The ability to deliver difficult news with poise, compassion, and professionalism is a leadership skill that people don’t talk about much. Yet it’s incredibly important.

How you guide your team during tough times shows what caliber leader you are.

Sometimes bad things happen. Projects are canceled, layoffs are on the horizon, or perhaps a company division is being shuttered. Sometimes an employee or prized client dies unexpectedly or becomes embroiled in a criminal matter. And as a leader, it’s up to you to deliver the news to your team.

Intelligent Leadership, as I discuss in my books, often demands first stepping back and asking yourself a few key questions. With bad news, that first question should be, “How would I want someone to break this news to me?” You certainly wouldn’t want momentous news delivered by email. Fortunately, there are ways to talk about difficult topics in person so that you deliver solid information, preserve everyone’s dignity, and take the first steps toward a workable solution. Here’s how.

Don’t Wait Too Long to Speak with Your Team

Even if no one has mentioned the bad news, people have ways of picking up bits and pieces. And often they pick up just enough to fuel rumors. Wait until you have verifiable facts to present, but beyond that, don’t wait longer than you have to. People are hungry for real information, and if they don’t get it, they’re more likely to spin innuendo and rumor into wildly inaccurate stories you’ll have to dispel. Get the facts, verify them, and then call your team meeting.

Be Honest, Transparent, and Accountable

Never lie about bad news. If 10 people will definitely be laid off, don’t say that “layoffs are possible.” As an Intelligent Leader, you are also considered a trustworthy source of key information, so it’s essential that you be perfectly honest and transparent. There may be details that you cannot share for legal reasons but share what you can in a straightforward manner.

Honesty and transparency are mandatory for giving bad news while retaining your team’s trust.

And if you have some responsibility for what happened, own it. If your company will not have a booth at a major trade expo because you dropped the ball and didn’t register in time, don’t obfuscate or pass the buck. People may be angry or disappointed, but they will respect you for holding yourself accountable.

Keep Your Tone Appropriate

Now is not the time to crack jokes or make light of things. Deliver difficult news in a tone that is appropriate to the situation, particularly if a colleague or leader has died. There will be time for lightness and humor later, once people have dealt with the situation and healed from it. There is no point in trying to make unpleasant or sad news better by making light of the situation.

Avoid Behaving in Ways That Could Be Perceived as Callous

This is a case where a leader’s self-awareness is critically important. Be aware of people’s moods and of the weight of bad news and behave appropriately. If half your team is being laid off due to budget cuts, don’t fly first class or show everyone pictures of your new car, for example.

Self-awareness allows you to “read the room,” which is especially important in the aftermath of bad news. Keeping the respect of your team requires that you attune your behavior to the circumstances, even if you had no hand in creating them.

Executive coaching doesn’t always cover the art of delivering bad news, but perhaps it should. You’re a leader in both good times and bad, and how you handle yourself can either increase trust and respect or tear it down. At some point, almost every leader will be in the position of breaking the bad news to people they genuinely care about. Practicing good self-awareness and preparing yourself for that eventuality can ensure that your leadership stays strong even when your team has to accept a harsh blow.

People’s roles in the workplace are becoming increasingly specialized. Collaboration helps businesses make the most of everyone’s strengths.

Collaboration helps organizations make the most of everyone’s skills and talents.

Collaboration helps solve problems, increases team cohesion, and helps people learn from each other. It often makes processes more efficient by tapping into the unique skills of multiple people. It’s more than just cooperating or working together in an agreeable manner. Collaboration is more deliberate and directed and is often set up to achieve specific goals.

How a leader behaves can facilitate or undermine collaboration. In fact, the ability to facilitate effective collaboration should be considered as one of the key components of leadership. The following are five ways that leaders may unintentionally undermine collaboration, ultimately hampering productivity and team effectiveness.

1. Communicating Poorly

Leaders who allow people to “silo” information or who communicate with one team member and expect them to spread the word among the team prevent teams from having the information they need. Likewise, leaders who are overly redundant, sending emails and memos and calling about the same issue can slow teamwork. Communicate clearly, concisely, and with the whole team so everyone stays on the same page.

2. Saying One Thing and Doing Something Else

One of the worst things that leaders can do is to claim to value everyone’s input and then make unilateral decisions. A corollary is a leader who encourages collaboration but refuses to participate in any way in the collaborative process. Transparency, honesty, and follow-through are essential leadership practices in a collaborative environment.

3. Listening Selectively

Leaders who only “listen” to what they want to hear, or who only listen to input from senior team members not only quash morale, they may miss out on some valuable insights. You never know who will have a great solution to a problem, or whose suggestion might make the collaboration process better. Intelligent leaders listen to all collaborators.

Leaders know that excellent communication means listening as well as talking.

4. Using Controlling Behavior

Sometimes leaders set up a collaborative environment and then proceed to control every aspect of it. Giving up control can be difficult for some leaders, but in a collaborative environment, it is necessary to dispense with some control. You’re still the leader and can still exercise control when necessary. But you have to let the collaborative process flow, even if there is some trial and error involved at first.

5. Doing an End Run Around Collaboration

Picture a collaborative team working on a new design. They’ve done all the calculations, but wisely decide to let the calculations “rest” over the weekend so they can review them on Monday with fresh eyes. What do you think happens to the collaborative spirit when the leader swoops in on Friday afternoon and insists on submitting the calculations in an attempt to “get it done?” Such actions can instantly subvert collaborative spirit.

Today’s leaders aren’t typically the authoritarians that leaders may have been in previous generations. Businesses have learned the value of collaboration for making the best use of people’s individual talents, and leaders who intentionally or unintentionally subvert collaboration ultimately hurt the team and the business.

Leadership coaching can help leaders to strengthen behaviors that encourage and improve collaboration, as long as those leaders are willing to take an honest look at themselves and potentially give up some control. Leadership coaches frequently work with clients on skills like communication, delegation, and conflict resolution – all of which are immensely valuable in the collaborative workplace.

For collaboration to thrive, leadership must behave in ways that encourage it to thrive, neither abdicating control nor doubling down on control. It’s a fine line but knowing how to enable productive collaboration is one of the most important components of leadership today. Leadership coaching is all about helping leaders reach their full potential so that their organizations can meet and exceed goals.

Leaders are role models. They can’t help but be.

Leading by example requires setting the best possible example of attitudes, values, words, and behaviors.

Whether they are good or bad role models is another story, however. In my book The Intelligent Leader, I define a leader simply as “an example for others to follow.” Not only do the best leaders epitomize the values of a team or organization, they do so without bullying or cajoling. They share their experience without falling back on, “In my day, we did it this way.”

Intelligent Leaders recognize that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and they have the self-awareness to know when they’re stepping too close to that line. They genuinely have the best interests of the team and the organization at heart, and because of this, people want to do their utmost for them.

Intelligent leaders also understand the value of two qualities that at first glance may not seem very “leaderlike”: humility and vulnerability. Here’s why those attributes matter so much.

Humility vs. Hubris

Humility is strongly attached to reality, while hubris is often divorced from it. Hubris focuses on the leader him- or herself, while humility focuses on the success of the mission. Hubris often results from zooming past the line between confidence and arrogance, and while the sheer self-assurance of hubris might provide momentum for a while, over the long term, the results can be disastrous.

While hubris tends to lead to toxicity, incivility, and hostility, humility leads to respect, tolerance, and mutually beneficial outcomes. Humility in a leader is far likelier to lead to a culture of lasting positive action.

Being Vulnerable vs. Being Unassailable

Intelligent Leaders don’t wear capes and are secure enough to show vulnerability.

In The Intelligent Leader, I go into great detail about the power of vulnerability, which almost sounds like an oxymoron. Vulnerability isn’t about being weak, but about being open and transparent. What vulnerability does is open leaders up to new possibilities and new ways of thinking. It builds trust among team members and shows that you, a leader, are human and not some Teflon-coated species that is invulnerable to what the world dishes out.

Vulnerability also goes hand in hand with accountability. Would an invulnerable, overconfident leader readily admit to making mistakes and go about rectifying the situation? It’s unlikely. When a leader pretends to be perfect, the pressure builds up over time, and cracks in the armor of invulnerability will inevitably appear.

Teams Want to Be Led by Real Human Beings

Teams crave strong leadership, but “strong leadership” doesn’t mean leadership that is removed, unaccountable, and always right. Strong leadership – or Intelligent Leadership as I call it – is fully human and strives for continual improvement.

The leader and role model demonstrates the values, words, and actions that get results and build up, rather than oppress the team. People naturally want to follow a leader who not only knows how to get great results but knows how to do so while helping team members develop their own skills and competencies in a virtuous cycle of advancement.

The seemingly invulnerable, hubristic leader may get short-term results, but it’s an unsustainable leadership model. Leaders, no matter how well-trained, skilled, and experienced, are still human, and will still make mistakes. And hubristic leaders don’t receive much sympathy when they are shown to have feet of clay.

Leadership development is in many ways, human development. Outstanding leaders have combinations of skills and attributes that get great results in a specific context. But they don’t “arrive” at being leaders one day and no longer need leadership development. Even the greatest leaders understand that their leadership is a work in progress, and that for that work to continue, they must have the trust and goodwill of their teams.

If you would like to learn more about Intelligent Leadership, I encourage you to check out my books, including my latest book, The Intelligent Leader.

Conflict is a basic and inevitable part of the human experience.

Workplace conflicts have been around as long as workplaces have.

Sometimes we even experience conflict within ourselves that we must resolve. Most of the time, we think about conflict as between two or more people, between two groups, or in existing in multiple directions within a group. Without conflict, we wouldn’t have forward progress, changes in perspective, or even movie plots. There’s no way to completely avoid it in this life.

While people generally don’t like conflict, a total lack of conflict often signals the absence of effective interaction, and that’s not good either. Avoiding conflict isn’t effective except in the cases of very minor conflicts where the outcomes don’t matter very much. Leaders who avoid conflict themselves and who quash any conflicts within their teams do themselves and their teams a disservice in the long run.

It is possible to look at conflict as an opportunity, however. Conflict means that people have different perspectives and ideas, and in the workplace, these different perspectives and ideas often have to do with priorities and with how work is to be accomplished. Healthy conflict resolution can lead to better ways of doing things and ultimately benefit all parties involved.

Conflict is acceptable when it presents different points of view, and when it prevents harmful tendencies like “groupthink.” But constant conflict shouldn’t be normalized. Conflict as a standard operating procedure erodes trust and drives good people away. It’s important to know the difference between healthy conflict and unhealthy conflict (which is often about control and abuse of power). It’s also important for leaders to understand conflict resolution techniques and when to use them.

Why Conflict Resolution Is So Important

Unfortunately, there are leaders who dislike conflict so much that they avoid stepping in, even when conflict threatens goal attainment and team cohesiveness. This is a sure way to derail projects and watch good employees leave for better opportunities.

Sometimes it may feel to a leader like negotiating conflicts is similar to separating siblings fighting over a toy: something that shouldn’t happen in the first place. And while it can be tempting to ignore conflicts perceived to be minor or irrelevant, those conflicts are often based on something much deeper and more profound than what it looks like on the surface. A “silly” argument over having to ask for more printer paper may actually be about control and power, for example.

Conflicts that go unresolved, that are ignored or swept under the rug don’t actually go away. It can be easy for the busy leader to think that a conflict has been resolved because complaints have stopped or because everyone seems to be on task. Unfortunately, however, those unresolved conflicts have a way of re-erupting at inopportune moments, like when people are under stress about meeting an important deadline.

But conflict resolution is also important because it demonstrates that conflicts can be resolved. People can have differences of opinion and still work together effectively. It makes collaboration more likely, and it can ultimately strengthen teams because they’ve worked through tough times together and come out ahead.

What Conflict Resolution Is

Conflict resolution respects each participant’s point of view and does not tolerate personal attacks. Leadership and conflict resolution are about knowing when conflicting parties are capable of coming to a satisfactory solution by themselves and knowing when it’s time to step in.

Personal attacks and jumping to assign blame have no place in constructive conflict resolution.

Leaders with good conflict resolution skills know when to advise a complainant that they have the ability and the power to solve their own conflict, and they know when a conflict has grown to the point where they need to intervene. They perform any gathering of evidence in the strictest confidence.

When leaders must help resolve a conflict, they know that they must take as much of the emotion out of the process as possible. They must also encourage the people who are in conflict to try to separate their emotions from their reasoning to avoid making bad decisions.

Conflict resolution looks forward, not backward. It requires emotional intelligence and self-awareness and works best when all parties to the conflict have these attributes. Conflict resolution seeks to understand the situation, asks the right questions, and listens to what people have to say.

Finally, good conflict resolution builds accountability into the solution it arrives at. It doesn’t let anyone off the hook (except for victims of clear abuse of power) but holds everyone accountable for their part in solving the problem.

What Conflict Resolution Is Not

Conflict resolution is not thinking, “Oh, Jim and Jerry are arguing over the monthly financial report. They always do that.” Conflict resolution doesn’t belittle one person’s point of view or invalidate their very real feelings. It doesn’t excuse a party to a conflict by saying, “That’s just how she is,” or tell one party to ignore the actions of another party.

Leaders who resolve conflicts effectively don’t wait around, thinking the whole thing will blow over, until their hand is forced. They don’t confront people in front of others, try to “divide and conquer,” or play individuals off against one another.

In short, leaders who know how to resolve conflicts accept that conflict exists, but they don’t accept unacceptable behaviors, either in others or in themselves.

Effects of Good Conflict Resolution

When workplace conflicts are resolved quickly, fairly, and with accountability all around, you can actually end up with a stronger team. When people know their concerns are taken seriously, they develop more trust in the organization and their team. The result is a more positive corporate culture overall, which has benefits ranging from lower turnover to higher productivity and earnings.

When leadership and conflict resolution are intertwined, it sets a good example for teams. Team members may see that they have the power to overcome differences, and when they see good conflict resolution skills in action, they may adopt them for themselves, so that fewer conflicts bubble up to the level where they need intervention from someone higher up.

Resolving conflicts builds resilience, both on a personal and on a team level. That’s because successfully resolving conflict is a powerful experience. It draws on people’s empathy, makes them think, and requires that they work through something challenging. People are empowered when they constructively resolve conflicts, and the strength they gain is something they can call upon again and again in their professional lives.

Effects of Bad Conflict Resolution

If you have ever worked in a toxic workplace, you have almost certainly experienced the effects of poor conflict resolution. You probably also experienced low quality work (on the part of yourself or others), high turnover, and perhaps strained relationships with customers as well. A single toxic worker can cost a company tens of thousands of dollars, and once an entire team or workplace becomes toxic the results can be devastating.

Lack of appropriate and constructive conflict resolution can eventually turn an entire workplace toxic.

Bad conflict resolution can lead to problems like:

• Poor communication
• Low morale
• Proliferating gossip
• Verbal abuse
• A culture of blame
• People taking credit for work they didn’t do
• People who fail to do their part

Most of these problems can be avoided by practicing good conflict resolution and having those difficult conversations that are necessary when people or teams are at odds with one another.

How to Learn Conflict Resolution Skills

Many leadership development programs offer modules on conflict resolution. And many colleges and universities offer courses in conflict resolution for managers and other leaders. These can be terrific resources for the leader who wants to improve their conflict resolution skills.

But simply learning about the skills in the classroom isn’t enough. If you want to truly develop your conflict resolution skills, you have to refresh them and use them. And you have to learn from your mistakes.

The baseline skills for being able to resolve conflicts in a healthy manner are good listening, emotional intelligence, patience, impartiality, positivity, and excellent communication. With these baseline skills, the following techniques can be useful:

How Conflict Resolution Complements Other Leadership Skills

Remember the baseline skills for effective conflict resolution listed above? Well, excellent listening, emotional intelligence, patience, impartiality, positivity, and strong communication are all essential leadership skills as well. In fact, it’s safe to say that leaders who consistently demonstrate excellent leadership skills are much likelier to be effective in helping resolve conflicts.

In my latest book, The Intelligent Leader, I discuss seven dimensions of leadership in depth. They are as follows:

1. Thinking differently, thinking big
2. The vulnerability decision
3. Having a mindset of duty
4. Leveraging gifts and addressing gaps
5. Having the courage to execute with pride, passion, and precision
6. Staying present and being vigilant
7. Correcting course when necessary

Can you see how each of these dimensions of leadership contributes to the ability to resolve conflicts? Thinking differently and thinking big helps in developing solutions to conflicts that may seem overwhelming or intractable.

The fundamentals of outstanding leadership are also the fundamentals of conflict resolution.

Vulnerability demonstrates openness, and willingness to listen to hard truths. The mindset of duty pushes leaders to have those difficult conversations surrounding conflicts, even though they don’t necessarily look forward to it. Leveraging gifts and addressing gaps is about being better all around – including better at helping resolve conflicts.

Courage is clearly a necessary attribute for people who strive to resolve conflicts, and they must be present and vigilant so they can fully understand the situation and help develop the best solution. Finally, in the course of resolving conflict, it’s possible to become sidelined or to go off-track. Outstanding leaders know how to recognize this and get back on course toward reaching goals.

How Coaching Can Help Leaders Improve Conflict Resolution Skills

People don’t usually engage leadership coaches specifically to help further develop and solidify conflict resolution skills. But leadership coaching can be a remarkably effective tool for the leader who must resolve conflicts among individuals or teams. Leadership coaching is about recognizing strengths as well as skills gaps, and it is about further strengthening those strengths while bridging the gaps.

If a coaching client specifically asks for help in developing conflict resolution skills, the coaching process will look closely at how the client deals with conflicts now. What have been the results? What has gone right? What has gone wrong? If during the course of the coaching engagement, the client is called upon to mediate or help resolve a conflict, they can not only practice skills they worked on with the coach but can ask for the coach’s feedback on the techniques used in resolving the conflict.

A pitching coach doesn’t prescribe which pitches a baseball player uses on the mound. Rather, they work with both physical and mental skills off the mound, helping the pitcher assimilate them until they become second nature. A similar dynamic takes place between the leadership coach and the client.

For coaching clients who specifically set out to improve their ability to handle, mediate, and help resolve conflicts, coaching provides baseline assessment, feedback, and another assessment at the end of the coaching engagement, so that the client can measure their progress in meeting their goal.

Conclusion

It’s nice to imagine a workplace that is free of conflict, where everyone’s goals are always aligned, and personalities and perspectives never clash. But if you think a little harder, that conflict-free workplace would be devoid of the range of experiences and viewpoints that lead to breakthroughs and innovations. It would be boring.

The fact is, whenever people come together to accomplish something, there will be conflict. People will always see things differently. A cardboard “6” lying on the ground is a “9” to someone viewing it from the opposite direction. People view processes, instructions, and strategies differently too, and sometimes the result of those differences is conflict.

Leaders simply can’t assume conflicts won’t occur or ignore them when they do. What may seem like a minor difference of opinion to an outsider can feel overwhelmingly significant to the people engaged in conflict. Minimizing, ignoring, or sweeping conflicts under the rug only fixes things temporarily. One mark of a true leader is a willingness to recognize true conflict, understand it, and intervene when necessary.

One mark of a true leader is a willingness to understand and help resolve conflicts.

The leader who practices good listening, emotional intelligence, empathy, impartiality, and positivity on a daily basis is likelier to have teams that demonstrate these same qualities. And teams that fully assimilate these qualities are likely to be made up of members who feel empowered to handle conflict in a mature and professional manner. And in those cases where team members are unable to come to a resolution, they have built enough trust with their leader to enlist their help.

Leaders who shy away from involvement in team conflicts may turn to leadership coaching to help build their conflict resolution skills. While leadership coaching isn’t designed to teach conflict resolution, it is designed to help people hone their own conflict resolution skills and practice them in a safe environment, so that when the real thing erupts, they’re ready.

If you’re interested in learning how Intelligent Leadership skills empower leaders to excel at all their duties – including conflict resolution – I invite you to check out my books, including my latest book, The Intelligent Leader.

Glossary of Terms

Accountability – being responsible for what you do, fulfilling obligations and not using excuses when you don’t. Making things right after making mistakes.

Conflict – a disagreement between people who have opposing principles or opinions

Conflict resolution – a way for parties to find an amicable solution to a disagreement among them. Conflict resolution involves listening, negotiation, and often compromise or collaboration.

Corporate culture – beliefs, values, and behaviors that influence how an organization’s members interact and handle business.

Emotional intelligence – the ability to be aware of, to control, and to appropriately express emotions in interpersonal relationships, whether professional or personal

Groupthink – an insidious practice of making decisions or thinking as a group that discourages individual responsibility as well as creativity or innovation

Leadership coaching – a professional partnership designed to bring about sustained behavioral change and transform the client’s working life in a significant and measurable way

Self-Awareness – conscious knowledge and “ownership” of one’s own motives, feelings, and character and one’s effect on others

Toxic workplace – a workplace where the people, environment, or the work itself cause significant disruption to life both in and outside the workplace. Severely toxic workplaces can cause physical symptoms.

Rarely is “having meetings” a core business purpose. Yet meetings are a fact of life in almost all workplaces.

How many times have you been in a meeting and thought about better ways you could be spending your time?

Sometimes there is no substitute for the one-on-one interaction that takes place in a meeting room. But in many cases, there are plenty of suitable alternatives, and people resent meetings that waste their time.

One survey of 182 senior managers found that nearly two-thirds said meetings kept them from completing actual work. An astonishing 71% said meetings were “unproductive and inefficient.” Perhaps that’s because so few businesses train leaders in when to use meetings and how to run them effectively.

Make no mistake: running a productive meeting is an important element of good leadership. Here are the things that outstanding leaders to do ensure meetings don’t waste the most valuable commodity of all, which is time.

They Make Sure Each Meeting Is Necessary

Great leaders make sure that when they hold a meeting, the meeting is absolutely necessary. They answer questions like, “Could this be handled by email?” with an emphatic “No.” If every leader took a few minutes to make sure every meeting was actually necessary, professionals would waste a lot less time.

They Invite Only People Who Need to Be There

The right number of meeting participants depends heavily on the type of meeting. The true leader knows everyone’s roles and responsibilities well enough to determine exactly who needs to be at a given meeting and why they need to be there.

They Have a Clear Agenda for Each and Every Meeting

The agenda-free data dump is almost always a waste of time. A successful and productive meeting is called and planned based on a clear agenda and a clear time estimate. Participants know what the agenda is and why they are being asked to participate.

They Use Techniques That Ensure Participation

Meetings need participants, not spectators.

Meetings don’t need spectators. They need participants. Excellent meeting leadership ensures that attendees participate. They may employ simple techniques like conversational turn-taking, or designate time for people to work individually and in increasingly larger groups. But they make sure everyone who has taken the time to attend the meeting participates and benefits in some way.

They Start on Time and Stay on Track

One of the easiest ways for a meeting leader to alienate attendees is to start late or ramble on about irrelevant topics (last night’s baseball scores, for example) rather than getting on with the purpose of the meeting. Likewise, they use their agenda to ensure they stay on track and don’t wander off on tangents. They diplomatically keep participants from straying off-track too.

They Don’t Use the In-Person Meeting as Default Mode

Finally, strong leaders don’t need to use meetings as the “default setting” for handling business. They are well-versed in all communication methods available to them and use them appropriately. Direct phone calls, conference calls, emails, and even group chats can take care of many issues so that when people are invited to a real meeting, they know it’s an important use of their time.

Leadership coaching teaches (or should teach) leaders the immense value of people’s time (including their own). Unnecessary or ill-planned meetings waste time – time that cannot be recovered. Sometimes there is no substitute for being in the same room and exchanging information with people face to face, and in these cases, meetings can be the best use of time.

When leaders take the time to really think about what they want to accomplish and the best ways to go about doing it, they often realize that their best bet is something other than a traditional meeting. When they have the communication skills and time management skills all strong leaders should have, they can lead their teams to impressive accomplishments without the need to herd everyone together without a really good reason.

Leadership is, of course, about much more than meetings. Fundamentally, it is about empowering teams to reach goals by ensuring everyone has the tools and support they need to put their skills to the best use. If you want to explore all the key dimensions of Intelligent Leadership, I encourage you to check out my books, including my latest book The Intelligent Leader.

Leadership development programs are sadly not as prevalent in business as they should be. As a result, leaders may rise to their leadership positions without sufficient preparation for what their roles require.

High-quality leadership development programs can ensure a smoother transition into leadership roles.

Leadership coaching may be enlisted to help fill some of these gaps. Leadership coaching emphasizes action and accountability and provides leaders with a safe yet stimulating environment in which to hone skills for improving communication, increasing confidence, managing change, and resolving conflicts.

Researchers have identified five critical components of popular coaching models, as well as conditions under which coaching is most effective. Here are the five critical components and why they matter so much.

1. The Coach-Client Relationship

Without a strong coach-client relationship based on mutual respect and mutual pursuit of goals, there is little point in coaching at all. Not all coach-client teams will be able to build strong rapport, and that’s no reflection on either party. Some personalities simply work better together than others. When choosing a coach, it is absolutely essential to determine upfront how well the coach and client communicate and how easy it is for them to work together.

2. Problem Identification and Goal Setting

Most coaching clients (and their organizational leaders) have some idea of which skills the client needs to work on most. Even so, the best coaches use multiple, proven assessment tools to verify this and to identify the client’s strengths and weaknesses. This process helps both coach and client develop the most effective ways to bridge skills gaps and to further improve strengths. Articulating which issues the client will work on with their coach, setting goals, and determining how to measure goal achievement keep the coaching relationship on track to produce the best results.

3. Problem-Solving

The right problem-solving technique for one coaching client may be completely different from that of another coaching client. That’s why the assessment of strengths and skill gaps is so important. Working with the client to map out how to get from where they are now to where they want to be is a highly individual process, and the leadership coach is uniquely positioned to help create that “roadmap.” It’s far from a one-size-fits-all process but must be tailored to the individual in the context of their work setting.

Choosing the right problem-solving techniques can keep a leader from becoming “stuck” on issues they’re working on.

4. Transformational Processes

This is where the rubber meets the road. Just as the skilled pitching coach knows the specific elements a particular pitcher needs to work on, the skilled leadership coach can help the client define specific actions that need to be developed and practiced until they become second nature. For one client this may be communication. For another, it may be delegation. The transformational processes used in leadership coaching are uniquely customized to the client and their particular needs. Without proven transformational processes, client improvement may be short-lived.

5. Outcome Definition and Measurement

How can, for example, a leader with sub-par delegation skills know when they have learned how to effectively delegate with the help of a leadership coach? Before working on those skills, the coach should work with the client to define what success looks like. Maybe “success” means fewer last-minute phone calls about who is responsible for what. Or maybe it means the leader has more free time due to letting go and effectively empowering team members rather than trying to do everything themselves. The only way to know if a coaching client has succeeded is to define what success means.

Of course, just because a coaching plan contains those five attributes doesn’t mean it will get optimum results. Many factors affect positive coaching outcomes. For example, organizational support for leadership coaching is essential for the best outcomes.

Organizations and individuals within them who are interested in coaching should understand which elements are necessary to a strong and successful coaching relationship. The more invested the individual and their organization are, the more likely they are to get the results they want. To learn more about this topic, I invite you to check out information about my leadership coaching services. 

One of the ultimate outcomes of exceptional leadership development is a highly effective senior leadership team.

Outstanding senior leaders don’t just happen without strong leadership development plans.

With a great leader at the helm, it’s easy to put off thinking about their successor for another day, but this can be dangerous. Every CEO’s (or other C-level executive’s) tenure comes to an end eventually. Being prepared for that time can make the difference between a smooth leadership transition that keeps the company on the road to success, and a painful transition that can result in damage to morale and difficulty retaining strong employees.

Having a leadership succession plan is absolutely essential. While you can’t plan for every contingency, you can plan for many of them, and you should do so well before a beloved leader retires. Here are five key elements of a leadership succession plan.

1. Transparency

Succession planning is a sensitive issue, and balancing transparency with confidentiality is mandatory. Define upfront who needs to know what, and when they need to know it. Work with top leadership to agree on which types of information can be shared, and which should be considered confidential.

Keeping everything secret can backfire, however. When people know only that succession planning is going on behind the scenes, gossip and intrigue often follow. Key people may be tempted to quit and work elsewhere. People being considered for future leadership roles should know their status, and leadership succession planning should not be a completely closed-door process.

2. Fairness

Locking someone in as a successor solely because it is “their turn” can sour colleague relationships. At the same time, if someone appears to expect to be promoted to a leadership position when they are not, it’s only fair to let them know (in confidence, of course). You can work with these people to help them develop other paths toward greater responsibility and job satisfaction.

The person or persons you want to eventually take over top leadership roles should be people who have earned it through excellence, and not because they fit some preconceived notion of what leadership “looks like.” Promoting people the way you’ve always done, solely because you’ve always done it that way is a sure path to stagnation.

3. Consideration for Culture

Future leaders must understand and be committed to the organizational culture.

The importance of corporate culture cannot be overstated. Think about potential candidates for future top leadership roles. Do these people embody qualities you prize most in your organizational culture? Do they show promise for helping culture to continue to evolve in the direction you want? Do they understand how important organizational culture is?

Leaders who do what they’re supposed to while being tone-deaf to corporate culture will eventually run into problems, including higher employee turnover and lower morale. These can be difficult problems to overcome.

4. Training and Coaching

Identifying leaders and then assuming they’ll somehow rise to expectations and train themselves is absurd. If your company doesn’t have the type of leadership development programs necessary to prepare people for top leadership positions, then you need to develop these programs as soon as possible.

Likewise, providing coaching for potential future leaders can be a valuable investment. Traditional, one-on-one, in-person leadership coaching is usually reserved for people who are already in top positions because this type of leadership coaching can be expensive. But there are other options, like managers as coaches, mentorships, and online coaching that may be worth exploring.

5. Contingency Planning

You must have a backup plan. Even the best-planned leadership successions don’t always work out. If you have pinned all your hopes on a particular person and then something happens so that the transition doesn’t work out, you’re faced with starting over.

Don’t just identify one person for succession to a top leadership position. Offer leadership development opportunities to multiple promising leaders and continue preparing them. Consider cross-training future leaders so that if one promotion doesn’t work out, you’re not left scrambling. In other words, don’t put all your leadership eggs into one basket, because things don’t always happen as expected.

People tend not to like thinking about leadership succession. It involves more emotion than most business activities, and it can be fraught with politics. But leaving everything to chance can be disastrous. Identifying potential leaders early, offering leadership development opportunities, and ensuring that more than one person is ready to take over after the departure of a top leader can help ensure smoother leadership transitions and less disruption as your organization enters a new era.

If you’re interested in learning more about leadership, coaching, and organizational culture, I invite you to check out my books.