Be the Leader You Want to Be: 10 Principles to Put Your People First
Written by Scott Smith and Dan Kapcar
At the core of almost every company is its people. It is people who spend their time, energy, and talents working toward achieving the targeted outcomes for their companies, clients, and themselves. It’s no surprise then, that in order to best support a company’s people, it’s critically important to have strong and impactful leadership. In leadership roles, it is incredibly important to clearly understand, support, and challenge each member on your team in a way that most resonates with them based on where they are and what they are after in their career journey. You may think to yourself, “well, how will I know how and when to challenge or support, coach or mentor, offer feedback or commiserate”? The simple answer is that you won’t always know and will probably get it wrong which is completely okay and expected. You can, however, get it right more often than not by following a few key principles listed below to achieve great results with your people.
1. Be transparent and honest: trust is the foundation of every successful relationship. Trust can be difficult to build and simple to break. Transparency and honesty are key to building and maintaining that trust. What people need to hear is not always what they want to hear but having those type of discussions will set a strong foundation for each relationship. People make mistakes, misinterpret information, and jump to conclusions. If you make a mistake, own it, apologize, and move on.
2. Be prepared: spend time reviewing notes/actions/decisions from past 1–1s along with recent performance. Be prepared to discuss any hot topics related to your business unit or company. You should not drive the conversation but should be ready to talk about specific actions or goals that your team member is working toward that have come up in past discussions.
3. Be present: put your phone in your pocket, close your laptop, and be ready to fully listen and engage. Showing that ALL conversations with your people are the most important thing you could be doing at that moment helps to develop a shared sense of commitment to the relationship.
4. Show them that you care: take time to get to know the whole person vs. the ‘work’ person. Each of us brings the collective whole of who we are to each interaction. This is about more than a deal or a deliverable, it is about peoples’ hopes, dreams, struggles, and triumphs in all phases of their lives.
5. Ask the question: if you don’t know something, ask. Be curious to dig deeper on topics that you can sense are important or that will be key to their growth and development. They may not have an answer but asking the question may set them down a path to finding it while also keeping you on that same path!
6. Challenge directly: if something doesn’t make sense or add up, challenge directly to better understand why. There often is more to the story or feelings or reactions once we start to dig a bit beneath the surface. This also removes ambiguity and creates a level of transparency within the relationship that you are willing to be a bit uncomfortable to help them achieve their goals.
7. Celebrate success: when a deal closes, successful project wraps up, positive feedback is received, or a life event happens highlight it! Too often people spend too little time focused on their successes and what they can learn from them. Encourage your people to enjoy the moment when something meaningful happens.
8. Learn from challenges: we all experience challenges, setbacks, or receive constructive feedback. Too often the challenges seem to center on the individual rather that the circumstances or situation surrounding them. Be mindful of how differently challenges present themselves if they start to question who we are. Take time to discuss and learn from the situation to truly understand what about the situation led to a behavior and why that behavior had the impact in the way that it did. A teachable moment exists in almost all situations.
9. Reflect together: answers to difficult questions, defining the path forward or managing a difficult relationship are not always out in the open and apparent. By reflecting — either solo, or together — you create the time and space to get to the root cause of what is creating a sense of happiness or angst which leads to defining a clearer path forward.
10. Evolve your thinking with theirs: Priorities, people, circumstances, and goals frequently change. While it is important to have a clear path forward toward future aspirations, leave some space for flexibility in their career journey to evolve in a natural way. Be prepared to help your team think through their current strategy in light of new opportunities to provide the right support in the right way at the right time.
Leadership is a skill that each of us is constantly evolving. As we learn more and more about ourselves as well as our people and teams, we are better prepared to respond to their needs in a meaningful way. Each of us wants to create an environment for our people and teams to love their work and life. If we are purposeful in how we approach each relationship and follow the principles that we have shared, you will put yourself on a path to making a meaningful impact.
