San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching for Dealing with Tough People Problems - Identify the Problem Behaviors

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at dealing with difficult people? Are the leaders in your organization emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Do I focus on problem behaviors or personality?” Emotionally intelligent leaders focus on identifying specific problem behaviors.

Are you adept at handling conflict with people at work? Do you demonstrate styles of leadership that foster good interpersonal communication?  Are you adept at communicating with difficult people by addressing specific problematic behaviors?

Identify the Problem Behaviors

Everyone talks about difficult people and personalities, but labeling such individuals shifts attention from what they did to who they are. It’s always best to deal with behaviors, rather than personalities – and be as specific as possible.

While problem behavior can stem from an innately annoying personality – or, in some cases, even a personality disorder or other mental problems – these issues are beyond what one can expect to change. When there are deeper issues involved, referral to an Employee Assistance Program is usually advised.

Smart managers confine their discussion to specific behaviors: what was done and/or said. Behaviors and communication patterns are usually clearly identifiable. The situation can become tricky when intense emotions are triggered.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who effectively manages interpersonal conflict at work. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Communicating with Difficult People - Three Important Questions

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at dealing with problematic behavior in the workplace? Are the leaders in your organization highly emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Do I effectively deal with difficult people and intense emotions?” Emotionally intelligent leaders work with difficult interpersonal situations by being transparent and authentic.

Are you adept at managing conflict with people at work? Do you demonstrate styles of leadership that facilitates good interpersonal communication? Are you adept at communicating with difficult people who may display intense emotions?

Three Important Questions

Three major questions will emerge when you start to explore how to deal with difficult people:

1.  How do you respond to specific types of problematic behavior?
2.  What is the impact of your own behaviors and attitudes on others?
3.  How do you communicate effectively in a disciplinary conversation?

It’s a challenge to deal with behavior that’s not criminal, but nonetheless destructive to the company’s operations and culture. You can’t fire someone for complaining or whining. So, what can you do?

Attempt to clarify and understand the causes of problematic behaviors and intense emotions. You may also need to learn more about handling your own and others’ emotions. This enables you to reflect on your own behaviors and attitudes, as well as identify your part in any given situation. You can then articulate your feelings with transparency and authenticity.

Finally, smart managers know how to deliver constructive feedback that helps others grow and improve their performance. They are not afraid to facilitate discussions. Open-door communication prevents problematic behavior from arising in the first place.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who effectively manages interpersonal conflict. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Working with Difficult People - The High Costs of Conflict

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at dealing with difficult people and powerful emotions? Are the leaders in your organization emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Do I effectively deal with difficult people?” Emotionally intelligent leaders deal openly and honestly with difficult interpersonal situations.

Are you adept at managing conflict with others? Do you have a coaching style of leadership that facilitates good interpersonal communication? Are you comfortable dealing with difficult people and strong emotions?

The High Costs of Conflict

Regardless of the form difficult behavior takes, it exacts a serious toll, including high turnover, absenteeism, theft, loss of clients, and low productivity and morale. When managers are distracted and frustrated by difficult behaviors, they have less time and energy to devote to their core responsibility: getting things done through others.

Resorting to firing and replacing people is risky and time-consuming; thus, many executives fail to confront problem behaviors at all. They find workarounds: avoidance, vague feedback, compensation for underperformance by taking on more work themselves. Even worse, they may promote a problem person out of their unit.

With practice, you can improve your ability to deal with difficult behaviors – a move that will free up enormous energy reserves. When conflicts are handled immediately, you and your team will function better, meet deadlines earlier, create more innovative processes and products, and make fewer errors.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who effectively manages interpersonal conflict. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Working with Difficult People - Emotional Intelligence at Work

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at dealing with difficult people? Are the leaders in your organization savvy regarding emotional intelligence?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I effectively deal with difficult people?” Emotionally intelligent leaders confront and deal with difficult situations.

Are you good at managing conflict with others? Do you inspire others by having a coaching style of leadership that facilitates communication? Are you adept at dealing with difficult people and strong emotions?

Dealing with Difficult People

They’re everywhere. Walk into any workplace and you’ll find them. Regardless of your company’s success or employee-friendly culture, difficult people pose challenges for managers and team leaders each day.

Some are angry; some are anxious. Others are fearful, negative and obstinate. Some spark frequent disputes with their peers. Still others quietly stonewall and fail to follow through on commitments.

You cannot afford to avoid dealing with difficult people. Whether they’re direct reports or peer managers, their frustrating behaviors will take a toll on your ability to manage others and produce stellar results.

The more serious forms of difficult behavior are, in some ways, easier to deal with because they are blatant and often illegal. In cases of harassment, sabotage or physical threats, swiftly follow your clearly outlined company policies and implement the appropriate consequences.

But long before overt infringements arise, there are subtle forms of damaging behaviors that should not be tolerated or allowed to escalate. Confronting and dealing with these sticky situations will prevent more serious problems in the future.

Unfortunately, many managers avoid dealing with difficult people and strong emotions in the workplace. “People problems” are often cited as the most challenging — and time-consuming — part of a manager’s job. One study found that 42 percent of managers’ time is spent on defusing office conflict.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who effectively manages conflict. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Virtual Teams – Working with Virtual Teams

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building virtual teams? Do the leaders in your organization create virtual teams that are emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create virtual teams where full engagement is assured by emotionally intelligent individual members?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create virtual teams that are comprised of individuals with excellent interpersonal skills.

Are you good at creating effective virtual teams? Do you inspire your team by full supporting the desires of team members? Are you adept at building virtual teams that produce sustainable results?

Working with Virtual Teams

An obvious case for paying attention to team emotional intelligence is with virtual teams. Deprived of most non-verbal and visual cues, communications can be a challenge. This often results in interpersonal relationships that are more problematic. Exacerbating the problems inherent in any team is the fact that virtual team members are often from different parts of the company, different cultures and even different countries.

The challenges of working with diverse team members in virtual environments place even more importance on communication skills and emotional intelligence competencies. There is a great need for building cohesiveness and commitment to a shared purpose. Working with a team coach, both individually and with the whole team, can help define the team’s purpose, set specific goals, develop mutual accountability, and facilitate communication that leads to high performance results.

Every company faces specific performance challenges for which teams are the most practical and powerful vehicle at top management’s disposal. The critical challenge for senior managers is how to obtain maximum performance and in developing the kinds of teams that can deliver it. Teams have a unique potential to deliver results, and executives have to know when to deploy teams strategically, when they are the best tool for the job, and how to foster the basic discipline of teams that will make them effective. By doing so, top management creates the kind of environment that enables team as well as individual and organizational performance.  

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful virtual teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Teams – Using Feedback and Follow-Up

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at using feedback and follow-up to build teams quickly? Do the leaders in your organization create teams that are emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams where individual members believe in the value of teamwork?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing teams incorporating regular feedback.

Are you good at creating teams quickly? Do you inspire your team by having a coaching style of leadership with team members? Are you adept at building teams that quickly produce results?

Using Feedback and Follow-Up to Build Teams Quickly

Everyone extols the value of teamwork. The need to build effective teams is increasing and the available time to do is decreasing. How do you increase team effectiveness in a climate of rapid change with limited resources? Here is an excellent team-building exercise developed by Marshall Goldsmith (Team Building without Time Wasting, Keilty, Goldsmith & Company, 1998.)

Research with thousands of participants has shown that focused feedback and follow-up can increase leadership and customer service effectiveness. A parallel approach has been shown to help leaders build teamwork without wasting time. It requires that team members courageously ask for feedback, have the discipline to develop a behavioral change strategy, to follow-up and to “stick with it.”

To implement this process, the leader will have to coach or facilitate rather than be the boss of the project. Members should develop their own behavioral changes, rather than have them imposed upon them.

1. Begin by asking each member of the team to confidentially answer two questions:
    A. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are we working together as a team?
    B. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do we need to be working together as a team?

Calculate and discuss the results. Research involving several hundred teams in multinational corporations showed that the “average” team member believed that his/her team was currently at a “5.8" level of effectiveness but needed to be at a “8.7.”

2. Ask the team, “If every team member could change two key behaviors to help close the gap between where we are and where we want to be, which two behaviors, should we all try to change?” Prioritize the behaviors and determine the two most important behaviors to change for all team members.

3. The team members also choose two behaviors for personal change that will help close the gap. Then they ask for brief progress reports from each other monthly.

Progress can be charted. Results have clearly shown that if team members have regularly followed up with their colleagues, they will invariably be seen as increasing their effectiveness in their selected individual “areas for improvement.” The process works because it encourages team members to primarily focus on changing their own behaviors.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful virtual teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Emotionally Intelligent Teams – Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building emotionally intelligent teams? Do the leaders in your organization create teams that are emotionally aware?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that regulate the emotions of individual members?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are comprised of self aware individuals.

Are you good at creating emotionally intelligent teams? Do you inspire your team by emotionally igniting the desires of each team member? Are you adept at creating teams that produce consistent results?

Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams

Some successful companies have consistently produced the most innovative products under intense deadline and budget pressures by focusing on team emotional intelligence. Many executives realize that emotional intelligence is often more crucial than IQ to an individual’s effectiveness. But team emotional intelligence may be even more important, since most work gets done in teams.

A group’s effectiveness isn’t simply the sum of its members’ individual competencies. Instead, it comes from the synergism of members’ capacities for awareness and regulation of emotions within and outside the team. These competencies build trust, group identity and a sense of group efficacy. Members feel that they work better together than individually.

To build a foundation for emotional intelligence, a group must be aware of and constructively regulate the emotions of individual team members, the whole team, and other key groups with whom it interacts.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that establish urgency and achieve results. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Teams – Eight Keys to Building Team Performance

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building team performance? Do the leaders in your organization create powerful teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that establish urgency and a clear direction?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are laser focused on results.

Are you good at creating high performance teams? Do you inspire your team by setting clear goals? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Eight Keys to Building Team Performance

Katzenbach and Smith in their books about teams (The Wisdom of Teams; Teams at the Top) talk about the essential disciplines of effective teams:

Here are eight key approaches for building team performance that Katzenbach and Smith found in their research of high performing teams.

1. Establish urgency, demanding performance standards and direction.
2. Select members for skill and skill potential, not personality.
3. Pay particular attention to first meetings and actions.
4. Set some clear rules of behavior.
5. Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented tasks and goals.
6. Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and information.
7. Spend lots of time together.
8. Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition and reward.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that establish urgency and achieve results. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Creating High Performance Teams – Mutual Accountability Leads to Results

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building high performance teams? Do the leaders in your organization create powerful teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote mutual accountability?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are accountable.

Are you good at developing high performance teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce high performance results?

Mutual Accountability Leads to High Performance Results

Though it may not seem like anything special, mutual accountability can lead to astonishing results. It enables a team to achieve performance levels that are far greater than the individual bests of the team’s members. To achieve these benefits, team members must do more than just listen, respond constructively, and provide support to one another. In addition to sharing these team-building values, they must share an essential discipline.

Katzenbach and Smith in their books about teams (The Wisdom of Teams; Teams at the Top) talk about five essential disciplines of effective teams:

1. A meaningful common purpose that the team has helped shape.
2. Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose.
3. A mix of complementary skills.
4. A strong commitment to how the work gets done.
5. Mutual accountability.

The challenge for top management is how to build effective teams without falling into the trap of appearing to promote teams for their own sake. There should be relentless focus on performance. If management does not put the focus on the link between teams and performance, then there is the risk of teams becoming another management fad. Paying constant attention to specific teams and their progress on specific performance goals is the key.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that promote mutual accountability. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Developing Powerful Teams – Defining Common Purpose and Goals

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building powerful teams? Do the leaders in your organization create high performance teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote individual and collective performance?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing committed teams.

Are you good at developing teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Defining Common Purpose

The best teams spend a significant amount of time and effort exploring, shaping and agreeing on a mutually defined purpose. This activity continues throughout the life of the team. Research on failed teams, shows that they rarely develop a common purpose.

The best teams also take their common purpose and translate it into specific performance goals. These goals relate to the common purpose and build on each another, moving the team forward towards achievement and creating powerfully motivating and energizing steps to success. The achievement of goals along the way builds momentum, fosters trust among members and helps build continued commitment

Specific performance goals may be such things as bringing a product to market in record time, a 50% decrease in customer complaints, or achieving a zero-defect rate while cutting costs by 40%. Transforming broad directives into specific goals provide first steps for forming the identity and purpose of the team. As the team progresses with small wins, they reaffirm their shared commitment.

Specific Goals Provide Clarity and Focus

The combination of purpose and specific goals is essential to performance. Each depends on the other. Clarity of goals helps keep a team on track, focused and accountable. The broader, overlying aspirations of a team’s purpose can provide meaning and emotional energy.

When people are working together toward a common objective, trust and commitment follow. Members hold themselves responsible both as individuals and as a team for the team’s performance. This sense of mutual accountability produces alignment towards achieving a common goal. All members share in the rewards. People who participate in effective teams find the experience energizing and motivating in ways that their usual jobs could never match.

On the other hand, groups that are established as a “team” but that do not have a clear common purpose rarely become effective teams. Only when appropriate performance goals are set does the process of discussing the goals and the approaches to them give team members a clear choice: they can disagree with a goal and opt out, or they can pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams with a common purpose. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.