Page 206 - The extraordinary leader

New Insights into Leadership Development • 183

view them as a nice activity but not essential for the success of their business.
It is critical to the success of such projects to get senior leaders’ commitment
to the project. In our usual approach, we enlist senior leaders’ involvement at
the beginning of the process. We interview them and ask them for their opin-
ions on what issues are critical for the organization to be successful. Frequently,
a leader will find an item on the survey that is almost a direct quote from his
or her interview. Using the survey to assess their specific issue can take leaders
from sideline spectators to quarterbacks in the survey rollout. The survey moves
from being described as “the consultant’s survey” to “our survey.”

How Do You Get More Productivity Out of Other People? One of
the most frequently used competencies is “focus on results.” The underlying
theme is always the same: keeping others focused on the task, aggressively
pursuing assignments, driving hard to make things happen, and being totally
dedicated to the accomplishment of the task. When leaders attempt to
improve their focus on results, they often put a great deal of emphasis on the
drive or push for results. When done to excess, such leaders become grown-
up bullies who constantly prod, check, demand, and annoy others. These
behaviors can be effective in the short run, but in the long run, nobody wants
to work for a tyrant.
We again found an unlikely companionship. Leaders who were effective
at focusing on results were also effective at giving others feedback and pro-
viding coaching. Leaders who only push people to perform better typically
focus on the outcome but don’t help people with the journey.
Giving people feedback is time consuming and difficult and is frequently
not done well. One employee, commenting on his lack of feedback, said,
“I don’t know if I am in line to be the janitor or the chairman of the board.
Please give me some feedback.” Why is it that most poor performers are sur-
prised to hear that they are receiving an unsatisfactory performance review?
The reason is that leaders don’t like to give feedback. They assume that
employees will figure it out on their own. They believe that because they
didn’t give a reassuring smile, employees will figure out that they are doing
something wrong. Sitting down with employees and providing straight, can-
did feedback can be time consuming and emotionally difficult for leaders, but
leaders who do this well achieve better results.
One leader had an effective approach to giving feedback. Whenever she
saw a problem, she would schedule a meeting with the person and say, “Our
performance review is scheduled four months from now. I want to give you a