Stuck on the leadership plateau? Finding it challenging to navigate obstacles with the success you hoped for? Feeling like you are not living your best life? It's common to feel like you have a handle on things on minute, only to realize you are stuck making an important decision and cannot see the bigger picture because of the daily grind. As you climb the ladder in any organization, the need for a trusted thought partner increases, yet it's harder to find. That is where an executive coach can provide a fresh perspective. Executive coaching is a transformative process that challenges your mindset, encourages self-awareness, and brings out your best. By fostering a safe environment, an executive coach helps you unlock your full potential, empowering you to make the best decisions and take decisive actions toward achieving your goals. Here are five reasons why you should hire an executive coach and how an executive coach works with you. Why should you hire an executive coach? Having coached frontline and executive leaders in organizations of all sizes for over twenty years, I have found that the most accomplished leaders recognize the value of continuous growth and development. They seek out executive coaches to gain fresh perspectives, enhance their skills, and navigate complex challenges. Here are five common reasons why you should hire an executive coach. 1. Accelerate your career. Most of us go through day-to-day life giving more thought to what we wear each day than our careers. If your career is stalling, you need a plan to boost your career. Hiring a coach focused on your career goals leads to improved performance. Coaching keeps you feeling challenged versus being worried about what's next. An executive coach increases your self-awareness and helps you avoid jeopardizing current and future potential opportunities because of blind spots. 2. Shift your mindset. As the world changes, individuals or organizations need to change too. Your mindset is causative. How we feel about change influences our behaviors in response to the change. Shifting our mindset allows new perspectives and presents a never-ending opportunity to grow and achieve new heights in life and work. An executive coach will challenge assumptions and views and encourage, stretch, and challenge you. "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Wayne Dyer 3. Develop a career transition plan. I know many high-performing leaders who are in their current role because of doors that a company opened. As a result, these same leaders have fascinating hobbies outside of work to offset a missing sense of purpose. Whether you're a frontline or executive leader, transitioning careers is never easy. An executive coach invokes greater understanding, awareness, and clarity and uses powerful questions to facilitate clear actions and explore options. 4. Focus on personal development. Without a goal, any path can lead you to your destination, but you may waste time and miss reaching your full potential. An executive coach assists you in defining success and significance for you and collaborates with you to set clear, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound actions to bring you closer to accomplishing your objectives. "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." Benjamin Franklin 5. Living Life to the Fullest. Do you ever feel like others seem to live a whole and happy life? If you have or do, you are not alone, but living a whole and happy life requires work and learning. Life is short and worth living our best life. An executive coach can help you see different interrelated factors impacting you and be a genuine champion in a supportive way. Coaching facilitates experimentation and self-discovery through the application of what is discussed. A skillful coach helps you dance in the present moment and take actions necessary for what matters to you. What is the typical executive coaching process? Research indicates that different psychological methods used in executive coaching, including cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused, strength-based, and GROW, have proven to be successful. Despite their similarities, the GROW model stands out as widely used in executive coaching. Given that executive coaching's ultimate goal is change within the executive, the process centers on using essential questions and client-centered critical thinking to invoke the executive's self-awareness and personal responsibility. The GROW model represents a journey that begins with clarifying the goal, which is inspiring and challenging to the executive. Then, the following step involves exploring the current reality and considering barriers between the current state and the desired future. The next step involves exploring   options based on the principle that imagination creates breakthroughs. The final step is clarifying the executive's will and the way forward. It defines specific timebound actions with the commitment, accountability, and reporting to lead to transformation. The client ultimately chooses the decisions and steps to meet their goals. A typical coaching program includes four fundamental steps: Executive Coaching Step #1: A crucial initial phase in the executive coaching process involves a preliminary meeting between the coach and the client. This meeting is a foundation for establishing a solid rapport and mutual understanding. During this stage, the coach aims to delve into the context for coaching, gaining insights into the client's background, challenges, and aspirations. This step lays the groundwork for a successful coaching journey by setting the stage for open communication and trust. Executive Coaching Step #2: As the coaching progresses, the utilization of proven behavioral assessments becomes a valuable tool to gain a deeper understanding of the client's strengths and areas for development. These assessments provide valuable talent insights that help the coach and the client tailor the coaching approach to address specific needs effectively. The coaching process becomes more targeted and impactful by leveraging behavioral assessments and guiding clients toward meaningful growth and self-awareness. Executive Coaching Step #3:  Moving forward, the coaching journey focuses on partnering with the client to experiment and take steps toward their envisioned future. This step involves comprehensively exploring the client's current situation and aspirations, identifying potential obstacles, and strategizing on the steps needed to achieve their desired outcomes. Through discovery, the coach collaborates with the client to define clear objectives and develop a roadmap for progress. This step propels the client towards their professional goals by aligning actions with aspirations. Executive Coaching Step #4: Measurement and evaluation play a pivotal role in the coaching process. This step is essential to establish clear goals, track progress, and acknowledge achievements. The client can gauge their advancement and stay motivated throughout the coaching journey by setting measurable milestones. Celebrating successes reinforces positive behaviors and fosters a sense of accomplishment and momentum toward continued growth and development. References: Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2018). A systematic review of executive coaching outcomes: Is it the journey or the destination that matters most? The Leadership Quarterly. 29 (1), 70-88. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Goldsmith, M., Lyons, L., & McArthur, S. (2012). Coaching for leadership: Writings on leadership from the world's greatest coaches 3rd Edition . Pfeiffer. Kimsey-House, K., Kimsey-House, H., Sandhal, P., & Whitworth, L., (2018). Co-active coaching: The proven framework for transformative conversations at work and in life.  Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

The future workforce is more diverse than ever. Census data confirms cultural diversity is growing faster than predicted, especially among Gen Z. A competitive talent landscape, technological advances, and global population shifts are rapidly increasing cultural diversity in the workplace. Regardless of your industry, you will likely experience vast differences between cultural expectations among employees, challenges in attracting and retaining culturally diverse talent, and the growing need to develop intercultural professionals and leaders. This article explores these challenges and, more importantly, five practical strategies you can take to solve them. Cross-Cultural Strategy #1: Culturally Agile Leadership Leaders increasingly face cross-cultural differences when working with diverse customers and employees. With over 60 global cultures identified and numerous variations in regions within the national cultures, it is virtually impossible to experience every potential situation. Cross-cultural differences require leaders with cultural agility. A large-scale global study involving over 32,000 people from 28 countries found that only 20% are willing to have someone with whom they disagree as a coworker. Cultural differences in the workplace can be substantial, quickly escalate into conflict, and limit a leader's and organization's effectiveness. Successful, culturally agile leaders can see themself through another person's perspective. They can: understand their culture, their organization's culture, and how it impacts the business. recognize and appreciate the differences between other cultures as compared to their own. use their understanding of cultural differences to conduct business within cross-cultural situations effectively. Cross-Cultural Strategy #2: Recruit for Intercultural Competence Talent acquisition is a critical process for any leader and business. Increased competition intensifies the pressures on companies to find talent capable of immediately contributing to the organization with reduced onboarding periods. Adding to the challenge is the reality that the work is changing quickly, and positions needed today may not exist in the future. The increased demand for cross-cultural professionals and leaders is multiplying the challenge for companies. To face these challenges, businesses can benefit by identifying and incorporating intercultural competencies into hiring practices. Unlike competencies that address technical and behavioral knowledge, skills, and abilities of the work, these competencies address the cross-cultural leadership aspects of the work and workplace. Recruiting practices need to attract and select leaders with the inter-cultural competence to: identify and appropriately engage in cross-cultural situations drive cross-cultural value by capitalizing on cross-cultural advantages achieve mutually beneficial outcomes presented in a cross-cultural situation Cross-Cultural Strategy #3: Apply Strategic Workforce Planning Likely you are familiar with conducting a SWOT analysis as a part of your strategic planning, where you identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to achieving your company's overall mission, vision, and goals for the future. Strategic workforce planning similarly identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that apply to the talent needed. Incorporating strategic workforce planning into your business's strategic planning process provides feedback to enhance strategy execution. Strategic workforce planning is a dynamic process to ensure a business has the correct number of people with the right skills in the right places at the right time to deliver on current and future goals. There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to strategic workforce planning. The best approaches account for the unique context and culture of your business. It all begins with getting clear on your strategic business priorities and then integrating the following steps into your planning: Role segmentation. Identify strategic roles based on their importance to the execution of the business strategy. Environmental scanning. Conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis of the internal and external workforce supply and demand. Scenario planning. Consider a range of potential futures to improve the possibilities of future success in your business. Cross-Cultural Strategy #4: Employee Retention Interviews Most organizations conduct exit interviews, but employee retention interviews are proactive instead of reactive. Retention interviews are intended to learn from current employees about the factors that motivated them to accept the offer to work with your company and if those reasons are being met today from the employee's perspective. Retention interviews involve asking a series of questions to determine whether changes can be made to meet employee expectations before they exit the company. These interviews can be a regular part of one-to-one meetings or large group team meetings. Sometimes, human resources can administer these interviews to help with anonymity and psychological safety. Here are a few sample retention interview questions you can use: Why did you decide to work for this company? Are those reasons still valid in your current job? If you could change anything about the workplace, what would you change? If you could make this job everything you wanted it to be, what would you change? Focusing on retention and making changes where needed to meet the needs of cross-cultural employees will benefit recruiting efforts by improving the employment value proposition. Cross-Cultural Strategy #5: Talent Development There are many horror stories of organizations that have taken successful leaders with in-depth technical knowledge from one location and placed them in different cross-cultural situations, only to fail. Underestimating cultural differences from one part of the business to another is dangerous, especially in an increasingly cross-cultural context. Cross-cultural leaders are not born; they are developed. Developing a competency of cultural agility requires dedicated effort and investment to break from the typical classroom presentation or eLearning module. Developing cross-cultural talent is most effective in a blended learning environment, including assessments, cross-cultural immersion experiences, and structured feedback. Key Summary Points Businesses cannot rely on leaders' tenure and technical expertise to solve increasingly complex cross-cultural challenges. Modern leaders need cultural agility Businesses should be recruiting leaders and professionals with intercultural competence Strategic workforce planning should be incorporated into strategic planning activity Leaders need to take a proactive approach to talent retention Developing culturally agile professionals and leaders requires more than traditional approaches to learning and development What is your cross-cultural opportunity? References Caligiuri, P. (2012). Cultural agility: Building a pipeline of successful global professionals. Jossey-Bass. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Frey, W. (2020). The nation is diversifying even faster than predicted, according to new census data. Brookings. Mayo, A. (2015). Strategic workforce planning – a vital business activity. Strategic HR Review, 14(5), 174-181.

Most executives want more out of life and work, and businesses want to grow. The pressures of increasing uncertainty and a fast-paced digital workplace are intense, and leaders face many new challenges. If leaders and teams are not striving to improve, they are falling behind. So, how can leaders and businesses avoid wasting time chasing ideas that don't move the needle in a turbulent environment? Some of the most admired companies in the Fortune 500 are turning to executive coaching. It's a high-value business investment. Evidence suggests coaching significantly increases goal leadership and business performance. However, executive coaching may not be familiar to you. This article provides insights into what it is and is not, evidence-based benefits, the coaching process, and much more. What is the ROI of Executive Coaching? If you ask five different people to define coaching, you will likely get five different definitions. Coaching is a thought-provoking partnership focused on achieving a client's goal. It is a creative process that starts with clarifying the goal and the gap between where they are today and their desired future. It provokes the client to explore and experiment to maximize their personal and professional potential. The ultimate goal of executive coaching is a positive transformation in life and leadership for the client (e.g., behavioral, attitudinal, or motivational). The coach-client relationship is grounded in trust, transparency, and confidentiality. While the coach and client are the primary stakeholders, the executive's sponsoring organization is often an additional formal or informal stakeholder. The benefits of investing in executive coaching are well documented. According to the International Coaching Federation, 80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence. Over 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills. 86% of companies report recouping their investment in coaching and more. ​ Executive Benefits: Establish and take action toward achieving both career and life goals Become more confident Gain more personal satisfaction Contribute more effectively to the team and the organization Take greater responsibility and accountability for actions and commitments Work more efficiently and productively with others (leaders, followers, peers, customers) Communicate more effectively Reduced stress Business Benefits: Empowers employees Increases engagement Improves performance Improves employee retention Supports identification and development of high-potential employees Supports identification of both organizational and individual strengths and development opportunities Shows organizational commitment to employee development What Executive Coaching is Not Executive coaching is not counseling or mentoring. Counseling deals with past or current trauma, mental health, and symptoms to restore emotional wellness. Executive coaching focuses on the future and not the client's past. Unlike a coach, a mentor sets the agenda for their client using their experiences to guide the relationship. While that approach can be helpful in reality, we are all created with different strengths and backgrounds. A coach draws out the executive's desires and works to co-create options to achieve the executive's goals with personal and professional benefits. In addition to executive coaching, there are several other popular targeted coaching services: Career Coaching is focused on accelerating your career. Most of us go through day-to-day life, giving more thought to what we wear each day than our jobs. The coaching focuses on developing and implementing a plan of action to boost your career. Career coaching keeps you feeling challenged versus being worried about what's next. Additionally, a coach increases your blind spot awareness. We all have blind spots. A good career coach helps you avoid jeopardizing current and future potential career opportunities because of blind spots. Emotional Intelligence Coaching focuses on helping you become more self-aware and effective in relationships. This type of coaching typically involves temperament and personality profiles to pinpoint where development should be focused. Leadership Coaching helps you grow your confidence and competence regardless of whether you are an emerging leader, frontline leader, mid-level manager, executive, or business owner. Typically leadership coaching includes using a 360-degree assessment to improve feedback and awareness for the client. Who typically hires an executive coach? Individual executives and organizations hire executive coaches to achieve their goals. Sometimes, the executive is in transition, facing new challenges, or making a career pivot. Hiring an executive coach is a good fit for any executive who wants to get more out of life and work, accelerate their career, or shift their mindset. Here are a few scenarios from recent executives who hired me to be their coach: A newly appointed CEO replacing the founder of a rapidly growing mid-sized business A CEO for a mid-sized nonprofit facing increasing regulatory pressures and wanting to get more out of life and work A tenured regional VP making a career pivot A director within a large business wanting to navigate change and work effectively with a new leader It is typically not a good idea to hire an executive coach if: The executive does not want the coaching—the lower the executive's motivation, the lower the investment's return. The executive needs a consultant or a mentor to solve a problem or share their experience. The executive is not doing their job, and the organization is looking to outsource the executive's manager role. What is the Typical Executive Coaching Process? Current evidence-based research supports various psychological approaches to executive coaching, such as cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused, strength-based, and GROW. While each approach is similar, the GROW model is very popular. Given that executive coaching's ultimate goal is change within the executive, the process centers on using essential questions and client-centered critical thinking to invoke the executive's self-awareness and personal responsibility. The GROW model represents a journey that begins with clarifying the goal, which is both inspiring and challenging to the executive. Then, the following step involves exploring the current reality and considering barriers between the current state and the desired future. The next step involves exploring options based on the principle that imagination creates breakthroughs. The final step is clarifying the executive's will and the way forward. It involves defining specific timebound actions with the commitment, accountability, and reporting to lead to transformation. The client ultimately chooses the decisions to make and steps to take to meet their goals. A typical coaching program includes four fundamental steps over 12 months: Step #1: Alignment to build rapport and understand the context for coaching and the outcomes. Step #2: Assessment to provide insight into strengths and opportunities for your development. Step #3: Coaching to move toward your future, assess where you are currently and where you would like to be, remove obstacles, and explore and discover the steps to achieve your desired future. Step #4: Measurement to establish clear goals, measure progress, and celebrate successes. Is virtual executive coaching effective? While in-person communication is proven to be most effective, a skilled coach can effectively utilize virtual technologies such as Zoom to achieve lasting results. Thoughtfully incorporating virtual coaching has many benefits: Accessibility is likely one of the most significant benefits associated with virtual coaching. Technology enables the coach and client to connect in different places within the same building or worldwide. Availability improves, enabling the coach to be brought into just-in-time and rapid response needs or unique situations like cross-cultural needs. Also, the coach and client benefit from the flexibility and administrative ease in scheduling. Affordability improves through reduced travel and associated costs. Access to resources improves through digital access to tools supporting goal setting, coaching preparation, and progress tracking. Coaching evaluation improves through the ease of tracking commitments, satisfaction, strengths, opportunities, and trends both on an individual client level and at an aggregate organizational level. Take this free Virtual Coaching Fit Checker quiz to help you determine if virtual coaching is a good fit. What makes an excellent executive coach? An excellent executive coach is experienced, trained, and qualified. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is a globally recognized association with evidence-based competency and code of ethics certification requirements. The ICF identified the following eight essential core competencies of a coach based on research collected over two years of job analyses from 1,300 coaches globally: Demonstrates Ethical Practice Embodies a Coaching Mindset Establishes and Maintains Agreements Cultivates Trust and Safety Maintains Presence Listens Actively Evokes Awareness Facilitates Client Growth Additionally, an excellent coach usually refrains from giving advice or sharing their personal stories. Instead, the coach asks powerful questions to help the executive clarify their problems in achieving their goals. Also, evidence suggests that a coach's academic background in psychology enhances executive coaching outcomes such as the client's self-awareness and leadership performance. References: Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2018). A systematic review of executive coaching outcomes: Is it the journey or the destination that matters most? The Leadership Quarterly. 29(1), 70-88. Berglas, S. (2002). The very real dangers of executive coaching. Harvard Business Review, 80(6), 86-153. Bluckert, P. (2005). Critical factors in executive coaching - the coaching relationship. Industrial and Commercial Training, 37(7), 336-340. Dean, M., & Meyer, A. (2002). Executive coaching: In search of a model. Journal of Leadership Education, 1(2). Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Goldsmith, M., Lyons, L., & McArthur, S. (2012). Coaching for leadership: Writings on leadership from the world's greatest coaches 3rd Edition. Pfeiffer. Kampa-Kokesch, S., & Anderson, M. (2001). Executive coaching: A comprehensive review of the literature. Consulting Psychology Journal, 53(4), 205-228. Kimsey-House, K., Kimsey-House, H., Sandhal, P., & Whitworth, L., (2018). Co-active coaching: The proven framework for transformative conversations at work and in life. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Lai, Y., & Palmer, S. (2019). Psychology in executive coaching: An integrated literature review. Journal of Work Applied Management, 11(2), 143-164. Thach, E. (2002). The impact of executive coaching and 360 feedback on leadership effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 23(4), 205-214.

Calling yourself a leader is easy. It’s leading in ways that others feel included, are able to take risks, and speak up without fear that it is hard. A recent McKinsey global survey makes this truth glaringly obvious. Evidence suggests that most leaders believe their workplace is psychologically safe. However, only 43% of employees indicate a positive team climate at work, only 30% see a reason to say something when they see something is wrong, and only 30% believe their opinion counts. Some leaders are more prepared to challenge their assumptions and accept this reality than others. In a fast-paced digital workplace, leaders accept silence and high employee turnover on their team as variables outside their direct influence. And, of course, the workplace is volatile and complex. Leaders must stay laser-focused on delivering results and being responsive or risk falling behind. But a daily focus on what is urgent and important traps leaders in bad habits that rarely pay off. Here is a survey to measure the level of psychological safety on your team and five actions to battle the myth of a psychologically safe workplace. Benefits of a psychologically safe workplace We all share a need to belong. Psychological safety is a condition when you feel included, able to learn, contribute, and provide critical feedback without fear of being embarrassed, excluded, or penalized. There are four levels of psychological safety: Psychological Safety Level #1 Inclusion Safety. We are constantly dividing the world between them and us. Inclusion safety creates a shared identity so that others are viewed as being in the same group. Psychological Safety Level #2 Learner Safety. This is feeling safe enough to experiment, ask questions, and fail as part of the learning process. Psychological Safety Level #3 Contributor Safety. Is participating as an active, full-fledged member of the team supported by autonomy and encouragement. Psychological Safety Level #4 Challenger Safety. This is the last stage at which others can provide constructive criticism and engage in productive conflict without fear of exclusion or retaliation. It is the stage at which individuals can innovate. Evidence suggests that psychological safety leads to reduced costs and increased profitability from: Increased innovation and quicker time-to-market Ability to learn from mistakes and increased efficiency Increased health and safety reporting and decreased risk Higher employee engagement and lower employee turnover and absenteeism Improved company brand reputation and ability to recruit Psychological Safety Myth Buster #1: Gain Perspective If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. While the most important action is taking the first step toward improvement, creating a burning platform for change provides the motivation to take the first step. A great way to gain perspective into psychological safety is by getting curious. You can use the following questions in a one-to-one meeting or as an anonymous pulse survey with a team. I would suggest asking for responses in the form of a rating scale versus simply yes or no. Q1. I feel a sense of belonging within my team. Q2. I am myself at work. Q3. I am comfortable asking my leader about my work. Q4. I am comfortable asking my peers for help when needed. Q5. I offer advice to my peers. Q6. I go above and beyond my job expectations. Q7. I am comfortable suggesting ways of getting work done better. Q8. I speak up without fear of retaliation. Psychological Safety Myth Buster #2: Embrace Vulnerability There is no one complete checklist of actions that leaders can take to show vulnerability in every situation. However, you can use the following behaviors derived from research and a short survey to determine your tendency to be vulnerable in difficult conversations. Being yourself in difficult conversations. Being transparent in conversations. Taking risks and accepting uncertainty in difficult conversations. Share your emotions with others in difficult conversations. In this short video, Simon Sinek expands on the tension leaders face and how to show vulnerability in the workplace as a leader. Psychological Safety Myth Buster #3: Express Appreciation Expressing appreciation is a positive consequence and builds psychological safety. The following tips will help you get off to a great start with recognition and avoid costly mistakes: Effective recognition is connected to profitable behaviors and is specific about what is praised. Don't recognize the ordinary, so when you appreciate the excellent, it is meaningful. The golden rule does not apply, so consider the platinum rule: do unto others as they would want to be done unto them. An excellent way to get to know how someone feels about recognition is to listen and observe what they like doing with their time away from work. Rewarding the wrong behavior can have unintended consequences. For example, a distribution company rewarded employees for on-time performance and inadvertently encouraged risk-taking and unsafe practices. The leadership of an organization was pleased that the number of employees with active development plans had increased until an audit revealed that only 20% were well-written plans. Start each day by focusing on an area of your business. Keep a list of when you find excellent performance and recognize an employee to track your progress. Effectively using employee recognition brings out the best in employees and boosts retention and psychological safety. Psychological Safety Myth Buster Activity #4: Participatory Decision-Making How you make decisions moderates the degree of psychological safety on your team. The key is to use the appropriate decision-making style for the situation. Recognizing that the more participatory decision-making styles you can use will build psychological safety. The model consists of 5 different styles, each with different levels of leader involvement. As you move down the list, employee involvement grows, and leader involvement diminishes. Decide/Command: The leader makes the decision without consultation. Consult Individually: The leader makes the decision after obtaining advice and involvement from an individual who has relevant knowledge or who is a key stakeholder. Consult Group: The leader makes the decision after obtaining advice and involvement from others who have relevant knowledge or will be impacted by the decision. Facilitate: A decision is made by the group, with the leader directly facilitating the process. Delegate: A decision is made by the group without directly involving the leader in the decision process. Psychological Safety Myth Buster Activity #5: Avoid Blame Leaders who are willing to learn and avoid blame listen well. Here are some phrases you can use that will either keep the conversation going positively or likely kill psychological safety. Positive Phrases: Keep talking Keep going I am glad you brought that up How can we build on that That’s an interesting idea Let's try it Conversation Killers: The problem with that is It’s not a bad idea, but You haven’t considered We’ve tried it before You don’t understand the problem Has anyone else ever tried that What challenges are you facing leading in ways that create psychological safety? What is the cost to you and your business if you throw in the towel on psychological safety? References Clark. (2020). The 4 stages of psychological safety : defining the path to inclusion and innovation (First edition.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 Proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Edmondson, A. & Hugander, P. (2021). 4 Steps to boost psychological safety at your workplace. Harvard Business Review. Wood, W., Tam, L., & Witt, M. G. (2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 918-933. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.918

Have you ever left a conversation with regret when you dared to disagree? I have. Under pressure, I can be impulsive, leaving me wondering if I was helpful. It could be that you internalize your thoughts and cannot find the right words to say. Let's face it. Upward dissent and critical feedback are the vegetables of communication. We know deep down these difficult conversations are good for results and relationships, but most of us would prefer to avoid them. Issues too bad to ignore often are too big to fix quickly, and pushing ahead without a proven plan can leave others feeling resentful instead of encouraged. Just like any good leadership habit, mastering difficult conversations requires skill and deliberateness. With a little effort, you can give more critical feedback —with less regret later—keeping these three keys in mind. Why you should dare to critique or disagree When leaders avoid difficult feedback or do not handle conversations well, it can lead to relationship strife, failure, and missed growth opportunities. Mastering critical feedback creates the best possible outcomes for the leader, the leader-follower relationship, the team, and the company. Critical feedback can lead to exploring diverse, innovative ideas that drive organizational growth. As businesses invest time pursuing innovation, it is easy to become increasingly less willing to question an idea. But, it is essential to receive critical feedback that challenges innovation assumptions. Organizations that dare to question assumptions are able to keep the focus on the best ideas. One of the greatest gifts any leader can receive is the rare gift of being told what they need to hear but others are unwilling to say. If everyone in the room is always agreeing, you may not have the right people in the room. Isolation is a frequent challenge for executive CEOs and executives. The power distance created by their position limits the critical feedback they receive. Increasingly, leaders are looking to executive coaching relationships outside of the company to find the thought partnership needed to improve ideas. In the following Ted Talk, Margaret Heffernan provides a powerful story of why most people do not dare to disagree and why great teams, relationships, and businesses do. Key #1: Focusing on What Matters Most Masters of critical feedback create a gap between action and response to choose what conversation matters most. Like a ship approaching an iceberg, what alerts a leader of a potential problem is often what is seen, but what lies below the surface presents the greatest opportunity to be addressed. "Don't let the truth run faster than love." Erwin McManus In addition to choosing the right issue, selecting the right level of conversation is essential. There are three basic levels: Level 1: The first level is a conversation about a specific issue, such as showing up late for a meeting and exploring the cause. A simple conversation in passing may be appropriate. Level 2: The second level is a conversation about a pattern of topics, such as showing up late for several meetings. Meeting in private is best to discuss the reasons for this conversation. Level 3: The third and most serious level is the health of the leader-follower relationship. These difficult conversations result from a lack of trust, concerns about competence, or loss of respect for the other person. Key #2: Being Vulnerable Regardless of leadership level or amount of experience, all leaders struggle with the tension of being vulnerable or not. When receiving critical feedback, followers want to know their leader cares about them. But, concerns about managing perceptions can keep leaders from showing vulnerability. And when leaders are guarded, it promotes distrust. Although leaders are expected to convey an image of competence, confidence, and power, followers already know you are not perfect. Being vulnerable in challenging conversations requires courage. Leaders must learn to be comfortable without being right or having all of the information wanted or needed. Leadership vulnerability involves the willingness to be open and take risks that might create the best of what might be in the organization. There is no single checklist of potential actions that leaders can use to show vulnerability in every difficult conversation. However, the following list of proven good leadership habits that promote vulnerability: Being transparent Putting others first doesn't mean thinking less of yourself Asking for feedback and willing to learn Being selfless Taking action To identify your tendency—to be vulnerable in difficult conversations —take the following free five-question quiz and learn your vulnerability leadership score. Key #3: Checking Your MVP Fail to plan and plan to fail. To avoid regret, your communication plan should include checking personal motivation, vision, and perspective (MVP) before giving critical feedback. Motivation. Is your motivation about caring for others first? Or is your motivation to be right? Reasons for a conversation matter. It is less likely that the conversation will lead to positive changes without a positive reason. Vision. How do you see the result of the conversation going? Is it the best of what might? Or is what you see a list of all the things that could go wrong? When you anticipate a positive step in the journey, it provides a sense of purpose and direction to inspire your best and achieve success. Perspective. When the lens through which you perceive the difficult conversation is off, your results will turn out poorly. Is your paradigm for the difficult conversation that real transparent conversation will provide the best foundation for a healthy culture and your relationship? Or is your perspective that it is best to avoid difficult conversations because you need to manage your image? Conclusion: Less regret. More critical feedback. After you decide to give critical feedback, you will want to consider more than choosing when and where to have the conversation to bring out the best in others. Focusing on what matters most will ensure the greatest opportunity is addressed rather than simply reacting. Being vulnerable in the conversation will communicate that you care about them and establish trust and safety. Also, taking the time to clarify a positive motivation, vision, and perspective will keep you focused on being helpful. Giving critical feedback, in turn, encourages others to take risks with you. Leading to improved communication, productivity, and relationships. Others want to see that you care for them and are also open to learning. What critical feedback do you need to give? What is the real challenge for you? References Bartell, R. (2011). Before the call: The communication playbook. Hudson House. Berkun, S. (2010). The myths of innovation (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media, Inc. Brown, B. (2022). The Power of vulnerability: Teachings of authenticity, connection, and courage. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Drucker, P. (2006). Innovation and Entreprenuership. Harper Business. Grenny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R., Switzler, A., & Gregory, E. (2021). Crucial conversations. McGraw-Hill Education. Hayes, J. (2008). Workplace conflict and how businesses can harness it to thrive. CPP Global Human Capital Report. Patterson, K., (2005). Crucial confrontations: Tools for resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior. McGraw-Hill.

One emotion that often defines work is stress. It can be productive, motivating you to innovate, or draining, leading to burnout. Recent evidence suggests that five in ten employees are experiencing significant negative impacts from long-term workplace stress. Stress is an emotional contagion. Given the significant challenges increased workplace uncertainty poses, from decision-making and strategic planning to employee engagement and personal well-being, leaders need to reduce stress proactively. The good news? Now is the perfect time to get started. Here is how to begin. Why you need a workplace stress reduction strategy Managing long-term stress can lower your risk for conditions like heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and depression. According to a study by the Mayo Clinic, the personal and organizational side-effects of executives experiencing long-term stress and burnout include: broken relationships substance abuse depression decreased customer satisfaction reduced productivity increased employee turnover Employees are stressed out. A global study of 14,800 knowledge workers across 25 countries revealed: 49% of leaders and 42% of non-managers are struggling with anxiety 74% of those surveyed are looking to company leadership for help dealing with workplace stress. The costs of workplace stress and burnout are severe for individuals and organizations. Manufacturing organizations like General Motors report spending more on healthcare than they do on raw materials for their products. A recent study, in an effort to quantify the costs of workplace stress, found that workplace stressors in the United States account for more than 120,000 deaths per year and approximately 5-8% of annual healthcare costs. Also, we are more connected to each other than we may recognize, and stress is an emotional contagion. Evidence suggests that co-workers can spread stress within a workgroup. For example, someone on your team who is feeling down enters a meeting. Within a few minutes, the entire team's emotions begin to mimic their behaviors and non-verbal expressions. The following short NPR video discusses how emotions are contagious. How gratitude makes a difference Grateful leaders experience less stress, and expressing gratitude helps both the giver and the receiver. Gratitude is a positive emotion that balances a negative mindset. Many studies link gratitude with improved health, increased happiness, and decreased feelings of anxiety and depression. An interesting recent study found that those who wrote gratitude letters showed greater activation in their brain's medial prefrontal cortex when they experienced gratitude in the fMRI scanner three months later. This evidence indicates that simply expressing gratitude may have lasting positive effects on your brain. Similar to the saying, you are what you eat. If you allow only negative thoughts and feelings into your life, it is harmful to your well-being. Consider the negative emotion of envy. It is impossible to be both envious and grateful at the same time. Gratitude helps create a barrier to negative thoughts and feelings. The following short video explains some of the science behind why gratitude matters. Feeling appreciated is linked to well-being and employee performance. A study involving over 1700 working adults revealed that those who feel valued by their leader are more likely to report higher levels of physical and mental health, engagement, satisfaction, and motivation than those who do not. What is gratitude? According to the American Psychological Association, gratitude is a sense of thankfulness and happiness in response to receiving a gift, either a tangible benefit given by someone or a fortunate happenstance. "Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others." – Cicero. Gratitude consists of an affirmation of goodness and a source outside of ourselves. Gratitude involves both the ability to acknowledge the good in your life and feeling a sense of thankfulness. Empathy, kindness, and love are closely related to the virtue of gratitude. Take the following six-question survey to determine and benchmark your likelihood of experiencing gratitude. The following video is from Robert Emmons, the creator of the survey. In it, he addresses what gratitude means. Getting Started Step #1: Cultivating Your Attitude of Gratitude Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is something we can all do and is a healthy leadership habit. The best way to get started is to make gathering and giving gratitude easy and gradually increase the practice. Gratefulness.io is an app that makes getting started easy. I have used it for a few years and found it effective in cultivating an attitude of gratefulness. The app will send you a simple daily prompt asking you about what you are grateful for, and it stores your responses in a private online journal. What you record can be as simple as what comes to your mind or a purposeful reflection on something good that happened that day and why you felt good. I find scrolling through my journal very encouraging, and it also serves as a way for me to track my progress. Stop. Look. Go. The following video explains how to get started practicing gratitude. It begins by getting quiet, looking through our senses, and then taking the opportunity presented. If you are feeling stuck about how to get started or have tried to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, executive coaching can help. Coaches work with their clients to foster a mindset shift and implement practical strategies toward meaningful goals, including those related to gratitude. Through thought-provoking partnerships, coaches guide clients to reflect on achievements and strengths while deepening awareness and appreciation. Getting Started Step #2: Expressing Gratitude to Others Giving gratitude reduces your stress, makes you happier, and improves relationships. After listing what you are grateful for each day, take a few moments to practice giving gratitude. Not only will the act of reflecting and journaling what you are thankful for make you happier, but giving appreciation will multiply the positive effects on your emotions. Simply send a thank you note or, better yet, deliver the thank you note and say thank you in person. Here is a simple template from Mental Health America. Key Summary Points: Given the increased complexity of decision-making in a crisis-driven workplace, leaders need to be proactive, or stress can harm physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The costs of workplace stress and burnout are severe for individuals and organizations. Grateful leaders have less stress. The best way to get started is by making gathering and giving gratitude easy, then gradually increasing the habit. References: Adecco. (2021). Resetting normal: Defining the new era of work 2021[PDF]. The Adecco Group. APA. (2012). APA survey finds feeling valued at work linked to well-being and performance. APA. (2023). 2023 Work in America Survey: Workplaces as engines of psychological health and well-being. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Goh, J., Pfeffer, J., & Zenios, S. (2016). The relationship between workplace stressors and mortality and health costs in the United States [PDF]. Management Science. Harvard Medical School. (2021). Giving thanks can make you happier. Harvard Health Publishing. McCullough, M. E., Emmons, R. A., & Tsang, J. (2002). The grateful disposition: A conceptual and empirical topography. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112-127. The Gratefulness Team. (2021). What is Gratitude? A Network for Grateful Living

Is there anything more unsettling than making huge decisions alone? Thankfully, it's been a while since I've tried. But in the past, I've made my share. I can tell firsthand that having a coach has many benefits beyond better decision-making. Leaders constantly navigate competing priorities. Boards, direct reports, customers, and of course, family and friends all have their unique needs. Leaders must be able to carefully explore and assess new ideas to thrive in an increasingly complex workplace. Executive coaching is a thought-provoking and creative partnership that inspires leaders to maximize their potential. Before you start exploring whether the costs are worth the benefits. The first question you need to wrestle with is if you are entirely ready. Like any development, you will get the most significant return when you can do the work. Here is what you can expect it to cost, five frequent benefits, and what to look for in an executive coach. What executive coaching is and is not? Coaching is not counseling, mentoring, or consulting. Counseling deals with past or current trauma, mental health, and symptoms to restore emotional wellness. Executive coaching focuses on the future and not the client's history. Unlike a coach, a mentor sets the agenda for their client using their experiences to guide the relationship. While that approach can be helpful in reality, we are all created with different strengths and backgrounds. A coach draws out the executive's desire and works to co-create options to achieve the executive's goals with individual and organizational benefits. Consulting involves partnering but differs from coaching by collaborating on the development of comprehensive strategies and tools. A consultant provides answers, and a coach uses questions to help you find the answers to your questions. An executive is a person with senior managerial and leadership responsibility in a business or organization. Executives are the owner, CEO, or Senior Leadership Team at a midsize company. These are generally categorized by revenue between $10 million to $1 billion and 50-250 employees. They can also be a Director or VP or on the Senior Leadership Team at a large organization. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The method of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity, and leadership. Executive coaching, then, is a coaching relationship between a coach and a person with senior managerial and leadership responsibility in a business or organization. Why do executives and business owners need coaching now more than ever? Today's reality for a senior leader is that the marketplace changes rapidly. You are either ripe and rotting or green and growing. So, how can an executive effectively stay green and grow in such a fast-paced environment? In an extensive quantitative study by Stanley Black & Decker, the Sasha Corporation found that executives receiving coaching increased goal performance by 15% compared to executives not receiving coaching. In a literature review of 81 executive coaching studies, researchers found that executive coaching positively impacts the leader and the organization. These benefits range from becoming more confident to contributing more effectively to empowering employees and improving employee retention. Some of the most admired companies in the Fortune 100 contribute to the $1 billion executive coaching industry. Coaching is a fast-growing sector, and the broad support for executive coaching as a solution to today's challenges and its effectiveness is undeniable. Evidence suggests executive coaching leads to individual and organizational benefits, including: Enhanced self-awareness Improved performance Better communication Stress management Conflict resolution Decision making Career advancement “It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.” — Denis Waitley What do you get from executive coaching? Outcome 1. Resilience Resilience is a fundamental outcome of executive coaching. Frequently, leaders look for a coach to help adapt their leadership style, deal effectively with change, or build high-quality, trust-based relationships. As executives work to achieve their goals, barriers, and challenges must be overcome. In the process of overcoming these barriers, leaders build resilience and self-confidence. Outcome 2. Shifting Assumptions and Perceptions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are key growth strategies for many organizations: entering new marketplaces, acquiring new technologies, and leveraging scale and size. Culture is critical during notable changes, such as M&A, and executive leaders increasingly work with and lead multicultural teams. Coaching helps leaders shift assumptions and perceptions and adopt positive cross-cultural motivation, vision, and cultural agility. Outcome 3. Improved Emotional Intelligence (EQ) A recent Harvard study revealed that a leader's emotional intelligence (EQ) matters more than their mental ability (IQ). A key outcome of executive coaching is improved emotional intelligence. Often, leaders pressed for time to move from one urgent task to another and miss the advantage of pausing to reflect and become self-aware. An executive coach's use of assessments like a 360-leadership survey and purposeful reflection helps leaders learn and enhance their emotional intelligence. Reflection improves performance. Outcome 4. Growth Focus and Accountability Any road will get you where you want to go if you don't know where you are going. Setting direction is vital to growth as a leader. An executive coach ensures development goals are purposeful and bring perspective to the best areas to focus. Leaders are busy and without accountability, miss opportunities for learning and growth. In the executive coaching relationship, external accountability is a crucial benefit. A coach can help the leader prioritize critical topics to change in the best direction. Outcome 5. Developmental Feedback Executive leaders receive feedback continuously from a wide range of sources on potential areas of development but also can struggle to make sense of the feedback. Proximity to a problem sometimes impacts the leader's clarity on importance. Also, general feedback is often not presented in effective or constructive ways. A coach assists the leader with filtering through various points of critical feedback to return focus on the essential constructive aspects. How much does executive coaching cost? Executive coaching costs and pricing strategies vary widely based on the services offered, the executive coach's experience level, and the client's organizational level. Executive coaches commonly use hourly, value-based, retainer, or productized pricing. Studies by the Harvard Business Review and The Conference Board suggested executive coach rates range from $200 to over $3500 per hour. Some coaches, like Marshall Goldsmith, who is frequently listed as the top-rated executive coach, use a performance-based pricing model. Simply stated, he only gets paid when his clients improve. Ready for the mic drop? He gets $250,000 per client for a year-long engagement. Recently, virtual coaching has become more popular, and offers added convenience, service, and affordability through reduced travel and costs from associated time out of the office. Although these benefits are advantageous, the research does not support replacing face-to-face coaching with virtual coaching. In reality, in-person and virtual coaching both have associated pros and cons. What to look for in an executive coach? A good executive coach is trained and qualified. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is a globally recognized association with evidence-based competency and code of ethics certification requirements. The ICF identifies the following eight core coach competencies updated as of 2019 based on empirical data collected over two years and from job analyses of 1,300 coaches globally: Demonstrates Ethical Practice Embodies a Coaching Mindset Establishes and Maintains Agreements Cultivates Trust and Safety Maintains Presence Listens Actively Evokes Awareness Facilitates Client Growth In addition to the list of coach qualifications, evidence suggests the following additional traits and competencies specific to executive coaching: Self-confidence Assertiveness Goal Orientation Continuous Learning & Development Integrity Business acumen Psychological knowledge Organizational knowledge An excellent executive coach usually refrains from giving advice or sharing personal stories. Instead, the coach asks powerful questions to help the executive clarify their problems in achieving their goals. Conclusion: Is Executive Coaching Really Worth It? The confidence and growth that comes from a creative thought partnership in the executive coaching relationship can't be beaten. Now more than ever, due to the complexity placed on senior leadership roles, executives need coaches who can support their continuous development. Falling behind in a rapidly changing marketplace will not lead to success. The coach-leader relationship fosters a leader's growth through purposeful direction, reflection, feedback, and accountability. See how our goal-oriented executive coaching turns your aspirations into your future. Accelerate your career - Coaching keeps you feeling challenged and increases your blind spot awareness. Live life to the fullest - Coaching facilitates experimentation and self-discovery. Shift your mindset - Coaching helps you challenge your assumptions and views. References: Ahrend, G., Diamond, F., & Webber, P. G. (2010). Virtual coaching: Using technology to boost performance. Chief Learning Officer, 9,44–47. Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2015). Developing leaders: By executive coaching. Oxford Press. Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2018). A systematic review of executive coaching outcomes: Is it the journey or the destination that matters most? The Leadership Quarterly. 29(1), 70-88. Berglas, S. (2002). The very real dangers of executive coaching. Harvard Business Review, 80(6), 86-153. Clark, D., Cohn, A., & Goldsmith, M. (2019). A short guide to pricing your services as a consultant or coach. Harvard Business Review. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership Habits: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. ICF. (2020). 2020 ICF global coaching study: Executive summary. International Coaching Federation.

Building a highly-skilled self-directed team and paying them well doesn't guarantee success. Motivation helps to explain the differences between times when employees just show up versus getting things done. Numerous studies suggest that work motivation regulates high-quality performance and creativity. But work motivation is not commonly understood and is a growing source of frustration for leaders in a complex employee-driven talent marketplace. So, if motivation is vital, what can leaders use beyond the traditional carrots and sticks? Here are two leadership tactics that are proven to create optimal work motivation conditions. Why work motivation matters Work motivation is a catalyst for business growth and organizational effectiveness. Motivation is what drives people to take action to satisfy a need. Work motivation is the force within (intrinsic) and beyond (extrinsic) an employee to initiate work-related behaviors. The degree of an employee's motivation influences the intensity and duration of work behaviors. Researchers over the past couple of decades have identified numerous predictors of work motivation: Personal factors such as age, educational level, health status, and family support Emotional intelligence and interpersonal relationship quality Social situations and interactions Culture Psychological needs Global studies have revealed that increased work motivation leads to: Improved performance Increased productivity Enhanced innovation and creativity Decreased absenteeism Decreased employee turnover Understanding the motives behind work motivation One of the earliest and most discussed models of motivation is Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow suggested that physiological needs motivate employees. The needs for food and water are at the most basic level, and self-actualization is at the highest level. Another early model from Herzberg suggested that work motivation is mainly influenced by challenge and reward reinforcement. Motivators increase job satisfaction, such as performance achievement, recognition, job status, and development. Hygiene Factors decrease job dissatisfaction, such as salary, working conditions, physical workspace, and supervisor quality. More recent studies have led to the categorization of work motivation into four categories: Positive-Negative. Positive motives include things perceived as pleasurable. Negative motives are those things perceived as punishment or fear. Intrinsic-Extrinsic. Intrinsic is doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable, and extrinsic refers to doing something because it leads to a reward. Cognitive-Affective. Cognitive includes doing something for knowledge and mental or intellectual development, whereas affective is doing something for feelings or emotions. Economic-Moral. Economic motives are to achieve a goal associated with a basic need or support a desired standard of living. Moral motivation is to do something right or avoid doing something wrong. Evidence suggests that intrinsic motivation is more effective than extrinsic motivation. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink popularized the Self-determination theory (SDT). This theory suggests that intrinsic work motivation stems from the psychological needs of employees to possess: Autonomy leads to satisfaction from good performance achieved from personal decisions. Mastery and competence lead to confidence Purpose and the care of others and the care for others Self-determination theory research revealed that autonomy and purpose are significantly linked to higher performance levels. When employees feel they have control over their activities, they are more confident and, in return, more motivated to work. Likewise, when employees feel connected to their team, they are motivated to work harder for the organization. Research into whether mastery positively impacts performance is not as evident. Here is a short video of Daniel pink speaking on the gap between science and what business frequently does with motivation. 2 Intrinsic work motivation tactics There is a big difference between making someone do something and work motivation. Here are two practical tactics that are proven to create the optimal conditions necessary for intrinsic work motivation. Tactic 1: Organizational culture Organizational culture is more influential than anything else in the organization. It is the one thing that impacts everything. A working definition of organizational culture is the taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs in a company's norms, actions, and what you can see, hear, and feel. Numerous studies suggest organizational culture is a crucial factor influencing intrinsic motivation. Why employees work makes a difference in how employees work. Research studies demonstrate that the most motivating workplace cultures: Maximize the motivation behind the work itself Enhance the value of the work because of its impact Increase the potential of work to support employee goals Minimize emotional pressure to comply Avoid using negative reinforcement Don't lead with a "do it because I said so" approach The Competing Values Framework is a simple approach that a leader can use for assessing and describing an organization's or team's culture to facilitate culture change that makes the group more effective. By simplifying the cultural description to only two fundamental dimensions of either flexibility or stability and internal or external focus, the Competing Values Framework creates a straightforward way for leaders and groups to become aware of and reflect on their current culture. Then, instead of prescribing one ideal culture, the Competing Values Framework enables leaders to take steps toward a preferred culture that aligns with the organization's strategic objectives. Tactic 2: Servant leadership How you lead makes a difference. Studies suggest that servant leaders create an increased leader and follower commitment, yielding increased intrinsic motivation that amplifies workforce alignment and business strategy benefits. Servant leadership is an emerging 21st-century leadership style. The motivations of the servant leader are to serve others first and lead second. This paradigm stands in stark contrast to traditional transactional leadership. Servant leaders desire to bring out the best in their followers by giving them the best of themself. According to Robert Greenleaf, attributed by many as the founder of servant leadership, the best measure of success for a servant leader is to see those served become healthier, wiser, freer, more self-directed, and ultimately more likely to serve others. The seven servant leadership virtues that direct the actions of the leader are: Love Humility Altruism Vision Trust Empowerment Service Servant leaders practice selfless love. They can apply empathy to be aware of, feel and take on the emotions of what another person is experiencing and demonstrate the compassion to understand and help others. Selfless love is a radically different paradigm from a transactional worldview of the workplace. The ten characteristics of a servant leader are: Listening to identify a group's will and help clarify that will. Empathy to understand and empathize with followers. Healing self and the relationships with others. Awareness to understand issues of ethics and values. Persuasion over positional power. Conceptualization to see beyond the day-to-day realities of a situation. Foresight to see around the realities of the present situation. Stewardship of the greater good for society. Commitment to growth and development of followers. Building community among the team and organization. Have you ever wondered if you are a servant leader? You can take this free Servant Leadership Style Checker to get your Servant Leadership Style Score. Now, what is the real work motivation challenge for you and your team? References Greenleaf, R. K., & Spears, L. C. (2002). Servant-leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness (25th-anniversary ed.). Paulist Press. Kirkwood, C., Lin, A., Rager, M., Shah-Manek, B., Welch, A., & Williams, N. (2017). Point/Counterpoint: Are outstanding leaders born or made? American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 81(3), 58. McGregor, L., & Doshi, N. (2015). How company culture shapes employee motivation. Harvard Business Review. Reed, C. (2022). The truth about motivating employees to be more productive. National Business Research Institute. Spears, L. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. Journal of Virtues and Leadership. 1(1). Vo, T., Tuliao, K., & Chen, C. (2022). Work Motivation: The Roles of Individual Needs and Social Conditions. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 12(2), 49. Walumbwa, F., Hartnell, C., & Oke, A. (2010). Servant-leadership, procedural justice climate, service climate, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior: A cross-level investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3).

Can you imagine not opening a gift you were given? Each new year offers an advantage of perspective - through reflection only created by time. Like looking at a year-in-review photo montage on your social media feed, forgotten projects that seemed all-consuming at the moment appear with a new perspective. Even with unwanted crises in business and life, reflection offers a gift. Without reflection, perspectives quickly become blurred in a fast-paced workplace with potentially devastating consequences. Reflection facilitates learning, provides perspective on self-limiting beliefs when used purposefully, and improves productivity. Here are four good practices and three powerful tools to help leaders unwrap reflection. Why Reflection Makes A Big Difference Effective reflection involves the ability to doubt, pause, and be curious even about the ordinary. The practice of reflection provides a path to deeper understanding. It enables leaders to consider and learn about underlying contexts and causes for results. Evidence suggests spending 15 minutes a day improves productivity by as much as 23% more than those without reflection time. Researchers found the benefit of additional experience is inferior to deliberately translating and organizing previously accumulated experiences. Sometimes reflection creates discomfort and conflict at an individual and organizational level as leaders wrestle with self-limiting beliefs and failure. However, leaders risk repeating bad decisions that could prove disastrous without considering alternate viewpoints. The best mindset to adopt is not to let a past difficult situation go to waste. By three methods, we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius Biases are always present but not always visible. Leadership is about recognizing and leveraging the gap between stimulus and response to make a choice rather than a knee-jerk reaction. Reflection plays an essential role in a leader becoming aware of biases and making better choices. Reflection improves critical thinking capacity. Critical thinking is the ability to use cognitive skills and strategies to increase the probability of the desired outcome when problem-solving. Critical thinking helps leaders navigate complex and ambiguous situations common in every business. It is proven to be more than a nice-to-have skill. Critical thinking improves communication, decision-making, and problem-solving necessary for companies to increase revenue and reduce costs. The role of individual traits in reflection Our inner game is quietly controlling our outer game in life and work. Like a computer operating system governs the computer's processing capability, our internal traits and attributes influence our external behaviors and habits. The following traits assist the ability for purposeful reflection that facilitates learning: Open-mindedness: The desire to listen to other points of view and recognize that even the most strongly held beliefs may be questioned. Open-minded leaders have very few ideas that cannot be changed. Responsibility: The desire to pursue truth and apply it today to day situations. Wholeheartedness: A sincere attitude toward the critical evaluation of themselves and others. An unwavering commitment to make necessary changes and overcome the fear of failure. Conversely, narcissists generally lack the empathetic self-reflection necessary to facilitate self-reflection. While we all possess narcissism to some degree, if you are worried that you might be too much of a narcissist, relax; you probably are not. 4 Reflection good practices Reflection can be used on past actions, in situations as they occur, and for activities you might take in the future. To make the most of reflecting on this past year, consider the following tips: Reflection Good Practice #1: Schedule your time This is a potentially obvious point, but crucial. Planning is often the most significant barrier to reflection. You get too busy or distracted and move on to the next thing before reflecting. It doesn't have to be a lot of time, but I recommend scheduling at least 20 minutes in a quiet place. Reflection Good Practice #2: Narrow your focus Let's be honest; it is hard for most of us to remember last week, much less last year. Rather than considering the whole year, break the year into periods or quarters. Then focus on that each segment of time separately. Reflection Good Practice #3: Structure your questions Taking a strategic approach helps identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. The following powerful questions taken from an after-action review process used by the military provide a structure for your reflection: What was expected to happen? What occurred? What went well and why? What can be improved and how? Reflection Good Practice #4: Adopt a strengths mindset It is easy to be drawn to what is not right and focus on your weaknesses during reflection. Having a balanced focus is not about ignoring weaknesses but prioritizing, pursuing, and leveraging strengths and opportunities to bring out your best. Consider what strengths contributed to your success. A practical way to discover your strengths is by using strength-based assessments. The VIA Character Strengths Survey and the Clifton StrengthsFinder Assessment are two of the most scientifically backed and relatively low-cost strength-based quantitative evaluations. These assessments can be completed online and provide development recommendations and support materials. For more information regarding the VIA Character Strengths Survey, please go to www.viacharacter.org. For more information regarding the CliftonStrengths Assessment, please go to www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. By setting aside dedicated time for reflection, focusing on specific experiences or events, using prompts to guide your thinking, and adopting a strengths mindset, you can use reflection to become a more effective and self-aware leader. 3 Powerful reflection tools Here are three proven tools to enhance your reflection on experiences and actions, identify areas for growth and improvement, and learn from both your successes and challenges: Powerful Reflection Tool #1: Journaling Use a journaling app like Day One to capture your thoughts, feelings, successes, and frustrations. This approach is demonstrated to be incredibly impactful on leader-follower relationships, clarity of purpose, and improving new skills. Like building any habit, start small and tie it to an existing practice, like your routine, before you leave the office for the day. Powerful Reflection Tool #2: Follower feedback Critical reflection should be a social process. It is proven to be most successful when collaborative. Leaders need to understand how followers perceive their actions. Using a leadership 360 assessment is one proven tool to improve critical reflection. These assessments typically gather feedback from their leader, peers, and direct reports allowing comparisons between themselves and others. This is one leadership assessment you need to be using. Powerful Reflection Tool #3: Thought leadership Books, articles, and assessments on leadership can enable leaders to examine a particular situation from different points of view, supporting critical reflection. Thought leadership grounded in research provides leaders with proven solutions that can be applied and short-cycle the learning process. If you are not a skilled speed reader, you may be surprised that you can learn how to read a book in an hour. Like any skill, there are tips and tricks to increase your speed and retention. Here is a bonus link to an assembled collection of my top five favorite books from thought leaders on change management, coaching, culture, innovation and creativity, leadership style, servant leadership, and strategic planning. Being reflective facilitates learning to continuously improve and bring out your best. What is the real challenge for you to have a better year than the one you just had? References: Densten, I. L., & Gray, J. H. (2001). Leadership development and reflection: What is the connection? International Journal of Educational Management, 15(3), 119-124. Di Stefano, Gino, F., Pisano, G. P., & Staats, B. R. (2016). Making Experience Count: The Role of Reflection in Individual Learning. IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2874177 Gardner, S. & Albee, D. (2015). Study focuses on strategies for achieving goals, resolutions. Dominican University of California. Helyer, R. (2015). Learning through reflection: the critical role of reflection in work-based learning (WBL). Journal of Work-Applied Management. Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup Press.

There has been a lot written on how people are irrational. We have biases that subconsciously influence our decision-making. One of these is leadership attribution error. It's the tendency to attribute leaders with greater impact on results than is real. A coach gets their team into the championship series, and we say, what a great coach. Likewise, if a team has a losing season or is relegated, the coach gets fired. Compelling evidence suggests that leadership does moderate company performance and results. But, maybe you feel the importance of effective leadership is overstated. There is some proof that followers contribute up to 80% of an organization's success. Given unconscious biases and the seemingly contradictory evidence about leadership impact, it is no surprise if you feel skeptical. It could be that you are entirely on board with the value of leadership and are curious about the conditions. Here are five ways leadership impacts people, profit, and purpose in your business and what to consider for your next leadership development investment. Leadership Impact #1: Business Performance Good leadership can create a win out of a weak plan, but ineffective leadership can destroy a business with a great strategic plan. Leadership effectiveness moderates company performance. According to Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, a review of 1,435 companies studied over more than forty years revealed that leadership effectiveness accounted for up to 6.9 times greater financial returns than market averages. In a separate study of over 2,000 firms and leaders, effective leadership accounted for a 38% increase in an organization's overall business performance. This same study then examined the leadership effectiveness scores of the top and bottom-performing 10% of companies. The results revealed that leadership effectiveness was at the 80th percentile in the top-performing companies. Leadership effectiveness was at the 30th percentile in the lowest-performing companies, lower than 70% of the norm leadership effectiveness scores. Personal experience: Working with a large Forbes Top 25 Private Company, we set out to quantify the value of executive leadership. We used internal key business metrics and various cognitive and behavioral leader assessments. A large controlled study involving leaders across different markets revealed a positive correlation between the leader's effectiveness and employee retention, sales, margin, labor costs, and net profit. Leadership Impact #2: Follower Performance Several studies investigate the connection between the leader and the follower's performance. The evidence is consistent that leadership moderates follower performance. In a survey of 100 executives and middle management leaders in manufacturing and service organizations, effective leadership improved follower performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Also, effective leadership is shown to significantly impact follower discretionary effort, known as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). This is when employees voluntarily go beyond what is expected of them to benefit the organization. A study of 815 employees and 123 leaders found that effective leadership increased OCB and workplace climate. Leadership Impact #3: Innovation Fostering innovation within an organization is an increasingly important leadership behavior. No organization is looking to stay the same year over year. Innovation drives top-line revenues, creating a competitive advantage in today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous marketplace. Evidence suggests that leadership is essential for driving innovation. A study involving over 400 executives from 48 companies connected effective organizational strategy and innovation performance with leadership habits. Leadership Impact #4: Trust and Organizational Change Trust is the currency of business relationships, and an absence of trust can bankrupt the organization and its employees. At an individual level, a lack of trust contributes to feelings of: Frustration Rejection Stress Anxiety Depression Leadership trust is directly connected to employee retention, organizational commitment, and support for organizational change. Unfortunately, trust in leadership is becoming rarer. Trust is given based on leadership competence and ethical behaviors. In their book The Leadership Challenge, authors Kouzes and Posner suggested that "credibility" is the foundation of effective leadership because employees must be able to trust their leaders. Numerous studies demonstrate that leadership is critical to successful organizations and change. Whether a change is department-specific or company-wide, it benefits from executive engagement. Executive leadership teams provide vision, establish strategy, prepare the corporate culture for change, and motivate employees to change. This is important because trust has been shown to mediate employee openness to change and, ultimately, the outcome of change. When trust is present, organizations navigate and manage change with improved results. Change events heighten emotional responses, making communicating effectively challenging for the most skilled leaders. Leadership Impact #5: Communication & Relationships Leadership is a conversation. Like air, the words leaders speak can give life to a business. But words can also constrain and limit realities for individual employees, teams, and organizations. Leadership communication cultivates quality leader-follower and employee-organization relationships. In a study of 400 employees working in various companies with an average company tenure of 10 years, influential leaders increased: Two-way communication Creativity Collaboration Job attitudes Organizational commitment Key Points Effective leadership makes a difference in the personal and professional results you achieve and the life you live. Leadership effectiveness improves the bottom line. Effective leadership improves follower performance and promotes higher business levels, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Senior leadership is essential for driving innovation. Senior leadership trust is directly connected to employee retention, organizational commitment, and support for organizational change. Influential leaders increase two-way communication, creativity, collaboration, job attitudes, and organizational commitment. Great leaders achieve great results and create great company cultures. References: Anderson, R., & Adams, W. (2016). Mastering leadership: An integrated framework for breakthrough performance and extraordinary business results. Wiley. Day, D., & Lord, R. (1988). Executive leadership and organizational performance: Suggestions for a new theory and methodology. Journal of Management, 14(3), 453-464. Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap--and others don't. HarperBusiness. Dhar, U., & Mishra, P. (2001). Leadership effectiveness: A study of constituent factors. Journal of Management Research, 1(4), 254. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizatonal Talent consulting. Eisenbeiss, S., van Knippenberg, D., & Boerner, S. (2008). Transformational leadership and team innovation: Integrating team climate principles. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1438-1446. Hackman, J. Richard, and Ruth Wageman. 2007. Asking the right questions about leadership: Discussion and conclusions. American Psychologist 62, no. 1: 43-47. Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (Sixth ed.). Jossey-Bass. Madanchian, M., Hussein, N., Noordin, F., & Taherdoost, H. (2017). Leadership effectiveness measurement and its effect on organization outcomes. Procedia Engineering. Volume 181, pp. 1043-1048. Men, L. (2014). Why leadership matters to internal communication: Linking transformational leadership, symmetrical communication, and employee outcomes. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26: 256–279. Walumbwa, F., Hartnell, C., & Oke, A. (2010). Servant leadership, procedural justice climate, service climate, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior: A cross-level investigation. Zhang, H., Ou, A., Tsui, A., & Wang, H. (2017). CEO humility, narcissism, and firm innovation: A paradox perspective on CEO traits. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(5), 585-604. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.01.003

Let's face it. Those you lead already know you are not perfect. It may be a minor shortcoming that is a blind spot, or it could be a leadership habit impacting those you lead or the company's financial results. When you become self-aware of accidental bad habits, the only real decision is between choice and change. Change always begins with a choice. It is one thing to recognize the need for change and another to be entirely willing to act. Striving for better habits is a competitive advantage for any leader and business looking for a powerful point of differentiation. If you choose to create better leadership habits – here is what you need to know based on the latest research and six proven tips to get you moving in your best direction. "The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." – Samuel Johnson⁠ Myth-Busting: It takes 21 days to form a habit Habits are routines, patterns, or practices performed regularly. A common myth is that it takes 21 days to break a habit. Evidence from Dr. Maxwell Maltz's 1960 book 'Psycho-cybernetics' is believed to have led to this myth. The number of times you complete a healthy habit before it becomes a habit can vary substantially by the person and the situation. One study concluded it typically ranges from 18-254 days of consistency. The key is repetition, and eventually, it will become a habit. Habits (good or bad) are often enjoyable and automatic Often, our brain works against us when we try to build better habits by reinforcing our bad habits. Some of these habits produce pleasure and release dopamine as a reward. We are wired for repetition and doing things automatically. This creates advantages for mindless tasks and makes changing habits harder. Good intentions are not enough to break habits. However, leaders are not doomed to live with certain habits. You can change and reorient your behavior. You can build self-control, making standing firm while trying to change easier. After you begin with a choice, these tips will keep you moving in your best direction: Better Habits Tip #1: Know Your Why Living daily without a vision for the future is not a great approach if you want to make the most of your life. Success and significance are not accidents and will require being deliberate and persevering. Starting with the end in mind goes far beyond knowing what habit you want to create. It requires considering why and what outcome you want from your personal and professional investment of time and energy. To answer this question, you have to factor in the impact you will have on others, what you stand for, and how you want to show up daily. Ikigai (e-key-guy) is a Japanese concept that refers to your direction or purpose in life, providing fulfillment, satisfaction, and a sense of meaning. The literal translation consists of two words, 'iki' meaning to live and 'gai' meaning reason. Evidence suggests that the positive psychological effects of Ikigai include professional success, well-being, and physical benefits such as longevity of life. A study of over 40,000 adults found that men and women with Ikigai had a decreased risk for death from external causes. Better Habits Tip #2: Get a Plan You may have heard the saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. There is not a one-size-fits-all plan template. However, a good development plan, at a minimum, should include your why, making it easy, making it automatic, planning for accountability, and falling forward. Also, writing down your goals is associated with goal success. Evidence suggests you are 1.2X to 1.4X more likely to accomplish goals when they are vivid and explicit versus when they are not. If you want to take the easy route, you can take the free Accidental Habit Assessment, pick up a copy of my book Life-Changing Leadership Habits, or schedule a 20-minute call, and we can put a plan together specific to your needs. Better Habits Tip #3: Make it Easy It's about consistency over intensity. Don't try to make too many changes at once. Make it easy. Pick one easy change and gradually increase the difficulty when creating a new habit. Multiple changes at once make creating a new habit more difficult. For example, if your goal is to create a healthy habit of appreciative thinking. Rather than starting with implementing an appreciative inquiry summit or redesigning your organization's approach to strategic planning, pick one appreciative question to incorporate into existing one-to-one meetings. Keeping it simple to start allows you to build on success. Better Habits Tip #4: Make it Automatic Habit stacking is a proven approach to starting and making a new habit automatic. Habit stacking involves connecting new habits with existing habits to make them memorable. For example, suppose you are looking to create a habit of saying thank you to your team. In that case, you could benefit from connecting it with another behavior you already have formed. For example, if you walk through your facility daily to check production status, you could start using that time to catch your team doing something valuable and immediately say thank you. Pairing new habits with existing routines makes the new habit more memorable and establishes automaticity. Better Habits Tip #5: Get an Accountability Partner Life was not meant to be done alone. Too often, we fail to consider leveraging accountability to help us create a new healthy habit. Being accountable to ourselves and someone we trust is proven to help you create a new habit. Conducting check-in meetings with an accountability partner to increase your motivation. We all tend to do better when someone is watching, even if that someone is you. Daily reflection and considering improvement opportunities establish personal accountability and a continuous improvement mindset. Better Habits Tip #6: Fail Forward No, I didn't just say to fail—plan for falling forward and not backward. When you first learned to walk, you fell more than you walked. You are human, and failure only comes with giving up. Being consistent is essential for creating a new habit and not being perfect. Develop a plan for getting back on track when you fall. It's not that you expect to fail but thinking ahead about how you will get back up rather than being perfect. Creating new habits is not a game of all or nothing. The steps described are not an exhaustive list of every potential action you will need to overcome every challenge you may encounter when creating new leadership habits. Instead, these steps help you with the more common situations and significant difficulties you may encounter. "Virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.” Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics You can develop better leadership habits with a bit of planning. Like hiking, the first step is being entirely willing to make a change. References Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. Avery. Cleo, G., Glasziou, P., Beller, E., Isenring, E., & Rae, T. (2019). Habit-based interventions for weight loss maintenance in adults with overweight and obesity: a randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Obesity, 43(2), 374-383. Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-changing leadership habits: 10 proven principles that will elevate people, profit, and purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting. Garcia, H. & Miralles, F. (2018). Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life. Penguin Life. Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, Cornelia H., Potts, H., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. Murphy, M. (2010). HARD goals: The secret to getting from where you are to where you want to be. McGraw Hill.

Empty stadiums at the 2020 Olympics provide a fascinating glimpse into the profound impact of others' presence on workplace performance, productivity, and profitability. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.7% of full-time employees are now working from home, while 28.2% are working a hybrid model. Empty offices are no longer a rarity. Social facilitation sheds light on the subtle ways the presence of others impacts performance and why an Olympic athlete would cite a lack of an audience for dropping out of an event. The presence of others is a psychological lever that can optimize your performance in the workplace. When you put the ideas of social facilitation to work, you give yourself and your team a greater opportunity to achieve higher levels of performance and career success. Whether you are a team leader with remote employees or work remotely, here is what you need to know about social facilitation and a few tips to bring out your best. Why Understanding Social Facilitation Matters Social facilitation is a psychological concept relating to the tendency for the influence of others to improve a person’s performance on a task. This concept was first described in a study of bicyclist's racing performance in 1898. The researcher noticed that when racing against others, athletes performed better than those racing only against their times. Social facilitation is defined as improvement in performance induced by the real, implied, or imagined presence of others. Social facilitation is thought to impact: the drive to perform the ability to focus while performing the anxiety and desire to impress others. Social facilitation has two types of effects on the performer: Co-action effects because others are doing the same task Audience effects because you are doing something in front of others. Evidence suggests three nuances that impact social facilitation: The presence of others negatively influences employee performance on complex and challenging tasks, as defined by the performer. The presence of others positively influences employee performance when confidence is high for the task. The presence of others negatively affects employee performance when the performer has lower confidence levels. Proximity, the number of others, and the degree to which others are supportive play a role in influencing performance positively or negatively. One of my first not-so-fun memories associated with the social facilitation audience effect came from an experience I had when I was eight. My parent's desire to develop a music appreciation led them to make me take one year of piano lessons. I remember I was assigned to play "Doo-Dad Boogie" for my first piano recital. While this sheet music is elementary, it was challenging for a first-year piano student. I was terrified at the recital even though I was only playing for a few parents and other students in the living room of my piano teacher. This experience taught me that I played better in private. Later in high school, I first connected with the positive influence of the social facilitation co-action effect. I was never a great student. Most of the time, I was a quiet C student. However, when more intelligent students surrounded me, I recognized that I tended to push myself harder and do better than in lower-level courses. This stood out because I anticipated doing worse in the higher-level courses. As in my life, the influence of others is not always positive. The opposite of social facilitation is called social loafing. Social loafing happens when others influence someone to put in less effort than working alone. The reality is that performance is contagious. Others can influence performance for the better and the worse. Implications for Leaders of Hybrid Teams & Remote Employees So, what implications can leaders and senior management take away from the concept of social facilitation and the lessons of the 2020 Olympic games? It might be surprising to know, but your performance is not just dependent on you. Also, your team's performance isn’t just about them. Leaving employees alone is not helpful for them or the organization's bottom line. As a word of caution, social facilitation is not a license to micromanage employees. I don't know anyone who enjoys being told what to do when they can do what needs to be done. Understanding the influence of others can help you improve your performance and the performance of those you lead. The Joyless Workplace? Some have labeled the Tokyo Olympics as the "joyless games" due to the lack of family and friends in the seats to cheer and celebrate. Even though the absence of a crowd is apparent, if you only look at the faces of Olympic gold winners, it is hard to recognize the difference between these games from any others. Cardboard cutouts in the stadium piped in crowd noise and extra encouragement from coaches and teammates were used to fill a void. According to the athletes themselves, fans have an emotional effect on the games and can increase the energy of those winning or inspire those falling behind to dig deeper. In the following interview with two former Olympic athletes, they provide perspective on the impact of empty stands on the athletes' performance. 5 Social Facilitation Tips for Leaders The reality of a hybrid workforce with geographically dispersed employees is not going away. The following are five tips for applying the social facilitation research to leading geographically dispersed teams: Leadership Social Facilitation Tip #1: Presence Matters Leaders need to be present with employees. Although technology has limitations compared to physical proximity, research supports that a digital presence influences social facilitation effects. Frontline leaders and senior management should establish strategies to be present and check in with employees. Conduct regular check-in meetings to increase your presence and feedback. Leadership Social Facilitation Tip #2: Goals Matter More Research has identified that having clear performance goals improves employee performance in addition to social facilitation. Setting goals with employees (not for employees) with performance anchors is essential, especially in a digital environment. Use goal-setting as an opportunity to empower your team. Leadership Social Facilitation Tip #3: Recognition Makes a Difference After establishing clear goals of what performance is worthy, you need to show you notice and care. Use a reinforcement survey to find out what motivates each employee. Then, use those learnings to recognize excellent performance when observed. Don't wait until the end of the year. Leadership Social Facilitation Tip #4: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work When the task is simple or well-known, you can increase performance by introducing an audience. Consider opportunities for pairing up team members doing the same job. Also, make it a point to show up virtually on your team's projects. Leadership Social Facilitation Tip #5: Keep Your Virtual Door Open Create opportunities to socialize and build personal relationships virtually. The digital environment creates some challenges. However, there are many potentially novel ideas for online remote employees. 3 Social Facilitation Tips for Remote Employees Here are three tips for anyone who finds themselves working out of their basement and looking for ways to improve their performance: Employee Social Facilitation Tip #1: Practice Should be Private Work toward becoming fluent with a task before performing in front of others. As your fluency increases, task difficulty will decrease, and others will positively reinforce your performance. At this point, start to make your performance visible to others to leverage the positive effects of social facilitation. Invite your leader to join in on a virtual project meeting or ask to pair up with someone on an assignment. Employee Social Facilitation Tip #2: Be Thoughtful of Whom You Invite to Practice Surround yourself with supportive people as you are learning complex tasks. An unsupported audience harms complex task performance. Employee Social Facilitation Tip #3: Leverage Ambient Noise Moderate levels of ambient noise enhance creative cognition by mimicking the presence of others. Being hyper-focused on a task can limit creativity. Check out coffitivity.com, which replicates the coffee shop when you can’t be at one. If your career is stalling, you need a plan to boost your career. Hiring a coach focused on your career goals leads to improved performance. Coaching keeps you feeling challenged versus being worried about what's next. Additionally, an executive coach increases your blind spot awareness. Getting started is as easy as visiting www.organizationaltalent.com or contacting us via email at info@organizationaltalent.com to learn more about our executive coaching and organizational consulting services. References: Aiello, J.R., & Douthitt, E.A. ( 2001). Social facilitation theory from Triplett to electronic performance monitoring. Group Dynamics, 5(3), 163-180. Feinberg, J. M. & Aiello, J. R. (2006). Social Facilitation: A Test of Competing Theories. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36(5), 1087-1109. Mehta, R., Zhu, R., & Cheema, A. (2012). Is Noise Always Bad? Exploring the Effects of Ambient Noise on Creative Cognition. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(4), 784-799. doi:10.1086/665048 Murayama K, Elliot AJ. The competition-performance relation: a meta-analytic review and test of the opposing processes model of competition and performance. Psychological Bulletin. 2012;138(6):1035-1070. doi:10.1037/a0028324 Rafaeli S, Rafaeli S, Noy A. Correspondence (September). European Journal of Information Systems. 2002;11(3):196-207.