Leader’s role in helping others learn

Consider the following question:

How is the role of the leader different when the leader is helping others learn rather than teaching others?

The answer is important because as a leader, you will be responsible for others’ learning. Helping others learn implies more involvement on the part of the instructor. A different kind of relationship exists here – one that underlines partnership. When it comes to choosing what and how to learn, helping others to learn suggests not only allowing the learner to be involved in the decision-making process, but encouraging it. This approach resembles coaching, where one person is there to guide and support the other, as well as to hold them accountable for what they’re learning. At the same time, the leader who is helping others to learn is held accountable herself.

Teaching comes in a variety of styles and can be done in a variety of ways. Teaching others seems to focus more on conveying information and leaving the decision of what to do with this information up to the learner. Although teaching can be done in an involving and active way, the relationship has more of a top-down feel/structure (rather than the partnership seen when helping others to learn). Learners can sit through a presentation daydreaming and absorbing nothing. The accountability is not as great for either teachers or students in this approach.

Team Formation and Team Leadership in Traditional and Virtual Teams

Consider your relationship with your employees. Do you have a connection with them? Nemiro (2004, p.40) stresses the importance of relationships formed by true team leaders. She states that positions (as well as the people who fill them) may come and go, but effective relationships have the power to influence people. It’s the connection created by a relationship that can inspire and persuade.

One of the more basic, but very effective, ways for a team leader to build relationships is to make an effort to connect with people. Taking the time to talk to someone and to really listen can not only strengthen the relationship, but it can provide insight and information that may prove to be an invaluable resource. We can’t possibly know all of someone’s strengths, talents, and interests simply by reading their file. A personal connection can reveal so much more. It can also inspire the other person to go the extra mile when we need it the most. Remember that virtual team members need and deserve the same attention and feedback as those who are part of more traditional teams (Duarte, 2006, p.76). If you’ve ever experienced leadership of those who showed genuine interest in each member of the group, as well as of those who seemed to distance themselves from the rest, fostering an “us vs. them” atmosphere, then you know the effectiveness of the two approaches was quite different.

Duarte (2006, p.85) notes that trust is often thought of in the context of long-term relationships. When people join together for a short period of time, building and maintaining trust is more difficult, which makes it that much more important and valuable. Limited (or non-existent) face-to-face contact can have an alienating effect on team members. As a leader of a virtual team, one must put forth “conscious and planned effort” into facilitating the feelings of trust among the team. Trust is a big component of true and effective teamwork. Consider a leader with a belief that if she keeps things from the team, she holds the key to power. Her lies and secrecy will have the potential for a tremendously negative effect on the team. Lacking cohesiveness, the team may easily fall apart before anything is accomplished.

Choosing the right leadership structure should be at the forefront of every leader. Considering the team members’ skills and values, as well as aligning the team’s vision, objectives, and tasks will enhance the team’s effectiveness (Nemiro, 2004, p.40). An effective leader will be able to assess the various aspects of the team, its members, and its objectives and choose the most effective structure. An “absent leader” who neglects to provide the needed support is as frustrating as a micro-manager who constantly interrupts when independent work can be performed. On the other hand, providing the right amount of autonomy, support, and feedback can foster creativity and success.


Duarte , D. L., & Snyder, N. T. (2006). Mastering virtual teams: Strategies, tools, and techniques that succeed. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

Nemiro, J. E. (2004). Creativity in virtual teams: Key components for success. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Coaching and developing others using the AI Model

Continuing with last post’s theme, lets explore another approach to coaching and developing your employees as a way of fostering and encouraging their growth and improvement. As you fill your professional toolbox, remember that the more options you have the better, so why not set yourself and your employees up for success.

The Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Model (Hammond, 1998) includes four stages: discovery, dreaming, design, and destiny. The first stage encourages recollection of the things that seem to have worked in the past. Contribution of ideas can come from employee and manager/leader alike. Talk to your employee – a brainstorming session is a good idea at this point. The second stage calls for looking into the future and defining what the employee would like to happen. Have your employee list some goals/desirable outcomes.

The first two steps set the stage for the third part of the AI Model – the design. This is where the employee formulates a plan of action based on what has worked in the past and what he wants to see happen. This can be as formal and detailed as he sees fit, but remember that the better defined the goals and plan of action, the clearer and easier the journey. The final stage calls for implementation of the plans. Repeating what has already worked and/or taking new, similarly effective actions will affect the outcome improving the chances of success. Encourage the employee to take certain actions and set deadlines. It’s a good idea for you to periodically check on his progress.

Clearly coaching and developing others is an ongoing process. Some methods and techniques will work better than others, so tailor your approach to what works best for you and your employee. Finally, remember what every great leader already knows – helping your employees to improve themselves and grow their talents will be to your benefit as it will translate into better chances for success.


Hammond, S. A. (1998). The Thin Book Of Appreciative Inquiry (2nd ed.). Bend, OR: Thin Book Publishing Co.

Coaching and developing others using the GROW model

Time and again this blog has discussed the importance of coaching and developing your employees as you foster and encourage their growth and improvement. Given the significance of this task, it makes sense that we further examine some additional coaching models. Let’s explore Whitmore’s GROW model (2004) – its beauty lies in its simplicity and clearly defined steps. It affords the leader ample opportunity to coach the employee along the way, while allowing the employee to productively work through an issue.

The GROW model has four parts: Goal, Reality, Options, and Will (Whitmore, 2004, p. 174-176). It’s your responsibility as the leader to help the coachee along as she progresses through the different parts of the coaching experience. In the first part, the coachee must identify a goal or an issue which she’d like to address. A clear and well-defined goal is a crucial part of this coaching experience, so don’t hesitate to step in if your employee has trouble defining her desired outcome. The second part of the GROW model calls for assessing the present situation in more detail. This is where the coachee should offer more specifics regarding the problem at hand. Listen to the employee and pay attention to any aspects that may be eluding her. Bring up any additional issues that you may have spotted which you find worthy of further consideration. Help your employee to examine every facet of an issue. During the Options part of the GROW model, encourage the coachee to look for alternatives that may help to resolve the issue. Finally, the last stage of this model calls for a decision on what actions to take. This is when the coachee actually settles on what she’ll do, chooses deadlines and ways to measure progress, and seeks supports as needed.

This simple model can be a very effective tool as you coach your employees. Since your responsibility (as the leader) is to guide and encourage them as they move forward, the fuller your toolbox the better.


Whitmore, J. (2004). Coaching For Performance: GROWing People, Performance and Purpose (3rd ed.). London: Nicholas Bearley Publishing.

What’s their motivation?

An effective leader absolutely must be able to motivate his people. This seems like such a basic concept, but things that I’ve witnessed time and again remind me of just how many managers simply don’t seem to understand this. While people are at work for a paycheck, there has to be there more to it. Yes, the very basic agreement between a company and its employees is that work is performed in exchange for compensation. However, stopping there will severely limit your success potential. Employees need to feel valued and appreciated.

Do you make sure that your employees feel valued and appreciated? How do you do that? It doesn’t have to be costly or complicated. Recognizing people’s hard work can be as simple as a handshake and a “thank you” or as formal as a plaque presented in front of the whole company. It can be as inexpensive as a pair of movie tickets or as fancy as a cruise. How much would it cost to buy bagels or pizza for your department as a sign of your appreciation for their efforts? Now compare that with how it would make your employees feel.

This is very simple – a happy employee (and a motivated employee) is a more productive employee and more loyal employee. It’s completely within your power as the manager/leader to help improve the experience that your employees have at work. So put on your thinking cap and implement some simple ideas that will help you to motivate others.

Persuasion and Relationships

Examining persuasion and relationships can sometimes seem like trying to figure out the old question of which came first – the chicken or the egg. Do your persuasive abilities affect the caliber of relationships that you’re able to form? Or are you more successful at persuading those with whom you already have existing relationships?

Consider the fact that relationships are a crucial part of everyone’s day at work. As long as we have some kind of contact with other people, we’re experiencing relationships. Successful managers/leaders know how to build relationships that are productive and beneficial. Power of persuasion can be quite handy when it comes to building relationships in the workplace because the right relationships can help to take you and your team to new levels of accomplishment.

On the other hand, your ability to influence and persuade your current employees depends on your existing relationships with each individual. Their image of you influences how receptive they will be to your persuasion attempts – trust, credibility, and expertise all play a big part. It’s in your best interest as an effective manager/leader to take care of the relationships in your professional life.

It’s a simple truth that the ability to influence appears to require building or having some kind of relationship. This seems to be the case regardless of the nature or longevity of the relationship. Whether it’s a store clerk influencing a sale or a manager working with people he sees daily, the ability to influence depends on relationships and our persuasive talents.

Given the importance of today’s topic, it’s worth expanding on a recent post that discussed some of the current theories of persuasion. Silberman (2000, p. 123) speaks of three ways to influence people – by connecting with others, assessing needs, and making a persuasive presentation. These suggestions make perfect sense. Connecting with others simply opens up a doorway for your persuasive attempts. Being able to correctly assess others’ needs, affords you the opportunity to provide the perfect solution. Finally, you can use the first two to make your persuasive presentation more effective.


Silberman, M. & Hansburg, F. (2000). People Smart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publisher, Inc.

The leader’s role in others’ learning

One of your many responsibilities as a leader is to help your employees learn. The way that you approach this task will make a difference in the results that you see. Consider how your role differs when you’re helping others to learn rather than simply teaching them. There is a time and place for both, and your job is to figure out which approach is most appropriate.

Helping others to learn implies more involvement on the part of the instructor. A different kind of relationship has to exist – one that underlines partnership. When it comes to choosing what and how to teach, helping others to learn suggests not only allowing the learner to be involved in the decision-making process, but encouraging it. This approach resembles coaching, where one person is there to guide and support the other, and to hold them accountable for what they’re learning. At the same time, during this process the leader is being held accountable herself, which gives her opportunities to learn.

Teaching comes in many styles and can be done in a variety of ways. Teaching others seems to focus more on conveying information and leaving the decision of what to do with this information up to the learner. Although teaching can be done in an involving and active way, the relationship has more of a top-down feel/structure (rather than the partnership seen when helping others to learn). Learners can sit through a presentation daydreaming and absorbing nothing. Accountability is not as great for either teachers or students in this approach.

Which approach seems most appropriate for you? Can you identify situations where one method would’ve been the better choice? Practice teaching others and your success rate will increase.

Coaching through generations

How is coaching and developing others different than it may have been in the past? What knowledge, skills, and attributes do coaches need to develop in order to be effective in today's complex business environment?

Coaching and developing others today differs from what it was years ago. For the first time in history, companies employ people from four different generations. The Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials that all work side by side (Lancaster & Stillman, 2005, p. 4). While companies have been learning to deal with diversity, many have overlooked the generational differences variable. Just like anything else, coaching and developing is bound to be affected by the kinds of differences that result from generational clashes.

Each generation has a different history, they’ve been influenced by different events, people, and things, and they have different goals, expectations, and values (Lancaster & Stillman, 2005, p. 18). A coach has to take all that into consideration. How can someone be an effective coach, communicate efficiently, and understand and support his coachee if they come from seemingly two different worlds? The things that are important to one person may not be as important to someone else.

A successful coach will first and foremost be aware that generational differences exist and are real. He will be willing to think outside the box and look at another point of view. In order to transcend generational differences, there has to be understanding, flexibility, and open-mindedness. It may not be easy to coach someone who is the same age as your parent or child and seems to speak a different language. A good coach, however, will be able to look beyond all that. Can you? Are you able to find a common language and bridge generational differences? Step back and consider your coachee in terms of his/her generation so that you may tailor your approach to best suit the experience.


Lancaster, L.C., & Stillman, D. (2002). When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Whey They Clash. How To Solve The Generational Puzzle At Work. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Polarity management and its application to coaching and developing others

One of your many responsibilities as a manager/leader is developing and coaching others. There are numerous theories concerning the most effective ways to do this. It’s up to you to sort through them and utilize what works best for you and those you coach. As you learn new models and ideas, consider how you can make each concept operational when coaching and developing your employees.

Let’s consider the idea of polarity management. Throughout most of our formal education we’re encouraged to solve problems, which have only one correct answer. This means that all the other answers are wrong. Polarity management moves us away from the one-answer approach to a problem. It invites us to look at things in a different way allowing for more than one right answer, all of which are interdependent (Johnson, 1998). The polarity management approach aims to create a win-win outcome.

When parents teach children how to share, they’re addressing a polarity issue, where two interdependent answers are both right. The child is taught that by sharing she can create a win-win situation where both she and her friend get to enjoy something (Johnson, 1998). In adulthood, polarity management can equally invite people to seek win-win solutions. It can promote looking at the whole spectrum of available choices, seeking the advantages of all alternatives.

Johnson (1998) warns that neither the one-answer approach nor polarity management can offer best results on their own. He further states that polarity management is a “supplement to either/or thinking not a replacement” (p. 4). So as we coach and develop others, we can enjoy the benefits of adding polarity management to the picture. It will promote a broader range of options to the coachee. When someone is struggling with finding a solution to a problem, invite them to look at the other side of the spectrum. This may offer a whole new interpretation of the original problem.

Johnson, B. (June 1998). Polarity Management: A Summary Introduction. Polarity Management Associates.

The power of persuasion

Persuasion is defined as a form of influence (DeJanasz, 2006, p. 146). DeJanasz further explains that persuasion is the “process of guiding people toward adoption of a behavior, belief, or attitude that the persuader prefers”. By this definition, persuasion is a very powerful tool, and as such, an incredibly useful one. A successful leader/manager simply must have the ability to be persuasive.

There are numerous theories on the topic of persuasion. For example, Heidner’s balance theory underlines the importance of a relational balance, while Festinger suggests a cognitive dissonance theory, where aligned beliefs and behaviors produce the most desirable results (DeJanasz, 2006, p. 147-148). In reality, no single approach provides a one-theory-fits-all solution. Different situations call for different persuasion approaches. While one person may be more easily persuaded when we appeal to their emotional side, others will respond better to logic.

Reardon’s (2001, p. 200) ACE Model focuses on three types of persuasive appeals – appropriateness, consistency, and effectiveness – which guide us to how best to persuade others. Using the appropriateness appeal, we can point out how and why others should do what we’re suggesting – making our suggestion the best and most logical choice. The consistency appeal uses our track record in our favor. It can help us by pointing out to others the successful history our past suggestions. Finally, underlining the effectiveness of following our suggestions further strengthens our credibility, allowing us to be that much more persuasive.

How persuasive are you? Consider your approach and how it compares to some of the current theories on the subject. Keep in mind that different situations call for different approaches. As always, as you endeavor on your journey to improve your skill, remember that practice makes better.


De Janasz, S. C., Dowd, K. O., Schneider, B. Z. (2006). Interpersonal Skills In Organizations (2nd ed). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Reardon, K.K. (2001). The Secret Handshake: Mastering The Politics Of The Business Inner Circle. New York: Doubleday.