How Great Leaders Think: Simple Steps to Build Trust and a Strong Team Culture

By Dorian Cunion and Suzzanne Currier

Being a great leader doesn't just happen; it takes planning and effort. Top business leaders know that for their organization to be successful, they have to build a strong organizational culture and invest in developing talent. 

Members of the local Virginia chapter of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), recently had the opportunity to attend an Executive Leadership Series lunch at Regent University, where ICF Virginia was also a sponsor.

Great Leaders Inspire Other Leaders

“The Executive Leadership Series exists to inspire business leaders and build community,” explained Regent University Chancellor Gordon Robertson. “Through these distinctive events, we seek to provide a gathering place where Hampton Roads’ most respected leaders gain world-class insights from leading experts, combined with exclusive networking opportunities.” 

ICF Virginia is a sponsor of the Executive Leadership Series because it is “an investment in leadership development for Hampton Roads, to empower networking, as well as to create more awareness of the value of coaching to grow leaders, which our membership provides.” Says Suzanne Currier, PCC president of ICF Virginia.

During lunch, a leadership panel of top Hampton Roads business leaders shared insights and lessons on leading a successful organization. The panel included Robert Aston Jr. (CEO, TowneBank), Michael Creedon, Jr. (CEO, Dollar Tree), Dennis Matheis (CEO, Sentara), Edith White (CEO. Hampton Roads Community Action Program), and Gordon Robertson (CEO, Christian Broadcast Network). Hon. Robert MacDonald facilitated the panel.

We've broken down what we learned at this event into actionable tactics leaders can implement immediately to drive higher levels of employee engagement, trust, and business growth.

1. Trust and Being Real Are Key

Great team performance is built on strong trust. If people don't trust the leadership, plans fall apart and teamwork stops.

• It Starts with Trust (Robert Aston Jr.): The most important job of a leader is to build trust. This means you must be reliable, reachable, and responsible (Edith White). 

• Being Real (Authentic) is Crucial (Michael Creedon): Leaders must first know their values and then always act based on those values. When you are authentic, people know what to expect, and trust is easy to build. 

2. Lead by Serving Your Team

Exceptional leadership means changing your mindset: stop just managing tasks and start serving the people who do the work.

• You Work for Your Employees (Dennis Matheis): A leader’s job is to remove problems and provide tools so the team can do their jobs well. As a leader, you are there to support the people who work for the customer.

• Invest in Careers, Not Just Jobs (Michael Creedon): True leadership helps team members achieve their life goals (Robert Aston Jr.). This strong commitment builds loyalty and helps retain great people, thereby directly improving team culture.

3. Plan the Future and Learn from Mistakes

One of a leader's jobs is to envision the company's future. This takes focused time and a thoughtful approach to risk.

• Vision Needs Planning Time (Gordon Robertson): A leader’s time should be spent thinking about the future, not managing today’s problems. You must make time just for strategic thought and planning.

• Make it Okay to Fail (Gordon Robertson): Leaders must create a place where it is safe to fail and mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn. This means leadership needs to take risks and learn quickly (Dennis Matheis).

4. Invest in Growth and Fun Surprises

To create a loyal, high-performing team, you need to invest in your people’s growth and well-being every day.

• The Power of the Unexpected (Robert Aston Jr.): What special things are you doing for your team that they don't expect? These thoughtful gestures build deep loyalty.

• Provide Practical Help and Chances to Grow (Edith White): Leadership is teaching. It is the job of current leaders to provide both practical advice and formal leadership training to people just starting.

Coaching: A Path to Your Leadership Style

Having a winning culture starts with a clear, authentic way of leading. These local Virginia leaders provided practical guidance to help leaders evolve, learn, and grow. If you are an executive or emerging leader who is looking to craft your own leadership style, consider working with an ICF coach. The ICF credentialed coaches pledge to abide by a code of ethics, have undergone extensive training and mentorship, and are here to help you tap into your potential. Learn more by visiting our website.

The Enneagram: Better Understand Your Drives, Fears, and Behavior Patterns.

At Your Path Coaching & Consulting, we empower individuals and organizations to reach their full potential. A key tool we utilize in our holistic approach to personal and professional development is the Enneagram. This powerful system provides profound insights into your core motivations, fears, and behavior patterns, offering a roadmap for transformative growth.

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a dynamic personality system that outlines nine distinct personality types. It delves beyond surface-level behaviors, revealing the underlying emotional drivers that shape our thoughts, actions, and interactions. This emotionally focused system helps us understand our deepest fears and desires, ultimately leading to greater self-awareness and improved relationships.

The Three Centers of Intelligence:

Understanding the Enneagram begins with recognizing the three Centers of Intelligence:

• Heart Center (Types Two, Three, and Four): These types are driven by emotions and connection. They prioritize relationships and seek validation and belonging.

• Head Center (Types Five, Six, and Seven): These types rely on intellect and analysis. They strive for knowledge, security, and mental stimulation.

• Body Center (Types Eight, Nine, and One): These types operate from instinct and gut feelings. They focus on autonomy, control, and integrity.

The Nine Enneagram Types:

Let's explore each type and its core motivations:

• Type One: The Perfectionist: Driven by a desire for integrity and correctness, Ones strive for excellence and adhere to high standards. They fear being flawed or corrupt.

• Type Two: The Giver: Motivated by a need to be loved and appreciated, Twos are compassionate and helpful. They fear being unlovable or unwanted.

• Type Three: The Achiever: Focused on success and recognition, Threes are driven and adaptable. They fear failure and being seen as worthless.

• Type Four: The Individualist: Seeking authenticity and uniqueness, Fours are creative and introspective. They fear being ordinary or insignificant.

• Type Five: The Investigator: Driven by a desire for knowledge and understanding, Fives are analytical and independent. They fear being overwhelmed or incompetent.

• Type Six: The Skeptic: Seeking security and certainty, Sixes are loyal and responsible. They fear being unprepared or unsupported.

• Type Seven: The Enthusiast: Driven by a desire for adventure and stimulation, Sevens are optimistic and versatile. They fear being trapped or in pain.

• Type Eight: The Challenger: Focused on control and power, Eights are assertive and protective. They fear being vulnerable or controlled.

• Type Nine: The Peacemaker: Seeking harmony and peace, Nines are easygoing and accepting. They fear conflict and separation.

How the Enneagram Enhances Professional Development:

At Your Path Coaching & Consulting, we integrate the Enneagram into our coaching programs to:

• Increase Self-Awareness: By understanding your Enneagram type, you gain valuable insights into your strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots.

• Improve Communication: The Enneagram helps you understand how different types communicate and interact, fostering more effective collaboration and conflict resolution.

• Enhance Leadership Skills: By recognizing your own leadership style and the styles of others, you can build stronger teams and create a more positive work environment.

• Navigate Career Transitions: The Enneagram can help you identify career paths that align with your core motivations and values.

• Develop Emotional Intelligence: By understanding your emotional triggers and patterns, you can cultivate greater emotional resilience and self-regulation.

• Team Building: Understanding your team members' enneagrams can help you build more effective and productive teams. This is a core part of our business consulting services.

• Executive Coaching: The enneagram is a powerful tool for helping executives understand their leadership style and how it affects their teams.

Enneagram in One-on-One Coaching and Group Workshops:

One-on-One Coaching:

• In individual sessions, we use the Enneagram to provide personalized insights and guidance. We help you identify your core motivations, understand your behavior patterns, and develop personal and professional growth strategies.

• We work with you to address specific challenges, such as communication difficulties, leadership development, or career transitions, using the Enneagram as a framework for understanding and addressing these issues.

• We assist with creating personal development plans tailored to each individual’s enneagram type.

Group Workshops:

• Our workshops provide a dynamic and interactive learning environment where participants can explore the Enneagram and its applications in a collaborative setting.

• We facilitate discussions and exercises that help participants understand the different Enneagram types and how they interact with each other.

• We focus on team dynamics, communication skills, and conflict resolution, using the Enneagram to enhance understanding and improve collaboration.

• Workshops help teams to understand each other, and create a more harmonious work environment.

Our Approach:

We believe in a personalized approach to coaching and consulting. Through in-depth assessments and one-on-one sessions or group workshops, we help you identify your Enneagram type and develop strategies for personal and professional growth. We empower you to leverage your strengths, overcome challenges, and achieve sustainable success.

Take the Next Step:

Ready to unlock your full potential? Schedule a free consultation or inquire about our group workshops with Your Path Coaching & Consulting today. Let us guide you on your journey to self-discovery and professional excellence.

Connect with Us:

• Website: www.yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771

#executivecoach #businessconsultant #personaldevelopment #careerdevelopment #businesssuccess #enneagram #groupworkshops #oneononecoaching

Fight the Myth of "If you want it done right, do it yourself".

Do you live by the saying, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."? Most individuals who have experienced success based on their own individual efforts struggle to transition to delegating tasks to others.

This can be rooted in various beliefs. You may feel training others to do tasks correctly will take too long. You could be anxious about the cost of hiring great talent. You may also see your self-worth linked to what you produce and be uncomfortable taking on the manager role.

No matter the beliefs that are getting in the way of your delegating, deep down, you know the only way to scale your business is by reducing the number of tasks you are personally doing and investing time, money, and effort into building your organization's competencies.

Micromanaging versus effective delegating

Frequently, people who manage others opt for micromanaging instead of delegating. Micro-managing allows you to stay close to the work and leverage the hands of others without engaging their minds.

While micromanaging can allow you to get things done, it restricts your growth, leads to burnout, and contributes to employee turnover. Micromanaging is harmful because it does not engage the full person. It will lead you to treat employees like machines to be programmed and directed instead of humans who are resourceful, creative, and able to add incremental value to projects.

Instead of micromanaging, you can de-stress your life and expand your organization's potential by investing in delegation. Effective delegation is the key to growing the talent around you, working fewer hours, and achieving organizational goals. A disciplined approach to empowering employees can create a learning organization that builds new skills and competencies through continuous improvement. There are four steps to effective delegations.

1. Pick the right people

2. Define the task

3. Provide parameters

4. Monitor results

The time you spend executing these steps will reduce your need to micromanage and increase your comfort in delegating. Allowing you to dedicate more of your time to activities that bring you greater fulfillment, are more strategic, and generate sustainable growth for your organization.

Pick the right people for the right jobs

In his book Good to Great, author Jim Collins highlights the importance of having the right people in the right seats on the bus. This is essential to the success of any company. Your most important role as a leader is to surround yourself with talented people who can help you accomplish your company’s goals.

The first step in this process is to clarify what you are looking to accomplish and define the skills and experience that you believe are necessary for success. Once you do this, you can identify who can best support you in executing this initiative.

It is important to pick the right person to do a task. You want to identify someone with the will and skill necessary to succeed. If you currently do not have someone on your team who has the desired skill, then your focus has to be on adding additional people to your team or developing the skills of a current member who has the potential to grow in capabilities. Remember, team members do not have to be employees. Hiring contract workers, virtual assistants, or consultants are all great ways of expanding the capabilities of your team.

Define the task

Once you have selected the right people to work on an initiative, the next role of a leader is to define the task you want to complete. Start by linking the task with your company’s purpose. It is important to show people how the work they are being asked to do connects with the company's overall goals. This can help the employees to understand why the work you are asking them to do is important.

After making this connection, outline your expectations around the task. Communicate your desired end state. Clearly define what success will look like and when you expect the employee or team to deliver against that expectation.

Provide an opportunity for your employees to ask clarifying questions about the desired end state and the path from where they are today to where you want them to go. The time you spend upfront aligning on goals and the employees' path to achieve goals will reduce the number of questions you receive later in the process.

Provide parameters

Next, work with your employees to define the parameters for completing the task. You want to be clear in defining milestones, budgets, available resources, and any other constraints that would influence employees' actions.

You reduce uncertainty by aligning with employees upfront on what is permitted and what is not. The more clarity employees have on your expectations, the easier it will be for them to comply. You should document goals and parameters and verify that your employees understand their roles and responsibilities. This will prevent later questions about roles, responsibilities, expectations, and parameters.

Sometimes, employees understand what is expected but do not comply. When this happens, your focus should be on understanding what is getting in the way of the employee's success. Identifying competing priorities, skill gaps, mental blocks, and other obstacles will help you work with the employee to find solutions that support them in meeting expectations.

Monitor results

The final step in the delegation process is defining how and when you will touch base with your employees regarding progress. By defining and communicating milestones, you and your employees understand where projects should be at specific time periods.

This can reduce stress and drive accountability because employees know what to accomplish and when. If an employee is off track at the time of check-ins, you can provide course correcting advice to get them back on track.

If they have a problem they can not solve independently, you can conduct a root-cause analysis and help them identify solutions. Root-cause analysis may help you identify whether additional time, money, skills, people, or resources are needed to accomplish the given goal.

Summary

Time is your scarcest resource, and you can never get it back again once it is gone. As a leader, you must value your time and ensure that you allocate it in ways that benefit your organization most. The more time you spend doing things that only you can do and that are your strengths, the more of a positive impact you can make on your organization.

As the top person in your organization, you see things that no one else sees and can do things that no one else can do. You provide the most value when you can think strategically, selectively dig into details when needed, and coach, train, and develop your team to build their competencies.

Organizations are stronger when they leverage their employees' hearts, minds, and bodies. The best way to tap into the endless potential of your employees is to teach, train, and trust them to do the work that you hired them to do. Building a high-functioning team takes time and effort. The investment you make into selecting the right talent, defining the task, setting parameters, and monitoring progress will help you achieve more while feeling less overwhelmed.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

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