A Rigged Game?
“You can’t be in last place!” Joe shouted, and immediately winced as he saw Ann’s exhausted eyes begin to tear up.
Later in his office, Joe admitted: “She didn’t deserve that. She’s a newly promoted director working long hours in a fast ramp-up. The problem is, we’re out of time. The business plan called for us to be profitable in six months, and it’s been over a year, and we’re not even close. My VP keeps calling for updates every few hours, and that just wastes everyone’s time.”
Joe squeezed his temples. “My people need me to coach and support them, but if we don’t improve in the next ninety days, none of us will be here next year. Maybe I need to go.”
Can you identify with Joe’s frustration? He’s been asked to win a game that feels rigged. He feels like he can’t possibly do everything he needs to. Every time he tries to win, he ends up hurting people – people he knows are trying as hard as he is.
At this point, he’s not sure he can win, but if he can, it seems that victory will cost him dearly. He can feel his soul slipping away every time he loses his temper. It gets results – but at what cost?
When Leaders Lose Their Soul
The hypercompetitive post recession global economy puts frontline and middle level leaders in a difficult position – expected to win, to “move the needle,” to get the highest ratings, rankings, and results. Many managers become hell-bent on winning no matter what it takes, and they treat people like objects – in short, they lose their soul.
This exacts a high price from managers as they work longer hours to try to keep up. Those unwilling to make this trade-off either leave for a less-competitive environment or try to stave off the performance demands by “being nice” to their team.
After years of trying to win while sandwiched between the employees who do the heavy lifting and leaders above them piling on more, they give up and try to get along. Inevitably, after prolonged stress and declining performance, they surrender to apathy, disengage, or get fired.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible for you to win well and sustain results overtime. Ultimately, you can blend the bottom line with the human spirit.
12 Steps to Get Results Without Losing Your Soul
1. Know Your Own Strengths
You don’t need to lead exactly like anyone else, but you do need to be confident in who you are and what you bring to the table. If you don’t believe in yourself, your employees won’t either.
2. Stand Up for What Matters
You won’t win every argument, but your own confidence and your credibility as a leader grow when you speak up for what’s really important.
3. Speak the Truth
When you fail to speak the truth, you undercut your ability to trust yourself.
The most difficult and most important part of speaking the truth is to be willing to share tough feedback and deliver bad news – up, down, and sideways. Winning Well means being willing to tell your boss the project is in jeopardy, to tell your direct report her attitude could get in the way of her career aspirations, or to admit to yourself that the way you’ve been doing things isn’t working.
4. Recognize Other’s Value
Leaders who win well have an accurate self-image. They recognize their own strengths and they recognize that each person on their team also has strengths, talents, and ability to contribute.
5. Admit Mistakes
You might be tempted to avoid owning a mistake for fear that it will make you look weak. In reality, the opposite is true. When you admit mistakes, take ownership, and make it right, you demonstrate strength and people know they can trust you.
6. Invite Challengers
“Mini-me” clones don’t help you make the best decisions or achieve the best results. Effective managers invite dissent and welcome diverse ideas so that the very best decisions can be made.
7. Clarify What Success Looks Like
In our experience, the majority of performance problems managers experience derive from a lack of shared, mutually understood commitments between team members and their leaders. When you’re clear about what success looks like, you energize your team to achieve results.
8. Plan to Achieve Results
Be clear about the path to achieve those results. What key behaviors does each role perform? How do they contribute to the team’s results?
9. Practice Accountability
Effective leaders celebrate when things go well and they ensure everyone keeps their commitments to one another when things don’t go as planned.
10. Connect With Your People
Treat everyone with respect and dignity, not as a number, object, or problem. When you connect this way, you build trust with, and between, your people; you listen to their values, needs, and insights; and you encourage their success.
11. Invest In Your People
Recognize and value the unique strengths and perspectives your employees bring to the team. Draw out their talents and skills while helping them minimize their liabilities. Your employees will know you care about them as people as you help them grow, becoming more effective and productive.
12. Collaborate
Collaboration is more than simply working together. It’s an attitude that communicates you are in it with your people, not apart from them.
Early in David’s career, a co-worker approached him with a hard truth: “In that last conversation with our supervisor, she asked about us, but you kept saying, ‘I did this . . . I’m doing that.’ How about some ‘we’ next time?” Your people are working with you, not for you.
These 12 steps are a powerful leadership cocktail that will help you achieve lasting results with motivated teams – and feel good about the way you do it. What is the first step you’ll take to begin Winning Well today?
Karin Hurt (Baltimore, MD) is a top leadership consultant and CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders and co-author of Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide To Getting Results – Without Losing Your Soul. A former Verizon Wireless executive, she was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of great leadership speakers.
David Dye (Denver, CO) is a former nonprofit executive, elected official, and president of Trailblaze, Inc., a leadership training and consulting firm and co-author of Winning Well.
For more information visit WinningWellBook.com
