Leadership - don't be a wimp

Leadership – Don’t be a Wimp

Leaders have faith in people. They believe in them. They have found that others will rise to high expectations. R O B E R T  K . G R E E N L E A F

True leadership sets clear and concise expectations. It communicates information and holds people accountable for what they are selected to do. Being direct and setting expectations isn’t being mean. It’s about what you expect of them and their work. There should be no doubt who you want on your team and at the same time, retain your desire to maintain clear and concise communication with them about what you expect them to do.

In most cases, people do not like to be left in the dark. Nobody appreciates or accepts a leader who provide you more ambiguity than facts. This leads to shoddy work performance and missed deadlines. Once you implied that failure is acceptable, you have lost your position as a leader. At the same time, one you have allowed a team member to consistently miss work assignment or projects, you have allowed that member to drag down the team and impact both morale and confidence of the whole team in your ability to lead.

Making exceptions and not knowing where you stand makes people anxious and stresses them out. It is a distraction you don’t need. Don’t leave your expectations to be unspoken. Express them up front to avoid failures. Remaining silent on your expectation is pure neglect to the team’s ability to get things done. Don’t feed into the negativity by remaining quiet. If you don’t talk about expectations, you have a major problem when it pops up and then take it out of the team because they never delivered what you expected out of them.

Not knowing where they stand, what they are expected to do and when it needs to get done are all the kind of things that makes them anxious and unhappy. It allows them to think you are being unkind to them and treating them with less respect they deserve. Being lazy or a little bit hazy about communicating to your team is a major problem with most leaders. Silence, in this case, is not golden. What makes it worse it when the failure comes, you yell at them about something they had no prior knowledge of as you never shared the expectation with them openly and candidly.

Good leaders know ahead of time that before any project begins, they need to take the time to set a clear and definitive expectations from the start. There are so many other issues that may come up along the way and this ambiguity can forestall many problems if the team is on the same page as their leader. Wimpy leaders prefer ambiguity over clarity. It gives them more room to maneuver and make decisions that would otherwise be cast in stone or within a line of thought that was a clear expectation.

Being vague or abstruse always leaves something else at someone else’s expense. There is always a cost to such styles of leadership. One can clearly see the advantage of putting a project in writing as it is a more positive projection of both goals and objectives as well as the timeline, as well as the accountability factor and expectations set forth in such an assignment.

If we are continually setting expectations ‘off the cuff,’ we may paint a ‘too rosy of picture.’ In reality, both are flawed designed initiatives and not dealing with the reality of leadership principles. Initially, team members are energized by all of these grandiose ideas and promises of impressive things to come. However, once they realize these vague guarantees are mostly hollow, they lose faith in the leadership.

A good leader knows when to ask for input and or give directions on expectations without input. There is a time for asking for feedback and a time for executive directions. Being a leader who chooses to be direct in telling the team what you require of them is a set expectation of a leader. It should not come as a surprise that being direct is part of the job. On the other hand, a wimpy leader may use a more passive dialogue to make people comfortable rather than direct language. For some reason, some leaders feel that this ‘soft’ approach is better when in fact, it is just plain weak and wishy-washy for many to accept as a clear expectation of their own work.

There should be no open-ended questions. There should be no open-ended tasks. There should be politeness and respectful demeanor but with directness that everyone can appreciate and understand. What it comes down to is this – can I or can’t I trust this person to do this and if not, do I need to get or find another person? The leaders should have that option on the table at all times. You either trust someone or you don’t. Leadership recognizes this principle as a necessity to get things done. If you don’t trust somebody to get it done, find a different person.

We shouldn’t put up with a lack of accountability in our own teams. We shouldn’t retain them until we can’t stand them anymore. If they don’t fit the need, find somebody else who fits the assignment and don’t frustrate yourself with making excuses for that person who can’t get it done. If the person you don’t trust is or remains to be a viable option, talk to them, reiterate what the expectations are and then allow them to withdraw from the project or commit to it. Let them experience their own accountability through their own natural consequences of their actions and deal with that at the right time.

When you find a person you can’t trust, it is best to inspect them before you expect them to do a job. What that means is simply take the time to trust but verify. Do a follow up or numerous follow-ups to inspect their work progress. Don’t fear being labeled a ‘micro-manager’ in such cases. The fact is, the other team members know the flaws of the person better than you do and understand such a cautious approach. Holding someone accountable is your job.  Giving them input is your job as well as giving them the opportunity to do the work up to your expectations.

When you lead them in a constructive, trusting manner, you simply make them better workers and reinforce the organization’s ethos and culture. Remember that your leadership is a brand. It is your reputation so if you need to verify, follow-up, and ensure quality and consistency of the employee, then leave it up to the methods required to ensure such an outcome. Everyone is different and all require different methods. You can create consistency in them by creating having consistent methods and procedures in place that can be counted on the be there for the team to benefit from.

Mutual responsibility is at the core of accountability; the bonus is not solely on the person who leads to provide direction. It is equally the duty of the leader and team member to hold each other accountable. There are things the leader must provide and other things the team member must provide – clear expectations, and those needed resources must be identified as well as the timeline and deadline to get things finished up and completed. Quality and timely work is still job one in most cases.

A good leader never hesitates to ‘spank’ an employee for doing something wrong. Now, being spanked can take on various meanings but constructively spoken, it merely means to be held accountable for their actions. This makes the employee stronger as well as the team. It creates a bond that is hard to break up under duress and stress as time wears on all involved but the trust and the accountability never erodes to the point of mistrusting each other’s efforts. One without the other shows we don’t care and every team member needs to know that their leader cares.

A good leader holds himself or herself accountable as they look into the mirror and identify their own attributes and contributions to the expectations. Once a leader sees their own position, they know how the others stack up in their relative roles or positions as a team. Wimpy leader often point out the faults of their team members to avoid looking bad themselves. They want to convince the boss and others it was their wrongdoing that caused the failure. Almost instantly, they want to change the behavior of the team rather than the behavior of themselves.

Team leaders who set high standards for themselves will often see a significant improvement in the team and at the same time, members will be more readily to accept their oversight and input when you become trustworthy of their confidence and respect in you. Some leaders impose the burdens of the expectation on themselves rather than the team and that works in the eyes of those who follow him or her.

As leaders, we have a responsibility to correct and motivate those entrusted to our stewardship. A servant leader is responsible for his people and all those assigned to the relative project or department. If something needs to be discussed with a team member, it is the leadership’s responsibility, not that of an outsider or a person delegated to do so.

This is very harmful to the credibility of the leader and cause ripples of doubt in the team’s circle of trust of their leader. Nobody likes corrective action being delivered by someone not a member of their own team. It is considered being disrespectful and often taken with the wrong attitude or intention of the act itself. Many call this act ‘passing the buck’ and a good leader knows the buck stops with them. Some people will say that if you treat people well, they will return the favor and if you treat them poorly, they will also return the favor as that is what karma says is a natural consequence of such an act.