Leading with Emotional Intelligence: Hands-On ... - always yours

DEVELOPING OTHERS TOOLS AND STRATEGIES 233
QUESTIONS AND ACTION APPLICATIONS
• In your one-on-ones, ask your direct reports to list their
interferences.
• How aware are they of their interferences?
• Are there one or two things they can do differently that
would have a big impact?
8. DELEGATION
Delegation is a key skill that Star Performers excel at and practice
daily. The following model adopted from Covey’s Win-Win Agreements
has five steps that can help ensure that your delegations are clear,
empowering, and effective if performed sequentially and in depth.
The “Recommend, and Then Act” and “Act and Advise,” following,
can be used as a separate check-in strategy. Have both you and your
direct reports fill out what they need to come to you with first for
recommendation before acting on. With these, you have to give them
the green light (Recommend, and Then Act). Then, fill in what they are
empowered to do and just inform you on (Act and Advise). The resulting
conversation can be very clarifying and can ensure that your direct
reports are empowered and checking in with you appropriately.
Often when I am talking with leaders, they complain that their
direct reports are not taking enough initiative. Or, on the other side,
their direct reports have made decisions the leader wished they had
known about ahead of time. I ask, “Have you told them what they can
and can’t do (as explained above)?” Usually this conversation hasn’t
happened. This is another example of a micro-initiative that can
make you a Star and separate you from the average performers.
Usually impacts don’t get talked about. This gives you an opportunity
to tie in the value to the greater cause of what they are doing.
Employees want to know how they are contributing to the bigger
picture, and the impacts of their actions give them that feedback.
An example of a negative impact may be: “If you don’t get this done
on time, it will slow down the production line and cost the company