DO THESE 3 THINGS AND WATCH YOUR PEOPLE GROW

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know you trust them.

Booker T. Washington

A leader's number one job is to grow and develop their people. Do these three things and watch them respond.

1. Give them responsibility. I encourage leaders to delegate all of the tasks that someone else in the organisation can do and to focus just on just the tasks that only they can do. Work out what you are going to get someone else to do. Be specific about your expectations, the outcome required and the timeframe.

2. Trust them. This will take courage. You have to accept the risk that they may not get it 100% right. Unless people are given opportunities to shine they won't grow, so take the risk.

3. Support them. Set them up for success, not failure. Make sure that they have everything they need to do the job (time, skills, resources). Also offer to guide them as they go if they need it.
 
To be honest, this is not going to work every time with every person. You actually have to risk failure in order to go forward. In the majority of cases people will accept the responsibility and rise to the occasion. They grow in confidence and self belief. You get a more capable, engaged team. Everyone wins.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STRONG AND WEAK LEADERS

In my experience, everyone who really wants to be a better leader has some success. If you want to be an even stronger leader, understand these differences.

Respect vs Like. Strong leaders care more about being respected than being liked. Now, everyone wants to be liked but sometimes the need to be popular gets in the way of strong leadership.

Consistency. Weak leaders treat individuals differently. They have different sets of rules for perhaps people that they like or dislike and people that are pushovers or aggressive. Strong leaders are consistent with their values and how they deal with others.

Decisiveness. You might have heard of the ‘mirror manager.’ This person, when confronted with the need to make a decision says, “I’ll look into it.” Strong leaders are decisive. They get the facts, weigh up the alternatives, consider the risks and make a decision.

Courage. This is a constant in the life of a strong leader. My old mate Ambrose Redmoon said “courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear”. Strong leaders do stuff daily that they don’t want to, stuff that weak leaders put off. Like having a difficult conversation, like putting an end to office gossip, like making a tough call on a non-performing staff member.

Humility. Weak leaders reckon they know everything. There is nothing that they haven’t seen before. The last thing they would do is let people know that they weren’t perfect. Strong leaders ask for help. They surround themselves with good people and build them up so, as a team, everyone achieves more. It’s not all about them.

No matter where you are currently in terms of your leadership, strive to get fully charged. Let us know if we can help.

ONE QUESTION THAT LEADERS SHOULD BE ASKING THEIR PEOPLE

“What can I do to help you do your job?”

This is about

• finding out what’s going on at the frontline
• showing that you care, and
• taking responsibility for empowering your guys to do well.

This is not about

• promoting whinging
• lip service, or
• micro managing.

The challenge is, once you ask the question, what are you going to do about the answer. You might find that you need to support the person more, provide them with extra resources or offer training. Sound like hard work?

Consider the alternative. Don’t ask the question. Let the staff member underperform. Leave them feeling undervalued. Let them struggle. Nothing surer than they will become disengaged.

Be courageous – ask the question today!

WHAT GETS MEASURED, GETS MANAGED

I heard this saying years ago. “You can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.” Fundamentally I took it to mean you need to monitor important things so you can tell if actual performance matches expected performance. Most people would agree that we should measure things like sales, safety and quality, but there are other important things that are much harder to measure, but we should still try.

Three really important parts of any organisation are its culture, the engagement of its employees and the satisfaction of its customers. With all three you should start by determining what your expectation is. State what sort of culture you want, how much you want your staff to care and how much you want your customers to love you. These kinds of things may be captured by what your organisation’s vision is, but this is not essential.

Next, do your best to take stock of each one. Try to get a handle on how you are performing, even if it is hard and not perfect. In terms of culture, ask your staff to list three words that they would use to tell an outsider what it is like to work at your place.

With regards to the engagement of your staff, look at absenteeism and staff turnover and observe morale. Another idea is to conduct an exit interview (usually done after a person resigns), while they still work for you! Ask what is good about working for you and what could be better.

When it comes to customer satisfaction we should be monitoring repeat business and asking questions like “would you recommend us to others?”. There are formalised approaches like the Net Promoter Score (Google to find out more) or just be bold enough to ask your customers how you are going.

Measuring the things that matter, comparing actual to expected performance, means that you can recognise and praise the good stuff and take corrective action on the not so good.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I INVEST IN PEOPLE AND THEY LEAVE?

The number one responsibility of a leader is to grow and develop other people. I believe that a leader should be judged not by how many followers they have, but by how many other leaders they create.

As someone who encourages aspiring leaders to focus on lifting the performances of others, I often get asked "what happens if I train them, then they leave?". My response is usually along the lines of "what happens if you don't develop them and they stay?".

I saw a quote by Sir Richard Branson recently that support this. "Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to."

Developing skills and competencies is one thing (and important by the way), but creating an environment and culture where they feel valued, where they feel that they contribute and belong, means that they are less likely to look elsewhere.

There is strong evidence that links the commitment of the leader to the growth and development of employees with the level of engagement that the employees have.

What will your legacy of leadership be? Were you more focused on creating leaders than followers?