Coach John G. Agno is your own cultural attache; keeping you abreast of what's effective in leadership. People learn better and are positively motivated when supported by regular coaching.
PERSONAL COACHING Leadership onboarding coaching helps the executive adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with their team and develop productive ways to achieve necessary goals.
SELF ASSESSMENT CENTER Leadership skills and style testing. Know how you motivate and coach people to gain success at work and in life.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP? Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
LEADERSHIP TIPS “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)
Privacy Policy We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
For example, Google, as a third party vendor, uses a DART cookie to serve ads on this site based upon your visit to our sites and other sites on the Internet. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting Google ad and content network privacy policy at: www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please contact the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) at (207) 467-3500 or www.networkadvertising.org.
When we come to know and accept ourselves, we become free to accept others and appreciate how they complement us.
Whether you are looking for a job promotion, seeking peace within your team, or looking to improve relationships, we can all benefit from learning more about what drives and energizes us. Finding common ground among an office or different personalities can sometimes be difficult or even detrimental to a career or an organization.
What if discovering what motivates you and others, you can begin to identify and eliminate what doesn't? In "The Birkman Method: Your Personality at Work" by Sharon Birkman Fink and Stephanie Capparell defines a critical workplace assessment that has given millions of business professionals the awareness tools they need to reach a higher level of performance.
The Birkman self-assessment goes beyond behavior to give insight as to why certain things will satisfy or stress you. It is built on the foundation that once you discover your own personality and interests, you can better understand others, resulting in a more fulfilling work environment.
Each person who buys the book, will be able to complete a full Birkman questionnaire and receive his or her own personal "life style gird" with an easy-to-understand summary of key Birkman scores, which are more thoroughly described in the book. The book then helps you understand your results and personal report.
There have been a number of books published that allow you to take a self-assessment within the book or authorize you to take one onlineand then provide a more complete understanding of who you are within the book.
There are four parts to the "Color Q" assessment and one supplemental section. Together, they take you about 10 minutes to complete by selecting your preferences within the book.
Other self-assessment books available online or at your local bookseller (see examples below), direct the reader to take an online assessment and then an email report is confidentially delivered to the person who took the self-assessment while the book references detailed information on the various personality styles/classic profiles.
The key to enjoying and succeeding at work and life lies in knowing your core strengths--and making the most of them. Are you an Introvert or Extrovert? Grounded, realistic and accountable? Competitive and theoretical? Spontaneous and action-oriented? Creative and empathetic? To find out, get a clear blueprint for using your natural abilities more effectively by taking one or more self-assessments to determine your personality type and what you do best.
Introverts and Extroverts
Many people believe that introverts, by definition, are shy and extroverts are outgoing. This is incorrect. Introverts and extroverts differ in how they process information. Introverts get their energy internally. Extroverts gain energy from being with other people, often the more the merrier.
There are shy extroverts and outgoing introverts. Most of us have a little of both in us, but lean one way or the other.
Introverts often prefer to spend time alone or in small groups of people, and they tend to carefully gather their thoughts before they speak. Extroverts love to talk and typically "think out loud," processing information by talking.
You don't need a degree in psychology to see how this could cause serious problems in a relationship. Introverts and extroverts approach the world in fundamentally different ways. Introverts think extroverts talk too fast, too loud and too much. Extroverts often believe introverts are awkward, withholding or cold.
People involved in the delivery of coaching may also become ambassadors of coaching in their sphere of influence. However, it is the high-level management of coaching initiatives that sets the overall frame and direction of coaching within an organization and provides the central basis for successful coaching.
What qualifies you to be a manager responsible for coaching in your company?
What experience do you already have in the field?
What relevant training/education have you undertaken?
What coaching bodies and associations do you belong to?
What relevant characteristics/signature talents do you bring into the organization?
What are your key strengths and weaknesses in terms of implementing and improving coaching?
What is the breadth and depth of your coaching capability?
On a scale of 1 to 10 (10= very high), what degree of coaching implementation and improvement intelligence do you have?
How committed are you to enhancing your coaching intelligence further?
Find optimal ways to fill your identified gaps
Use external guidance and support to develop your coaching capability to the needed level: receive mentor coaching on being an effective manager responsible for coaching in a firm.
Employ one or more suitable coaching experts to raise your company's internal coaching implementation and intelligence.
Consider full outsourcing: Have an external coaching manager appointed to the role of managing coaching in your company.
Pick and start with only those areas where you already have suitable coaching capability.
Whatever choices you make, keep ownership of the process as a whole and find a suitable mix of external and internal coaching capability for your specific purposes.
Excellent coaching can only produce benefits and unfold its potential when properly implemented and used by the person(s) being coached. A slight lack of integrity and quality in a coaching initiative may lead to a significant loss of trust, consistency or functionality and bring about the failure of a coaching program.
1. Identify and define your company-specific integrity and quality standards for coaching.
2. Get and/or develop suitable people to meet the requirements properly, monitor integrity and quality effectively and carefully.
3. Intervene and act promptly where the standards are not fulfilled and ensured.
It is particularly important to create a learning atmosphere where people, who are being confidentially coached, are encouraged and feel comfortable to talk openly with their professional coach about their setbacks, problems and concerns in order to allow their perceptions to evolve.
No manager or executive within an organization wants their boss or the human resource (HR) department to know their personal weaknesses or concerns. That is why the best solution is to engage an "outside professional coach" whose integrity and ethics will maintain the confidentiality of conversations with the person-being-coached. It is especially important for HR departments and top management to be aware of the risks of breeches of confidentiality and possible conflicts of roles/interests in the context of utilizing "internal coaches" within an organization.
Setting clear rules, in particular regarding confidentiality, and ensuring a safe and respectful learning environment in a coaching program is essential to maintain trust of participants. Top management must respect the confidentiality/privacy of personal and performance coaching and not abuse coaching (e.g. by telling an "internal coach" to manipulate an 'uncomfortable' employee in a certain way).
In today's fast-paced and hyperconnected global economy, leaders are pressured to make multiple decisions and do so quickly.
In such an volatile environment, leaders tend not to take the time to reflect and use sound judgment; the result is hurried decisions that lead to poor outcomes for themselves and their organization.
In particular, some leaders tend to decide instinctively based primarily on their own experience, without paying enough attention to the changes in the larger context. Risk averse, they may either procrastinate when faced with difficult decisions or make decisions that may yield tactical benefits but be unviable in the long term.
Other leaders are more willing to make bold decisions that could generate strategic long-term benefits. But given their self-centered and emotional personality, they tend to rush into decisions without heeding their intuition, let alone getting input from others.
Wise leaders are more effective decision makers due to their unique decision logic--that is, the set of systems, processes, and reasoning principles they use in decision making--developed over time and tested in different scenarios. Context awareness and ethical clarity altogether form the cornerstone of a wise leader's decision logic. This clarity gives wise leaders discernment--the ability to judge well in crises and make ethically sound and yet pragmatic decisions using a combination of logic, instinct, intuition and emotion.
Also known as worldview, mental model or mind-set, our perspective of the world is based on the sum total of our knowledge and experiences. It defines us, shaping our thoughts and actions because it represents the way we see ourselves and situations, how we judge the relative importance of things, and how we establish a meaningful relationship with everything around us.
Shifting perspective means becoming sensitive to the context around us and being able to see the world without any filters. It allows us to broaden our worldview and empathize with people who think and act radically different from us. A perspective shift could yield different insights and actions.
When interpersonal conflicts arise within their team, wise leaders resolve them by framing the conflict in a larger context. They enjoy and excel at coaching and mentoring others in their process of shifting their perspective.
Albert Einstein once said: "One cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it in the first place." As the global business environment, driven by diversity and interconnectivity, becomes increasingly complex, we all need a range of skills to deal with the challenges. Smart leaders need to identify and understand the limitations of their perspective and then learn to shift it.
SAP (Systems-Applications-Programs) AG, a global provider of business software, has implemented coaching programs based on effective personal development accomplishing business goals while meeting the challenges of the coachee's professional role in an optimal way. SAP leadership has been following these prevailing coaching issues from:
After six years, the "leader as coach" pool in Germany comprises more than 70 internal part-time coaches (i.e. coaches who work as a coach besides their main role/activity) coming from all levels of hierarchy and functions.
The return on investment (ROI) of coaching can be enormous, especially in the context of project management. The following feedback may illustrate this point: "Coaching helped us prevent a potential project loss of at least Euros 100,000, because an excellent project lead found a way to manage tremendous task overload for almost a year."
Coaching is one of the fastest growing business phenomena in the world.
Coaching is increasingly used as a professional business tool and becoming ingrained into organizational life in various ways. The challenge for organizations is how to implement and optimize coaching successfully.
Many enterprises are not applying the management tools for the successful use of coaching in companies yet. In particular, the following five critical areas can be identified in the current poor coaching practice in many companies:
The 2013 Edition of "The Global Business Guide for the successful use of Coaching in Organizations" is available as paperback or ebook editions and provides a complete set of 7 effective management tools for the optimal design, implementation and optimization of coaching programs and confirms the implementation of coaching in organizations as a distinct discipline. This book addresses beginner, advanced as well as master levels regarding the use of coaching in companies. Wherever coaching is right now in your organization, the Global Business Guide will help you to take coaching to the next level.
A growing body of evidence shows that the ability to be smarter with ones feelings is tied to improved leadership, effectiveness, relationships, decision-making health and well-being; all of which help higher emotional intelligence (EQ) leaders create greater economic and societal value.
“EQ has quickly become a global movement that’s helping companies large and small rebuild trust internally to make its employees happier and more productive, which in turn impacts the overall ROI,” said Joshua Freedman, chief operating officer for Six Seconds and the chairman of NexusEQ, a global conference taking place this summer at Harvard. “We now know that these skills alone predict more than 50 percent of performance – which is more than can be said for IQ, or even for technical skills. Companies implementing EQ have stronger leaders and more committed employees, which turns into productivity, loyal customers and profit.”
EQ – Explained and In Practice
Just as the traditional idea of cognitive intelligence is measured by IQ, emotional intelligence tests create an EQ score. Though various working models of emotional intelligence exist, all recognize the importance of accurately assessing emotional data, then integrating and applying it effectively. The Six Seconds model of emotional intelligence structures these into a three-step process for putting EQ into action:
Awareness is “Know Yourself” – accurately assessing emotional data
Management is “Choose Yourself” – consciously selecting emotional response
Direction is “Give Yourself” – purposefully applying emotion toward significance
Among the benefits that organizations have reported:
EQ has twice the power of IQ to predict overall performance
High EQ salespeople at L’Oreal achieved $2.5 million more in sales
An EQ initiative at Sheraton helped increase the hotel chain’s market share by nearly 25 percent
The U.S. Air Force is using EQ to screen para-rescue jumpers to save $190 million
Higher EQ managers in a major restaurant chain created 34 percent greater annual profit growth
The seventh NexusEQ conference will take place at Harvard University from June 24-26, and will feature more than 80 experts sharing examples of how emotional intelligence is creating a positive impact around the world.
According to Freedman, the goal of the conference is to help leaders learn how to leverage the science and practice of emotional intelligence to improve prosperity and well-being in the workplace and community. More than 300 participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with some of the world’s best neuroscientists, authors and experts on emotion, learning and business to begin incorporating EQ into their lives and business practices.
Most of us have untapped talents that are tied to something unique in our makeup. Race, gender, physical factors, socioeconomic factors--anything that shapes us--all work together to define the talents that we either tap or fail to tap.
Extremely intelligent, well-educated men and women with master's degrees have a strong desire to succeed in their work but face unique organizational obstacles. For a variety of reasons, these professionals represent silent voices in their workplaces. They have come to be defined as "untapped talent"--professionals with relevant skills and abilities who aren't making the most of them.
Untapped talent comes in many different forms. Diversity, in other words, is quite diverse. Most people never hit their talent ceilings, and that reality isn't exclusive to any race or gender.
When a Person Lacks Access and Falls Far Shy of Potential
Access is one of the greatest nontangible levers to success. A single act of connecting with the right person who can provide you with the right information has changed many careers. Access raises the curtains to the rooms that are invisible to many but well-known by a select few--the power brokers in an organization.
Access Defined: Providing entry to an influential person(s) or being placed in a career situation that broadens your perspective and skill base.
One global leadership assessment conducted by a $35 billion corporation revealed that access, opportunity and development were the major factors that could increase the representation of women at its senior level. Like most global organizations, this one did well when it came to hiring and developing female professionals below the vice president level. Breaking through that wall where one became an officer of the company, however, was a very different story. Women represented 42 percent of the organization's workforce, but only 25 percent of its leaders who were a vice president or higher.
Navigating Untapped Talent
"The untapped mostly come from backgrounds that uniquely equip them with experiences that foster nontraditional thinking. When they draw on these experiences in a work environment, they offer fresh, innovative perspectives on organizational challenges. They become 'tapped talent,' and their passions and skills not only align but are applied to opportunities. Unlike the untapped, that are often invisible to many, the tapped are positioned to make an impact," says Dani Monroe, author of "Untapped Talent: Unleashing the Power of the Hidden Workforce."
Monroe's new book is organized in three sections. The first provides some foundation ideas about untapped talent and why it exists. The next section covers three specific areas where leaders can directly impact an organization by mining and refining talent. The third looks at three characteristics identified as essential in great leaders as it applies to untapped talent.
