Last Modified
6/25/04 9:31 AM

The ERF program provides supervisors with developmental feedback and a training and development program to enhance their supervisory skills.

Supervisor Training
        Welcome Letter (start here)
        List of Training and Development Web Sites
        How to Develop an Action Plan
        How to enhance your PLANNING skills
                  Suggested behaviors
                  Books to read
                  Courses to attend

How to enhance your EXECUTION skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your DECISION MAKING skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your PROVIDING DIRECTION skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your COACHING AND EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your LEADING WITH INTEGRITY (MODELING) skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

How to enhance your MANAGING DISAGREEMENT skills
        Suggested behaviors
        Books to read
        Courses to attend

Welcome to the Employee Reverse Feedback (ERF) Development Web site. This web site was developed by AFRL/CCN to serve as a one-stop source of training information to facilitate the development of AFRL supervisors. The ERF web site contains several pages of information geared toward enhancing performance in the areas measured in the ERF survey.

A great place to start is on the Action Plan page. The Action Plan page contains information designed to help you use the information from the ERF interpretive report to enhance your supervisory skill set. An Action Plan Worksheet is provided after the Action Plan page. The Action Plan Worksheet is a detailed form you can complete as you develop your Action Plan. The action plan you develop will provide you with a systematic method to enhance your supervisory skills.

Eight Leadership Behavior Categories were measured on the ERF, and each category has a page devoted to it. Each category page is divided into three sections. Section 1 contains a list of various supervisory behaviors you may want to try performing. There are no guarantees, but the performance of one or more of these behaviors may lead to improvements in the way you supervise.

Section 2 contains a suggested reading list of books relating to each subject. Some of the recommended books on each list are quick and easy-to-read, and some are more comprehensive and in-depth.

Section 3 contains a list of training courses related to the category. If you decide to attend a training program, visit the web site of the offering company to obtain additional information.

There is a wealth of information on leadership and supervisory training programs and products available. The Web site page contains web addresses to many companies currently offering training and other developmental products to supervisors such as yourself. You may want to check out this page to get more ideas and information about a few of these products.

There are literally hundreds of training programs for supervisors interested in leadership and managerial development. Listed below are web sites to many companies offering such training programs. You may want to visit one or more of these sites to gather more information about the various training programs each company has to offer.

1. Tips and Suggestions to Get Started on PLANNING

• Obtain a copy of your directorate’s most current strategic plan and;
  s determine what its long- and short-term implications are for your organization.
  s develop your organization’s strategic plan to support that plan.
  s create goals and objectives to support your organization’s strategic plan.
  s create annual, monthly, weekly, and daily goals and objectives to support your organization’s strategic plan.

• Work with each of your employees to help them develop annual, monthly, and weekly goals and objectives to support the strategic plan of your organization.

• Solicit feedback from your supervisor and employees to determine if you are concentrating the appropriate amount of effort in each planning area. Ask them to focus on adequacy of depth of planning, problems you may have overlooked, and how the plan could be more effective. Revise your strategic plan to address the feedback you received.

• Take the time to develop long-term and short-term goals for the projects you are working on. Long-term goals will help keep you focused on the big picture while short-term goals will help you stay productive.

• Develop your planning skills by volunteering for projects that require strategic planning.

• Think about the goals you want your work group to accomplish, and identify three to five factors that would help you achieve those goals. Develop a plan to help your work group implement each of those factors.

• Establish a daily and/or weekly quiet time to allow you to review and update your work plans and planning activities.

• Use a participative leadership style as much as possible.

• Use active-listening skills to acknowledge, summarize, and reinforce the contributions of your employees.

• Try to involve the quiet members of your work group without embarrassing them.

• Reward your team for accomplishment of a job well done.

• Celebrate as a team.

• Use the entire work group to solve problems and develop a group process.

• Establish work group trust by ensuring all criticism is constructive and focused on behaviors, not personalities.

• Show trust to your employees by giving them more information than is necessary.

• Try to create a fun work environment.

• Use open-ended questions where possible to draw a person’s ideas out.

• Look at and be interested in what others are saying.

A. PLANNING

2. Useful Readings for Improving your PLANNING Skills

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. You will find information useful for Planning in the following chapters: Establishing Plans, Foster Teamwork, and Listen to Others. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwines in a variety of ways.

• Forecasting, Planning, and Strategy for the 21st Century. Makridakis S., (1990). New York: The Free Press

Forecasting, planning, and strategy is examined by identifying myths and realities of each. A thorough analysis of the various factors, which affect short-, medium-, and long-term planning, is also addressed.

• Your Best Year Yet, Ditzler, J., (1994),.London England: Thorsons-Harper Collins.

While this book promotes life planning, it is very useful for individual or team professional planning. Centered around what you really want to achieve, it walks you through a simple but thorough planning process to achieve your goals

• Strategic Planning Plus: An Organizational Guide. Kaufman, R., (1991). Glenview IL: Scott, Foresman and Company.

The author details how to develop a strategic plan to meet the needs of your organization. Strategic planning is examined at micro, macro, and mega levels and guidance is provided to help you determine your organization’s direction, problem-solve, evaluate progress, and modify your strategic plan.

• Corporate Players: Designs for Working and Winning Together. Keidel, R., (1988). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

The author uses sports metaphors to help the reader understand and organize teams into three patterns: situational, scripted, and spontaneous. Conceptual tools and practical information for diagnosing the current state of your teams is provided. Suggestions are provided for enhancing team performance.

• Team Players and Teamwork: The New Competitive Business Strategy. Parker, G., (1990). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The author shows the importance of understanding team members and treating them well in order to develop effective teams. Twelve characteristics are identified and developed which distinguish effective teams and their members.

• Listening Your Way to Management Success. Glatthorn, A., & Adams, H., (1983). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company.

The focus of this book is on developing critical, analytical, and creative listening skills in group and individual settings. Techniques are presented for improved listening in a variety of settings.

3. Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your PLANNING Skills

• The Changing Role of the Manager.

As organizational structure becomes less hierarchical, managers must move from a "do and tell" mode to an "ask, inspire and influence" mode. Identifying and embracing these new skills will allow mangers to increase their effectiveness as both team builders and system designers. Making the transition, however, can be difficult. This recently updated course will help managers meet the challenge of leading in a participative work environment. Participants will learn how to examine organizational issues in order to provide vision, gain commitment and promote a total quality atmosphere within their organizations. Attendees will take home specific skills and a personal action plan to deal with the complicated and critical changes that are part of the transformation of their organizations.

Association for Quality and Participation
801-B West 8^th Street, Cincinnati, OH 45203
(800) 733-3310 www.aqp.org
Cost: $850

• How to Build A Better Team

Cultivate your own "dream team" using these insights of team dynamics and interpersonal communication. During this seminar you will learn how to build a work team that "clicks", identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team, identify and analyze team troubles like a pro, and dramatically boost your team's productivity levels.

Specific topics you will learn include the single most effective way to eliminate deadwood without firing anyone, how to develop team guidelines you can live with, and learn what to do when morale suffers because of working conditions you can't change. You will also learn how to ensure goals and objectives are understood , two effective ways to get team members to motivate each other, receive a "Coach's Guide" for motivating team members to care about their projects, how to make everyone on your team feel like a favorite, and three strategies to make sure higher-ups see your team when it shines.

American Management Association
PO Box 319, Saranac Lake, NT 12983
(800) 262-9699 www.amanet.org
Cost: $ 139

1. Tips and Suggestions to Get Started on EXECUTION

    v Limit the length of your meetings to sixty minutes or less. Hold another meeting if more time is required or schedule meetings on both sides of a long break such as lunch.

    v Create an agenda for all of your meetings and send it out to the attendees prior to the meeting.

    v Start and end all of your meetings on time. Do not wait on latecomers.

    v During the meeting, if a non-agenda item is brought up and will take a significant amount of time to deal with, hold another meeting to address it or put it at the end of the current meeting.

    v Have a meeting attendee function as a process observer. Their role is to keep the meeting moving in the right direction, and to keep meeting topics to those on the agenda.

    v Try to delegate work to the lowest possible level in your division.

    v Delegate work to enable your employees a chance to develop their skills.

    v Review the tasks you perform and determine if any of them could be delegated to a lower level.

    v Try to evaluate the workload of your employees. If the workload is uneven, delegate responsibility to even things out.

    v Meet with your employees on a weekly basis to discuss:

        s progress on projects.
        s how things are going with them.
        s actions you could take to help things run smoother.

    v Publish weekly and/or monthly progress reports to inform people of the status of projects in your organization. This report can be as simple as an internal email.

    v Communicate your expectations for job performance with your employees. Ensure they understand what their job requirements are.

    v When an employee comes to you with a problem, ask them how they would handle it and discuss the merits and shortcomings of their approach.

    v Talk with others in similar positions to see what work they delegate to their employees.

    v Get out and get to know your people. You don’t have to spend hours conversing with them; just getting out and talking with them is valuable. Use special occasions, such as birthdays and going away luncheons to get your people together on a casual basis.

    v Allow your employees to set their own deadlines. If they miss deadlines, help them reschedule realistic dates.

    v Try not to redo work performed by your employees. Discuss your expectations with the employee and have them reaccomplish it.

    v When assigning work to employees, ask them how they would handle the tasking and allow them to create their own plan.

    v Develop an organization-wide definition of quality that applies to the work being performed there.

    v Focus on the processes used in your organization as a way to obtain a quality product or outcome.

    v Use your employees to help solve work problems.

    v Develop and document criteria for all work processes to enable you to measure outcomes.

    v Keep in touch with the customer to be better able to respond to their needs.

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. You will find information useful for Execution in the following chapters: Manage Execution, Work Efficiently, and Commit to Quality. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Principle Centered Leadership, Covey, S., (1992), New York: Simon & Schuster.

This book provides an integrated, holistic approach to solving professional problems by becoming principle centered. It focuses on making you a better communicator and leader in the execution of your personal and professional goals.

• The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work, Block, P., (1990). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The author provides practical ways for executives and managers to take more responsibility for making positive organizational changes and ways to develop entrepreneurial spirit in themselves and their employees.

• No-Nonsense Delegation, McConkey, D., (1986). New York: Amacom.

A comprehensive book in which techniques and benefits of delegation are addressed. A useful guide to implementing delegation techniques in the management of people and resources.

• The One-Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, Blanchard, K., Oncken, W., and Burrows, H., (1989). New York: William Morrow.

The authors show the reader how to be more effective by avoiding bottlenecks, at their level, through effective delegation of tasks to the proper people in their organization.

• How to Run a Successful Meeting in Half the Time, Frank, K., (1990). New York: Simon and Schuster.

Several strategies, tips, and step-by-step techniques are presented in this book to help the reader conduct brief and productive meetings. The author asserts that meetings do not have to be boring, time-wasting, or unproductive, but efficient and productive whether they be one-on-one, a small group, or a conference of hundreds.

• Quality Without Tears: The Art of Hassle-Free Management, Crosby, P., (1984). New York: New American Library.

A practical guide that shows managers how to achieve quality results from their people using non-traditional techniques.

Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, nor their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its, recommendation, endorsement, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency, contractor, or subcontractor thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency, contractor or subcontractor thereof.

II. ADMINISTRATION

B. EXECUTION

3.  Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your EXECUTION Skills

• Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Self-Assessment

This course provides the framework for thinking about quality initiatives for your organization and understanding what areas should be addressed to effectively utilize quality as a winning business strategy. The MBNQA criteria is a composite of what the best organizations are doing to achieve the benefits of a quality strategy. The concept of "key business factors" provides the tool to customize the criteria to fit your organization and your customers. Many participating organizations will never apply for an award but use this course to implement and assess their quality and business improvement programs.

• Managing Management Time

This two-day seminar is geared toward teaching professionals how to transform themselves into effective leaders. This seminar is applicable for people from all levels and types of responsibilities and teaches attendees how to manage their management time and work together as a team.

The causes and effects of critical problems faced by people in the Organization are examined. This seminar demonstrates why leadership, teamwork, planning, responsibility and accountability can and must begin with each individual in your organization.

1. Tips and Suggestions to Get Started on DECISION-MAKING

• Identify the most important decisions you need to make in the next week, month, and quarter, and gather as much information as you will need to make an acceptable decision.

• Streamline your data collection procedures so you can gather information quickly, when necessary.

• Allow yourself plenty of time to make big decisions. You may want to work on big decisions at many different times instead of all at once.

• Take notes useful for making decisions as soon as the idea comes to mind.

• Be careful about gathering too much information to make a decision. Keep to the essentials to avoid "analysis paralysis."

• Work with your employees and coworkers to develop solutions to problems, especially if others will be involved in implementing the decision.

• Gather input from those closest to the problem.

• To better understand the problem, look at it from different viewpoints (for example the customer, employee, user etc.)

• Discuss the pros and cons of each solution with your employees.

• Verify the accuracy of the data collected for the decision.

• Try to develop a checklist for making decisions. Different checklists may be needed for different types of decisions.

• Record the problems that occur in your organization and review them to look for trends, hot spots, and other information that can help you address and avoid problems in the future.

• Be cautious of making hasty decisions if you do not need to.

• Be willing to make a different decision if new information becomes available which affects the decision.

• Ask you supervisor to give you feedback on past decisions you have made.

• Determine if you have enough information to make the decision. If not, gather the information you need to make a good decision.

• Set time limits for how long you allow yourself to make a decision. Break the decision down into various steps such as data gathering, solution generation, decision-making, and implementing.

• Allow employees to make routine and less important decisions.

• Consider the broad picture when making decisions.

• Consider solutions that are easy to implement.

• Consider all the alternatives before making a decision.

• Identify routine decisions and allow others to make them for you.

• When information is difficult or impossible to gather, accept the risk associated with making the decision.

• Determine how the decision will affect those involved.

• Gain a broader perspective by considering the big picture instead of just the details.

C. DECISION MAKING

2. Useful Readings for Improving Your DECISION MAKING Skills

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. The following chapters will help you develop your decision-making skills: Analyze Issues, Use Sound Judgement. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

• The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision Making Kaner, S.,Lind, L., Berger, D., Toldi, C., and Fisk, S.,(1996) Washington DC: ASTD Press.

A how-to manual designed to help groups increase participation and collaboration, honor diversity and make effective decisions. The book is full of guidelines and handouts and includes tips and techniques to gather diverse points of view, build a shared framework of understanding, and develop inclusive solutions to reach closure.

• The Confident Decision-Maker, Dawson, R., (1992), New York: William Morrow & Company.

This book provides comprehensive explanations for making confident, effective, and systematic decisions. The reader should make more confident and better decisions if they follow the recommendations the author makes in this book.

• Rules for Reaching Consensus, Saint, S., & Lawson, J., (1993), San Diego: Pfeiffer & Company.

This book guides the user through a process to make decisions in teams and collaborative work groups found in many of today’s organizations. A step by step approach is presented to use to work toward consensus in most group settings.

Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, nor their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its, recommendation, endorsement, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency, contractor, or subcontractor thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency, contractor or subcontractor thereof.

II. ADMINISTRATION

C. DECISION MAKING

3. Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your DECISION MAKING Skills

• Problem Solving and Decision-Making

To solve seemingly impossible problems and make consistently sound decisions you can't always make a "best guess" and hope for the best. An alternative way to lower risk is to apply Kepner-Tregoe's approach to Problem Solving & Decision Making. The Problem Solving & Decision Making program provides a logical, consistent, approach to every situation. It's a proven method that helps people get control of the situation at hand.

Kepner Tregoe
Research Road, PO Box 704, Princeton, NJ 08542
(800) 537-6378 www.kepner-tregoe.com

• Critical Thinking: A New Paradigm for Peak Performance

After completing this course you should be able to boost employee productivity, enhance communication, listening and questioning skills, reduce stress and raise esteem in yourself and others, protect yourself from the negative attitudes of others, and reduce employee turnover and absenteeism

Topics covered in this seminar include becoming familiar with different styles of thinking and identifying your personal preferences. You will also learn how to ask yourself "big picture" questions, learn how to challenge assumptions and expand perceptions about situations, come to the right conclusions and decisions more often, influence and persuade others, and manage team idea exchanges.

American Management Association
PO Box 319, Saranac Lake, NT 12983
(800) 262-9699 www.amanet.org
Cost: $1,605 (AMA Members $1,395)

• Problem Solving and Decision Making: Good Decisions, Good Solutions

During this seminar you will be taught to develop the skills to define-and resolve problems in ways that avoid costly mistakes, assess your own decision-making style, expand your creativity by removing your "blinders", and overcome the psychological stress of problem solving and decision making. You will also learn your "risk style" and how to use it, and develop your own plan to improve your problem-solving and decision-making style

Specific topics covered include learning the difference between problem solving and decision making, balancing logic and experience with creativity, how to evaluate all your options, determine your best approach to problem solving, and set up criteria to evaluate decisions and results.

American Management Association
PO Box 319, Saranac Lake, NT 12983
(800) 262-9699 www.amanet.org
Cost: $1,545 (AMA Members $1,345)

Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, nor their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its, recommendation, endorsement, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency, contractor, or subcontractor thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency, contractor or subcontractor thereof.



III. LEADERSHIP

A. PROVIDING DIRECTION

1. Tips and Suggestions to get started on PROVIDING DIRECTION

- Develop and/or update your organization’s vision, mission, and strategic plan with the help of key employees.

- Explain the rationale for the direction you want your organization to go and communicate that to all your employees.

- Determine who your customer is and ensure your direction is focused on your customer.

- Develop organizational objectives and communicate them to your employees. Determine how you can help them achieve their objectives.

- Help employees see how their contributions support the goals of the organization.

-Ask your employees their input on the direction they see the organization headed in. Seek their input to ensure you will get there, or revise the strategic plan to get back on the correct direction.

- Hold annual off-site meetings with all employees to discuss past performance toward accomplishing organizational objectives and to develop plans to accomplish next year’s objectives.

- Find out what type of information employees want to know and make an attempt to provide it to them.

- Encourage your employees to keep each other informed.

- Use staff meetings to share information among employees and work groups.

- Create a bulletin board for your organization to share information on. This could be electronic or a cork and tack type. Make sure the bulletin board is easily accessible by all employees and in a visible location.

- Create and share weekly and monthly activity reports.

- When listening to your employees, follow the Hear, Understand, Interpret, and Respond format. Be careful not to jump from hear to respond before analyzing what was said.

- Paraphrase what you thought you heard prior to responding.

- Have a standing time each week when you will always be available for appointments and meetings with your employees.

- Set aside time each day to deal with your employee’s urgent requests.

- When talking with someone, do not work on your computer or conduct other business, but look at them with interest and respond to their request.



III. LEADERSHIP

A. PROVIDING DIRECTION

2. Useful Readings for Improving Your PROVIDING DIRECTION Skills

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. You will find information useful for Providing Direction in the following chapters: Provide Direction, Foster Open Communication, and Listen to Others. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

• Leading Out Loud, Pearce, T., (1997), Palo Alto CA: TPG Press.

This book provides the reader with information to engage their team in such a way to provide meaning that enhances their work and motivates them to work harder and more productively. It provides the reader with methods, examples and experiences for discovering and delivering messages that inspire committed action.

• Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose it, Kouzes, J., & Posner, B., (1993), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The authors show how credibility is the capstone of effective leadership. Examples are provided which demonstrate how leaders can encourage greater initiative, risk-taking, and productivity by showing trust in their employees and working through conflicts using principles, not position.

• Listen to Win, Bechler, C., & Weaver, R,. , (1994), New York: Master Media Limited.

The importance of listening is stressed in this book that provides the reader with information to help them get along with others, maximize their performance, and empower them.

• The Skilled Facilitator, Schwarz, R., (1994), San Francisco Jossey-Bass.

This book is useful to anyone who attends meeting or works with groups. The book guides the reader toward helping groups achieve resolution on various tasks. Information is also provided to help the reader deal with unique situations which may during group interactions.

• 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, Nelson, B., (1993), New York: Workman Publishing.

The Author stresses the need to motivate people through recognition of their accomplishments. Nelson provides numerous reward solutions for a wide variety of situations.

• Bringing Out the Best in People, Daniels, A., (1993), New York: McGraw-Hill.

The concept of obtaining peak performance from employees through positive reinforcement is stressed. Useful techniques are presented to enable managers to pinpoint, measure, and provide feedback to employees to obtain desired outcomes.

Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, nor their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its, recommendation, endorsement, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency, contractor, or subcontractor thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency, contractor or subcontractor thereof.



III. LEADERSHIP

A. PROVIDING DIRECTION

3.  Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your PROVIDING DIRECTION Skills

• Enhancing Personal Effectiveness

During this seminar you will work intensively in small groups to explore your strengths and limitations of your communication skills and expand awareness of your influence on others. You will practice new skills that will help you adapt your style to others to produce more satisfactory outcomes. You'll learn to watch for new signals from others, develop coping strategies, harness conflict, alter pace, and enhance your effectiveness. You will discover professional and effective ways to use control, influence, and power to heighten productivity and build strong, satisfying relationships. You'll learn the steps to becoming empowered to use practical interpersonal skills in every facet of your work and life.

• Impact Leadership

Participants in this workshop will learn about their assets as a leader, understand their organization and its changes, learn how to enlist others in their vision, and establish their own leadership agenda. Working alone and in small groups, participants will identify leadership opportunities, set priorities, plan action steps, mark the milestones to achieving their vision, and set goals to continue developing their personal and interpersonal leadership.

• Leadership Through People Skills

Intensive three-and-a-half day program turns managers at all levels of the organization into leader-managers, equipped to meet today's business challenges. Participants learn to: adapt to diversity -- learn how to work with different people differently, get commitment from employees to achieve their full potential and contribute to team goals, communicate the meaning of a vision clearly so that it can be executed empower people to act competently and confidently, and apply influence skills in all directions -- with direct reports, peers and bosses.

Participants spend 75 percent of their time "learning by doing". Engaging team activities, skills practices, and true-to-life demonstrations keep participants totally involved in every facet of the seminar. Planning and practice for a real-life meeting with a person who reports to the participant create a strong bridge from the seminar back to the workplace.

1. Tips and Suggestions to Get Started on COACHING and EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

- Take every opportunity you can to give positive recognition to your people.

- Meet with your employees to determine what their career goals and aspirations are. Identify ways you can help them achieve those goals and aspirations.

- Find the poorest performing person on your staff and determine if they can be brought up to speed. If they can, help them develop a program to enable them to improve their performance.

- Confront poor performance as soon as possible. Give constructive feedback to help them improve their performance.

- Be willing to provide constructive feedback to your employees and help them develop solutions to improve.

- Create and maintain a development file on each employee. Record successes, failures, developmental needs, and an action plan to address low performance. Share the file with the employee during performance reviews and feedback sessions. Create your own developmental file.

- When providing feedback, focus on behaviors, be descriptive, and avoid being too evaluative.

- When developing action plans for your employees, break tasks down into smaller steps to facilitate learning and to provide reinforcement.

- When implementing developmental programs, limit the focus to one or two areas. Where possible, work on developing an identified strength.

- Scan books, magazines, and newspapers for articles, which would help your employees with their development.

- Ask your employees what you can do to help them do their job better.

- Identify one or two employees who are likely to replace you and begin grooming them for replacing you.

- Groom your employees to take your place at meetings.

- Allow your people to rotate through various positions to develop their skills.

- Create an environment, which is tolerant of developmental mistakes to establish a continuous improvement atmosphere.

- Encourage employees to set challenging goals and reward them when they are met.

- Be a good example by performing at a high level.

- Make sure you give people credit for high performance.

- Acknowledge the contributions of your employees to higher management when they performed well.

- Find out what motivates your employees and use those things to motivate them.

- Find out what excites your employees and try to develop work that is exciting to them.

- Develop your employees by expanding their work roles and authority.

- Only ask your employees to perform tasks you would perform.

- Show your employees you trust them by providing them with more information than is necessary.

- Recommend one of your employees for a promotion if one becomes available and they are a good candidate.

2. Useful Readings for Improving your COACHING and EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT Skills

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. You will find information useful for developing your Coaching and Employee Development skills in the following chapters: Motivate Others, Coach and Develop Others. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

• Masterful Coaching: Extraordinary Results by Impacting People and the Way They Think and Work Together , Hargrove, R., (1998), Washington DC: ASTD Press.

This book focuses on enabling people in groups to realize their vision and values through personal transformation, team learning, and breakthrough projects. This book offers specific strategies for transforming yourself into a facilitative leader, coach, and mentor. It provides you with ideas, methods, and tools that enable you to coach and mentor your employees.

• Bringing Out the Best in People, Daniels, A., (1993), New York: McGraw-Hill.

The concept of obtaining peak performance from employees through positive reinforcement is stressed. Useful techniques are presented to enable managers to pinpoint, measure, and provide feedback to employees to obtain desired outcomes.

• Development FIRST: Strategies for Self-Development, Peterson, D., Hicks, M., (1995), Minneapolis: Personnel Decisions International.

This book provides a practical approach to individual and team development in today’s changing corporate environments. Five development strategies are presented for the reader to use for planning and executing their own development programs.

• Don’t Fire Them, Fire Them Up: A Guide to Motivating Yourself and Your Team, Pacetta, F., & Gittness. R., (1994), New York: Simon & Schuster.

Using their experience at a large Fortune 500 company the authors show how motivation can be created to increase productivity and sales in an organization. The reader is shown how to build trust, create loyalty, and generate enthusiasm to develop a mediocre team into a successful team.

3. Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your COACHING and EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT Skills

• The Coaching Edge

Coaching is a core competence for leaders. Good coaching expands people's ability to think critically and take effective action. In many coaching situations, however, we simply don't know how to help another person solve a problem or reach his/her potential. The Coaching Edge is a three-day workshop that shows you how to set up, conduct and follow through on coaching conversations in a way that always has a positive impact. You will learn a framework for building and maintaining coaching relationships that emphasize authenticity and learning while producing concrete results.

In addition to understanding the philosophy and principles that guide skillful coaches, you will learn how to: Conduct an effective coaching conversation, from identifying an issue to generating a commitment to action; Establish trust and openness; Give feedback in a way that boosts confidence and forwards action; Encourage experimentation and risk taking; Follow up on coaching assignments in a way that fosters discipline; Generate enthusiasm for the practice of continuous improvement; Employ coaching techniques that produce measurable results for colleagues, subordinates and senior executives.

• Foundations of Leadership

During this seminar, participants develop a heightened awareness of personal leadership strengths, weaknesses, preferences, styles, behaviors, and development needs and how they impact group functioning. Attendees will also learn how to influence others by identifying and developing communications patterns and conflict resolution strategies and gain a better understanding of the dynamics of group interaction and problem solving. The seminar is designed to improve the performance of their work groups.

A special feature of this seminar is one-on-one feedback consultations professional staff to assist participants with recognizing themes revealed by assessments and identifying goals and strategies for further development. Development of a goal-oriented action plan that becomes the foundation of continued on-the-job development. Follow-up that includes continued contact with Center staff.

• Manager as Coach

During this interactive workshop, managers gain insight and skills into why and how to coach employees. The workshop’s dual focus equips today’s busy managers to take advantage of both informal on-the-job coaching opportunities and more formal one-on-one development discussions. Through experiential activities, case studies, role plays, and on-the-job applications, managers actually practice the four-step coaching model and the skills that will increase their impact as a coach. The reward is a clearer grasp of the coaching role and the power to tap into the motivation and job satisfaction of each employee.

- Understand that developing trust with your coworkers and employees takes time. Start working now on developing a trusting relationship.

- Don’t make promises you cannot keep.

- Discuss ethical issues openly with your employees. Contractor relations is a great place to start when talking about ethical issues.

- Model your ethical beliefs through your behavior.

- Make your expectations of employees consistent with your ethical beliefs.

- Make it a point to acknowledge employees who demonstrated high ethical standards or beliefs through their behavior.

- Solicit feedback about the perception of your honesty, ethics, and level of trustworthiness. If you are seen as low in any of these areas, ask for clarification. If there is merit to the low scores, develop a plan to improve these areas.

- Talk with other people in similar positions and discuss some of the ethical issues they face. Discuss some of they ways these ethical situations can be handled.

- When you make a mistake, admit it.

- Look for ways to apply the Air Force Core Values in your organization.

- When you receive bad news, avoid the tendency to shoot the messenger. Gracefully receiving bad news can open up lines of communication.

- Protect personal information about your employees. If you will be unable to keep information private, tell the employee.

- Stand up for your people when they need your support.

- Try not to rationalize away poor or questionable business practices.

- Make it a point to set accurate deadlines. Others see failing to meet a deadline as lack of integrity.

- Act the way you want others to act. "Talk the talk and walk the walk."

2. Useful Readings for Improving Your MODELING Skills

• Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. The Act With Integrity chapter provides information that may be useful for improving your Modeling skills. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

• Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1992), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

• The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes, J.,& Posner, B., (1987) San Francisco CA: Jossey-Bass.

This book focuses on what it takes to be a good leader and how a manager can become one. Kouzes and Posner conclude that effective leaders share five common practices: they challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act, model the way, and encourage the heart.

• The Sky Is Not the Limit, Barthelemy, B., (1997) Boca Raton, FL: St Lucie Press.

This book focuses on breakthrough leadership and gives specific examples of this type of leadership in the Air Force R&D laboratory setting. It includes a simple leadership model (captivating challenges, open focus, competitive collaboration, structured flexibility, organized adventure and personal commitment) and over 150 ideas and suggestions to lead your organization to high-performance accomplishment.

• Leadership When the Heat’s On, Cox, D., & Hoover, J., (1992), New York: McGraw-Hill.

Having a positive impact on the people around you is the premise of this book. The author provides information to help the reader become a successful leader, especially during times of change and uncertainty.

3. Relevant Training Courses for Enhancing Your MODELING Skills

• Covey Leadership Week

Leadership Week is designed to teach leaders how to create the conditions necessary in their organizations to build trust, empowerment, creativity, and imagination in their employees. Leaders will learn to influence behavior rather than control, change, or manipulate it. Leadership Week promises a fundamentally different approach to the challenge of leadership development-it is character driven and gives a solid foundation to clearly understand the four dimensions of organizations-personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational. This workshop provides a deep, developmental process for professionals, administrators, senior-level managers and executives who are serious about becoming more effective leaders.

During Leadership Week leaders will: Gain a deep understanding of the paradigms, principles and processes of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership applied to the personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational levels.

• The Power of the Emotional Quotient in the Workplace

Become more attuned to the feelings of those you work with and be able to rate work situations that have the potential to explode if you let your EQ guard down. Learn to differentiate between positive and destructive emotions and sidestep anger time bombs that are lurking in conflict situations. You will also learn the benefits of high EQ, the costs of low EQ, the key elements of EQ, how to measure your own EQ, how to use "people" skills to manage teams and handle conflict, and how to cope with anger and disappointment at work

z Be less judgmental about other people and get feedback on how you come across to other people.

z Be courteous to other people by acknowledging them in the hallways, before meetings etc.

z Get a heading check from your family and friends about the way you come across to other people. Think about things you do to help create that impression and modify your behavior to create the impression you desire.

z If you have wronged somebody, admit your mistake and apologize to him or her.

z Make it a point to focus on other people’s good points, not on their shortcomings.

z Express genuine concern and interest in your employees in times of personal crisis through gifts, visits, or words.

z Thank members of your staff for a job well done.

z Have social events outside of the work setting in an effort to get to know your people.

z Acknowledge people on special occasions. Birthdays, secretaries’ day and other special dates are great times to get together informally with your people.

z Try to use a contingency approach when dealing with other people by using strategies and techniques geared to each one.

z When talking to others, ask them questions about themselves to get to know them better and show them you are interested in knowing them.

z When confronting people, focus on the issue, not the person.

z Be friendly, optimistic, and positive when you deal with other people and meet new ones.

z Show concern for others by asking them how they are doing that day.

z Make it a point to get out of your office and walk around the work area. Avoid the temptation to tell people how to do their job.

z Regardless of how busy you get, don’t forget to address the needs of your employees.

z Make every opportunity to compliment your employees when they do something well.

z Enhance your relationship with your coworkers by having coffee or lunch together.

z Offer assistance to your coworkers if they are in a bind.

z Ask your supervisor for his or her impression of how you deal with your employees.

z Keep your supervisor informed of good and bad news.

z Treat all people at your organization with respect.

z Make it a habit to listen to other people. Even though you may not be able to directly help them, you may know someone who can.

z Prior to a large meeting, you may want to have a smaller meeting with key players to get their buy-in and advocacy.

z Provide constructive criticism tactfully and discreetly.

z Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. Information in the following chapters will help you develop your Interpersonal Skills: Build Relationships and Display Organizational Savvy. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

z Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

z Executive IQ, Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations , Cooper, R., & Sawaf, A., New York: Simon & Schuster.

This book focuses on emotional intelligence, the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection and influence. Emotional intelligence is what ignites creative genius, honesty, trust, and guidance in people and can be used to energize your team.

z Please Understand Me, Keirsey, D., & Bates, M., (1984), Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis.

This book helps the reader understand how and why people behave the way they do. Based on the Myers-Briggs behavioral style instrument, it will help managers to deal with people in a more effective and satisfying manner. The MBTI is well known throughout AFRL and can be an effective interpersonal tool.

z Human Relations in Organizations, Costley, D., & Ralph, T., (1993), St Paul: West Publishing.

The authors focus on the need to consider the individuals of the organization. To become effective, the authors show the reader how to communicate, understand human needs, deal with conflict and frustration, motivate employees, and use authority effectively at the individual level.

z On Leadership, Gardner, J., (1993), New York: The Free Press.

The reader is introduced to various aspects of leadership, from the qualities and attributes of a leader to the nature of leadership.

z People Styles

The PeopleStyles course helps participants avoid the tendency to justify their style-based behaviors or to stereotype others. Participants learn how to adjust behaviors to relate better to other styles and improve relationships at work. Through practice and practical application, participants own their part in people problems and leave the workshop able to reduce style tensions so that the real issues can get solved.

Each participant receives the Social Style(SM) Profile, an empirically researched instrument that provides objective feedback on how the person's behaviors create tension in other styles. To support people in acting on this feedback, our videotape realistically shows how productivity problems arise from style differences and demonstrates flexing skills that resolve those problems.

z Leadership Through People Skills

Intensive three-and-a-half day program turns managers at all levels of the organization into leader-managers, equipped to meet today's business challenges. Participants learn to adapt to diversity, how to work with different people differently, get commitment from employees to achieve their full potential and contribute to team goals, communicate the meaning of a vision clearly so that it can be executed, empower people to act competently, and confidently apply influence skills in all directions.

Participants spend 75 percent of their time "learning by doing". Engaging team activities, skills practices, and true-to-life demonstrations keep participants totally involved in every facet of the seminar. Planning and practice for a real-life meeting with a person who reports to the participant create a strong bridge from the seminar back to the workplace.

z Individual Coaching Services

This customized coaching program helps people develop critical skills such as leadership, interpersonal, communication, and organizational influence skills. Through a tailored assessment to diagnose developmental needs, one-on-one skills training, and state-of-the-art techniques for behavior change, participants gain powerful self-insight and successfully learn new skills and behaviors to make them stronger performers.

z During a disagreement, put yourself in the other person’s shoes to get their perspective.

z Use conflict situations to strengthen interpersonal relationships.

z Prior to discussing a high-conflict area, express your desire for a solution, which is amenable to all parties.

z At the beginning of the discussion, have all parties restate their side of the conflict to gain a clear understanding of the problem. The conflict may just be a misunderstanding.

z Try to depersonalize the conflict to where it is just about issues, ideas, and approaches.

z Be sure to state your point of view without lecturing others why it is right.

z Discuss conflict openly with your employees. If they disagree with your position, seek clarification from them on their position.

z Ask a neutral third party to help both parties talk through the problem.

z Seek feedback from other people about how you handle conflict, and ways you may be more effective.

z Allow anger to occur, but limit its scope to the problem not the people. Venting allows people an outlet so the problem can be worked.

z Look for areas of agreement with the other party before dealing with disagreements. Building these bridges first allows for a smoother negotiation.

z Focus on the problem, not the people.

z Negotiation is a give and take situation. Identify those areas, which are not as important to you as the other person, and be willing to give in on those issues.

z Confront others when you feel they have made a mistake.

z If a conflict situation escalates, take a break. Reconvene after both parties have had a chance to cool down.

z Successful Manager’s Handbook: Development Suggestions for Today’s Managers. Davis, B., Skube, C., Helervik, L., Gebelein, S., & Sheard, J., (1996). Minneapolis MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

This is a very comprehensive book that covers a myriad of topics of interest to supervisors and leaders. The book is logically organized into nine skill areas, each of which is supported by detailed chapters. The chapter on Manage Disagreements should help you develop your conflict management skills. The chapters are fairly independent of each other so it is easy to read specific chapters to gather information to help with your development.

z Leadership, Hughes, R., Ginnett, R., and Curphy, G., (1996), Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin Professional Publishing.

In this college-level leadership textbook, the authors look at leadership as a process, not a position. The book uses a leadership framework consisting of the leader, the situation, and the followers. A comprehensive guide to understanding leadership processes by examining how each of the three factors intertwine in a variety of ways.

z The Win-Win Negotiator Reck, R., (1996), New York: Harper Collins.

A simple, straightforward and easy-to-use method of negotiating. The knowledge you learn will help you achieve the agreements you want and assure the person you're dealing with feels good about the agreement and him or herself as well.

z Human Relations in Organizations, Costley, D., & Ralph, T., (1993), St Paul:  West Publishing.

The authors focus on the need to consider the individuals of the organization. To become effective, the authors show the reader how to communicate, understand human needs, deal with conflict and frustration, motivate employees, and use authority effectively at the individual level.

z Learning to Manage Conflict, Tjsvold D., (1993), New York: The Free Press.

Conflict is an inevitable part of business life, and it can be beneficial. The author shows the reader how to manage conflict through a technique called "cooperative conflict". Cooperative conflict is a process where common goals are sought between the two parties and they work to achieve the common goals.

z Getting to Yes, Fisher, R., & Ury, W., (1991), New York: Penguin Books.

A pragmatic approach to conflict negotiation is provided to allow the parties to arrive at a mutually acceptable conclusion without being taken or getting nasty. A step-by-step guide is provided to allow the reader to resolve a variety of conflicts.

z Managing Differences and Agreement: Making Conflict Work for You

Learn how to build skills for taking the lead in managing conflict and resolving the difficult issues raised in working with diversity, and across organizational boundaries and teams. Also covered is information to help you identify conflict that can and cannot be resolved. You will learn to use specific models and practice skills necessary to engage differences with others.

z People Skills

Participants learn and practice skills that help them respond to challenges they face on a daily basis such as truly understanding what another person says, resolving problems that others bring to them, getting the job done with or through others, confronting poor performance, managing disagreements productively, coaching and developing others, and communicating clearly in the face of strong emotions. The People Skills modules encompass all the foundational communication skills that are critical to job performance and overall organizational success.

z Communication Workshop: Learning by Doing

This program focuses on mutual understanding through appreciative listening and clear talk, and what happens to communication when stress increases. It offers practice, exercises, and opportunities for different kinds of interaction, conversation and dialogue, with emphasis on actual practice in a variety of settings. You will practice communication in small and large groups and one on one.

Participants will: gain greater awareness of their own communication style and its impact on others; learn the art and craft of listening; practice giving and receiving constructive feedback; explore how stress effects communication; and improve personal and organizational communication.

You are fortunate to have received constructive feedback from your employees during the Employee Reverse Feedback process. The scores on the ERF interpretive report highlight areas where you do well as a supervisor and where you may want to perform some developmental activities to enhance your supervisory effectiveness. One way to improve your supervisory effectiveness is to ensure you continue performing those behaviors that enhance your supervisory performance while, at the same time, reducing the performance of those behaviors that inhibit your supervisory performance. An action plan provides a mechanism for helping you ensure that you perform the most useful supervisory behaviors. If you spend the time to develop an action plan you will be rewarded with a systematic procedure to improve your supervisory performance.

Creating an action plan is a two part, multi-step process. The first part requires you to focus on linking the ERF categories to the types of behaviors you perform on the job. By exploring this link you will gain a more comprehensive understanding of behaviors which may enhance your job performance. The second part requires you to generate solutions for addressing the developmental areas you identified. The emphasis of Part II is to help you alleviate some of the behaviors that may inhibit your supervisory performance while ensuring the continued performance of those behaviors that facilitate your supervisory performance. An ERF Action Plan Worksheet is included at the end of this document to help you develop and record your action plan.

The ERF survey was intentionally developed as a generic supervisory measure that could be used in all directorates across the lab. To be most useful, you need to take the categories measured by the ERF survey and make them relevant to your job. During this part, you need to establish a link between the behaviors measured by the ERF instrument and the behaviors you perform on your job. Successfully accomplishing this part will help you identify those areas important to performing your job. You can make this link by performing the following steps.

Step 1. Use the numbers 1-8 (1 = most important, 8 = least important), to rank the categories of supervisor behaviors in terms of how important they are to performing your job. To get a more specific definition of each category of supervisory behaviors you may want to review the items listed under each of the categories on the ERF Report and visit the web page for each of the categories.

Step 2. Compare the scores you received for each category on the ERF with the importance ratings you made above (you will find your category scores on the bar graph and on the ERF Report in the box to the right of the category title). If the scores you received are greater than 4, in those areas you rated most important, your time may be better spent focusing your development efforts in areas you rated less important and where you received lower scores. The point of this step is to ensure you focus developmental efforts wisely.

Step 3. Find the category you were rated highest in and record that category below. This is an area where you need to ensure you continue performing those supervisory behaviors.

There may be numerous reasons why you may have received low ratings from your subordinates. However, most problems can be traced to the existence of one or more of the following factors; lack of abilities, lack of skills, lack of task understanding, choosing not to perform, insufficient level of effort or persistence, lacking necessary resources, and factors dealing with the group, organization, and/or environment.

When going over areas where you received low scores, it may be helpful to take a more in-depth look at some of the critical incidents (events) which may have resulted in low scores. With each incident in mind, think about why you reacted the way you did and the way you may have come across to your employees. You may want to talk to a trusted employee or coworker to help you with this section.

If you ask your employees for additional feedback, please understand that they may feel very uncomfortable providing this information to you. Be sensitive to their discomfort and use methods such as group meetings and/or, anonymous suggestion boxes to get additional information. You may also want to develop specific questions for them to answer and put them on a questionnaire for them to answer and return to you anonymously. Whichever method you select, DO NOT put your employees on the spot by cornering them and demanding a reason for you ratings.

1. Lack of abilities. Abilities represent raw talent. Analyze your abilities and the requirements of your job. Do you have the abilities this job requires?

2. Lack of skills. Skills represent a body of knowledge and/or a set of behaviors necessary for competent performance on a clearly defined task. Think about how your skills measure up to the demands and requirements of your job. Do you have the requisite skills to do your job?

3. Lack of task understanding. Many problems can be traced to the simple fact that the person didn’t know what they were supposed to do. How clearly did you understand the roles and responsibilities of your job?

4. Choosing not to perform. Do you know what you are supposed to do and do you have the requisite skills and abilities to do your job, but chose not to do your job? If so, think about why you chose not to perform the job.

5. Level of effort or persistence. Do you have energy for doing the job? Did you just run out of steam? Ask yourself why and take action steps to remove those barriers and get reinvigorated.

6. Lacking necessary resources. Resources such as computers, supplies, and other equipment are vital to the conduct of operations in many jobs. Without these resources getting the job done can be difficult. Do you have all the materials you need to do the job? Do you know how you can obtain the necessary resources? You may want to work with upper management to get the needed resources.

7. Group factors. If you are working in a group, do they slow you down or make it difficult to perform your job? Try to determine how the group facilitates or inhibits your performance and address those factors.

8. Organizational and/or environmental factors. Does the organization inhibit or facilitate the way you perform you job?

PART II. Generating and Selecting Solutions

At this point you should be aware of the link between the behaviors measured on the ERF survey and the behaviors you perform at your job, and have insight into why you are not performing at peak efficiency. The next step in developing an action plan involves generating solutions for addressing the developmental areas identified previously. Using the information from the above exercise, follow the steps below.

Step 4. Generate solutions and/or explanations for why you scored low and high. This is a great time to brainstorm all kinds of ideas. You may want to work with coworkers and employees to come up with several solutions and explanations (use a separate sheet of paper).

Step 5. Evaluate all the solutions and explanations from the previous step and select the best two or three. Outline specific steps you could take to implement the solutions and outline specific steps for continuing to perform the desirable behaviors. Develop a timeline for implementing the solutions.

Step 6. Record the information from all the previous steps into an action plan. Commit yourself to this action plan and meeting all the timelines you set. Take responsibility for implementing the action plan and specific steps.

After completing the six steps above, your action plan is complete. A well-developed action plan will provide you with a clear path to get to the point you want to be by guiding you through a series of small, identifiable and measurable steps. A good action plan should include several of the following features.

1. The goals and behaviors should be stated specifically and concretely so it is apparent when the goal is met. Try to make the goals and behaviors measurable to better track performance.

2. Focus should be limited to three or less major developmental areas.

3. Ensure you are committed to the action plan. You may want to share the plan with your supervisor or employees and make a commitment to them for carrying out the plan. Keep focused on actions that fit within the objectives of your work environment.

4. When developing action steps, use small, reasonable, but challenging steps toward improving. Success with small steps provides reinforcement at earlier points than larger steps thus reinforcing the new behaviors.

5. Look for ways on your job where you can implement some of these action steps.

6. Try to generate support form your subordinates and supervisors by sharing your action plan with both parties.

7. Establish a time line for the completion of each step. Be sure to update your plan when you start to get off track.

Step I. Use the numbers 1-8 (1 = most important, 8 = least important), to rank the categories of supervisor behaviors in terms of how important they are to performing your job. To get a more specific definition of each category of supervisory behaviors you may want to review the items listed under each of the categories on the ERF Report and visit the web page for each of the categories.

Importance
Score

_________ PLANNING
_________ EXECUTION
_________ DECISION-MAKING
_________ PROVIDING DIRECTION
_________COACHING AND EMPLOYEE
                   DEVELOPMENT
_________ LEADING WITH INTEGRITY (MODELING)
_________ INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
_________ MANAGING DISAGREEMENTS

Step 2. Compare the scores you received for each category on the ERF with the importance ratings you made above (you will find your category scores on the bar graph and on the ERF Report in the box to the right of the category title). If the scores you received are greater than 4, in those areas you rated most important, your time may be better spent focusing your development efforts in areas you rated less important and where you received lower scores. The point of this step is to ensure you focus developmental efforts on areas that you didn’t receive high scores in.

1. _____________________________________________

2. _____________________________________________

Step 3. Find the category you were rated highest in and record that category below. This is an area where you need to ensure you continue performing those supervisory behaviors.

________________________________________________

Step 4. Generate solutions and/or explanations for why you scored low and high. This is a great time to brainstorm all kinds of ideas. You may want to work with coworkers and employees to come up with several solutions and explanations (use a separate sheet of paper).

Step 5. Evaluate all the solutions and explanations from the previous step and select the best two or three. Outline specific steps you could take to implement the solutions and outline specific steps for continuing to perform the desirable behaviors. Develop a timeline for implementing the solutions.

Step 6. Record the information from all the previous steps into an action plan. Commit yourself to this action plan and meeting all the timelines you set. Take responsibility for implementing the action plan and specific steps.