Successful Leaders are Lid Lifting Trainers

Every great, influential leader I have served under enjoys growing others and celebrates their success.  We have all read about successful leaders who empower others for success but how to empower properly? I sense the leader who excels at empowering others is a competent trainer, able to lift individual and team lids by inspiring and training them in new knowledge and skills to grow themselves and their organization.

By adapting Dr. John Maxwell’s “Law of the Lid” we can clearly see the link between the leader and the role of trainer.

Your Trainer Ability Determines Your Effectiveness in Growing Leaders

The leader as a trainer has four roles. Each role can have a positive impact on developing others’ skill and attitude.  Employed poorly, each role has a pathology that can stunt and demotivate personal or team growth. The four Trainer Roles are:

1. The Teacher
2. The Coordinator
3. The Coach
4. The Facilitator

Let’s review each role when employed positively and when used poorly.The Teacher

As Teacher, you make sure your team members understand knowledge and concepts. The role can be used for explaining product knowledge, new policies or just teaching on a subject to create new awareness of a topic of interest.

In your role of Teacher, you:

• Present knowledge and explain concepts or skills
• Provide relevant examples to clarify learning points
• Summarize key learning points
• Ask debrief questions to ensure understanding of content you have taught

When you are a skilled Teacher, your team members:

• Become aware and are motivated to employ the knowledge and concepts taught
• Gain understanding of the what and the why of concepts taught
• Ask questions when something is not clear
• Share the responsibility for their own learning
• Leave the session with a sense of having acquired new learning, and motivated to apply it in their work and life situations

Ideal Teacher Communication Flow: 70-80% One way Teacher to team members. Some time for debrief Q &A.  Very efficient for communicating information to large groups.

The Pathology of the Teacher is a person who believes he or she is always the expert and is usually a very poor listener. They love to hear themselves speak and expound on their seemingly vast knowledge. Rarely do they take responsibility to ensure their listeners get the “what and the why” of the information they are sharing.The Coordinator

As Coordinator, you make sure your team members understand and follow policy and procedures. This role is used to ensure that team members understand and are willing and able to follow your organization processes and values to accomplish team goals. Coordinators also usually have a responsibility to keep teams on course and on time.

In your role of Coordinator, you:

• Model organizational values and culture
• Help teams set goals that translate organizational strategy into results
• Outline processes and when necessary work with team to improve processes
• Monitor daily adherence to organizational policies and time bound objectives

When you are a skilled Coordinator, your team members:

• Are motivated to build relationships that reflect your organizational culture
• Are able to set realistic goals
• Understand and achieve goals following good processes
• See how their job and role fits into the “big picture” or company strategy
• Are committed to achieve and even exceed goals in a timely manner
• Can come to you and ask for help or guidance

Ideal Coordinator Communication Flow: 50-60%. Two-way. This role establishes the team culture. This role is very good for instilling values, setting goals and improving processes.

The Pathology of the Coordinator is the CFO or what we may call the “Control Freak Officer.” This person is so detail orientated and usually has a low trust level because they believe no one can do the job or process as good as them. Another pathology here is the positional leader who relies on ‘Job Title’ to exercise the power to control all aspects of any implementation.

[Tweet "Great leaders understand the roles of a trainer and when and how to employ them to grow others for success."]The Coach

As Coach, you guide and instruct individuals and team members how to apply concepts and use skills correctly for success in their daily job. The analogy here is the “sports coach,” one who helps others reach higher levels of performance employing the skills needed to win. This is about the “how” of job performance.

In your role of Coach, you:

• Model effective skill use
• Answer questions about concepts or skills
• Establish an environment of trust to take risk to try new things and fail
• Help unlearn bad habits or skill use
• Give recognition for appropriate or improved skill use
• Provide balanced feedback for skill improvement
• Help with skill integration that leads to good and consistent skill processes
• Guide learners to apply to new habits and for real life on the job success

When you are a skilled Coach, your team members:

• Understand the ‘what, why AND how” to acquire skills
• Can give examples and relate concepts and skills to life situations
• Ask questions when something is not clear
• Apply concepts and practice skills correctly
• Feel safe and are willing to risk failure in the journey of learning a new skill
• Are able to accept feedback from you and from other members
• Claim responsibility for their own learning of the skills
• Leave any coaching session with a sense of accomplishment

Ideal Coach Communication Flow: Two-way, Three Way: Between Coach and Skill Learner or between Skill Learners with Coach.

The Pathologies of the Coach can be the “Recognition Miser” or the “Eternal Critic.” The sad news here is that both of these types of coaches may have very good intent, meaning they truly want people to change and learn skills but they have difficulty on how they give feedback.  Both negative types believe the best way to get people to change is to continually point out learner mistakes and by eliminating mistakes, people improve. What they forget is people want to also know what they are doing well and need affirmation to grow. In the worst cases of this pathology, the poor Coach may feel threatened if anybody learning could possibly out performs them!The Facilitator

As a skilled Facilitator, you allow your team members in making discoveries, sharing experiences and feelings, and stepping out for applications of concepts, skills and processes in the real world.

In your role of Facilitator, you:

• Prepare and launch your team members for real life application of new learning
• Allow for application-related questions
• Foster the exchange of ideas, opinions, and feelings about concepts and skills
• Allow members’ concerns to surface on real life application and answer them effectively
• Encourage and set up activities for real skill and process use on the job without your  presence
• Allow for team members to experience and use new knowledge and skills to achieve success and fail on their own
• Be available for Q&A or coaching after learners experience skill or process use by themselves in their job environment

When you are a skilled Facilitator, your team members:

• Express their true opinions or concerns about skill and process application to real life situations or their practical lives
• Are challenged to think about new ways to employ what they have learned that have not already considered
• Look forward to using concepts and skills in their job or daily lives
• Achieve skill success on their own
• Come to you for further coaching to further improve real life application
• Are willing to begin to teach, coordinate and coach others in effective skill use and application

Ideal Facilitator Communication Flow: Here, the Leader-Facilitator steps aside and allows the learners to step into real life and use their learning and skill without his or her presence. Communication is now between learners and customers, other team members or across functions. Learning is now self-directed.

The Pathologies of the Facilitator are the “Detached Director” or “Ready Rescuer.” Can you imagine the “Detached Director” who leads an Orchestra without being available during practice or fails to show up to conduct? Sometimes we find the facilitator who is weak on coaching pushes the learner out of the nest too early, setting him/her up for failure. Or we may find the facilitator who always over delegates but under instructs causing failure as well. The other pathology, “Ready Rescuer,” will always swoop in to rescue the skill performer from failure only to be the “hero” and never allow for self-learning by the new learner.

Great leaders are great trainers who understand the roles of a trainer and when and how to employ them to grow others for success. Learn them, employ the roles to be a multiplier of leaders that achieve and celebrate success because you took the time and effort to grow them! Try out your trainer roles this week and enjoy helping others grow. I would like to hear your success.

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