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Joanne Wells is manager of the Learning Centre of Excellence at Halogen Software. She has more than 20 years of experience in managing, coaching, and mentoring skilled professionals. In her current role, she is responsible for employee skills development and career progression.

Joanne Wells

February 2017 - TD Magazine

Organizations that commit to helping employees grow will see the value in their bottom line.

10 Ways to Build a Culture of Continuous Learning

Frontline employees can make or break an organization. They make the product, face customers, maintain equipment, and handle complaints. To do their jobs well, they need to have direction, competence, opportunity, and motivation—all of which are affected by their supervisors. But there is a problem.Frontline Managers: Are They Given the Leadership Tools to Succeed?, a special report from Harvard Business Review (HBR) Analytics Services, explains how even though managers are critically important to the organization, they are seriously lacking in leadership skills. In fact, according to HBR’s survey of international business leaders, only 12 percent of respondents thought their organization invested sufficiently in the development of frontline managers.The reason for lack of frontline leadership development is not surprising. When development funds run short, frontline managers are the ones that have to go without. Consequently, frontline employees—and organizational health—suffer.Frontline Managers Face Unique ChallengesWhether they come up through the ranks or are hired externally, frontline managers have unique leadership challenges that require support.For starters, leadership development programs should take into consideration the changing workforce. Indeed, the workforce is changing—both generationally and culturally. According to a recent Pew Research study, Millennials (born between 1980 and 1997) have become the majority population in the workforce. This means that frontline managers must be prepared to lead Millennials.In addition, many new frontline managers themselves will be Millennials. No longer responsible only for their own performance, their primary role is to direct and manage the performance of others who may have been their peers at some point, or who may be older and more experienced than themselves.New frontline leaders also must take a broader view of their own work, as well as the work of the team—taking responsibility for how work affects other departments and the whole organization. As a result, building relationships and fostering collaboration with other managers and departments is a key skill. What’s more, these leaders must be ready to implement strategic initiatives that are handed down from executive team members.Critical Skills for Frontline ManagersTo effectively manage their teams, frontline leaders need development in key skills that will enable them to understand and foster the success of individual employees—who have their own values, motivations, favored working conditions, and learning styles. Here are five critical skills leadership development should focus on.Business acumen: Frontline leaders would benefit greatly from training about the business. They need to understand its strategic priorities and how their department supports those priorities. By doing so, leaders are equipped to connect their work—and that of their direct reports—to the larger organization, as well as show employees how their work contributes to the organization’s overall success.Goal alignment and goal setting: Frontline leaders need to know what is important to the organization as a whole, so they can effectively focus their team’s efforts on what matters most—whether it is increasing throughput, reducing complaints, or other issues that will have the largest impact on the business. When frontline managers have defined performance standards and create a limited number of goals aligned to business priorities, they can ensure their employees know what is expected of them and how they will be evaluated.Goal execution: Once goals are established, frontline managers need to know how to give direction, set milestones, and monitor progress. They must be able to observe when performance is lagging or goals are at risk in a timely manner so they can put in place corrective measures. Of course, they also need to know how to identify the root causes of lagging performance in order to apply the right corrective measures.Coaching and feedback: Frontline managers are most effective when they understand that their role is not to be the commander but a facilitator, creating the conditions that will set up their teams for success. To accomplish this lofty goal, they need time, training, and practice observing the behavior of employees. They also should be focused on providing employees with ongoing, meaningful feedback, so they can objectively communicate what employees are doing well and what needs improvement. Bottom line: Everyone wants to know that their work matters, be recognized for their efforts, understand what is required of them, and be treated with understanding and respect.Your TurnDo you have any useful practices that you or your organization are doing to develop the leadership skills of frontline managers? Please share in the Comments.

Frontline Leaders Need Development Too

If you want employees to bring their best to work, you need to create a culture that makes them want to do that. Joanne Wells explains how.

How Organizational Culture Can Help Bring Out the Best in Employees

Joanne Wells outlines four steps for promoting a culture of learning for your employees.

4 Ideas to Promote a Learning Culture

Joanne Wells outlines five ways managers can use internal talent mobility to help employees carve out a career path they’ll want to pursue.

5 Ways to Help Employees Build a Career Path They'll Want to Pursue

Summer 2013 - The Public Manager

As chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Joanne Weiss serves as senior advisor to the secretary, and was director of the Race to the Top (RTT) Fund during its early days of design and implementation. The walls of her office are covered with beautifully framed children's artwork. The view from her seventh-floor window covers an expanse of neighboring federal buildings and a sliver of the Washington Monument. Next to her door hangs a t-shirt with the words "Disrupt Ed" printed boldly across the front.

A Blueprint for Change: Lessons in Educational Reform

Reviews the book 'Empowered Teams: Creating Self-Directed Work Groups That Improve Quality, Productivity, and Participation,' by Richard Wellins, William C. Byham and Jeanne M. Wilson.

Unwavering Concept Gaining Strength

Well-being in the workspace is not only about how individuals are faring, it’s also about team relations and ability to work together.

Create an Environment of Well-Being

To understand the term positive leader, perhaps it is best to start with what it’s not. It’s not just the opposite of a negative leader. In fact, the concept of positive leader was introduced by Kim Cameron, Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and co-founder of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship.His work was introduced to me about ten years ago while I was attending the Authentic Happiness Coaching program conducted by Dr. Martin Seligman. He wanted all his coaches—in all walks of life—to incorporate the learnings of the new and exciting field of Positive Psychology into our own work so we could together help to “raise tonnage of happiness on the planet.”Through the years Marty’s big, hairy, audacious goal became more specific, and now the goal is to see 51 percent of the world’s population flourishing by 2051. In other words, the goal is to see 51 percent of the world experiencing well-being on a daily basis. I certainly think that would be cool.So, here I am—doing my part.It was easy to combine Marty’s work into mine, because I was already teaching customer-focused leaders to thrive, and positivity simply added “power-tools” to my toolkit. And discovering that much of what I had already been teaching for years had proof (scientific proof, no less!) that it worked just made me more confident and bolder in my teachings.Positive leadership affirms human potentialI believe that as leaders we have a profound responsibility to make the world a better place. Acting as a positive leader—focusing your attention on increasing the "positive capacity" of your organization—will benefit you, your customers, your workforce, and your community and maybe even the world.Positive leaders, according to Cameron have an “affirmative bias.” They focus on strengths and capabilities and on affirming the heights of human potential.Creating more “positive capacity” (or what Cameron calls “positive deviance,” referring to extraordinary results on the right side of the bell curve) means using deliberate strategies to consistently create more positive experiences at work.Positive leadership doesn’t ignore negativityPositive leadership builds on negativity to create new positive outcomes. It sees negativity as opportunity and fuel for change. Work done by Dr. Barbara Frederickson, from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, tells us that there is a “positivity ratio” (ratio of positive to negative experiences) that needs to be achieved for a human being to shift from languishing to flourishing. It’s roughly 3:1. When we have three times more positive experiences to every negative one, we’ll feel pretty good.Three times more positive emotion than negative will go a lot further toward making us more creative, solving problems quicker, and building stronger immune systems. More positive emotion will help us reverse the adverse affects of stress on the body, as well as create more resilience, confidence, and hope.Bottom lineWhen leaders create an environment where people feel good about themselves and the part the play in the organization’s larger mission, people feel good at work. Many will feel happy. Happy people focused on creating great customer experiences are the very best competitive advantage you have in the marketplace.

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