Spiraling Up Launch! - Watch the 90 Second Trailer

Whether you are a seasoned executive looking to reinvigorate a stagnant culture or a new manager seeking to build a foundation of positivity from the ground up, 'Spiraling Up' is designed to be your guide, your toolkit, and your inspiration on this transformative journey. The book is divided into three parts:

• Part 1 - Focuses on understanding workplace negativity

• Part 2 - Delves into the SPIRAL framework - 6 strategies for addressing it

• Part 3 - Provides practical steps for transforming it.

Each chapter will be concluded with a summary of insights, reflection questions, and a team exercise, creating a real-time response for leaders with their teams.

Together, we will explore the art and science of authentic leadership, the power of reframing negative mindsets, and the practical steps you can take to cultivate a workplace culture that brings out the best in everyone.  

So, let us embark on this journey together as we uncover the secrets of 'Spiraling Up' and unlock the full potential of our teams, our organizations, and ourselves as leaders in an ever-changing world. With your dedication, compassion, and steadfast commitment to positive change, we can transform even the most challenging workplace dynamics and create organizations that thrive in adversity.  

“Spiraling-Up is like a “break glass in case of emergency” kit for culture change.”

— Michael Brunner Senior Director R&D Strategy at Kimberly-Clark

Spiraling Up - Book Launch November 1st

From my Dissertation to a Leader’s Practical Guide how to respond to Negativity in the Workplace

As an organizational development consultant, I've walked into numerous rooms filled with tension, skepticism, and outright hostility. One particularly memorable moment came when a frustrated physician slapped his hand on the table, demanding, "What are you saying, Russell, that we're supposed to be a team?" That confrontation was a turning point, crystallizing my understanding of workplace negativity's devastating impact and igniting my personal mission to combat it.

Over my 25-year journey as a business owner and leadership consultant, I've witnessed the insidious effects of workplace negativity firsthand. From toxic gossip to systemic distrust, I've seen how negativity can transform vibrant workplaces into environments where employees survive rather than thrive. This personal experience and my doctoral research interviewing executives across multiple industries revealed a crucial truth: while negativity can spiral downward quickly, positive change is equally powerful when adequately activated.

"Spiraling Up," launching on November 1st, is the culmination of my work with nearly 500 leaders and insights from over 100 social and psychological workplace studies. The book introduces the SPIRAL framework – a practical, research-backed approach that has been rigorously tested in the field and proven effective. This isn't just theory; it's battle-tested wisdom from the frontlines of organizational change, designed to instill confidence in its effectiveness.

What excites me most about this launch is the opportunity to share a message of hope. I've seen firsthand that transformation is possible, even in the most challenging environments. We can create workplaces where people feel valued, engaged, and empowered through authentic leadership and strategic intervention. As we approach the November 1st release, I'm filled with energy and optimism, knowing that we can help leaders worldwide turn the tide from negativity to lasting positive change.

Coming November 1st, 2024

Pre-Order Today!

3 Lessons Learned Creating Psychological Safety

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As an Organizational Development consultant, I have a front seat in the facilitation of building healthy, cohesive teams. Every team represents a case study of leadership and social dynamics lessons to observe and learn. Shared leadership and psychological safety influence levels of cognitive and social motivations (Sun et al., 2023). High-functioning cohesive teams compared to low dysfunctional teams reflect trust among team members. The higher the trust, the higher the effectiveness. For the last six months, one group I have been working with has unique collaborative, courageous, and fun dynamics. It is a joy to be at the table.

What makes teamwork well?

A level of trust reflects a high degree of psychological safety between team members and the leader. Psychological safety increases work performance, collaborative knowledge-sharing behavior, organizational citizenship, and lower turnover when done well. The ability to communicate openly and freely determines team members' positive work outcomes. (Liu & Keller, 2021). 

“A surviving versus thriving team is marked by belonging, not bullying. ”

Consultants are typically called in when there is a problem. When there was no trust, little communication and productivity suffered. One case study of two teams I recently worked with included a group that experienced a 200% turnover over two years. Meanwhile, the second team was engaging, energetic, and innovative. The first team felt exhaustive and unengaging. The root issue of the first team was a leadership challenge after months of consultation, 360s, personality assessment, culture surveys, and team intervention. The leader style is a micromanager with inconsistent communication, favoritism, and hyper-control of the details. It is simple to see when written in plain text. However, the leaders needed to see it and be made aware of their style and its impact. Compared to the second team leader, who empowered and encouraged team members in their work. Leaders who shape and value psychological safety unleash talent and create value (Edmondson, 2019).

People are naturally motivated and thrive in inclusive environments. However, there are also significant benefits to moments of solitude, isolation, and privacy. These periods can foster creativity, provide clarity and perspective, and offer a much-needed respite from social demands. It's a delicate balance, one that each individual must navigate to find a healthy tension between belonging and being. When this equilibrium is achieved, it can significantly enhance cognitive and social motivation. 

Here are three practical lessons learned and their direct applications for your next team meeting:

Lesson 1: High trust and psychological safety levels lead to more effective, cohesive teams.

   Practical application: Foster an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, opinions, and concerns without fear of negative consequences. Encourage open communication and lead by example.

Lesson 2: The leadership style you adopt significantly shapes team dynamics and performance.

   Practical application: Reflect on your leadership style and its effects on the team. Identify areas where you can empower team members, communicate consistently, and avoid micromanagement. Consider seeking feedback from your team to gain insights into their perceptions and needs.

Lesson 3: Striking a balance between belonging and solitude is a critical factor for individual motivation and well-being.

   Practical application: Recognize that team members have different social interactions and needs for solitude. Encourage a culture that respects both collaborative work and individual-focused time. Consider implementing flexible work arrangements or designated quiet spaces to support this balance.

By applying these lessons, you can create a more psychologically safe and motivating environment for your team, ultimately improving performance and job satisfaction.

Today, I'm working with a team of local community leaders. After ten years as a consultant facilitating better teams, I'm still learning. I get to practice these three lessons for the good of the community. How about you? What can you do today to facilitate psychologically safe, high-trust teams? 

Reference

Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth (1st ed.). Wiley.

Liu, Y., & Keller, R. T. (2021). How psychological safety impacts R&D project teams' performance: In a psychologically safe workplace, R&D project teams perform better, more readily share knowledge and engage in organizational citizenship behavior, and are less likely to leave. Research Technology Management, 64(2), 39-45. https://10.1080/08956308.2021.1863111

Sun, M., He, K., & Ting, W. (2023). The impact of shared leadership on team creativity in innovation Teams—A chain mediating effect model. Sustainability, 15(2), 1212. https://10.3390/su15021212

Growing Your Leadership - Foundations for Development - Integrating Philosophy, Psychology, and Practice

6-Week Leader Development Series

1. Foundations - 4 Levels of Your Life and Work

2. SoulWork

3. Self-Leadership

4. Team Leadership

5. Strategic Leadership

6. Leveling-Up - Identifying Threats, Invest in Capital, and the Courage to Lead Well

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Growing Your Leadership - Week 1 - Foundations

John, the COO of a Fortune 500 company, neglected his leadership development amidst the demands of running the operations of a large corporation. Despite numerous growth opportunities, he prioritized operational tasks over personal development. As a result, John's leadership style became increasingly autocratic and disconnected from his team's needs. Employee morale plummeted, turnover rates soared, and innovation stagnated. Leaders like John who neglect their development hinder their effectiveness and risk damaging team dynamics and organizational performance. John's story is all too common. It underscores the critical importance of continuous leadership development in driving success at all levels of an organization.

Sarah, the CEO of a tech startup, recognized the importance of investing in her development to lead her team better. Despite her busy schedule, she dedicated time to attending leadership workshops, participating in executive coaching sessions, and reading books on effective leadership. As she implemented the strategies and insights gained from her development efforts, Sarah noticed a significant shift in her leadership approach. She became more empathetic, communicative, and strategic in her decision-making, fostering a culture of trust and collaboration within her team. Employees felt more engaged and motivated, increasing productivity, innovation, and team performance. By prioritizing her development, Sarah not only improved her leadership effectiveness but also positively impacted the dynamics and outcomes of his team.

Integrating Philosophy, Psychology, and Practical Application

Laying a foundation for personal and leader development demands a comprehensive approach that transcends traditional boundaries, integrating elements of philosophy, psychology, and practical application. Philosophy provides the conceptual framework and guiding principles that underpin one's understanding of self, purpose, and ethics, offering timeless wisdom to navigate life's complexities. Psychology delves into the intricacies of human behavior, cognition, and emotions, equipping individuals with insights into their psyche and interpersonal dynamics crucial for effective leadership. Practical application bridges theory with action, empowering individuals to translate knowledge and insights into tangible behaviors and habits that drive personal growth and leadership effectiveness. By embracing this holistic approach, individuals embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery, continual learning, and meaningful impact, laying a solid foundation for their development and that of others they lead.

What makes the difference between John and Sarah?

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, the success of organizations hinges on effective leadership at all levels. From self-care to self-leadership and team and strategic leadership, cultivating strong leadership capabilities is essential for driving innovation, fostering collaboration, and achieving sustainable growth. Recent statistics underscore the tangible benefits of leader development on organizational outcomes, highlighting the critical importance of investing in leadership growth initiatives.

Self-Care (SoulWork) - Intentionally Paying Attention to What Matters Most

The phrases "human being" and "human doing" highlight different aspects of the human experience. John's story indicates a bent toward doing while Sarah prioritizes being without compromising on getting work done. Both phrases are integral to the human experience; the significance lies in striking a balance between being and doing, recognizing the importance of self-awareness and action in leading a fulfilling and purposeful life. Recognizing the significance of spiritual vitality, holistic well-being, moral character, alignment of values, living authentically, and working purposefully is crucial for fostering a fulfilling and meaningful life. Spiritual vitality provides a sense of connection to something greater than oneself, offering solace and guidance in times of adversity. Holistic well-being encompasses physical, mental, and emotional health, emphasizing the importance of balance and self-care in achieving overall fulfillment. Moral character serves as the foundation for ethical decision-making and fostering healthy relationships, contributing to a sense of integrity and trustworthiness. Alignment of values ensures congruence between beliefs and actions, promoting authenticity and inner harmony. Living authentically involves embracing one's true self and values, leading to empowerment and fulfillment.

Working with purpose gives meaning to one's endeavors, fostering motivation, resilience, and a sense of contribution to the greater good. Together, these elements form the pillars of a life imbued with purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. Too much-being leads to inactivity and apathy. John's emphasis on human doing led to valuing tasks over the welfare of people, misaligned priorities, burnout, and putting secondary things first. Sarah's aspiration demonstrates a holistic tension in life and work that requires attention and intentionality.

Self-Leadership - Efficacy of self-direction, effectiveness, and growth

At the foundation of effective leadership lies self-leadership—the ability to understand oneself, manage emotions, and drive personal growth and development. Leaders who prioritize self-leadership exhibit resilience, adaptability, and a growth mindset, inspiring confidence and trust among their team members. According to a survey by Harvard Business Review, 65% of respondents believe that self-awareness is the most critical capability for leaders, emphasizing the significance of self-leadership in driving organizational success. By investing in self-leadership development, individuals can enhance their ability to navigate challenges, make informed decisions, and lead authentically and purposefully.

Team Leadership - Guiding a diverse collective effort toward a common purpose and shared goals

Effective team leadership fosters a culture of collaboration, empowerment, and high performance within organizations. Leaders who excel in team leadership understand the dynamics of group behavior, leverage diverse talents and perspectives, and create an environment where team members feel valued and motivated to contribute their best work. Research by Deloitte reveals that companies with effective team leaders are 50% more likely to outperform their peers in revenue growth over three years. By investing in team leadership development, organizations can unlock the full potential of their teams, driving innovation, productivity, and competitive advantage.

Strategic Leadership - Executing a compelling plan by leveraging the organizational potential for growth and the good of all the stakeholders.

Strategic leadership involves setting a compelling vision, aligning resources, and driving organizational change to achieve long-term goals and objectives. Leaders with strategic, solid leadership capabilities can anticipate market trends, identify growth opportunities, and navigate complexity with agility and foresight. According to a study by McKinsey, organizations with strong strategic leadership are 2.2 times more likely to outperform their industry peers in terms of long-term value creation. By investing in strategic leadership development, organizations can adapt to changing market dynamics, seize emerging opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge in today's dynamic business environment.

The Impact of Leader Development on Organizational Outcomes

Recent statistics highlight the significant impact of leader development on organizational outcomes, including increased productivity, employee engagement, and financial performance. According to research by the Center for Creative Leadership, organizations that invest in leadership development experience, on average, a 15% increase in employee engagement and a 14% increase in employee productivity. Moreover, an Association for Talent Development study found that companies with comprehensive leadership development programs are 84% more effective at delivering financial results than those without.

In conclusion, growing leadership across four levels—from self-care to self-leadership to team and strategic leadership—is essential for unlocking organizational success in today's dynamic business environment. By investing in leader development initiatives, organizations can cultivate a pipeline of skilled and empowered leaders who drive innovation, foster collaboration, and achieve sustainable growth. As recent statistics demonstrate, the value of leader development extends far beyond individual leaders, positively impacting organizational outcomes and driving long-term success.

Next, we will explore the focus on the elements of Soulwork, touching on philosophical origins, psychological theories, and self-care practices.

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The Grow Your Leadership series articles require me to stretch my literary legs over the next few weeks and settle into a pace of topic- and theme-focused writing. These posts parallel my Ph.D. dissertation in Industrial Organization Psychology and my book project on Mentorship.

Please comment in the comment section if you have additional thoughts or stories. If you have questions, feel free to message me directly at russell@leaderadvance.net

Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast! 3 Competencies To Strengthen Your Soft Skills

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. What a big idea, right?

As a leader in your organization, you proudly celebrate the wins. On occasion, it doesn’t work that way and during a loss, you may ask yourself whether it was you, your team, or the organization as the root cause. With each examination, you may see a pattern within your company culture itself, through discussion, surfacing time and time again.

“Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast!”

— Peter Drucker

Two areas of tension leaders in any organization must balance daily are that of hard and soft skills. Most leaders excel greatly in hard skills. They know their product or service inside and out. They understand delivery and execution in order to promote and provide markets for their product or service. It is then not surprising that with leaders focused so strong on hard skills, many lack what amounts to be the equally, if not of greater importance, the soft skills needed to manage the people of the organization.

Through many years of coaching leaders, it has become clear to me that there are three primary areas of competencies needed within any organization. They include:

1. Effective Communication
   Great leaders are effective communicators. What are we communicating? What are the questions we’re asking? Are we taking time to actually listen to understand what’s happening? And then being able to turn around and explicitly share those ideas with a broader audience and making sure it lands and hits its mark so that we know that we’re communicating clearly and effectively that engages the rest of our people. (We recommend leaders start by answering 3 questions).

2. Creating Connection
   We are wired for meaningful relationships. Sometimes, when we meet with people, there’s just a disconnect. And sometimes we just don’t even know why. It’s often this place of just connection with those key people. We really want to understand what’s happening there, and what can we do to build stronger levels of trust and unity so that we can have a healthy working relationship? (We recommend the Conversationalist for building stronger connection).

3. Change Management
   Change is necessary for continued growth. That’s a big idea in terms of a leadership sense of expectations. Are we moving too fast? Perhaps we’re moving too slow. Somewhere in there is finding that cadence of what is the rate of change where we work well and thrive within. Change is hard and if we don't change, then things won’t happen as we expect, and our results will suffer.

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What is Culture?

Values + Behavior = Culture

To deep dive into your organization, your team, or even the culture that you live as a leader, look at those values. What are the things that are core to who you are? Are you moving them from implicit ideas to explicit? When you do, then, you can begin putting a plan together on how to live those ideas out.

Culture is a complex idea because we’re dealing with the soft skills. If you want to improve your culture, start there. What are those values? How do we live them out? 

Communication - Connection - Change

I would encourage you to look at those three areas of communicating effectively, being able to make strong connections with your people, and then, finally, look at your expectation around change management.

Final Thoughts

When you do the above suggested actions, they will strengthen your culture. When blended with your strategy, suddenly you’re going to see your results successfully executed, positively affecting your bottom line. Hope this has been helpful.

If you need help with your leadership skills the Advance team provides one free complimentary coaching session. It will help you clarify your answers and give you a plan to lead more effectively. (We provide a professional coaching experience, not a sales pitch!)

If you want to be a more effective leader select Start Now!

Making the Right Move for Wrong Team Member…and the Cost if You Don’t! Part 1

The number one issue I have seen among leaders and the issue that carries the greatest emotional weight that often clouds objectivity is letting go of a key leader on your team. As an executive coach, I’ve had a front row seat to seeing the most brilliant strategists and effective leaders who have lost themselves under the emotional weight of losing someone who is critical to their team, or at least their role is critical to the team and the organization's success.

Most leaders know the enormous weight of the responsibility and need for patience when allowing a key leader to settle into their role. Yet, after an undefined appropriate amount of time, the key indicators are not trending positive, or projects are under performing, it becomes evident this is the wrong person for the position. Most often we hire somebody who performed with excellence and delivered exceptional results in their discipline in one or more organizational settings. For a variety of reasons they have failed to gain traction in our environment.

The weight of this issue for most leaders, more often than not, comes from the loss of confidence in the individual in whom they had personally placed so much trust and hope. Leaders hire people in the confidence that they have all that is needed to be successful in the position. Having been so persuaded, we adopt them into our corporate family, nurture them into the culture, and give them the tools and resources needed for success. We have personally sponsored the new hire into the organization. The idea of cutting ties with a member of your team brings a sense of personal loss. Facing the daunting task of replacing any high profile leader carries with it a heightened sensitivity to utilize an improved vetting and decision making process. The thought of having to find the replacement and start the process all over again with the prospect that the next person hired may not work out can be overwhelming.

I have found, in hundreds of hours of coaching and working with teams in off-site settings, a leader instinctively knows when it is time for a transition to happen. Certainly, there are protocols that determine the appropriate amount of time to allow for the individual’s performance to improve or for adjustments to be made to his or her role and/or responsibilities.  Yet, in the end, I have seen again and again, that leaders have an instinct for when it's time for a transition. The question becomes what will that leader do when they know what the right decision is and when will they take action?

When a leader delays in doing the right thing, the weight of the issue grows with each day, week, and month, making it harder to step forward and act objectively. This leads to our emotional malaise as leaders and allows the dysfunction within the organization to spread. Delay could also cost the organization critical leadership talent at the lower levels as those people lose confidence that the matter will be addressed. We can be confident in the fact that if we're seeing nonperformance, it has already been the subject of water cooler conversation in the organization. At some point, this emotional weight and lack of decisive action creates a toxicity that is felt throughout the culture of the organization.

If you are that leader who is in that place and know you need to let one of your key team members go, then let's get grounded. First we need to evaluate the cost of this decision or your indecision. As a leader, ask yourselves these questions:

• What is the cost of the emotional and mental energy that is likely preventing me from moving forward strategically in the department with the under performing leader?
• What is the cost for the rest of my team who is having to tiptoe around the issue rather than being engaged as a highly performing team?
• What is the cost within that specific department where that leader is not meeting their goals or objectives?

Take a Step in Right Direction

Take time to think! Spend a few minutes thinking through these things will bring clarity.  Writing down a note, even if it's on a napkin, gives you an opportunity to evaluate the time, money, and resources the delay in this decision is costing you. Find a person or peer group that is a safe place to verbally process and gain feedback .

After you've had to time to count the cost, seek clarity, and the perspective someone you trust you're ready for action. Part 2 of Making the Right Move will give 4 Steps towards a healthy transition.