What is failure? It’s the inability to perform or the lack of success. What is success? It’s generally defined as the attainment of a desired outcome. For some success might be achieving a goal, e.g., receiving a desired promotion, or achieving a mastery of a technology or subject matter, or developing a successful high performing team, or developing more effective working relationships with peers, or achieving more work/life balance. It’s in our collective DNA to want to be seen as applying our talents successfully. Consequently, to intentionally pursue failure is a disconnect.

Why is success important to us? Psychologically and physically success feels a lot better than failure including, favorable visibility, a sense of accomplishment, acknowledgment by others, and tangible rewards, i.e., increased responsibility and/or increased compensation. In contrast failure doesn’t feel as good as exemplified by, unfavorable visibility, the failure to achieve, negative recognition and lower self esteem. In the former case you feel on top of the world; in the latter you’re at the bottom of the barrel. So it’s more likely that when leaders are unsuccessful it’s because they’re unprepared, i.e., lacked the necessary skills and confidence, rather than consciously pursued failure.

What does it take for a leader to be successful? Success requires leaders to:

• acknowledge the things they know and do well versus the things that they don’t.

• ask for help without feeling embarrassed.

• continually develop by addressing growth opportunities for themselves and their teams.

• be intimately knowledgeable of their organization’s goals and the environment in which it operates.

• continually manage the ambiguity associated with plans, actions and decision making.

• be proficient in the competencies and behaviors the organization values.

• plan and execute the right actions by effectively engaging their teams.

• be knowledgeable of the critical levers to pull to enhance the likelihood of success.

• be confident in themselves and their teams.

• monitor progress and make the necessary course corrections in goals and actions required for success.

Another key to leadership success is to effectively manage the variables affecting it. These variables can enhance or decrease the likelihood of success. They can be internal and controllable by you or external and uncontrollable. Examples of internal variables include your personal behavior, thoughts, preparedness and commitment. External variables include things like the weather, the economy, the competitive environment, and the behavior, thoughts and actions of others. Success requires a leader to understand the dynamics of the environment in which he/she and the team operate; to understand the challenges facing him/her and the team; and finally, to execute a plan that anticipates and effectively navigates key variables to enhance the likelihood of success today and tomorrow.

While it’s a given that leaders are expected to control internal/controllable variables; they can also exert influence over external/uncontrollable variables. For example, a leader can create a collaborative, productive team environment and influence team member thoughts, behaviors and actions by:

• being accessible.

• setting clear goals and expectations.

• requiring team alignment (i.e., commitment and ownership of the team’s vision and goals).

• valuing constructive debate and collaboration over internal competition.

• supporting team member learning and development.

• holding team members accountable for team results.

Unfortunately, during challenging economic times organizations typically cut spending for leadership development. The irony here is that challenging times require continuous learning and development to achieve and sustain success. When you learn to lead successfully during difficult times you can apply that learning to lead successfully all of the time. A formalized leadership development process will help minimize leader failure and increase the frequency of success by providing a range of support for leaders, e.g., knowledge and skills development, focused job rotations, special project assignments to address important organizational issues, focused external subject matter courses, and coaching and mentoring.

At the end of the day Leadership Success is the intersection of competence, planning, confidence and execution. Alternatively Leadership Failure is the intersection of lack of preparedness, inadequate planning, lack of conviction and poor follow through - the lack of skills and confidence, limited access to a leadership development process and a reluctance to ask for help are key contributors to failure.

Failure is not a desired state; clearly Success feels better, adds value and is much more personally fulfilling and rewarding.

The Corbett Group is a certified leadership/executive coaching and organization consulting firm that works with leaders and teams to expand their capabilities, improve and sustain team alignment and achieve their vision and goals.

Bob Corbett

What is a high performing culture? Is it simply one that encourages and supports the maximum aggregate performance of individuals? Or is it one that encourages and supports the best efforts and accomplishments of teams including the alignment, development and working relationships of team members?

A culture that emphasizes and rewards individuals over team performance can still be high performing, however, a culture that encourages and recognizes the collaborative efforts of teams can more easily and successfully sustain an even higher level of performance. This is because collectively team members can consistently bring and pool their breadth of resources including, knowledge, experience, energy and focus to effectively address organizational strategies, goals and challenges.

Organizational cultures that support and reward individualistic thinking and acting can become under performing because they:

• Encourage Unhealthy Competition: Everyone selfishly works their respective agendas.

• Encourage Duplicity: No one monitors redundancies.

• Encourage Myopic Thinking: Everyone takes a limited view of reality and the possibilities.

• Discourage Synergies: The lone wolf mentality doesn’t encourage collaboration.

• Discourage Alignment: Individuals aren’t held accountable for making their respective agendas compatible with others.

Alternatively organizational cultures that support and reward team oriented thinking and acting can become high performing because they:

• Are Flexible and Adaptable: Encourages nimbleness in response to a changing environment.

• Encourage the Healthy Debate of ideas: Everyone is expected to voice their opinion and to actively, constructively discuss the pros and cons of competing ideas.

• Encourage Macro and Consensus Thinking: It facilitates strategic, tactical, and collaborative thinking.

• Require Synergistic Thinking: A willingness to work together to identify ways to leverage opportunities including, strengths and resources.

• Require Alignment and Ownership: Commitment to and ownership of agreed upon goals and actions is required for success.

High-level requirements for becoming a high performing team oriented culture are:

• Top Management communicating the need and expectation for becoming high performing and the expected benefits of the change.

• Organize Teams to Address Organizational Needs with team members representing the diversity of knowledge, thought and competencies.

• Encourage Teams to Strive for Organizational Efficiencies through planning, problem solving and solution development.

• Revise Organizational Processes to support the new performance oriented culture.

• Create Reward Systems that recognize team over individual results.

• Provide Leadership Coaching Support to facilitate the transition.

The Corbett Group provides customized leadership/executive coaching and organization consulting to organizations planning a culture change.

Bob Corbett

A major challenge to leaders and their teams is the ability to maintain ongoing efforts to successfully pursue an organization’s desired direction while achieving quality results and outcomes. Successfully meeting this challenge is an example of sustainability, i.e., continually engaging in and committing to the actions required to successfully pursue a long term vision or goal.

A hypothetical example of a successful sustainability effort is an executive team concerned about the lack of bench strength that collectively commits to create a strategic leadership development culture that values continuous learning and leadership growth.

In this case the executive team actively sponsors an upgrade of its talent acquisition and talent management processes including, committing to treating developing leaders, i.e., their direct reports, as organizational assets to be developed, shared and allocated in accordance with personal development goals and interests and organizational needs.

In this example of sustainability direct reports are not unilaterally controlled by their respective current managers, instead their development is strategically, collectively and proactively managed by the executive team. Sustainability here is represented by executive team members who are continually willing to release their direct reports for growth opportunities and to leverage their strengths, while addressing their development needs and expanding their capabilities.

This commitment to create a leadership development culture is strategic in that there’s no end date - it’s an ongoing organizational goal. Additionally, if successful, its pursuit will offer a significant long term benefit to the organization, i.e., a much improved bench strength from which to draw senior leaders in the future. The executive team is demonstrating sustainability through its ongoing ownership, actions and pursuit of this long term strategy.

A failed sustainability effort would occur if an executive team member, or members, resisted releasing direct reports to, instead, ensure the success of the executive’s organizational unit, i.e., if the executive put his/her personal wants ahead of the collective commitment by members of the executive team.

Key challenges to organizational sustainability include:

• The Degree of Difficulty to achieve the goal is greater than initially thought.

• Trust that the goal can still be achieved wanes.

• Collaborative Support to achieve the goal unravels.

• The Willingness to Share Resources among team members is strained.

Key requirements for successful organizational sustainability include:

• A Compelling Organizational Direction actively pursued by its leaders.

• An Ongoing Commitment to own and pursue the compelling direction .

• Ongoing Flexibility to revise plans and actions based on what works.

• The Courage to change processes and culture to support the achievement of the new organizational direction.

• Ongoing Engagement to be intellectual curious and proactively participate.

Sustainability can be the difference between long term success and failure. It can also be the difference between pursuing a worthwhile strategic vision or goal versus settling for an easier to achieve short term objective that doesn’t serve the long term interests of the organization.

It’s more difficult to sustain focus and commitment to an enduring long term vision or goal. However, leaders and teams that embrace the challenges and opportunities resulting from sustainability will realize huge returns for their efforts.

The Corbett Group provides Team Alignment Coaching and Consulting to help leaders and their teams:

• Identify and Engage to achieve a compelling vision or goal.

• Commit to and Own a compelling vision including its goals, plans and actions.

• Gain Commitment and ownership from their direct reports to achieve the leadership team’s vision, goals, plans and actions.

• Identify and execute the behaviors and actions needed to sustain the commitments and efforts needed for ongoing success.

Bob Corbett

Challenges, disappointment and failure are a part of life. While distasteful and unsettling these experiences offer opportunities to succeed, learn and grow, if we’re willing to face them and respond. Overcoming adversity and disappointment require the energy and willingness to bounce back, face and respond to challenges. This commitment to bounce back and respond is Resilience.

In today’s dynamic, challenging economy and work environment there are plenty of opportunities to demonstrate resilience.

What are examples of adversity in today’s environment? Examples of adversity include, the Information Technology Leader who’s resources have been cut yet he/she is still expected to successfully implement a major Enterprise Resources Planning (SAP) solution with fewer people - affectionately know as doing more with less. Or, it could be the Sales Leader who is expected to convince a customer with whom he/she has a trusting relationship to purchase  a suboptimal solution because his/her company needs the sales revenue.

What can help you confirm your strengths in Resilience and your ability to bounce back and successfully overcoming adversity?

• An assessment of your Resilience strengths.

• If necessary, preparing and executing a Personal Development Action Plan.

The underpinnings of a personal development action plan include:

• Self Confidence

• the Instinct to Survive and the Commitment to Succeed.

• the ability to quickly Learn from Past Experiences and to Anticipate.

• being Intellectually Curious with a willingness to identify Root Causes.

• a strong Personal Compass (i.e., including your Purpose, Vision and Values).

• Specific Actions, Metrics, a Time Line and Timely Feedback.

How can you assess your your strengths in the area of Resilience? Two thoughts come to mind. First, you could conduct a self assessment of  your strengths by:

• asking yourself how effectively you’ve responded to adversity in the past including a consideration of what worked, what didn’t and why.

• selectively sharing your self assessment with someone you trust who was aware of the adversity you faced, and ask his/her opinion of how well you responded and why.

• identifying key learnings from the self assessment and corresponding corrective actions necessary to improve your capabilities and respond more effectively to adversity going forward.

Alternatively, you could measure your Resilience strengths objectively by working with a leadership coach and using a Resilience strengths assessment tool . One such tool is the Graham-Sloan Resilience Questionnaire. This tool measures your Resilience strengths in three areas, i.e., Relationship to Others, to Self and to the Environment, utilizing 13 Resilience attributes. The coach will debrief your results and help you prepare an Action Plan to both leverage your Resilience strengths and address areas for development.

Using the Graham-Sloan Resilience Assessment Tool the Corbett Group provides coaching support to individuals helping them confirm their Resilience strengths and areas for development and helping them prepare and successfully execute an action plan that helps them recognize and overcome adversity today and tomorrow.

Bob Corbett

Leadership talent can be a scarce commodity in organizations without feeding and caring in the form of investment and coaching. When you consider that frequently supervisors, managers are not formally trained; rather they’re promoted then must learn on the job and either sink or swim. The survivors are typically rewarded with increased responsibility, occasional off-site developmental conferences, and periodic performance feedback until they fail or hit their capability maximums. Those who stumble along the way may receive formal coaching in the hopes that they can be fixed. Those who hit their capability maximums are retained until or unless they’re seen as blockers to the advancement of more junior leaders.

This suggests that frequently it’s the survivors not the most talented who become leaders in organizations. In most organizations the most valued assets are its people - its human capital. Think of how much better the quality of leadership in organizations would be if we, first, selected and subsequently prepared supervisors and managers to become successful leaders rather placing precious human capital in untrained hands. Then, second, continue the investment in our leadership talent through an internalized, formal continuous learning and development process.

The steps for success in identifying and developing talented leaders are:

• Identify the key leadership competencies critical to success in your organization.

• Assess each leader’s strengths against the organization’s key leadership competencies and identify the gaps.

• Develop a Personal Development Plan (PDP) with 1-3 goals with corresponding actions, metrics and timelines to address the leadership competency gaps.

• Develop an assessment process to rank leadership talent in terms of performance and potential into three groups, i.e.,  Top, Solid or Decision Needed, a 9 Box tool works well. The Top Talent Group are leaders who are ready for promotion now or soon; the Solid Talent Group are leaders who are either well placed or need specific development to be promotable in the future; while the Decision Needed Group are leaders who may have maxed out in capability and may need to be moved.

• Develop an internalized Succession Planning Process to identify potential successors to key leadership and/or executive positions. Then allocate leaders in the High Talent Group as potential successors for key positions in the succession plan. Consider allocating leaders in the Solid Group to the succession plan if appropriate.

• Provide coaching and ongoing support to leaders in accordance with development needs captured in their respective PDPs, performance appraisals and the succession plan.

• On a quarterly calendar year basis review the readiness and opportunities for leaders in the succession plan to be moved, i.e., promoted or moved laterally, into positions that will provide growth, development and preparation for more responsibility.

• Continue to invest in leaders’ growth through the active use of the organization’s leadership development process even in difficult economic times. Typically organizations reduce development budgets; the irony is that leaders need even more development to help them successfully navigate through challenging times.  Finally, consider allocating more leadership development dollars to the Top Leadership Group and fewer to the Solid Leadership Group based on readiness.

Bob Corbett

Just about anything can be measured. However, some things can be measured (quantified) more easily than others. For example, we can easily quantify the number of cans of soda in a case of soda. On the other hand it’s more difficult to quantify the  effectiveness of a leadership development or coaching intervention because these would require qualitative measurements of behavioral outcomes.

In both examples some degree of measurement can be made through visual observation. In the soda example, a quantitative measurement can be made by a physical count. In the effectiveness of a leadership development or coaching intervention examples a qualitative measurement can be made by observing whether an individual’s post intervention behavior has changed in a desirable way or not.

However, the measurement of the effectiveness or benefits of a leadership or coaching intervention could be quantified if expected behavioral outcomes are tied to the achievement of a measurable organization goal, e.g., a growth in leadership skills and/or behavioral change that leads his or her team to meet or exceed its sales growth or merger integration goal.

The challenge in measuring a qualitative change resulting from an intervention is in isolating the benefit(s) or value attributed to the intervention rather than to coincidental environmental factor(s) like a change in the economy creating a more favorable sales environment or more favorable capital markets, i.e., making more money available to finance mergers and acquisitions.

Therefore when valuing the benefits of a leadership development or coaching intervention that is tied to the achievement of a measurable organization goal I recommend:

• Using observation.

• Using two multi-rater assessments, i.e., at the beginning to establish a baseline, then at the end to assess the amount of change attributable to the intervention.

• Comparing the the dollar cost of the intervention and the dollar value of the actual results achieved against the dollar value of the organization goal to which the the intervention is tied.

In the absence of a measurable organization goal to which to tie the intervention I recommend:

• Using observation.

• Using two multi-rater assessments.

• Subjectively assessing whether the benefits realized from the behavior change measured by the multi-rater assessments justified the dollar cost of the intervention.

Bob Corbett

Coaching can help leaders learn and develop. Self management is the energy and commitment needed to accomplish a leader’s learning and development goals.

Continuous learning is:

• a journey rather than a destination - when you think you know it all, you become obsolete.

• a continuous journey from incompetence to sustained competence.

Coaching is the process to:

• identify personal goals.

• identify relevant strengths.

• identify needs and growth opportunities.

• identify behavioral tendencies and personal blind spots.

• obtain meaningful feedback.

• develop an action plan.

• hold the coachee accountable.

Self management is managing yourself by:

• developing and owning your personal goals.

• committing to their achievement.

• exercising the discipline to accomplish them.

• ensuring alignment between your goals and actions.

Development is:

• aggregating your learnings.

• creating and growing a portfolio of relevant learnings.

• drawing from those relevant learnings.

Leadership coaching and self management facilitate and enable learning and development by supporting leaders’ efforts to realize their goals and dreams.

Bob Corbett

I’m writing about leadership development. Here are the top 4 things you need to consider assessing your leadership development opportunities.

Effective leaders:

• Are Strategic (i.e., Are Future Focused and Analytical and have a Plan)
• Are Knowledgeable (i.e., Have Sound Business Acumen, Organization Knowledge, and Technical Knowledge)
• Are Engaging (i.e., Are Effective Communicators and Coaches, gains Commitment, is Influential, and has effective Working Relationships with bosses, peers and team members.
• Are Results Oriented (i.e., They get the right things done - hold people accountable, provide meaningful, timely feedback, and celebrate successes)

Bob Corbett