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Shawn Stratton works with organizations to strengthen leadership skills that translate into powerful teams. Founder of the LiveMore Group, an organization that helps people maximize their potential and productivity, Shawn has designed presentations and retreats for both small businesses and large corporations, offering teams of all sizes the inspiration and tools to flourish in this unpredictable, exciting economic environment.
Great Managers Do This When Coaching:
A manager asks more questions – provides less feedback A major role of any manager is to support others in getting stuff done. This involves instructing, advising, coaching, and even cheerleading. The manager’s coaching role may be the most valuable impact they can have on an employee in the organization. The success of a manager’s coaching role usually comes down to the questions they ask. In mentoring employees, a great leader will ask quality questions long before providing feedback. Before I learned about ‘coaching questions’ I was quick to provide advice through feedback to students and clients who were struggling with a challenge. I still have to catch myself from doing this because it is in our human nature to want to fix things for people, especially when we feel we know the answer. Often, we instinctually do this by blurting out the answer or at least our viewpoint on how they could solve their struggle. We want to end their (and perhaps the team’s) pain as soon as possible. Unfortunately, telling them what you think is the answer is not the most effective way to solve their problem. In the best case, telling them will fix the situation in the short-term. In the worst case (and most often), your words will go in one ear and out the other. The most effective problem solving tool a manager can use is asking them open-ended ‘coaching questions’, allowing the employee to discover the solution for him or herself. It is not as important that they come up with the answer you had in mind. The most important thing is that...
Create Boundaries without Being a Jerk
You are a good person who wants to be a great leader and teammate. You want to follow what I call the ATS rule of team building, that is you want to… do your part AND THEN SOME to help your team achieve their goals. Great, but how do you do this and still keep firm boundaries? I recently spoke with a client who was having a difficult time creating boundaries with her co-workers and supervisors. She wanted to keep everyone happy and be a great teammate by doing an extra task here and there. The problem was that she soon found herself being a dumping ground for many tasks that others didn’t want to do or didn’t know how to do but was their responsibility. She became the go-to person in the team to ‘get stuff done’. She was starting to feel disrespected, her core responsibilities were starting to suffer and she didn’t know how to stop the onslaught of work without feeling like she would be offending her teammates. Why Boundaries Are Critical Having firm boundaries is a critical element to becoming a successful leader, whether you are at the top of an organization or are working your way up. Setting boundaries around your time and responsibilities is easier said that done, especially if you want to practice the ATS Rule. (More on the ATS Rule) It is important to be a helpful teammate and leader but you need to protect your time furiously. You have roles and responsibilities to perform which need to take priority for you to do your job well. You only have so...
Thank You (It’s an Anniversary)!
I want to take a moment to say Thank You for being on the leadership journey with me. Whether you read my posts each week or twice a year, I want you to know I appreciate you taking the time to read and share my blog posts. I also want to thank those who filled in the recent survey I sent out a few weeks ago. I was blown away by the tremendous response. The information gathered will help me serve you better in 2016. This week marks the one-year anniversary of me posting original weekly blogs! This is a big deal for me as it is a ton of work as writing is not something that comes naturally for me, like say a 20 km run, or leading a group in a hailstorm on the side of a mountain. When I started blogging regularly about three years ago, I started off writing once a month or so. Then I made a commitment to write every two weeks as I thought that would be my max output and the max you could probably tolerate. Then last year I met with my friend and mentor Hugh Culver who challenged me to post an original blog once a week. He showed me how to write a blog editorial calendar, and I was on my way. So, if it is such a struggle, why do I do it then? I do it mostly for you and a little for me. My whole business is centred on helping you become a more successful leader so you can achieve greater team and personal goals...
Shawn Stratton, Leadership Motivational Speaker and Consultant
“His use of story telling, humor and photography delivered a powerful message on the importance of finding our true passion as an indicator of success. ” -Ian Shortall read more
