Leaders Don't Have to Be Lonely: Eliminate the loneliness and lead like a coach

By Robin ML Johnson

Leadership  loneliness  is  a  phenomenon  felt  by  many  leaders  both  in  the  boardroom  and  on  the  front  line,  and  while  many  leaders  have  not  managed  to  avoid  loneliness  and  isola

• Language: English
• Publisher: Envise
• Release date: Dec 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780991508235

Robin ML Johnson

Robin is an experienced Organization Effectiveness leader with more than 15 years of experience in a variety of industries/environments, including: Pharmaceuticals, Food, Retail, Non-Profit, Printing and Wine & Spirits. Robin is a change agent, with a passion for helping organizational leaders move their organizations from current to future state. More specifically, Robin's work, through her firm, DesignOrg Solutions, is primarily focused on large-scale transformations such as, M&A Integration work and organizational restructures. Advising on large-scale transformations by assessing the impact of change on the organization, assessing the readiness of the organization to go through the change process, managing leadership/stakeholder engagement, redesigning organizational structures, preparing employees for ERP system implementations, and coaching leaders through the transformations are areas of expertise. Lastly, Robin has a Doctor of Strategic Leadership degree and published her first book, Leaders Don't Have To be Lonely: Eliminate the Loneliness and Lead Like A Coach, in 2014.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Employees don’t talk to you? You can’t understand why you are always the last one to find out what’s happening in your department? Employees stop talking when you enter the room? There is simile between your department and a revolving door?

Leaders Don’t Have to Be Lonely will help new managers understand the distinct difference between being a manager and being a leader. While managers concentrate on budgets, metrics, marketing, and customers, leaders also manage those things while developing and maintaining relationships with their employees. When managers choose not to lead, and dismiss the idea of developing relationships with their employees, they lose because they eventually experience what we call, Leadership Loneliness.

Leadership loneliness is a phenomenon felt by many leaders both in the boardroom and on the front line. Although, many leaders think experiencing loneliness is inevitable, it can be avoided. Leaders can do something about it. In part one of the book, managers will learn the three most common reasons why they are likely to experience loneliness and isolation. They will also learn that loneliness and isolation, if it persists, can impact their mental and physical health, which can ultimately affect how they lead.

In part two, the discussion changes and managers learn how they can chart a new course to eliminate the loneliness and isolation they experience. Of course, eliminating loneliness and isolation implies something will have to be done entirely different than what was done before. The difference suggested here is in the manager becoming a coaching-leader.

Because coaching-leadership is a relationship-based leadership style, there is no possible way to discuss the matter without delving into the architect of relationships. Good working relationships are the outcome of establishing trust, and managers who work to bring life to relationships with their employees experience twofold benefits; 1) when employees feel listened to (an element of relationship building) their stress is reduced and business performance improves; and 2) the leader feels a sense of purpose and satisfaction knowing they made a difference in someone else’s life.

Finally, the story would not be complete without sharing ways in which to carry out the coaching-leadership responsibility. If there is a desire to make the transformation from manager to coaching-leader, then leaders will find a coaching model and coaching forms to help get them started.

CHAPTER ONE

LEADERSHIP & LONELINESS

Manager vs. Leader

Being promoted into a management position does not make one a leader automatically. Many new managers think they are leaders, and wish to be, because of the prestige, benefits and the influence it affords them. However, what business school professors and leadership pundits fail to mention is this: as a new leader, one is in a minority group with responsibilities and pressures likely to exceed their capabilities and capacity.¹ Being a leader is far harder than it looks because not only are they responsible for all that goes into producing, marketing and selling goods, but they are also accountable for people² - the most challenging of all variables to manage.

Leadership is about having the ability to influence others. There is often confusion about what leadership really is because the word has become almost ubiquitous and synonymous with what usually occurs in the workplace by those in authority: management.

Management is defined by the actions of a group of people who achieve orderly results by controlling schedules, policies, procedures and budgets.³ Yet leadership is a process grounded in relationship and is based on the ability to influence followers to create change and attain their goals.⁴ It is critical in the new manager’s role to understand what it takes to lead. A lack of healthy leadership will restrict organizational growth and success. Let’s be clear, managers are greatly needed. They are well adept at managing budgets, policies and procedures, and can even maneuver through and manipulate office politics. But what is missing, most often, is the innovation and encouragement to change and grow, which comes with leadership skills.⁵

Managers in the educational arena are evaluated on their students’ reading and math scores. Those in manufacturing management are judged on the number of cases, which can be produced by shift’s end. And sales managers will be seen as a value-add if they consistently make their quarterly sales number. However, regardless of their product (good scores, cases, or sales, respectively), the ability to make product successfully is predicated upon the manager’s ability to influence their employees. Therefore, managers must learn how to engage an employee’s knowledge, skills and abilities and find creative ways to release their energies to fulfill the organization’s mission and vision.⁶ Managers who can successfully accomplish this are on their way to becoming leaders, and more specifically, coaching-leaders. How the manager engages their employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities will be the key to their own success, and in large part, will determine their ability to make evolutionary steps from manager to coaching-leader.⁷

Managers who wish to become leaders are responsible for those whom they lead: employees, who reinforce their decisions, assume responsibility, serve, challenge the status quo, and participate in transformations.⁸ It is imperative for new managers to recognize both they, and those who follow, together play a critical role in the rise or the fall of the organization. And though they each play a different role, they complement one another, and therefore should not be in competition with each other.⁹ They are each two sides of the same coin, with no means of operating an organization independent of one another.

A Leader’s Influence

New managers might feel like targets with darts being hurled at them from every direction. Yet, successfully navigating their way around those darts, in order to accomplish their goals, will mean learning that the key to leadership is gaining the ability to influence not only their workforce, but also their boss and every other stakeholder to whom the organization is responsible (e.g. customers, shareholders, executive board, parents, and the community).¹⁰

Influence comes from the leader

Being a good listener

Remembering names

Being genuinely interested in others

Letting others talk

Showing respect for others’ opinions, and

Admitting when they are wrong or have made a mistake¹¹

These habits are essential for any manager seeking to transition into a coaching-leader function. And, in fact, the authors of Leadership Mystique argue, if a leader gets derailed, it is more likely to be caused by a lack of interpersonal skills rather than by an insufficient knowledge of the latest techniques in education, marketing, finance or production.¹² So a manager must take the responsibility to influence earnestly, as it may be the most significant part of the leadership process.¹³

Leadership Loneliness and Isolation

We started by introducing the idea that leaders are in a minority group with responsibilities and pressures that, at least in the beginning, are likely to exceed their capabilities and capacity. Unfortunately, being in the minority often leads to isolation and loneliness. Many leaders feel loneliness or isolation at some point during their tenure, as taking on the new role often means separating from friends and having to make tough decisions on their own.¹⁴

In speaking with a number of