How to Lead Challenge into Opportunity

4 steps process for Leadership in practice

Understanding leadership theories and literature is one thing but applying that on the ground at the workspace is something else. I have learnt and practiced four steps whenever there is an issue, a problem or even a derailment in performance, and it always work charm.

These four steps will help you navigate through any challenge, improve organizational performance and would sharpen your leadership skills.

These Steps are: Evaluate, Reflect, Act, and follow up.

Being a leader is an all-day job, it does not end when you leave office or go home.

Since you accepted this leading position, you know its not about you its about the people who are following you and about the business and organizational success.

Sometimes when we newly accept a leadership position and after the joys of recognition fades away, we tend to forget that we are in this position to use our talents, skills, and strengths to assure that things are working as expected and its not about us looking good or get credit or complain that people are incompetent or get caught with the lure that we do things better and stop delegating.

We signed a silent agreement to make the division, or the company or employees grow and perform.

As John Maxwell said “Leadership is influence”

So, one of the best techniques I found helpful along the years of managing businesses is what I call ERAF Process:

Evaluate, Reflect, Act, Follow up. Let’s look into each stage closely!

1- Evaluate:

In this stage you notice that something at work or among your team is not going right, for example deadlines are missed, order management process is delayed, or repeated customer complaints, etc. So please stop yourself from the first reaction for example pushing people harder or using different methods of reprimands or detaching yourself from what is happening and blaming it on them.

Instead try to

look deeper with an open mind and heart into what is going on.

Ask questions to your team and

be willing to receive feedback even if it sounds slacking or irresponsible or different to yours.

Then compare what is going on with what is happening with other departments in the organization.

Maybe they consider what is happening as normal, or someone might tell you this is how we are used to do things around here or some are blaming culture or processes, etc.

Collect this data with no judgement.

2- Reflect:

After collecting the data, reflect on it try to put the pieces of the puzzle together, in order to have a better understanding of what is going on.

Maybe you found out it’s related to the corporate culture or it's a problem in a certain process or may be it's lack of certain competencies or skills.

Ask yourself what needs to change for things to fall back to trail or to do better?

Genuinely ask your team or colleagues simple question what do you think we should do or what do you think we should change around here for this to work?

And Listen with no judgement. This would assist you while reflecting, to choose the best option or solutions after evaluating pros and cons, timelines, resources, etc.

3- Act:

Now you know what you need to change or create or enhance or just work on. Do some check-ins with your superiors or colleagues about how they can support the change process. Simply creating supporters if needed. Start working on achieving this new goal.

Don’t get discouraged with comments such as this is how we do it here or this issue cannot be fixed, or senior management will disapprove….

Actions will always move us forward.

important note to consider is that in this article we are not addressing chage managment projects which need more attention and tools to succeed.

4- Follow up:

During the whole porcess you need to follow up, to make sure things being done, if people have issues or comments, etc. Treat these enhancements and improvements as a project that might take months or years. Start with small steps and keep following up.

Any change will die in its tracks with no follow up as people will go back to do things the way they are used to.

Some might think that this is a lengthy process or say I am too busy to do this. This does not have to be a lengthy process once you are used to it. You are building the skills to incorporate follow up into your daily routine.

Your job as a leader will always be sensing the beat of your team and orchestrate better environment and better performance.

ERAF process is about taking a step back and evaluating what is really going on as often times we think that we know what is going on around us while we are not.

People and organizations have minds of their own responding and behaving based on what they see and feel so in order to have results, you need to know the truth and to lead the change you aspire to.

ERAF in Practice:

Let’s assume that your sales team are losing many submitted tenders or RFPs although they did visit the customer and submitted good technical proposal or submitted good pricing model. You notice that and see how it is affecting your business. So, following the 4 steps of ERAF you Analyze what is going on with some evaluation and Reflection. You find out that they are submitting tenders without really knowing the customer or customer requirements very well, for example the customer wanted so much but does not have the budget or maybe they are proposing what they know and did not check with other suppliers or product departments, etc.

Then the solution might be mentoring them about the sales cycle or how to evaluate customer requirements or maybe you realize that it’s time to create different sales packages for different market segments, etc. Accordingly, you start applying the new model step by step, follow up evaluate, improve and repeat.

Your job as a leader is not doing their job or micromanage. You job is to facilitate their success and business success.

By Lina Ayesh

Hope this will add value, share your comments and experience. Would love to hear from your own experience.

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