Some people aspire to manage others because they want to be in charge. Some people are promoted into managing the job because they excel at doing the job. Few people are born competent managers. Many make a mess of it. Many find it highly stressful and having a debilitating effect on work-life balance.

 

So how can I help?

 

Assessing for Recruitment/Promotion

To manage effectively requires certain personal characteristics.

 

Firstly the RED vMEME needs to be fairly strong in their psyche – otherwise they will not be able to assert themselves over others. (I was involved once with a company which was failing to develop a middle management structure to facilitate its growth plans simply because none of the people they wished to promote into management roles had enough RED in their selfplex to assert themselves over others.)

 

Secondly there needs to be at least a touch of BLUE activated so that the manager will value and follow organisational procedures, rules, directives, etc.

 

For more externally-focused and/or target-oriented roles, the candidate will also need to have the ORANGE vMEME activated too.

 

Temperament will have an impact too on someone’s potential for management. Too introverted and they’ll struggle to make their presence felt; too extraverted and no one else is likely to get a look in. Too neuroticist and they’re likely to overreact to situations; too stable and you’ll have difficulty getting any sense of urgency from them. Too much impulse control and other people will walk all over them; too psychoticist and they’ll most likely be a ruthless bully.

 

Recruiting and/or promoting into management is an incredibly critical process. I  can help you in a number of ways, ranging from designing a psychometric questionnaire for initial assessment to assisting with interviews.

 

For more details, see Recruitment & Selection.

 

Coaching

Coaching involves a scheduled programme of sessions aimed at developing the mindsets and capabilities of an individual or a very small group to achieve complementary objectives of the individual(s) and the organisation – ie: individual goals being aligned with organisational goals.

 

As coaching can be an expensive business – as much in downtime of the individual(s) as the cost of the coach! – therefore, any project needs to be tightly focussed and progress monitored and measured as much as possible. However, there should always be a degree of flexibility built into a coaching programme to allow for the unpredicted. It may even be necessary to have a certain amount of fluidity in the objectives of the programme.

 

Sometimes it may be appropriate – particularly if dealing with someone who has lost motivation – to actually coach to enable them to discover/rediscover just what it is they actually want.

 

Developing mindsets can sometimes become very personal and intimate – and can veer more into Therapy & Counselling. That being so, if the coaching involves a small group, the interpersonnel dynamics can be critical to the success of the project. With a small group, it may be appropriate to build on individual sessions to deal with the more personal aspects of development.

 

Mentoring

Mentoring is essentially being an adviser to an individual, a counsellor of sorts – but normally within certain agreed parameters.

 

The arrangement of vMEMES in the individual’s vMEME Stack, their own beliefs (schemas) about themselves and what they are experiencing and the expectations they and others have will influence how much I ‘tell’ them what to do and how much I will act as a reflective sounding board for them to work their own way to decisions and conclusions. In reality, the balance is likely to vary several times within each session.

 

Managers who are struggling are obvious candidates for a mentoring arrangement. But solo leaders will often benefit by such an arrangement too. In light of the axiom, “it’s lonely at the top”, it can hugely beneficial for a leader to converse with an experienced professional outside of the immediate context – and, therefore, with no emotional involvement and no personal agenda.

 

The mentoring role is ultimately supportive; but, within that framework, it can be challenging and controversial in the search for insight.

 

 

 

 

Contact me now to find out how I can help you and your organisation through coaching and mentoring.

 

Click here to go to Coaching & Mentoring for Headteachers &Senior Management