Which Hat Are You Wearing Today?

Are you a coach or mentor? More importantly, do you know when you need to assume each role? You know that it’s important to be able to perform both roles but do you know which hat to wear and when? :

 When you get promoted, you take on the responsibility of leading others to achieve organizational goals.  Pretty simple, right? You’re given the authority, you accept the responsibility, and you are assumed to have the basic skills for success.  What’s often lacking, especially in the beginning, is understanding the difference between managing, coaching, and mentoring the team.

The Manager

Management is the process of getting work done through others. Whether you’re assigning tasks, creating projects, or delegating responsibilities. You’re the one that keeps the train running on schedule. To do that you must have the right people in the right jobs and that they have the right skills to do it.

The Coach

Coaching is a bit different. Once you’ve started assigning work to your team, you start to notice how well they perform. Improving performance requires that you elevate your skill set.  You’ve got everyone in the right jobs with the right skills but the train is running a little slower than you’d like. Now you start to assess your team and figure out who may need some individual instruction to get things back on schedule. This is where you become the analyst and the teacher. This is where you go 1:1 and create specific goals and instructions for the individual team member.

The Mentor

Mentoring is a whole different ball game.  Your team is performing as expected and the train is running smoothly. One of your strong performers wants more. They want more responsibility and career development.  In my opinion, this is where your leadership skills come into play.  Great mentors create great organizations because they are invested in owning the whole . The great thing about mentoring is that it’s not about correcting problems or teaching skills. It’s about the employee’s career development and the future of the organization.  It’s about using your knowledge and skills to guide them through growing pains as they attempt to figure out who they are, what they want, and how to get there. Heck, it’s not even really about the train.

While coaches are in the business of helping team members improve, it is not the time and place for mentoring. On the other hand, mentoring can be a component of coaching.  Your job is to know the difference.

Owning the Whole

“Owning the whole” is a phrase I learned some time ago and I love the idea.  What is it? It’s when you go all in and understand not only what you’re doing but why you’re doing it.  I submit that if we can convey the idea of owning the whole, our workplaces can become the place where we get to go to work, not where we have to go to work. Why is that important? Simple, when we believe in and enjoy what we do, we start to own it.  That’s the point when we start to do our best work.

What it means 

The concept is pretty simple.  It means understanding that your actual job is only one part of your role in the organization.  I retired as a city employee after working in three separate divisions. I started in the Police Department, processing crime scenes, moved over to Parking Compliance where I enforced parking violations, and ended my career in Animal Services as the call center manager. Regardless of my day job, I never forgot that I was also a  city ambassador and my job was to be the best representative of the city that could be.

What it Looks Like

As you can imagine, the work could be tough. I can’t count the number of times people called me names,  cussed me out, and reminded me that they paid my salary (when that happened, I usually asked them for a raise). Didn’t matter,  I loved every minute of it.  There were days I wrote a ton of tickets but there were also many days when I found a stolen car and it was returned because I checked the registration.  Then there was the time an elderly couple of visitors couldn’t remember where they parked their car. It took a few minutes but I found it.  Yeah, they probably still think  San Jose is the friendliest city in the world. Owning the whole felt good.

Owning the whole meant picking up the trash as I walked into a building.  Yes, people were hired to do it but I was the one that was there at the moment and it was my city. It also meant making sure the citizens saw that I did my job without favor.  When I became a supervisor, I would often take calls from irate citizens about their tickets.  If a ticket was issued in error,  I dismissed the citation.

On the other hand, I would routinely get calls from citizens who informed me that they would call the mayor.  My response: “when you talk to him, ask him if he ever paid that ticket I gave him”.  Yeah, I really did ticket the mayor’s car.  You see, owning the whole means not giving my fellow citizens a chance to say, “the mayor parked illegally and she did nothing”.  It wasn’t about the ticket, it was about the perception.

How to Do It

Owning the whole means understanding what your organization is all about.  It may start with the company mission but we all know that mission statements can be difficult to internalize and put into action; especially if they’re more than 5 words long.  Don’t believe me? Ask your team to recite the company’s mission.  If you want to make it meaningful, ask them to explain it in their own words.  Ask them what it actually means to them and how they will live that meaning day in and day out. Once they connect with why the company exists, they’ll start to own the whole.

It’s not about making the best widgets or being the best at whatever.  It’s about believing in the organization and understanding how daily show the overall company’s heart.  It requires conversations about what lies beyond the job description. I’m not talking about blind loyalty or company pride – I’m talking about owning a place in the organization and taking responsibility for walking the talk.  Owning the whole is teamwork at its absolute best.

photo by John Hancock

Everybody Needs a Hero

The Board of Directors

I still remember the day. Walking into Dave’s office I noticed a big redwood burl on his desk covered with small photos. Looking closely, I  recognized the likes of politicians, celebrities, scientists, and Nobel prize winners. Mother Theresa was hanging out with Albert Einstein and Aretha Franklin was in there also. It was a marvelous piece of art and the only thing that could have made it better for me was if he included a photo of Janis Ian.  There seemed to be about 20-30 photos. When I asked him about it, he looked at me and said “These are my board of directors”.  The nerd in me just kept thinking “How cool is that –  I’m going to steal this idea!”  I think of that day often and it still makes me smile.

Finding Your Hero

During our lifetime, we travel many paths, and the people we meet along the way help us shape them. Sometimes their contribution is overt, like a mentor who can show you the ropes. Other times it’s more subtle, like realizing someone has inspired us to try harder. Sometimes it starts right from birth. We rely on our family, friends, and colleagues for direction and influence. even though we may not realize their impact.

Causal encounters also help to shape our paths because every interaction affects our goals and aspirations in sometimes subtle but significant ways. Our paths change because our experience is affected by the experience of others. It may be the way we think about something or how we learn a new skill.  It doesn’t matter. When the encounter is profound, we’ve found a new hero.  The trick is to use our powers for good because not every influence is a good one.

OK, so what does having a bunch of pictures on a board have to do with being a good leader? For me, it gives me a way to help my clients build confidence in who they are and what they are trying to do. Instead of creating a board of directors to guide them, I use the same idea to have them create 4-6 people that they admire.  Once they identify their heroes, we talk about why.  In one instance, I had a manager name Indira Gandhi, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, and Steve Jobs.  Her reasons were strength, intelligence, compassion, and vision respectively.  She knew what made her heroes important to her but she couldn’t see these characteristics in herself. Not a problem, I had a way to show her.

How it Works

Think about it, you have people that you admire but you can’t imagine you could ever be like them.  My solution is pretty simple. Don’t try to be like them.  Just be them.  Your team member needs to improve but is unwilling to do anything about it.  Step aside and let the Prime Minister handle it. Channel her strength, walk in her shoes and find the courage you believe she would have in dealing with the issue.  Maybe your team is working on a research project and needs your guidance, Let Dr. Tyson lead the way, get your vision from Steve Jobs and channel Oprah to seek the enthusiasm to get you going. It’s ok to let your heroes run the show while you investigate how they do it.

OK, you may be wondering who has time for playacting when you’re trying to get things done, but trust me.  So many of us suffer from the imposter syndrome trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do that I believe identifying and channeling our heroes allows us to develop skills and mindsets from a safe space.  The fact is these people have already influenced you but you haven’t thought about how and you certainly haven’t channeled their powers.  Go. I challenge you to be the hero you admire. If you do,  you just might find the hero in yourself.