Sins of the Past

Quick question.  How often to you allow OPM (Other People's Mistakes)  to influence your life and your decision making?

Let's face it, we are all an amalgam of all of our past experiences, good and bad.  We respond to the world and the people in it in ways that have been shaped by our innate nature, our upbringing, and our experiences.  Often, the experiences that shape us the most are the unpleasant ones.  Why do we allow this?

Are you the leader who makes people prove they deserve your trust?  Or, are you the leader who willingly gives trust and allows a person to reinforce your decision or make you change your mind? What leads you to make a person prove they "deserve" your trust?  Did they demonstrate that they are not trustworthy?  Or did someone else disrespect your trust and now you project that hurt and disillusionment on everyone else?

In my opinion, the single greatest challenge of leadership is honest introspection.  It is very difficult to analyze our own weaknesses; but it is necessary if you are going to be a good leader leading happy people.

For many, we use parental models for our leadership decision making.  While this can be a valuable construct, some things about it are flawed.  Important disclaimer needed:  If you are leading young adults (< 23) you may need to use a somewhat parental model.  I'll take the two paths separately.

You are leading a team that ranges in age from 17 to 35.  The 17 to 23 year old employees are still learning how the work world works.  It is not a matter of trusting or not trusting with developmental employees, it is sizing your expectations appropriately to their spot in the work world understanding curve.  Simple example.  In society in 2015, having a device in your hand or on your person that you check every few seconds is normal.  If my employees are public facing (cashiers, wait staff, bartender, teachers) the client expects the employee's attention.  As a leader, I have to clearly set the boundaries for personal device use.  I realize you may need to do this for all your employees, as the proliferation of personal devices has been relatively recent, but as a leader you will probably need to be more diligent in your oversight of your newer to the workplace employees, as they may be struggling to break a habit.

The premise that defeats many leaders and destroys the effort to create happy employees is that your employees are trying to:

1. Get Over
2. Lay on your leg
3. Get away with something

Why in the world would you think that?  If you have an employee that has already demonstrated those behaviors, you have a responsibility to address that individual behavior with that individual employee head on.  The rest of your employees do not deserve to be punished for Other People's Mistakes.

Happy employees know they are valued.  It is an impossible sell to tell people I don't trust you but I value you.  Let's go back to the personal device use.  For public facing employees, no matter their experience level, you have to make your expectations clear, and reinforce them with observation and feedback.

What about personal device use for non public-facing employees?  This is more of a challenge for many leaders.  There are environments where personal devices are logically restricted.   Do you want your surgeon answering a text mid-surgery?  The clear cases are easy - what about the rest?  I'm going to throw an idea out there that may sound crazy - but here it is.  If you have done your job as a leader, and have worked with your employees on SMART goals that have enough stretch, and you are holding your employees accountable to their goals, and providing the resources they need to reach their goals, you don't need to care about their personal device use beyond where it interferes with teamwork and courtesy.

For example, if you have an employee working independently on a project, what should matter to you is that they deliver their product on time and accurately.  If they Facebook five minutes an hour or Tweet eight times a day but deliver what you have agreed is a reasonable product - no harm - no foul.  However, if you have team meetings or team projects, you will have to establish boundaries for common courtesy.  Such as, no checking devices when someone is engaged in conversation with you, unless you have pre-warned people you may need to check.  (i.e. - my mom is in the hospital, I have to keep an eye on my phone.  My baby was lethargic this morning, my spouse will be calling if things escalate and a doctor visit is necessary.  I have furniture being delivered, the delivery people will call so I can meet them there, you get the drift).

Some people may accuse me at this point of allowing Other People's Mistakes to influence my instructions.  I look at this space a little differently.  We didn't need rules for this until recently.  I want to make my expectations clear so that everyone is on the same page, and we don't disrupt the functioning of the team because we have different expectations for normal.

Setting expectations is good. Expecting people to take advantage, be rude, be untrustworthy?  Not so good.   Expect the best of your employees.  Make sure you clearly state your expectations.  Make sure your expectations are grounded in purpose.  Why is a rule a rule?  The enemy of a healthy organization is arbitrary unexplainable rules.  Don't fall into the trap.

Next installment - Working Unsupervised