Like a light rain, you hear the pitter patter of phrases like … “I wish they would take initiative” and “Stop bringing me problems, bring me solutions” or “I can’t be proactive, I’m always putting out fires”.

In time, the rain shower becomes a heavy downpour that doesn’t let up and weighs you and your organization down.

What is the root cause of employees who just wait for direction rather than proactively show initiative? In a word – you. The leader is generally the cork in the initiative bottle.

Solving the mystery of unlocking employee motivation is the true test of leadership. Why do your leaders not make the shift to uncorking the bottle? Recent studies show that almost 45% of new leaders fail within their first 18 months of taking their position as they do not move from individual performers doing it themselves to developing the performance of others. This means that about one half of your promotions will fail!

For you to achieve your greatest performance as a leader, you need to successfully shift from being a great tactical performer on your own to being an excellent coach of others. The alternative is to become a “bottleneck” organization that never realizes its full potential and suffers the loss of great talent through high turnover. Your vision is always over the horizon and your leadership legacy will be one of lost opportunity and untapped potential – you work long and hard but not smart.

Strong performers get promoted to leadership and then the problem hits. There is a paradigm shift in becoming a leader and producing results. The key skill of effective leadership is developing people. When new leaders continue to focus on individual performance and don’t develop people, the potential of the team is never achieved. Results are not optimum.

A study by Linda Hill at Harvard University on the expectations of newly promoted managers uncovered the wide discrepancy in focus between the manager and the team. The new manager felt that the key focus of their new role was to "be the boss" and make decisions. For the team, their expectations for the new manager were to provide support and coaching for them to do their jobs best and manage the environment. Ironically, the team knew the real expectations for success in the new role than did the manager taking the role.

This study reveals the background for one of the truly disappointing statistics in management - that 60% of managers are assessed as ineffective in their roles. The good news, however, is that most of these managers can move to being effective simply with clarity of expectations for success in their role supported by proper training and development.

Helping strong individual performers make the leap to effective leadership is best described in a quote from Peter Drucker, “The leader of yesterday knew how to tell. The leader of tomorrow needs to know how to ask.”

Uncorking initiative in teams and employees starts with developing leaders who know how to bring out the potential in others. It hinges on asking rather than telling. Even if the leader knows the answer, the key to initiative is letting their teams answer the question.

You are a manager - newly promoted or looking for 2012 to be a shift to breakthrough performance for your team - where do you start.

The starting point to leading a high performing team is to know and do three things.

• Provide clear expectations for performance for people so they have meaningful work and coach them to achieve their best results
• Provide regular feedback on performance for your team members (not just once each year filling in the boxes at appraisal time but real feedback on the positives and negatives of performance)
• Provide ongoing updates of the progress of the team and how you are doing at delivering against your team goals

The paradigm shift of leadership is based on the fact that there is only so much you can do yourself. Rugged individualism may produce great results as a solo performer. As a leader, great performance only results from letting others develop and produce – the leader channels the performance of others.

The core skill development for managers is coaching others to perform. Coaching supports relationships, personal growth, and performance. When a leader develops their people, the results are greater productivity, higher performance, stronger morale and time savings. Effective leaders sleep better at night knowing others can do the job and service to the customer is excellent. Everyone is working to deliver the competitive advantage of the organization. People don’t have to wait for you to have the answer.

Most new leaders say coaching takes too much time. Why not just tell them what to do?

There is a simple answer to that question. When you just tell people what to do, they just wait for the answer – they never learn how to do it and develop their potential. You gain compliance but no commitment. After a short period of time, they lose interest and engagement and don’t bother trying anymore. Telling them dampens investment and limits potential. You are needed all the time and in every situation and decision – as a leader, you become the bottleneck that puts the cork in the potential of your business.

Investing a little time in coaching your people to answer the questions themselves and setting goals for improving performance builds confidence and engagement with much greater potential and results. People truly want to contribute on a meaningful basis. It is worth a little time to support them to do that.

Coaching is the step that separates individual performers from great leaders. Coaching involves asking open-ended questions and then being quiet and letting your employees answer and build the solution. Answering questions gets people to think and when you promote their thinking, they start gaining confidence and take more initiative to make a difference. You start getting solutions, not just problems. You get to focus on leading the organization while your employees run the business.

Coaching may take more time initially – you may be tempted just to quickly provide the answer – but you gain a huge return on your investment by reduced time and increased potential. Giving the answer is quick but cheap.

A coaching conversation follows a simply framework that can be easily put in place for you and your own reports. You do not have to do hours of preparation but just ask the right questions to help people set goals, resolve challenges, and move forward.

The goals for a constructive coaching conversation are fivefold:

1. Establish an open and trusting relationship where your report feels you sincerely have their best interests at heart (you are not just going through the motions)
2. Provide an accurate and clear mutual assessment of how the report is performing and their potential for development (don't be afraid to ask how they feel they are doing, point out the positives, and talk constructively about the areas for improvement)
3. Clarify expectations for what is possible by challenging your report to move to a new level of performance while questioning current constraints and asking about new possibilities for change
4. Truly support your report to commit to a plan for growth by providing them the environment they need to achieve their goals
5. Define specific performance goals for the next period linked to the strategy of the organization or your department and put in place accountability (outline how you will monitor progress)

A great place to start is simply to ask what is working for your report in their role, what isn't working, and where do they want to provide greater contribution. Their answers set the framework for setting goals for development.

With clear goals and expectations mutually set in the initial coaching sessions, further sessions can follow a format to update progress.

• What have been the positive accomplishments?
• What are the strengths and where are the obstacles, blocks, and challenges?
• What needs to happen to move forward?

The key for coaching is to focus on behaviors, creating awareness of impact, and building commitment to development.

Star performers are used to striving for excellence and achieving the best possible solutions. Coaching will definitely be a difficult test for many new leaders. Continuing to do what you used to do before being promoted to manager will not make you a great leader.

On the continuum of being a great coach of others you move from simply telling people what to do for the lowest degree of effectiveness

Source: Center for Creative Leadership

Most managers believe they are providing effective coaching and feedback (89% of managers responded that they provide sufficient coaching to their reports) while their own teams said otherwise (employees responded that only 49% of leaders provide effective feedback). Clearly, there is a gap and managers need to focus on their approach to coaching (Center for Creative Leadership Study).

The answer for effective coaching is basically to take the focus off of you as a leader and your needs and place the attention fully on the employee and their needs. Listen more than talk. Don’t lead the witness - when you are meeting with team members and employees, let them come to the solution. Even if you know best, 80% from them is better than 95% from you. Take the cork off the bottle and let initiative flow.

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