Managing
people is all about leadership because leadership is the only way to bring out
their full brainpower, in other words, their full potential of creativity,
innovation, productivity, motivation and commitment. What’s required is a superior leadership strategy because without
it, your employees might just decide to "leave their brain at the
door" as they enter your workplace.
People are our
most important asset. The best ones are
self-motivated self-starters, but over 90% of the average
workforce are followers, some more so and some less. They became followers, conforming to what they think is expected
of them, because of being told what to do from birth by a long line of
authoritarians: their parents, teachers, churches, government and finally
bosses. As such, they waste most of
their brainpower trying to discover what’s expected of them, leaving little
time to make use of their innate creativity, innovation, productivity,
motivation and commitment.
In comparison,
self-motivated self-starters use all their brainpower on the work and none on
attempting to follow. Thus their
performance is consistently outstanding and does not deteriorate because of
following bad leadership or becoming demoralized. For this reason, a superior leadership strategy is capable of making the
vast majority of employees self-motivated self-starters. These self-starters are at least 300% more
productive than if poorly motivated.
So what is a superior leadership strategy?
Values are central to this strategy because employees respect actions that
reflect high standards of all the good values.
They respect industry, fairness, forthrightness, honesty, compassion,
humility, integrity, etc, while they disrespect actions reflecting low or
negative standards like dishonesty, arrogance or unfairness.
More importantly,
followers will conform to the value standards reflected in the boss' support
functions, good, bad or otherwise.
These support functions are training, discipline, tools, direction,
information, technical advice, parts, material and the like. If the tools are hard to find, dirty and
often obsolete, followers will use this extremely low standard of quality in
performing their work. They will also
conclude that the boss does not care about them and will use this same standard
of caring in their actions toward each other and customers. Thus, conforming to whatever standards are
reflected in the boss’ support is what followers do.
Listening is
any boss’ most important leadership skill for a multitude of reasons. For instance, people can’t be motivated or
committed to something if they are unable to "put in their own two
cents", when they want and how they want, and receive reasonable, timely
and respectful responses. They must
also be given the opportunity to understand and be in on the decision process
for all things that affect them. When
employees are given the right to influence outcomes, they will feel ownership
of the workplace and from this comes a sense of commitment and trust.
So what should bosses do?? Start
with providing employees frequent and regular opportunities, one-on-one and in
groups, to express their complaints, suggestions and questions. These must be answered fully and in a timely
fashion, no shooting from the hip, please.
All of the boss' actions in so doing, including any fix, must meet the
highest standards of common values such as honesty, respect, fairness,
forthrightness, industriousness, admission of error, knowledge, quality,
respect, and the like. As complaints are successfully addressed (people
generally only complain about things which reflect standards lower than their
own), the boss' support/leadership improves and as followers use these higher
standards, work performance improves.
Turning low or mediocre support standards into high standards is the essence of
good leadership.
In the process
of addressing workplace problems, the boss must cause employees to analyze
problems and develop solutions at group meetings. Followers will thus have to think through how and why to solve
problems and watch others do the same, the most proficient being your
non-followers. Followers will thus be
practicing using their brainpower on the work rather than wasting it trying to
follow. And as they do, they will be
unleashing their own creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation and
commitment. The more practice they get,
the more productivity will rise and keep rising, but only so long as their
complaints, suggestions and questions continue to be addressed respectfully,
completely and regularly. Why
even make a complaint or a suggestion if no action will be taken? Why not just "leave your brain at the
door"?
So the boss’
main function is not one of solving workplace problems and deficiencies but of
leading employees to do so. Of course,
the boss must simultaneously provide the highest quality of support
(leadership) so that employees can understand how high standards are used to
analyze and resolve problems.
In addition,
as their complaints are respectfully addressed, employees will begin to believe
that their bosses care about them. They
will begin to believe that they are valued team members. They will learn by example how best to treat
their customers, each other and their work.
There are many more
elements to a superior leadership strategy such as: more than 20 principles or laws of leadership, when not to use
orders (the most destructive management action), how to listen, how to
demonstrate 21 relevant values and conduct 9 support functions in a way to
reflect high value standards, how to conduct one-on-one and group meetings, and
how to deal with problematic workplace conditions and behaviors. These are all
based on how employees react to their managers. Each reaction must be taken
into consideration in creating a superior leadership strategy. You can discover
all of this on your own if you take the time to analyze how you react to
bosses, and to carefully listen to your employees. Once you understand these
reactions, designing the leadership strategy is straightforward.
Leaders would be
well advised to spend more time making certain that their actions and support
meet the highest standards of all relevant values.
By Ben
Simonton, 34 years of managing people with four successful turnarounds
including a nuclear-powered cruiser and a 1300 person unionized group in New
York City. Author of “Leading People to
be Highly Motivated and Committed”. subtitled “The Whats, Whys and How Tos of
Becoming an Exceptional Manager of People”.
To Purchase a Paperback copy of the book from Amazon Go to Leadership Skills Homepage