What I Wish I Knew Before My First Leadership Gig

Leadership is hard. Sure, lots of leadership training exists but learning it and experiencing it are totally separate things. Here is the funny thing…usually, you are already leading something or have already led something by the time you get recognized as enough of a leader to go to leadership training. This means you have probably experienced some of the hard stuff. There is no warm up. TAG! You’re it!

In my first meeting after getting hired for my first supervisory gig, they gave me some advice. It was horrible. They said, “Don’t be friends with the staff. They need boundaries. They need to know who is boss!” They were setting me up and I didn’t know it. Well, they weren’t purposely setting me out on an island. They were just passing on the awesome advice they’d been given. I mean, it was working well for them so far, right? Yeah, not exactly. The staff complained. There was a lot of turn over. They were honestly being asked to do ridiculous things for low pay. I mean, what kind of job pays you just a little bit above minimum wage, asks you to work non-traditional hours, then says you’ve got to drive your own car at your own insurance and gas expense to perform the duties. It was LEGAL! But, it wasn’t great.

I was EXCITED about all of this though. It was my first supervisory gig and I was going to get to lead people…mostly people who were older than I was, but I could handle it. Right?

Well, here are some things I wish I knew.

1. People will expect you to know what they know and more if you’re going to act like you’re in charge. I knew the basics, but I didn’t know the history of the department and I certainly hadn’t experienced carrying clients around town to different appointments. I figured, “how bad could that be?”
2. People will have expectations of you but won’t tell you those expectations. They just expect you to know. You’re getting paid a few cents more than they are so there are just some basic secret, super classified things which you don’t have access to that you should know. Never mind you aren’t eligible for overtime. That’s not their problem. You should simply know.
3. You will be blamed for things that go wrong, but won’t find out about it until someone else gets in trouble. Ouch! One of the silly laws in the scapegoat game is to hold on to information about what’s broken until it’s absolutely necessary to shift the focus off yourself. That’s right. I didn’t know about some processes which had been broken for weeks or months until someone got blamed by someone higher up the ladder than myself. Then, I would receive the call asking WHY I had not taken care of it.
4. You will work hard and it will still not be appreciated. As a leader, do not work simply for affirmation. If you receive it, great. But, don’t go in basing your performance on the expectation of receiving it. I worked as many hours and more than many of the staff. They worked from 7a-3p and 3p-11p. I often worked from 8a-6p and sometimes as late as 8p. Since the shifts crossed, I was seen as not being there at the beginning of the shift and not being there at the end of the shift. Let’s forget the fact I was still on call after the shift was over.
5. Ask better questions. I should have asked how they were feeling about certain things instead of telling some to stop complaining and have better attitudes. I felt if their attitudes were better, they would ultimately have a better day. But, I didn’t validate their feelings and the fact that their leaders, even above me, could have done a better job of caring for them. When the doctor leans out of the window of her Mercedes to chastise you for not doing a better job, that doesn’t feel great. I could have acknowledged those feelings more authentically.
6. People appreciate rewards. Our company, as well as many others, felt as long as they were paying you, you should automatically do a great job no matter what. Incorrect. We needed to…I needed to create some way to let them know how much I appreciated them and their efforts. I didn’t do a great job of this.
7. People appreciate rewards but they appreciate you acknowledging them for being human. We all have challenges. Most of us don’t do a bad job simply because we’re lazy and don’t care. There are life circumstances which each of us feels are valid. They affect how we feel, how we think and ultimately what we do. In many cases, it takes extreme mental toughness and effort to surpass those feelings and do outstanding work. I needed to know this much better and acknowledge it.

I had a lot to learn and I still do. I’m not sure if I will ever NOT have enough to learn. Life is continually changing. There are more options, more distractions, seemingly more that can go wrong and complicated ways to fix things. Leaders can help make life better by going back to the most important factor…people. Remember to connect and communicate!

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