Free Inspiration: Education

The Grow Model

One key role of any leader is to coach team members to achieve their best. As “coach”, you will typically help your team members to solve problems, make better decisions, learn new skills or otherwise progress in their role or career.

One proven approach that helps with this it the GROW model. GROW is an acronym standing for Goal – Current Reality – Options – Will. The model is a simple yet powerful framework for structuring a coaching session.

A useful metaphor for the GROW model is the plan you might make for an important journey. First, you start with a the map: With this, you help your team member decide where they are going (their Goal) and establish where they currently are (their Current Reality). Then you explore various ways (the Options) of making the journey. In the final step, establishing the Will, you ensure your team member is committed to making the journey and is prepared for the conditions and obstacles they may meet on their way.

You may find the following questions useful at each stage of the model :

Goal Stage

What do you want to use this session for?
What is the most important thing going on for you right now?
What would have to happen by the end of this session in order for you to feel you got the most from it?
What do you want to achieve?
What outcome do you want from this session?

Reality Stage

What's going on?
What is the context in which this happens?
When does this happen?
Who else is involved?
Put yourself in their shoes - how do they see it?
What's important to you about this?

Options Stage

What could you do?
What might someone else do in this situation?
How have you overcome similar situations in the past?
What would have tobe in place just before you acheive your desired outcome? And what would have to happen before that?
Would you like some suggestions?
Who do you know that has overcome a similar situation? How did that do it?
How can you do that?
What would happen if you did?
What could go wrong?
Which of these options feels like the right one?

Wrap up

What are your next steps?
By when?
Who else do you need to involve?
How confident are you?

The Leadership Challenge Model researched & developed by Kouzes Posner

The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership resulted from an intensive research project to determine the leadership competencies that are essential to getting extraordinary things done in organisations. To conduct the research, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner collected thousands of "Personal Best" stories—the experiences people recalled when asked to think of a peak leadership experience.

Despite differences in people's individual stories, their Personal-Best Leadership Experiences revealed similar patterns of behaviour. The study found that when leaders are at their personal best, they:

Model the way

It's not the title that wins respect - it's the behaviour. Leaders go first, they model the way through personal example. Just as behaviour outweighs the title, deeds are more important than the words- and the actions must be consistant with the ideas. To model effectively, the leader must first be clear about their principles and as a leader is supposed to stand up for their beliefs, they need to have some beliefs to stand up for! They practice what they preach - and are as dedicated and devoted as they expect others to be. Leaders know how to manage their stat, so their energy and focus stay high.

Inspire a Shared Vision

Leaders have a desire to make something happen, to change how things are; to create something that no one else has ever created before. They seem to live their lives backwards... they gaze across the horizons of time and picture in their mind's eye what the results will look like before they have even started their project. Their clear image puts them forward and yet a vision is not enough to create movement or significant change in a company - leaders need to have an intimate knowledge of their people's dreams, hopes, aspirations, visions and values to enlist support. Leaders cannot command commitment; they can only inspire it and people do not follow until they accept a vision as their own.

Challenge the Process

This reflects a commintment to continuous improvement and creativity. Leaders are innovators and adopters of new ideas - they are willing to take risks, innovate and experiment to find new and better ways of doing things. they might not always be the creators or originators but their primary contribution is in recognising good ides, supporting them and being willing to challenge the system to get new products, services and systems adopted. Leaders know well that experimentation, innovation and change all involve risk and failure - but they proceed anyway. they as 'What can we learn' when things don't go as expected.

Enable others to act

It is highly unlikley that we can accomplist anything significant without the help of others and leaders know that no-one does his or her best when feeling weak, incompetent or alienated. Provide individuals with as much controlas possible over the resources they need to do the job; ensure that everyone is "in the know" and has access to required information and resources. Leaders listen to the ideas of others; they encourage them to feel they are a vital part of the team and whenever posible allow them to make the decisions. Leadership is a relationship, founded on trust and confidence. Without, people don't take risks. Without risks there is no change. Without change, organisations die.

Encourage the Heart

Celebrate "small wins". People can become exhausted, frustrated, disenchanted and are often tempted to give up - it is part of the leaders job to show people that they can win. Sometimes this is best done in private with a not or a word of appreciation - at other times, public praise can be the best strategy. Experiencing and seeing genuine acts of caring uplifts the spirit and draws people forward. Encouragement can come from dramatic gestures or simple actions - it's how leaders acknowledge every contribution and visibly and behaviourally link rewards with performance.