This is an outline for how to go about applying a leadership development model using the basic leader framework of

Leadership = Vision*Task*Relationship.

The 2x2 model is below and walks through the four stages: Directing, Coaching, Empowering and Performing. Task work is on the x axis and goes left to right from low to high. The vertical axis maps two parts of the leadership model: interpersonal relationship and the relationship of the work to the bigger vision, also known as coherence, from low at the bottom to high atop the graph.

What follows this are suggestions, questions and comments on how to develop two types of direct reports: new hires and experienced senior hires.

NEW HIRES:

Think about your new hires, new team members, and in general anyone coming to a new position within your organization that may be unfamiliar with the work being done.

1. ASSESSING/DIRECTING/TEACHING QUADRANT

First Task, then Relationship, then Vision

Task Stuff

1. What are the key skills that are needed to successfully do this work?

2. How are they in each skill area from skillful, to needs improvement, to starting from scratch.

3. Suggest they do an MBTI or similar so that you can fit your styles together. 

4. Ask them:

1.  How do they assess their skills in the different areas you’ve identified?

2. What are they most interested in improving?

3. How do they learn best: doing, reading, talking?

5. Tell them that part of your job is ensuring that they are successful and that you want that for them. To do this you will need to develop a plan with them for them to learn new skills and/or improve on existing skills. Have them do that plan focused on a skill or two. Help them strategize about how to learn  

Relationship stuff

1. Assess their openness to you and others. If you’ve done your own MBTI then there are some cues to go off here, so use them. 

2. Ask what motivates them to peak performance in their work.

3. Best to fit the learning to their style and the work to your style.

4. Don’t go overboard on the relationship until you see clear evidence that the skills can or are being developed. 

Vision stuff

1. Not much to do here. You need to have some evidence that they can master the tasks and have the relationship skills and values to grow.

2. However, if they are solidly on top of the tasks, even if there is much to learn, and you are feeling their support for you and the work, then start introducing strategic context as you delegate. 

2. COACHING QUADRANT

Relationship moves up to parity with Task, Vision can still be on hold

Relationship stuff

1. Deepen your understanding of them, getting to know them better, and sharing more about your professional life and development.

2. Discuss the relationship side of the work being done by them. Assess how they understand the dimensions of that work and that this is essential to success beyond the task work.

3. Begin to give them feedback both on improving their effectiveness in the work by deploying the relationship dimension and suggestions about improving the relationship that you have with them.

4. Ask them for feedback on specific areas that you would like to improve upon.

5. Some key relationship lessons will be:

1. Getting tasks done in ways that develops relationship capital

2. How to balance the task with the relationship and the essential ability to discern what is the critical path to success that balances task, relationship and vision. 

3. How to get them skilled at building motivation of others through enthusiasm and focus on the interest of others.

Task stuff

1. Continue to focus on task skill improvements with focused learning plans, but let them increasingly drive the agenda.

2. Beyond teaching the technical skills (which you will still have to do as they move into new learning domains) the more valuable part of your teaching is to put the task work into the context of relationships and the broader context of your work and vision. 

Vision stuff

1. Elevate the broader context a bit more, explaining why things are being done and a bit on how they have evolved in this way.

2. Point out the “vision” dimensions of task and relationship issues.

3. EMPOWERING QUADRANT

The work and development here is more varied and is driven first by what the situation or problem demands and then by the learning needs of the person you are developing. Much of the work in this quadrant will be in the form of delegation and your job is to teach the lessons of Vision, Task and Relationship in the context of work being done or the problem being addressed. 

Setting up the learning dimension of delegation, checking in frequently as to what they are learning, and making sure time is spent reviewing the learning and consolidating next steps is essential. Statements and questions like these can be useful here: “This is what I think you will learn or what I want you to learn.’ ‘What are you learning now and what are you surprised by?’ ‘What were the most important things you learned and what do you want to carry over to other projects?”

Vision stuff 

1. At the beginning of the Empowerment stage you are giving them the context for the work, with the eventual outcome of them presenting the context to you for review.

2. Have them ask not only where we are going, but also why we are doing this and just as importantly, “how do we want to get there?” 

3. Begin to teach how you connect core organizational values and culture to how they communicate the work to others in all three directions, up, out and down. 

Relationship stuff

1. You should have some sense of their relationship skills and which ones they need to still work on, make sure that the delegations in empowerment give them a chance to continue this work. 

2. As the delegations become more complex, actively engage with them on how the relationship issues in the delegation or problem interact with the goals and direction of the work. 

Task stuff

1. Task work is less extensive here than in the first two quadrants. You should have a better sense of their learning style and be able to suggest efficient ways for them to come up to speed on any new things they need to learn as that need arises.

2. The tasks in this quadrant will be less discreet and more complex. Helping them identify a new task such as presenting a proposal to a review committee or starting a new project and break down the elements of what will be needed and learned. 

4. PERFORMING QUADRANT

This is the return for all of the investment you have made in them in the first three quadrants. Now you can delegate and direct them to an assignment or better, a problem, and they should be able to engage with it independently. 

Vision stuff

1. They should be able to factor the Vision issues independently of you, but as the “stakes” of the assignment rise, they will want to check in with you and you will probably want that as well, but push them toward independence. 

2. Move them toward independently seeing the landscape, internal and external, and being able to anticipate issues before they emerge as problems. Knowing how to prevent problems rather than treating them is a valuable skill.

3. You should continue to be a source of information and insights that they do not have access to, but leave the interpretation of what it means to them. 

Relationship stuff

1. Like #3 above you will have a larger network and information about that network, so you will want to continue to share this as it becomes useful to them.

2. The relationship between the two of you should be open, honest and trusting at this point. If there are a few issues, you should surface them and address them together. 

3. As they develop more independence you may struggle a bit, but recognize that those feelings are normal and it's best to just get over it, and move forward. Remind yourself that you have helped them achieve this and it is good for you, the work, and the vision.

Task stuff

1. They will still be learning new tasks, but should be independent of you in that process. If you do see something, simply point it out, you no longer need to be teaching here.

2. Make sure they understand the development grid so they can begin to use it to develop others effectively as well. 

EXPERIENCED PEOPLE YOU INHERIT 

This category includes coming into a position in which you inherit a team that is new to you, a senior person who is reassigned to your team and, perhaps the most challenging of situations, a promotion where you must supervise a person that was your peer and colleague. 

1. ASSESSING/DIRECTING/TEACHING QUADRANT
Task stuff 

1. You can’t really assign them work to assess their skills, but you can tune up your observational awareness. It will be helpful to have a good sense of what their job demands of them. You may already have a good sense of this, or you may need to develop it in conversation with them.

2. Ask them to give you an overview of their work and how it fits into the organization or team. Where they focus, Vision, Task or Relationship, will tell you a great deal about them and their work. This should create space for you to ask them what parts of their work they enjoy most, where they would like to grow, and, if it's going well, ask if there are parts of their work they are less comfortable with. 

3. If an individual is seriously lacking in the skills needed for success. It is important to deal with this situation now, not later. This is a dramatic step that should not be taken lightly, but if needed, should be taken.

Relationship stuff

1. A good way to build the relationship is to let them know that you see that part of your responsibility is to be helping them be as successful as they want to be and that getting to know them and their work is an important part of this. 

2. Continue to observe how they work with others, assessing if their style is as effective as it could be. No action needed at this time, unless there are egregious issues that need to be addressed.

Vision stuff

1. Depending on the situation, they may be teaching you more about what is going on then you are bringing to them. This is fine, don’t be anxious here. Tell them you appreciate the help, assess the value of their assessments, and continually build your own coherence about the internal and external environment. Being curious with lots of questions is a virtue here. 

2. In time you will want to move from learning, to checking, to affirming as this understanding grows. 

2. COACHING QUADRANT

Relationship stuff

1. This quadrant is the most expensive for you as a leader, and it is important to not short change the time you spend here with your people. This is the quadrant where real Trust is developed and there is no substitute for being present with them as issues are discussed, plans developed and assessments made. 

2. In the situation you may be developing an inherited team, make sure that in addition to time with the team that you schedule time with individuals, being sensitive to what they need. 

Vision stuff

1. You should have your own emerging picture of the situation inside and outside of your team or organization. Now the job is bringing everyone on board with that vision. You have the insight into what you gathered from them during the first stage. It will be best not to say, “ I have a new vision” but more along the lines of, “now that I’ve spent time with all of you, this is how I see our situation.” 

2. Observing the reactions of individuals to this will tell you how you individualize the coaching work that follows.  

Task stuff

1. After the observation stage you may have some individuals that need help in specific technical areas. Discuss this with them and come up with a plan for them to learn those skills. This should be independent of you, but you are helping frame it and provide the resources to improve. Often it might just be for them to spend time with a peer that you have observed is good at said task or skill. BE CAREFUL - Make sure that the suggestions you make are really improvements, not just your way of doing it. 

3. EMPOWERING QUADRANT

Task stuff

1. Most of what they will be doing is what they have been up to for awhile. If there is a task improvement that really is valuable, this is the place to introduce it as a gentle suggestion.

2. If they have expressed a desire to learn new tasks, this is the place to have them incorporate it into a new assignment. It is helpful to have a colleague who is good at the new task, join them in the undertaking.

Relationship stuff

1. As with new tasks to learn, delegations can also offer stretching opportunities on the relationship front. Be upfront and straightforward with this dimension: “we talked about how you want to build better collaborative skills, this project can only be successful if we collaborate with the other agency, so a great chance for you to try new things.”

2. Development in the relationship area is the most challenging of the three, having them work on issues here gives you a chance to practice your feedback skills (giving and receiving) which in turn will strengthen your relationship with them. 

Vision stuff

1. Through the delegation process you will continue to “sell” your vision. Most of this will come as they bring back to you the progress of their work. Your job is to help them see how that work fits into your vision.

2. But don’t forget that your vision is a developing phenomena and you should be open to listening to their experience, then adapting your vision with this new insight and information. It is best to let them know by saying, “thank you that is helpful, I now understand this piece better and need to adjust to that.”

4. PERFORMING QUADRANT

As with all development undertakings this is the point of payoff for you. To help an individual or team get to this point allows them to do their work more independently, integrate it with the work of others without your involvement and do a better job of anticipating what comes next. This allows you to spend more time on those “higher order” items on your to do list. But there are still some things to monitor in this space. 

Task stuff 

1. Not too much work on the technical side of things, but remember if you ask a direct report or team to do something entirely new, then they will need to go back to the Directing quadrant for a bit. This becomes easier to discuss if you have been using this model. 

2. They should be driving their development agenda at this point with you adding in as you see fit, but at this point a light touch is best, unless it is critically needed.

3. Developing their own people to handle their task work should now fall on them, with you only needing to check in periodically. This will also help you with their succession plan.

Relationship stuff

1. The working relationship between you and them should be in good shape, so probably not much to do here. To check it, ask yourself “is this a good trusting relationship that goes both ways?”

2. They may need a push to put some polish on their relationship skills. If so, raise it with them and see if they want to elevate it to their development plan.

3. Help them enlarge their network by sharing yours more broadly.

Vision stuff

1. Push them to work assignments that stretch them beyond current responsibilities and context. Think of where they are least comfortable and give them an assignment there.

2. If there are formal development programs available, get them enrolled or chosen.

3. When they are ready,  turn over a large strategic repositioning or team undertaking to their direct supervision.