MANAGERIAL COURAGE: 7 PRACTICAL WAYS TO BE A BIT MORE DARING

Source: Image by pch.vector on Freepik.com

MANAGERIAL COURAGE

7 Practical Ways to be a Bit More Daring

BY KARIN HURT

Small Acts of Managerial Courage Build Confidence, Trust, and Connection

When I think of the most courageous leaders I’ve worked with over my career, it’s not the BIG decisions they made or the SINGLE TIME they made the tough call that created a legacy of courage.

It’s that you could count on them to CONSISTENTLY speak the truth, have your back, or be willing to let you experiment with a new idea.

They earned their reputation as a courageous manager one small daring moment at a time—small micromoments of courage that led to better performance and deeper trust.

The best way to gain confidence speaking up and other small acts of courage is to experiment with getting out of your comfort zone, one mini-brave act at a time. WHAT IS MANAGERIAL COURAGE?

Most definitions of managerial courage involve speaking with candor, being willing to act with incomplete information, timely decision making, and addressing performance issues.

Courageous managers know their strengths, own them, and use them. They will tell you their truth, even if it’s hard to hear. They surround themselves with people who will challenge them. And they give credit where it’s due. They’re consistently trying new approaches, coming to work each day curious about how to make work better, easier, or more efficient.

Every day. In little ways.

7 PRACTICAL WAYS TO BE A BIT MORE DARING

I’m here to encourage your courage and invite you to be just a bit more daring by taking on one or more of these managerial courage challenges. Start by owning your strengths, and then…

1. Ask a colleague for feedback 2. Open up with a bit of vulnerability 3. Address a performance issue 4. Share an idea 5. Experiment with a new approach 6. Advocate for a team member 7. Ask for help

FIRST, OWN YOUR STRENGTHS

The best way to build confidence and courage is to know your strengths, own them and use them. Consider how your greatest strengths could be vital assets that are transferable across different contexts.

Look for opportunities to show up as an interested expert ready to help.

To start, as yourself these questions.

• What work doesn’t feel so much like work? • Which elements of your work give you the most energy? • What do people continue to tell you you’re good at… from role to role. • When you reflect back to your early childhood what were your natural gifts? How are these still playing out in your approach to the world today? • Are there any talents you keep hidden from the people you work with today? • How could you bring more of your “extracurricular” strengths to your day job?

1. Ask a colleague for feedback.

One of the best ways to demonstrate managerial courage is to invite (and act on) feedback.

If you’re up for a small challenge, pick one area you’re looking to improve and identify someone you trust to offer you candid feedback. To get the best input, be specific.

What’s one best practice I could do to really improve my communication? What’s one thing I could do differently to make your meetings more productive? I want to take my contributions to our team up a level this year. What’s one change I could make that would make your job easier? What’s one change I could make that would increase your trust in me?

If you already regularly ask for such input and want to take on a bigger challenge, consider going on a DIY 360 (or listening tour).

We often include these DIY 360s in our leadership development programs. We consistently hear that having these informal, voice-to-voice conversations builds deeper trust and connection, and opens the door to more collaboration, as well as helps to identify specific areas to work on.

2. Open up just a bit more—and let your team learn something new about you.

Sometimes it’s scary to let people see who you really are at work. And yet, people trust people they know at a human level.

If you want to take this on as a team challenge, our BECOME team-building exercise is a great way to encourage and facilitate deeper conversations.

Or, just head into your next round of one-on-ones with the intention of building a deeper connection– both ways. Share a bit more about yourself and be interested in learning something new about each person on your team. 4. Share an idea.

In our Courageous Cultures research, 40% of respondents said they held back ideas to improve the business because they lack confidence. If you have an idea to improve the business but are stuck with FOSU (fear of speaking up), this is the challenge for you.

Here’s a conversation starter that will make most managers really listen to what you have to say.

“I really care about our team and our success. I have an idea that will ___________ (describe what strategic outcome your idea will improve, e.g. make us more money, save us time, improve retention). Do you have a few minutes for me to walk you through?” And then use our I.D.E.A. model to position your idea in a succinct and compelling way.

3. Address a performance issue.

When I ask high-performing employees “What’s one thing you wish your manager would do better?” the most frequent answer is that they would address the performance issues on their team. If you’ve been letting a slacker slide, this managerial courage challenge is for you. Click on the link above for how to do this well. And if you need to reset expectations, the new year is a great time to do that too. More on resetting performance expectations here.

The worst that can happen is that they don’t use your idea. But either way, you’ll be seen as a critical thinker who cares about the team’s success.

5. Experiment with a new approach.

If “It ain’t broke, don’t fix it” feels comfortable, experimenting with a well-run pilot can go a long way in upping your managerial courage while managing your stress.

67% of the employees in our courageous cultures research said their manager operates around the notion of “This is the way we’ve always done it.”

If this could be you, this is a managerial courage challenge for you.

6. Advocate for a team member.

Courage is contagious. And, speaking up gets a whole lot easier when you have support. If this is tricky for you, a good way to take on this challenge is to find little ways to advocate for your team.

7. Ask for help.

Sometimes one of the most courageous acts is to admit that you need help.

If asking for help is hard, this might be the perfect managerial courage challenge to kick off the new year. Find one area of your work where you need some support and ask for the help you need.

Do you know what happens when you ask for help? You might actually get the help you need. And research shows that asking for help is a great way to build trust and connection.

KARIN HURT

Karin Hurt is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and MBA professor. She has decades of experience in sales, customer service, and HR which she uses to help clients turn around results through deeper engagement. She knows the stillness of a yogi, the reflection of a marathoner, and the joy of being a mom raising emerging leaders.

This article was originally published on Let’s Grow Leaders

Source: Image by pch.vector on Freepik.com SPEAK-UP CULTURE

How to Encourage More (and Better) Ideas

BY KARIN HURT

How to Draw out Better Ideas from Every Member of Your Team

You’re a human-centered leader working to create a courageous, speak-up culture filled with psychological safety. A culture where employees feel invited and encouraged to speak up and share their ideas and express their concerns.

Even if you’re a rock star human-centered leader, doing all the right things to encourage micro-innovation and problem solving, it’s also likely that you have a few team members who still have best practices and ideas they’re holding back.

How to Include Your Reluctant Employees in Your Speak-Up Culture

Start by getting underneath their reluctance to speak up. People choose to hold back their ideas for a variety of reasons.

It could be they are an introverted, silent ponderous type who could use some extra time to formulate their ideas before sharing. Or, it could be they’ve worked for a toxic leader before and the scar tissue is just too thick. It feels safer to stay silent for these silent wounded types.

Of course, sometimes in a speak-up culture, you can have too many ideas coming from an idea grenadier or a schmoozer who just wants people to like him and his ideas, with no intention of following through.

In this article, we share ideas for helping all your people think more critically so they contribute more fully as you build a speak-up culture.

SILENT PONDEROUS

Help your silent ponderous employees bring you better ideas

Your silent ponderous types are a great place to start. These are folks with great ideas, who might appear to be disengaged, or even frustrated by the wacky ideas of others—but who still hold back.

To draw out the great value silent ponderous people can contribute to your speak-up culture, start by giving them time to think.

For some meetings, this means giving them the main topic a day or two in advance and asking them to think about it. In some settings having everyone write their ideas first will give them time to process.

Another strategy is to clarify that you’re not asking for a 100% accurate answer.

When you ask them for their best thinking at the moment or a range of ideas, it gives them permission to explore, rather than commit to something they haven’t thought through yet.

SILENT WOUNDED

Your silent wounded need encouragement to participate in a courageous culture

Working with silent wounded in your culture can be a bit heartbreaking. You know they have good ideas, but psychological safety is low and fear is high.

They don’t trust you—and with good reason.

It’s not that you’ve done anything wrong. It’s the three managers who came before you who abused their trust, told them they weren’t hired to think, stole their idea, and then took credit for it. Now you have the same title and, fairly or not, all the negative baggage that comes with it.

Your job is to rebuild their trust. This will take time, but once you’ve built that trust, these team members are often very loyal. Start small.

Ask a courageous question and receive the answers graciously and with gratitude. Build up to deeper questions and focus on responding well.

Celebrate people, generously give credit, then ask for more problem solving and ideas to better serve your customers.

IDEA GRENADIERS

Build a courageous culture by helping your idea grenadiers refine their ideas

Of course, when building a speak-up culture, it’s possible to have so many ideas flying around that very little gets done.

Some people are idea-machines–their brain works overtime to see the possibilities in every situation. Nearly every team is better off with someone who can creatively look at what’s happening and see opportunities to improve or transform.

The challenge comes when the idea-person tosses all their ideas in your lap, wants you to do them, but won’t do the work. These are the idea-grenadiers—tossing their ideas like grenades and then running the other direction.

When you’re working with someone like this as you build a speak-up culture, it helps to have a direct conversation that calls them back to what matters most and asks them to engage. For example:

“I’ve noticed that in the past month you come to me with four different ideas about how we should improve security, revamp the training program, change our workforce management, and reorganize product management. There is merit in your ideas—and we can’t pursue all of them right now. Which of them do you think would help achieve our #1 strategic priority? Is that a project you’d be willing to help with?”

SCHMOOZERS

Encourage your schmoozers to build the confidence needed for execution

Most organizations have a schmoozer—everyone likes them and they talk a great game, but when it comes time to get things done, somehow, they never implement that plan that sounded so amazing when they presented it.

The challenge is that they undermine trust in your speakup culture. Ideas they share lack credibility and they’re less likely to be entrusted with good ideas because they won’t implement them.

The best strategy with schmoozers is to ignore the charm and focus on the results. Healthy accountability conversations that help them raise their game will help restore their credibility. When you talk with them, be ready for an elegantly worded explanation for why they didn’t get it done. If it happens again, you need to escalate the conversation.

For example: “This is the third time we’ve had this conversation. Your credibility is at stake. What you said sounded wonderful, but if you can’t implement it, your team can’t rely on you and neither can I. What can we do to get this on track and completed?”

CHANGE RESISTORS

Help your change resistors connect to a more meaningful “why”

Your change resistors aren’t necessarily lazy, stuck, negative, or even “resistant.” Rather, they’re normal. Resisting change actually makes a lot of sense.

After all, if what you did yesterday worked—it got you through the day alive, fed, and healthy—why spend energy to do something differently? That’s a waste of time—unless there’s a good reason. To address this, start with the problem, not the solution.

When you start with the solution, you deprive your team of the understanding and connection that drove you to action.

Share the problem, then pause. Let it sink in. Then ask for their thoughts. This helps anchor the problem in their thinking. They explore the consequences and how it interacts with other issues.

Change always starts with desire or dissatisfaction. By introducing the problem and letting it sink in, you’re creating the same emotional connection that moved you. As the team discusses the issue, they are likely to start asking about solutions. When someone asks you, “What do you think we should do?” resist the urge to answer immediately. Instead, continue to ask for their ideas. They may come up with ideas you haven’t considered—or they may arrive at the same solution you’ve thought through. Either way, you’ve cultivated curiosity, created ownership, and built momentum.

It may feel like this process takes extra time—and it does. But it’s fifteen or thirty minutes of time that prevents days, weeks, and even months of procrastination and foot-dragging. The team owns the problem and the solution. They’ve connected to the why and are ready for action. This small investment of time overcomes some common reasons people resist change.

With all of these challenging types, your approach and the conversations give them a chance to participate in a courageous, speak-up culture.

KARIN HURT

Karin Hurt is a keynote speaker, leadership consultant, and MBA professor. She has decades of experience in sales, customer service, and HR which she uses to help clients turn around results through deeper engagement. She knows the stillness of a yogi, the reflection of a marathoner, and the joy of being a mom raising emerging leaders.

This article was originally published on Let’s Grow Leaders