Month: July 2022

Categories
Executive Coaching Executive Transition Coaching Leadership Transition Onboarding Leaders

Executive Transition Coaching to Ensure New Leader Success

Ensuring that newly hired leaders succeed should be a top priority for any organization. Successful organizations use a comprehensive approach that includes executive transition coaching, a transition plan, and internal mentors. 

In previous blogs, I introduced the three key elements of a successful onboarding process and the ideal contents of a transition plan. This blog explores my executive transition coaching approach to helping new leaders succeed.

Month 1: Kickoff

It’s critical to start the coaching process soon after a new leader joins an organization to help accelerate their integration and prevent missteps that might derail them. This process includes:

  • Administer a suitable self-assessment for the new leader, such as the Hogan Personality assessment.
  • Conduct an initial session with the new leader to get acquainted, explore leadership strengths and weaknesses, and clarify our coaching agreement.
  • Support the new leader’s manager in creating a draft transition plan.
  • Conduct a job role assessment by interviewing key stakeholders to understand their expectations of the new leader and any advice they can provide on adapting to the organization’s culture.

Month 2-3: Ongoing Coaching

In this phase of executive transition coaching, I meet with a new leader every two weeks to coach them on challenges such as navigating the organization’s culture, building relationships, and creating momentum. Another big focus for this period is finding internal mentors and advocates they can rely on after the coaching engagement is complete. I also provide reference materials on navigating transitions such as The New Leader’s 100 Day Action Plan and The First 90 Days.

Month 4: 360-Degree Assessment

Once a new leader has been in their role for at least three months, I often conduct a 360-degree assessment. Ideally, this assessment surfaces any potential derailers observed by their raters early enough to prevent derailment. It is also tremendously helpful for new leaders to validate early wins and build their confidence in their capabilities. Once I debrief the assessment with the leader client, I will facilitate an alignment meeting with their boss. We then identify any development needs to help them achieve results quicker and update the transition plan.

Month 5-6: Ongoing Coaching

After the assessment, we continue ongoing executive transition coaching sessions every two weeks to build momentum in implementing the leader’s transition plan. 

Month 7: Wrap-up and Next Steps

In month 7, I conclude the executive transition coaching engagement with an abbreviated 360-degree assessment with a subset of the original raters. This assessment helps the leader internalize positive changes in their behavior and continue building confidence. We then conduct another alignment meeting with their boss to validate progress and identify the next steps in the coaching process. Some clients continue coaching, cutting back to once a month, while others ultimately end the coaching engagement.

Helping new leaders integrate into their roles is a critical focus for forward-thinking organizations. Executive transition coaching that addresses newly hired leaders’ unique challenges is a valuable way to help them thrive. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leaders experiencing transitions to thrive in their new or expanded roles. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse

Categories
Leadership Success Leadership Transition Onboarding Leaders

Onboarding New Leaders: 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid

Onboarding New Leaders: 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid

When starting in a leadership role, knowing what mistakes to avoid can be challenging. After all, you are still learning the ropes and figuring out how everything works. Many leaders in transition get caught in the excitement of a new position, but fail to anticipate ways that they can derail.

Based on my experience as an executive coach working with newly hired leaders who nearly derailed, here’s a list of some common mistakes that can easily be avoided.

1: Assuming support for their vision

Leaders are often hired based on a compelling vision they have to transform their organizations. However, implementing a vision without engaging key stakeholders and building trust can result in a failed change agenda and a damaged reputation. It is critical when onboarding new leaders to help them understand the cultural context and adapt their vision based on the vested interests of stakeholders. In essence, new leaders have to earn the right to create change by demonstrating appreciation for an organization’s history.

2: Not building alignment with the boss

Perhaps the most critical relationship for a new leader is with their boss. A new leader’s manager plays an instrumental role as a sponsor, helping to open doors to social networks. Therefore it is essential to build alignment with one’s manager on a change agenda, key priorities, communication protocols, and authority. Alignment with one’s new boss is a top priority when onboarding new leaders.

3: Setting the wrong tone

How a leader behaves from the start will strongly influence their reputation and likelihood of success in their new role. Most organizations have well-understood unwritten rules for how a new leader should balance an assertive style with a cooperative approach. The key is to enlist well-regarded mentors to determine this balance.  

4: Attempting to do too much

One of the biggest mistakes a new leader can make is trying to do too much. They often have grand plans and want to implement them all at once. However, this can be overwhelming for both the leader and their team. New leaders who burn out by attempting too much or focusing on the wrong priorities can damage their reputations. The solution is to prioritize and align with the boss on critical priorities early in their tenure. 

5: Not being visible enough

A newly hired healthcare executive, Susan had a naturally introverted style and jumped into her new role with gusto. Her comfort zone associated with this approach nearly derailed her since she largely remained in her office or the executive suite. Her direct reports assumed she didn’t care about them because she made little effort to engage in person. Building trust with followers through visible, real-time interactions is vital for newly hired leaders. Susan realized this and made a point to attend department meetings in her division to discuss her vision, experience, personal interests, and appreciation for what each department had achieved before her arrival. 

Starting a new leadership role is an exciting time filled with promise and opportunity. However, it can also be fraught with the potential for derailing setbacks if the process of onboarding new leaders is not well-designed. By being conscious of five familiar sources of derailment, new leaders can prevent lapses and thrive in their new roles. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leaders who are experiencing transitions to thrive in their new or expanded roles. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse

Categories
Leadership Development

Supercharge Your Strengths or Fix Your Flaws?

strengths and weaknesses

I just kicked off a year-long leadership development academy for a group of 20 physicians members of an international medical academy. As part of the program, I administered an emotional intelligence self-assessment that opened many participants’ eyes to their skills and development needs. A number of the participants asked me whether they should focus on developing their strengths or fixing their flaws.

Developing Your Strengths

The strengths approach to leadership development, popularized by writers Rath and Conchie, is anchored in positive psychology. Their foundational ideas assume that most people are not aware of their strengths. When people develop this awareness and invest time in enhancing them, it enhances their abilities, confidence, and satisfaction. By extension, this approach suggests focusing on fixing weaknesses and does not translate to a sustainable performance improvement. A critical aspect of this approach is leveraging others’ strengths – recognizing that leaders cannot be good at everything. 

Steve, a chief operations officer in a health system, is highly skilled as a project manager and ensures no detail slips through the cracks. However, because he is very good at this competency and enjoys doing it, he rarely thinks strategically about his organization, including longer-term planning and visioning. Given his level in his organization, Steve needs strategic thinking capabilities to perform his role. In developing his project management strengths, Steve might want to consider how he might become more aware of when to tap this strength. For example, a project management perspective might not be the best choice when identifying strategic opportunities and a new initiative vision. He could also consider tapping the strategic thinking capabilities of his second in charge, Maria.

Developing Your Flaws

The more traditional approach to leadership development emphasizes developing flaws or weaknesses. Leaders often identify the gap between their actual and desired behavior to determine what to grow. The leadership development plan then focuses on filling the gap by increasing your skill and confidence. In many cases, these deficits are created by overusing one’s strengths. Overusing strengths can create lopsided leaders with substantial gaps in their knowledge or skill set. Often, the best way to identify these weaknesses is through developmental coaching and a 360-degree assessment.

Although Steve may never be an expert in strategic thinking, he could develop some necessary capabilities in this area to mitigate his weaknesses, enabling him to speak strategy to his boss, the CEO. To achieve this, he could allow his second in charge, Maria, to mentor him, read a good book on the topic, or engage trusted colleagues in practicing this skill.

Hybrid Approach: Striking a Balance

I subscribe to a hybrid approach to development that embraces both methods. This approach assumes the importance of using your strengths and developing substantial weaknesses that could derail your career and limit your success. Further, it entails leveraging the talents of your leadership team to augment your weaker skills. In constructing their development plans, I often recommend that leaders identify one strength and one weakness.

Moving into Action: 7 Key Strategies

Here are seven useful leadership development strategies to consider that combine the strength-based and deficit perspectives:

  • Ask five trusted colleagues to identify your top 3 strengths and their impact, along with specific situations when they are most helpful. 
  • Reflect on conditions where your interactions with others did not succeed and assess the extent to which you may have overused your strengths.
  • Reflect on peak experiences or achievements and determine how your strengths contributed to the successful outcomes. 
  • Consider mentoring others who are interested in developing skills you would consider to be your key strengths.
  • Reflect on your job role and determine the extent to which you can enlist your strengths; consider negotiating a change in your job role with your boss to find ways to align better with your strengths.
  • Identify role models; interview them to find out how they think and behave.
  • Consider how you can leverage the strengths of others on your team to mitigate your weaknesses.

Successful leaders are intentional about their development and take consistent action over time to optimize their potential. Well-crafted leadership development plans include a balance of developing both strengths and weaknesses. By taking a balanced approach, leaders can ensure they are well-prepared for future roles. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leaders who are experiencing transitions to thrive in their new or expanded roles. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse