1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.
Without great employees, no amount of focus
on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they
are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more
capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.
It's your job to provide the training,
mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When
you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and
tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees:
Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.
So don’t worry about reaching performance
goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and
achieving goals will be a natural outcome.
Plus it’s a lot more fun.
2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing
kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed.
Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all
negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.
And they're distracting, because small
problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger
problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose
respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.
Never hope a problem will magically go away,
or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no
matter how small.
3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every
business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed
to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up.
Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak
link.
While that employee may desperately want to
“rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval
is too heavy for one person to move.
But it’s not too heavy for you.
Before you remove your weak link from the chain,
put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say,
"John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's
find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express
confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of
the way.
Don't relax your standards. Just step up the
mentoring and coaching you provide.
If that seems like too much work for too
little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t
need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they
already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few
percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has
tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.
Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it
doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward.
And occasionally an employee will succeed—and
you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.
Can’t beat that.
4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get
away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.
Never say or do anything that in any way puts
you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress
for a few moments to discuss what you did.
If it should go without saying, don't say it.
Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.
When employees excel, you and your business
excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue
a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be
congratulated, not you.
You were just doing your job the way a
remarkable boss should.
When you consistently act as if you are less
important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something
you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.
5. Always remember where you came from. See
an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete
and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”
Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your
employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re
in charge. You’re the boss.
That's why an employee who wants to talk
about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments
with you.
When that happens, you have a choice. You can
blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true
importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give
someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater
the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that
impact.
In the eyes of his or her employees, a
remarkable boss is a star.
Remember where you came from, and be gracious
with your stardom.