Author: Megan Heydt

Coach Your Team

One of the core behaviors to focus on is “coaching your team.”  Many supervisors, when they think of their responsibility to coach their team, think that’s outside of their job description—“I’ll just delegate coaching and providing feedback to HR,” they think.

Many executives, as they’re looking to develop their high potential talent, hire an external coach or someone to build a high potential program so they can simply check “develop my team” of the to-do list, because those experts will take care of it. Unfortunately, that’s the same thing in my opinion as throwing a high potential employee into the deep end and seeing if they’ll swim.

There is a benefit to external coaching and workshops. But on the job, how they actually complete their work is the responsibility of their supervisor. And it always will be. The supervision part of supervising has more of an impact on learning than even an executive coach or a leadership program can have. Together, these integrate into the Game Plan that makes sure that an individual elevates successfully.

Yes, it’s important to have an executive coach to help you. Yes, it’s important to have a leadership program that helps teach new leadership skills. It is the responsibility of the individual and their supervisor to implement these learnings on the job for practical purposes.  This partnership and sponsorship—from the executive team to really make sure that their executives are going through the elevation zone, and that they truly are helping them on a day-to-day basis, giving them feedback and reinforcement to help them be successful.

The reality is, outside coaching can only get your direct reports so far. You can’t delegate your role as a supervisor.  At the end of the day, you have to continue to coach them as well. 

New Year, New Hope, New Choices

January.  A New Year.  A new decade. 

Do you have new year’s resolutions that look something like this?  

• More time with the family
• More time at the gym or yoga
• More time reading
• More time on vacation

All of these goals are about finding better balance.  But I believe these goals create more exhaustion. All are requiring more of your time, which is something you don’t have!  By adding more tasks to an already busy schedule, will it really create balance?

If you want these resolutions to stick,  it is also important to add the leadership goal to “elevate from Exhausted Hero to Strategic Manager”.  First, delegating individual contributor work to create space for more strategic work. Next focus on getting ahead by managing your team, not managing your tasks.  You should spend over 50% of your work week focused on planning for the future by setting a vision for the months ahead, planning to avoid future roadblocks, and positively influencing the change for your team.  

As a leader, you need to get ahead and stop feeling like you are always reacting.  Choose to lead. Choose to delegate. Choose to create a path forward for your team to follow.  Choose the proactive leadership approach that will create more time for family, your health, your development, and your being. 

A Strategic Manager is somebody who has the complete buy-in of their team. They always look calm, cool, and collected, because they seem to know what’s coming and how to handle it. When a fire erupts, they immediately turn into the fire chief, rather than a firefighter. They organize the team’s command center (literal or metaphorical) before fires even start for strategy and response, similar to how emergency teams prepare for and respond to crises.

On a day-to-day standpoint, Strategic Managers spend a lot of time connecting with their teams, which builds a level of trust between those individuals that just doesn’t exist with an Exhausted Hero (aka. firefighter). Strategic Managers hold one-on-ones with individuals on their team, and check in on projects without diving in and being involved in the projects themselves. They don’t spend a lot of time in extra computer systems; they don’t even pull their own reports. They spend their days primarily in meetings and communicating via email.

If this sounds horrible to you, and exemplifies what you hate about leadership, you must realize that all these emails and meetings a have singular, powerful purpose: to mobilize.

Communication is the only way to mobilize teams. When strategically mobilized, a team can always achieve better results than a solo Exhausted Hero. That’s why Strategic Managers invest so much time and energy into connecting with their team, to mobilize efficiently and effectively.

When not mobilizing, Strategic Managers spend their days looking ahead, seeing what’s coming, and brainstorming how to influence the coming weeks and months. “This project is going to miss a deadline. How do I get that in front of the people that need to know about it now?” Or, “We’re going to need more resources on this project. Who can make time to help us?” Or, “We’re going to need to shift this to another plant. How do we do that? Let’s start thinking about that now.” They don’t wait until there are twenty-four hours left to address issues, because they see them coming in advance and can anticipate needs and resources.

If you are managing an Exhausted Hero who needs to elevate their skills to Strategic Manager, consider hiring an Executive Coach or implementing a Leadership Development Program for your company. They most likely will not figure it out themselves. Invest in your team today!

The Ideal Strategic Manager

Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to meet a handful of individuals who truly exemplify what it is to be a Strategic Manager.

Very early on in my career, I worked with Rick Maguire,  senior vice-president of inventory management at Target. Rick always amazed me when a fire came up: either he already knew the answer, or he was quickly he able to frame the problem and move the team forward.

Because Rick spent so much time analyzing what was going on, analyzing what the future could be, and checking in with his leaders, he was able to see clearly where others just saw fog.

He had checkpoints in place to make sure that what he was expecting was happening. He “inspected what you expected.” Rick definitely had his moments when he would get upset or angry when something didn’t happen, but it was usually after the plan was in place and somebody dropped the ball—not because something happened that he hadn’t thought of.

As a senior vice president and a Strategic Manager, he was able to be forward-thinking and have his managers underneath him keep a clear understanding of where things were.

And Rick was one of the biggest supporters of the development of his team, investing in large leadership development programs, mentor programs, and executive coaching to get his team ready to take on more and more.  

For our team, Rick’s foresight and clear expectations resulted in a happy, engaged, and productive work environment. It was challenging work, but I still think fondly of that experience today.

I learned from Rick that you can achieve it all by not doing it all.  His ability to lead a clear vision, influence change, and coach his team created results that he could have never reached by doing it all himself!