Are you getting what you deserve in life or what you expect? Sometimes when we expect a bad day or a failure of some sort, that’s exactly what we get.

In a coaching session with one of my clients (we’ll call him David for the purposes of this story), a regional finance manager, he remarked that he was about to make a business trip to Korea and it was going to be a disastrous week. He would be joined on the trip by a senior manager from the company’s HQ in Europe. The manager (we’ll call him Chris) was a new hire and apparently a friend of the COO of the company. Feedback from colleagues in Europe had indicated that this Chris didn’t seem to have any real functional portfolio and simply arrived in a territory, meddled, left the local finance manager with a bunch of actions, which were not really the finance department’s remit and then disappeared back to HQ.

Having heard David’s premonition about the trip I said, “And your wish will come true.” This puzzled him and I explained that with such a strongly held belief about the trip it was pretty much a guarantee that it would be a disastrous week. The problem is that when we create such expectations and absolutely believe in them we are subconsciously putting in place all the conditions to guarantee that our expectations will be met. Our belief affects our feelings, our feelings affect our behaviour, which in turn affects results. In this case David, due to his belief, was going to feel lacking in energy, down in spirits, defensive and perhaps even feel some animosity towards Chris. These feelings would inevitably lead to a negative approach to meetings, off-hand or distant behaviour towards Chris and attempts to block him from making input into finance affairs in Korea. In other words the disastrous week was already pre-ordained in David’s mind.

I asked him if he could look at the trip from some different, more positive perspectives. After some coercion he admitted that he didn’t have good high level contact at HQ and Chris might be a useful gateway to top management. He also realised that it would be good for someone to come out from Europe to experience first hand the challenges of doing business in Asia, Korea in particular. Not knowing Chris’s background, it may also be possible that he possessed valuable experience that could be leveraged in Asia. David also determined that he would take the trouble to spend some leisure time with Chris and endeavour to get to know him. With this changed belief and expectation he left our session.

A couple of weeks later I received an email from David telling me what a positive experience the Korean visit had been. All objectives had been achieved, Chris had some common interests with him and the relationship was good. Finally a manager from HQ understood the business climate in Korea and a new channel of influence into HQ had been opened. How differently that trip may have turned out if David had gone into it with his original mind set. A mind focused on failure.

Are you predicting a bad day, week or even year in your own mind? Think again, you may get exactly what you expect.

Marshall Goldsmith’s book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” examines those traits and behaviours that hold back great leaders from reaching their full potential. The book is illustrated with actual case studies from his many years of coaching senior managers in organisations. The list of potentially career limiting behaviours is shown below. Goldsmith identifies the symptoms, effects and possible answers to dealing with these negative behaviours.

Take a look at the list of behaviours and see if you can identify any of them in yourself or members of your management team. If a number of them strike a chord with you, perhaps it’s time to bring in a Coach to help unlock the full potential of your leadership team.

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behaviour as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
14. Playing favourites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
19. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

Perhaps Machiavelli could paint these flaws as virtues and demonstrate how they function as clever counterintuitive tactics for getting a leg up on our rivals. But in the course of examining each of these irritants, Goldsmith demonstrates that correcting them is the best way to enlist people as our allies – which in the long run is a much more promising success strategy than defending behaviour that alienates people.

Admittedly, this is a scary pantheon of bad behaviour and when they’re collected in one place they sound more like a chamber of horrors. Who would want to work in an environment where colleagues are guilty of these sins? And yet we do every day. The good news is that these failings rarely show up in bunches. You may know one person guilty of one or two of them. You may know another with one or two different issues. But it’s hard to find successful people who embody too many of these failings. That’s good, because it simplifies our task of achieving long-term positive change.

Call WayAhead to find out how to bring out your leaders’ full potential and avoid the pitfalls of success-limiting behaviours.

Many of us will have done management training courses where we are introduced to the concept and folly of “assumptions”. The topic is usually preceded by the trainer writing on a flip chart “Ass u me”, then turning to the audience and with a cheesy grin pronouncing that, “Assumptions, make an “ass” out of “u” and “me””. This sounds rather trite but in my coaching practice I find that it is one of the most common errors made by senior managers, making assumptions that can eventually turn an otherwise straightforward situation critical. What causes us to make unrealistic assumptions?

The answer is quite simple, it’s human nature. It’s all too easy to assume that other people see the world and think in the same way as we do. The truth is that no two people have exactly the same perception of reality as we do. And why should they. We all see the world through a series of filters and lenses, rather like the lens of a camera fitted with different coloured filters. The lenses may be of different types from wide angle, big picture to telephoto, small detail. The filters through which we perceive the world are numerous and include our age, religion, national culture, innate personality, education, parental influence, life experience, thinking style, beliefs, self-limiting beliefs, knowledge and more. It clearly doesn’t make sense to assume that our knowledge, intentions and thoughts on a particular topic or situation will match precisely with that of our colleagues’, but we do it anyway and rarely check our assumptions.

In the workplace, managers often make assumptions about peoples’ motives, drivers, skill sets, desires, knowledge and confidence levels. The effect of this shows up regularly in missed deadlines and a misunderstanding of intentions. Tasks or projects are delegated to team members based on assumptions about their understanding of the required outcome, their specific competences and their level of confidence to carry it through. Frequently in coaching sessions clients complain to me about a team member’s failure to do something, or failure to spot a problem coming. When questioning the client about details he did not give the subordinate when delegating the project, I frequently hear the statement, “Well, he should have known that”. Implicit in the statement is the belief or assumption that what is in the head of the delegator is also in the head of the delegatee. This is a big assumption but it happens all the time and is the cause of many a fire fighting exercise when the unexpected happens.

Mistakes also occur in succession planning due to an assumption that everyone desires more money and a bigger title as an inducement to stay committed and engaged as an employee. Why wouldn’t they? In a recent case, one of my clients, we’ll call him Alan, had assumed that his next in line, let’s call him Ken, would want his job as soon as he was promoted from a regional to a global role. Alan was puzzled as to why Ken didn’t seem to put in the commitment required to justify his recommendation for promotion. It had not occurred to Alan to ask Ken if he wanted the role. He assumed Ken would be excited and enthused about inheriting the regional job and all the benefits and increased pay that would come with it. Alan decided to test his assumptions by asking Ken about his thoughts on the possibility of being awarded the regional job. To Alan’s surprise Ken said he absolutely would not want it. He was very happy doing a good job in his current role. His first priorities in life were his family and his charity work. A regional job would take him away from home too often. Alan’s succession plan was flawed from the start because of assumptions he had made about Ken’s drivers and priorities.

Assumptions are also the cause of many a missed opportunity with customers. I have personally witnessed many sales pitches telling the customer what he should want, without a single enquiry as to what he actually needs or wants. The whole pitch is based on an assumption that all customer needs are the same. The answer to all of these assumption gaffes is alarmingly simple…ask questions. Ask open questions to test assumptions and gain clarity, for example;

“Can you just play back to me exactly what you’re going to do and when.”

“What obstacles might prevent you from completing this task/project on time?”

“What support is missing that might prevent you from hitting the deadline?”

“Which parts of the project do you feel will present the biggest challenge?”

“What additional resources/information/support do you need to guarantee timely completion?”

“What concerns do you have about this project?”

“What thoughts do you have about your next career move?”

“What would your ideal role look like?”

“What new knowledge/skills do you feel would best equip you for your next career move?”

“What is most important to you in your career going forward?”

These are just a few examples of the type of question that will highlight false assumptions, at the same time providing a safe space for the team member to be open without feeling at risk of exposing a weakness. Depending on the context of the conversation there are many more questions you might ask to check you have not made unreasonable assumptions.

So next time you go on a management training course and the trainer does that cheesy thing with the word “assume”, sit up and take notice. It could one of the most valuable lessons of the course.

In study after study, strategic thinkers are found to be the most highly effective leaders. And while there is an abundance of courses, books, articles and opinions on the process of strategic planning, the focus is typically on an isolated process that might happen once per year.

In contrast, a strategic leader thinks and acts strategically every day. So what makes a leader strategic, and is there any way to teach strategic thinking? For starters, strategic leaders take a broad, long-range approach to problem-solving and decision-making through objective analysis, thinking ahead, and planning.

That means being able to think in multiple time frames, identifying what they are trying to accomplish over time and what has to happen now, in six months, in a year, in three years, to get there. It also means thinking systemically. That is, identifying the impact of their decisions on various segments of the organization—including internal departments, personnel, suppliers and customers.

The ability to maintain a focus on long range objectives, the process of how to achieve them over time, and an understanding of the implications of decisions for all involved, is the hallmark of a strategic leader.

So, just how important is a strategic approach for the individual manager or executive? In 2009, Management Research Group (MRG) completed a large scale global study addressing this question. We evaluated the leadership practices and effectiveness of 40,000 managers and executives in 144 countries and 27 industries.

Each participant was assessed with the Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA), a 360-degree assessment tool measuring 22 leadership practices, including such practices as innovation, persuasion, communication, and results orientation, and more than 20 measures of effectiveness, such as future potential, credibility, business aptitude, and people skills.

We found that a strategic approach to leadership was between two and 46 times more important to the perception of effectiveness than any of the other behaviors studied. In fact, leaders that were high on “strategic” (those who focused long range and who had a process to achieve those objectives) were five times more likely to be seen as effective as the leaders that

were low on strategic, independent of any of their other behaviors. We also found that effective senior executives scored an average of 15 percentage points higher in this area, than effective managers. This suggests that a strong strategic orientation is an important factor in the successful transition from mid-level to senior positions.

Later, in a follow-up study, we investigated leadership profiles produced by 7,000 senior executives charged with setting the leadership development goals for their respective organizations. When asked to select the leadership behaviors most critical to their organizations’ future success, executives chose strategic 94% of the time. This might be why so many managers and executives focus time and energy on improving their strategic skills.

It might sound abstract, but you can develop your own strategic approach with practice and effort. First, make strategic planning sessions a regular part of your week—even if you’re not actually charged with planning anything at the moment. During these planning sessions, stay focused on a few important questions:

Objectives. What you are trying to accomplish? What is your ultimate goal?

Plans. What do you need to do to get from where you are to where you want to be (interim goals, time frames, resources needed, accountability identified)?

Implications. How will your actions affect other people and areas?

Anticipate the future. What challenges or opportunities may come up? What will the client want? What will your competitors be doing?

Review all parts of your operation against strategic positioning. Do you have the people/resources/training to accomplish next year’s goals? How can you get them?

Analysis. Analyze the pros and cons of any potential course of action against the ultimate goals.

The key is to continuously articulate and refine your vision for your unit, project, or initiative. And communicate this vision to others. This effort takes practice and continuity. For some, it might not come naturally at first but the result of refining this skill often makes the difference between an average and an exceptional leader.

Organizations and companies can also help develop strategic thinkers and leaders. To be sure, it’s not an easy task. Strategic thinking is a difficult leadership skill to acquire because it is as much a mindset as a set of techniques. What’s more, in the workplace tactical responses to immediate demands are often rewarded over long term vision and planning. That said, it’s not impossible to instill strategic thinking skills in managers. Here are some ways you can foster strategic thinking as part of your management approach:

Encourage managers to set a regular time aside for strategic planning (alone and in meeting with others). A strategic approach takes time. Make it a regular part of their job.

Connect managers with a mentor. One of the most effective ways to develop your strategic skills is to be mentored by someone who is highly strategic. The ideal mentor is someone who is widely known for an ability to keep people focused on strategic objectives and for an ability to accurately determine the impact of their actions and decisions.

Communicate a well articulated philosophy, mission and goal statement throughout the organization. Individuals and groups need to understand the broader organizational strategy, in order to stay focused and incorporate it into their own plans and strategies.

Reward people for evidence of thinking, not just reacting; wherever possible, organizational culture should encourage anticipating opportunities and avoiding problems, and discourage crisis management. For example, managers should be rewarded for being able to quickly generate several solutions to a given problem and for identifying the solution with the greatest long term benefit for the organization.

Promote a future perspective for employees by incorporating it into training and development programs; teach people what strategic thinking is and encourage them to ask “why” and “when” questions. For example, when a manager suggests a course of action, his boss can ask two questions: “What underlying strategic goal this action serve?”, and “What will the impact be on internal and external stakeholders?” Consistently asking these two questions will go a long way towards developing strategic leaders.

Keep people informed. Effective strategy requires information shared across boundaries; cross-functional teams can work on strategic organizational issues, and the results of their thinking and efforts should be published and shared throughout the organization.

Encourage employees to hold regularly scheduled meetings to assess plans, coordinate efforts, and share information that should be incorporated into strategies.

This original article was written by Robert Kabacoff, a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has extensive experience working with organizations around the world to help identify the leadership practices most likely to lead to organizational success in a given industry, culture, and context. Mr. Kabacoff is Vice President of Research for Management Research Group®, an international leader in creating high-quality assessment tools and conducting research in the areas of Leadership and Management, Sales, and Career Development/Personal Growth. MRG also assists with The Wall Street Journal Executive and Accelerated M.B.A. survey creation and analysis

I have a CEO client, quite young and a high flyer within the organisation. He is passionate about leadership and has a determined, logical and analytical mind, all good qualities in a leader. In a recent coaching session he pondered on whether these strengths could become his weakness.

He was concerned that his natural, calm, logical demeanour, if not given some spark, could fail to motivate and energise his team. In large group presentations he wanted to be energised, inspiring and motivating to his employees but felt that such behaviour was ‘just not him’. He asked me if it was alright to put on a charismatic façade and therefore, in his view, be unauthentic. In fact his exact question was, “Is it wrong to put on a façade and pretend to be someone you are not?”

An essential skill for any top class leader is the ability to adapt behaviour according to the situation. For instance, some of the best, most dynamic speakers in the world are introverts who have learned to master the art of demonstrating extraverted behaviour when they are in front of an audience. They may undergo more stress than a natural born extravert when delivering their oration but are nevertheless impressive in action. Once the speech is over they are more likely to go back stage and rest alone to re-energise, rather than mingle with the audience or other speakers. Is this wrong? Is the introvert being false or fooling the audience with their apparent extraverted behaviour? Not a bit. They have mastered the art of being who the audience needs them to be at that particular time.

I asked my client if he had ever had the experience of feeling fully energised and animated, to the point where he felt he could inspire, influence and uplift the spirits of others. He recalled a time in his past when he really had experienced an energised and inspirational feeling. With some help from me he managed to vividly recreate that feeling and as I watched his physiology change it was clear that he really could call up that particular “state” if he needed to. By state, I mean the mental state of mind combined with the physiological sensations associated with that particular time when he was able to inspire and motivate others.

The client realised that he was not being false or unauthentic by using a state that was not his day to day, natural style. He was merely showing leadership flexibility by harnessing a state that was already his but usually hidden.  As we go through life we experience many different states and they are all there, permanently recorded as memories in the subconscious. With practise and some simple NLP techniques, resourceful states can be recalled and brought into play when needed. In the case of my client, he now had his “charismatic and inspiring state” ready to be deployed the next time he addressed an audience he was keen to inspire.