The WELSE Cycle of Leadership Development
Do you know what a duffer is? If you have ever hit a golf ball even once in your life, you know what I’m talking about. A duffer is essentially someone who is horrible at golf. You see it is extremely difficult to hit a 1.7 inch golf ball and put it in a 4 inch hole that’s hundreds of yard away within 4 strokes. Anyone who plays golf for the very first time is extremely bad at it and it takes years of dedication to master it like a PGA tour player.
Now think of every new leader in your organization as a complete leadership duffer. They were promoted into a leadership role but they never led a work team before. So think of them like a first time golfer, a complete duffer. And your goal is to development them like a PGA tour professional leader. You need this person to lead their team in order to consistently achieve their goals. So how do you do this?
In order to build the skills of your new leaders and take them from a duffer to a professional, consider the WELSE cycle of leadership development. The WELSE cycle of Leadership is the most effective way to develop the skills of your leaders and it goes like this. First you leader needs to be WILLING, then they need to put in the EFFORT, then they need to LEARN, then the need SKILL development and at the center of it all is EXPERTISE.
Let's explore the details of this cycle as it progresses through each stage to create leadership expertise. We'll begin with willingness. Willingness here isn’t describing the willingness to accept a leadership role. Anyone who applies to an open leadership positions is willing to accept the job. Willingness in the WELSE cycle represents a willingness to learn and become to a expert. In fact when you interview a candidate for an entry-level position, you should ask them if they are willing to master the role of leadership?
I can tell you with certainty that your candidates have already thought about how they would lead the team and everyone of them is thinking that they will lead the team the way that they always wanted to be led. Secretly they’ve found some fault with all of their previous bosses. They think that if they lead the team the way that they would like to be led, than they will be an amazing leader right out of the gate. Most candidates don’t think that they have to master leadership skills at all. Their ego already has them there. But what they don’t realize is that their team is diverse and what motivates one employee, will not motivate another. Within a month, they will realize how difficult leadership really is. You see leadership looks easy from an outsiders perspective, just like golf – until you actually start doing it. So your future leaders need to be willing to learn to be leaders.
Next in this development cycle is effort. Leaders need to be investing a great deal of effort into their craft and so many new supervisors get this soooo wrong. Its not that they are not putting effort in, the problem is that they are applying effort to the wrong things. Frequently, new leaders are promoted into the leadership role because of their subject mater expertise. They were the best operator, or best machinist or best programmer, or best sales person and so they keep trying to be an expert in their previous job instead of in their new leadership role. I can’t tell you how many times that I've seen internally promoted supervisors, step-in and trouble shoot an issue for an employee instead of taking a step-back and leading the employee through the trouble-shooting process. Leaders need to be willing to learn the leadership role and then they need to put in the effort to learn leadership skills.
Forth is the actual learning. In many cases new leaders don’t know what they don’t know and they’re not going to ask for training, because in their mind leading is easy. Lead everyone the way I want to be led and rely on my technical skills and I’m good. No training required. So instead of watching leaders continually miss expectations, organizations need to have a predetermined training curriculum and timeline. First do new supervisors even understand what leadership entails? Do they know how to engage their employees? Do they know how to manage employee performance? Do they know how to partner with their peers and be a good teammate? Do they know how to develop the skills of their employees? Do they have exposure to any lean or six-sigma tools? Do they know how to read a P&L Statement? Do they know their role in the supply chain? Do they know how to run effective meetings and do they know how to delegate? We can’t trust that new leaders can identify their own training needs. We need to tee it up for them.
Lastly is skill development. Learning training material is one thing, skill development is something else. Skill development happens on the driving range and it comes through practice. In a leadership role, new leaders need to take what they learn and apply it through practice. So often companies provide training that never yields fruit and that is because there are no plan afterwards. Instead we need to put structures in place to close-the-loop. Weekly roundtable discussions are a great way to do this. A week after ever training class schedule a round table discussion and have the trainees share an example of how they applied the training or how they practiced the application with an accountability partner.
Every time a leader moves through this cycle they are adding to their leadership expertise. And again it goes like this. Be willing to learn, apply leadership effort, learn leadership knowledge, build skill, add to expertise. Following the WELSE cycle will transform your leaders from leadership duffers to leadership professionals and combining the WELSE cycle with a video-based training platform will make your leadership team into leadership experts.
If you work in manufacturing, be sure to explore Tools for the Trenches. Tools for the Trenches is on-line training that is designed specifically for manufacturing supervisors.
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