What Does It Take to Lead People in The Workplace?

To my great joy, at the age of nineteen, I was given the privilege to be appointed to lead a team of 10-15 soldiers who have been trained to become aviation firefighters in one of the air forces bases during my military service. We transpired and grew to be an excellent and reliable team, trusting each other with our eyes closed. 

Countless memories lay in my mind of the time when a well-trained team of young soldiers, motivated and eager to save lives, was escorted at all hours of the day and night to carry out their primary mission. One night is well engraved in my memory, the night when we rushed to rescue people from an aircraft that had landed an emergency landing. Within thirty seconds, my friends and I had been on our way to the emergency event.

Everything that took place in those minutes was performed as an instinct and as a result of continuous training and preparation for circumstances in which we had to save lives. Today I know that the success of that skilled team was based on mutual trust, deep friendship, positive energy, and an uncompromising desire to save lives and make sure that every member of the team returns home safely.

Think about it for a moment. Would it be reasonable to use the example I presented and to apply the same method to the daily life of any team in any organization that strives to keep pace with constant challenges, rapid changes, and customer demands?

Would it be wise to recognize that the success of any team in any organization in today's accelerated market and the endless competition is inherent in the determination and the commitment of the organization's leadership to their team members?

Leadership that strives to go out of their way to ensure the employment, development, training, advancement, and prestige of their people that will unite and establish a culture in which the importance of building trust among individuals, supervisors, managers, suppliers, and customers, will ultimately ensure the implementation and the perfect execution of all corporate goals and objectives.

The answer is clear: Bold leadership characteristics will be required to ensure the success of any team in any company to adapt and flourish in these challenging times.

Therefore, I believe that every professional who is leading people should consider developing specific competencies if he or she willing to succeed and advance in today's workplace. A few examples may include people development, adaptability, resiliency, and the ability to communicate up, across, and down the organization, to build strong relationships, influence others, and establish trust.

I faithfully believe that the primary objective of a leader, who was chosen to lead people in any workplace is to make his team members feel important, trusted, valuable, and appreciated.

Leaders who are willing and able to look into their employee's eyes, to greed them, to have a one on one quick chat with them from time to time, and most importantly to find the time to give their people positive feedback and face to face thank you talk or appreciation talk.

Over the years I've often thought about my place and my responsibility to create and maintain a positive work environment regardless of my title or my seniority.

Many questions echoed in my mind over the years:

What does it take to lead people in the workplace?

How to become a purpose-driven team leader?

How to create and maintain a meaningful work environment in which every team member is eager to contribute a fair share for the success of his or her team?

What should I do to create and maintain a confident, engaged, trusted, and meaningful team, department, division, organization?

I'm also a great believer in today's movement which promoting the Meaningful Workplace approach. Therefore, I truly believe that A Meaningful Workplace is the Workplace of The Future!

Why?

It is simple - Employees are people and people usually searching for meaning in what they do for their living. Creating and maintaining a meaningful workplace promotes the creation of a purposeful, values-driven work environment.

When they feel essential, engaged, and trusted they will participate, collaborate, and contribute much more. This kind of attitude, not only from employees but supervision and management creates a meaningful workplace.

A workplace in which every team member provides to the success of the team that elevates and promotes tremendous results, builds better relationships, improves communication and trust which eventually enhances the bottom line.

During my journey, I've seen many employees, managers, and supervisors. Many of them with high-level of education, knowledge, proven experience, and other skills and qualities. However, in reality, and with deep regret, I haven't witnessed enough professionals who are combining the following abilities:

• The ability to lead and influence others.
• The ability to relate and interact appropriately, effectively, and sincerely with peers, subordinates, and superiors.
• The ability to analyze information quickly and correctly and to make decisions which will lead to a win-win outcome for all people involved.
• The ability to perform and deliver exceptional results during stressful and challenging circumstances.
• The ability to adapt themselves and their teams to rapid changes, new requirements, new demand, new goals to fulfill.
• The ability to be resilient at all times and to have the passion, the energy, and the will to build resilient teams for keeping up with all customer demand.
• The ability to develop a great team by creating an environment of trust, respect, excellent communication, understanding, and positive energy. 

Not too many professionals can deal with people in a way that both sides will be comforted by the outcome and at the same time, all tasks will be completed on time for customer and management satisfaction.

I still remember a win-win situation approach vividly in the Political science class which I took many years ago. Since then I was practicing this approach daily in many circumstances at home and work. I believed then, in my twenties, and unquestionably, feel even more today that a Win-Win approach can be and should be promoted and learned in any workplace. 

If this trust exists within your team and your company, these employees will feel some commitment to you as their leader. In this case, very often they will deliver better results, they will take the initiative to do more for you, which will increase the total productivity, and eventually, as a Manager or a Supervisor you will be able to deliver much better results, which will improve your credibility, your performance, and your team success.

Currently, I'm supervising employees in a massive 1 million-square-foot logistics facility; therefore, I cannot always be in all areas at all times. However, due to the trust, respect, and appreciation to my employees, which I consistently promote, develop and maintain, I manage to deliver excellent results by getting just on-time feedback from my drivers, warehouse people, clerks, and others on the state of the facility in any given hour of the day.

During the shift, they are approaching me freely by informing me what else can be done to deliver even better results for the day. I am always there for them; they are the ones that are doing the job; therefore, it is straightforward for me to oversee the whole activities in a very busy and dynamic National Distribution Center. 

It is an uncomplicated recipe: I trust them - they know that I trust them - therefore - they respect and appreciate that - taking ownership and initiative - delivering better results, going the extra mile, providing feedback and ideas on how to make it better.

To be successful, you should practice and learn how to deal effectively with people from different backgrounds, gender, religion, age, etc.

You should respect, trust, communicate and listen to your employees.

You should recognize your employee's motivations and direct their natural charisma to push their performance forward and at the same time to push forward the whole team.

Finally, your end goal as a leader is always to accomplish what you set out to do in a way that leaves everyone involved satisfied with their roles and the results they achieved together as a team.

Always remember that you will be successful through your people, therefore trust, respect, and appreciate them. 

Always remember that you can't do it alone!

No one is an island, and no man by himself can achieve a result that is relative to success and the fulfillment of the company’s overall mission, vision, and goals.

Thanks for reading! Please share, like, reach out, and connect here on LinkedIn. 

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My name is Rafael, and I'm a harmony creator and a meaningful workplace freak who loves people, teamwork, results, and high-quality coffee. I'm helping companies transform their workplace culture by promoting a positive, collaborative, meaningful, resilient, and healthy atmosphere.

I specialized in developing high-performance work teams based on trust, cohesiveness, communication, collaboration, and commitment. My highest satisfaction is to serve and help others improve by encouraging them to utilize their talent and to fulfill their full potential one coffee at a time. This is one of the reasons that coaching, teaching, mentoring, and empowering my teams are my favorite daily activities.

Let’s connect!

Rafael