So, in my first post, I mentioned SMART goals. I have a few more building blocks to put in place before goals can be addressed directly. In the last post, we talked about investing in the people you lead. One of the most significant challenges of leadership is that when everyone does their best, they don't all achieve the same results. Another challenge is that everyone is good at different things.
So, when you invest in your employees, you have a chance to learn what like to do, and what they are good at. This is probably not a news flash to you, but everything someone likes to do they are not necessarily good at, and every thing someone is good at, they don't necessarily like to do. The first challenge of leadership is to learn what your people are good at, what they like to do, and then level set their expectations if the two are not in alignment. Often, you will have to offer a bargain to your employees where you ask them to do something they are good at that they don't enjoy, in exchange for the opportunity to do something they enjoy that they are not good at.
This is a delicate negotiation. That is why the relationship you have built is so important. Your job as a leader is to enable success for your employees. This means that you have to understand them, their strengths and their weaknesses, and align their goals to their strengths so that they can be successful. Without the base of a trusting relationship, where they know you care about them and their success, it is impossible to deliver the hard message that someone is not good at something they think they excel at.
So, once you have established purpose and built relationships, the hard part starts. You have to be honest and kind in your evaluations of a person's talents and how they support the organization's goals. The easiest way to preserve the dignity of the employee is to set them up for success in their strengths. Success is addictive. In the early moments of your leadership, seek opportunities to create successful outcomes, building on the strengths of your employees. Once they enjoy the addictive power of success, re-directing goals to their strengths is much easier.
Some struggle with this approach, as it can appear to be manipulative. I prefer to view this approach as supportive of a successful outcome. Again, the ultimate goal is a balance. People usually do best when they do what they like to do. Your job as a leader is to keep them happy, so in effect, doing what they like to so. If they are not as good at what they like to do as what they want to do, you as a leader have to create an extrinsic reward for what they are good at.
Next post we discuss the variability of results.
Sigh . . . I wish you could have been my leader these last few years . . .
ReplyDeleteAs you say, this activity is a balance and does take work and negotiation -- on both the leader and the employee's part. Some leaders are good at working with employees in creating a balance and satisfying work experience and some are not (and they don't care to be). I have had both . . . and the ones that aren't good at it (from my point of view) are the ones that manage 'up'. As as an employee, there isn't a whole lot of benefit to me when the leader is interested in what's above him.
I wish I could have been your leader too................
ReplyDeleteYou gave me another great idea for a future post. How managing "up" damages your ability to effectively lead.