The Dual Layer Leadership Framework

I decided to leave my previous career behind and start an executive coaching and leadership consultancy in 2019. I quickly realised that to be useful to my clients I needed a way to describe my approach to leading teams that was both simple to understand and could be immediately adapted to their own work, regardless of seniority or sector.

I reviewed the notes, documents, presentations, and performance reviews I had built up over the years from leading teams of people. I looked at what I’d had from most of my leaders during my own experience of being in a team; what they said, did and, in some cases, said they would do but didn’t!

In short, I wanted to codify my approach to team leadership. Within the stack of material I had, were there any patterns? Did I do things for some team members, but not for others?

Slowly, a framework started to emerge. I could see that the list of actions I took split into two distinct categories:

  1. How I led and managed the team overall.

  2. How I led and managed the individual within the team.

 I named this the Dual Layer Leadership Framework.

 I committed to doing things for the entire team, regardless of position. Over that, I layered areas that were customised to each individual within the team.

 The teams I managed were getting values, culture, group performance/accountability, and what I had termed “team happiness”.

To each individual within the team I gave them the following: personal empathy, constructive feedback, tailored career development, and something I’d describe as “what makes them tick”.

Encircling the framework is “Constant Communication”, to serve as a reminder that it’s only through the continual practice of communicating with each member of your team that you build the trust required to grow into a high-performing team. Equally important with regards to the constant communication is that you reduce the possibility of issues turning from amber/orange to red; the goal being that conversations remain between green and amber/orange, rather than orange to red.