Leading from Between the Bumper Lanes!

Leading From Between the Bumper Lanes

In this installment of the Executive Hustle, I share some ideas on how leaders can get stuck thinking they have to choose between managing the individual (and his or her unique needs) and managing the entire team (reinforcing the behavioral expectations and alignment that forms a high-performing team).

I offer a framework (not unlike the bumper lanes you see if you’ve ever bowled with a toddler (or slightly inebriated adult) at a bowling alley!

For more information on the ideas presented check out the following links.

Simon Sinek, start with Why:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA

Patrick Lencioni and the ‘playbook:’

 https://files.tablegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/19141103/AdvantageDevelop_a_Playbook.pdf

Situational leadership:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hersey-and-blanchard-model.asp

Below is an AI Generated transcript of the podcast (errors may occur)

Welcome podcast listeners, no visitors or guests today. But I do want to talk about something that has come up with variety of individuals and leaders that I've been speaking with recently.

And that is the balance or conflict or, gosh, pick your verb at this point between individual needs of a group of direct reports or a team that we may have under us as leader.

And this is a real challenge. And I wanted to explore a couple of concepts related to that. So let's dive in.

How many of you as leaders have developed something out there that's called a playbook? So playbook might be something where you have worked through some specific questions.

They exist. What is our purpose? of a company? Who are we here to serve and what impact we make in the community?

That's your center. The next rung out, how do we succeed? How do we behave, right? At the company level, this may be what actions, what activities will we do or not do as a company that drive back to that?

Why? At a team level, your success may be what decisions, what type of leadership do we need at the team level given how we want to succeed in a period of time.

At the individual level, this is the habits, the behaviors, the expectations that we need out of every individual on our company teams that is going to help us succeed at the what that we do, right?

That outside ring of the circle. That's the easiest one to answer. not even going to talk about it. So your playbook may be made up of the golden circle.

The other way I've seen playbooks made is answering those six fundamental questions. from Patrick Lynchoni, right? Again, why do we exist?

You start with that. What's most important? How are we going to succeed? Who must do what? And how do we behave?

some of, again, those same questions? So you may have this playbook, and that's going to be your team expectations.

What did I expect everyone on my team to follow? How do we know you belong here? Well, because you kind of fall in bounds with these behaviors, and you know that these behaviors are out of bounds.

This is an important concept. If you don't have developed as a leader, you need to be thinking about. But sometimes your direct reports don't necessarily follow these team norms, or they're struggling to follow these team norms, right?

They didn't come to you with the skills and talents and experiences to just plug right in. How do you get them up and running?

Or if they're struggling for some reason, how do you get them sort of back in to the bounds of your playbook?

Well, that's where situational leadership comes in. And that's a body of work that describes and talks to us about delivering the type and amount of supervision as a leader that's individualized for your direct report.

So given the situation, given the assignment that your direct report has, what type of leadership do they need to be successful?

Is that the opposite of a playbook? Or can those two concepts work together? I think that's a question we have to challenge ourselves with because I would suggest that they can work together.

That you can both have team norms. These are the ways that we all must work together, that we all must behave to be.

successful and I believe that we can be situational leaders, that I can design my leadership, arrange the conditions for success for each of my direct reports in a way that they need it, in a way that is unique to the situation or the assignment that they have right now, which may be different from the one that they have six months from now, or the way they were showing up six months ago could be different than the way they are now, something they have changed in their life.

Recently I was debating this with a local CEO who was struggling with the situation exactly like this, calls right in line with, you know, do we have to have group norms, this person's falling outside of them, does that make them not a fit, how do I lead, how do I show up, right?

So we had a very valued team member, somebody that otherwise thought fit the culture and he was starting to cause a

using the team. So how do we use these two complimentary models to work together to solve challenges like that?

And we came up with the great analogy that I thought would just resonate, right? So if you've ever been bowling with kids, or maybe not with kids, I'm not here to judge.

If you've ever been bowling and you've put up the bumper lanes, think about your playbook as the bumper lanes.

They are the boundaries for behavior, for how we are going to be in this company, how we're going to show up and how we're going to behave, right?

They're the boundaries, they're the guardrails, and then your leadership, how you show up and how you are providing guidance, support, direction, coaching.

That's the ball rolling down the lane, bumping to the left, bump into the right, bump into the left, maybe in the middle for a while, right?

So these two concepts can work together. We can both show up individually or ranging conditions unique to your direct report and what they're dealing with, and we can stay inside the boundaries of what we have.

Bottom line, if you are a leader, you must have clear expectations about what is in-bounds and out-of-bounds for the behavior of your staff.

Your teams must know what is most important right now and how, meaning what actions are winning actions, how are we going to win, and who must do what?

But it has to be clear what each person's role is, how they work together, and making the strengths based.

Yes, yes, and this is a big yes, and you as a leader have to move in and out of different styles of leadership, fluidly, constantly moving from coach to direction to support, maybe to backing off completely for a while, to ensure the success of your direct report without exhausting yourself by coaching too much.

Coaching is actually the most exhausting stage of leadership. Or by exhausting your direct report by slipping into micromanagement, ding, dang, dang, if you are micromanaging somebody there in an important conversation you're avoiding, and that'll be a future podcast.

For more information about any of these concepts that I've covered, I'll have some helpful links in the show notes.