Engage Stakeholders and Build Accountability in Your Practice

Engaging your team members is about building a connection with each of them individually and also as a team. 

The Second Universal Promise of Leadership is: Engaging all of your stakeholders and holding them accountable in their performance.

Getting to know and understand each person requires intelligent and thoughtful communication. This communication includes asking insightful questions, listening with all of your senses to the language used, and the emotions expressed and experienced. Using these will expand your understanding, and help you to communicate significance with each individual in a very powerful way.

Getting the right people in the right seats on the bus.”

Have you heard the expression above before? One of the most important functions of a leader is to evaluate the gifts and talents of each person so that you can put them to work in the best position on the team. Facilitating each individual’s understanding of how their work contributes to reaching our destination, provides motivation, clarity, meaning, and accountability.

Coaching as a Leadership Style focuses much of our work as a leader on the development of the gifts and talents of the individuals in our organization. When this happens, we have really begun to bring out someone’s inherent potential…the gifts, talents, discretionary energy and passion of the individuals we lead.

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

Ray McElroy speaks on the topic of “To Boldly Go – Stepping Out of the Ordinary to the Extraordinary.” Ray’s background includes spending six seasons in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts, Detroit Lions, and the Chicago Bears. A Chicago native and graduate of Eastern Illinois University, Ray also served as Team Chaplain for the Chicago Bears Organization from 2008-2013.

Ray urges us to see where you want to be and work on getting there.”

He asks us to ponder these questions:

1. What do you know that nobody else knows?
2. What do you see that nobody else sees?
3. What can you do that nobody else can do or will do?
4. We need a team around us in the valley … Who’s your crew?

I ask you to ponder these questions:

1. Who on the team knows things no one else knows?
2. Who on the team sees things no one else sees?
3. Who can and will do something no one else can and will do?
4. How can you best position team members to contribute their best?
5. What do you need to do to better lead your crew?

From Compliance to Commitment

When the organizational culture supports people in such a way that they thrive, strive to contribute, and are valued for their contributions, there is a shift from compliance to commitment. Commitment to the cause, resulting in dramatic increases in individual and organizational performance. It is a 1 + 1 = 3 phenomenon.

From Values to Accountability

Our deeply held values become our standard of accountability, both individually and collectively. In Part 2 of this series, I provided the example of performing an After Action Review (AAR) in a morning huddle.

When we debrief on previous behavior as a team, everyone is invited to reflect on whether we could have performed better to support our foundational values. One of the foundational values of how we work as a team in my practice is to encourage team members to discern and discuss failures to support our agreed-upon values. Anyone is welcome to point out violations. We then look at the behavior that violated our values and discuss what would have been better behavior. It provides clarity for everyone. The primary goal of leadership is helping each individual and the team, as a whole, become clear on the essential vision, mission and values of the organization.

If we confuse, we lose. Clarity wins and is the primary driver of performance.

If you enjoyed this article and want to read the first two articles on the Four Universal Promises of Leadership, click the links below and stay tuned for the third promise of leadership which will be coming soon.

Leadership Development is about Developing Yourself first.
How setting the right direction in your practice leads to meaningful work.

If you want to learn more about how Leadership and Coaching Culture can change your team dynamics, then download our free ebook: 7 Surprising Steps to Grow your Practice Through Leadership.