1. Case Study on Leader Confidence, part 1

2. Forward this ezine to 5 leaders and You Might Win a Gift Certificate to Amazon.com

3. Dreaded Conversations Teleclass

4. Free Coaching Day

Fearless Communication, the ezine dedicated to reducing leaders' dread about problem people at work from Dreaded Conversations and Suzanne Kryder, Ph.D.

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Word count for this issue: 597
Approximate time to read: under 4 minutes

My clients are successful professionals in fields like science, health, and education. Professional success gets them promoted into leadership positions, unfortunately without the necessary training to be effective leaders.

This scenario catapults a successful person into a scary arena that they know nothing about. Managing human behavior is difficult.

Why do organizations think that people who are good in one field should automatically be able to lead unpredictable human beings?

I coached a leader who runs a student service program at a major university. He is a highly successful professional who won a Presidential award in his field.

During our first coaching conversation he asked, “Am I doing things right? I feel I’ve been shooting from the hip with no plan or direction, with no formal management training. I’m concerned that I may be causing more harm than good and alienating staff who I have close relationships with.”

Sound familiar?

In her 2004 book, "Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End," Rosabeth Moss Kanter explains that confidence falls at the midpoint between despair, which results in feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, and arrogance, which triggers complacency and a sense of false entitlement. Confidence comes from positive behaviors like open communication, self-scrutiny, teamwork, accountability, and collaboration that result in a winning culture.

Winning breeds greater confidence and raises the organization to a higher level. Moss Kanter describes four levels of confidence that build on the prior one:

• Self-confidence is a personal attitude of high expectations, the belief "I can do it."

• Team confidence is counting on each other, giving and receiving respect, support, and responsibility.

• System confidence happens when organizations commit to processes for accountability, collaboration, and initiative.

• External confidence happens when stakeholders invest resources (money, time, energy, etc.) based on the other three levels of confidence.

Confidence and winning is a cyclical process that feeds off of itself, as does lack of confidence and losing. Self-confidence begins when a leader takes "bold strokes" that result in fast, specific change.

To bolster his confidence as a leader, my client took immediate, specific action by:

• Facilitating regular staff meetings with clear, time-limited agenda items. More importantly, he made sure people followed through on commitments they made during the meetings.

• Holding everyone accountable for their job description. Roles can get fuzzy in work places. Without quarterly performance evaluations and strong leadership, employees often stop doing tasks they don’t like, and start creating projects they prefer doing. When this first happens, co-workers get confused; "I thought Sherry was supposed to do that." Then, they get angry: "Somebody has to do this. I guess I have to." My client gave each employee a copy of every job description on the team, and started holding people accountable for their work.

• Surfacing inter-departmental conflict. On a staff retreat, we discussed the beliefs and animosities that separated two units. Support staff complained about program staff: “They’re always leaving the office and goofing off.” While program people felt the support staff had it easy: “They get to hang around the office and don’t have to deal with the public schools we serve.” Using a process called Inter-Group Mirroring, the two units developed mutual understanding and systems to resolve conflicts.

As he made these and other changes in his management style, the leader began feeling more internal self-confidence that lead to increased team, system, and external confidence.

Next week in Fearless Communication, creating system confidence.

***Forward this ezine to 5 leaders and You Might Win a Gift Certificate to Amazon.com***

I’m enlisting your help to spread the word about my ezine. From now until March 31st, your name will be entered into a drawing for a $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com for every five leaders you forward my ezine to.

Here’s how it works:

Click "forward" and send this ezine to five or more leaders you know anywhere in the world. Please include a brief message like, "Check out this ezine on communication. If you like it, you can subscribe at the bottom of the page."

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Then, click here to email me the number of leaders you sent it to. Five leaders puts your name in the drawing once, ten leaders twice, 200 leaders gives you a really good chance at winning!

I will announce the winner in the April 4th ezine.


***Teleclass Starts in April***

Are you thinking about registering for my upcoming teleclass, How to Transform Dreaded Conversations at Work: From Conflict to Collaboration? The two-for-one web special continues until March 28th. Click here for more information or to register for the free teleclass.

***Free Coaching Day***

Only for subscribers of “Fearless Communication”
Tuesday, March 28th, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern
For a free 10-minute coaching conversation with me about any communication challenge, call 505/232-8433. If the line is busy, leave your name and phone number. I will call you back.

Check your time zone for Coaching Day times:

• 11:00AM-1:00PM Eastern,
• 10:00AM-12:00PM Central,
• 9:00AM-11:00AM Mountain, and
• 8:00AM-10:00AM Pacific.

Give me a call. I would enjoy talking with you!

Best wishes,
Suzanne

Suzanne Kryder, Ph.D.
P.O. Box 35429
Albuquerque, NM 87176 USA
505/232-8433

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© 2006 Suzanne Kryder, Ph.D. All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the Fearless Communication eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read: