ONE Step to Great Leadership
As a leader, you want your team to be high-performing and happy. You also want to know you had a role in helping them become both.
With study after study identifying “poor management” as one of the most common causes of job dissatisfaction, low productivity and destabilizing turnover, you’re determined to lead your team in a way that ensures they - and you - are best suited to achieve your mission.
But there are a dozen ways to handle every management decision…and you’re busy. It’s hard enough to accomplish all you need to do without having to navigate the promises of hundreds of management books, each one touting its unique magical solution, and none of which you have time to read.
How to proceed? It’s simpler than you think. Most leadership challenges can be solved - or at least made much easier - by consistently following one basic rule. It will put a set of principals into place that will improve your team's performance across the board.
What's the rule? The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Manage as you would prefer to be managed. Your team will notice, and you'll be a better leader for it. Stick to these guidelines to put it into practice:
1. Be Clear
Ambiguity can be frustrating. If your team works on a project based on what they think are your objectives, and later have to redo much of the work, it causes frustration and can feel disrespectful. Take the time to think through what success will look like to you before you delegate. Role delineation, status reports, deadlines and - most importantly - your vision for the final product.
Encouraging your team to think out of the box and bring you some ideas is great, but only once you’ve thought about various outcomes and made the determination yourself that something new or different is what you want. If this type of open-ended direction becomes your default when you simply haven’t thought about what you want, your team will figure it out quickly, and will feel like you don’t respect their time/efforts. Take the time to set expectations.
2. Be Honest...Then Be Kind
If you’ve been clear and your expectations were not met, tell your team or team member how/why that is the case. They need to know, and it is your responsibility to tell them, no matter how uncomfortable it may be. But then find something nice to say. It’s sometimes difficult to be positive when you’re disappointed, but providing some encouragement will go a long way to mitigating the negative impact of your disproval. It’s tempting, especially for new managers, to let professional pride get in the way here; “He/she didn’t do what I asked – why should I have to sing their praises?” But the reality is this approach will help maintain a positive rapport with your team member, which will encourage them to both address your current concerns and give their best effort next time as well.
If there’s absolutely nothing good to say about their work on the relevant project, tell them their positivity means a lot to the team. Tell them their subject matter expertise is a great asset, or how often their institutional knowledge has come in handy, or thank goodness you’re not the ONLY Yankees fan in the entire building…tell them something, just don’t let them walk away without hearing a positive comment or observation from you.
No one enjoys negative feedback, even if they’ve earned it, and people get less done when they are discouraged. The extent to which this small step may prevent diminishing performance in the face of the negative feedback makes it more than worth the small amount of effort it will take.
3. Give the Credit
People know you’re the boss, and the best way to show competence and confidence in your role is to readily and publicly give praise to your team for their successes.
It’s tempting to project personal ownership on every one of your team’s victories. People know you’re the boss, and the best way to show competence and confidence in your role is to readily and publicly give praise to your team for their successes.
Protect them in the event someone expresses dissatisfaction with their work, and quietly discuss the matter with them for next time. Colleagues up and down the chain of command will respect and admire you for it, and the reputation boost will be a big help with future collaboration. Lastly, of course, it’s just a better way to conduct yourself.
4. Take the Blame
Conversely, your team’s mistakes are your mistakes. If your boss asks you about something that is other than what they expected, offer your apologies and tell them it will be improved next time. While “oh so and so on my team did that, sorry” seems innocuous enough, if it gets back to your staff member they’ll never forget it. Additionally; you just made it clear to your boss that you would throw them under the bus to protect yourself, and distrust is not good for either of you. Go back to the relevant staff member and privately establish a different protocol for review or oversight, but never call out a team member to someone outside the team.
5. Take One-On-Ones Seriously
Continually rescheduling check-ins communicates to your team that neither they nor their time are important to you.
Regular one-on-ones with your team are critically important to maintaining a strong rapport, expressing appreciation, discussing areas for improvement, showing interest in their longer-term goals and – frankly – just making it clear that you are interested in how they are doing. We’re all busy, but continually rescheduling check-ins – as common as it may be – is a mistake, and one which communicates to your team that neither they nor their time are important to you. Not an idea you want to convey to the people you rely on most. Protect regular one-on-ones with staff at all costs. Your team will notice.
6. "The Troops Eat First"
This is a big one. Some leadership roles provide occasional perks, some do not. Baseball tickets, holiday party invitations, meeting a visiting special guest, the opportunity to interact with the “big boss,” whoever that may be. You worked for these small gestures of appreciation. You have a right to enjoy them to the fullest. But, realistically, the benefit of these things to you – professionally, emotionally, monetarily – is usually minimal. The benefit of personally sharing such an opportunity with a hard-working and oft-unnoticed member of your team could be immeasurable.
Depending on what it is, it may amount to a small gesture, or it could provide them an opportunity they will never forget. Take any opportunity you can to be generous with your team. It’s good for business. We all spend too much time with our colleagues to neglect moments of kindness.
7. Be Positive
We all want to feel a sense of purpose in the work that we do. We spend half our waking hours at work and, for better or worse, our jobs become an important part of our identity. We want to feel the many many hours we dedicate to our jobs each week are spent on an organization that is efficiently run and effective at what it does. Your team wants to feel that way too.
Negativity down the chain of command has a much more toxic effect on an organization than an occasional gripe between peers.
Every organization has challenges and problems. Every single one. We’ve all fallen into the trap of complaining at some point. But complaining is a contagious and immensely negative drain on organizational culture, and you are a representative of your organization to your team. As a manager; if you sound fed-up and hopeless, you risk creating in your staff the impression that everything over their heads that they don’t have insight into is a mess.
As a result, negativity down the chain of command has a much more toxic effect on an organization than an occasional gripe between peers. It risks instilling in your team the fear that they are putting their effort – their time and their sense of purpose – into an organization that is poorly run and therefore not capitalizing on their hard work. Your team’s motivation, drive and productivity can hang in the balance if you create a habit of complaining to them. In brief: don't do it.
8. Be Yourself
A trainer once said to me “The super-fit 5-days-a-week gym guy, the hard working career focused guy who works 60 hours a week, and the super social guy who’s out with friends three nights a week? Those are not the same guy. Ever. You can’t be all things at once.” This is true in the office, too. Everyone has strengths, weaknesses and - perhaps most importantly - time constraints.
Be honest with yourself, and your team, about what you’re good at and where you need support. Be honest about what you can actually accomplish in a day. Delegate the rest. As you rely on your team for support in areas where you’re not as strong, they will feel a heightened sense of ownership, and their commitment to the team’s success, and yours, will grow.
If You Forget Everything Else, Follow ONE Rule...
All of these guidelines have one thing in common, and it is the one rule I mentioned earlier. Do Unto Others. Manage as you would like to be managed. Treat your team as you would prefer your boss would treat you. Remember it, truly aspire to it, and most of the rest will take care of itself.
If you’ve had a boss who worked towards your strengths instead of piling on in your areas of weakness, do that for your team.
Sit down with the staff member who seems to be developing a 100 yard stare and ask them what initiatives they find exciting and want more of a hand in. They may surprise you.
Remember those who have challenged you, shared their knowledge and experience with you, supported you and given you opportunities to grow your skill set. Do the same for your team.
Your team will be more motivated, more productive, and more loyal. They'll have gratitude for your taking an interest in their development, and the fact that you helped prepare them for their future accomplishments will become part of your legacy. What a great way to scale your impact for minimal effort!
Last, and certainly not least, it’s the right thing to do.
*Have you seen changes in your team with this approach? Let us know!
Daniel S. Holt is the founder of Washington based Anchorage Partners LLC. Find them on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe below for insights and updates.
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