Phil…on Leadership at Work
Phil Baldey (from www.strategicpulse.com ) likens leadership at work to raising
teenagers. Why? Because even adults are egocentric, therefore they often behave
like teens. So what should you do?
“Treat staff like adults, consider them as teenagers. Don’t ‘manage’ them, instead
teach them to problem solve, teach them to fish. Many management teams are there
for staff too much, but answering their questions is suppressing them.”
So, Phil, how do you ‘lead’ rather than manage?
1. Set Boundaries
We need to give people what is negotiable; what’s non negotiable; the targets
and the no-go areas. If you let staff do what they want, you often don’t get the
results you are looking for. Alternatively, if you micromanage, people have no
freedom nor do they develop independent skills to problem solve. Management
becomes busy simply responding to staff questions.
2. Set Expectations
Its OK to set boundaries, but you also have to set expectations. What I’ve found
with sales people for instance, if you take a new sales person on and give them
twice the target of existing salespeople and they don’t know any different, they
will actually achieve that target. By giving people expectations they will reach
them within 80% of an expected target.
With expectations, it is also important to give people responsibility. They need to
know where ownership for a project, task or problem sits; they need to be
managed on that responsibility rather than having it taken away from them. So if
they haven’t done what they have been assigned to do, work with them to be able
to achieve what they are responsible for rather than giving the job to someone
else.
3. Follow-through
What you measure you can actually manage. It is important not to abdicate to
your staff, you need to keep involved with them and keep in the feedback loop. Its
about having one-on-one meetings with staff, I would suggest once a month as a
minimum, but even as often as once a week to keep on working through their
project lists to see where they’re at. Discuss with staff what the next stages are,
which lets you set expectations of what you want to achieve within certain
timeframes but keep an open loop for feedback to find out where they believe
they can achieve.
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4. Delegate
Delegation is not abdication. You must delegate projects not tasks. Rather than
give somebody one job to do which requires them to come back and ask “What’s
next boss?”, it is far better to give them the whole project. Help your staff develop
a project’s scope and then through that project manage tasks using feedback
gained through your follow-through. In this way, you set the expectations of what
should be included in that project scope.
When I say delegation is not abdication, it is actually empowerment. When you
delegate you are empowering people to take on responsibility within the
boundaries that you have set, the expectations that you have created and with
the expectation also that you will follow through. Staff then know you won’t leave
them hanging dry, that you will be asking them once a day, once a week, once a
month and they will be expected to actually respond.
One thing I had with a previous business partner, was that they expected us to
know what our revenue and gross profit was at any time they called - if you didn’t
know that information you felt that you weren’t meeting expectations.
Following these steps ensures that you are ‘leading’ your staff, helping them
solve problems independently and creating opportunities for their development
along the way.
www.strategicpulse.com - info@strategicpulse.com