Bill SituClub President The path that I am currently working on is Effective Coaching (EC). A couple of weeks ago, I completed the level 4 capstone project of this path. This project, titled "Improvement Through Positive Coaching", required me to deliver a speech about my experience coaching someone, who can be a person in or outside of Toastmasters. For the purpose of this post, I'll cover a few key points that I talked about in my said speech. I've always been a strong believer in the value of coaching. As the well-known Chinese proverb goes, "Give a person fish, you feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, you feed them for a lifetime." Now I do have to admit — I actually know very little about fishing :( Luckily, fishing here is a metaphor for skills coaching, and this is something I do extensively :) In Toastmasters, I've helped many members learn about the Pathways program. Outside of Toastmasters, I also tutor students and train cadets. Coaching, if done properly, can be hugely impactful. It can greatly enable an individual to successfully master a particular skill. Personally, I have a list of different principles on how to effectively coach. Begin With Proper Knowledge and StrategyI've written a post before on why knowledge is so essential for successful leadership. The first step in coaching involves being knowledgeable about the skill itself and the person you're coaching. The latter allows you to customize your strategy and technique accordingly. Strategy is vital in that it serves as a road map both for you and the person you coach. An effective strategy needs to be both coherent and systematic. In teaching, there is a curriculum planning process called backwards design. This involves starting with a definite end goal. From there, you would create mini-goals along the way. This way, student progress becomes both measurable and achievable. I've always made it a practice to understand my students' specific needs from the beginning. This way, I can determine the proper goals for them. From here, I can also select the right materials and focus on the specific areas that the student needs work on. Provide Consistent GuidanceMe teaching a student at the tutoring centre The beginning stages of learning and mastering any particular skill is always the most challenging. As a coach, this is where you need to step in and play a proactive role. Still, it is also a mistake for coaches to be doing too much of the work. I myself have done this in the past. The end goal of coaching someone is so that that person has full mastery of the skill. By the end, the person you coach should be competent enough to independently perform the skill you are instructing them. The way to enable this is to guide. Whomever you're coaching needs to be doing the actual work involved. Without it, they'll simply never get the grasp of the skill. There is a way to properly provide guidance. As a two-time VP Education, I have familiarized other people in the duties of this position. I do this by providing specific, detailed instructions, but I leave it to whomever I'm instructing to do the actual duties. Still, I regularly check to see how well that person is handling the job. As the person I'm coaching begins to handle the role more proficiently, I gradually step back. Offer Praise and Suggestions for Improvement as NeededPositive and critical feedback are both necessary, as this Toastmasters International video explains. This is something to do in the process of providing guidance. Anybody who receives coaching will be looking for validation on how they're doing. Praising will offer reassurance and motivation to keep up performance. At the same time, suggestions for improvement will help steer that person in the proper direction.
At the start of this year, we brought on board two club coaches — Yulin and Andy. Both have been phenomenal to say the very least. Through their knowledge and eagerness to help, I and other club members have been able to learn the proper practices of growing the club. Just a few days ago, we successfully qualified for President's Distinguished! I'll give a fuller story about this in an upcoming post, so stay tuned :) In closing, what personal suggestions do you have on effective coaching? Comment down below and maybe share with us some of the coaching work that you do :)
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Bill SituClub President You probably remember me referring to this book in previous posts. Truth is, I absolutely love this book. Leaders exist in all areas of our life. As such, there is no shortage of books on the topic of leadership. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin is, hands down, one of the best books that I've read on this subject. If you're learning about leadership in any way (you are if you're a Toastmaster), then this is a book that you need to get your hands on. About the BookThe full title of this book is Extreme Ownership — How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win. True to its title, the authors, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin are retired United States Navy SEAL officers. The SEALs are a decorated special forces unit that has been involved in numerous US military operations since the Vietnam War. In 2011, they were famously known for taking out Osama bin Laden. Jocko and Leif both served in Iraq and were recipients of high military honours, including the Bronze and Silver Stars. After military service, these decorated combat veterans founded Echelon Front. This consulting agency helps organizations of all kinds build high performance teams. Jocko, Leif, and their team use their experiences and expertise in combat leadership to provide their consulting services. Extreme Ownership is based on Jocko and Leif's experiences in the SEAL teams and the work they have done for Echelon Front. The book outlines various key principles of leadership and includes examples of how they work in practice. Each chapter in the book covers a different principle, beginning with an anecdote about an experience in the SEAL teams. From there, Jocko and Leif explain the leadership principle and how it applies to business. To illustrate this, they provide anecdotes about consultations they have done with past clients. The various principles in the book all boil down to one central idea — effective leaders always take ownership of their teams. This means at all times, in all areas, and in all situations. #1 New York Times BestsellerHome page of Echelon Front Extreme Ownership was a #1 New York Times bestseller, and it's not difficult to see why it had gotten such acclaim. The strength of the book really lies in the message that it conveys. It does an amazing job articulating how leaders need to take responsibility for their teams in the fullest sense. The stories that Jocko and Leif provide paint a very clear picture of this idea. The book does outline many different principles, but the authors consistently reinforce the essential message throughout the book. You simply won't ever lose sight of it! Being a current officer in the Canadian Forces myself, I do find especially clear resonance in many of the book's ideas. The authors may have a military background, but they do a fantastic job explaining how principles of leadership in combat can translate into broader applications. I would say that many of these principles work well in Toastmasters too! All in all, the content of Extreme Ownership is very relatable, practical, and down-to-the-earth — what you'd expect of a quality self-help book. This book has a lot of what you're looking for if you're trying to learn and master leadership skills. Key Quotations from Extreme OwnershipI don't want to spoil the book, but here are some key quotes to give you the idea:
"On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win." "Extreme Ownership requires leaders to look at an organization’s problems through the objective lens of reality, without emotional attachments to agendas or plans." "Leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader." Extreme Ownership is a book that I wholeheartedly recommend to Toastmasters, and everyone in general. What other books on leadership do you recommend? Comment and I'll have a read through them (and maybe do a review on it)! Bill SituClub President Wow, I managed two alliterations in one title! Looks like my skills as an English major are coming to good use :) Now onto the topic of this post, which is all about the art of praise. The act of praising has an immensely powerful effect. I'm not in any way exaggerating here by using the word "immensely". In fact, as I see it, all leaders need to praise followers and know how to do it. Why should leaders praise followers?Think about the last time that somebody genuinely praised you in some way. How did that make you feel? Take a moment to recall. Awarding VP Public Relations (and soon-to-be VP Education) Ke Xu with his certificate of level one completion It goes without saying that whenever someone genuinely praises you, you feel very happy about it. Now imagine a team where the leader routinely praises the team members. What effect will this have? You probably guessed it. Morale will be high and everybody will be motivated to perform. As a leader, this is exactly the kind of team that you want to have. One of the ways that you nurture this is by praising. "FAST-P" AcronymPraising isn't rocket science, but it certainly does involve technique to be effective. This instructional video from the Canadian Cadet Organizations (which I work for) explains very thoroughly the various techniques of praising: FAST-P is an acronym that I created to conceptualize the various techniques of praise. The five letters in this acronym stand for frequent, authentic, specific, timely, and public. Frequent Yes, praise needs to be frequent to be effective. Frequent praise helps reinforce desired behaviours. As a leader, you should praise all actions of team members that are conducive to your team accomplishing its goal. Never save your praise until the very end. Team members always want to know if they're doing a good job. Authentic This one is self-explanatory. You need to be sincere with your praise. Otherwise, it won't have its intended effect, and might even have an opposite effect. Specific Statements like "good job" or "well done" are definitely forms of praise. However, praise is more meaningful when you're more specific. An example of this might be: "You've done a phenomenal job at welcoming our guests and converting them into members. Thanks to you, we've surpassed our goal of having 20 club members. Keep up the amazing work!" Being specific with your praise will reinforce the desired behaviour that you're after as a leader. Timely Praise needs to be delivered as soon as you notice praiseworthy action or behaviour. The longer you hold off on giving praise, the more your praising will lose its effect. Public Praise should always have publicity. Giving public recognition to team members serves an essential function. It showcases the efforts of a particular team member and makes an example out of them. This way, the other team members have a positive example that they can look up to. It also shows that you value work ethic as a leader. I LOVE it when I get to praiseI myself have done two terms as VP-Ed and two as president. In both of these positions, I have had the distinct privilege of getting to praise specific club members.
As VP-Education, I was the one who kept track of members' progress in the Toastmasters education program. Whenever a member completed a specific level, I would present a certificate of completion for that member during a club meeting. This helped motivate everybody to progress with their Toastmasters education. In previous posts, I spoke extensively about why this is so essential to a club's success. As a president, I got even more opportunity to praise club members. At our club, it is a practice that the president delivers closing remarks at the end of every meeting. A practice that I have as a club president is giving out Gold Stars during this section. Gold Stars are essentially recognitions that I give to specific members who are deserving of them. This is, for a fact, my favourite part of being a president. I'm proud to have awarded a gold star to almost member currently active in our club. To end off, here's something for you to think about: When was the last time you praised somebody? How many of the above techniques did it involve? What praiseworthy actions do you notice from your team members right now? Praise them at the next chance you get! Bill SituClub President You've probably experienced at some point in time in the past. You ask a question, and the person responding to you tells you (either explicitly or implicitly), that the question you had just asked was stupid. I've had this experience before. Regardless of how other people respond to your questions, let me assure you that there is no such thing as a stupid question. In fact, asking a question is both an intelligent move and one that shows leadership. Nobody Can Fully Read Others' MindsYou are the person who knows the best about what's on your own mind. Nobody else can better understand your thoughts. When you ask a question, you make it known to whomever you're asking that you don't understand. This way, you can get the information that you need. If you never ask questions, nobody will be aware that you don't know something but want to know! All of us have questions about something. In fact, in certain professions, asking questions is the bread and butter of the work you do. These include human resources, journalism, academia, among others. In these professions, you simply can't get away with asking questions! The reason behind why we ask questions is seemingly very common sense, yet some people choose to avoid asking. One important reason is that people are afraid of others' judgments like how I mentioned at the beginning. Still, I can assure you that you need not ever be afraid. Asking a question is always a smart and correct move. Nobody should ever think of your question as "ridiculous", "stupid", etc. Such a way of thinking only shows ignorance on their part. Asking questions is leadership!Yes, you read the subtitle correctly — asking questions is indeed an act of leadership.
Just this past meeting, we elected our new slate of club officers for the coming term. At the end of the meeting, many of the newly elected club officers asked me questions related to their specific job duties as club officers. I am resuming my role as president in July, and from a president's point of view, this was wonderful to see. Recall from one of my previous posts that everyone has a role to play in a team setting. Do your part correctly, and you do a favour for the team. However, do your part incorrectly, and you could let your team down. I think it's quite obvious which one you'd prefer. When you ask for help when you need it, you're more likely to do what is right for the team. You need not even be a club officer to understand this. Let's suppose that there's a new role that you have to take on at an upcoming meeting. You've never done that role before and aren't sure what it entails. This is perfectly acceptable. Nobody expects you to be an expert when you do something for the first time. Still, if you care to do well, you'll make the effort to learn. Asking Toastmasters who are familiar with the role is a good first step. I myself have personally instructed numerous Toastmasters on how to take on different meeting roles. I can positively say that those who actively approach me for guidance tend to be the ones who will more likely have a strong start. They are also the ones who make the meetings successful in the end. These Toastmasters are the example for you to follow. Actively asking questions is a form of leadership because you are showing initiative. You're making the effort to do what is in the best interest of your team. It also show that you value learning. Trust me — your team members will appreciate this at the end of the day. Bill SituClub President "Lead by example" is an expression that I'm sure you've heard of at some point before. Leaders speak about this idea so extensively to the point where it has now become a cliché. Still, the meaning of this phrase remains an important ethos of leadership. Setting the ToneImmediate Past Club President Jody Barker-Leuthard takes the stage during a meeting Most people by default think of leaders as people who provide guidance and direction for followers. This is true without a doubt. However, there is another crucial aspect of leadership that involves setting the correct tone for the team. Being a club president myself, I can say very positively that this is of critical importance if you are in my club officer position. Every organization has a culture of some kind, meaning a set of beliefs and values that define the organization and that the members subscribe to. Organizational culture begins at the leadership level. Leaders, through the way that they conduct themselves, will directly influence the performance of the team. This is the very essence of the topic of this post, which is leading by example. As a club president, I want the club to be successful. For this to happen, I need to create a culture where the club members do their part and actively participate. In order to do this, I myself need to be actively participating so that my members will follow suit. The overall attitude of a leader, be it positive or negative, will ultimately manifest in the team as a whole. A committed and passionate leader will result in a team of a similar nature. Likewise, an apathetic leader will naturally make for an underperforming team. In a previous post, I alluded to Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's award-winning book, Extreme Ownership. In it, there's a quote — "There are no bad teams, only bad leaders." Being a leader requires you to be extra self-conscious about your own character, including your personal flaws and shortcomings. As such, taking on a leadership role really is a reality check. Remember at the end of the day that your team's performance is ultimately a reflection of how you conduct yourself. Setting ExpectationsThere is a well-known saying that goes as, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." What it basically means is don't criticize other peoples' faults that you yourself have. As it relates to this topic, you properly lead by example through setting expectations that you yourself can live up to.
If you can't to live up to a specific standard, then it is neither fair nor realistic to hold your followers to it. Even as a club president, I don't invest every bit of my time and energy into Toastmasters. Like anyone in the organization, I have a life outside of Toastmasters. Therefore, I can't reasonably expect that any of my club members make Toastmasters their absolutely top priority either. As a rule of thumb, if there's something that I can't do (or am unwilling to do), I won't expect anyone under my leadership to do it. Hypocrisy is an example of what I would term a "leadership sin". Teams thrive on the mutual respect and trust between members and leaders. Setting expectations that you can't live up to yourself only causes your followers to lose respect for you, which will erode the team's performance. It's now your turn to be the leader. What kind of example do you want to set for your followers? What do you expect of your team? Can you live up to such expectations yourself? Bill SituClub President Leadership is a form of interaction. For an interaction to be successful, it's often necessary to think from the perspective of the person(s) that you're interacting with. In this way of thinking, you're more likely to lead effectively when you can put yourself in your followers' shoes. From my experience, I would say that this is definitely one of the more challenging aspects of being a leader. This idea is commonly overlooked, but is essential nonetheless in successful leadership. Remember when you were a guest?Tom Jones, DTM, was a guest speaker at our club's open house event last October. Even as a seasoned Toastmaster, he started as a guest. Leaders were all followers at the beginning. Over time, they rise to leadership positions as they accumulate knowledge and experience in their organization. Nobody will deny that gaining knowledge and experience is invaluable. However, a side effect of this is that we gradually become disconnected from the state that we were in at the beginning. Understanding the position that you were in when you started your journey is more crucial than you might think. The people that we lead come from the same place that we used to be in ourselves. It goes without saying that in order to provide effective guidance for our followers, we need to be able to relate to them. As a Toastmaster, you encounter guests at your club on a fairly regular basis. Truth is, Toastmasters continually thrives and grows in its membership because of these guests. It is here that they get their first interaction with current Toastmasters and learn about the organization. A good practice for club members is to actively build rapport with guests, and this involves understanding yourself when you made your first club visit. No matter how seasoned of a Toastmaster you are currently, you were a guest at the beginning. Chances are, there was a fair amount that you didn't know about Toastmasters at the time, and this is the very boat that guests are in when they visit your club. When you understand this, then you are more able to effectively build rapport with club visitors. Being Thorough With InstructionsNavigating the Pathways Base Camp is challenging, so I looked for ways to streamline this process for members as a VP Ed. As you probably may have guessed by this point, followers have knowledge gaps when compared to the leader. This means that in practice, the act of putting yourself in your follower's shoes will involve being thorough and clear when giving instructions.
As a case in point, during my two terms as VP Education, I familiarized many new members with the Pathways education program. I did this by emailing members step-by-step instructions almost like what you'd see in a user's manual. The reason I did this was because I distinctly remembered the challenges that I had when I first navigated the Pathways Base Camp. Therefore, as a VP Ed, one of my goals was to streamline this process for future members. After all, navigating a new website and making sense of it can be overwhelming, and even frustrating at times! Speaking of instructions, I have a quick, but handy suggestion for you: Written instructions are much easier to reference and follow compared to verbal ones, so aim to use the former over the latter when communicating instructions to others. At the end of the day, a person's ability to understand a follower's state of knowledge is vital to successful leadership. One of your essential jobs as a leader is to make sure that you are communicating in a way that followers will understand you. When your followers understand, then you know you've done your part correctly! Bill SituClub President There are many words that you can easily associate with the leadership. "Guidance", "direction", and "organization" are among few of many. However, in my experience, I feel that "responsibility" probably has the closest association. If you're a fan of Spiderman, then you've definitely heard the saying, "With great power comes great responsibility". "Responsibility" in itself is very broad in meaning, and being a leader requires a sense of responsibility in every sense of the word. While there's a lot that I realistically can say about this, for the purpose of this post, I'll be talking about the importance of staying on top of things. Sure enough, responsibility and authority go hand-in-hand as a club officer! Organization Skills Come Into PlayEvery club officer position entails specific responsibilities on top of showing up to meetings and taking on roles. For example, if you're sergeant-at-arms, you need to arrive to meetings early to set-up and ensure that all the club's physical property is serviceable. As the VP Public Relations, you're most likely the one handling the social media channels if your club uses them. If you're a VP Membership, you're actively working to convert guests to members. No matter which club officer position you hold, you will in some capacity be committing time to your club outside of regular meetings. Keeping on top of things might seem easy in theory, but is much more difficult in practice. Like any Toastmaster, you have a life outside of the club, to include work, school, family, etc. As such, your organization skills become especially necessary when you hold a club officer position. Things I've Had to Keep On Top OfKeeping track of member progress was an essential part of my job as VP Education. Here I awarded Ke Xu (current club VP Public Relations) with his certificate of level 1 completion. As somebody who has done the VP Education role twice in the past, I think it's fitting for this post to talk more specifically about what my job entailed. If you happen to be going for this club officer position, then this may give you some insight about the nature of the job too.
The VP Ed position comes with a number of responsibilities. Among these include planning the weekly meeting agendas, keeping track of members' progress in the education program, and orienting new members with Toastmasters. Planning meeting agendas meant that during every meeting, I had to make sure that all roles for the upcoming meeting were filled. Prior to the next meeting, I had to input the roles on Free Toast Host (our club switched to Easy-Speak at the start of this year). From there, I had to email out the agenda to club members. Finally, I had to print out enough copies of the agendas and bring them to the club meetings. A more challenging task of the VP Ed role was keeping track of the members' progress. This meant having a consistently clear picture of what the club's distinguished performance report looked like (I wrote in a previous post about the various club goals that it outlines). To help the club reach the necessary goals, I regularly checked to see where individual members were at with the education program and had to remember to submit level completions on Club Central whenever someone completed a level. Last but not least, I had to familiarize new members with the Toastmasters education program. Anytime that the club got a new member, I had to remember to give them instructions on how to access Pathways and do the projects. In short, there were a number of things that I had to be responsible for as a VP Ed. Still, keeping on top of things is the name of the game for club officers and by extension, leaders in general. This is why I say that being a club officer is perhaps the most valuable leadership experience you can get out of Toastmasters. Learning, practicing, and mastering the art of staying on top of things will definitely serve you well in your leadership endeavours! |
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August 2020
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