Improve Your Leadership and Peer Relationships – No Coach Required
When budgets are tight and you need a DIY Leadership Development Activity sooner vs. later, I have one you can use. It requires no budget and no outside support. I’m hashtagging it nocoachrequired. It isn’t a full solution, but it’s a piece of a larger process you can do on your own to help yourself and your team.
Step: 1 Create a Subset of Your Key Stakeholders
360 peer reviews are a tool I often use with my team development and executive coaching clients. While the formal process isn’t something I recommend doing on your own, you CAN create a subset of your peers, direct reports and others to gain valuable feedback from them.
Those you tap on the shoulder should be people you work with that you have a good rapport with, and would give you good feedback … people that you:
- Value
- Respect
- Trust
It’s best, of course, to ask them ahead of time to be part of this activity, rather than showing up at their desk and springing it on them.
An example request could include the following (in writing or face-to-face):
We have 6 months left in the year, and I am looking to continue to develop myself as a leader. I used our development training budget on my team members, and I’d like to get your perspective on a few things. Would you be open to providing me with some informal feedback to help?
Step 2: Ask for Specific Feedback
Once you have agreement, ask for specific feedback using these questions:
- What’s one skill that I could develop?
What’s one behavior I could improve as a leader that would help me be better than I am today?- How would one or both of these help my team? Improve our peer relationships? Help our organization?
Step 3: Tackle the Tough Relationship
In my experience, there is typically one relationship within an organization that is particularly challenging.
If you have a challenge with an individual whom you really need to have a good working relationship with, you can also ask your trusted peer(s) to provide insights here.
An example ask could be:
I‘m having a hard time moving the needle with ________, and I’d love to have your perspective on what you think I’m doing that’s not working, what you think I’m doing that could work better and how I could potentially enhance this relationship. How can I influence or work with ________ more effectively? And if I am successful, what do you think the impact would be for my leadership, our team and our organization?
What to Expect: The Outcome of This DIY Leadership Development Activity
Some people will be overwhelmed by this request, but most of those you ask to participate will:
1) Give you good feedback. They will see things from their vantage point, insights and personality type that you wouldn’t see on your own (valuable)!
2) Offer to help in a relevant way (I see this as a natural outcome all the time with my clients) And if they don’t? You can speak up and ask for help where you may need it.
If you try this leadership development activity, I’d love to hear about your experience and receive any feedback you may have.
