Welcome back!
The people are the messy part of any leadership job! 😉 Sometimes they will bring you joy, sometimes heartache, but at the end of the day the journey with them is well worth it. Nearly everyone we meet is a growth opportunity. Many of them are a gift. A few of them will be total blessings in your life, enriching your leadership in ways that positively alter the trajectory of your career. A few others will be exceedingly difficult or painful to deal with, but they too deserve your best.
View your team as just one group among many, and strive to help them be their very best and deliver exceptional results. Keep in mind that the golden rule of leadership is that you will not get good results if you do not treat your people right. The marginal productivity gains you might accomplish by coercing or forcing people to work beyond their max capacity are not worth the long term decline in bottom line results. You have to find the balance between holding people accountable to deliver company minimums and their personal best, which will fluctuate day to day. Define a zone of required and desired performance, and facilitate each team member’s ability to stay within those navigational buoys. You want each individual working at their own sustainable pace, not just because it fosters employee retention, but because it is the right way to treat people.
Respectfully and with compassion,
Deb