Coaching For Leaders

Some people have heard that myth that how you look is more important than what you say. In this episode, I address this myth, describe in detail why what you say is the most important part of your presentation, and give practical advice for how to assemble presentation content. You can build a good presentation, even if you don't feel that you have professional delivery skills. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback I begin this episode by speaking about the often misunderstood study from Dr. Albert Mehrabian that is often cited as evidence by those who claim that how you say something is more important that what you say. Olivia Mitchell from Speaking About Presenting has an excellent article that addresses this issue head on. In addition, this video provides great perspective: The bottom line? What you say is far more important than how you say it. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." -Leonardo da Vinci Article I published last week: How One Key Question Gets Audience Results "

Leaders need to be able to speak confidently, clearly, and concisely to others - yet surveys show that at least 10% of the US population fears public speaking more than death. Even if that isn't true for you, chances are that you might not be as effective or confident as a speaker as you would like to be. In this new series, we'll look at what you can do as a leader to both speak and present more effectively, and help coach others to do this too. I started off this episode by talking about how I used to HATE public speaking and feared any speech...for days in advance. My trouble started in third grade and followed me well through college. I describe what I did to overcome these challenges and outlined three steps below that I know will be helpful to you as well. 1) Get in front of people! I looked for every opportunity to speak when I went to events I volunteered to help out at work in giving recognition to others You could also reach out to charities and non-profits - all need speakers! I didn't m

We turn our final episode of our training series to what every leader ought to know about sending people to training. Since episode #30, we've learned about many aspects of training, so this week we turn our focus to what you should know (and do) when sending people to training. I welcome Janet Riley, a gifted trainer and consultant, to help explore this topic. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Janet's extensive career in the learning and development industry has provided her thousands of hours in experience training leaders around the world, most recently with the David Allen Company. She provides important and practical wisdom for all leaders. Here's what I asked her: When is training a good way to develop someone? When is training the wrong answer? What are three things leaders can do before training to support people changing behaviors? What are some of the different attitudes people show up with in a training classroom - and how can a leader respond to each of these? What

Aaron Kent: Dale Carnegie In the opening of this episode, I mentioned the book Soar With Your Strengths, which I recommend. This week, I welcome a dear friend and business partner as my guest. Aaron Kent is the President & CEO of Dale Carnegie of Southern Los Angeles. I asked Aaron the following questions during our interview: What are some common misconceptions leaders have about training companies? How would a leader know its the right time to consider bringing in an outside resource like Dale Carnegie? What should leaders do to prepare for a first meeting with a company like Dale Carnegie? How does Dale Carnegie approach a first meeting (i.e. what can leaders expect?) In your experience, what do leaders who have great success with training do differently than those who have mediocre success? What's one thing that leaders don't do when hiring you that you wish they did? Since this show is about engaging and developing others with coaching, who is a leader that's been an effective coach for y

The term "learning objectives" might not show up in our everyday conversations, but it's an important tool for leaders to use in order to develop others. In this episode, we'll explain what a learning objective is, how to create an effective one, and how to use it in order to create results. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback I welcome back my favorite guest, Bonni Stachowiak! Instructional design most often starts with creating learning objectives. Most people start-and-finish with topics, but they are not specific enough and can lead to a lack of alignment on expectations. For example, the expectation to "know how to use Microsoft Word". Most people only use 2% of features of a Word Processor. One person's idea of "knowing" Word can be quite different than another's. Another example, "Understand how the economy effects small businesses in the US". How would I know if someone "understood" that or not? It isn't about topics! "The critical question, therefore, is not what topics to

Bonni Stachowiak: Teaching in Higher Ed Bonni Stachowiak is the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, a professor of business and management at Vanguard University, and my life partner. Prior to her academic career, Bonni was a human resources consultant and executive officer for a publicly traded company. She joins me monthly to respond to listener questions. Be sure to align with the organization's mission, vision, and goals: Requires that you have at least a basic understanding of strategy (long-term planning). There are many approaches to strategy. A good person to know about in the area of creating competitive advantage is Michael Porter. Steps to needs analysis: Determine the problem(s) by finding a key business lever that will make a big impact on the organization if it gets fixed/improved. People pay more attention to fixing problems than they do to making improvements. Affirm that the problem really is the problem (work with stakeholders to see if there is consensus on the key prob

Whether you have access to many training resources or none at all, there is a lot you can do as a leader to train others. In this episode, we'll examine 5 effective ways you can train the people you lead. Prepare Estimate how much time you will need in advance - then double it. If you fail to block enough time, either you will sell the person short by rushing, or you will impact other business operations by taking more time than planned. Be realistic with how long things will take. Coach the rest of the team and remind them that access to you when you are conducing on-the-job training will be more limited. Be sure to consider the organizational outcome you want to have come out of the new skill or behavior you are working on. It's not enough just to get the other party good at actions - they need to understand how these actions fit into the big picture. Demonstrate You'll want to fully demonstrate what it is that you want the other party to do. Suggest that the other person watch and observer -

Whether you have access to many training resources or none at all, there is a lot you can do as a leader to train others. In this episode, we'll examine 5 effective ways you can train the people you lead. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback 1. Hold a Class This is a great tool when lots of people need to learn something at the same time Ask yourself, "What do I want people walking out of this room doing differently?" Focus on the objectives instead of the logistics 2. On-the-Job Training This is helpful when the learning lends itself to this, there are less resources or time available, or if there is a very small number of people involved A lot of organizations talk about on-the-job training, but few really do it Be clear on what you want the person to learn during an established time period and design for that 3. Role-Playing This is helpful when teaching something that requires a lot of human interaction and thinking on your feet. Your steps: demonstrate - practice - co

Leaders often look to training activities in order to develop people. Training is a wonderful tool for growth, if used correctly. Unfortunately, some very common mistakes are often made. This week, Dave looks at six common mistakes leaders will want to avoid as we being a new series on training others. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Six Mistakes Leaders Make Sending People to Training 1. Not willing to participate yourself 2. Using a training class to give feedback 3. Doing nothing to be flexible during training 4. Sending one person to training and having them come back to train everyone else 5. Failing to provide practical application opportunities 6. Going silent Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback If what you've heard on this week's show has been valuable to you or if you've benefited from past episodes, please leave us a review on iTunes. You can do this at coachingforleaders.com/itunes and then click "View in iTunes." We are very grateful for your feedback! Commun

Bonni Stachowiak: Teaching in Higher Ed Bonni is the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Dean of Teaching and Learning and Professor of Business and Management at Vanguard University, and my life partner. Prior to her academic career, she was a human resources consultant and executive officer for a publicly traded company. Bonni is the author of The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide*. Multitasking is talked about lots, but rarely understood. In this week's episode, Bonni and Dave talk about multitasking, both personally and professionally, and what to keep in mind when leading others. Bonni recommends the book The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw as a reference tool for leaders. Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

In episode #27, we looked at what we can do in order to coach others to be productive. Now, we're turning the focus on ourselves as leaders to examine what we might be going to get in the way of people's productivity. Move to Outcome Based Meetings "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." - Cyril Parkinson Two Warning Signs: You can't figure out what to talk about. You're doing a data dump. What would awful thing would happen if we didn't meet today? Am I clear on what outcomes I want to have come out of this meeting? Move to outcome based meetings vs. schedule based meetings. You should have: Stated outcome Clear agenda Action items Align working environments with people Fortune Magazine says that drop-ins are the #1 productivity killer in offices Be conscious of how and where people like to work Put people on teams? By all means, assuming they work best that way. Otherwise, can people work alone? Every leader should see this: Watch Susan Cain's TED talk on The Power of

We turn our focus to productivity for this first episode of March. Many of the leaders who listen to this show are already productive themselves, but find themselves looking for ways to lead others to be more productive. In this episode, I'll share some ideas and strategies for helping others find their productive sweet spot. In the traditional paradigm of management, individuals waited for a manager to determine their work for them and assign duties. While organizations still rely on this old paradigm, people are increasingly being asked to step into a leadership role at every level of the organization. Some people are comfortable with this, but many are not ready for the demanding productivity that this requires. If that wasn't challenging enough, we are now all being overwhelmed with tons more information that we ever were before. Email, instant messages, conference calls, and text messages fill our days. Plus, we are asking everyone to do more with fewer resources. No wonder so many people struggle with

We've been discussing engagement this month and now it's take to take action. In this episode, I review 10 things you can do today to engage people with your leadership. As you are listening, be sure to commit to take at least one of these actions either today or tomorrow and then send feedback to the links below to let us know what results you've seen: Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback 1. Sponsor an employee goal. Most all leaders know of at least one goal that each employee is working on during the year. Now, get beyond the average leader and help employees take action to achieve their goal. While they bear the primary responsibility for their professional development, it's also your responsibility to help provide resources for them to get there. This might be in the form of funding, but it could also be providing them with an introduction to someone, making space in the workday for their development, allowing them to utilize company resources for their goal, and many other possibilities.

Understanding the theory behind engagement is an important first step, but it's worthless if we don't also have perspective on how to practically apply engagement in our organizations. This week, I interview Jan Frazee from Southwest Search Dogs. Jan is someone that I've come to respect over the years both personally and professionally for her ability to engage volunteers in her organization -- and I respect her even more as a parent, since she's also Bonni's mom! Interview with Jan Frazee President and Chief Executive Officer Southwest Search Dogs info@southwestsearchdogs.org Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback Thank you to all of the following individuals (and many others) who have either engaged with this community of helped promote this show to others: Fazila in Canada Sandrine in Mexico Charlie in the UK Frances in Texas Kindred in Lake Tahoe Diego in Brazil Stefan in Germany Hana in Singapore Yuria in Japan David in New England Mark in Texas Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com

Every leader needs to engage others in order to maximize the potential of the other person and their commitment to the organization. This week, we're beginning a series on how to engage the people that you lead. My apologies for not airing a show last week, but it was for a very good reason. Bonni and I welcomed our son into the world on February 2nd. Luke David Stachowiak is his name and both him and his mom are doing wonderfully well, now that we are home. I've attached a photo for those who'd like to see his adorable little face. We are very blessed indeed. This week's show begins with a quote from Teresa Amabile, author of The Progress Principle. In a recent commentary on Marketplace, she states, "The single most important thing that can keep workers deeply, happily engaged on the job is moving forward on work they care about -- even if the progress is an incremental "small win." Drive by Daniel Pink is an excellent read on how to engage others. In this book, says there are three things that Pink sugg

This episode puts all the pieces together from our personal leadership series into your 2012 action plan. I discuss in detail how I've used the Creating Your Life Plan ebook from Michael Hyatt to bring value to my life. During his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said: “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'no' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” See his full talk at this link. Community Feedback CoachingforLeaders.com/feedback I suggest downloading the Creating Your Life Plan ebook from Michael Hyatt. A piece of my vision that I had written down last year was: "The Coaching Skills for Leaders podcast and blog generates multiple comments weekly from listeners who have used the show to better their leadership and coaching skills." The action step behind that was: "Produce a consistent

Kirwan Rockefeller: Visualize Confidence Having a powerful vision can mean the difference between mediocrity and clear direction for the future. I welcome special guest Dr. Kirwan Rockefeller, author of Visualize Confidence, in order to help this community create our personal vision. Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Susan Gerke: GO Team Resources Our personality preferences influence every relationship we have, including those where we lead and coach. I welcome special guest and Innovate Learning senior facilitator Susan Gerke to discuss our strengths and blind spots in this episode. Susan and I discussed the spectrum of directing vs. informing language. Here are a few of the resources from Susan: Go Team Resources The I in Team* by Susan Gerke Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Your core values influence how you view the world and how you interact with others. It's key that we understand our own core values as part of our series on personal leadership. To reach me with questions, comments, or feedback: CoachingforLeaders.com I read a quote on page 46 of The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner Here are the values that I spoke about: Meaning - Investing my time and talent into things and people that personally inspire me in the world. Sustainability - Putting my effort into things that will provide lasting, positive change in the world. Vision - Creating the future by building things twice (once with vision, once in reality). Empowerment - Give others the confidence to learn, grow, and contribute to the world in sustainable ways. Love - My passion and desire to treat people like fellow human beings. Some questions for you to consider as you determine your core values: What is your perfect day? What are you doing when you are in flow and lose track of time

It's the new year and an important time to consider ourselves first, so that we can better lead others. This week, I begin a series on personal leadership that will take us through the month of January. Here are a few resources that I mentioned in this episode: The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner Five Practices - Model the Way is the first one Leadership from the Inside Out by Kevin Cashman HBR Managing Yourself The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey First three habits: private victory Habit #1: Be proactive Between stimulus and response, we have choices we can make Story of Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.