People Puzzles Are Never Complete
The Subjects Keep Changing
Are enough of your leaders leading?
“We’ve tried coaching. We’ve tried training. It just doesn’t stick!”
Everywhere we turn, we hear the same story. Not enough leaders are leading. Our innovative coaching and training programs are different by design. They address the three most common flaws seen across coaching and training programs today:
Too focused on soft skills
Too fragmented or complicated to remember
Too outcomes (versus process) oriented, leaving converts unable to execute
Unlike most leadership programs, we do not start with soft skills.
We believe in teaching systems before skills and styles. Soft skills and leadership styles help leaders fine-tune delivery. They are absolutely critical to mastering leadership. The problem is starting with soft skills assumes your leaders have a comprehensive understanding of what leadership is. It assumes they can already differentiate their work from the their teams'. It assumes they just need to ask more than they tell or package their messages more thoughtfully. Unfortunately, most leaders aren’t failing to lead because they don’t know how to read people or treat them nicely. They are failing to engage because they don’t know what the work is. The result is no different than teaching sportsmanship to a football quarterback or a soccer striker. It does little to teach them about the game or their position on the field.
LeadershipSOPs coaching and training products focus on the work of leading first, providing a robust framework for defining the domains of leading, establishing the critical dimensions within each domain, and offering a simple and effective way for translating this framework into personal practice.
Our entire model can be summarized in a single sentence (perhaps even a single word).
We have been studying leadership our entire lives and can barely remember the components of a single competency model between us. And, we are pretty convinced we’re not alone. On the whole, they are complicated, fragmented and hard to put into action, share with others, or performance manage.
The most of the core components of our model are conveyed in a single word: LeadershipSOPs. LeadershipSOPs are your standard operating procedures for structuring, operating, and perfecting your communities of effort. This phrase holds the key to the purpose of leadership (cultivating communities of effort), the three domains of leading (structuring, operating, and perfecting) and our pragmatic process for self improvement, team effectiveness (developing and deploying standard operating procedures).
Leadership is a social process of organization.
We help leaders understand that leading itself is a process. In an attempt to drive home the concept of accountability, most leadership programs promote a goal-centric definition of leading which can only lead to two outcomes: one, too much time doing the team’s work instead of leading; and two, a fast slide down a slippery slope of the ends justifying the means.
We believe leaders who focus too heavily on the ends fail to develop the means to achieve them. Developing the capacity to achieve objectives is what leaders do. It is their full time job. They must always be thinking in terms of process and process improvement. They can not afford to have a singular gaze on outcomes alone. Will they be held accountable for their results? Absolutely. But the leading itself is a process of organization which transforms groups into a willing, capable, and sustainable communities of effort.
This view extends to the core of the LeadershipSOPs methodology which encourages leaders to define their own processes for leading and to use these processes as a platform for self and organizational improvement.
EXECUTIVE COACHING
Our coaching process leverages the ECT(M) Transformation Model featured in our leadership framework.
The model is based on the science behind the psychology of change, focusing on active engagement versus avoidance.
Your leaders can’t create strategies to realize opportunities they can’t see.
We begin our partnership with leaders who are ready to Explore their own self picture (through dialogue and self-assessments) and brave enough to enhance their own observations with what their key stakeholders experience (through 360° feedback interviews and on-line assessments). Our process includes a comprehensive leadership assessment based on the three domains and 28 dimensions of leading featured in our breakthrough LeadershipSOPs framework. Using our own proprietary assessment along with others, we are able to see which areas of leading our leaders gravitate toward versus ignore … and the impact of those patterns on their entire ecosystem.
Armed with raw data and mixed emotions, our next step is to Clarify what this information actually means. We must discern what is most actionable and helpful to our cause, internalize the messages, prioritize a small list of objectives, and decipher a plan.
To Transform, takes more than a plan. It takes action. It is often said, the first step is the hardest. The truth is a little more complicated. Establishing a new pattern of behavior is extremely difficult — sometimes the second step is even harder than the first. Our first steps are often uncomfortable and unsuccessful, frequently leading us to question whether the miss should be chalked up to inexperience or if it was really good fit to begin with (for the leader or the situation or both). Often this returns us to the beginning. In fact, it is not uncommon for our leaders to take many rapid cycles trips through Explore, Clarify and Transform as they become more and more aware of the deeply held ideas (about themselves, about the people they lead and work with, and the nature of the leadership itself) which are either blocking or limiting success. This is a natural process of trial and error.
Once a new set of successful and scalable behaviors is found, it is time to Master them.
We believe establishing and deploying your LeadershipSOPs are the key to lasting change, rapid cycle mastery and a lifetime of continuous performance improvement. They help leaders integrate new best practices with existing routines, quickly build proficiency through consistent practice, establish “plays” to enable collaboration within their teams, and offer a quick and easy way to articulate leadership life lessons to others.
CORPORATE TRAINING
Are you searching for a solutions to transform an entire team or even an enterprise?
In 2019, the LeadershipSOPs team partnered with the brilliant minds at Leaderology to translate the LeadershipSOPs into a series of life-changing, team altering programs designed for leaders of all levels.
Regardless of which program you select, we partner with you from the very beginning to discuss, define and align around your organization’s unique SCOPE (Strategies, Culture, Objectives, Purpose and Ecosystem). This customized and strategic map forms the cornerstone for the entire experience, bringing context to the solutions we present.
LEGACY
Designed for executive leaders to bring enterprise-wide thinking and set the organization’s performance trajectory.
It's been quite a journey to get to this point: the passion, the hours, the hard work. But the job isn't done, and a lot of people are looking to you to
cultivate an environment that not only inspires, but allows for innovation,
creativity and even more success. With Legacy your executive bench will emerge with a different way of thinking and acting. They will galvanize as a team, display an increased and broader sense of ownership, and align on organizational interventions that are destined to leave a lasting impact on your entire enterprise.
Warning: The Legacy product drives significant organizational change.
MASTERY
Designed for mid-level managers to help them enhance and improve their leadership habits.
You've been doing this a while. You're no longer 'the new kid' – in fact, you're now in charge of a working group or team. But the skills that got you here aren't sufficient to propel you to the heights you want to reach in the coming years. Mastery stimulates what you already know with the principles and know-how to take you where you want to be. Your cohort of leaders consider the SCOPE of the organization when building, developing and leading their teams
CLARITY
Designed for front-line and/or first-time supervisors, allowing for skill-building around leadership fundamentals and business acumen.
You can see the summit, but you’re currently at basecamp. Gaining all that elevation is going to require training, skills, equipment…and you’re not sure if you have everything you’ll need to make it to the top. The Clarity allows you to explore your inner potential and begin honing your leadership
skills.
THE BOOK
From Expert to Executive is a fictional tale highlighting the evolution of a bio-tech startup through the eyes of several of its leaders. Rather than a dry technical manual, LeadershipSOPs architect and author Ed Tyson takes readers through a journey of discovery told through the eyes of the leaders experiencing it.
