ARE LEADERSHIP SKILLS CRITICAL?
I know there are a lot of smart people out there who know how to develop great strategies and plans to grow their businesses. Not many, though, completely understand the key elements needed to execute them well. Unfortunately, being smart and having vision is no longer enough in today’s business environment. Today you need to be smart, have vision, have passion, and be a strong leader who inspires your team. Leadership is far more than running a business full of employees. There are a lot of people who are in charge of staffs that are not leaders nor do they understand what a leader truly is.
Employees have choices in all categories of employment today and they know it. Most employees are looking for more than a paycheck and a place to work; today they are looking for personal fulfillment and a true work experience. Today’s workforce demands a challenging and fulfilling experiential workplace that stimulates them. There are a lot of determining factors that create this kind of environment for them including culture, the job, the product, and co-workers — but leadership more than anything dictates a workplace culture.
Colin Powell once said, “Leadership is all about people. It’s not about organizations. It is not about strategies. It is all about people motivating people to get the job done. You have to be people-centered.” Poor leaders are those who don’t truly value or understand their people, are not willing to be part of the team, and are incapable of creating a team environment that fosters inclusion and collaboration. You are a part of the team when you lead the team; you are not part of the team when you just give orders. Just an FYI to those of you who actively do this: your employees are very aware of what you’re doing and know you are incapable. They know you are not part of the team and see through your bullshit. It’s a new era of work force and your team is looking for a leader who inspires because they can and should, not a boss who delegates because he or she cannot.
I completely understand that leading also requires being in charge and delegating tasks. It’s just all in the way you choose to manage. Leaders of a team that works hard for he or she because of respect and what the leader brings to the team, versus subordinates who perform because they are afraid of you and of the repercussions that may fall on them, are two very different leaders. True leaders build confidence while empowering their team, and this creates a level of respect for the entire organization. Former US Marine and Navy SEAL, Craig Sawyer stated it perfectly when he said, “How do you know if a leader genuinely loves his people? Simple. He’ll be the one informing, uniting and empowering them. Dividers and deceivers stand in stark, pathetic contrast.” People are compelled by true leadership and will have a genuine connection to a real leader.
Craig “Sawman” Sawyer and his little bird team.
Personally, I am a strong believer in leading by example. I don’t just say I am an empowering leader, I truly am. I have always believed that creating a strong collaborative team environment builds the strongest teams. Author and business professor, Warren Bennis said, “A leader is not simply someone who experiences the personal exhilaration of being in charge. A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people’s lives, for better or for worse, sometimes forever and ever.” This is true on so many levels. A strong leader doesn’t just supply an employee with a job, he or she creates a career path for his/her team. A strong leader shares their knowledge and passion and creates a positive and thriving environment that generates fulfillment and happiness. Therefore, a happy team furthers the positive environment for other employees, and the passion spreads on.
Just remember that as a leader, your most important job is motivating and inspiring your people to believe in the vision and to be a high-performance team. This will require strategic communication, clear direction, team alignment, and most importantly, team leadership. Once you achieve this, the mission of persuading the team to follow and execute the company vision greatly improves. I have 10 tips I’d like to share which have worked really well for me; Leadership, Passion, Culture, Inclusion, Story, Experience, Nurture, Brand, Team, Work.
As a leader, your most important job is motivating and inspiring your people to believe in the vision.
Lead by Example.
To lead by example, you have to be the most knowledgeable person of the brand, product, and mission. This is critical because the team will recognize your passion for the company mission and this will instill confidence in the team that you know what you are doing. If the team believes in you as a leader, they are much more likely to lock arms and get it done. If you know the least, the team will not respect you or trust in you as a leader. Please do not misunderstand, this does not mean you need to be point in every department. You have hired experts to play specific roles on your team and they should be the most knowledgeable in their respective areas. Your leadership should promote this as much as possible. What I am saying is that as the leader you need to have the most overall knowledge of the entire company as a whole.
Leading by example — be it for a department or company-wide — makes a huge difference in performance. Authentic leadership can change the work dynamic, it can change productivity and it can determine the culture. And, it is important to remember that we are only as strong as our team. The key thing that I always say is to consider them your team, not subordinates. Lead by example and create an environment where they look to you for guidance and direction as a leader, not a boss. When a team feels like their leader is truly leading and not dictating, the work dynamic improves and employees feel included. Your team will feel like you are for them and not just a delegator. They will feel like you are in the trenches with them carrying out the same marching orders. The team will be empowered and want to help everyone succeed. This will lead to each person feeling like they are part of the whole mission rather than a single task of the mission, and productivity of the team will improve. When the team sees their leader working as hard as they are to achieve the goal, hit the target, or accomplish the mission, they will become more motivated to go above and beyond in their own role.
Good communication is always a key element in everything you do as a team. A good leader needs to be clear in communicating what each of the roles are to the team. All teams have individual roles and, generally, people understand this. On a football team, not everyone can be the quarterback or the wide receiver. A team needs linemen, kickers, running backs and others to complete the team dynamic. Each member has an important role in playing and winning the game. If you are clear with the team about their responsibilities, it gives them clear accountability for their area of expertise, and it prevents inner-team conflict. Then, as the leader, you work as hard or harder than all of them at moving the ball down field. Ultimately, the team just wants to know that you are in it with them to the end.
Share Your Passion.
Those of you who know me know that I am a very passionate person in what I do. I believe that passion overcomes a lot of hurdles in a company. Passion is contagious and your team will recognize the passion and want to be a part of it. Not only will it help them understand the company mission and direction, it will help them get on board and be a part of it. The passion will help them explain it and live it, and then pass it on to others. Passion creates passion by nature. If you’re a passionate leader and teammate, your team will want to follow and spread the passion forward.
Conversely, fake passion and forced passion generally do not work. For example, if you read an article recently about how your passion can drive your employees and you try to create passion by implementing activities you just read about, your team will see right through you and call bullshit. Your passion has to be real and what drives you all of the time, not faked in any way. Here’s a better idea: instead of faking it, do your job, get into what you’re doing and find the passion. If you can’t, step aside and give someone with passion the job.
Build a Culture.
Company culture is such an important part of any business. It creates a harmonious environment that makes a day of work more productive and enjoyable for everyone. And, everyone knows that it’s important. Unfortunately, you would be very surprised at how many people in leadership roles have no idea what it actually is or how to achieve it. If they are smart, they at least understand that culture is an important part of motivating the team. Your team is your most prized asset, and as a leader who needs to cultivate good company culture, you need to understand what it is. By the way, putting a Ping-Pong table in the break room is not creating company culture. Company culture is creating an environment conducive to playing Ping-Pong.
Good culture is critical in building a positive place to work. It makes your team feel like they belong. Buying the team lunch once in a while or handing out cash for performance once a quarter are nice things, but whatever you do needs to be way deeper than that. It must be something that is real so that the team feels it is genuine and constant. And by constant, I mean cultivating a culture that is something every team member can expect every day. Obviously this culture will vary based on the type of business you lead. An engineering firm will have very different culture expectations than a video game company. It is up to you as a leader to understand your industry and team in order to create a culture that best fits your organization. If you don’t cultivate a culture, the team will create one for you. And it likely won’t be the culture you as a leader want it to be.
Good culture promotes a productive work environment and it helps with employee retention. If people enjoy their workplace, they will be around more, and be more productive on a regular basis. This does not mean make it soft and easy for everyone either. This means that you need to create a learning and inclusive workplace environment where everyone feels like they are a part of the team.
Collaborate and Be Inclusive.
A big part of trust and culture is inclusion and collaboration within the team. These should definitely come from you as a leader. I have found that if everyone is on the same page for what we are trying to achieve and clearly understands the marching orders, the rest becomes interesting and fun. By keeping the team in the loop and explaining to them why what they are doing is important and how it contributes to the big picture, you create trust in you as a leader. You also create growth and learning situations that give the team a chance to expand on the mission and contribute better ideas.
Challenge your team to connect the dots between their initiatives and the company goals. If your team understands the road map and ultimate destination, they can build the most efficient goals, tasks and initiatives to contribute to the company mission. And believe me, when they understand and contribute to the end-goal they will feel empowered and part of the end-game. They will feel included and inspired to grow as a person and team member. And, they will have learned something and become better prepared for the next project, task, or job.
Encourage collaboration between each other and other departments. It’s really exciting when the collaboration starts spreading between departments or silos. The team will take what they have learned and move it forward.
Be a Storyteller.
Storytelling is the best way to convey your message, and captivate and educate your team. We as people all love a good story and we retain more information when what we are being told, is told to us in a passionate and interesting way. Just think about how many movie quotes you can remember versus not being able to remember what you just heard in an afternoon meeting.
Storytelling adds passion to the discussion and makes the information more retainable. Leaders today get too hung up on Power Point thus forcing the team to self-educate. Though your team should be able to self-educate on the details, you are the one who needs to create the initial fire by showing them that you know and understand what needs to be done.
Your team is your first customer, and they need to be evangelists. It may seem rudimentary, but it is team-strengthening when you tell the story about why a product does what it does, or why it compliments your line, or why there is and should be passion for it. Your passion as a leader and a storyteller is very important to building and empowering your team, and the mission. Please do not confuse distributing the marketing or sales plan as storytelling. Or sitting everyone down in the conference room and going through a deck. That is the exact opposite. Those decks are great tools for the details but they need to know from their leader what you as teams are trying to accomplish and why. Storytelling is the best way to explain your vision and transfer your passion.
Create an Experience.
Create an experience for your team and set the tone for the entire company. It does not have to be elaborate, just create the work-experience that builds team confidence, and one in which you would like to work in. This ultimately contributes to the overall company culture, and some may say that experience and culture are one in the same. I personally define the difference as culture being the feeling and experience being the authenticity.
No one wants to sit in a job that is boring, unfulfilling, and not enjoyable. Work is already a job and lots of people are doing things in their job because they are forced to. Creating an experience can make things better. It’s important to remember that you probably spend more awake time at work than you do at home. And that time needs to be rewarding. If you create a work experience where people feel important and included, they will become more positive and engaged. It can be as simple as having meaningful conversations with all levels of the team, or including non-marketing or sales team members in the fun marketing activations and exercises. The experience will highly vary based on the type of company and crew you have, but you as a leader need to understand what your team is about and create the authentic experience.
Nurture Their Strengths.
It is critical for a leader to understand each of their team members and their strengths. Find the good and strength in your people and nurture it. This helps them grow as a person and as a team member. In most cases, the way you make your employees feel about themselves says a lot about you as a leader.
To be a good leader, you first need to have good people skills. You need to be able to read them, understand them, and most importantly, understand that all people are different and have differing needs as a team member. Some need praise and some do not. Some just need to be let off the chain and some like strict guidance. Some need quiet work time and some like to have a bustling work environment. No two people are the same and this does not make any of them less productive or less valuable to the team. The onus here lies with you and you as a leader need to be able to recognize that there is a difference, and that each member of the team has his or her own unique qualities and management needs. The bigger take-away here is that you as a leader need to recognize that there is no cookie cutter approach to managing a team. It is never one-size-fits-all. Never.
Once you know their strengths, you as a leader need to feed them. Align each person with their strengths while pushing them to expand on them and grow their personal asset tool kit. Believe me, most people want to grow and improve on what they are doing. Human nature dictates a desire for acceptance and approval, and in the workplace, that is manifested through work success. I know there are always exceptions. Again, this is up to you to recognize as their leader and to guide them, move them, or replace them. A good leader also needs to know when the wrong player is in the wrong position.
Build the Brand (DNA).
To be a successful brand today, the branding DNA must be authentically integrated throughout the company. This can only come from authentic and true brand leadership and guidance. Too many leaders today can’t/don’t create the brand experience for their team first that they expect their customers to ultimately understand. If your own team is not part of the DNA of the brand and is not truly playing on the team, you have branding issues. You need to understand that the brand is not just the product, the advertisements, and the logo. It is the entire experience of the company.
Brand authenticity cannot be faked. I was lucky enough to work a lot in the action sports industry where the customer/brand-believer demanded authenticity. This gave me an incredible understanding of brand authenticity, and how you have to work for it every day to keep it alive. I don’t care if the brand is an action sports brand or a medical device company, your brand must have an authentic brand DNA that goes beyond the packaging and website. Your team is a big part of what the company is about and they need to be a part of the overall plan. This all lies on you as a leader to define this and build it internally. For example using a baseball metaphor, a true team player would say, “I am a catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers,” as opposed to a non-branded DNA response of, “I play baseball.”
Authentic branding and brand DNA do make a huge difference. A good example from recent history is Old Spice. Old Spice was a staple for men in the 70’s and 80’s and the original team spent years creating the branding, the messaging and an experience for the user. Most people over 50 could probably sing the original jingle today. The brand was then sold to a large conglomerate and that personal unique brand DNA all went away. The brand stayed stagnant at a steady rate for decades and really had no growth. The brand was purchased away from the conglomerate and the brand rebuilding became a focus again. The new campaigns and products aligned with the target market and sales grew over 100% in the first year.
Be a Team.
As it’s been said, “to have a friend, be a friend” — the same goes for your team. In order to have team, you need to act as a team. All of you, including, most importantly, you as the leader. The team needs to be clear on what their position is, what the end game is, and what the plan is to get there. And you as the leader need to actually lead and not dictate. This sounds very obvious but you would be surprised at how few leaders actually understand the team concept. From my observations, I have seen that most leaders have a top-down cookie-cutter approach to leading. They ask the same questions that they learned about in school to challenge their team regardless of the position or task and there is no personalization to how they lead. A team acts as one with a common goal, or you have multiple points of failure along the way. You may eventually end up in the right place but it can take longer, cost more money, and generate more frustration within the team than it should have.
I do not know the original source of this quote but, “Leaders take all the blame and give away all the credit.” This is a great philosophy to have as a leader. You are only as strong as your team and you should always be trying to improve your day-to-day game play as one. And by doing so, you generate trust and camaraderie among the team feeding team strength and confidence.
Work.
Once you have all these elements in place, you just need to get to work. Working hard is critical to achieving all that needs to be done. It does not mean it has to be a grind or bad. Push through the project, make it fun, and get it done. Find the passion in the work, and make the workday an experience and interesting. If you can get a lot of this implemented, the team will be motivated to start the battle and advance the mission. Truly understanding, and feeling included and important to the team, are the best motivators.
The team is the foundation of any successful business. Creating the perfect team truly starts with you as a leader and the culture and dynamic you create. Be passionate and inclusive with the team and show them you are in it with them on the playing field. Create a culture and an experience through storytelling that resonates, motivates, and inspires the team. Strengthen the team and nurture their strengths to build trust and empowerment within them. Build the brand within the team first, and create a DNA that is shared by the team. Once you have all of these things lined up the work becomes more effective, more productive, and more rewarding for everyone.
Author and lifelong agent for leadership development, Gifford Thomas has said, “leadership is about people, it’s about inspiring people to believe that the impossible is possible, it is about developing and building people to perform at heights they never imagine and it’s about making a positive impact on your community, your company, your department, your employees and by extension the world.” Be a leader that inspires your team to be everything they dream to be.