Essential Skills for One on One Leadership

“The number one motivator of people is feedback on results.” – Ken Blanchard

Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson are firm believers that 80% of the results you desire can be created with 20% of your actions. In organizational life, Blanchard and Johnson found that managers who focus on doing three things well deliver the best results. Those three concepts that all managers should focus on being great at are Goal Setting, Praising and Re-directs. 

Goal Setting

Research continues to show that goal setting is the single most powerful motivational tool a manager can use. People who work for managers who are great at goal setting can always answer two questions – “What are you responsible for?” and “How do you know you are doing a great job?” Great leaders make it clear what their people are responsible for and they clearly define the wins for every area of responsibility. 

A great example is bowling. A person knows that a great result in bowling is a strike. When they get one, they get excited. They hoot, they holler, they dance around. Why? When you get a strike, you know you did good!

In work world, we are far too often bowling in the dark. We try hard, we hear a lot of noise, but we don’t really know how we are doing until the dreaded annual performance review. No wonder engagement is so low in the workplace!

Great leaders set SMART goals and keep score. Everyone knows the score and if the score is a win or not. By keeping score and clearly defining the win, leaders can coach and redirect to help all of their people meet their goals. 

What is a SMART goal? It is Specific and measurable, Motivating, Attainable (a stretch, but achievable), Relevant (it must drive the outcomes that matter), and Trackable and time bound.

Lastly, limit the number of goals any person is responsible for achieving. Blanchard recommends three to five goals maximum and make sure they are prioritized. If things get hairy and something has got to give, you don’t want your people focusing on the fifth most important goal and dropping the first. 

Praise

Once goals are set, praising progress is the most powerful thing a manager can do. Praisings should be immediate and specific. Catch people doing things right early and often. Make sure you tell them exactly what they did that was so great. Let them know how it made you feel when they did that great thing. 

Close counts! The only way to get someone to do something perfectly is to praise their less than perfect attempts along the way. Think of how we praise young children when they are trying to learn a new skill. We praise the tiniest move in the right direction! Do the same for your people. Praise them all the way to perfection.

Make time to praise. Write it on your calendar. Count how many praisings you give in a week. Praising can feel weird for a lot of us, but I promise you that people never get tired of being praised. Make praising a habit at work and at home. You’ll attract people to you, get better results and enjoy the process a lot more. 

Redirects

Redirects help bring people to the performance level you desire. A great redirect comes in two parts. 

Part One – 

• Have the conversation as soon as possible – before resentment builds and facts get fuzzy. 
• Confirm the facts and what went wrong. Make sure all parties agree on what happened. 
• Express how you feel and the impact to the organization. 

Part Two – 

• Pause for a minute to let the what was discussed in part one sink in. 
• Let the person know they are better than the mistake. Everyone makes them and you know they will perform better in the future based on what they learned from the mistake. 
• Ask them what they learned from the mistake and how they will make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Bonus Material – Apologies.

Leaders make mistakes too and the best thing we can do is to publicly recognize the mistake we made, the impact on the organization, and how we will work to not make the same mistake again. We must apologize to those we hurt, ask for forgiveness from them and then forgive ourselves. 

If you can focus your management efforts on these four skills – Goal Setting, Praising, Redirects, and Apologies, you will be focused on doing the 20% that will lead to 80% of the outcomes you are shooting for.

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