Be A Leader Worth Following

Before I begin any workplace engagement, I ask the person informing me of the problem one important question:          

“If I determine that you are at the core of some of these issues, how do you want me to tell you?”  I ask this because problems do not happen in isolation.  Very commonly, they trickle down from the top.  From leadership missteps to flaws in the organizational structure.  My role, as I see it, is not just helping the individuals, but the company as a whole.

 

          From this vantage point, I have learned a lot about the characteristics that make a good leader, and about those well-intentioned qualities that sometimes undermine growth and success.

Here is what all leaders should know:

Leaders should be visionaries – Look ahead at what is coming, determine where the organization is heading; Great leaders must be reflexive and able to pivot and adjust as situations emerge – both internally and externally.  Whether it is adjusting to market fluctuations or acknowledging a gap in training or technology, a great leader takes swift action to rectify a problem and funds a budget that can support unforeseen demands. 

Leave people issues to your managers – Nothing undermines organizational stability more than a leader who inserts him/herself into staffing issues.  It undermines the authority of your managers, disrupts the process of addressing behavioral issues, and leads to claims of favoritism and unfair work practices.

Keep connected with your staff – on a macro-level.  Instead of having an “open-door” policy (which invites complaints that belong at the manager level) make a habit of walking through your office, getting to know your staff, and learning what is/isn’t helping them to get the job done.  Your focus is on the organization, and your staff is the first to know if an initiative isn’t working.  Engage with them for the purpose of making the company better.

Recognize the impact of employee morale – While leaders need to stay out of the fray, they must also support initiatives that help or engage their employees.  If employees are championing a measure – do what you can to support it.  This may mean investing in training, supporting team development, or bringing in a consultant to resolve conflicts that are undermining communication or productivity.  Be aware that budget constraints are rarely seen by employees as an acceptable reason for stalling on these efforts. They will quickly look to other expenditures that should be cut.  Address their concerns in a fashion that demonstrates their value to you and the organization – the return on your investment will be palpable. 

Set a positive and inspirational tone – for the whole team.  At regular intervals (preferably at an all-staff meeting) share the direction of the company, and what is expected of them to make the vision a reality.  Every member of your team should recognize their importance and contribution to the company’s success, and should feel motivated to help the company get there.

Model honesty – Owning mistakes and taking responsibility for making things better is vital to long-term success.  Modeling this behavior – whether acknowledging a venture didn’t go as planned, or that lay-offs will be necessary – isn’t easy, but it goes a very long way toward creating accountability and shared responsibility for success.  By humbly owning your mistakes, you demonstrate the importance of this virtue while also silently encouraging your team to inform you if they foresee problems on the horizon. 

Honesty - Do You Have the Courage (to do it right)?

I have found that the biggest difference in a person's ability to manage conflicts in their own life stems from their courage to be honest. But, there is more than one way to be honest.   And most people do not choose the path that benefits both the person sharing their thoughts and the listener who has to take in the bit of honesty.

Honesty, used for the purpose of managing conflict, is thoughtful, careful, and complete.  It seeks to offer information with the presumption that this information will be enlightening and helpful to the other person. How is this different than what most people do?  Here are a few examples of the wrong kind of honesty and why it doesn't work: 
 

Being “brutally” honest – We’ve all experienced this one.  The words sting and we often don’t know what prompted them.  Brutal honesty suggests that one needs to injure the other person to bring about change.  While the receiver may get the correct message (they also may not), they also get with it a very negative association with the speaker and those who they believe may have influenced the speaker.  This impacts the likelihood and the type of change you will see.

Rambling or telling stories – Often in our desire to be gentle in our delivery, we muddle the information burying it with examples, stories, or our own insecurities.  Honesty takes courage.  Without it, the listener may fail to focus on exactly what you are sharing.  They are left to guess at the point of conversation.  Worst case scenario?  The person sharing may think his/her point is clear.  As a result, any lack of change may be seen as unwillingness by the recipient to make change, when in reality, s/he simply missed the point. 

Teasing the truth – Many people, out of their own discomfort with sharing difficult information will instead use teasing comments as “feedback” to the other person.  They may think their vocalized observations or sarcastic remarks are giving the other person a clear picture of what is wrong and what to change, but this rarely works.  Unfortunately, this option creates a combination of the problems noted in the two examples above; leaving both parties irritated and frustrated. 

A few pointers on how to do it better:

1. Be Kind – It’s hard to hear criticism.
2. Be Direct - Respect that the other person can handle the truth and give it to them.
3. Be Complete – Without story-telling, explain the problem and its impact.   

This is easier than you might think.  Most of the time, when a person is telling me what they wish they could tell the other person, they have in fact just done all those things.  So what makes it so hard to do with the real intended recipient?  I think it is our fear of having the conversation, coupled with our belief that the other person is knowingly or intentionally behaving in a way that upsets us.  In other words, we expect resistance or perhaps a fight.

So let me add a final pointer:

4. Give them the Benefit of the Doubt – Believe that they don’t know, but do care about what you are about to tell them.

Honesty is such a beautiful tool in managing conflict and our relationships as a whole.  It’s something we all must learn to do well.

Preschool Wisdom meets the Modern Workplace

Developing teams who work well together and support one another is an on-going challenge – and a frequent topic of my articles. However I recently recognized a way to address that challenge that’s so simple it brings to mind the popular book of nearly 25 years ago, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum.

The revelation is based on an activity at my daughter's school which keeps kids connected and engaged, (qualities all employers want of their staff) while bolstering their self-esteem and giving them opportunities to be a leader (qualities that are difficult to both develop and assess). The activity is Share Day, and here’s how it works: Each child has an assigned time when he or she gets to share something with his classmates – by way of show and tell, and they get to ask questions about it. Through this activity the children get to know each other better, learn of their shared interests, and develop a level of interpersonal appreciation and respect for one another.

Apply that lesson to a business setting and the outcomes could be far greater. Share Day would facilitate staff in getting to know one another beyond the scope of their work. It would create an atmosphere of understanding and compassion, which translates into better workplace relations and stronger teamwork. It can help shy and quiet staff to connect with their coworkers, and it creates a platform for developing – and recognizing - natural leaders that others will follow.

There’s more good news. Share Day creates a specified time and place for engaging in personal conversation. This means staff would know when they get to share, and likewise, when not to share. Share Day presents staff with an appropriate place to talk about their recent accomplishment, to brag about their kids, or to share good or bad news that is affecting them. Rather than sending non-work related emails, this would be the forum in which staff could talk about their recent vacation, ask for sponsors for the marathon they'll be running, or to buy cookies for their child's scouting troop.

Here are a few guidelines for implementing Share Day at your company or organization:

1. Incorporate "sharing" into team meetings, either as the warm up, or as a way of closing the meeting.
2. Limit Share Day groups to a maximum of 12 people. If you have more than that, the team should be divided into logical groups based upon who staff work most closely with.
3. Limit each person’s sharing to 5-7 minutes. Lunch and breaks are the time for added sharing if desired.
4. Share Day does not need to be a part of every meeting, but should occur about once a month.
5. Each person should be allowed (and scheduled) to “share” about once a quarter.
6. Strongly encourage all staff to participate when it is their turn. Allowing staff to opt out will likely cause other staff to feel vulnerable or judged by their peers and ultimately undermine your goal of improving teamwork and employee relations.
7. Have a kick-off meeting in which staff help in creating rules for Share Day.

Remember that the immediate goal is to help staff bond. Bonding yields trust, better workplace relations, higher productivity, greater loyalty, lower turnover, etc. If you follow the guidelines above, you are spending less than 20 minutes a month on staff relations, and likely yielding a huge return on that small investment.

Back to School and the Play Date

While it’s wonderful when your child goes back to school and makes new friends, sometimes there is a negative side in it for you.

What if your child’s new BFF (best friend forever) is not your favorite child to be around?  How do you set boundaries for your child, and their playmate, when there are obvious differences in the parenting style each child is accustomed?

In handling issues that involve kids and families, the most important thing you can do is be true to yourself, and the parenting style that works best for your family.  But realize that your role as decision maker is also limited to your family.  Below are some important reminders as you navigate these parenting challenges.

1.     Watch your tone – When you need to redirect a child that is not yours, or ask them to follow your rules, do so with a level of tenderness in your voice.  This child is not misbehaving to spite you; he or she may simply have different rules (or no rules) and needs to learn what you expect. 

2.     Respect the other parents – Do not speak negatively about the caregivers of this child in front of him/her, or in front of your own child.  Even if you are stating factual information, like their frequent absence from their son or daughter’s life, it is hurtful.  Imposing any judgment about the other parents is damaging to the friend, and sets a poor example to your child on the importance of accepting differences in others.

3.     Demonstrate Understanding – Begin the conversation by acknowledging that your rules may be uncomfortable for the other child.  Perhaps by comparison, you are strict or seem unfair.  By showing you accept this child’s reality you will gain ground in getting him/her to accept yours.

4.     Set Boundaries – Be clear and concise with the rules this child must follow.  Include your own child in the discussion so that it does not feel punitive, but collaborative.  For example, “In our house, we don’t eat sweets or snacks before dinner.  We have a rule that dessert is earned if you eat most of your dinner.”

5.     Instill Consequences – If there are certain behaviors that are unacceptable to you, let the other child (and yours) know what the consequence will be if they engage in this behavior.  Perhaps the other child must go straight home, or you will cancel their planned sleep-over.  You can prevent many problem behaviors by making the consequences clear beforehand.

6.     Be Consistent – Make sure that the rules you set are consistent with the rules for your child (wherever possible), and are likewise consistent for all their playmates. 

These guidelines will help to keep playtime a positive experience for everyone, even you.

Get Your Hands Untied

How often do Human Resources or managers get accused of ignoring problems, taking sides, or playing favorites?  It seems employees feel that unless a person is fired, or publicly flogged, not enough has been done to remedy a problematic situation.  Complicating matters further, Human Resources (and other authority figures in the workplace) are bound by confidentiality and often cannot reveal how they are handling an issue.

Allowing this conundrum to remain brings some employees to believe that sharing information with management does nothing to help, yet leaves them exposed.  They’ll stop telling you about their concerns even if they continue to be impacted by them.  Morale will drop, workplace relations suffer, and unplanned turnover will increase.  In some cases, an employee will feel violated and, if they happen to be of a protected class, may file a grievance or a lawsuit claiming discrimination.

What can you do?  While the law may leave you feeling your hands are tied, here are five things you can, and should, do when hearing a complaint.

1. Hear both sides.  It sounds silly, but all too often the crux of such concerns occur when a person of authority takes action or makes a decision based on just one person’s side of a story. 
2. Take notes.  Not copious notes, just enough to show you’re actually listening and trying to keep track of the situation.  Remember if it matters to them, they need to know it matters to you too.
3. Help them to resolve it themselves.  Many of the complaints HR and managers hear have to do with interpersonal issues.  They aren’t issues which typically require intervention.  In such cases, encouraging the person to handle it themselves is often the right choice.  To offer support, you may want to role play, provide mentoring, or offer to be present when the concerned party approaches the source of their complaint.  
4. Keep them informed.  Tell them what you’re going to do (generally), and why.  Perhaps it’s not appropriate to act on a first time concern, but you are taking notes and plan to keep an eye on the situation.  Or maybe the issue does require intervention.  Simply let them know that you will be taking action, but that due to confidentiality you cannot disclose any other details.  In either situation, be honest about your decision-making. 
5. Tell them to keep you informed.  This may be the most important step as it assures the concerned party that you do want to help and are not ignoring their concerns.  Urge them to come to you if the situation continues or worsens.  Remind them that you cannot be of help if you are not aware of the problem.

 

By responding to complaints in this manner, you will better control morale, turnover, and issues of conflict in the workplace.