Self Leadership Coaching Blog

If you are a baby boomer manager (47 to 67 years old) you will probably have experienced the challenge of getting loyalty and productivity from your Gen Y employees (20-32 years old).

Gen Y’s, often called millennials, and the younger Gen X’ers (still in their 30’s) typically have high self-esteem, a global perspective and are optimistic. They are driven by immediacy and innovation but what they often lack is the ability to speak up appropriately and listen to their more experienced colleagues.

Self-leadership is about being more successful and effective from the inside-out and self-leadership cultures are characterized by autonomy and responsibility. In this article I am suggesting that promoting self-leadership is a strategy to harness the innovation and energy of Gen Y’s with a slight shift in leadership style by senior managers.

Self-leaders are self-aware and confident; they set goals and motivate themselves to achieve these goals. This type of behavior is productive for an organization when the goals the self-leader sets are in alignment with the company’s vision and values. Baby boomers and older Gen X’ers have often had goals set for them and when they become leaders in an organization expect their employees to not only conform to the goal but go about achieving it in the same way they would.

Conforming is not a driver for Gen Y’s who prefer a fluid network of connections rather than a rigid hierarchy of authority. Telling a Gen Y what and how to do their job is de-motivating for them, as they expect to be listened to and disengage if they are not.

How then do we resolve the generation gap?

Baby Boomers and older Gen X’ers must accept that a job is no longer about just making a living; it is about making a living and having a life. Finding meaning and purpose in work is what self-leaders do and is healthy regardless of what age you are. We must keep asking, “Why are we doing this?” and not just make this a top down directive but ask everyone in the company. Gen Y’s love to be listened to, so why not create forums for them to share their ideas about why what they do is important? Self-leadership research shows that people are much more productive when they have a purpose.

“Live, learn and play” is a theme for Gen Y’s; they have blurred the line between work and life and for them work-life balance is not necessarily going home early but being able to have a life at work. What would this look like in your organization? There are various approaches to making work a fun and learning environment such as ‘Fish Philosophy’ by Stephen C. Lundin and rotating roles regularly. I recently heard Amy Lynch of Bridgeworks talk about Thomson Reuters who, when hiring straight from university give employees not one job but three jobs lasting 9 months each. Gen Y’s experience this as rapid learning and rapid career advancement – two things that are very important to them staying in a job!

Relationships matter and Gen Y’s expect their managers to be caring, inspiring and competent. The caring piece might be a tough ask for senior managers who had no experience of being cared for in their career – the answer is coaching. Coaching, when done properly, is about listening, which equates to being cared for by Gen Y employees. Leaders must develop their coaching skills which, in addition to listening, includes co-creating goals and targets which is inspiring, rather than telling – which is not.

Finally I want to talk about respect and responsibility; these are two important values for baby boomer which Gen Y need to learn to observe if they are going to be successful. We need to be telling Gen Y’s, “Yes, you are innovative, yes, we will listen to you and in return we expect you to share your ideas and innovations without insulting the hard work that has gone before you and we expect you take responsibility for managing yourself to achieve your goals.”

The world has changed. The advent of personal computing in the 1990’s and the mobile connectivity advancements in the 2000’s means everything happens faster and globally. Gen Y’s are digital natives but have not had to develop the patience and resilience that build the self-leadership of older generations and so we need to learn from each other if we are going to continue to live, love, learn and play.

In our book ‘Self-leadership’ (due in stores Sept 2012) my co-author, Ana Kazan Ph.D. and I make the following statement:

“There are no fairy godmothers – If you want to be transformed, to be free, you must do the work; you are the hero, you are your own savior.”

This does not mean we deny the importance of faith, in fact our research shows that sprituality is linked with stronger self-leadership; what it does mean is that you must take responsibility for your own success – blaming others for your circumstances or prayer without action is futile.

Life is not fair, we are not all born with parents who validate our self-esteem and provide opportunities for us to learn and grow; sometimes circumstances are downright cruel. But success is measured not by what you have but how much you have grown inside and this comes by motivating yourself to overcome obstacles and live with purpose.

Mythologist Joseph Cambell tracked the hero’s journey, a common them in all cultures (and Hollywood), which is the process by which we are called to action, to a higher purpose (think about Neo in the Matrix or Luke in Starwars). The hero initially refuses the call and may even run away (Jonah and the whale) but on meeting a guide or mentor sets out on an outer and inner journer of discovery, challenge and growth.

We are all heroes or heroines, just living with purpose and integrity in today’s world takes courage and perseverence. Hopefully you are lucky enough to have a mentor (or coach) to guide you but ultimately you must seek the answers within. Ultimately self-leadership is about finding what motivates you and managing your distractions so that you become effective.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described the state of ‘flow’ those periods when you are totally engaged in what your are doing and time just ‘goes away’. When we are in flow we are experiencing natural self-motivation and what we are doing gives us a clue about our purpose. For me, flow happens when I am coaching or speaking to an audience about how they can improve their self-leadership. What is it for you?

Organizations have often ignored the power of self-motivation in favour of offering ‘stick and carrot’ style approaches to getting people to work better. Heroes, can work alone or together combining their powers and covering for each other to make powerful teams.

Even heroes have doubts and a negative inner dialogue can be kryptonite to your superman. The hero recognizes that success is a journey and that their will be setbacks and failures but these are learning experiences that prepare him or her for the next challenge. The hero knows that they must live by a personal code of ethics and if they stay true to this, regardless of what happens externally, they will be a success.

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
Joseph Campbell

“Take a deep breath, step back, take 10″ – these commands invite us to disengage from a stimulus/response or fight/flight situation to gain some perspective or choice. Good advice but not always easy to apply in the heat of the moment, especially when we are in conflict with another person.

If we complain to a third party about someone else, they may suggest we “step in their shoes” or “see it from their perspective” – also good advice but a challenge to put into practice when you are experiencing righteous indignation and we are more inclined to set the other person’s shoes on fire rather than to step into them.

There is a technique, if practiced, that can help you to see things from multiple perspectives, Continue Reading »

As a Westerner living in Asia I often witness a mismatch between leadership and “follow-ship” styles. Asian cultures tend to value collectivism over individuality. They also have high regard for age and seniority whilst appreciating humility. At the same time, Asian managers tend to be more directive than empowering. Not surprisingly, their employees become habituated to doing only what they are told to do and are reluctant to speak up for fear of being scolded. I have coached many Western managers who are using an empowering leadership style only to be dumbfounded when their subordinates did not take initiative and required confirmation of every little step. Continue Reading »

Far be it from to argue with Jean-Paul Sartre, but I no longer think that, “Hell is other people,” I believe that hell is created by our thinking about other people.

Have you ever lost sleep thinking about what someone else said or did? I know I have, and the worst offence, in my experience, is when you feel that person has judged you unfairly.

This week I’ve had two conversations and some personal experience to remind me that, “What other people think about us is none of our business.” This is a tough mindset to master because most of us want to be liked and respected by others. Hell happens when we are not liked or loved or when people do not behave in the way we think they ‘should’.

A coachee of mine, let’s call him Simon, received his performance review this week. Whilst most of the document was positive there were some comments from somebody on the management team that were, in Simon’s view, not factual and he was ticked off. I read the review and the comments in question were certainly subjective, historical and not based on actual observation of Simon’s current behavior. Notwithstanding how unprofessional it is to write such things in a performance review, my job, as coach, was to help Simon process this information and move on. Continue Reading »

Many organisations are suffering a critical shortage of effective senior managers. A senior manager is usually a manager of managers or a manager that needs to lead highly competent individuals.  It is critical that that senior managers master some foundational skills if they are to be successful in this role. Here are some of the critical skills that I teach during my Critical Skills for Senior Managers Program.

Continue Reading »

Back in August 2010 I wrote a post, How to Influence your Boss and since then we have had requests to run this as a seminar – well if you are in Singapore on 22nd of March you can attend a half-day program on this topic.

This promises to be a fun and interactive session where I will be sharing how to:

• Build your personal brand
• Identify your bosses’ ‘currencies’
• Communicate on your boss’ wavelength
• Get free coaching from your boss
• Be proactive and anticipate your boss’ needs
• Get your ideas heard
• Get a promotion or a raise

Continue Reading »

I was recently interviewed on the question of “What makes a successful communicator?”

In Summary this is what I shared:

• Communication is about creating shared meaning and understanding
• Be mindful  of how your message will be received understood, and adapt accordingly
• Always check if your communication is received and understood
• Listen for how the other person feels about the information (emotional response)
• Aim to create dialogue. Try saying”do you mind if I ask you a question?
• Discover what’s important to them. Ask, “what’s important to you about this?”
• Summarise the conversation to confirm understanding
• Suspend your own mental maps to avoid missing out on the other person’s perspective
• Be ok with silence – the other person is probably processing what you said.

What I didn’t say in the interview which is very important, is that you must get the other parties attention first. An obvious tip but one that is often missed.

Recently I was interviewed on the topic of ‘Leadership’ by Hubbis CEO Michael Stanhope.

It’s insidious, it creeps up on you. At first you don’t notice, you brush it off as tiredness or the latent effects of a night out. You can cope, an extra cup of coffee, a Red Bull, a Panadol for the headache and you will be fine.

You wonder why your spouse is giving you those disapproving looks; sure, you have been a bit grumpy but surely they should be supportive, after all it’s work, it’s important it pays the bills. Things start to build up, you can’t clear your inbox or your call list and things start to slip through the cracks. You start to go from crisis to crisis and you don’t know who you are anymore.

If you are experiencing any of the above, you are stressed and at risk of burnout.

Work related stress has been rising and the rate has increased since the Global Financial Crisis. Not only has the work load increased but there are now less people to do it. The result – working long hours and coming to work even when you are sick.

In a perfect world employers should do more about workplace stress but it isn’t a perfect world and work-life balance appears to be a myth. If you are putting on the pounds and turning to the bottle you need to take action today and not wait for HR to role out a policy.

At the heart of Self-leadership is response-ability which means that you can choose your response. Choose to acknowledge that you are important; that you are the CEO of your self and that you can say, “yes” to being healthy and say, “No” to becoming a burnt out blob.

Start small and build your confidence. You can reclaim your life and your sanity onestep at a time and still keep your job or run your business. Consider which of the following you can do today and which you add over the coming weeks.

• Alcohol free days
• Exercise – even a 15 minute walk is a start
• Playing with your children
• Finishing work at 5pm – just one day/week is a start
• Talking to you spouse – but not only about work
• Taking one task at a time and finishing it
• Answer your e-mails in chunks rather than as the come in
• Reconnecting to why you are doing what you are doing
• Take lunch breaks
• Eat good food
• Breath - take time out during the day for deep (nicotine free) breaths
• Learn to say “No” to the unimportant things

The secret is to take control. It is not how long you are at work that matters, it is the quality of your work. If you are stressed the quality will decrease. You may think you are indispensable, but if you start to show signs of stress your employer may not see this as loyalty but fire you for not coping. Life is not fair unless you take control of your life.

As a footnote, it’s 2 months since my last drink, I am exercising everyday, my kids know my name and I have lost 7Kg. I feel great and am more productive – sometimes we need to practice what we preach