coach or Leader to use. It is best used in conjunction with other coaching and leadership skills than as a strict process to follow.

The acronym GROW stands for: Goal, Reality, Options and Will. At each stage, aim to ask open and judgement-free questions to help your coachee understand their goals, skills and the options available to them.

Let us know what has been most valuable to you about this article and what works well for you when using the GROW model.

Check out the below resources to help you facilitate effective and engaging coaching conversations:

  • The GROW model – One Page Guide
  • The GROW model – Guidebook
  • The GROW model – Template

Demolishing Doubt During the 5 Stages of Learning

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Could you be damaging your psychological and physiological well-being when trying to achieve a goal or learn something new?

In a 2012 study about giving up personal goals, the researchers found that when we reach the stage in goal attainment where we believe the difficulty of the task outweighs the value of completing it (known as an action crisis) we not only damage our psychological and physiological wellbeing but we also smother our ability to evaluate the goal at hand effectively.

The thought of damaging our mental and physical well-being when facing difficulty may start to make sense when we reflect on the below questions:

  • Have you ever given up on something you wanted?
  • Have you ever felt so defeated and frustrated that you were unable to complete a challenge or task?
  • Have you ever felt like a failure for being unable to grasp what you initially perceived to be something simple?
  • Have you ever wondered why you even bother?

Each of the above questions may have conjured up negative feelings and memories for you, which helps us make sense of what they found in the study.

Most people will have given up on a goal or pursuit of a skill at least once in their life. Most of us know how that feels and the impacts it can have on our confidence, well-being and overall health. If this is or has been you, consider adding the 5 stages of learning to your tool kit, it can help you understand and combat some of these pain points so that you can more effectively push through these difficult stages and become an expert at your chosen skill.

Think about how good will you feel when this difficult task, skill or goal becomes so familiar to you that you can do it in autopilot. Better yet, how will you feel becoming so masterful that you will be able to teach your skill to others?

The goal of this article is to help you lead yourself and others through the 5 Stages of Learning – using empathy, coaching and persistence to get the best out of the situation. We will discuss the different stages, what they look like and how you can guide people through their learning journey. Supporting effectively through the difficult times and celebrating together through the successes.

What are the 5 Stages of Learning?

The initial model only had 4 stages of learning and was often displayed as a matrix instead of a pyramid. A final and 5th stage was added and it is now often displayed as a pyramid or ladder. The new model is the one we will look at today.

The 5 stages are used to describe the different phases people go through when they are learning something new. This allows you to understand where you or your Followers are on their learning journey, enabling you to find the best way to help progression through each stage. 

The author of this model is unknown, with different people claiming it as their own. Given this and the fact that we have been unable to find any real challengers to the theory, the 5 Stages of Learning look to be more of a universal truth rather than just a model. Whilst we will refer to it as the 5 Stages of Learning, you may have heard of it as the Conscious Competence Matrix or the Learning Matrix.

Whilst we will go through these stages in more detail later in the article The 5 Stages of Learning are:

  • Unconscious Incompetence
  • Conscious incompetence
  • Conscious competence
  • Unconscious competence
  • Reflective Competence

It’s time to break this model down into its individual phases:

Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence

Unconscious Incompetence is where we all begin on our learning journey. At this stage, it is simply impossible for us to grasp the scope of what we do not know. This is what we mean by Unconscious Incompetence – we are that incompetent, we don’t even know it!

Consider the arm-chair coach, who thinks they  know better than the actual coaches and the athletes on TV who have dedicated their lives to mastering a sport.

This stage could also be likened to a child that sees a parent driving, it looks simple – the child would probably be brimming with confidence about being able to drive because to them, all they need to do is turn a wheel. They don’t know anything about the degree in which to turn the wheel, let alone the theory, the law, road signs, traffic lights, crossings, clutch control, gears, indicators, fuel, engine checks and so on – They are unconsciously incompetent, they do not know the extent of how much there is to learn.

This was explained in Dunning & Kruger’s 1999 study where they identified that those with low competence greatly overestimated their actual competence levels and those with higher competency slightly underestimated their competency, in other words, it takes competency to identify competency!

So let’s put ourselves at this stage – we are blissfully unaware of what we don’t know, we are overestimating our abilities and our ego is telling us how great we are. What do you think a good thing to do here would be?

If you’re thinking take a step back and assess, you’re on the right track. We know that setting unrealistic goals is one way to make ourselves feel deflated when we inevitably fail to reach the impossible. We know that where we don’t prepare for a threat, we are less capable to deal with it and we know that when we don’t look at our strengths and available resources, we are not operating at our full capacity.

With this in mind, a SWOT analysis can be a useful tool to honestly look at your situation, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with this new learning journey.

From here you can use the SMART model (or any goal setting model) to set realistic goals. If you are looking to help others or have a wider group of people to train, consider a training needs analysis to build an effective program to support your learners.

Another useful tool to use at this stage is Situational Leadership. Hersey, Angelim, and Carakushansky (1982) found evidence that using the Situational Leadership model during a learning journey can help embed information and aid in learners development.

At this stage, we would look to utilise Directive leadership – a Telling approach where step by step guidance is provided. This helps yourself or others understand exactly what is involved in the task and can aid in repetitive practice.  This method also ties in the wider purpose and objectives associated to the steps so the learner can begin to understand the importance of these tasks. 

Think back to a time you wanted to learn a new skill, you likely sought out expert guidance in the form of books, people you respected, videos, podcasts and articles. These formats don’t engage you in discussion about what to do, they tell you what needs to be done. 

The benefits to this are:

– It provides clear steps on what you need to do

– It helps you understand why the steps are important

– When dealing with the unknown, an authoritative voice can build confidence 

– It helps you see how much work you need to put in, giving you realistic expectations

Pro Tip: Positive feedback is vital here to increase confidence and reinforce positive behaviours towards success.

Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence

As you begin to understand your development areas, the journey ahead of you and what skills you need to develop in order to be successful, you begin to move into the conscious incompetence stage. Here you are getting the grips with what you dont know.

Lets think about what this may be like.

We’ll take Jim for example, he has seen Mixed Martial Arts on TV, he is confident he can do it and that he will be a champion in no time (Unconscious Incompetence). He goes to his first training session and the following happens:

In the warm up session, Jim struggles to breathe and keep up with everyone else.

Then, someone smaller than Jim gets him to submit (give up) due to a submission.

Another person lands multiple body shots on Jim, who has never been hit before – causing more pain than he expected.

When practicing basic jiujitsu transitions, Jim struggles to get to grips with the movements.

Consider how Jim felt at the start of the session – full of confidence and ego. How is he feeling now? – take a few minutes to reflect on this.

Did you get the below?

  • Defeated
  • Low confidence levels
  • Unfit
  • Unworthy
  • Weak
  • Stupid
  • Like he’s made a mistake
  • Like he wishes he never started
  • Like he doesn’t see the value in continuing 

Jim is now conscious about what he doesn’t know – and that feeling can weigh a lot of people down, leading to regret, frustration and low self esteem. Knowing about this stage allows you to positively reinforce the correct behaviours or actions taken, helping to counter some of the negative feelings associated with Conscious Incompetence. This is the stage we will most likely reach an Action Crisis – where we question if the task is worth it and consider giving up. Try to remember that an action crisis isn’t good for you psychologically of physiologically. Your opinion on the worth of the goal will also be clouded by the difficulties you are facing. Be kind to yourself and others here, this is a normal phase to go through.

It’s important here to remind people why they are on their journey, consider Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle or emphasising their purpose, reignite the passion that caused them to start this journey. The Golden Circle works on the basis that your ‘Why’ should drive your ‘How’ and ‘What’. Your goals should be connected with a higher purpose, this will help you understand the importance of the task and can keep you going when your journey gets tough.

If we use Situational Leadership here, we would look for the Coaching or Selling style of leadership. Here we encourage people to work towards their own solutions using their experience alongside providing direction and reinforcing the purpose of the tasks and the outcome of their success.

Here are some great motivating questions:

  • What did I set out to achieve in the first place? How will it add value to my life?
  • What lessons can I take from this?
  • What did I do well and what am I proud of?
  • What can I do differently to make this a more valuable experience?
  • How can I use this to add value to others?
  • What will my life be like after I get back up and achieve?

Be patient with people here, understand that frustration and disappointment are normal and can make people react in less than beneficial ways. Mix empathy with positive reinforcement to help yourself or others build the skills to become competent.

There are other methods to motivate and rekindle passion – consider what works for you whether that’s a vision board, reviewing your end goals and the results of your success or even just understanding that discipline and resilience can get you through the process when motivation levels are low. This is a tough stage – so keep a clear picture in your mind of what awaits you when you pass it and begin to reach mastery.

Stage 3: Conscious Competence

By being resilient, getting back up and working on your skills you reach the next stage, conscious competence. Here, you are fully aware of what you know and the skills that are enabling you to be competent at the task you are performing.

You are aware of your actions as you do them, methodically working through the steps required, making conscious effort to perform each part of the process. This is a great time to celebrate, you have done it! All of your hard work had led to this moment and you deserve to be proud of yourself as you mindfully work your way through each part of the process you have just learnt.

At this stage, you still have to pay attention to what you are doing so take as many opportunities as you can to practice, embed and improve your skill set. Remember to celebrate how far you have come but understand that now is not the time to tick the skill off as complete and move onto something else. Encourage practice here to reinforce your skill or behaviour to really see progression and movement into mastery.

As you work on your own or your Followers confidence here, consider a facilitation style of leadership. This method can drastically improve confidence and motivation levels in skilled individuals. Practice your new skill in different situations and settings, making your practice varied and somewhat unpredictable can give you a greater understanding and ability to utilise your new skills. For example, if your goal was to throw a ball into a hoop that’s 10 feet away, you would be better if you practiced at varying distances of 5, 10 and 15 feet instead of just repetitions at 10 feet.

Support through reflection and questioning, allowing yourself or your Followers to apply your or their own thoughts, experiences and creativity to the newly learnt skill. Think about the different situations you have already or could use your new skill in, we know that when we can connect ideas from one skill to another, it helps embed and refine our understanding. This is called Elaboration and was discussed in Peter Browns, Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniels book ‘Make it stick – The Science of Successful Learning’ – here’s what they said:

Stage 4 Unconscious competence

The penultimate stage (or final in the original model) is Unconscious Competence. Here, you are so skilled that you don’t need to think about what you are doing, the process happens in autopilot.

At face value this sounds like a great state to be in and whilst it does have its advantages, it actually comes with it’s own set of risks. What do you think some of the risks could be for someone who is Unconsciously Competent? – take a few moments to consider this before moving on.

Did you get the below?

  • Overconfidence
  • Complacency
  • Mistakes get made
  • Bad habits may get reinforced
  • You stop looking for efficiency or improvement
  • You may stop reflecting
  • You may not be teaching or coaching others
  • You may not be empathetic to those going through the other stages of learning – you have forgotten your journey and don’t understand why others don’t find it as easy as you.

Unconscious Competence is great for automating but as you can see, operating at an unconscious level has its risks.

Some great methods to combat this Unconscious Competence stage come from the next step of the Learning Matrix – so don’t rest here for long!

Stage 5: Reflective Competence

As you have likely gathered, a person that has spent a lot of their resources and efforts getting to the Unconscious Competence stage, to then discover that potentially the best way to be consistently good and attentive to your skill is to step back down to Conscious Competence, could be quite disheartening.

Numerous people have put in a new fifth stage of the Learning Matrix – Reflective Competence. This creates a level above Unconscious Competence, creating real expertise and mastery. Remember the Dunning-Kruger effect? Being this skilled allows you to rate competency in others and identify where on the learning journey they are! What does that mean though? Well, it varies from author to author but here’s a summary below of a few key points.

Linking theories

Reflective Learning can create ‘lightbulb’ moments where you can connect what you have learnt to different situations. a eureka style moment where you gain a deeper understanding – this is the Elaboration method we looked at before.

Early on in my leadership career, I was given the task of bringing an entire new policy and process to a different part of the company I was working with. I had come from a site the policy and process had been created and tested on and was told there would be resistance to the change at the other site. The culture at this other office, despite being the same company was vastly different. My approach was very matter of fact with the process changes and made the process much harder than it needed to be. Whilst this initially inspired me to research change management and influencing techniques, which improved my relationshp management skills, it wasn’t until reading the book ‘Scaling Up Excellence’ by Huggy Rao and Robert Sutton, that allowed me to reflect on my approach almost a decade later with a ‘lightbulb’ moment, connecting the dots for me in ways that my other research and experience hadn’t. It felt like I had flipped a switch where I instantly understood the times to be strict with process and policy implementation and when to allow for culture to influence the change, I saw my mistakes now not just from an influencing and relationship management perspective but also understood what makes the most business sense and how to establish essential parts of process implementation versus ‘nice to haves.’

A key message here is to ensure you reinforce yourself and others at this stage, it isn’t an easy task to keep assimilating and adapting – keep morale high by celebrating that you are still learning and evolving. True masters of a skill look out for ways to refine their technique further and rarely rest at their current level.

Reflecting on performance

This is a great way to maintain competence in a field. Thinking about how and what you did to accomplish your activity enables you to find errors and areas of improvement as well as focus on the most efficient and effective parts of your process. By reflecting, you begin to reinforce your skills and behaviours, rewarding and training your brain by focusing on the right actions. Let’s say you want to work on your communication skills, after each meeting you could take time to reflect on the following:

Who spoke the most and what was the reaction to this?

Who was the most effective at listening and how do I know this?

What body language was used?

Who was most influential?

How conscious of this was I in the moment?

You can quickly develop your own reflective questions when you understand what it is you want to work on.

Pro Tip: We tend to have reflection templates in the resources part of each article we write for you to utilise, check them out and consider which type of questions work well for you in order to create your own reflection template.

Teaching others

Noticing incompetence in others is regarded as one of the key skills linked with Reflective Competence. It gives you a great opportunity to establish where in the Learning Matrix others are in order to effectively guide them through it. As much as you may think you know about a certain topic, it is only when you begin to teach it that your understanding reaches new depths. When you reflect over the task, the best way to accomplish it and how you will transfer this knowledge to someone else, you begin making more connections and thus build a deeper understanding. Teaching others ensures you are at the top of your game as you will have to keep up to date with your skills and the wider field to ensure you are in the best position to train others.

Exercise: Consider something you are proficient in, take 15 minutes to write down all of the skills or attributes that make you great at it.

Next, list the ways you could impart your knowledge, skills and attributes to others. Write down how they could use this knowledge to become proficient themselves. How could you get your understanding across to others as simply as possible? Notice how you feel about this exercise, have you achieved a greater understanding just by doing this alone? Take it a step further, write a session plan and deliver it to someone, how did this engagement make you feel? What did you learn from it?

Summary

The 5 Stages of Learning are:

Unconscious Incompetence – Here, you have no idea how much you there is to learn. As such, people at this stage are often over confident. A SWOT analysis to take stock of your strengths and weaknesses. Its important here to be realistic about your abilities as the higher your confidence is at this stage, the tougher the next stage will be for your ego to manage.  Directive or Telling approaches work well here.

Conscious Incompetence – At this phase, you are aware of how much you need to learn. It can be tough here to persevere as you weigh up the difficulty of the task and the end result. Use compassion, empathy, celebration and coaching to support people through their frustrations during this stage. Remember, 1 step a day is 365 steps a year – you’ll be miles ahead of the person who isn’t trying.

Keep yourself and others focused on the purpose of the mission, use coaching to help embed the learning and encourage people to adapt and overcome barriers. This is where you are likely to enter an ‘action crisis’ so use positive reinforcement and seek support on whether to keep trying, change your approach or identify a new goal. Being disheartened at this stage can unfairly influence whether you want to stick at the goal or not, a coach can help you find the best way forward.

Conscious Competence – This stage is where things start to click, you are skilled but you need to think about what you are doing. Keep practicing, getting feedback and reflecting at this stage to move into mastery.

Unconscious Competence – This phase is where your skill becomes almost auto-pilot. It takes very little effort to think about what you need to do – its second nature. Reward yourself for getting this far but be mindful not to linger here for too long, that can be risky.

Reflective Competence – The final stage is where you can identify competence in others and use your skills and knowledge to train people. Link theories together, reflect on your performance and train others to keep your skills sharp and effective.

Take some time to consider your skill sets and where within the five stage of learning you are for each skill. What was the most useful thing you will take from this article and how will you support yourself and others through the Stages of Learning?

 

For immediate access to new content and exclusive offers, subscribe to our mail list below:

 

Resources

– 5 stages of learning one page guide

– 5 stages of learning reflection template

– 5 stages of learning Guidebook

File Name: 5-stages-of-learning-guidebook.pdf

Securing success by setting SMARTER goals

  By , ,

A study by Gabriele Oettingen and Doris Mayer discovered that you are unlikely to achieve a goal if you have a positive fantasy about it. All is not lost however, as they also discovered that if you have positive expectations about your goal, then you are more likely to achieve it! We explore what this means and the science behind getting the best out of your goals below.

A positive fantasy is where you think it will turn out great whereas a positive expectation is where you take a realistic look at your goal and understand what it will take to achieve it. Having confidence after doing this makes success more likely than just having positive thoughts on it. If you have ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, this may start to make sense.

The Dunning-Kruger effect suggest that people who are not skilled at something tend to over-rate their ability in that area. Think about armchair coaches who seem to know better than the professional athletes or coaches they’re watching on TV – these armchair coaches seem to be high in confidence but low in wisdom compared to the professionals.  

Oettingen and Mayer’s study concluded that whilst having positive fantasies about your goal was negative, having positive expectations about it acts as an effective way to achieve your goal. In other words, understanding your goal and being realistic about achieving it is a better pathway towards success.

If you struggle with creating tangible and realistic goals, we may be able to help. This article will look at when to use the SMARTER model and then look at how to get the most out of it.

 

The What and When of SMARTER goals

SMART goals were initially created by George Doran, Arthur Miller and James Cunningham. They were invented to help organisations set and allocate meaningful objectives amongst their teams.

 

Since their inception, SMART goals have been utilised in both businesses and personal lives of people who are looking to set specific goals for themselves. Whilst they have been modified multiple times and even added to over the years (Such as the SMARTER model), the central concept remains the same – create a clear goal that you are motivated to achieve.

 

The SMARTER acronym we are looking at today is; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Evaluate and Reward. Let’s take a look at what these actually mean in the context of goal setting.

Before we go into specifics, we need to be clear – we don’t suggest you use the SMARTER model for your initial objective creation. That needs to come from a place of passion and excitement for you. Your goals should be a reflection of your higher purpose and be a way to get you there. Goals need to align with who you are. 

If you are struggling with your purpose, if you feel stuck or trapped – don’t worry. People in all walks of life can feel like this at times. What is important is that you find a way to take control of your life and become the person you are meant to be. If you need help finding your purpose and potential, connect with us at: Client.Services@DevelopTheEdge.com, our professional coaching service will be on hand to help.

Only once you know who you want to become or what you want to achieve, should you look at using the SMARTER model to help you evaluate and quantify your goal and make a crystal clear mission for you to achieve.

 

For example:

‘I want recognition and a pay rise.’ Is vague and there is no clear way to measure the goals success. ‘I want to be recognised by my line manager with a 5% pay-rise by April this year for my thorough and timely work on projects. This increase will allow me to treat my family more often.’ Gives us more to work with – we now have an idea on who we need to influence (the line manager), the focus area (project work), a time frame (this April) and a measurement (5% pay-rise).

 

Neuroscience tells us that when we value and focus on something, our reticular activating system (RAS), helps filter the world around so that we see more of it. It makes sense then, to focus on creating a goal that gives us a crystal clear vision on what success looks like so that our RAS can filter in ways for us to achieve it. With that being said, it’s time we looked at the individual components of the SMARTER model, let’s get started.

 

SPECIFIC

The more specific you can make your goal, the clearer the image of success will look in your mind.

If your goal is recognition at work, you RAS may just look at all routes to recognition. Some may be positive but not progress you towards your goal such as: holding open doors, doing favours or buying treats for colleagues. Without conditions for success, your RAS may take a darker turn and nudge you to taking on too much work and burning out or even taking recognition for other peoples hard work.

Without specific criteria, how will you get towards your goal in an ethical and effective manner?

 

A good way to get SPECIFIC is using the old communications trick for open questions; 5 Ws and a H.

Why – do you want this? / Why is it important?

What – do you want to accomplish or obtain?

When – do you need to do this? When can you start?

Where – do you need to go? Where will your actions take place?

Who – do you need to become? Who’s help will you need?

How – are you best positioned to achieve this?

These should help you frame your goal into a specific and clear focus point, meaning we can move to the next step – Measurable.

 

Measurable

By making the goal measurable, you will be able to track the progress towards your goal, make adjustments and know once you have achieved it. Think in terms of metrics that you can actually measure and track.

For example: 

Losing 5kg in 6 months is measurable, you will be able to weigh yourself monthly to check progress and make adjustments to your diet or exercise routine where you need to.

 

If we look at our example of a promotion, you could use a Gantt chart to track the progress of your projects and test their quality by either using colleagues, your manager or the quality assurance department to ensure it is up to standard. The last measurable part of that goal is the 5% pay rise – you will know once this has been achieved because you will be able to see it in your wage.

The importance of being able to track your goals has been highlighted by the American Psychological Association in their 2016 Study “Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment?” with the below quote:

We can see then, that by making the goal measurable and monitoring our progress, we are more likely to achieve the goal and become more disciplined as well.

Once we have selected a metric to measure the goal by, we need to know whether this is actually achievable.

 

Achievable

To have strong performance you must have high expectations of success. This means that the goal will need to be challenging but possible for you to achieve.

Look at your skill set and strengths here, figure out whether the goal will stretch you and make you grow to achieve it. Performing a SWOT analysis here may help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to success.

Consider the steps will you need to take, the skills you will need to acquire and who you will need to become in pursuit of this goal.

 

Once you have confirmed that your goal is achievable, it’s time to look at how relevant your goal is.

 

Relevant

Relevance is an important part of this model as it ensures the goal is linked to your higher purpose to make it engaging. If you are leading other people, you need to be explicit with the goals relevance. You may know the reason the goal is important but do your team?

 

In their 2015 paper ‘Six Questions for the Resource Model of Control’, Inzlicht and Berkman said:

 

Consider the following questions when you are checking the Relevance of your goal:

 

–           Is now the right time for this goal?

–           Am I the right person for the job?

–           Does this goal fit with my values and purpose?

–           Is there a better way to accomplish this?

–           Why do I believe this goal is important?

–           How will my life be different once I’ve accomplished this goal?

–           What priority level is this goal?

By the end of these questions, you should feel connected to your goal and motivated to get started. If this isn’t the case, consider how relevant the goal is to your higher purpose and whether you are being true to yourself about your purpose.

Taking our example of a promotion – Financial decisions tend to get made in April, so that date looks good. Do you need to outsource any part of your projects? Could you obtain feedback about your work from people your manager respects to boost your proposals chances? In terms of value, you may already have plans for that 5% increase – investing in family time, charitable donations or qualifications to become a subject matter expert.

 

By ensuring our goal is relevant, we are more likely to stick with it and can look at the Time-bound element.

 

Time-bound

An end date enables you to have a clear focus in your mind when you will need to accomplish your goal by. Remember that the best goals are challenging but possible – consider a time-frame that will ensure you are being productive with your time. If it is too short, you may burnout trying to achieve it. If it is too long, you may put off taking action.

 

Some questions to consider:

 

–           When is the soonest I can achieve this?

–           What happens if I don’t accomplish it on this date?

–           What would be a realistic time for me to complete this (use a mix of your experience and research to judge)

–           Are there any upcoming and important events?

–           Does my goal need to be broken down into smaller time-bound chunks?

 

Looking back at our promotion example, if we do not accomplish it by April, we may have to wait another year for the promotion to be considered. Other upcoming and important events for this goal would be the project due dates that your case for a promotion is riding on.

This is where the original SMART model ends and whilst you will now have a comprehensive and clear goal, with an understanding on what success will look. By ensuring it is relevant and achievable, you should also have positive expectations for achieving your goal.

As previously mentioned, the model we are looking at is the SMARTER model. Whilst we do not know who first established these extra two steps, they are valuable and worth understanding further to get the most out of your goal setting.

 

Evaluate

As with our own GURU’s goal setting methodology (which we will visit shortly), sense-checking your progress is vital to getting the best out of your actions. Any company that values success will have a quality assurance framework to test its products, the same should be true of us and our goals.

 

If we only take action and do not evaluate our work, we are doing ourselves a huge disservice. If you are not evaluating your performance, how can you know what is working well, what needs improving and what needs stopping all together? Spending time evaluating your progress will help you shape your future expectations, improving your skillset and focus on improvements.

 

Consider asking yourself:

–           What went well

–           Why did it go well?

–           What could have gone better?

–           Am I where I need to be?

–           What improvements can I make?

–           Am I still on track?

–           What can I learn from this?

 

The final step of the SMARTER model is Reward.

 

Reward

Research suggests that you can increase self-discipline and focus by rewarding yourself. In Inzlicht and Berkman’s study ‘Six questions for the Resource Model of Control’, they states the following:

To keep your motivation levels high, ensure that you are celebrating your successes along the way, not just once you’ve completed the goal.

 

For example, let’s look at a fitness goal:

Celebrate writing out your exercise plan – thank yourself for taking the first step and dance to your favourite song.

Celebrate getting your clothes ready for the gym the night before – Thank yourself for making it easier for you to get to the gym tomorrow and watch an episode of your favourite show

Celebrate going to the gym – Thank yourself for keeping on track, cheer yourself on in the car.

Celebrate completing a work out – Thank yourself for turning up and giving your best. Raise your arms up and cheer in celebration.

Celebrate getting half way to your fitness goal – Thank yourself for getting half way and treat yourself to your favourite meal.

–           Your rewards don’t have to be extravagant or excessive but it is important to celebrate all of your little successes. This will help you become more aware of your wins in the future and keep you engaged in your goals.

 

Conclusion

As in Oettingen and Mayer’s study, when we have positive expectations that are grounded in reality – we are more likely to be successful in achieving our goals. The SMARTER model ensures that our goal is set up to create a crystal clear outcome and motivate us to achieve it.

 

It’s time to summarise why being SMARTER in the way we set our goals will help us to achieve them:

 

S – When we have a Specific goal, our RAS looks out for ways to achieve it.

M – By having a Measurable goal, you are able to keep track of it and know once you have succeeded.

A – When a goal is Achievable but requires effort, we are more motivated to accomplish it.

R – Ensuring the goal is Relevant will keep you motivated as it will be tied to your higher purpose.

T – By keeping your goal Time-bound you are setting an end date that requires effort to get to.

E – Evaluating your progress helps you find the best ways to achieve your goal.

R – Rewarding yourself is an important motivation tool that helps habitualise behaviour.

 

Thank you for exploring the SMARTER model with us today. Let us know what you found most valuable about this article and if there is anything you are going to do differently when setting your goals going forward.

 

We have added resources below which may help you make your goals SMARTER.

 

 

SMARTER Goals Guidebook

The SMARTER one page guide:

Summarising Servant Leadership – the Why, What and How of Greenleafs theory.

  By

Want to know the secret to creating an autonomous, engaged, motivated, creative and high performing Organisation? Well, it turns out, it’s not so secretive. In fact, Greenleafs essay is currently rated as 4.6 stars out of 5 on Amazon and what’s even more impressive? This book has held its own since it was first published in 1970. In this article, we explore why we would want to use this effective leadership style, what it looks like in practice and how to use it to help our Followers and business grow.

This is the first of 3 articles in the series on Servant Leadership, the following 2 articles will explore the successes of this leadership style in more detail and also the short comings of this much loved and utilised tool. Just before we jump into why you may want to become a Servant Leader, let’s quickly explore what the term means.

The term Servant Leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf to describe the type of Leader that is first and foremost – a natural servant. This person views it as their responsibility and calling in life to serve others and help them achieve their purpose or goal. The book that inspired Greenleafs popular essay “The Servant As Leader” was called “The journey to the East” and is built on a simple principle – do what is right for your Followers. Simple in principle, not so simple in action. Let’s get stuck in.

Why

“Leaders are learning that this kind of empowerment, which is what servant-leadership represents, is one of the key principles that, based on practice, not talk, will be the deciding point between an organization’s enduring success or its eventual extinction.” – Dr Stephen Covey on Servant Leadership

Greenleaf believed that by using Servant Leadership, our Followers will grow, become healthier, wiser, more autonomous and more likely to want to serve others – simply put, you will be creating a culture of leaders.

What Leader worth their salt wouldn’t want their Followers to be:

  • Autonomous
  • Resourceful
  • Resilient
  • Engaged
  • Motivated
  • Creative
  • High Performing

Well, maybe a power hungry, egotistical manager but if that was you, I doubt you’d be reading this article, you’d already know better!

Servant Leadership is difficult to manufacture, Greenleaf believed that natural born servants made for better leaders. It’s important that we dont let this put us off if that isn’t us straight away as everyone has the capability (and responsibility) to grow and learn, the difficult parts of life are typically where we learn and grow the most. Take a few moments to consider times in your life where you have served others and put their needs above your own.

  • What was the situation?
  • What did you do?
  • How did this make you feel?
  • What was the outcome for them?
  • Did their behaviours or skills improve?
  • Were they more engaged?
  • Did they reciprocate?

Humans tend to feel the need to ‘pass it on’ or reciprocate actions. The likelihood is, if you have served someone – they will have in turn served someone else or returned the favour to you. By the simple act of service, you are helping to create a Servant Leader.

When researching this model, we came across one common misconception – the What and the How of Servant Leadership. It’s important we get to grips with what it actually means to be a Servant Leader in practice as there are many articles out there that have misinterpreted Greenleafs intentions. That being said, the next part of this article goes into the What and How of this model to help us be effective when utilising it.

The ‘What’ of Servant Leadership

Servant Leadership is simply putting others before yourself. Serving the needs of your people and the operation above your own development, ego and acknowledgement. Tough to do sometimes but what’s more important – the success of an operation or people cheering your name?

The ‘what’ – Balance

The Servant Leader is balanced. This isn’t about being walked over or letting people off the hook. Servant Leaders will always accept the person and their situation but never accept poor results. It’s important here then, to be empathetic and understanding without being a walk over – the success of the operation and team comes above the individual but where you can achieve all three – great!

The ‘How’ – Balance

Always consider the wider implications when reviewing poor results and what failing to challenge the results will mean for the person, team and customer.

Take some time to consider what the impacts are of us failing to approach a team member who is not performing. When you are ready, continue on below.

Did you get the below?

  • Continued poor performance
  • Further conduct and performance issues
  • Friction with other, well performing team members
  • Your loss of credibility
  • The operation suffering, your customers suffering and the potential loss of jobs as a result of this.
  • The person feeling unvalued – let’s face it, if you care about someone, you want them to do well!

Serving doesn’t mean being walked over, it’s your job to look after and protect the organisation and your followers, how does a failing business accomplish this?

Example

I had an issue with a person in one of my teams, they were clearly not performing – whilst being able to. They were also creating tensions within the team based on their behaviours. I invited them to a meeting where we discussed their situation and how we can support them. We also set clear expectations for performance and behaviour. Whilst these conversations can be difficult to approach – by accepting my team member and their situation, we built rapport, they felt valued and they understood that I cared about them. By challenging performance and behaviours through this medium, they did not feel attacked, they felt valued and motivated to achieve for the team. Consider these questions or statements to aid your conversation:

  • “It sounds like a difficult time and I want to help you get back on track in work. How can we support you to do this?”
  • “I can see that ‘x’ has been impacting you at work. I need to make it clear though that this behaviour is not acceptable. What can we do about it?”
  • “Your performance doesn’t reflect the  value you can bring to the team. How can change that?”
  • “That behaviour was unacceptable and I know you are capable of better. What needs to change for you to get there?”

Tips for a balanced approach

  • Approach poor results at first sight
  • Do so with a curious mindset
  • Make sure your Followers wellbeing is in a good place
  • Understand the reason for the poor results
  • Set expectations, display empathy and work together towards improvement

The ‘What’ – Seeker

The Servant leader is known as a seeker, someone that is always keeping one ear to the ground for the next best thing or thinking of innovative ways to positively impact their team or business.

The ‘How’ – Seeker

Pat yourself on the back, you’re seeking right now. We’ve created a quick 5 tips on how to become an effective seeker based on our experience, how many of these do you already do?

  1. LISTEN – Consider that there is something you can learn from everyone. Be curious, not assumptive.
  2. READ – grab post it notes or highlight via your device, make notes and links to other knowledge areas.
  3. SMEs – Even rival companies can be willing to share best practice, it’s irresistible to the ego.
  4. VISION – Use foresight, estimate risks and opportunities.
  5. FACILITATE – If you want to learn; teach, train and facilitate to others.
 
Example – Being a seeker – innovation

I encourage my team to scroll through eventbrite, meet-up and Linkedin – looking for workshops and coffee mornings that they believe will help themselves, the team or business grow. I do the same – Find a useful event, share it with people that will benefit from it, attend it (or ask someone to attend on your behalf) – join in and act on the takeaways. Let’s keep our brains sharp and always look for a better way to win.

Don’t just rely on the external events though – I was fortunate enough to win the 2020 Innovation Champion award for Wescot. Part of the reason for this was the creation of ‘The Hub’. A place where people could both share and browse information in order to share knowledge and grow together – similar to an online library. There were also options to review how useful the content was and enabled people to comment on what could make the content better – lets put our ego aside people, we can all grow! ‘The Hub’ grew significantly and included: Book suggestions, podcast suggestions, YouTube videos, Ted talks, articles, tools, performance trackers, HR tips etc. I knew we had a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the Leadership team, all I did was build a central place where we could share best practice. 

 

Reflective question: How can you innovate?

Reflective question: How can you become a seeker? 

Example – Being a Seeker with people

I was in the L&D function of a well known Financial Services firm and I was at the start of one of our inductions. One of the group had been consistently late to training (both start time and on their return from breaks) and seemed disengaged with the content. Had this happened just a few years earlier, I would have been fuming at them for wasting the teams time as well as my own. I’d learnt a thing or two since then though, so I asked another member of the L&D team to do a ‘re-cap’ session and asked the new starter to catch up with me in another room. When they sat down, their arms were folded in a defensive posture – lovely. “How are you doing?” was my starting question. At first I was greeted with 1 word answers but as they understood I cared, they opened up more. There was a lot going on at home and it ended up impacting their time at work. Together, we set expectations surrounding time-keeping and being engaged whilst in the training room. Their behaviour turned around in that moment. If I hadn’t spent time highlighting Leadership and Communication strategies, that conversation may not have turned out the same. If I hadn’t intended to seek out this persons barrier and instead led a conduct investigation – they may not have kept their job, our relationship would be damaged and I wouldn’t have done the right thing for them or the business. Be a seeker.

The ‘What’ – Ego

On the face of it, putting others first seems easy enough but Greenleaf noted that the natural Servant Leaders are born as servants first. It is harder for a Leader to become a Servant Leader by their own choosing. Greenleaf believed the best Leaders were born as servants.

Whether or not you were born with a servant mentality, it is still possible to be an amazing Servant Leader. One of the first and most important parts of Servant Leadership is the ability to manage your own ego.

The ‘How’ – Ego

To be successful here, we need to put our own development, promotion and goals behind that of others. Do we still need to develop, feel self worth and work towards our goals? Absolutely, but the team and organisation need to come first. Without this key element, we can never become Servant Leaders.

Quick Tips to manage our ego:

  • Understand our worth – we do not need anyone elses acknowledgement. If we do not seek approval or recognition, our ego will be in a healthier place.

The best leaders pass on praise to others and take ownership of team shortfalls.

  • Take the view that everyone is trying their best with the tools they’ve got.

What does that even mean? Don’t take things personally, believe that the people you are dealing with are trying their best. Here is a quick example:

During mediation between two parties, the personal attacks from one senior leader of ‘you’re too lazy to think!’ Were actually unhelpful ways of saying ‘think outside of the box, the process is a guide – don’t stifle your creativity.’ 

There was much more to this exchange but put simply, the parties involved had good intentions but lacked the ability to communicate it effectively! The senior leader just wanted them to have more autonomy. After letting them speak, I worked to align their purpose (they both wanted the right thing for the customer) and we worked on their way forward together, setting great foundations for a healthier working relationship! Had we not been able to reinterpret what they were saying to each other, their egos would have taken control and the results would have been less favourable!

  • Take the view that you can learn something from everyone.

Life is a great teacher and no two lives are the same, it might not be the best choice to live in an echo chamber. Understand that you do not know everything or even what is best in any given situation. Some of the best advice I’ve ever received is ‘no one knows what they’re doing, so dont be afraid to speak up.’ – whilst technically not true, the idea is that no matter what your position is, your opinion is valid, as is everyone elses.

  • Be comfortable with saying ‘I dont know, how do we find out?’

Curiosity is an amazing skill to develop. Not only will you find out more, people will respect your honesty and drive to grow.

  • Be prepared to help with the fundamentals

Leadership consultant Jocko Willink has spoken about his superior officer sweeping up, something most would view as beneath them. This act not only contributed to a great reputation with the team but also inspired the rest of the team to clean up as they didnt want their superior officer to have to do it! Talk about putting your ego to the side…Anyone got a spare broom?

The ‘What’ – Big Picture

Moving on from your ego to that of others, the Servant Leader needs to ensure that others understand that every decision is made for the team and the operation. It can be easy to think Seving means just giving people what they need or want but this isnt the case.

The ‘How’ – Big Picture

Let’s say one of your team wants every Friday off, you can accommodate it so agree to this. You have nine others in your team – can you offer this to all of them?

If not – how will they feel? Probably:

  • Disengaged
  • Frustrated
  • Jealous
  • Like you’re playing favourites

If some how you can accommodate your whole team, what about everyone else in the organisation?

Your team need to be aware that saying ‘no’ isnt personal but instead is done to safeguard the future of the team and organisation. Do this by being transparent with your decisions and helping people understand what factors you considered. People may still get upset but you will have a reputation of being fair and consistent. Worried about the impact of saying “no”? Here’s a great phrase for you: “How are we supposed to do that?” or “What have the team said about this?” – Both of these questions require the other person to consider the bigger picture and who knows…they may even give you an answer that highlights what an amazing idea they have!

So how do you serve others needs? Now is a great time to consider Maslows Heirarchy!

The ‘What’ – Develop People

Just like above where we had to say ‘no’ to people, being a servant here doesnt mean that you do everything. Your role is to build skills in others, if you simply take work off of people, they arent learning and you are on the path to becoming a walk over! Consider the quote:

“Give a man a fish and it will feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he will be fed for a life time.”

The ‘How’ – Develop People

  • Perform a SWOT analysis
  • Understand your people and what they want
  • Get curious – “And why do you want this?” – “And why else?” – “And how will that change things for you?” – locate the driver.
  • Consider if what they need to do is within their capability
  • Consider how you can support their development

The need isn’t necessarily that you take the work on yourself (although sometimes this is the right move), but that you guide, stretch and mentor the people around you to improve. If you get stuck completing all of your teams tasks, you wont be able to see the bigger picture or follow your vision. Want to get the best out of your people? Consider a facilitation approach. We discuss this more in our article on Participating leadership here.

The ‘What’ – Vision

Leaders lead. Greenleaf said:

‘But the leader needs more than inspiration. He ventures to say, “I will go; come with me!” He initiates, provides the ideas and the structure, and takes the risk of failure along with the chance of success.’

Getting caught up in the details could lead you to forget to see the bigger picture and the long term vision. The teams vision as an inspirational driver is just as important as the knowledge that your leader will support you. Imagine helping others along a journey without having any sight of where it was going or why you were going there! Tie your values and the organisational values into your journey for credibility. As Greenleaf said:

‘A leader does not elicit trust unless one has confidence in his values and his competence (including judgment) and unless he has a sustaining spirit (entheos) that will support the tenacious pursuit of a goal.’

The ‘How‘ – Vision

Part of this long term vision is the use of foresight, to predict threats and opportunities before they arise. This will enable you to effectively manage these factors and keep you from being a reactionary leader. Communicate with your team and engage them in a conversation – what are the upcoming risks? What are the upcoming opportunities? 

Linking into foresight and venturing into the unknown is being a seeker. Greenleaf believed that a Servant Leader was always searching for ways to help people and the operation, always looking for new ways to improve. Whilst this doesn’t mean you need to constantly reinvent the wheel it does mean that you need to keep your ear to the ground for improvements and think creatively. Remember that your teams are closer to the project than you, so listen to what they have to say and keep an open mind.

Considerations:

  • Have we established a mission?
  • Have we understood why we are on that mission?
  • Has the team had input into the mission and its impacts?
  • What are the driving factors for the team?
  • How can you use these drivers to get to the mission?

Summary

Servant Leadership is a fantastic way to build a resourceful, resilient, autonomous, creative and engaged work force. By putting others first, we develop credibility, trust and an effective workforce. Remember that serving isn’t just doing as requested and bending to every whim of the team members but thinking about the bigger picture, the success of the operation and putting our ego to the side.

Servant Leadership in action

Starbucks is a world renowned brand and is considered as a company that operates under Servant Leadership.

In his interview with The London Business Forum, CEO Charles Shultz demonstrated key points of Servant Leadership. He literally talks about “The way we serve our community.”, how he believes businesses are responsible for more than just profit and that in one month alone, Starbucks completed 200,000 hours of charity work.

When discussing influence, he talks about visiting a person who owns one shop and being inspired “A whole new way of thinking, a new roadmap.” – Shultz is demonstrating being a seeker here and it doesnt stop there. He goes on to say that not only does he not hold all of the answers but that no one in Starbucks does. This complete removal of the ego to fully be a seeker is one of the key points Greenleaf made about Servant Leadership.

Let’s look how that translates into the corporate culture, the Starbucks mission is:

To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.

Starbucks refers to its employees as partners and its values include; helping each other grow, a culture of belonging, changing the status quo, and being performance driven. Remember what we said about Servant Leaders expecting the best from their team? That includes caring about their performance! 

Clearly, this leadership style can have phenomenal results, one question remains though…”Are you ready to serve?”

Check out our resources:

. Servant Leadership One Page Guide

. Servant Leadership Quiz

The Do’s, Dont’s and Dichotomy of Directive Leadership.

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In today’s world, it would appear that the Directive leader has had their day. There is much more of an emphasis on people focused leadership and making collaborative decisions. When we look into the Directive style in more detail however, there are still times where it comes out on top.

Here is our guide to Directive Leadership, when to utilise it and how to get the best out of this style.

What is Directive Leadership?

Directive Leadership has been detailed in many leadership theories from Vroom (autocratic 1&2), House (path goal theory), Tuckman (Forming stage) and many others. For this article, I will be discussing Directive Leadership from Blanchard and Herseys Situational Leadership model (they describe Directive Leadership as ‘Telling’).

This is the first of four articles where we will discover the stages of Situational Leadership (Follower Readiness levels) and their accompanying leadership styles (Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating). Below is the full Situational Leadership model, for this article, we are only focusing on the Yellow box ‘Telling’.

Blanchard and Hersey described Directive Leadership (also known as Telling in the model) as a style where the Leader uses their skills and knowledge to provide direction, set expectations and make decisions. As you can see from the above image, this style uses a highly directive and low supportive approach to leadership, with more focus on the task than the relationship with your follower.

The model uses each Leadership style based on the Follower’s Readiness level, to understand where Directive Leadership will be most effective, we must therefore evaluate our Followers Readiness level.

Readiness level 1 (or R1) can typically be used to describe a new starter, who is in need of clear structure and direction. Consider your team, have you got any new starters that will require clear structure and direction? Have you recently up-skilled someone and now they have a low level of competence for this task? If so, you may want to read through the Do’s and Don’ts of this approach so that you get the best out of it whilst maintaining healthy relationships with people.


The Do’s

1. Do use Directive Leadership on New Starters

Think about a time where you were new to a role, you weren’t sure of your responsibilities, what processes to follow or what was expected of you. How did that make you feel?

It can be a daunting experience joining a new team, culture or position. People can feel uncertain and anxious if they do not understand their responsibilities,  the business values or what they need to do to succeed. It can be a relief then, for someone to explain to you what your responsibilities are, what is expected of you and where to find the processes you need to follow.

Consider a leader using a coaching role here and trying to pull this information from you. You would likely get frustrated because you simply don’t know what you don’t know – you can’t guess a companies values, which process to follow or what your Leader expects of you – so a coaching approach in this position may damage relationships between the Leader and the Follower. The Directive approach for new starters can help relieve their anxiety of the unknown. It can give your Followers a purpose and a focus.

Business Example

In my first leadership role, I had very little experience or knowledge of leadership theories. I thought that every opportunity was a coaching session as it was all I understood about the role, developed from my time working in the fitness industry helping people with stretching goals. A new starter joined my team and I was eager to coach them to success, it was going down well with my existing team so surely it would work! Whenever I had them at my desk I would ask them what they thought they should do with A, B and C and why these tasks were important.

They didn’t know and became frustrated with my coaching approach – I was asking questions they just couldn’t answer yet. I realised that whilst it goes against my natural style, I had to be the one talking at this point. I had to tell them what they should be doing, what they were doing well, why each action of each task was important and what my expectations were of them. By doing this, their frustration turned into direction, they knew what they had to do and why they were doing it. Soon, they knew the processes and policies they needed to follow and due to becoming more confident in their role, they became open for coaching.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can be compassionate, it can alleviate both the frustration and anxiety new starters may have about the unknown aspects of their role, allowing them to focus on the task at hand.

Once your followers are more capable and confident in their role, you can increase the level of ‘supportive’ Leadership and allow Directive Leadership to take more of a back seat.

2. Use Directive Leadership in emergencies

Your building is on fire and people are beginning to panic, some people are stood around, unsure of what to do. Time is if the essence, you have to get your people to safety. Can you imagine involving your team in decision making here by facilitating or coaching them? Not only do you risk peoples lives by not taking control, you’ll likely lose credibility here too.

Directive leadership will be needed to focus and guide the people out of danger by telling them exactly what they need to do. The focus here is high task behaviour (keeping people safe) and low relationship/supportive behaviour.

Directive leadership isnt just for life threatening emergencies but can also be used at anytime an urgent decision needs to be made and there is no time for discussion.

Business Example

In 2015, I had recently moved offices to support a team going through major role profile and wage changes, their morale was extremely low and they were clearly going through the Storming stages of Team Development.

The team were all individually very skilled and I knew they had a good work ethic. They had however, gone through multiple leadership changes, witnessed conflict amongst the leadership team and had been promised wages increases to match their role changes.

A month into the role, a senior leader called a meeting with my team. The senior leader delivered an unfavourable message about the promised wage increase and the teams frustrations boiled over, the team threatened to walk out. The senior leader, clearly disagreeing with the message they were delivering broke down in front of the team and began to cry at their reactions.

I had to act quickly to support my team and the senior leader, I needed to make urgent decisions to calm the situation, bring structure to the legitimate concerns of my team and keep my team working towards our objectives.

I thanked the senior leader for delivering the tough message in person and I adjourned the meeting. I told the team we weren’t going to get a solution today and summarised each of their concerns. I promised to look into each point and whilst I couldn’t confirm a solution today, I would keep them updated on progress.

I told the team what they would risk by walking out and asked them to take a break for the remainder of the allocated meeting time and then return to work on their projects.

As soon as the room cleared, the leader thanked me for taking control of the situation. I outlined what went wrong in the meeting and suggested a more robust preparation format for future meetings. With the urgency gone and the situation calm, I spoke with the leader about their reaction, moving to a more supportive and less directive role.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can take control of volatile or urgent situations by setting expectations and the directing the focus on to an immediate plan of action.

Whilst I knew the team were highly skilled and capable, in this moment they were directionless and needed to see a better structure to the handling of their concerns. I set my expectations for the remainder of the day and after their break, everyone returned to work.

We had a long road ahead of us but the urgent situation had passed, Directive Leadership had allowed me to take control of the situation.

3. Use Directive Leadership for non-negotiable necessities

Directive Leadership can be used when there can be no leeway to the rules or policy. Consider workplace compliance as an example. GDPR was a big buzzword throughout 2018 with it’s new rules on data protection and harsher penalties for breaches to the rules. Those rules are specifically there to protect customers, just like health and safety rules are there to protect employees. Of course, rules can be discussed and policies can be amended but until the change takes place, the rules need to be followed correctly.

Business Example

During 2019, I was in between roles as a Learning and Development Officer and Team Leader in a collections environment. Our line of work saw us helping people in very vulnerable circumstances everyday. We did this by building trusting relationships and seeking to understand our customers situation. It was a bank holiday, so people were feeling more relaxed than usual at work and a few members of staff began making a lot of noise.

I approached these members if staff and quickly set my expectations. They were still in work, they still had a job to do and conduct deemed inappropriate on a normal working day didn’t suddenly become appropriate because it was a bank holiday. I let the team know that any further instances of conduct would result in formal disciplinary action and that should a customer overhear laughing and interpret it as mocking their situation, we could quickly lose the trust and respect of that customer, damaging our reputation and more importantly, impacting our ability to help them.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can be used where leeway could lead to reputational damage, be a risk to quality or team productivity.

Where standards are uncompromising, a directive approach will help enforce the importance of your rules and expectations.

4. Do be human

The Directive Leadership approach has seen a lot of criticism for being archaic and focused on being managerial instead of a supportive and participative approach.

It’s important to remember that just because you are setting expectations and direction, you can still be human! Being autocratic doesn’t mean losing your manners or understanding that your team are people with their own needs. You should still explain the rationale behind your decisions and the purpose of your teams work (just not when the buildings on fire).

5. Do be reflective

The situational leadership model requires you to understand where your follower is in relation to their readiness level. Reflect on their performance and their reactions to your leadership style, is this still the best way forward?

Reflect on how your style is impacting your team. Are you getting the results you need? What could you do differently next time?

To summarise the Do’s of this model, Directive Leadership can be a great option when you are:

  1. Leading New Starters or people with low levels of competence.
  2. Leading through an urgent situation or making quick decisions
  3. Where rules must be followed without exception
  4. You remain polite and professional
  5. You are reflective and utilise it with a purpose

The Dont’s of Directive Leadership

1. Don’t disregard diversity!

Situational leadership was developed with the purpose of flexible leadership in mind, to be able to understand your Followers readiness level and utilise the most effective Leadership style for that situation.

Think about how you would feel if you were considered a subject matter expert in your chosen field but despite your blatant skill and commitment, your Leader constantly told you what to do and how to do it.

You would probably feel frustrated, micro-managed and incompetent, starting a vicious cycle of losing confidence, engagement and producing poor work. These frustrations will likely lead to stress and having a defensive mentality about your work. The lack of freedom to showcase your skill sets will likely leave you bored and looking for a new job.

Business example

I was in a meeting with colleagues and there was some tension between one of the senior leaders on the call and another member of the project. I knew both people well and they were both highly skilled in their roles but they had contrasting personalities and would often clash at misunderstandings.

The senior leader began discussing some of the work my colleague had done and took the directive approach, advising what they wanted changing and how my colleague should proceed. There had already been tension based on the directive leadership approach and my colleague reacted in a very defensive manner.

The situation quickly escalated and I knew I needed to step in. I reframed the senior leaders comments, taking the focus away from the work itself and reinforced the common ground that we all wanted to build a successful project in order to meet our objectives. I began asking questions around the completed work and whether there could be a more effective way to meet the objective. The tension settled and we worked towards getting the right outcome for the project.

Later that day, the senior leader spoke to me about the situation, thanking me for the intervention and asking what the other persons problem was. Conscious that this leader likely knows more theories than I do and had more experience than me as well, I knew telling them their approach could have been better wasn’t going to get us any long lasting results. I explained that my colleague is passionate, is an expert in their field and that even with the best intentions, telling them what to do rarely goes down well. Despite it being from the right place, my colleague understood the criticism as an attack on their work instead of an attempt to deliver the best product possible.

I then asked how the senior leader would typically deal with this kind of scenario as I work closely with this person and could do with a few tactics to maintain relationships whilst making suggestions for improvements. The leader thought for a minute and suggested a supportive/facilitating style so the colleague could come up with a better way themselves.

Without realising it, the senior leader had just been coached on how best to interact with my colleague in future meetings and their change in Leadership style went over a lot better than their previous one.

Key Learning

Directive leadership has its place, using this leadership style in the wrong situation could have disastrous implications for your followers morale, mindset and your relationship with them. Where your team have the skill set, trust and support them to deliver.

2. Don’t dictate, collaborate

There are times where a follower, despite low competence may have a great idea. Disregarding this idea may damage their confidence, morale and trust in you as well as depriving the business a great new solution. There is something we can learn from everyone, so don’t close yourself off from new ideas just because someone is new to the role.

Whilst it’s true, the purpose of Directive leadership is to tell people what to do based on their competency, you can actually create problems by being too directive! The below example demonstrates this.

Business Example

Deadlines were tight, we had targets that needed to be met, audits that needed competing and feedback needed to be provided to front line staff. We were drowning.

In our weekly planning meeting we focused on key time-stealers and tactics to deal with them so we could prioritise our time and maximise our efficiency. We all agreed, the number one cause of lost time for us was the front line agents asking us questions, seemingly on every call, in every situation. We were failing as leaders. With the agreement of the leadership team in the room, we decided to turn this around. We would take shifts as ‘blockers’, the blocker would literally intercept agents coming to other members of the leadership team whilst they were working on their prioritised tasks.

The real success was in the time the blockers invested with the staff however. We realised that by telling people what to do, we had removed their autonomy. They hadn’t developed the confidence to make their own decisions or find the right process to follow. The blockers real job was in refusing to give answers, they simply asked the staff what the process said or coached the staff on what they thought they should do based on the right outcome.

The time invested here, saved us time in the long run as we began to build a more confident and autonomous team. The amount of queries slowed down over the next few weeks and over the following months, despite other time constraints, we achieved our targets and actually managed to utilise spare time to help other departments hit their objectives as well.

Key Learning

Be mindful on how your approach is impacting your followers, by telling our new starters what to do in every situation, we didn’t allow them to build up any confidence in how to problem solve by themselves or bring their own creativity to the role.

By collaborating with them and boosting their confidence, we were able to build a stronger workforce that, despite their limited time in role started to find their own solutions. We would still guide them towards the right process, we just stopped spoon feeding them every step of it.

3. Don’t dismiss development

One of the key disadvantages of Directive leadership is that it rarely allows for the development of your followers. The Leaders time is spent telling people what to do, not providing coaching feedback to see them improve.

Whilst it’s great in the short-term, which is better for your time in the long-term? Having a follower that you have to direct for each change to their task and role or having a follower that you can delegate work to and trust it can be completed to a high standard?

The Directive leader relies on their experience being greater than their followers. This means that if you don’t develop your people, the success of your organisation relies solely on your ability to follow market trends and maintain industry standards. Where you do not you are putting your organisation at risk.

By developing your people, you have a better chance of retaining this employee, saving your company money on recruitment and training costs. You can also help create and enable your Follower to be an innovator and encourage them to progress. I don’t know about you but my personal belief is that a Leaders job is to create more Leaders, not to have subservient Followers.

 

To summarise the don’ts of this model, Directive Leadership can be a great option when you are:

  1. Don’t disregard diversity
  2. Don’t always dictate – collaborate
  3. Don’t dismiss development

With the Do’s and Dont’s covered, it’s time to look at the Dichotomy of Directive Leadership:
 

The Dichotomy of Directive Leadership

 

Summary

Directive Leadership is a fantastic tool and is best utilised as part of a varied skill set, inline with the other leadership styles outlined in Situational Leadership.

The best situations to use this style are

  1. Leading New Starters or people with low levels of competence.
  2. Leading through an urgent situation or making quick decisions
  3. Where rules must be followed without exception

Key points to remember about Directive Leadership:

  1. You should remain polite and professional
  2. You should be reflective and utilise it with a purpose

Remember that using Directive Leadership for every situation is unlikely to yield you with the best results or the most effective team. Whilst it is a great tool to use in certain situations, it can leave your team feeling like they are not trusted, valued or competent in their role and may create barrier for you to be an effective leader.

Thank you for using your time and our resources to further your understanding and skill set. If you have any feedback, queries or requests please get in touch with us at:

CONNECT@developtheedge.com
 

We have created the below resources for you to utilise. Click each image to preview the content and download it to your device:

One page guide – Directive Leadership

One page guide – Situational Leadership

Course – Directive Leadership

Video – Directive Leadership

Reflection template – Directive Leadership in practice

Quiz – Directive Leadership

We are currently working on our Learning Management System, this course will be available shortly.

File Name: Directive-Leadership-Reflection-Template.pdf

File Name: DTE-Directive-Leadership-Quiz.xlsm

 

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