#281: 3 letters you need to know as a leader - TCM
As a leader, manager, executive, or any other position that has a team, you need to identify what part of TCM you are best at
The phone rings, and you see that it is an old colleague of yours. Being a servant leader you don’t let it go to voicemail, you pick it up to see what the call is about.
After a few minutes of idle chit-chat, here it comes, the ask. “I am being recruited, and although I think I am ready to be a CEO, I would really like your opinion on how to proceed”.
Assume that you disagree with their assumption of being completely ready for the position. The person on the other end of the phone definitely needs work on their team-building skills, and maybe a few other areas of concern. Overall they have several good qualities that will enhance their ability to be a good CEO, but how do you answer this question? You have three directions you can take this phone call.
TCM - Training, Coaching, Mentoring
As a leader, there are three ways you can help your team members. These methods help you add value to them so they can grow into leaders themselves.
Training is showing
When you use training as an option, you are showing that person what to do. You point to them and tell them exactly what to do, when to do it, and take any real guesswork out of the equation. When you learned how to use a computer program, someone told you how to open, save, file, and edit a document. As you were taught a new language, you were told when and how to pronounce these new words. That is training in a nutshell.
In the above example you could have told your colleague, “you may think you are ready, but you need to learn how to work with your team better. You need to do x, y, and z before you say yes, and I will walk you through each of those steps until you get it right.”
Coaching is asking
A good coach lets you find the answer within themselves. Coaching is about many things. However, principally it is about change. It is about developing emotional intelligence and conscious awareness.
In business, coaching is a leadership behavior that lies at the opposite end of the spectrum to command and control, and in effect addresses the whole person, not just ‘the role’ and business issues.
When you coach someone through a question, whether you know the answer or not, you ask them the questions that unearth the answers. Who, what, where, when, why, and how questions that don’t have easy yes and no answers.
For example, in our above case, these are the types of questions you may ask;
“Tell me why you think you are ready for this position”
“Knowing that we all need continuous improvement, what skills do you lack, or need sharpening to make you an effective leader”
“How are you going to go about improving in that area”
Where else in your life can you point to, where your leadership skills have helped you through a situation? How can you relate that to this new opportunity?
Every question could create a list of ten new questions, but in the end, the answer will be clear to them. And it is their own answer. One that they will buy into, and therefore have a greater chance of success with.
Mentoring is telling
Another option to address a situation is mentoring. In short, this is when you provide an answer to the question. You are using your own experience as your guide in these cases. In these situations you may tell a story of something similar that happened to you, giving the pluses and minuses of the outcomes. These are not hypothetical, they actually happened.
If there are potential consequences of these decisions, your mentoring helps the mentee prepare for them. They are learning from your mistakes, as well as your achievements.
A mentor may share with a mentee (or protege) information about his or her own career path, as well as provide guidance, motivation, emotional support, and role modeling. A mentor may help with exploring careers, setting goals, developing contacts, and identifying resources.
Thus, in our example; mentoring your colleague would require you being forthright. You may explain to them that although they possess quite a few of the skills, they need work on team building. At that point you offer guidance, how you obtained those skills, where they could go for additional support, and provide the external motivation to get them positioned for success.
Which is best?
The obvious answer is that the best technique depends on the situation. However, it is critical to know what process is best and to stay within that process. Training is the method that is the most obvious. When there is a skill lacking, that only needs knowledge and practice, you train them and monitor their progress. More training could be needed to improve those skills, but like learning how to type, once you know where the keys are it is only a matter of time before you become proficient
What we run into in the coaching and mentoring functions is quite a bit of crossover. As a coach, it is sometimes so easy to see the problem and tell the person what the answer is. The temptation to expedite the solution is there. However, it is not the right answer to a question, if the person being coached didn’t come up with it on their own. To change behavior, coaching is the best form of work you can do as a leader. The person being coached internalizes the answers that they come up with on their own. The old quote “people will remember how you make them feel” comes to mind here. The ‘aha’ moment is one that impacts them more and can be sustained the longest.
If you pride yourself on being a leader who trains, coaches, and mentors, make sure you are doing it at the right times. It is hard work today, but will lead to better tomorrows! Looking for coaching on how to do this? Give us a call at the Kole Performance Group!
If you are looking for that helping hand, set up a meeting with us directly with this link: https://calendly.com/kpgmeet/meetup