“It’s fine – all the gourmet stuff has mould on it” exclaimed a friend’s boss.
“Not bacon!” my friend (the employee) countered.
Clearly there were some differences in what was deemed appropriate behaviour between leader and employee here!
I wrote an email to someone today discussing the various challenges of stepping up to a leadership role. In my mind, most people promoted into leadership roles go in fairly unprepared for the struggles they’ll face.
How do you find the happy medium between cost saving and safety (mmm… moldy bacon!)
How do you find the perfect balance of being friendly with those you manage without losing their respect for their leader if you’re too familiar.
How do you set an example for them to follow on the days when you feel like crawling under your desk and putting a huge sign on your door that you’ve gone to Jamaica!
In my first staff management role (excruciatingly detailed in my book Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million) I was such a brilliant first time manager that all my staff (housemaids at the motel I was managing) up and quit on me within 2 weeks!
While I don’t think I’ve come close to perfecting the role of being a manager or leader within an organization each misstep I make (and we all make them) helps me refine and improve my technique.
5 things you can do to improve your leadership performance:
· Find a way for your team to give you feedback on how they think you’re doing (anonymous performance reviews work well in my experience and while they’re a little daunting the info received can be so valuable)
· Remember back to your previous leaders in the workplace. Who did you admire the most and why?
· Find a way to recognize your staff in a meaningful way – simply finding out what their favourite chocolate bar is might be a start!
· Take stock on what leadership training you’ve actually done – what’s your ongoing formal education plan for leadership (after all we can't have YOU developing mould!)
· Take a great leader out to lunch. Find someone you know has the respect of their team and take them out to lunch and probe them with all sorts of meaningful questions on what works for them (and what hasn’t in the past!)
“Not bacon!” my friend (the employee) countered.
Clearly there were some differences in what was deemed appropriate behaviour between leader and employee here!
I wrote an email to someone today discussing the various challenges of stepping up to a leadership role. In my mind, most people promoted into leadership roles go in fairly unprepared for the struggles they’ll face.
How do you find the happy medium between cost saving and safety (mmm… moldy bacon!)
How do you find the perfect balance of being friendly with those you manage without losing their respect for their leader if you’re too familiar.
How do you set an example for them to follow on the days when you feel like crawling under your desk and putting a huge sign on your door that you’ve gone to Jamaica!
In my first staff management role (excruciatingly detailed in my book Advance to Go, Collect $1 Million) I was such a brilliant first time manager that all my staff (housemaids at the motel I was managing) up and quit on me within 2 weeks!
While I don’t think I’ve come close to perfecting the role of being a manager or leader within an organization each misstep I make (and we all make them) helps me refine and improve my technique.
5 things you can do to improve your leadership performance:
· Find a way for your team to give you feedback on how they think you’re doing (anonymous performance reviews work well in my experience and while they’re a little daunting the info received can be so valuable)
· Remember back to your previous leaders in the workplace. Who did you admire the most and why?
· Find a way to recognize your staff in a meaningful way – simply finding out what their favourite chocolate bar is might be a start!
· Take stock on what leadership training you’ve actually done – what’s your ongoing formal education plan for leadership (after all we can't have YOU developing mould!)
· Take a great leader out to lunch. Find someone you know has the respect of their team and take them out to lunch and probe them with all sorts of meaningful questions on what works for them (and what hasn’t in the past!)
1 comments:
Hi Kirsty
well said
I also love the saying "the fish stinks from the head down"
so if the leader (head) stinks -so can the rest of the body (team).
have a lovely day / night
x
Loulou
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