Back

Approach

Myth #1
Coachees must find their own answers.

Don't be fooled! You need to see leadership as an applied science. Coachees need proven tools and answers they can apply.

Many consulting firms have grown their business by analyzing — and perhaps overanalyzing — the topics of leadership. Experience shows that at the business level managers, whose minds are on so many other concerns and tasks, fail to assimilate and apply those "heavy" learnings.

What's more, the proposed solutions often do not deliver the necessary one-two punch to trigger a change in firmly entrenched bad habits and behaviors.

Mythbuster Leadership, through its comprehensive turnkey program, is finally making proven solutions available in a format that supports day-to-day application of the material.

Inspired by a systemic approach

When results depend on the human factor, the ability to predict trends is a condition for success. Systemic thinking involves seeing the world as a system and humans as an element of that system. This approach is a way to more accurately predict outcomes. It helped identify the aspects that had escaped the leadership world to this day.

Myth #2
Leadership is a matter of psychology.

Don't be fooled! Applied leadership doesn't mean becoming a student of psychology. It consists of understanding, predicting and influencing human behavior, including your own.

(You may be surprised at this perspective, especially in a leadership context. Trust me. Over the years, I’ve found that most managers are better able to learn and apply leadership principles from this viewpoint).

Most management positions are applied positions or downright technical ones. This is true in any field, be it accounting and finance, procurement and inventory, scheduling, health and safety, logistics, IT, and so on. It's also as true for manufacturing industries as for services.

The systemic approach has convinced me to stop seeing leadership as a “soft” topic. On the contrary, if you hold a management position, you’re probably just as technical as I am and focused on application. I will explain leadership to you the way I understood it, and the way I did to my colleagues in the same terms. This language will reach out to you and help at least 95% of your team. This turned out to be true everywhere I've been to date — with surprizing outcomes.

Systemic thinking leads to two other advantages that further support outcomes: First, it helps learners assimilate themes, and second, it facilitates the day-to-day application of those themes.

Myth #3
Leadership is a soft topic.

Don't be fooled! Leadership is technical. Its goal is to apply management tools, including expectations, and to change behaviors by transforming mindsets.

How systemic thinking makes themes easier to assimilate

The systemic approach allows to recognize patterns in behaviors, predict consequences, and better target actions to change outcomes. In this way, it allowed the identification of the program themes.

The systemic approach was a way to simplify and communicate precisely themes so they can be understood by the vast majority. So precisely that it will become impossible to cop out.

Through repetition, your mental model will change. You’ll gradually respond to your environment differently.

You will respond appropriately at all times and remain an inspiring leader. Only a strong mental model can shape your reactions, especially when emotions, pressure or fatigue lure you back into your patterns.

In fact, becoming an inspiring manager is a lot like becoming a great surgeon and a great emergency response coordinator: it requires surgical precision in applying leadership themes and a cool head in times of crisis.

Myth #4
You can’t change your personality.

Don't be fooled! You can indeed change your personality, at least your apparent personality, by developing behavioral versatility and emotional intelligence.

Neither surgeons nor emergency response coordinators are born with their skills. These are the result of training, which the Mythbuster leadership program offers to whom really wants to improve.

How systemic thinking makes themes easier to apply

The program is broken down into 20 leadership themes. These are structured into nine short learning sessions, in a reading form.

Most themes are less than two pages long. Each theme offers a "Context and examples" section to customize the self-directed learning program as though it were being delivered in person by the author.

The program hinges on managing expectations. The expectations that have been proven time and again in my experience will be delivered to you.

Suggestions and tools regarding your management routine are offered so that managing expectations won't seem like added work and responsibility, but rather form part of your future routine.

Training will hone your ability to observe team dynamics and you will from that point on recognize the traps in which you and your team could get caught.

Myth #5
Coaching should be confidential.

Don't be fooled! Coaching should not be as confidential as you've been led to believe. The focus should not only be on the "problematic" employee. In fact, the entire management team should be involved. It's critical for team members to speak the same language, observe the same things, and lend each other a hand.

The programs provides you with tools to escape and even avoid those traps, in particular by learning how to coach and develop your employees, give feedback or broach a realignment plan if required.

The program leads to assimilation of the themes. To just “know” the themes is insufficient. We need to let go of the had-oc one day seminars and their wishfull thinking.

A section on IMPLEMENTATION, with tips for cascading program themes to your teams, is included. If you elect to not limit this experience to a personal one.

It also features a CONTINUITY section that provides communication and action tools so you can use the shortcomings you observe in the day to day as opportunities for continuous learning.

The feedback received reveals that this program’s 150 pages can replace a thousand pages from many recommended books on leadership. Also, the consensus is that these books on leadership rarely give managers a concrete understanding of what they can do differently "the next day".

You’re in luck, because this is what the Mythbuster Leadership program is all about.





Back