Leaders, Managers, Team Leads as Performance Coaches (Part 8), By Segun Mojeed

Hurrah! They just arrived. Our ten copies of Pius Adesanmi’s book: “Naija No Dey Carry Last” ordered from Amazon less than ten days ago. This is how we intend to pass on the books: One for my editor, the ‘Baaroyin Global’ himself, one for Wale Adediran, the gentleman who retweeted-connected me with this brilliant Nigerian of blessed memory, and so on…See me later for a copy. These Amazon people sha, they are joy in service, not a single service error in ten years! Back to today’s assignment. I thank you readers for a couple of text messages particularly on this series on performance coaching. My apology if you think this particular series is getting too long. It is the stuff a good book is made of. We would now take a further look at the other enablers of synergistic relationships in the workplace and, maybe, in life as a whole. We then conclude on a note of ‘confronting’.

Part 7 wrapped up with the seventh enabler, which is Personal Involvement. Suffice now to just add that if you are not genuinely and personally involved in the things that matter to your team members, they may find it rather tough to trust you or be honest with you. When these two ingredients-trust and honesty-are missing, the foundation for synergistic relationship is being laid on miry clay. An important outcome of personal involvement is that you get to know your associates’ goals at various levels – personal, professional, family, life-after-work, spiritual, etc. Once you know these goals, helping them in their quest for accomplishment will no longer be as herculean as it looked at the beginning.

The eighth enabler of a conducive environment in which relationships blossom and produce synergy is Personal and Professional Development or Professionalism and Personal Development. One of the first duties of a performance coach is to offer every assistance needed, including the right work assignment that would enable a team member accomplish her task. As a performance coach, it is given you have the requisite experience in your field, and to lead the team, you have travelled this route and you are as familiar with it as with the back of your hand. You are, therefore, strategically situated to counsel team members and colleagues on steps to becoming professionals in deed and indeed. What are the personal development initiatives available? Which of those development activities would they need sponsors for? Which ones can be done personally without recourse to the organisation’s financial resources? Which ones can be done with just some referrals from you? Your associates need your guidance. In fact, this is one area you would easily be judged if you have been coaching or you have been wasting away – how many of your team members can be deemed to be professionals in their conduct, association, output, appearance, interaction, and in reporting.

To lay a concrete foundation for synergy, to nurture productivity and revenue improving relationships, to create an environment where synergy is not just a buzzword but an experiential reality, there is need for appropriate Social Graces. This is the ninth enabler of an enduring synergistic relationship. According to Wikipedia, social graces “are skills used to interact politely in ‘social’ situations. They include manners, etiquette, deportment, fashion and refinement”.

What are social situations? All situations are. With the emergence, and the use of social media with reckless abandon, every situation has become social situation. Leaders and performance coaches therefore have their work cut out in that we must be careful what we say, what we do, how we say it, how we do it, and how we express it anywhere especially on any of the social media platforms. Courtesy, grooming, poise, dressing and the likes have never been this important. Performance coaches are role models. Over the years, I have genuinely learned some key words and expressions that convey respect and goodwill. They include such words as ‘sir’, ‘madam’, ‘please’, and expressions such as courtesy in any language, ‘I am sorry’, ‘Thank you’. At the home front, I do not shy away from ‘I love you’ coming from the heart. Showing courtesy and respect at home and in the workplace goes a long way to enhance synergy-enabling relationships.

The tenth enabler is Self-esteem. This is the summation of the other nine enablers. The end result is when we have all these, employees and managers, husbands, wives, and children have higher self-esteem and relationships produce synergy. In other words, the more you respect yourself and others, the more they would respect themselves and you. Authors J.W. Gilley and N.W. Boughton defined self-esteeming as “the vicious cycle of respect and self-respect”.

It is important we keep a tab on these ten enablers of mutually beneficial synergistic relationships in a team, workplace and family as we move on. We have been on these different areas of functional expertise for a performance coach for a while because that is the crux of the matter and you would agree with me that we have covered a lot on training in the last seven parts. Also in another series, I had written much on coaching and mentoring. I’m glad to submit that career coaching, one of the performance coach’s ‘must-do’ is not different. If you missed those series, you may please contact the editor of The Crest or visit the online newspaper’s archives. Let us move on to the next level of performance coaching excellence. This is the effective leadership skill or art of ‘Confronting’.

Let me make a confession upfront that when I first came across this ‘expertise’ called ‘Confronting’ as a skill for leaders and managers, I thought it was the not-too-likeable habit of confrontation. Though it is in a way, confronting is a strategic, well-planned art of crucial and essential ‘confrontations’ and conversations. The manager practising this skill takes pride in being called a confronter and as authors Jerry Gilley and Nathaniel Boughton remarked: “As a confronter, your job is to make certain that employees, team members meet or exceed performance standards. This performance coaching role or habit or skill or expertise is one of the most important of her functional expertise.

To play this role effectively, a performance coach must demonstrate assertiveness at all times and less of aggressiveness if at all. Demonstrable assertiveness shows up when a manager is able to clearly tell the associate what the challenge is and why it is a challenge. It is being honest and straightforward without being judgemental or insulting; the focus is on the problem and its effect, and not on personalities. Assertiveness comes from self-esteem, which in itself is a product of two interrelated internal strengths of self-confidence and self-respect. Someone defines self-confidence as having a sense of worth and ‘can-do’ spirit, a sense of trust in one’s ability to deliver in spite of all odds. Call that self-efficacy if you wish. Self-respect, on the other hand, is that feeling of being capable of happiness, celebration, etc.

In the process of confronting, the leader needs to watch out so as not to fall into the error of being judgemental or insulting. He must watch for performance killing comments and cliché. Such comments and behaviours hurt employees’ confidence and undermine problem-solving efforts. For instance, I have heard Generation X and baby boomer managers making generalised and disparaging comments against the millennial generations: “You are just acting to type…” or “You fresh graduates are just the same.”, or “They are so distracted by gadgets and devices so…” A leader needs to be careful the way he presents solutions to team members. They do not have to find solutions the way you dictated it; in fact, do not dictate solutions while confronting. Avoid spontaneous public criticism while confronting.

Years ago, while writing this piece for the very first time, an unfolding event at the Chelsea Football Club of London came to mind and I had to delete the original last paragraph to accommodate this ‘how-not-to-do-confronting’ case study. A player was down on the field of play, the medics whose job it is to offer succour rushed to assist him and the manager thought winning that particular match was more important than a less-than-two-minute player care, so he started raving at the medical team, and eventually took disciplinary action against them. From purely performance coaching angle, if you have been following this subject, this particular confronting was mishandled.

We then started seeing this darling team of many, yours sincerely not included, nose-diving. They were the defending champions, they steadily remained in the bottom half of the table and experiencing their worst start to any of their seasons in the premier league era. Yet, Chelsea fans boasted of having the best manager in the whole world. I still wonder what were the yardsticks used to earn this unofficial accolade. Anyway, he who wears the shoes feels the pinches. The owner didn’t agree with the fans that he had the best coach, so, he gave him the boot.

Let me squeeze this in before closing that sacking the manager is never the solution. Get him a coach and if I’m privileged to be his personal coach, we would have one-on-one discussions on how to manage success and stay tops, and how to talk less. I would tell him about Jim Collin’s ‘mirror and window’ leadership principle.

Out of space, see you next week. Till then, enjoy.

After words…

Pius Adesanmi (1972-2019)

When I visited www.amazon.com to order for copies of his book: “Naija No Dey Carry Last”, below is the brief that caught my attention:

“Pius Adesanmi is (was) a Professor of English and African Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is the internationally-acclaimed winner of the inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing in the non-fiction category in 2010. He has also won the poetry prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors. He is one of Nigeria’s leading public intellectuals and is one of the first leading African academics to use social media as a classroom to test out his ideas and engage with Nigeria. He is a connoisseur of palm wine and French wine, thinks in Yoruba and Pidgin English but writes only in English and French.”

He was never a noise maker, never a Twitter rat though a ‘Twitterrati’. So young and such a genius! Pius, you touched lives. Sleep on beloved.

Let’s celebrate! We have five of Pius’ “Naija No Dey Carry Last” to give out in celebrating this icon cut short in his prime. Just send me a WhatsApp message on the same platform you are reading this. Only one condition though, you must be resident in Lagos and would need to come and get it yourself. No additional expenses on this. First five, messages received correctly would be contacted privately.

  Acknowledgement/Sources of Resources for this article:

1. BezaleelConsulting/Olusegun Mojeed: A compendium of over 25 years of manuscripts of my thesis and lecture series in Talent Management and People Matters (unpublished yet), BezaleelConsulting Group Library bezaleelconsultingrw.com
2. Daniel Goleman: Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1998
3. Harvard Business Review: On Emotional Intelligence, HBR 10 Must Reads 2015
4. Jerry W. Gilley & Nathaniel W. Boughton: Stop Managing, Start Coaching, Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996