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Home > Resources > Progress! Newsletter > "Progress!" Issue No11 / December 04 Progress! First-Class Leadership - Issue No.11 / December 04 Dear Reader, Welcome to my first newsletter that focuses entirely on Leadership Coaching. As indicated in the last issue, I decided to cut Progress! into three different newsletters:
You may unsubscribe to the newsletters that are not of interest to
you. Unsubscribe by sending a blank email to:
I received an overwhelmingly positive feedback from a number of Progress!
subscribers, so I know this change is all for the best. Yours sincerely, Charlie Lang
1. Leadership Coaching To read Part I - III of this serial, please visit
www.progressu.com.hk/Progress!-newsletter.htm Part IV Competency No. 5: Giving Feedback Jenny, the HR director of a multinational group subsidiary, was asked by central headquarters to implement a systematic feedback process in her organization. The headquarters provided an evaluation form with five criteria for employees in leadership positions and four criteria for nonleaders. The evaluation used a scale of 1-5 for each criterion, with 5 as "exceeded expectations" and 1, "did not meet expectations at all". An information sheet with instructions on how to perform the feedback conversation was also provided.
Jenny thought it was a good idea, as she had been hearing complaints that some managers never give any feedback. With the evaluation process, there would be at least two formal feedback conversations per year with every employee.
However, the first round of feedback surprised her quite a bit. Joseph, the head of the finance department, apparently misunderstood the process. He gave the form to his staff, asking them to do a self-evaluation. Then he made an evaluation by himself. After which, he chose the lower score to fill in the form handed over to the HR department.
This was a wake-up call for the HR director and her local Managing Director. They realized that a form with written instructions alone would not do the job. To correct the problem, a half-day workshop on providing effective feedback was initiated with all managers of the subsidiary. The workshop was endorsed by the Managing Director to assure active participation. Furthermore, those managers who urgently needed to improve their feedback skills were enrolled in a 2-month coaching program.
Why is feedback so important and how should feedback ideally be given?
One of the most basic and important needs of any human being is the need for recognition. Providing feedback, whether positive or negative, at least tells the person that he or she is recognized as a person. In fact, receiving no feedback at all is actually worse for an employee than receiving negative feedback. At the same time, if a superior is only focused on the weaknesses of an individual, morale will be adversely affected somewhere down the line.
A first-class leader takes any opportunity to provide honest feedback, good or critical. Ideally, he focuses on the strengths of the person and starts highlighting them, thus providing a positive atmosphere. Once the positive points have been raised and discussed, areas for improvement can be addressed. If an employee is not talented at all for certain tasks, it is usually more productive to figure out how such tasks could be delegated or if the employee can work around them. It is a better idea to build on the strengths of the employee rather than trying to fix huge weaknesses. For instance, would you push a talented swimmer with little talent for running to become a better runner? With extensive training, there may be some improvement, but that person is unlikely to become a world-class runner. However, if you put the same energy and effort into making him an even better swimmer, the person might have the chance to become a world-class swimmer. Summary: Providing effective feedback is a skill that helps
anyone to progress in a learning organization. Feedback should be
given whenever the opportunity comes up. First-Class Leaders focus
on the strengths first and suggest improvements only when appropriate
and necessary.
Competency No. 6: Selecting the Right People Most leaders today agree that the people of the company are the most important asset they have. This is especially true in countries where the tertiary (service) sector is highly developed. It amazes me to no end how many leaders give such little priority to the selection process for new executives. Also, I am surprised by how many otherwise modern and forward thinking companies don't have established comprehensive selection processes.
During the last 5 to 6 years of my corporate career as director of a company, I had to employ several executives every year. What I learned very quickly was that one of the most crucial factors to successful search was the speed factor: How fast do I respond to the incoming applications? How much time am I willing to put into the selection process? How carefully am I studying CVs and other application documents?
After I missed some good opportunities in my first year of being a director, I decided that selecting people should be one of my top priorities whenever the need arises. This decision led to a number of important benefits:
I found that many managers don't make the selection process a top priority and I often hear them complaining that they can't find good people immediately. My research on this topic revealed that many managers:
What is truly important when hiring people? There are two areas to consider: eligibility and suitability.
Eligibility depends on a person’s education and experience related to a certain position. While the basics need to be there, I found that, in many cases, eligibility is given way too much importance. In fact, I have seen it often enough that managers only consider the eligibility unless the HR department assists in looking at the suitability as well. Eligibility is rather easy to determine as it is made up by hard factors.
Suitability is equally important but often underrated. The suitability of a candidate is determined by the talent and preferences of the candidate for a certain position. For example, the ability and willingness to create rapport with people which is a very important trait in sales, service or leadership. Or the ability and willingness to analyze pitfalls, which is especially important for example in positions where far-reaching decisions must be taken. How can we determine suitability? Interviewing a candidate is certainly a helpful indicator. However, I highly recommend supporting the interview with advanced psychometric assessments such as Harrison Assessments, which has a built-in lie detector (for more information, visit www.progressu.com.hk/assessments.htm).
Last not but not least, it is important to see whether "chemistry" between the candidate and her/his potential boss is good enough to ensure a positive collaboration in the new job. Also, a further consideration is to check whether the value system of the individual is compatible with the values of the organization.
As managers are often very busy and employing people is usually not their core competency, I recommend to engage professional executive search companies such as Fullmark Human Resources Management Ltd. (www.fullmarkhrm.com) and St. George's Group (www.stghk.com), companies that really care for both the employer and the employee, knowing that it has to be a win-win situation at the end of the day.
Summary: Selecting the right people is one of the core tasks
of any leader. First-Class leaders employ first-class executives,
2nd class leaders employ 3rd class employees. Make selecting the right
people a top priority and don't hesitate to ask for professional support
from executive search specialists. NOTE: Learn the Top 10 Leadership Skills of this serial in Progress-U's ongoing Teleclass Program. For program details, schedule and registration, please visit www.progressu.com.hk/teleclasses.htm. You only need a quiet place and a telephone and you can participate no matter where you are.
For more information related to Progress-U Leadership Coaching please visit http://www.progressu.com.hk/leadership.htm.
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