Great Bosses That Fill Your Glass
Apparently my posts lately have had more sour grapes than gratitude. I have always considered myself a glass half-full kind of person. I’m also a truth-teller and quite the empath. This led a coach I had many years ago to tell me the key to a happy life is to lower your expectations.
I’m not sure I agree. I think expecting more of each other and being honest and supportive about where we do well and where we fall short helps all of us raise the water level in our half-full glass. Don’t you?
In reflecting on the half-full part of my career, I am so grateful for amazing bosses I had that saw beyond their own glass, took leadership as a real responsibility, and sought to fill the glasses of those that worked for them.
Here are three biggest leadership lessons I learned from them:
Selfless Mentoring
I got promoted to a big job with much more responsibility than I had ever had and moved to a new division. My boss at the time gave me an inspiring card that thanked me for my contributions. He genuinely wished me well. Most importantly, he wrote that I would find uncertainly and challenges in my new role. He encouraged me to believe in myself solving every situation by asking “what would Steph do”. His gift was more than words. It was complete belief in me and happiness for the adventure that awaited me.
Often managers I talk to are afraid people that report to them will pass them by and it will make them look bad. They approach management as a transaction rather than a relationship. They do, however, know people want development. So managers either avoid the conversation all together or give half-hearted advice and encouragement to their direct reports. Both lead to lack of productivity.
The biggest motivator for people is to have a purpose and a path. So if you want a high-performing team, you have to have the performance and development conversation regularly. Second, people know when you are faking it and when pats on the back and good on ya’s are perfunctory. Being disingenuous is a huge de-motivator and erodes trust and loyalty. Last, high-performing teams and people that continue to get promoted out from under you, actually make you look better as a manager. Senior leadership takes notice, employee opinion scores come out strong for you, and the grapevine is talking about how you are the best manager to work for. The company is better off, you are better off and your people are better off.
So consider that there is enough water and enough glasses to go around for everyone and be genuine and selfless in your support and encouragement of those that work for you and around you.
Situational Coaching
I had started a new job in a new industry. I had a lot to offer in my global brand experience but the product line and the go-to-market strategy was new to me.
My new boss, the division head, took me under his wing and escorted me through all corners of the company and the distribution chain so that I would understand first hand how things worked. He was patient with both my naïveté and my occasional mistakes. Yet, he believed I would learn quickly and knew I had other experience to bring to the table. Most importantly, he encouraged me, introduced me to others, and lent me his credibility. In the first few months he paved the clearest, easiest and best path for me to start on my journey. When he saw that I was ready, he let me work on my own.
Based on the Situational Leadership model from Hersey and Blanchard, situational coaching requires you to change the way you manage someone based on their level of experience. When someone is new, you offer lots of support and instruction, and when someone is fully competent, you let them manage themselves. Managers often see giving lots of instruction as redundant and dependent and employees see it as weak to ask for help. It’s up to the manager to ignore their ego and step in and give the person the best chance for success. It is up to the employee to ignore their ego and to listen, learn and grow increasingly independent.
Having my boss lead me in the first few months cut down my learning curve. More importantly, I had allies all over the company that helped me get things done faster than anyone. Our division launched more products that year than any other division, and I was told by the CMO that I was the best marketing person they had. I thanked my boss for introducing me to the concept of situational coaching firsthand.
Integrity All Ways and Always
Integrity is being honest and having strong moral principles. It is also an inner sense of “wholeness”. It’s doing the right thing no matter what.
Being honest and living with integrity no matter the stakes is what my boss taught me. This isn’t a one-time lesson nor was it done with words. It was a lesson I gradually learned with the example he set in his actions. He spoke up when it was hard. He lived his life, even his personal life, according to the principles of not only our company but the ones he set for himself. He shared his values and his decisions openly. And most importantly, he did these things even when it was unpopular and he was the one most at risk. He set the example for being genuine and it brought wholeness to his life and his leadership.
His actions of integrity were a relief to our team and brought productivity to the organization. If you can count on your boss to be consistent and honest in their actions, you can have a tremendous sense of trust and loyalty which cuts down on churn and politics. He gave me the knowledge and courage to strive for integrity in my life and my leadership.
Companies have actual values and they have the values they put on the wall. Rarely are they the same. No matter what is posted on the wall, people will follow what the leader at the very top does. Precisely because of the responsibility they have leaders at the top should take an integrity oath much like doctors take the Hippocratic Oath. Leaders should pledge to look out for the organization and its values over their own ego or their own personal gain.
However, integrity in leadership gets harder as you get higher. The stakes are higher. There is a long line of people vying to step into the job you are in. And there is a certain addictive quality to power. Many studies have been done on the slide into rationalization of unethical choices at the top and link it to the fact that the higher you go, the more your ego and your validation of self rely on the power and money you have obtained. So top leaders often resort to unethical means to make their leadership look good solidifying their power position and protecting their ego. Enron, Volkswagen, and Wells Fargo are a few of the bigger examples.
As discussed in Ethics (for the real world) by Ronal Howard and Clinton Krover, the key to living with integrity is to set your own boundaries ahead of time. We all break rules — speeding, parking where we shouldn’t, taking the label off the mattress, telling white lies to make our family feel better. Set a line you won’t go over and have the strength to stick to it. This will keep the devil on your shoulder whispering “no one will know”, “it’s only this once”, or “it’s not a big deal” at bay. And if you do slip up, be honest about it and come clean, re-affirming your integrity.
The biggest reward for having integrity is wholeness. Those that aren’t carry around the burden of self-deception, lies and secrets. Wholeness is happiness. Set the example for your teams and bring out the most productive environment by truly striving to embody your own personal values and more importantly those of your organization.
Selfless mentoring, situational coaching, and always demonstrating integrity fill the glass of people individually and organizations as a whole. It makes for a better place to work and everyone will be happier and more productive.
Cheers to the bosses that fill our glass!
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