Five Tools Every Leader MUST be Using to Boldly Lead Their Team

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And How to Add Them to Your Toolbox

It is complicated and challenging being the leader. Especially a leader with a position of authority.

Demands are everywhere. Demands for more efficiency, more productivity. Do more with less. Keep everyone engaged. Reduce turnover. Make a profit. Get the reports in on time. Get more clients or customers. Answer emails. Hire good people. Get rid of unproductive employees. Fix problems.

It’s easy to get lost in all that. It’s also easy to forget what you were put there to do to begin with.

Your primary job, no matter your title, is to Boldly Lead your team.

What does it mean to Boldly Lead?

To Boldly Lead means to be strong and courageous when facing the demands of the day. It means to always place your primary focus on the people in your team and providing them with what they need to accomplish their goals or deadlines. It means to protect your team when they need protecting.

To Boldly Lead means grabbing the corners of the blanket and shaking them forward; giving them hope and vision. It means navigating for them and bringing clarity in all situations.

To Boldly Lead means you place people first, because it is only through your people that things get done consistently and productively.

[tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#BoldlyLead” url=”http://ow.ly/B5b3309TP7a” display_mode=”box”]To Boldly Lead means that your people are your highest priority at work![/tweetthis]

Boldly Lead with Critical Skills

If you want to Boldly Lead your team, there are tools you need to be ready to pull out and use constantly and consistently.

Empathy

To show empathy for others means that you have an interest in and relate to other people’s feelings. We show concern for when members of our team have issues, especially when those issues have a lot of emotional content. In an interview in Success Magazine, noted author Simon Sinek says it is as simple as saying the words “Is everything OK?”

He gives a great example that he documented in his book Leaders Eat Last. In an interview with a Marine Corp officer about what makes them so special; why every Marine is ready to lay their life on the line for each other. The officer said you could go to any Marine Corp mess hall and you would see that the least in rank eat first and the high officers last. Putting the needs of our team members – especially their emotional needs – before our own goes a long way towards showing that they are important. What you get in return is commitment.

Start with asking. “How are things going?“, “Are you ok?“, “How are you feeling?” And then listen. Don’t judge, don’t try to fix.

LISTEN.

Emotional Intelligence

More than just a buzzword, it’s an important skill for a leader.

Author and psychologist Daniel Goleman identifies five qualities you must demonstrate to achieve a level of emotional intelligence:

Self-awareness
Self-regulation
Motivation (or passion)
Empathy
Social Skills

In other words, it’s not just enough to be self-aware (“I know I am a jerk sometimes”) we must also learn to control that and have the passion for others to want to, the empathy to understand how it impacts others, and the social skills to implement it.

Emotional Intelligence can only be effectively achieved through a commitment to daily personal growth. Develop a plan of intentional growth that helps you become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and follow a specific plan of daily improvement.

Strategic Planning

This is where vision and navigation come in. Seeing the road ahead and the path to take. Anticipating the roadblocks and obstacles and knowing how to overcome them or get around them. Coaching your team on how to move ahead and stay consistent with your mission and values.

Communication

Author and former presidential speech writer James Humes says it best: “The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

Is it any wonder that survey after survey, year after year, identifies communication as the number one skill sought by employers?

Learn and develop active listening skills. Study not just what to say but how to say it. Understand how personality types affect how we communicate. You will use this tool every day, all day.

Calendar

What does a calendar have to do with being a leader?

Use it to schedule your personal growth time (minimum 30 minutes a day), your reflection and navigation time. Everything you absolutely need to do.

I don’t know who originally said, but I heard it from Michael Hyatt: “What gets scheduled gets done.”

What else? Fill in the calendar with every person’s birthday, partner’s birthday, anniversary, children’s birthday, work anniversary, and other significant dates. Add a reminder to each. Make a point of recognizing each of them.

Making them important by remembering what’s important to them.

What tools do you use to Boldly Lead your team? Identify tools you need to add to your toolbox. How are you going to change things?

Share your thoughts here or email me at psimkins@BoldlyLead.com.

Is Your Best Worker a “Clubhouse Cancer”? How Highly Productive People Are Sometimes Bad for Employee Engagement

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When Producers Are Also Employee Engagement Problems

The Diva. The Prima Donna. The 800 pound gorilla. The Lead Dog.

These names we typically attribute to those who seem to have elevated themselves to a level above others, often both in their performance and in their attitude.

Everyone likes a high producer. The person who can belt out a tune better than anyone else, hit a baseball more consistently and farther than others, or the person who has sales numbers up through the roof. We love what they can do for us.

Sometimes, however, there is baggage that comes along with that in the form of personality quirks, bad attitude, and poor personal relations.

They produce but leave a trail of ill-will, resentment, and outright hostility. But it’s hard to get past what they do better than anyone else!

And there’s the dilemma for the leader.

The Clubhouse Cancer

In baseball (and other sports) they refer to that type of person as a “clubhouse cancer“. The mindset and attitude they display spreads quickly throughout the team and infiltrates every part of the organization. The term actually has no official definition but is used widely to describe a player who has a detrimental effect on teammates not through their actions on the field but rather off the field.

Usually, they are one of the best, if not the best, players on the team. They had a huge impact on the field. Yet they often had a bigger impact off the field.

Rebuilding for Engagement

CHICAGO/OCTOBER 2016 Chicago Cubs fans gather in front of Wrigley Field marquee for historic beginning to World Series 2016 — Big Stock Photo

An example of this is as recent as the Chicago Cubs. One of the players on the Cubs team was Carlos Zambrano, a highly talented impact player. Zambrano had a huge impact as the Cubs ace and some excellent season of performance. Yet when Theo Epstein took over as General Manager for the Cubs in 2011 he declared that one of the first things he was going to do was get rid of Zambrano. The starting pitcher’s on and off-field antics, especially in the clubhouse, were legend. To Epstein, they were the wrong start to building a winning team.

In baseball and in other sports, there are examples of other teams and managers who divested themselves of problem players; not because of their performance on the field but because of their negative influence in the locker room or in the community.

It’s All About Chemistry

What Epstein knew was that for the Cubs to break their drought and win a World Series – something they had not done since 1908 – all elements of the team had to perform well together. He knew there had to be a connection and trust among the players. They had to get along in order to work together well.

In sports it’s referred to as team chemistry. The right mix produces the right results consistently. The wrong mix produces problems, sometimes disastrous.

Or Culture If You Prefer

culture engagement concept isolated on black background — Big Stock Photo

In business it’s referred to today as Corporate Culture. What we know about it is that we create the right atmosphere by establishing expectations, treating employees well, and promoting cooperation then we get better, more consistent productivity results. People share resources and credit, there is less negative conflict, and employees are more likely to “go the extra mile” for the team.

The Diva, however, can throw a monkey wrench into all of that. While they produce big, they often do it at the expense of others. They place themselves first above the team and even above the organization. They alienate others, insist on extra accommodations, hog resources to themselves, and demand on being a priority over others.

When leaders support this behavior, either through explicit endorsement or simply inaction, they create resentment for management as well. Morale sinks lower, productivity of other contributors drops off, and the culture we tried to develop fades quickly back into the decaying mess we likely started with.

As many sports managers learned, sometimes you have to draw the line for the good of the team overall. Sometimes what the Diva produces isn’t worth everything else they produce as well.

This is where you can Boldly Lead. Boldness doesn’t require being confrontational, but necessitates the willingness to take actions that may have short-term loss for longer term gain. To create a culture of employee engagement, we don’t just add things that create a better environment but also remove things that can become barriers.

[tweetthis]To create a culture of engagement, know when to remove things that can become barriers.[/tweetthis]

Keeping the high-producing Diva may have good or even great short-term results, but the long-terms costs make it a poor investment for an organization. Ultimately, productivity will drop and turnover will increase.

You could try counseling the Diva, but there’s not a lot of track record of success with that. While they may (temporarily) curb some behaviors, they still have the mindset that created the problems to begin with. Separating them from the organization is ultimately the only solution here. You will probably be surprised at the sighs of relief you hear when it happens.

When Epstein removed Zambrano from the picture the Cubs didn’t win the World Series that year, but their wins did increase substantially and they made the playoffs the next year. Just four years after they broke a 108 year drought and won the World Series.

What’s keeping you from your big win?

How do you deal with the Diva in your organization? What has been the results? Share your thoughts here or email me at psimkins@boldlylead.com.

The (Not So) Shocking Truth About Employee Probation And Why You Should Stop

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It’s Time to Throw Out Employee Probation

Have you ever seen a Company policy that doesn’t benefit anyone and yet still persists as a standard policy?

I’m sure you have. So have I.

One of the worst offenders is the employee probation. It serves no real purpose, provides no real benefit, and yet is put into place in virtually every organization.

It’s time for probation to go.

Instead let’s spend more time building relationships that equip and empower employees for performance.

Probation Means Employment at Will

If you have ever worked for anyone else – big company, small company – you were probably hired under “probation”. In most cases this probation is around three months but sometimes even goes as high as six months.

The idea is that the company has a chance to see how you work out before fully committing themselves to permanent employment for you. In theory within the probationary period they can let you go just because you wore a brown suit instead of a blue suit one day.

Legitimate Reasons for Employee Probation Termination

Usually the reasons aren’t so petty. In fact, according to one study by Spring Personnel here are the most common reasons for dismissal during probation.

Poor Performance.
Absence.
Lateness.
Gross Misconduct.
Sickness.

Which sounds a lot like the reasons for firing people when they aren’t on probation.

Even then, only about 13% of the companies surveyed actually reported an employee not surviving the probation.

Now, a qualifier: those statistics are from the United Kingdom where the rules are different than they are in the United States.

How Employee Probation Works in the United States

In the U.S., rules vary from state to state and, in fact, there are very few rules about probationary periods at all. Many states, such as Florida where I live, use the standard of “employment at will“. Without getting too legal, it basically means that your entire employment is based upon the whims of your employer unless you have a specific employment contract in place. So even after your probation is over, an employer can terminate your employment without real cause. It’s almost like your probationary period goes on forever.

So if you are an employee, probationary periods certainly offer no benefit to you.

Probation Offers No Real Benefit to Anyone

It appears that if you are an employer a probationary period may not offer too many advantages either.

In the article Beware of the Initial Employment Probationary Period, HR Consultant Amara Marcoccia says that probationary employees pretty much have the same rights by law as non-probationary employees.

That means they can file lawsuits and administrative complaints against you whether on probation or not.

No Real System in Place

Even more interesting, Amara interviewed companies about why they had a probationary period.

They didn’t know.

When asked what was different after the probationary period was over,

they didn’t know.

So part of the problem is that there is no real formalized process in place to move an employee from “probation” to regular employment. Even if there was, there is still no real guarantees either way.

So why do we have employment probation?

The policy was initially implemented with organizations that had to work with labor unions. Since there is a level of skill involved in most union-related trades, competence is a factor. Unions don’t want skilled members being subjected to the whimsy of the company and the employer doesn’t want to be stuck with someone who doesn’t have the skill set.

So a collective bargaining agreement removes the privileges of the union’s grievance process for a probationary employee terminated within the probationary period. In other words, until they complete probation it is employment at will. It only applies to trades covered by the union.

So that’s the big issue. Without a union and/or collective bargaining agreement, depending on which state you live in, there is no protection for either employee or employer in an employment probation policy.

Benefits of Probation Without the Hassle

So what if we invest in hiring slow and firing fast. What if we focus on aptitude and attitude instead of solid resumes?

Maybe instead of worrying about probation, we worry about employee productivity?

What would change if we put ourselves on probation?

Employer Probation

Imagine that upon hiring a new employee, instead of giving them a probation we make an investment in productivity.

1. Assign an experienced competent employee with an excellent attitude to be their mentor.

Lockheed Martin does on-boarding fairly well and this is one of the things they do. It helped me a lot to have someone who knew the ropes helping to hit the ground running. When I arrived at my workplace, the mentor had everything in place that I needed. Later, I got to pay it forward with a new employee.

2. Block out time on our calendar for regular meetings with the mentor to track progress.

You can’t be there every moment. It helps to be able to depend on the insight of someone who is having close daily contact with the new hire. Doing this also means you can more quickly respond to signs of problems.

3. Schedule time to meet and talk with the new employee over coffee or lunch to get to know them and build connection.

The more you get to know them you get to know what they like. You get to know what drives them. Then the easier it is to provide circumstances that motivate them and provide work that inspires them.

4. Invest time and money into equipping them to do the work we hired them for.

Just because they had a good resume does not mean they have everything they need to do what we want them to do. It’s important to remember the old adage here: the only thing worse than training them and they leave, is not training them and they stay.

5. Implement a 360 assessment at the end of 90 days to find out where both employee and employer are in terms of gelling together.

You want to be assured that they get along with others, they fit with the team, and they add value. They want to feel comfortable, welcome, and a part of things. If either of you feels queasy about things, this is the time to discuss it.

6. Set goals for how to move forward.

If employment continues at this point, you know want to set the bar higher. Mutually agree on productivity and development goals that gets the most out of the employee and provides the greatest benefit for everyone.

Is it possible that from that we would end up with someone better prepared to significantly raise their productivity? How do you think they would feel about about you, about their co-workers, and about the organization as a whole? How would that affect their attitude?

What do you think? Is it time to terminate probation? Share your thoughts here or write me at psimkins@BoldlyLead.com.

If you want to talk about how I might be able to help your organization move to Boldly Lead your teams, schedule an appointment with me right away.

Leaders in the Whitehouse: Washington and Lincoln Go Over the Top to Get Results

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You, Sir, Are No George Washington!

Can the leadership of a modern president measure up to George Washington or Abraham LIncoln?

It seemed to be a good time to look at it in light of the current circumstance and my personal circumstance.

Here in the U.S. it’s President’s Day, celebrating that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were born in February. It is a holiday for students, government employees, and banks, but not for everyone else, including Performance Management Trainers. The result of that is the amount of distractions around the house will make it difficult to get a lot done today; hence why you are getting this a day late.

Are you a “lessons learned” kind of person? You know, the one who looks for a lesson in everything? I try to be and that’s what led me here.

From a little research and reading, here’s what we know about the leadership of these former presidents.

Washington Showed Great Character in Leadership

What is cited repeatedly is Washington’s great moral leadership in the fledgling nation. It started when he was the army general and continued from there.

Multiple times the opportunity was presented for Washington to take over the country in an almost dictator like government. He repeatedly refused.

Instead he helped steer the leaders towards a representative government. Once the government was formed he immediately resigned his commission in the military.

He refused a third term as president as he felt that it would be too easy for a leader to become a dictatorial type leader with that many terms. Of course, a law to that effect wasn’t passed until after Franklin Delano Roosevelt served four consecutive terms.

Lincoln’s Leadership Reunited a Nation

First, despite what you might see in social media, Abraham Lincoln is not the father of the Internet quote. He was, however, an excellent communicator. As an example of that, look at the Gettysburg address. Edward Everett, the main speaker at Gettysburg that day, spoke for over two hours. Lincoln’s speech lasted about two minutes.

Which one do you remember?

However, that was not the primary skill that led to his leadership success. According to an article by Catherine Moreton titled 10 Qualities That Made Abraham Lincoln a Great Leader, Lincoln consistently displayed several top leadership characteristics, among them:

Capacity to listen to different points of view
Willingness to share credit for success
Ability to communicate goals and vision

It was these characteristics and others that helped Lincoln garner the support he needed, to empower military leaders to move forward, and after the war to bring the states back together.

Presidential Qualities For Successful Leadership

Presidential Historian and Author Robert Dallek in his book Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents wrote that any U.S. President has required five qualities to be highly successful in that demanding role.

Vision
Pragmatism
Consensus Building
Charisma
Trustworthiness

Both Washington and LIncoln had a VISION of how things should be and it was unshakable. They communicated it to those around them consistently.

Both had the sense to face the harsh realities of their circumstances yet did not let their PRAGMATISM interfere with the vision they wished to achieve. Facing reality helps you to develop better plans for success.

Both looked to BUILD CONSENSUS around them. Washington convinced the continental congress to take actions to establish the structure of our nation’s government. Lincoln worked with the legislature and other leaders to get everyone to agree on the proper path to take.

Both had the CHARISMA to attract and influence others, much of that not through a bombastic or highly outspoken style – Washington in particular was somewhat soft-spoken – but through the attraction of their character.

Both men were considered very TRUSTWORTHY. You could believe what they said and you could count on their word. Neither let their ego get in the way.

So, the BIG QUESTION You Knew Was Coming

Using the qualities listed by Dallek, how do our modern presidents rate?

Put aside political bias for the moment and closely examine from George W. Bush to Donald Trump. Which qualities stand out in each of them? Which do they lack? How did (does) that affect their performance and outcomes?

BIGGER QUESTION

How do YOU rate on each of these qualities? What do you lack? How does that affect your desired outcomes?

The same qualities that help a U.S. President be successful are the same ones that can help you.

Trustworthiness is a key. Without trustworthiness nothing else is possible. Do you trust your people? Can they trust you? Learn more about the importance of trustworthiness here.

With that, you can effectively share your vision of what you want to accomplish, seek consensus with those around you, use a pragmatic outlook to anticipate and overcome hurdles, and use your natural charisma (we all have it) to influence others to work alongside you.

What’s the quality that you have the hardest time developing? Share Your thoughts and challenges with me. If not here, email me at psimkins@boldlylead.com or text me at 321-355-2442.

What a Chicken and a Pig Have to Do With Employee Engagement

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Failure to Engage

Most corporate efforts to solve employee engagement problems is making things worse instead of better. It’s an epic fail.

Here’s why.

The Employee Engagement Dilemma

For the last several years now, organizations are becoming more and more aware of the epidemic proportions of employee disengagement. It’s not just in the United States, it is world-wide.

Despite the awareness and the efforts to stem the gushing flow of blood, the problem isn’t getting better.

In fact, there are some signs that it is getting worse.

Updated research from Gallup, OfficeVibe, and others reveals the awful truth.

A whopping 88% of employees don’t have a passion for their work!

An almost equally large 80% of Senior Managers are dispassionate!

The cost to corporations is now OVER $500 Billion annually!

Calculate Your Own Impact

If you want to figure it out for your company, try this ROI Calculator from OfficeVibe.

I did a sample just to give you an idea.

Say you are a small business. If you have

100 Employees
$50,000 Average Annual Salary
45% Turnover Rate (one local company I know of actually has this)

Then you could save over

$1, 405, 641 a year

through better engagement.

Let’s take a bigger company.

1,000 Employees
$80,000 Annual Average Salary
30% Turnover Rate (better but still high)

Then improved engagement will save you

$17, 666, 485 a year!

So why, then, in the face of the wonderful financial and productivity gains to be made with better engagement; why is it that we can’t seem to make things better?

Let’s start with a little story.

Bacon and Egg Breakfast

It’s an old joke but one of my favorites because it never really loses its relevance.

A chicken and a pig are walking down a street and walk by a diner. Painted on the plate glass storefront window of the diner is an advertisement for a Bacon and Egg breakfast. Probably with toast but that’s not relevant here.

The chicken proudly perks up and says, “Look! If it wasn’t for my contribution that breakfast would not be possible!”

The pig says, “Yeah, for you it’s a contribution! For me, it’s total commitment!“

It’s a great story for the difference between involvement and commitment. It’s also a great reason why our engagement efforts are failing.

Failure to Commit

From researching this, the conclusion I have drawn is that most organizations are failing to resolve employee engagement issues because they have not made it a priority in their strategic plan.

They are INVOLVED in employee engagement but are not fully COMMITTED to it.

In other words, they are the chicken and not the pig.

Here’s some examples of “solutions” to employee engagement that I have seen:

Taking the annual employee survey and re-packaging it as an Employee Engagement Survey.
Incidentally, most companies are taking about the same amount of action from it now as they did when it was just an Employee Survey; that is to say very little if at all.
Creating new metrics to study employee engagement
Don’t misunderstand. Metrics can be a valuable information source – if you know what you actually need to measure and if they can provide guidance to resolve issues. Otherwise, it’s just numbers. The other issue I have here is it is important to remember that with Employee Engagement not everything that counts can be counted.
Adding new benefits to the employment package.
This is related to the old-school thought that all you have to do to make people happy is offer them more money and more bennies. Despite the mounting evidence that is doesn’t work and never did work, people still use it.
They focus on improving employee happiness
On the surface, that seems logical. Where it falls down is that it makes an incorrect assumption. This approach assumes that a happy employee is a productive employee, yet this is NO EVIDENCE to support this.

These and other approaches will likely fail. While there is no one cure-all for employee engagement, the evidence seems to suggest that until Employee Engagement is made a STRATEGIC PRIORITY FROM THE TOP DOWN that anything we try will be a failure.

What does that look like?

A clear and concise mission statement and corporate value set lived out (and emphasized) from the top.
A well-defined leadership development track that focuses less on management technique and more on real leadership skills.
A improved system of hiring that focuses on character traits as strongly as skill sets.
A structured ongoing program to equip and empower employees to perform with excellence.

It’s time to stop being the chicken and become committed like the pig.