Stanford Social Innovation Review

The services of an Executive Coach can be engaged to support a Board President in building and empowering the board to clarify and accomplish its mission. Mentorship may also come from an experienced past board president – either at your organization or at another organization who can share their experience and lessons learned. Executive recruiters who specialize in placement of board members will likely know or have access to many such individuals. A coach is different than a mentor in that the coach helps YOU determine the solutions that are going to work best by asking the right questions and probing in the right places, layering in advice only after the have helped you to come up with the solution on your own, and will likely have facilitation abilities to work with the board as a group. You can find an Executive Coach through referrals, or by conducting an internet search for coaches in your area, or through professional associations.

Ideally, you should plan an offsite meeting (and I really mean offsite!) for at least a day to accomplish the following goals:

(1) Get to know each other better as people so that you can work together more effectively. Create an open forum to discuss how you work best, the type of work you love to do, what you want to do more of, what you want to do less of, two things that make you smile, and two things sure to make you angry. Other fun team building activities will also help the you connect with each other.

(2) Revisit department goals and values to make sure everyone is in alignment. This will give you a chance to surface any potential conflict so that you can address it and move forward as a cohesive team.

(3) Establish priorities and accountability. Once you have agreed on the department's goals, how will you accomplish them? What resources and support are needed? Most importantly, who will do what and by when? Be sure to establish a mechanism to follow up on commitments.

Pitfalls in leadership transition happen when new leaders don't take the time to do the above activities and learn from existing team members. A "takeover' mentality will only alienate team members, resulting in suboptimal performance and increased turnover.

It's important to know how the individual likes to be rewarded, and then respect his/her wishes. (It's the platinum rule, Do unto others as they would have done unto them.) Don't assume that how you would like to be recognized is how they would like to be recognized. Some people thrive on public recognition, while others prefer to be recognized privately. When in doubt, just ask.

The American Society for Training and Development does an annual survey of training programs in general, and provides some valuable metrics. They also have good publications on leading leadership development strategies and programs. I suggest that you talk to peers in your industry to benchmark since practices vary widely from industry to industry, and depending on organizaion size. Finally, your executive team might want to come up with your own benchmarks for success since every organization and culture requires something different (i.e., decision making may be a big issue for leaders in one organization, but no problem at all for leaders in another organization). A question for the executive team to ask is “How will we know that our leaders are being effective?” Then, determine a metric that will best measure that success factor.

Passive-aggressive behavior is destructive and should be addressed as soon as possible (particularly when it is affecting the whole team). Don’t wait for performance evaluations – act now! Constructive feedback is a powerful tool in shaping behavior and improving performance. However, many people fail to deliver it effectively, if at all. Constructive feedback can be viewed as overly critical, or is often vague and unclear, leaving the recipient unsure of what to actually do with the feedback. In addition, in an attempt to avoid confrontation or an uncomfortable situation, people may sugarcoat the feedback by downplaying the impact or minimizing the importance of it. In the end, this serves no one.

Schedule some uninterrupted time with the individual. When you meet, create a safe environment. Let the person know that you would like to share some feedback with him/her and state your intent in doing so. (It’s important to make the intent something they can support!) For example, “I’d like to share some feedback with you about some behaviors that I (as well as others on the team) have noticed. I want to talk to you about this so we can improve our working relationship and keep the team focused on the task at hand." With this approach, it's more likely he/she will be receptive to the feedback and hear what you are saying, rather than get defensive. When giving feedback – particularly constructive feedback – it is important to do the following:

1) Make it specific rather than general. Saying, “You have been passive-aggressive lately” is not as helpful as saying, “You agreed to take responsibility for completing the customer survey, but didn’t return any of my phone calls regarding this project and didn’t hand in the report.” The former statement leaves much room for interpretation and can cause confusion about what behaviors are actually expected.

2) Make it descriptive rather than evaluative. This means that the feedback should focus on the facts, as opposed to saying what is good or bad. This also helps the recipient be less defensive. Instead of saying, “Your follow-through is poor,” it is more effective to say, “The team was in a real crunch today, trying to get the presentation slides to the client to be reviewed. I was counting on having the highlights of your report included in the presentation. This caused us to be late in getting the slides to the client. Next time we have a deadline like this, I’d like to see you deliver your portion on time.”

3) Check for understanding and emotion. Make sure the recipient hears and correctly interprets the intended message. Look at the facial expressions: Does he/she look surprised, shocked, confused, angry, or ambivalent? Invite the recipient to ask clarifying questions or have them paraphrase the message to check for understanding. Also invite them to discuss how they are feeling. You might say, “You look rather surprised. How are you feeling right now? Are you clear on what’s expected? Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

4) Ask how you can support the person in improving. Asking what the recipient needs from you opens up the dialogue and lets the person know that you are there to support him/her and want to see him/her succeed. Asking, “What do you need from me to help you get your work done on time?” may elicit a response that sheds light on some of the underlying issues.

Feedback shouldn't be a surprise. Hopefully, he has been receiving feedback along the way about specific behaviors that he has needed to change. Start out by stating your intent in giving the feedback. For example, “My goal in giving you this feedback is for you to be able to step up and get that promotion….” Then describe the actual behavior that you noticed and the situation in which it occurred (i.e., “You did not show up to the last three of our staff meetings”), the impact that it had (i.e., “this upset the rest of the team who were counting on getting key updates from you so they could move forward with their projects”), and then articulate the desired results (“I’d like for you to be at all of our staff meetings from now on. If you can’t attend, I’d like for you to let me know and to send someone from your team in your absence”).

If he becomes defensive, don’t defend your feedback or get combative--just notice his behaviors and get curious about what is going on for him. Show empathy for how he is feeling. For example, “You just crossed your arms tightly and got very tense--I can imagine this doesn’t feel good. What are you thinking right now?” Engage in dialogue while upholding your expectations of him.

First, you will want to spend some time checking in with your team to see how they feel about the change in strategic direction, and what concerns they may have. How much of the meeting you dedicate to this discussion depends on how well the change has been communicated and received thus far. The conversation will allow you to see who is less comfortable with the change, and where you might need to focus extra energy going forward. It will also allow you to help the group get very clear about what the organizational and team goals are.

In addition, the meeting can be an opportunity for the team to continue to get to know and appreciate each other. Building in activities that acknowledge people’s contributions and that help them understand each other’s individual work styles can be instrumental in motivating the team to execute on new goals.

Finally, you will want to discuss what the new goals mean for each team member by assigning responsibilities and establishing accountability (determining who will do what and by when).