San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Creating an Inspiring Vision

Keep Your Vision Alive

Top business leaders embark on their role with great enthusiasm and expectations. They set out to make a difference and craft a success story. Fueled by their freedom to create, leaders draft mission and vision statements to frame their organization’s purpose. Their mission statements define their work or specialty, and their vision statements declare what they seek to accomplish (and why).

Vision is testimony to a leader’s beliefs, and it ideally trickles down to followers. It sets the tone for all company operations.

Unfortunately, many organizations with a proclaimed vision struggle to uphold it. This vision has died somewhere along the way, starting out strong but eventually losing its power. Many leaders fail to recognize the descent. Once they do become aware, they wonder what caused it.

Fortunately, with the proper approach, visions needn’t fade away. They can (and must) be kept fervently alive.

The Cost of a Dead Vision

When a leader’s vision fades into the background, the organization’s purpose can derail. Direction meanders, and focus blurs. The organization evolves into an entity that no longer resembles its inception, and it functions at a much lower level. Signs of failure begin to appear, and consequences grow increasingly painful.

Without a strong vision, the organizational emphasis on core values wanes, and less desirable values take their place. When vision fades, so do priorities. New practices and procedures may defy the company’s original spirit.

Generally, these changes occur gradually and are barely noticed. Leaders may not recognize the cumulative effects until a crisis hits and they’re forced to pick up the pieces. Subtle and steady gaps in organizational vision lead to totally unexpected conditions.

How Vision Gets Lost

At the outset, a leader’s vision sets the tone for how an organization operates, as evidenced by its plans, decisions, responses and attitudes. In the early stages of vision-setting, guiding principles rule the day.

But day-to-day operations are taxing, complicated and require great energy. Complexity can kill an original vision, notes Andy Stanley in Making Vision Stick (Zondervan, 2007). Many leaders lose track of their vision over time and simply hope to keep their heads above water. Their attention is diverted from fundamentals to details. Crises often precipitate this. When vision gets lost in the shuffle, the organization veers off course.

In some cases, leaders see so many opportunities that they dilute their company’s efforts by trying to pursue them all. Without proper plans and resources in place, chaos renders one’s original vision unrecognizable.

Some leaders are changed by the level of success they achieve. It’s very tempting to rearrange certain aspects of the operation to deliver personal benefits (if not emotional, then certainly financial).

Ultimately, it’s the top leader’s responsibility to plant the vision and cultivate it throughout the organization. Vision dies when a leader’s support dwindles and goals are no longer emphasized.

Properly Establish Your Vision

Everyone within the organization must understand its vision. Leaders must ensure this occurs, and planning is the first priority.

Ideas are better grasped when they’re simple. Complex or confusing visions cannot be easily understood. No matter how well they’re communicated, they’ll remain elusive to most people. This is the thrust of leadership consultant Shaun Spearmon’s 2013 Forbes article "Your Company Vision: If It’s Complicated, It Shouldn’t Be." A corporate vision must be constructed in a way that’s easy to understand and remember.

Leaders next must communicate this vision to their people. A great idea that remains a secret is as useless as a bad idea that everyone hears. Gather people together, and explain your vision. Ensure they understand its meaning, your reasons for it and the impact it should have on their daily roles.

As Andy Stanley emphasizes, an effective vision expresses concern about a problem in the marketplace and offers a solution. Visions yield value when they solve problems or make something better. A vision implies that failure to follow it creates substantial setbacks.

Vision should emotionally engage people to convince them of its importance. It cannot be separated from the organization’s planning, practices and personality. Selling a vision with this kind of impact helps ensure it will have a longer life.

Effectively Maintain Your Vision

Keeping the corporate vision active and powerful takes effort, diligence, intentionality and desire, all of which must be initiated by the top leader. A casual approach to monitoring your vision is inadequate. Start by getting your leadership circle on board.

Pointing activities and outcomes back to the vision keeps it top of mind. You benefit by establishing policies and procedures in ways that reflect your vision.

Wise leaders boost their vision even further by eliminating any activities or projects that don’t support it. As tempting as new ventures may be, spreading yourself thin by chasing too many of them always weakens the focus on your primary vision and diminishes overall outcomes.

Maintaining this mindset requires your vision to be openly and continuously promoted long after its introduction. Include it on all products, marketing materials and communications. In staff meetings, periodically describe your passion for the vision. Send a video message to your employees through company email. Share how important the vision is to you and how their involvement is part of a greater cause.

Multiply Your Vision

Vision will fade if a leader is its sole supporter. Vision thrives only when everyone believes it and collectively promotes it.

Make sure your people are “all in,” compelled to nobly promote the cause in lieu of focusing on self-interest. Lead by example so your behaviors, attitudes and performance are contagious.

Your vision also multiplies when you reward compliance. Publicly recognize people when their accomplishments steer the organization closer to your vision’s reality.

Let people know that you expect them to make the vision their central focus. Use performance assessments to review people’s support for the vision in their work.

There’s no need for one’s vision to stall or die out. When you keep it fresh and alive, you can steer your organization toward accomplishing every goal.

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist & Executive Coach
Trusted Leadership Advisor

Our services:

• Executive Coaching
• Mindful Leadership
• Attorney Coaching
• Emotional Intelligence and Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Workshops

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252

Build a Culture of Trust - Raise the Level of Empowerment

Raise the Level of Empowerment

Leaders confer the highest levels of authority and trust on employees who effectively complete tasks, resolve problems and make fair decisions. These employees, in turn, become more open to trusting others. Trust is a commodity people spend in proportion to what they receive.

As a leader, you convey trust by honoring people’s ideas and suggestions and letting them pursue those with merit. Give people opportunities to earn your trust, and allow them the luxury of failure as they work toward accomplishing their goals. Failure is often the most valuable way to learn and grow. As JetBlue’s Peterson points out, sharing some of your power creates a higher level of trust among your employees.

Develop a suggestion-submission system, where employees’ ideas for improvement are evaluated. Reward those whose ideas are implemented. Examine your policies and procedures to determine whether any can be improved based on the staff suggestions. Employees are the true experts in how things work at the most detailed organizational levels. The trust they feel from leadership will carry over to their peers.

Allow employees to be cross-trained so they can be more empowered. This raises their level of engagement. Offer them training or continuing-education opportunities. The feeling of being trusted to add value raises their appreciation for trust. A mentor program also empowers both mentors and mentees. Employees who feel trusted claim a higher stake in the organization and have greater trust in their coworkers, leaders and future.

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist & Executive Coach
Trusted Leadership Advisor

Our services:

• Executive Coaching
• Mindful Leadership
• Attorney Coaching
• Emotional Intelligence and Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Workshops

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252

Create a Culture of Trust

Culture of Trust

Countless management books, seminars and programs offer insights into how leaders can develop trust within their organizations. Their consistent theme—“It begins with you”—is certainly valid, as leaders must model trust and set an example for their people. Success depends on a personal campaign of inner reflection, values assessment and relational intelligence. Training can be effective and rewarding, but much of the focus often stops there.

Leaders develop trust (defined as “relying on others to do the right thing”) after observing people’s character and behavior over time and gaining confidence in them. They earn trust by consistently displaying personal integrity, accountability and concern for others.

Trust, in fact, is the most potent tool in a leader’s arsenal, asserts JetBlue Airways Chairman Joel Peterson in The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great (AMACOM, 2016). Trusted leaders are more productive, profitable and prosperous. Their people are more engaged, morale and loyalty soar, and the overall work ethic is enviable. The organization sees lower turnover, waste and inefficiency.

But trust is not limited to Mahogany Row. While we’re often led to believe that trustworthy behavior will permeate the work environment like ripples in a pond, this trickle-down theory is overly simplistic. As Gallup studies reveal, employees trust their coworkers even less than their leaders. Organizations cannot reach their full potential until leaders establish a culture where employees trust their coworkers. Leaders may require assistance from a professional coach to achieve this goal.

Create a Standard of Integrity

Leaders are standard-bearers who establish the basic tenets of integrity throughout their organizations. They must clearly communicate four key values and expectations: truthfulness, honesty, respectfulness and positivity.

• Truthfulness

People sense less risk when an organization’s culture respects those who tell the truth, even when it hurts. When leaders address mistakes constructively and avoid embarrassing their staff, there’s no need to lie or stretch the truth. The penalty for lying must outweigh that for making errors.

• Honesty

When employees treat each other honestly (do the right thing), trust grows over time. Dishonesty must be met with consequences. If you deal with it firmly, even for subtle infractions, your culture of integrity strengthens and people trust each other more.

• Respectfulness

A culture of respect and honor fosters high levels of trust among coworkers. Respectfulness includes basic social considerations like accepting people and listening to their opinions and ideas. Leaders demonstrate respect when they seek feedback without favoritism, encourage participation from everyone on a team and value each staff member within the organization.

• Positivity

Positivity is an often-overlooked means of building mutual trust, as long as one’s efforts are neither faked nor forced. A positive approach assumes the best in people and gives them the benefit of the doubt, thereby setting them at ease. Trust-building leaders expect their staff to exhibit thoughtful behavior and language.

Promote a Spirit of Unity

Unity becomes the norm when people share the load and help each other. Reciprocity is a noticeable trust-building act that’s contagious. Coworkers dedicated to a common cause commit to each other. They lift each other up and spur one another on. Leaders who instill a spirit of unity build a culture more prone to trust.

Great leaders help employees grasp the power of reconciliation when dissention arises. They don’t expect their people to always get along, but they count on them to apologize and forgive so relationships can be restored and strengthened. Durable relationships lead to mutual trust.

Raise the Level of Empowerment

Leaders confer the highest levels of authority and trust on employees who effectively complete tasks, resolve problems and make fair decisions. These employees, in turn, become more open to trusting others.

• Develop a suggestion-submission system.
• Reward those whose ideas are implemented.
• Examine your policies and procedures for improvement.
• Offer training, cross-training and continuing-education opportunities.

Reinforce Personal Accountability

People demonstrate accountability by doing what they say they’re going to do, when they need to do it. Leaders promote this by holding people to their commitments and making accountability part of the performance assessment. In fairness, leaders also need to provide their people with the means to meet these commitments. Managing work with measurable criteria expands trust in the system.

Accountability often overlaps integrity, in that people who admit their mistakes are trusted more. Inspiring this kind of transparency allows people to air their mistakes and learn from them. Be a leader who encourages learning, focusing on fixes instead of blame, to build trust. The pursuit of solutions empowers people to reach new levels and expands trust.

Sharpen Communication

Many trust issues stem from poor communication. People who don’t communicate clearly or authentically aren’t trusted. Properly conveying information makes conversations, emails, phone calls and meetings more effective and trustworthy. Leaders need to provide training in communication skills and monitor employee progress.

Anger, resentment, offensiveness and rumors destroy trust. Leaders must take aim at these issues and set behavioral standards that are continuously reinforced. Employees who communicate reasonably and professionally with each other raise workplace trust. Integrity is best revealed through communication, and unity is best realized in a high-integrity environment.

There’s no question that leaders set the tone for every aspect of workplace trust, and the necessary mindsets are passed down through the ranks. Leaders must put policies in place to monitor and correct undesirable behavior. Those who see the highest levels of coworker trust provide ample training, support and enforcement for trustworthy behavior policies.

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist & Executive Coach
Trusted Leadership Advisor

Our services:

• Executive Coaching
• Mindful Leadership
• Attorney Coaching
• Emotional Intelligence and Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Workshops

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252

Establish a Culture of Trust

Culture of Trust

Countless management books, seminars and programs offer insights into how leaders can develop trust within their organizations. Their consistent theme—“It begins with you”—is certainly valid, as leaders must model trust and set an example for their people. Success depends on a personal campaign of inner reflection, values assessment and relational intelligence. Training can be effective and rewarding, but much of the focus often stops there.

Leaders develop trust (defined as “relying on others to do the right thing”) after observing people’s character and behavior over time and gaining confidence in them. They earn trust by consistently displaying personal integrity, accountability and concern for others.

Trust, in fact, is the most potent tool in a leader’s arsenal, asserts JetBlue Airways Chairman Joel Peterson in The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great (AMACOM, 2016). Trusted leaders are more productive, profitable and prosperous. Their people are more engaged, morale and loyalty soar, and the overall work ethic is enviable. The organization sees lower turnover, waste and inefficiency.

But trust is not limited to Mahogany Row. While we’re often led to believe that trustworthy behavior will permeate the work environment like ripples in a pond, this trickle-down theory is overly simplistic. As Gallup studies reveal, employees trust their coworkers even less than their leaders. Organizations cannot reach their full potential until leaders establish a culture where employees trust their coworkers. Leaders may require assistance from a professional coach to achieve this goal.

Create a Standard of Integrity

Leaders are standard-bearers who establish the basic tenets of integrity throughout their organizations. They must clearly communicate four key values and expectations: truthfulness, honesty, respectfulness and positivity.

• Truthfulness

Speaking the truth is challenging in toxic environments where messengers get shot. It may be tempting to ignore reality and tell people what they want to hear, notes management consultant Jim Dougherty in The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust (Harvard Business Review, December 13, 2013). Leaders must nonetheless deliver bad news when it’s warranted—and demand honorable behavior from those who receive it.

People sense less risk when an organization’s culture respects those who tell the truth, even when it hurts. When leaders address mistakes constructively and avoid embarrassing their staff, there’s no need to lie or stretch the truth. The penalty for lying must outweigh that for making errors. Enforce this mindset in your culture so truthful coworkers earn others’ trust.

• Honesty

When employees treat each other honestly (do the right thing), trust grows over time. Dishonesty must be met with consequences. If you deal with it firmly, even for subtle infractions, your culture of integrity strengthens and people trust each other more.

• Respectfulness

A culture of respect and honor fosters high levels of trust among coworkers. Again, a leader’s behavior sets the stage for success. Respectfulness includes basic social considerations like accepting people and listening to their opinions and ideas.

Leaders also demonstrate respect when they seek feedback without favoritism, encourage participation from everyone on a team and value each staff member within the organization. Such behaviors enhance trust; being judgmental, resentful and prone to attack destroy trust. Instill a mindset of respectfulness into your culture so trust among coworkers can flourish.

• Positivity

Positivity is an often-overlooked means of building mutual trust, as long as one’s efforts are neither faked nor forced. Infusing your culture with a positive mindset has many powerful benefits. Cynicism and sarcasm are trust killers. People are repelled by these behaviors, knowing nothing trustworthy comes from them.

A positive approach assumes the best in people and gives them the benefit of the doubt, thereby setting them at ease. Trust-building leaders expect their staff to exhibit thoughtful behavior and language. Add this requirement to your organization’s code of conduct or formal HR policy.

Promote a Spirit of Unity

Employees trust their peers once they experience teamwork. Unity becomes the norm when people share the load and help each other. Reciprocity is a noticeable trust-building act that’s contagious. Coworkers dedicated to a common cause commit to each other. They lift each other up and spur one another on. Leaders who instill a spirit of unity build a culture more prone to trust.

Great leaders help employees grasp the power of reconciliation when dissention arises. They don’t expect their people to always get along, but they count on them to apologize and forgive so relationships can be restored and strengthened. Durable relationships lead to mutual trust.

Raise the Level of Empowerment

Leaders confer the highest levels of authority and trust on employees who effectively complete tasks, resolve problems and make fair decisions. These employees, in turn, become more open to trusting others. Trust is a commodity people spend in proportion to what they receive.

As a leader, you convey trust by honoring people’s ideas and suggestions and letting them pursue those with merit. Give people opportunities to earn your trust, and allow them the luxury of failure as they work toward accomplishing their goals. Failure is often the most valuable way to learn and grow. As JetBlue’s Peterson points out, sharing some of your power creates a higher level of trust among your employees.

Develop a suggestion-submission system, where employees’ ideas for improvement are evaluated. Reward those whose ideas are implemented. Examine your policies and procedures to determine whether any can be improved based on the staff suggestions. Employees are the true experts in how things work at the most detailed organizational levels. The trust they feel from leadership will carry over to their peers.

Allow employees to be cross-trained so they can be more empowered. This raises their level of engagement. Offer them training or continuing-education opportunities. The feeling of being trusted to add value raises their appreciation for trust. A mentor program also empowers both mentors and mentees. Employees who feel trusted claim a higher stake in the organization and have greater trust in their coworkers, leaders and future.

Reinforce Personal Accountability

People who can’t be counted on lower organizational morale and engagement. They flame resentments and dissatisfaction throughout the rest of the organization. Address this issue by reinforcing the importance of personal accountability.

People demonstrate accountability by doing what they say they’re going to do, when they need to do it. Leaders promote this by holding people to their commitments and making accountability part of the performance assessment. In fairness, leaders also need to provide their people with the means to meet these commitments.

Accountability also means tackling problems head on and not running from them. People trust coworkers who meet challenges with noble efforts so everyone wins. A culture of trust thrives only when people at all organizational levels fulfill their responsibilities. Managing work with measurable criteria expands trust in the system. Clarity is a strong trust builder, according to leadership consultant David Horsager, author of The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line (Free Press, 2012).

Accountability often overlaps integrity, in that people who admit their mistakes are trusted more. Inspiring this kind of transparency allows people to air their mistakes and learn from them. Be a leader who encourages learning, focusing on fixes instead of blame, to build trust. The pursuit of solutions empowers people to reach new levels and expands trust.

Sharpen Communication

Many trust issues stem from poor communication. People who don’t communicate clearly or authentically aren’t trusted. Properly conveying information makes conversations, emails, phone calls and meetings more effective and trustworthy. Leaders need to provide training in communication skills and monitor employee progress.

Anger, resentment, offensiveness and rumors destroy trust. Leaders must take aim at these issues and set behavioral standards that are continuously reinforced. Ask your people to put themselves in other team members’ shoes when communicating. How will their words be perceived? Can they achieve a win-win situation? Can they step back from a conflict, calm down and form a more reasonable response?

Employees who communicate reasonably and professionally with each other raise workplace trust. Integrity is best revealed through communication, and unity is best realized in a high-integrity environment.

There’s no question that leaders set the tone for every aspect of workplace trust, and the necessary mindsets are passed down through the ranks. Leaders must put policies in place to monitor and correct undesirable behavior. Those who see the highest levels of coworker trust provide ample training, support and enforcement for trustworthy behavior policies.

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist & Executive Coach
Trusted Leadership Advisor

Our services:

• Executive Coaching
• Mindful Leadership
• Attorney Coaching
• Emotional Intelligence and Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Workshops

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252

Helping Leaders Through Consensus-Style Leadership Dependency

Consensus-Style Leadership Dependency

It’s often difficult to assess one’s own issues, so consensus-style leaders will benefit from professional coaching that pinpoints specific weaknesses.

Learning to accept and work within conflict is key. Leaders who resist conflict must understand its necessity. The best ideas and solutions often hatch from disagreements. If leaders can learn that conflict needn’t be painful and that it’s actually healthy in the proper proportions, they can use it to their advantage. Minor conflicts won’t destroy unity, as leaders may fear, but rather forge it.

Employees want courageous, decisive leaders to pull them through difficult times, especially when conflict arises. Leaders must learn there are times when consensus is beneficial and other times when strong, decisive leadership is the gold standard. One’s ability to separate the two determines success. Making the correct call draws people to you, while fumbling puts them off.

Leaders who reveal themselves, who are transparent and passionate, are the most revered; they create the most loyal followers. Holding back your opinions in favor of team feedback has its place and time, but people want a real leader they can know, trust and learn from. Consensus-style leaders need to project a leader’s persona that blends the proper levels of humility, courage, wisdom, insight and confidence. Your people won’t sense these attributes if you fail to express them.

As consensus-style leaders overcome their inhibitions, their strength will shine through, and unity will be stronger than ever.

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist & Executive Coach
Trusted Leadership Advisor

Our services:

• Executive Coaching
• Mindful Leadership
• Attorney Coaching
• Emotional Intelligence and Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) Workshops

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252