By now you are well on your way to refining development plans and goals with your direct reports. It's now the right time to introduce you to one of the most powerful tools at your disposal that will help you handle anything your direct report brings to you.
Your people are going to be looking to you for guidance and support, so how do you know when it's right to tell them what to do, teach them, guide them, or just coach them? Because every situation is unique you will want to tailor your guidance depending on the individual person. This sounds complex, but actually, let me introduce you to a tool that will help.
Situational Management model
“The most inconsistent thing you can possibly do as a leader is to treat everybody the same!”
The Hersey & Blanchard Situational Leadership Model was proposed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in 1996 as a way to guide leaders to more effective leadership based on situations and people. In the case of Management, the principles remain, in fact it's even more powerful because of the human relationship!
This tried and tested model is being used by millions of managers around the planet to help handle any situation, yes it's that versatile. This model is incredibly powerful because it enables you to provide the proper support to your people while at the same time actively helping them to move forward. So how does it work?
Essentially it would be best if you focused on listening to what is being asked of you. Very quickly you will be able to determine the needed support your direct report needs in the following four ways:
- Telling (Directing) - S1:
The individual requires highest level of support, you will need to tell them exactly what and how to do it. - Selling (Coaching) - S2:
The individual is capable but needs to be steered in the right direction and motivated to do so. - Participating (Supporting) - S3:
The individual is soundboarding approaches with you, and your role is to help talk though issues - Delegating - S4:
The individual is capable of completing the task but will appreciate your input to improve their effectiveness
Over time your relationship with your people will develop and along with knowing their strengths and weaknesses you will be able to provide specific support. Where the skill now comes is guiding them to the next level of capability. So consider what would it take for them to action a task at the next level and provide guidance to challenge them in this way.
Even if you work in a professional environment people need to continue to develop soft and hard skills, in some cases they are starting from almost zero. From new people to seasoned professional everyone has areas where they will start with you telling them what to do, so just because that happens doesn't mean they are a bad employee, everyone has to start somewhere right?!
You can see how doing with one individual takes deliberate and thoughtfulness on your part, this is what it takes to nurture and grow people. Before you know it you will take someone from telling to delegating which means that person is even more impactful with their work, their team, and the business. Congratulations!
Balancing priorities
It actually happens quite often that one of your people will struggle to prioritise all of the work they are doing. Since you are aiming to maximise autonomy with all of your people, this requires you moving away from telling (S1) them what to do and rather soundboarding (S4). One excellent techniques to make this an interactive discussion is the concept of 'bubbles'.
The purpose of this exercise is to visually quantify the effort and importance of a piece of work. Each item of work is a bubble, the size of it reflects either the importance or effort required to continue working on it. The output will be a picture of before and after you have discussed these things and the individual will be able to walk away with a clear focus.
This is how it works:
- Have your direct report make a list of all the things they are working on, and what they are expected to work on next
- Using a physical whiteboard or a digital tool such as Miro have them draw a circle with the name of work item inside
- Now change the size of the circle based on the effort and importance of a piece of work
- Discuss the priority of each item and adjust the size appropriately
- Deliberately work remove distractions and in some cases increase priorities of neglected items
Taking time to do an exercise like this can help and individual create focus their efforts and accellerate their delivery, when things are clear everyone is happier.
Have a weekly plan
“blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”
When you have multiple workflows in your role it can be a challenge to keep on top of everything that needs to be done, especially things that are time senstive. To help with this having a discussion with individuals about making a plan, blocking out time, and reviewing will help them gain control of the week.
Start with the items that are time sensitive or linked with delivery and have block out time in the calendar to work on these items. Then everything can then be allocated to other times in the week. Getting into a routine of planning your week is a healthy habbit. At the end of the week they now have a list of everything they have completed. And anything that wasnt goes into the plan for next week with relevant priority.
You might be doing this yourself already but if not it can also help you a lot! Deliberately carving out time in the week and blocking out your calender is an effective way to plan your week especially as you balance being a manager and doing your other work.
This helps you to understand the time you spend with your direct reports is all about them. They bring the agenda in their one-to-one, they drive their career path, they share how they are doing, and your role is to guide them to their success.