Welcome back!
As a leader you can make a tremendous impact in a way that no one else can. Bear this responsibility wisely! The joy of leadership is learning about your people, what matters to them, what upsets them, what motivates them, what optimizes their abilities, where their growth needs are, and then guiding them accordingly. You should know those basics about every single one of your direct reports. Every. Single. One. Yep, it’s a lot. That’s the job. Make it fun. Talk to your people and learn what their personal and professional dreams are, and what their life outside the office is like. You’re not looking to pry, you just want to know enough to understand where they are coming from, and why they do (or don’t!) show up for work on a daily basis. You want to know what struggles they may be facing, and what they hope to accomplish with their life as a whole. Remember, you hold the privileged position as one leader, at one point in time, in one chapter in their life. Never hold anyone back. Help them look towards the future, make a plan, and then set them free to run towards it with your support.
Each day you need to recalibrate expectations and interactions with each person. No one gives exactly the same level of performance 100% of the time. You will maximize each person’s contribution to the organization when you help them deliver their best on any given day. If they’re going through a rough time, show some mercy. If they’re on fire with enthusiasm, give them the ball and let them run with it. Most days will be ordinary and in between, so help them establish a steady baseline of performance that allows them to be and give their best.
As the leader, it is part of your job to help your people grow personally and professionally. You are there to serve them, they are not there to serve you. Together, all of you are in the service of the mission of the organization, regardless of whether or not the bottom line is about profits, service, or good stewardship of taxpayer dollars. To serve together effectively, it’s the leader’s responsibility to help people develop lifeskills that are crucial to have in the work environment, if they missed out on learning those skills as a kid or at anytime before they land on your team. For example, if someone didn’t learn how to handle their emotions well in childhood for whatever reason, it is now your job to help them learn how to handle emotions in the work environment. Holding people accountable for making healthy choices at work is a big part of the job. Make it a challenging game rather than an indictment that diminishes them as a person. Growth can be fun, so strive to make it so as much as possible.
It is your responsibility to care enough about the team and protect the work environment by holding people accountable to acceptable standards of behavior. Don’t make or accept excuses. Most people are capable of change. If they don’t have organic issues interfering with their ability to understand and choose new behavior, then they will almost certainly be highly motivated to make the required adjustments in order to keep their job. Leaders do a massive disservice to people when they allow bad behavior to continue. What is unacceptable now will only get worse as it goes uncorrected, and the consequences will get increasingly severe. You never, ever want to be the leader who condoned, facilitated, or allowed wrongdoing that later costs that person their job or worse. When a leader allows someone to think acting up is ok, funny, or cool, they are actually harming that person’s future. As they get away with their nonsense, that person will continue acting up in increasingly emboldened ways, until one day they are out of control and someone else steps in and takes control of the situation. The errant leader will be corrected at that point too, for letting the situation gain a foothold and flourish. Ultimately however, in addition to the professional consequences wayward leaders set their employees up to face, they are also spiritually responsible for the years they delay or hinder someone’s growth as a person by allowing bad behavior to go unchecked. You really don’t want to be the leader sowing those seeds that you will reap later as a harvest of massive regret.
Until next time, I’m praying you’ll examine your own backbone and make the life-changing decision to strengthen it in a healthy way. Love you guys and believe in you!