Leadership - The second leadership level of development

Welcome back!

second-level-of-leadership Dear Readers,

How many of your employees have you identified in the first level of development? If you did not have time to look at your employees more closely and to judge (yes, managers do have to make judgments sometimes) which of your employees are on the first level of development, then you should make up for this now because you will require this in order to understand the second level of development. Therefore it will be best if you take a few minutes out and simply take a piece of paper or the back of an envelope or a paper serviette – and make a list of your employees. After their names write a 1 if you think this employee is on the first level of development. And what should you do if you cannot write? Well, for that case you should always carry a small dictation machine in your pocket and record your thoughts. If you have a cellphone then look at the menu. Nearly all current cellphone models have a speech recording function.

You are certainly now asking yourself why this article is beginning like this, aren‘t you? Well, as a manager you should understand that you are always managing. At all times and everywhere. Management is not just something that happens in a traditional hierarchy from the boss to the employee, but in every direction. And so too from an author to his readers. As a reader of this new column, (totally independently of your personal level of experience) you are also starting at level 1 and if you just refer in the last issue of OBTAINER to what we worked out together about how to deal with people who are on the first level of development you will understand the beginning of this article much better. Always remember: Leadership is action and not position – or formulated differently:

It is your actions that make you a manager, not you title or your position.

The second level of development

After your employees have spent some time on the first level of development and you as a manager have promoted and challenged them appropriately, in other words, after you have worked with your employees on developing their competence and commitment, your employees will have developed and will now move on to the second level of development.

Note: Make sure that you observe your employees closely so that you can judge on the basis of their real development whether each individual employee has really developed further or whether your assessment only corresponds to your wishful thinking. If you are not certain, then always select the lower level of development and manage your employees appropriately for the lower level.

On the second level of development your employees will have acquired some more competence, but you will ascertain that the commitment of your employees has become less. For this reason the second level of development is also called the “level of frustration.” There are typical forms of behavior by employees that are on this level or move onto this level. One of the most common forms of behavior is the constant desire of the employees to “re-invent” things that already exist. Employees who “re-invent the wheel” are almost always on the second level of development.

Your employees have now been here for some time and at the beginning they made a stronger commitment in order to make up for their lack of competence. Now after they have acquired some competence they tend to overestimate themselves and their abilities. Just like young teenagers they now begin to “know a lot better” and are of the opinion that they know better how certain things should be done in order to be successful. Here the employees on this level of development do not notice that they “waste” a lot of time and energy on tasks and work which do not bring them forward – and which do not bring them forward precisely in sales and employee development.

leadership-factsheet-2

A further reason for the degree of intensity with which these types of behavior express themselves at the second level of development lies in the employees‘ dreams which have meanwhile fallen through. When your employees started with you they had their own ideas about how their new job would look, how quickly they would be successful and how easy they would find the work. After only a little time has passed, reality has caught up with them and they have experienced the hard way that they must overcome various frustration barriers in order to be able to succeed. And here again we come the full circle to the interview or the presentation. The more dreams the manager awoke in the new applicants and the more the manager “lulled” the new applicants into the company, the stronger the disappointment at this point And the more difficulties the manager will have with frustrated new employees. Only the fault does not lie with the employees, but with the actions of the manager during the interview. And precisely for this reason it is important that you make two things clear to your employees at the end of the interview:

No matter how nice it all sounds, the manager can assure them that it will be much much harder and much much more strenuous than they can possibly imagine at the end of the interview… and…
If the employees persevere and are prepared to listen to the manager during the phases when they find it difficult because it is much more strenuous and harder than they can imagine, then it will also be much much nicer in the end than they can imagine now!

Training

In order to manage the frustration of your employees properly during this level of development, you have to train them. You train them in order to increase their competence further. In this way you will give them a clear direction that they can follow. In order that they may move in the right direction, they need you to check on them, which allows you to monitor their development and enables you to give them constructive feedback. It is important that you listen carefully when you have discussions with your employees and that you discuss your decisions with them. Through this they can learn why you made your decision in this particular way and so they learn to increase their competence.

Ask your employees calmly about their ideas. Here it is not so much the case that you can expect them to come up with super ideas, it is far more a question of you understanding and learning how they think and where in their approach there might be errors. In this phase of development it is important that you help them to achieve their goals, although by help I do not mean that you should do it for them but rather that you can show them how they can achieve their goals themselves. That helps the new employees to build up their self-confidence. And what do your new employees need more self-confidence for? Well, because self-confidence is one of the two factors with which you can develop their commitment. You remember the definition of commitment, don‘t you?

Commitment = Goals x Self-confidence

The more goals they achieve under their own steam, the more self-confidence they will develop. Therefore they need your help in achieving their goals at the second level of development. In this phase you will apply praise and criticism systematically. This is a process in which both must be applied correctly. With one single badly communicated criticism you can destroy an employee forever. Therefore you should always think carefully about it for a long time before you decide to make criticism during this early phase of development. Instead use praise systematically, specifically and precisely. You will have to apply the instrument or “criticism” soon enough in order to help your employees at a later stage of development.

Use this second level of development to systematically strengthen the vision. For this purpose, for example, use the confirmations and your statements from the interview systematically. If at the end of the interview you used these properly and also stage-managed them appropriately, then they will now be an important support instrument in order to help the employees to develop themselves.

So on this second level of development you should help your employees a lot and you also have to direct them a lot. Admittedly the employee may set and achieve the goals themselves, however the planning of campaigns and activities and supervision of them lies completely in your hands as the manager. Just here the employees will now receive more attention from you and also more help. In contrast to the first level of development, it is important on the second level of development that you help them so that they can develop their commitment.

Now pick up your list of employees again and go through every single employee and ask yourself whether this employee is on the second level of development. If YES, then write a 2 after their names. Then pick up a new sheet of paper and write down what you can do concretely to help and direct each employee. Ask yourself concretely:

Which periods do you now have to block in your timetable in oder to develop these employees further?
How can you help these employees to achieve their goals so that they can gain more self-confidence?
What can and must you check in order to be able to give them feedback?
Which decision do you want to discuss with them so that they can learn from you?
How can you train them in order to increase their competence (competence = knowledge x experience)?
What do the particular employees need to improve?

The best thing to do is to phone up all your employees on the second level of development immediately and agree on a concrete appointment with each of them in the next few days in order to implement your measures. Remember: Leadership is action and not position!

Kindest regards,

Your Coach Nuno F. Assis