Leadership is a perishable quality. Like trust, it takes a long time to earn, and it can evaporate suddenly if you allow other priorities to overtake it. As leaders, all managers and supervisors need to be vigilant to ensure they are constantly working on their connection to their people. Gone are the days when people will stay in jobs without being heard or included. If you have forgotten or never learned this maxim, you may still have time …
Your organizational culture begins when you run a job ad and has to be a primary focus of everything you do. People want to be respected, they want to belong, and they want to help make a difference; in my experience, this is often more important than financial rewards.
As a leader you have to earn the trust and respect of your people daily, not the other way around. Respect cannot be commanded, fear and intimidation are not long-term solutions, and any manager who does not realize this will not keep good people in their organization.
Be genuinely interested in every one of your people. This is the only way to build connections with your people. They have dreams, goals, and lives; what they do for you, they do because of those lives and unless you realize this fact, they will find an organization that does.
Know when something is different for your people. Leaders who interact daily learn to watch and listen for signs something is going great or is wrong. By noticing and asking questions, good leaders help celebrate and help mitigate issues and demonstrate they care about their people.
Create a set of universally agreed-upon ground rules. Most people like consistency, clarity, and as much transparency as possible when dealing with an employer and/or manager. This is true in individual interactions as well as in meetings.
Follow your own rules. Ground rules or any organizational rules, code of conduct, or standards are only truly effective if they are followed … particularly by those charged with implementing and monitoring them.
Create clear expectations, and goals, and provide updates. It is acceptable to have “stretch” goals for your people; however, those goals must be achievable and progress feedback is vital.
Have an evolving orientation plan. Each time your organization brings a new person on board have an orientation plan, but more importantly, monitor and follow up on how it is implemented and adjust based on feedback from all those involved.
Train, train, train, and more training. A fundamental prerequisite for finding and keeping good people is to provide the tools and training for them to do their jobs. As a leader ensure the training is clear, concise, useful, and understandable.
Professional development is a way of life. Not only should an organization train its people, but also their managers and supervisors and this should be ingrained in your culture. Innovation, new ideas, and lessons from outside sources all help broaden knowledge and abilities. Don’t silo yourself or your organization.
Be approachable. As a leader, your job is to lead, inspire, motivate, help resolve problems, and facilitate your people to do their jobs. If you think you are, how do you know? Constantly develop the attitude your number one priority is your people because their job is to take care of your clients, customers, suppliers, and place in the community.
Say hello to every one of your direct and indirect reports every day and encourage them to call you by your first name.
Acknowledge your people may be smarter than you. This is not a threat to your leadership, in fact, that you actively seek out and listen to people who may be smarter or have differing opinions helps to make your team stronger.
Don’t be defensive when people make suggestions. Encourage your people to draw on their skills and experiences, to suggest new approaches, and to want to contribute; too often entrenched people become defensive and closed-minded.
Don’t punish people brave enough to tell you something is wrong. Often when someone is attempting to tell you something you need to hear but don’t necessarily want to hear, these people have done so a great risk to their place in the organization. Your positive or negative reaction is being watched by your other people.
Don’t be the only one who talks in your staff meetings. Your meetings should be interesting, and deliver value every time, each meeting should build and connect to those before and afterward.
Take time to consider. When someone makes a suggestion, listen, and consider, but if possible say you will think about it and get back to them. Too often managers will say, “That’s a great idea, BUT…” and will dismiss the idea immediately, it doesn’t cost you anything to use a pause before saying yes or no.
Don’t constantly remind your people of how good you are or were. When helping your people facilitate their jobs try to focus on now and what lies before you and your team.
Learn to trust your people, especially if they are good at what they do. Part of trust is not micromanaging or inserting your comments without consideration for what your people may have already said. Let the people around you be encouraged to provide honest feedback, consult, and share information when possible before implementing new policies that affect them.
You don’t have to win all the time to be in charge. Exactly.
Are any of your people working more hours than what they are paid for? Don’t make your people’s jobs impossible. Some people will respond by working for free, some will resent it and left unchecked long enough all of them will leave.
When accepting praise, acknowledge your team and their contributions before your own. Trust and respect are earned when you do this small thing and often lost when you don’t.
You are not the only person with “Skin in the game.” A member of your team may not be a shareholder but never underestimate their investment in your organization. People want to make a difference, they want to belong, anything a manager or supervisor does to dismiss these facts does so at their peril. Nobody is “Just an employee.”
Make a big deal about acknowledging milestones. Celebrate anniversaries, people who go over and above, people who have perfect attendance records; almost everyone appreciates being recognized for their work.
Learn about your blind spots and actively try to minimize them. You may feel your door is always open or that you welcome differing opinions or advice; but do you?
Become a trusted mentor to your people while appreciating you can learn from them too. Part of this powerful relationship is that often your best people may leave eventually; however, all mentors should expect this to happen, it is the nature of organizations.
What do you think?
Does it seem unrealistic that as a manager or supervisor, you have to do so much to support your people?
If it does, then you definitely have a problem and you are perilously close to stepping off into the abyss.
As a manager or supervisor, to be a real leader and to be effective, you cannot succeed without your people … they are your “pointy end of the spear” … they interact with your customers/clients … they interact with your suppliers … they need you to do more than manage, they need you to lead, to listen, to collaborate, and to let them develop. They want your organization to succeed, they want to succeed as well, and they would like you to realize they are just as important as you are.
Good luck,
Paul.