1. Leadership skills pt. 3

2. Leader’s relationship with followers
Providing Constructive Feedback
Punishment
Delegating
Team Building for Work Teams
Building High Performance Teams
Development Planning
Coaching
Empowerment

3. Providing Constructive Feedback
Make it helpful
Be Specific
Be Descriptive
Be Timely
Be Flexible
Give Positive as Well as Negative Feedback
Avoid Blame or Embarrassment

4. Key Definitions
Accountability: Is best defined as being held answerable for one’s action, or failure to take action, with regard to the responsibilities (or obligations) one holds.
Authority: Is the control or power to act on one’s responsibilities.
Responsibility: Is an obligation that you have assumed through voluntary action, been assigned by an order, or had conferred upon you as a result of the position you hold.

5. Providing Constructive Feedback
Make it Helpful
The purpose is to provide others with information so they can change their behavior for the better.
Try not to give feedback in an emotional state, it should be well thought out and deliberate.
Be Specific
The more specific a leader is in feedback, the more likely the follower understands what they need to do.
Be Descriptive
Be sure to stick to the facts as much as possible.

6. Providing Constructive Feedback
Good to distinguish it from evaluation-you are just trying to correct or change a behavior not make judgments.
If the criteria for performance are firmly established, then performance relative to those criteria should be the focus.
Be Timely
Feedback is most effective when given soon after the behavior occurs.
Be Flexible
Although it is preferable to have feedback as soon as possible, the point of feedback is to create improvement, so that should be taken into account when scheduling feedback. People may need a “breather” before being told they need to do better and how to do it.
Also be sure to give feedback in manageable amounts.

7. Providing Constructive Feedback
Give Positive as well as Negative Feedback
Giving both positive and negative feedback is the most effective way.
This is sometimes taught as a good-bad-good sandwich. The opening and closing with “goods” seems to make people more open to the “bads” but it can make it too easy for them to ignore the “bads” as unimportant.
Avoid Blame or Embarrassment
The point of feedback is to help correct behavior, followers will be more open to feedback if it isn’t applied in a flame-spray manner.

8. Punishment Myths surrounding punishment Punishment is unethical
Punishment is an ineffective tool.
Research on animals was generalized to humans and was counter-productive.
Punishment is unethical
Punishment for the sake of punishment is not ethical.
Must also consider the ethical implications of not punishing an individual in a given situation.
Punishment does not change behavior in the long run
Poor research led to this myth, as proper use of punishment can change desires in the long run.

9. Punishment, Satisfaction and Performance.
Research shows that when punishment is given on a consistent, fair basis, it has no real effect on follower satisfaction.
If punishment is assigned in a fair way sometimes satisfaction goes up.
It is tough to say exactly what effect punishment has on job performance.
Many times it is difficult to discern if job performance went up or down because of the act of punishment.
Many positive effects have been shown to correlate to properly exercised punishment.

10. Administering Punishment
Punishment is administered to correct a certain detrimental behavior.
Not every behavior like this is punished, and those that are punished are punished in varying degrees.
It is up to the leader to decide what is to be punished, and how much.
Commanding Officers and other military leaders specifically designated can assign “punishment” through NJP. Other officers and non-commissioned officers do not assign punishment but may use duty assignments, etc. to attempt correct substandard behavior.
Leaders tend to make internal attributions about a follower’s sub-standard behavior and are very likely to fall into the fundamental attribution error.
It is best for the leader to understand this and wait until all the facts are known before deciding on punishment.
When giving punishment, a leader should make sure that the followers clearly understand the rationale behind the punishment and what they need to do to rectify their behavior.
Be careful not to over rely on punishment or rewards to correct all problems.
Try and make sure you use many other methods too, like administrative changes or modifications to the situation.

11. Accountability, authority, responsibility, and the chain of command.
Is assigned, assumed, or conferred.
Can not be transferred.
New responsibilities can be created through delegation.
After delegation the subordinate now has new responsibility to you, but you still have a responsibility for task accomplishment.
Accountability
Is always extant to every responsibility.
You are held accountable for your actions, not your intent.

12. Authority Chain of Command
Power or control to act on and complete a responsibility.
Unlike responsibility, authority can be delegated.
Individuals with responsibilities in excess of their authorities should be expected to fail.
Military runs smoothest and your chance of getting inside the enemy’s OODA loop are greatest when authority is delegated to the lowest appropriate level.
Chain of Command
Both a structure and a process
Defines an individual’s responsibility, authority, and accountability.

13. Why Delegating is Important.
Delegation Frees Times for Other Activities
Time management is a big challenge in the military, delegation can help free up a leaders time to focus on other, important tasks.
Delegation develops followers
Allows followers to develop/test their initiative, decision making and independent ability, while still under an appropriate level of guidance/supervision.
Delegation strengthens the organization.
By developing followers, organizations can become much more effective from the top to the bottom.
Organizations that develop followers tend to be more rewarding places to work.
Job satisfaction increases and the best people are kept and promoted.

14. Common Reasons to Avoid Delegation
Delegation takes too much time.
In the long run it saves a lot of time.
However, implementation, and proper follow through, frequently take more of a leader’s time initially.
Delegation is risky
This can be true, but delegation should never mean a complete loss of control of the situation by the leader.
Too little follow-up by the leader increases risk.
Too much supervision (micromanagement) by the leader will negate the positive aspects of delegation and use more of the leader’s time.
The job will not be done well
Over time, followers will learn to do a job better and better.
The task is a desirable one
Nothing conveys trust more than giving high profile jobs to subordinates.
Others are already too busy
Followers will often times jump at the chance of added responsibility, even if it might seem like they have a lot already.

15. Principles of effective delegation
Decide what to delegate
Collect a lot of information about the task like how difficult and how long it will take.
Tasks that can be better accomplished by a subordinate.
Tasks that are urgent but not high priority.
Tasks relevant to a subordinate’s career.
Tasks of appropriate difficulty.
Both pleasant and unpleasant tasks.
Tasks not central to the leader’s role.
Decider whom to delegate it to
Decide if you want to give the task to the most talented follower, or the person with the most time, or if you want to use the task more as a developmental tool.
Make the assignment clear and specific
This is the best way to avoid pitfalls for the follower.
If the effort fails, the first question you should ask is, “Did I make the assignment clear?”

16. Assign an objective, not a procedure
Have to be careful not to micromanage.
Your subordinates, who are closer to the problem, many times may have better ideas about how to accomplish the objective.
Allow autonomy, but monitor performance
Just because you are not doing the task or micromanaging, does not mean you can just fire-and-forget.
Give credit, not blame
When things go well, give all the credit to the follower. If things go wrong, first look to see what you could have done better.

17. Team Building for Work Teams
Team-Building Interventions
When fixing problems with teamwork, one must look at first building a solid foundation to work with, only after a solid foundation is created can the organization look to build upon that.
Figure p3.1 shows that organization should be determined after the team’s mission is established, a useful point.

18. Building High performance Teams: The Rocket Model Mission
The first thing a leader must do when building a team is to clearly outline the mission.
Teams with a common understanding tend to have less conflict and role ambiguity.
Talent
Selecting the right kind of people to fit in with your team is essential in completing the mission.
Norms
Leaders then have to set up the norms of the group through expectations and rules.
It is important to the leader to pay attention to all the norms, even the small ones and make sure they are clearly understood by the followers.
Followers will help establish norms as well.

19. Buy-in Power Must get the followers to buy into the idea of the team.
Develop compelling vision and or purpose.
Make sure as a leader, you have a high level of credibility.
Involve the followers in the setting up of the team’s rules, goals, etc. if possible. This should improve buy-in.
People can not generally buy-in if there is insufficient detail.
Power
Leader must make sure that they have enough power over resources, time, and decision making to accomplish the mission.
If not, must then try and lobby to get more power.
Or, redefine the objectives so they do not fail due to over-reach.

20. Morale Results Team conflict can derail any mission.
Leader must communicate with the team and try and stomp out conflict before it arises.
The team itself can work to minimize conflict, especially if they understand share some goals or vision.
Having regular discussions and communication with the team is a good way to see if/how conflict is beginning to rise.
Results
Results are a reflection on the cohesiveness of a team and how they used teamwork.
If a team had less than desirable results, then to improve performance it is necessary to look at all the components and see which ones need work.

21. Development Planning
It is important for a leader not only to be concerned with developing their followers, but also developing themselves.
Just as we expect subordinates to identify specific goals for their development and improvement, leaders should develop the same habit.

22. Conducting a GAPS (goals, abilities, perceptions, standards) analysis.
First step is to clearly identify where you want to go.
Abilities
Understand your strengths and weaknesses and set up a plan to use the strengths and develop or mitigate the weaknesses.
Perceptions
Understand how your actions are perceived by others.
Perceptions, especially of a leader, can become reality.
Standards
Lay out the standards in relationship to the identified goals.
Identifying and Prioritizing Development Needs: Gaps of Gaps
After looking at your GAPS analysis make sure to single out your biggest developmental needs.

23. Bridging the Gaps: Building a Development Plan
Step 1: Career and development objectives
Get this from your career goals, but try not to have more than 3 development objectives at a time.
Step 2: Criteria for success
Know what it will look like when you develop a particular skill.
Step 3: Action steps
Focus on what you are going to need to do to achieve your objectives.
Step 4: Whom to involve and reassess dates
Decide who you want to have give you feedback to make sure that you are on track.
Step 5: Stretch Assignments
Look for opportunities that will cause you to really put your abilities to the test in order to develop them.
Step 6: Resources
Make sure you have enough of the right ones.
Step 7: Reflect with a Partner
Pick someone you trust and who is familiar with your plan.

24. Reflecting on Learnings: Modifying Development Plans
Take time to look and see if your end goals are still the right ones.
Transferring Learnings to New Environments
Your development plan should be constantly evolving.
A good way to solidify your development is teach what you have learned to others.

25. Inspiring commitment: Conducting a GAPS Analysis
Coaching
Forging a partnership
First step in informal coaching is to establish a relationship which is built on mutual trust and respect.
It is easiest to build that kind of relationship with high credibility.
Leaders must know what kind of credibility that they have.
Inspiring commitment: Conducting a GAPS Analysis
Similar to a regular GAPS analysis, only from the perspective of the follower.
Growing Skills: Creating Development and Coaching Plans
Once the goals are established, a development plan needs to be developed, almost identical to the kind from “development planning” section.
See table P3.1
Promoting Persistence: Helping Followers Stick to Their Plans.
It is not enough just to create a plan, a leader has to make sure that the follower sticks to it.
Transferring Skills: Creating a Learning Environment.
Leaders need to create an environment that fosters learning so that development can become an on-going process.

26. The psychological Components of Empowerment
Poorly implemented, empowerment does not seem to be a good tool to increase motivation.
Leaders often do not put in enough time and effort to ensure that they are empowering their followers in an effective manner.
Adding a lot of responsibility to someone who already has a lot can have a negative effect on their motivation.
Responsibility without proper authority is not proper empowerment.
The author’s believe empowerment helps reduce stress and increase learning for followers. Fleet experience may indicate that it can at times increase stress but still improve learning.
They can learn more about their jobs and the organization which in turn, helps the organization as a whole.
Empowering followers can also infuse them with the confidence needed to make decisions and step up to challenges.

27. Six Best Practices of Empowerment
Do we really want or need empowerment?
Make sure that the situation actually calls for empowerment to be used.
Creating a clear vision, goals, and accountabilities
Once the decision is made to use empowerment, make sure a vision and goals are set up to attain the ends of what you want the empowerment to accomplish.
Developing others
Leaders need to understand what the followers are capable of and what they need to develop.
Leaders should help the followers to develop, similar to the “coaching” sections.
Delegating decision making to the followers
As the followers begin to develop more and more, the leader must in turn start to delegate more and more responsibility.
It can be very difficult to figure out how much power should be delegated.
Leading by example
Leaders must be an example to the followers they are going to empower.
Empowerment must be systematic to be successful.

28. Counseling
BUPERS B is the official Navy guidance on counseling, sections 19-6 through 19-9.
Objectives.
Counseling should set out to accomplish five major objectives.
Identify the member’s strengths and weaknesses.
Point out shortcomings and how to develop them. Also focus on strengths and encourage further growth in those areas.
Present a performance growth plan, if needed.
Make sure that the member has a clear understanding of where their performance stands.
Ensure that the member knows what is expected for the next period of counseling and how to achieve this.

29. Preparing for the counseling session.
The stress of counseling can be reduced with proper preparation
Counselor
Decide on the best time and place to host the counseling. There should be minimal distractions and no conflicts with work so that you can devote full attention to the member. Advise the member well in advance so they have time to prepare.
Gather the appropriate information and materials.
Review the objectives of the counseling.
Plan the approach that you will take to achieve the objectives.
Member
Complete a personal self-assessment, whether you are required to or not.
Gather relevant materials on your performance during the review period.

30. Suggestions for conducting counseling.
Techniques
Ask member for own performance appraisal before giving your own.
Alternate between yourself and the member in who gives appraisal first.
Discuss strengths and accomplishments along with areas that need improvement.
Discuss the member’s complete evaluation and counseling record.

31. Guidelines
Build and maintain a rapport with the member. Be sure to “be yourself”
Make sure that you accept what they have to say as a person, does not necessarily mean that you have to agree with it.
Clearly explain the purpose and objectives of the counseling.
Encourage the member to engage in two way conversation.
Use good listening techniques and do not interrupt the member.
Do not engage in an argument or confrontation.
Focus on performance, not personality. Personality traits should be addressed only as they pertain to the job.
Focus on future expectations along with past performance.
This is a method of reinforcing the Navy’s expectations to the member, not a substitution for punishment.
Know when to terminate the counseling session. It should conclude on a positive note.

32. Follow-up
Review and summarize the counseling session. Ask the member for comments to make sure they understand.
This includes documenting the counseling, major topics discussed, goals, and any corrective measures indentified.
Counseling not documented is counseling not held.
If specific follow-up actions were discussed in the session, then you should ensure that they get done.
Informal counseling sessions should occur on a regular basis. Always encourage giving and receiving feedback.