Is that you? Became the Leader you wanted so badly for you?

Unsurprisingly, throughout our careers almost all of us have had some leadership that we loathed, with the exception of a few enlightened professionals.

Faced with such a situation, many of us promised ourselves that when we reached such a position we would do differently, be better, more capable leaders and more servants.

And today, after so many years of career, investing in studies, constantly developing, seeking to be more competitive professionals in the market, will we really become the Leader we promised ourselves? Are we really the best version, seeking the well-being, recognition and development of our team members?

It is common to see several posts about leadership, about the difference between the boss and the leader, etc. Copying, pasting, sharing is, say, at least very easy. And in practice? Are we really doing it differently?

Do you still give or receive feedback at the end of the quarter?

Yes, 2020, 21st century, and it still happens, a lot. Not to mention that feedback that comes annually, before the much-dreamed and sweaty Bonus (scientifically known as Profit Sharing).

There is also the "Feedback to fill in the system", the one that does not help anything, that is empty and without quality, and the Leader simply gives the feedback to be able to deliver the HR form, or fill out the company's system where they must be registered.

Don't you believe that still happens? Talk a little more internally, especially with those you lead, and you will see how common these attitudes are.

The first step towards becoming a leader different from what many of us had in the past, from my point of view (which is not imperative), is to create among our followers and instigate them to create among their followers (when there is) an open 360o continuous feedback climate, where we do have obligations with the quarterly, annual feedback company or whatever regime is adopted in your corporation, but we also have an obligation to ourselves to give and receive feedback continuously.

But, do I have to give feedback every day? Every week? Every month? The frequency depends on you, my suggestion is that, at least once every 15 days you chat with your team, point out the mistakes and praise the successes. Don't forget that you should also receive feedback, see your mistakes and successes, and then act on your mistakes and show improvements. Be a different leader, start your self-assessment with the basics.

By giving and receiving feedback, and showing improvements, you open the gates to the psychological security of your team, and that of your teams, and this can trigger an Angular Habit that better not only your department, but the company as a whole.

Do you develop your teams?

No!!!!!

Because I don't have a training budget. Only a few, because that's what I can do with my "budget".

Understandable, but not justified.

You are the leader, and you promised to make a difference when you "get there". You are failing yourself.

In this case, there are, I believe, two situations Leaders with decision-making power over the budget, and those who do not have this option and only receive what is given to them.

The first situation is the easiest to control, include in your budget the cost of training and be happy. The dreaded "machete of the budget" passed and you ran out of money? Use the strategy of the second situation below.

The second, and most critical, situation is one where the Leader finds himself in a position where there is no training budget or receives "something" (because the company, or its immediate leader, has to show that it is developing employees).

In this situation, you can adopt a mixed training strategy paid by the company or set up your training calendar yourself without any company resources, and play your role of leader being everything you promised to you.

When you don't have a training budget, use the "do it yourself" technique, you've spent your entire career developing (most of the time on your own and without the help of the companies you worked for), you've invested a lot in education and knows your business and the market in which it operates from the ground up. So you DO have the necessary knowledge to train and develop your team, in some specific cases from very wide areas you can count on a special collaboration from the leader or specialist in the subject who works in the company, or in a supplier, I am absolutely sure that they they will be flattered by the invitation and will make a point of helping you on this mission. Recalling that the ETI (Ethics, Transparency and Integrity) is valid here.

Why is developing employees such an important task? Because, if you remember a theory by a comrade named Frederick Herzberg, some of the reasons that lead us to find happiness in our career are the opportunity to learn, increase our responsibilities, contribute to others and recognition for our achievements. It's clear, right in the first few weeks after the training or the development session, you'll notice that your team's motivation is running high.

Some examples of actions you can take on your own:

? Spanish:

You speak, your team does not and your company does not make the resource ($$) available to all employees.

○ Set up training yourself, with the basics, ask for help if applicable. Ask your team (those who are interested) 30 minutes of their time before or after office hours once or twice a week. Soon you will have a team that will be able to at least read and write and will be able to support you in some activities.

○ Very beautiful, but I don't use Spanish in the work. Remember Herzberg above and remember your promise to yourself, to be different and that also means helping others, it will be excellent for them and for you, because you learn or reinforce your learning by teaching.

? Technical abilities:

○ Your team works with energy systems, you are not so expert on the subject, but you need to develop your team so that they can solve problems in your systems.

§ Ask the company's Engineering or its suppliers to help you with some training sessions from basic to advanced including a hands-on part in the field for the team to better fix the content.

○ I am sure that Engineers will be very proud to be able to help you.

○ It is not a shame to ask for help. You must lead the department, not design the systems, so ask for help.

There are countless possibilities, use your creativity and your imagination, after all, they were also responsible for making you "get there" in the position of leader. You can, for example, ask HR support to make the certificates, if they cannot help then do it yourself, there are numerous editing tools that can help you in this mission.

The more learning opportunities you offer your team, the happier and more motivated they are, and the bigger and better the department's results. And please, do not limit the training to the area where the team works, bring new things, if they work with IT, also bring energy training, it is a correlated area that will help achieve better results. Develop training for new leadership, for example, people in technical positions tend to have a little more difficulty in leading.

Remember and believe, skills are developed. You may not have a "bad resource", but your posture may be wrong or at least there are still some actions on your side to be taken.

Angular Habits

I read about this theory in a book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.

In the passage, a new CEO takes the position in a multinational metallurgical company and in his inauguration speech, while everyone expected him to talk about the company's economic growth, he simply said that the company should focus on safety at work, this led to all units of the company spread across the world to create the habit of constantly monitoring safety at work (if employees used PPE, EPCs, if the environments met safety standards, among others), this led the units of the company to reduce lawsuits for accidents at work, and that led to higher corporate revenue. (I explained it in my own way and briefly).

Similarly, angular habits happen in our personal and professional lives, and using the topics covered so far, creating in your department the habit of developing people and a continuous feedback cycle that aims to keep your team members delivering the maximum and to understand the reasons why when they are not, their followers will create these habits with their followers and so on. So, the higher your position in the company, the greater the effects of habits created by you and with that the results achieved go beyond your KPIs, help the company to achieve better results in product and / or service quality, which consequently increases the customer experience, which consequently brings more business to your company and which consequently brings a greater financial result for your company.

Did you see? You became the leader you always wanted for yourself, and you started a change that helps your company to be more competitive in the market, achieving even greater results. Not to mention that other departments within the company can see their actions and implement them in the departments, that is, their angular habits have spread throughout the company and will generate an explosion of better results for everyone.

On Servitude and Leadership

Blessed are those who never had a boss who told you to do something, in his time, without listening to you, and yet he was harsh (not to say uneducated).

One of the greatest powers of leadership, from my point of view, comes in the form of serving those led. The way to understand them as human beings and their reasons for ups and downs, and to assist them in delivering exceptional results and when I say to help them, I say in relation to going out into the field and tightening screws if necessary, help clean the floor, whatever is necessary to deliver the result.

We have all had or have seen throughout our careers that boss who wants you to deliver maximum results 100% of the time, there can be no ups and downs. We have also seen those who aim, but don't even ask if you have a bow and arrow to shoot, you want to turn around.

In our leadership positions, we must be attentive at all times, with our constant feedbacks we can understand, for example why Leader X is delivering less than usual, and when we develop the team, we may have a wild feature that may not be delivered with the same perfection as Leader X, but that can assist the team by executing part of Leader X's demand until he recovers. In our leadership positions, we must be human, serve and be served, be cordial, and always be on hand to assist the team in whatever it takes to deliver the result.

It seems logical, but look around and you will see that even today, there are bosses and companies operating in a non-servant way.

Psychological Safety

Who has never seen, or never worked in a team where the boss planned something, did not ask anyone's opinion to know if he could promise a certain date to the client and imposed that date and you should turn around to comply? A typical phrase "I promised, and now we will have to deliver".

Now some questions: Are your team members free and not afraid to expose dissenting points of view, bring problems, make mistakes, talk openly with you about everything, both professional and personal (be honest with you when answering)? Do your followers show a high level of trust and respect for you and your co-workers? Do you empower your team members to talk about everything they want? Your followers feel free and fearless to bring you any problems.

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then your team's psychological safety may be compromised. Okay, but what does that mean? It means that the performance of your team and consequently the results delivered will also be lower.

All this because your followers do not feel safe in you as a leader, do not feel safe, for example, to make mistakes and report to you and in this situation, for example, the company misses an incredible learning opportunity that it could eliminate once and for all (or at least reduce) the occurrence of the error. If you think that the intern has nothing to add, and you think it is better not to include him in department meetings, you also make the company miss a learning opportunity, not to mention opportunities for innovation (since he, for being much more new you, you can have a killer balcony to solve a problem using some cheap technology of last generation that you don’t even imagine exist because of not having contact)

Another very important factor is that the lack of Psychological Safety can directly lead to decision errors that can be crucial for the growth of the department and the company in general. With an authoritarian stance, where dissenting views are not allowed, for example, your trainee can see you going down the path of the hole, know that you are going to fall into it, and not tell you anything. In short, he knew you had made the wrong decision, but he said nothing because he is not allowed to disagree with your point of view.

Promote Psychological Safety among your followers, and monitor so that they also create among their followers. You improve the "Employee Experience", create a sensational atmosphere in your department, and deliver even better results.

The culture

Create a culture!

Creating or changing an existing organizational culture is a time-consuming, if not painful, process. You have to be persistent, consistent and have a lot of energy and determination.

Creating a solid culture in your department, where the followers are developed, feedback is continuous, angular habits are constantly created in order to maximize the results and consequently the recognitions, the leadership is a servant and the followers have Psychological Security, this will be rooted in the its department since all the followers have absorbed the culture in such a way that it is now part of them, as people.

This cultural change will become your legacy, and your followers will be responsible for defending it and they will, if one day you are no longer there since the market is volatile and more and more the turnover is greater.

And so I finish my first article here on LinkedIn, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Sources:

The monk and the executive - James Hunter

The Servant Leadership - James Hunter

The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

Lessons from Everest: The interaction between cognitive bias, psychological security and system complexity - Michael A. Roberto (California Management Review)