2025 Priority: The Leadership Team

It’s time to plan for the year ahead, leadership and L&D teams are outlining their plans against business priorities and focus. Since we work across a broad spectrum of clients, we can be an indicator of trends that are beginning to emerge and how other companies are prioritizing them. And we’re often asked: “what do you see as the priority?”

The group that’s emerging as a priority for development focus in many companies is the leadership team itself. And it’s not surprising when you consider the pace of work and expected acceleration in results, the change in work with transformative capabilities like AI and the ever-evolving way of working across the workforce. Add to that, almost half of the leaders sitting in the top seats are new to those seats based on acquisitions, early retirements and C-Suite movement.

Individually, top leaders have always been a priority in terms of upleveling communication skills, approaching new settings and new audiences, and driving impact with messaging and storytelling. But this focus isn’t on the individuals as much as the team.

Over the last year, we’ve been asked to help the senior team:

• Carry a message across a company
• Collaborate more effectively for faster decisioning
• Balance likeability and accountability with employee base
• Strengthen their visibility and authenticity in video communication

Essentially, it’s working better as a team to manage communication going up to their Board and key stakeholders to gain support, across to their peers and business partners to balance different perspectives, and down to employees to keep engagement high with their employees.

As we worked across different teams, here’s what we learned beneath each of those requests.

Leadership Brands:

Leaders have to stay visible within companies and industries to have impact. They have to position a point of view and reinforce it almost as a campaign to be sure it takes hold within their organizations. It’s gotten harder to do that as new ways of working settle in. And they’ve had to rethink how they communicate in terms of format to be sure their communication has reach and impact.

We’ve helped leaders think about where authenticity shows up best, how messaging is best reinforced, and the intention communication takes to add flexibility to how everyone else consumes it. One area we’ve focused on a lot is the use of video. And while a lot of this coaching happens individually, we’ve worked with entire teams recently to consider their reach collectively and to streamline formats for consistency across the company.

The Enterprise Voice:

This is one of the hardest areas to align a leadership team. Most have had distinct voices as leaders, and as senior leaders, they recognize the need to align as one voice. It makes sense conceptually, but it’s hard to get a group of leaders to follow it. It takes a process and an understanding of how to balance their voice and the company’s voice on key topics. And they can get lost in understanding it takes all of them to carry a message forward.

In most cases, we aren’t producing the messaging for clients. We’re coaching this team to work with the messaging they’re given by internal teams to find ways to align to the enterprise voice while still staying authentic to their individual ones. Leaders often feel they lose their own voice to the company voice, and we coach teams how to effectively balance the two and distinguish between them.

Peer Decisioning & Alignment

One sound bite we heard throughout the last year was “we have division leaders, not enterprise leaders.” And what they mean is that their leaders are very skilled at leading their functional areas. But they often get stuck gaining alignment across their peer group because they don’t take the time to balance perspectives.

Our coaching has focused on finding common ground and aligning to another leader’s value. Peers aren’t always quick to say yes, and they say it’s because they don’t see value for their own organization or the full enterprise. It’s one of the most critical communication skills needed on top teams because it’s the only way they can move quickly.

The Employee Base

Bench strength got thin following the pandemic as seasoned leaders took early retirement and allowed some to catapult quickly to top roles. In many cases, they haven’t learned how to manage  communication with large groups of employees. It isn’t a new skill need, but it’s become a more  apparent one. Companies are just busy and they’re moving fast. The catalyst of that movement is top down, but communicating what’s happening and why it’s happening isn’t always met with the same priority and focus.

Leaders miss an important opportunity and sometimes even set themselves up for risks when they aren’t well prepared. We help teams build the rigor of preparation and the skills of storytelling to make sure they gain repeatability and impact with one of their most important audiences.

The leadership team isn’t the only priority we’ve experienced.

Middle managers are still a focus as companies see increased visibility as a benefit and a liability. Expectations haven’t changed around how managers communicate with leaders, both in terms of the ability to structure a storyline and to lead a conversation with confidence. We continue to tailor the format and focus of our Leading Executive Conversation programs, and it remains one of the most popular ways to combine content development with executive presence.

We have lots of new topics on our mind and enjoy learning ourselves as companies plan for the year ahead. And we hope there’s a conversation ahead with you about leadership and communication as a part of your planning.

We’re here when you need us!

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

The Evolution of People Leaders: What They See & What They Miss

Our interest in people leaders and managers continues.

So much so that it was our introductory topic for a recent Chief Learning Officer conference in Boston. As we opened the discussion, we wanted to know if the top learning leaders had the same observations inside their companies as we’ve had as coaches all year.

We asked them to choose the statement below that best represented their companies:

1. Managing people has never been a more challenging role in our company.
2. Managing people is one of the strongest skills we have in our company.
3. Managing people has become a continuous learning curve that we can’t stay ahead of in our company.

Only one attendee felt the second statement fit their company. Everyone else felt statement one or three applied. So, we went a little further.

We asked them to choose the statement below that best represented their people leaders:

1. Our people leaders are set in their ways and frustrated by a broader set of expectations from us and our employees.
2. Our people leaders are inexperienced and haven’t developed the skills needed to manage how employees want to work and what they need to feel valued.
3. Our people leaders are exhausted by trying to stay aligned to demands in our business and expectations of our employees.

The start of our discussion confirmed what we’ve observed for the last few years. People leaders are under pressure and don’t have the right tools or skills to manage all the expectations coming their way.

And while we expected the responses to the opening questions, the discussion surprised us.

Even for those it’s a top pain point, supporting people leaders is not a top priority. Many of these leaders talked about it as an employee problem more than a manager’s challenge. And it validated our biggest observation which is that people leaders are begging for support, and no one has an easy answer. In fact, the pressure on people managers is getting worse.

Gallup measured the changes that people managers said they navigated last year:

• 64% said they were given additional job responsibilities, not promotions.
• 51% said they were restructuring teams.
• 42% said they were managing “budget cuts,” which often has a resource implication.

And the HR teams, for the first time ever, have the highest turnover of any functional area within a company.

Why is this such a gap?

Because companies reset a work model, and a rigor, without a manual. Senior leaders are pushing harder for results, and they don’t have a view of how that gets translated or implemented three levels below.

Remote work has done a lot of good things from reducing costs to expanding talent pools. But it takes more effort in coordination, teamwork and culture. Managers bear much of the responsibility of overcoming those challenges. We didn’t see it in a strong labor market because people just left if they didn’t like their manager. But job hopping has slowed down, and disgruntled employees are staying. Soon, we’ll all feel the frustration inside companies.

Why is it so hard to manage?

Because we introduced so much flexibility during the pandemic that managers don’t have guardrails to put any sort of team expectation back in place. Companies thought flexibility was temporary; employees thought it was permanent. And there continues to be friction to find balance.

Employees say their needs are unmet. They aren’t getting opportunities for development, and managers aren’t delivering on their expectations. And many employees have big expectations. Some are not realistic, but they still create challenging conversations. And companies have a limited view of how their managers handle them.

And why aren’t people managers catching on?

That’s the hardest part. Most people managers would say they are sitting in the middle of a perfect storm…increased demand from the company and higher expectations from employees. They’re trying! They’ve asked us for help handling conversations about:

• Limitless vacation and employees who’ve taken advantage of it.
• Requests for a sabbatical in the second year of employment.
• Employees who don’t like traffic, don’t like mornings, need fitness breaks, quiet rooms, and space away from a difficult colleague.
• Employees who go around managers if they don’t get the approval they want.
• Employees won’t don’t fly, who don’t turn on virtual cameras, who don’t answer cell phones, who don’t always seem to be working.

It’s harder than it’s ever been. Not because employees don’t have needs and expectations. But because the rules have shifted, and the interpretation of those new rules sits squarely with the people managers.

As our conversations continued at the conference, we heard more about gaps within companies and different situations managers were dealing with.

It’s handling conversations, demands and feedback. It’s knowing when to be firm and when to be lenient. And it’s being confident enough to pause and think before you respond.

It put us into coaching overdrive sharing ideas to:

• Reset teams to working as a team, not just as individuals
• Coach a manager to feel confident and stay settled in a challenging conversation
• Communicate a difference in a promotion and a development opportunity
• See, listen, and understand before you solve
• Set the difference in a general expectation and a specific request
• Adopt a conversation model to uncover the WHY underneath a skill or behavior gap
• Define parameters so exceptions don’t evolve into patterns

And while the spontaneous conversations were lively, we can do more than sketch an idea on a napkin! We’ve embraced this challenge, and we’ve developed workshops to help people managers evolve, expand and reinvent their skills. We meet them right in the middle of their experiences and responsibilities, and we coach a new way of communicating options and decisions. And I hope we’ve built confidence to help managers move through the perfect storm.

If your people managers could use a little support, we’d like to learn more about their challenges. And as we continue to talk to companies about building a better manager toolkit, we’re considering different formats which may include an open enrollment program that brings managers from different companies together. Let us know your interest by joining us on a call to explore the topic further.

We’re here when you need us!

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

When the Company Story Becomes a Financial One

When a company is up for sale, three key players take center stage: the current investor, the banker and the top executives.

And while the PE firms and the bankers know their roles well, the company leadership team is walking into a setting that’s less familiar to them. As the key spokespeople for the company, they should be the company’s best communicators. And in most settings, they are.

They bring credibility to a big prospect presentation. They add inspiration to an employee all-hands meeting. And they establish buy-in with their current investor and Board on strategies and new opportunities.

But pitching the company as a financial story is something they haven’t done often. And it’s different enough that they lose some confidence and conviction around how to do it well.

Here’s why:

It’s not the way they tell the story. – The storyline is created by the bankers. And it’s much less about solving needs for clients or inspiring a culture behind a vision. It’s focused with a critical eye on the value of the company and the potential that value has to expand in the future. It’s much less about where you’ve been and much more about proving where you could go. It’s a sum of details that have to add up. And it’s a way of positioning the company and assessing it that the founders or current leaders haven’t considered.

It’s heavy on data and details. – Most leaders don’t use slides in a lot of what they do. They’re the inspiring element of the company, so they speak from the heart, they speak from an outline or they speak off the cuff. They do not speak from heavy data slides. So, when the bankers hand over a deck for a management presentation, it’s overwhelming to them. Many leaders say they don’t see “their story” within it.

The story’s there, but it’s a different way of presenting it. It’s full of insights. It’s full of data points. It maximizes landscape with 9 or 10 points on every page. And that’s different than how a business leader has been coached to inspire and engage an audience.

And it’s more of a team effort than they’re accustomed to. – That’s a nuance that matters in communication. Leaders present together, but they stay in their own lanes and talk to their areas of responsibility. They might call it a team presentation, but it’s more five focus areas coming together. In a management presentation, they need to align to the same core messages and the same sound bites. They need to be well-aligned on handling questions so that there is a consistent response and belief across the team.

And it’s the ability to solve those three differences that brought us into the investment coaching space more than a decade ago. The role of the key players remains the same: positioning the company for a successful exit from one investor to another. Our role is an added addition: helping the communicators, as individuals and a team, find their confidence in a tougher setting with a different lens on content.

We do it with a three-step process that focuses on: the talk track, the communicators and the team.

The talk track doesn’t mean the deck or the positioning. That’s the bankers’ role. Our work focuses on helping each leader find their voice in a storyline that is less familiar to them. While the slides are dense to leaders, it’s common place in a sell position. These decks are used to position companies as pre-reads and as documentation to set the story without the leaders. So, the slides won’t change. But we can help leaders consider how their voice comes through and how to work with headlines and foot lines to avoid getting bogged down in the details and losing their train of thought or their audience as a result of it.

The seasoned communicators need some support in thinking through how they want to position themselves along with the story. Most of this work is on personal style and leveraging great communication skills to be clear, concise and compelling. It’s a high-pressure setting. So, each leader wants feedback and a few coaching adjustments to be sure they bring their “A” game to the setting.

And finally, the team. Learning to manage key messages and sound bites in a messaging document is a new skill for most leadership teams. It’s pulling everything into a few big concepts that help them consider how to make points repeatable. And it’s a rehearsal that helps them see the flow of the talk track, their ability to tether back to key points and appear as an aligned team in a high-stake setting.

We’re the added addition that allows the bankers and current investors to stay focused on attracting buyers while we stay focused on helping the leadership team find their voice in presenting a financial storyline. So, whether your role is exiting a company in your portfolio or building the financial storyline to pitch it to other investors, we can ensure that the communicators you’re counting on bring their best to the opportunity.

Call us when you need us.

 

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

The Language of Business

Do you speak the language of business?

If you’re in a corporate function, there’s an easy way to tell.

• As a finance manager, are you the last person included in discussions of an upcoming initiative?
• As a lawyer, do people get careful with details when you’re in a meeting?
• As a communications director, did you miss the strategy discussion and only felt looped in the week of the all-hands meeting?
• Or are you the marketing lead who is pulled in to launch a new product after decisions have already been made about the target audience?

Limited exposure happens every day inside of companies, and it’s often because the functional areas don’t speak the language of business. They have deep expertise in their areas, but they don’t easily translate that to business outcomes that are common across operational areas. And unintentionally, that can create an impression of being narrowly focused or missing the bigger picture that a leader needs to resolve because they are influencing without authority at work.

The finance guy speaks budgets and numbers and forecasting and risks. The lawyer speaks regulations, compliance and contracts. And marketing speaks lead generation, website statistics and clicks and open rates.

In fact, for a subject matter expert, technical knowledge can be so entrenched as a language that others in an organization don’t think they can speak anything else. And that limits influence and visibility in an organization because peers and leaders won’t pull them into conversations until their functional expertise is needed. That means someone else is determining when the functional leader can add value. And it’s almost always narrower than it could be and later than it should be. And that’s a disservice to the SME and the company.

I first saw the gap in the language of business through executive coaching. At the start of most engagements, I learn about teams and resources that add value to a leader. And as they talk about different resources, you can hear the difference in how they describe people who support them and people who partner with them. It’s a gap that many SMEs don’t understand, and most leaders don’t work around.

And it’s why we developed a program called Influencing Without Authority to shift the language of function areas to the broader language of business outcomes. And we coach to three specific things that can broaden perspectives and align to business language.

1. The Difference in Perspectives.

This is the most common blind spot in all the coaching we do. People communicate from their own perspective rather than aligning their thoughts to a listener’s perspective. If you’re a subject matter expert, you can assume that no one in the room understands what you understand. So, speaking in your language will always create distance with listeners.

We help all communicators consider a listener’s perspective and align it before they bring their own perspective into a conversation. And as we introduce a model for outlining conversations, it helps many communicators think beyond governing through their lens and get to a more common ground and suggested alternatives for leaders.

2. The Journey to Value.

In fact, more than just understanding a listener’s perspective, we coach SMEs to attach to what those listeners value. The expertise of many SMEs can be a narrow lane. Too often, they listen with only that lens and focus more on what a leader shouldn’t do versus aligning to the priorities and outcomes the leader has to deliver.

We call it the journey to value, and we help groups go a step further in perspective to understand the goals and priorities beyond the current conversation. When a communicator can see that, they quickly understand how to fit their discussion into a broader picture. It changes their input and shifts them to partnering with a leader on options.

When leaders hear a communicator who is trying to solve a challenge or create an opportunity, they hear insights beyond the area of expertise.  And they notice the skill of communicating with the broader business in mind. And the communicator shifts from a subject matter expert to a valued utility player. That’s someone who has knowledge that can be leveraged in many different ways.

3. Activities and Outcomes.

Our third area of focus gets specific in helping any expert build messaging that aligns to business outcomes. And it challenges every SME to think beyond their activities to broader business outcomes. That’s the final step to align to the language of business. And it may be the hardest because it positions the functional efforts more as a means to an end or a part of a broader outcome.

Here are specific examples:

I’m a finance manager talking to a business unit leader about her budget. She’s requested three additional head count that don’t fit within budget guidelines. My role is to communicate that she can’t add those costs. In this instance, she’s focused on a means rather than an outcome. And if I understand what she’s trying to accomplish, I can help her consider ways that she could get to an outcome without additional headcount. If you delay your project launch by four months, you’ll have a better view of first quarter results and could adjust your spend to better align to the project needs.

I’m a lawyer talking to the senior leadership team about compliance training.  The legal team has been very focused on getting people through the training, and we’re pleased that we plan to have half of the organization trained by the end of the year. But that’s the legal team’s activity and not the value to the business.  So, the message to the leadership team should be: By training half of our employees on compliance risks, we’ve updated awareness of new risks and built confidence in their ability to prevent those risks in the year ahead. 

I’m the marketing director, targeting a specific demographic for a new product. My efforts produced a 15% increase in leads from the targeted group. When I meet with the sales leader to report on that progress, I’m likely to mention the 15% increase in leads as the outcome.  But to the sales leader, it’s one step towards a broader outcome which is to generate product sales from the leads. To attach to the sales leader’s value, I’ll say that: By increasing leads by 15%, we should be able to generate an additional 10% in product sales to this demographic.

Speaking the language of business is a valued skill and a critical skill to help someone in a specialized area continue to gain visibility and advancement in an organization. If you run a functional area and think your team could improve communication, we’d love to share more about Influencing Without Authority and how we’ve helped teams expand their influence across an organization.

Call us when you need us.

 

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

How Do You Learn to Manage People?

We’ve taken an interest in people managers since the beginning of the pandemic. Because as we supported different experiences across companies, we quickly saw the pressure point was people managers. And we wrote and coached about how to handle worry, loss, loneliness…. and inconsistencies in work. That order was the priority during the pandemic as managers were told to “look after people” first.

Then, we saw the “return to work” phase, as managers had to pivot to manage the work versus managing the people. Some stepped in and took it on themselves so they could look after people and look after work when the two were in conflict with each other.

And now with company plans firmly in place, people managers are expected to be firmer in managing people. In the last two years, people managers have come full circle with giving feedback, reviews and sometimes performance ratings that communicate less flexibility and more expectation. And through it all, new pain points for people managers have emerged.
Anecdotally, we set out to learn a few things from both perspectives: the managers themselves and the people being managed. And we came away with interesting insights.

When people managers were asked to rate themselves in terms of effectiveness, (scale of 1-5; 1=poor and 5=outstanding), the average was a 3.5. Some were threes and some were fours, but everyone we talked to considered themselves average or a little above.

But when we asked for the same rating of effectiveness from people who are managed, the swing was much greater. Some employees rated their manager a five, and some rated their manager a one. And the wide discrepancy led to another realization. The people managers who were rated the highest had been managing people for more than 10 years. And those who were rated very low started managing people during the last five years.

Our hypothesis became: your skill set at managing people has a lot to do with when you became a people manager.

People managers with a lot of experience under their belt now say the pandemic chaos was an anomaly. As their companies reset, they reset their management skills to conversation guidelines, feedback processes and team expectations that they learned to do a while ago. They have a toolkit that needs some refinement, but they find the fundamentals of managing people to be the same.

People managers who took on teams in the last five years see their role as inconsistent, and their experience has only been the frenetic shifts described above. Many say they aren’t confident being a people manager, and they don’t feel that they have much of a toolkit to guide them. They’ve been handed a new playbook every year and the guidance swings from “anything goes” to “enforce expectations” with smaller pivots in between.

If you ask the more experienced managers how they developed management skills, they all say their skills evolved over time and they learned by watching others and asking others for guidance.

That wasn’t a model that was sustainable during remote work and high-stress situations. So, it’s little wonder that newer managers feel they didn’t get the same guidance or support. And it’s why we’ve taken an interest in helping these younger managers feel more confident in the tools and their skills in managing people.

Work situations are different today, and both experienced and inexperienced managers told us that they find feedback conversations to be challenging.

Today, they’re managing a false sense of confidence from young employees, a stronger demand for personal preference and exceptions, and a concern that every conversation will be a negotiation. They brace for resistance and feel good when they can avoid conflict.

The seasoned managers have a better perspective on assessing behaviors and showing empathy without trading off work.

So while all managers feel they’re being tested by some of their employees, the more experienced managers have “seen things before” and feel more confident in their ability to work things out and get to resolution.

And interestingly, employees see the difference. When we asked those who rated a manager low what skills the manager needed, they say managers need to set clear goals and hold people accountable. They want constructive feedback, and they want to advance in their careers. But they admit they’re impatient about it and often feel the younger manager is in the way of their advancement rather than supporting their path.

The pain points were easy to identify with young managers and their teams. But as we’ve prioritized this development need, we’ve also talked to HR leaders to be sure we’re aligned on what the gap actually is.

And it has multiple components.

Guidelines for Hybrid Work – All managers need a reset on dealing with the blurred lines created by a new way of work. Every company has a return to work strategy, but in most cases, the strategy is different enough that managing people in a hybrid setting is still a development need.

Manager Network – Young managers can’t evolve over time as their predecessors did. In fact, many of their role models are no longer in the workforce to mentor them. The early retirement and remote work of seasoned managers has created a gap in companies. And managers need a structured network and sounding board to support each other.

Manager Toolkit & Tools – While they may have some tools, they want training that brings all the tools together. They don’t have time to find different pieces. They want the best practices for feedback and crucial conversations and guidance on applying them to their situations.

Brand & Confidence – Open dialogs have led to direct feedback from their teams. Sometimes charged with emotion, and sometimes just deflating. But demanding employees can erode a manager’s confidence, and they want to understand how their brand is perceived and how to hold their own in a tough conversation.

We’ve taken an interest in people managers because we know how critical they are in companies, and we hear the pain as we talk to them in workshops and coaching sessions. While it’s no one’s fault that the gap developed, it will be everyone’s problem if young managers don’t gain confidence in their ability to manage.

And that’s why we’ve developed a program that focuses on the components above. We’re talking to companies about how to leverage it and how to tailor it to the needs of their managers. And if you’re experiencing similar challenges, we’d welcome a chance to talk to you as well.

 

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

Early Career – Development Priorities

It’s that time of year for budget reviews and planning as a new year begins to take shape. And as companies consider priorities and corporate strategies, it’s a good time to also align individual’s growth and priorities.

Early Career Development Priorities is part 3 of our 3-part series focusing on trends, priorities, and insights to help align personal growth with business priorities for the year ahead.
Read Part 1 – Peak Career Development Priorities here.
Read Part 2 – Mid-Career Development Priorities here.

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Today’s young professionals are setting a new way of working and shifting the thinking from work as a place we go, to work as a thing we do. This group of employees entered the workforce with savvy technical skills and solid educational backgrounds that seem destined for success. And the current labor shortage has given them more opportunities to choose from.

As the newest players in the workforce, they’re negotiating flexibility as well as compensation. They’re outspoken about where they want to work and how they want to work. And that’s exciting when you’re young and feel like you can set your own lifestyle and balance work alongside other interests. But there is another view of that flexibility that most early career employees don’t see.

They’ve traded off visibility for flexibility. And that may be a short-sighted advantage with long-term consequences. We’re seeing some early signs of that. Many companies saw phenomenal growth coming out of the pandemic, but it was not sustainable growth. And they’re resetting to a more modified growth track. That meant some workforce reduction that will continue as we head into 2023.

Reduction is never easy across teams, but it’s easier when we don’t really feel connected to an employee. If you joined a company and have worked virtually for the duration of employment, there’s not the same loyalty to you as others on the team. You haven’t had the visibility to leaders and therefore you don’t have the same support team when the tough decisions have to be made.

And if you allow flexibility to be the only motivation of your early career decisions, you may find that you’re stepping from one company to another without really moving up from one role to the next. The first decade is an important time to set a career path and make smart choices in order to leverage opportunities for more than a flexible schedule.

As we’ve worked with early career professionals and managers, we’ve focused on three priorities to strengthen their visibility and impact.

 

Career Runway

Jobs feel a little like window shopping right now. It’s fun to see so many choices, and the window dressing makes every opportunity look exciting. But buyer beware! Shop for more than the package wrapped up for you. Look at the company, the culture and the advancement opportunities. Are you considering the long-term as well as the short-term as you evaluate a role? Did you meet the co-workers and the hiring manager? Is this a good fit or just a good paycheck?

In addition to finding a role that meets the way you want to work, consider the role that will help you get to the next one. Resumes are shaped in the first decade of work. Hiring managers like to see that someone took an interest in you and helped you gain skills and additional responsibility. When the career path doesn’t show that, it’s a red flag.

We can help. Many data points prove out that early career employees will change jobs much more frequently than others which means framing up your experience more often. Our book, Disrupted! How to Reset Your Brand & Your Career focuses on how to position yourself and your experience. It also links to your personal brand and impressions. We developed a course to support it and can help you prepare for an interview or an internal, introductory meeting to help others get to know you and your interests. It makes all the difference in finding the next opportunity and positioning yourself for it.

 

Brand Awareness

Your personal brand is how people think about you and talk about you when you’re not around. It’s a reflection of someone’s impressions of you that take shape over time.

The savvy professional takes note of impressions and makes choices about how to come across as confident and credible. Impressions of confidence are why certain people get heard when they speak up. Confidence isn’t just a skill for leaders; it’s a differentiator that strengthens any employee’s personal brand and impact in an organization.

But it’s rarely an instinctive skill. It’s more about awareness of how people see you and hear you and focus on what it takes to really connect with a group. And it’s harder if you aren’t in an office often to be seen and heard. Early career professionals need to think about impact and add intention to visibility moments and their opportunity to be visible and involved in key initiatives.

We can help. Our workshop, Strengthening Personal Brand & Impressions, is offered internally for working teams or quarterly as an open-enrollment workshop. The program raises awareness of brand impressions and guides the discovery of professional presence and a confident communication style.

 

Manager Exposure

Everybody needs a champion. And in today’s shifting work environment, most people are going to need more than one. A champion is someone who knows your work and is willing to speak up on your behalf. It may be your manager, but it could also be your manager’s peers or others that you’ve worked with on projects. Champions start the process of a network within a company, and they are critical to bigger opportunities and advancement.

We used to build relationships as we met people in the corporate gym or cafeteria. It was easier to evolve relationships over time because we saw people often and had informal interaction and a chance to get to know each other. That’s a consequence of hybrid and virtual work models. It isn’t happening by happenstance. It takes an intentional plan to meet with someone and plan for those interactions, and early career professionals are going to have to work harder to get these connections.

Companies are trying to help with development programs and opportunities to connect with managers. Take advantage of all of these opportunities. When your company hosts a lunch, be there. When they set up a volunteer opportunity, be there. It’s going to take intention to start a network, and managers notice who’s taking an interest in it and who’s not.

We can help. Both programs described above include an element of building champions. We can also help you think through your own plan in 1:1 coaching and map out a conversation to gain insights and input from a potential champion in your organization.

 

Flexibility is a wonderful addition to career paths, and it’s an advantage that seems to have taken hold. But don’t make it the only factor in your early career decisions. Leverage the current role you have to build your brand and find the managers who will champion your skills. While it may take a little more in-office time, it will be the difference in your career advancement in the long run.

As always, we’re here when you need us.

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Mid-Career – Development Priorities

It’s that time of year for budget reviews and planning as a new year begins to take shape. And as companies consider priorities and corporate strategies, it’s a good time to also align individual’s growth and priorities.

Mid-Career Development Priorities is part 2 of our 3-part series focusing on trends, priorities, and insights to help align personal growth with business priorities for the year ahead.
Read Part 1 – Peak Career Development Priorities here.
Read Part 3 – Early Career Development Priorities here.

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For some time, I’ve referred to managers in their mid-career years as the Mighty Middle. And I can’t think of a time when the phrase has been better suited to middle managers than today. I’m just not sure if the significance is more about the Mighty or about being in the Middle…because both are true!

Middle managers have always been a mighty muscle and influencer in companies. In the last two years, we’ve strained that muscle by expanding their roles and asking them to manage everything from mental health to physical health and well-being. They were given very little training to do it, but they did it. And many developed a whole new skill set in the process.

Then, we began to reset work structures. And as hybrid models emerged, managers were stuck in the middle. They’ve been squeezed between top leaders who want some semblance of an office setting to return, and most employees who want to keep their blended style of working and managing life on a flexible schedule. The friction intensified with the great resignation, and most of these managers picked up the slack, shifted the work and altered the way their teams would function.

They are the unsung heroes of the last three years. But the looming question is whether the last few years were energizing or exhausting to them? Are they motivated to continue growing as people leaders or are they likely to step away to avoid additional pressure? Companies have leadership gaps, and there is great opportunity for advancement. But it doesn’t feel great to step up to something you don’t feel qualified to do.

When you ask middle managers how they think about it, they talk about skill sets and development. While they like increased responsibility, they want to feel as if they have the support and experience to step up to new challenges. And the last few years haven’t provided a lot of time for that to happen. Companies have the desire to do it, but many are still focused on reset steps and culture that we identified in last week’s newsletter.

Middle managers need to take ownership for their own development and ensure that they feel qualified for the opportunities that are sure to come their way.

There are three priorities where we encourage middle managers to invest their time. Here’s a look at each priority with thoughts on how we’re supporting them.

 

The first priority is Skills.

Every day, companies look at a manager and decide whether the manager has the skills they need in a role. They can decide to develop a manager to expand the skill set or they can bring in a candidate from the outside who already has the skills. It depends on the momentum and pace at which a company needs to move. The shortage of candidates worked in favor of the internal managers, but it is shifting a bit.

We talked about learning and development priorities in our fourth book, Disrupted: How to Reset Your Brand and Your Career. Those priorities haven’t changed. The L&D team focuses on training needed to deliver top goals within a company. If you’re tied to the top goals, you may be a top priority for development. But if you’re working on a goal that’s lower on the list, you may not be the focus of the year.

You can take ownership by asking for development. Pay attention to shifts in company direction. Pay attention to who is managing some of the projects and the skill sets they have. You can gain experience without being in a role, and you can develop skills without waiting for the company to tell you that you need them.

We can help. If your skill gap is less about technical skills and more about influence and team dynamics, we can help. Last year, we introduced a workshop called Manager to Leader to focus on the skill sets needed to manage a bigger team and a broader responsibility. It sets the right foundation to help a new leader feel confident quickly and creates coaching circles that give the manager some bandwidth for input as they settle into a new role.

And our foundational programs can build confidence around increased visibility by providing skills to Lead Executive Conversations and Master Executive Presence within an organization.

 

The second priority is Relationships.

One of the benefits of leadership development programs within a company is the relationships built with peers. Over the last few years, companies have tried to continue the programs virtually, and the relationship aspect suffered. It’s harder to get to know people when you don’t have the downtime and social interaction together. And many companies are resetting to an in-person format to bring the relationship opportunities back.

But it isn’t just the relationships with peers that middle managers need to focus on. It’s relationships across the company that will make the difference in new opportunities. And that’s harder than it’s ever been. Because while people are returning, it isn’t an everyday, consistent schedule that brings easy interaction.

Leaders, a key group for most middle managers to interact with, aren’t as willing to connect as they have been in the past. And that’s because they’ve developed their own habits. They’re not around as much, so it’s harder to find 15 minutes to stop by. Every interaction takes a set appointment, and that’s a bigger commitment that’s harder to manage.

Today, it takes a lot of intention to build a network. In fact, it takes a plan to think about champions within a company and find creative ways to build relationships if the hallway conversations are limited.

We can help. We can help middle managers build plans for networking and gaining visibility across a company. In fact, we often do this with small groups of managers to ensure the leaders feel the investment works. There’s impact in numbers and bringing small groups of colleagues together helps a leader see value in the touchpoint as well.

 

And that leads to the third priority…Coaching.

We’ve seen tremendous growth in our coaching business and a lot of that has to do with a company’s attitude towards coaching. Coaching has become a great retention tool, and it’s the fastest way to help a manager gain confidence and support while taking on expanded responsibilities. Visibility leads to liability, and middle managers want to feel that they have the right tools and support to be successful in an expanded role.

Coaching can also offer feedback on a brand and help a middle manager understand how they’re seen within a company today. As a new leader, a manager can leverage a new opportunity to strengthen a brand or reset misconceptions.

We can help. In fact, in the last few years, we’ve doubled our resources to meet the added demand. If you’re a middle manager expanding responsibilities quickly, ask for coaching. It builds confidence and provides confidentiality with an objective partner who can talk through decision-making and offer a support system to build new tools and skills. And with SW&A, it’s access to the tools we know you’ll need.

 

The opportunities for middle managers have never been greater. But so are the risks. Experiences haven’t prepared most managers for those opportunities, and those who are succeeding got a little help along the way. It’s an exciting time to be a future leader. Take advantage of the opportunity and ask for the support you’ll need to be successful.

As always, we’re here when you need us.

Want a free 15-minute consultation with us to see how we can help you or your leaders? Book a call now!

IT’S GETTING PERSONAL – Some Guidance for Managers

The last few weeks have been hard on everyone, and we’re still working through what a pandemic means for each of us and our families. Our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who is dealing with COVID-19 in their homes and with their loved ones.

It has disrupted our work and our families, and we still don’t know what lies ahead. And neither do any of the managers trying to support and guide people through this uncertainty.

The role of the manager has lost its boundaries in the last few weeks.

Because once employees watch CNN, Fox News, local networks and all online news feeds for an update, they’re getting on calls with their managers and bringing their concerns and questions to those calls. Some concerns are about the work at hand, but most are about what’s ahead and how this will impact me.

It’s a role that a lot of managers just aren’t ready for. It’s ballooned beyond what I owe you today to what happens to me tomorrow. Emotions are on edge, protocols are forgotten, and managers are dealing with more neediness than they’ve seen before.

And, some managers are overwhelmed. This is so much more than managing work process and individual contributions.  It’s getting personal to people’s lives and what they’re dealing with in their virtual setting from simple things like home schooling and groceries to complex things like worrying about elderly parents and wondering how to keep your family and friends safe.  It’s humanity.  It’s up close and personal, and it’s overwhelming to someone who didn’t really sign up to take on counseling.

It’s a tough role; it’s a tough time. And as one colleague said, “This is when we’ll figure out who the strong people leaders really are.”

Whether you’re a young manager trying to navigate the blurred lines or an overwhelmed one looking for a few best practices, here are our thoughts on connection that could help out.

JUST LISTEN.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the questions coming your way, don’t worry about providing  answers.  There aren’t concrete answers available right now.  Just listen. A starting point for anyone feeling overwhelmed or scared is to feel that someone is listening to those concerns.

Listen and acknowledge the worries.  Keep in mind that some employees live alone, and it won’t take many days of work from home to feel alone and lonely. Be a simple point of connection.  Listen and acknowledge the feelings that you hear.

REMEMBER ME.

Even though you’re juggling multiple things and jumping from call to call, your team doesn’t see it. They don’t have visibility to the line outside your office or your calendar invites which keep moving around.  They lose perspective on the tugs of your time, and you may lose a little perspective on their inputs as they ask for connection.

If you manage a large team, you may find it helpful to take notes and keep track of what I told you about my family or my roommates.  It will mean everything to me if you remember me when we talk again. And when people are under stress, they don’t remember as well as they normally do.

BE OPEN OR BE STILL.

You have a choice in what you share about your life and your family. In the last two weeks, some managers have felt invigorated to share their personal lives and home hurdles, and others feel like their entire team just moved into their living room.  Some managers are very open about their personal lives; others are more cautious.  And both reactions are OK.  You can define your boundaries and how front and center you want your whole life to be to others.

You owe employees a listening moment, not always your life story. You should always be present with your team, but it’s more about the team than the deep dive into you.

HEAR THE WEIGHT; DON’T WEAR IT.

You can’t solve this for everyone.  It’s going to be a long and hard process.  And you don’t have to.  You can hear me without taking on my challenges. Be very careful about that.  There is an art to learning how to help someone else feel better without making yourself feel worse. Focus on making someone feel heard, not solving their problem.  Notice we keep coming back to…. Just Listen.

KEEP WALKING.

I have four siblings and lots of nieces and nephews.  And when my father died, we had a house full of people working through the grief and the logistics. It was sad, it was close, and it was a little suffocating. And over the course of those days, we walked miles and miles…never all together and never fully alone.  We just seemed to pair up and take walks.  It was about getting space, breathing deeper, and resetting ourselves. It was the simple-ness of doing something. Take the space you need, especially when you’re in a newly defined workspace.  Take the time you need to breathe and clear your head.

YOU BEFORE ME.

It seems counterintuitive to tell a manager to put themselves first.  But the reality is no one is their best under pressure.  Nerves get frayed, and emotions run high.  You don’t want to be back on your heels, but the circumstances are not normal. Your team needs you to bring your best game.  Find a way to start each day with you.  Whatever it takes for you to focus your mind, open your heart and just take this one day at a time.

We’re here when you need us.