After a number of years of being a manager, supervisor or team leader it can feel as though you have ‘been there and done that.’ With fewer opportunities for promotion, how can you re-energize your enthusiasm for your leadership role?
 
Perhaps it is time to wake up to your higher purpose of being a developer of people.
 
You will be long remembered for your role in developing others once the memory of your great management skills fades away. 
 
As you think back to the managers and supervisors you have worked for, you likely have one or two who made the most significant impact on you. Isn’t it a shame that there are so few inspiring bosses?
 
As a leader yourself, what kind of legacy are you leaving? Will you be known as the type of manager or supervisor who made a difference to a large number of employees or will you be just another boss, forgotten soon after you retire or leave your current position?
 
If doing your management job has become a little stale, why not shift your focus to building the capabilities of the people who work for you? Not only will they appreciate your interest in their success, they will want to help you succeed in your leadership role.
 
Tips for Building a Leadership Legacy

• Think about the talents and potential of the people who work for you.
• Have conversations with them about their ambitions.
• Provide challenging job assignments.
• Delegate greater responsibility to them.
• Recommend worthy candidates for promotion.
• Give tough love to those who need to adjust their thinking.
• Encourage and push employees to stretch themselves beyond their current beliefs about what is possible. 

As you might imagine, as a paid expert on communication and leadership, I get some well earned ribbing at home from my wife Robin because of my poor listening skills as a husband and father. Once I made the comment that she just didn’t pay me as well as my client’s did for me to be a good listener. After a few days in the dog house I understood that payment can be in many different forms.

How can I be a very good listener in selling and coaching situations and so poor at it at home?

In the same way, my teenage children can be remarkably poor listeners at times and yet hear the faintest whispers of a private conversation I’m having with my wife.

Perhaps you suffer from the same affliction – selective listening. Chances are when your boss or a customer is communicating you pay more attention and you may even lean in to hear a juicy bit of gossip. And yet when a coworker or employee approaches you, your listening skills plummet.

It turns out our selective listening isn’t just dependent on our interest in the information. It also has to do with who is delivering the information.

Supervisors and managers have to be particularly conscious of this because they tend to have certain employees they listen to well and others who they don’t listen to as effectively.

Much of this has to do with the judgments you make about people in determining whether they are worth listening to or not. In a manager – subordinate situation I may have already discounted the information the person is going to give me before they start speaking. It could be based on prejudice or past experience with the individual.

The effect is that I will miss out on some potentially useful information and send the message that I really don’t value the person as an individual. As my employee the person will then be less interested in helping me achieve the departmental objectives.

Tips to Improve Your Listening Skills

1. See the other person as having something useful to say even if it means deprogramming some of your past interactions or your own insecurity.
2. Avoid distractions and focus on the person – yes that means not looking at your computer screen or checking your Blackberry or iPhone for a few minutes.
3. Challenge yourself to summarize what the person said to you before adding in your own commentary.

Along with you, I will be applying these tips at home to see the impact it has on a personal level.

It was an exciting week last week – our book Employees Not Doing What You Expect rose to number two on the Globe and Mail Business Bestseller List. Irwin Schinkel and I are putting the finishing touches on our next book Fusion or Fizzle: How Leaders Leverage Training to Ignite Results.
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Now that we seem to be on the tail end of recession and the beginning of recovery, it is time to confront a reality – nearly one third of employees are thinking about changing jobs if the right opportunity presents itself. Look at the person on your left and then the one on your right – one of you is secretly or not so secretly looking at changing jobs. More on that below. 
—
Dr. Peter DeShane and I are scheduling another workshop: The Psychology of Persuasion and Influence on June 9th in London, Ontario.
 
Now is the time of year when companies plan leadership retreats - see how we can make these meetings more positive and productive.
   
A Reason to Stay
 
Nearly one out of three employees really would like to be working someplace else. During a recession, employees are thankful to have a job and generally put aside thoughts of moving to a different position or starting their own business. This false sense of loyalty can lull managers into thinking that employees are satisfied and motivated when they really are not.
 
As the economy improves, these unhappy employees go looking for other opportunities they think will bring them greater fulfillment and satisfaction.
 
Low turnover can mask a hidden problem. In workplaces with good compensation, generous benefits and a solid pension plan (think public sector or large employers), ambitious employees may lose their motivation and yet not leave. These trapped employees allow their personal productivity to decline and simply “put in time” until their retirement date comes.
 
Whether employees feel trapped or are looking at other possibilities, the challenge to managers is clear – continue to create a work environment that is motivating.
 
Four areas to pay attention to:

1. Challenge – Even high-potential employees will leave an organization if they are bored so managers need to provide a steady diet of new challenges, projects and assignments to create growth.
2. Recognition and acknowledgement – Let employees know that their contribution makes a difference. Say thank-you and let employees know that you see the impact they are having on the team, the customers and the organization as a whole.
3. Inclusion – While you might have favorites, it is crucial to reinforce teamwork through fair and consistent treatment.
4. Likeability and respect for the boss – A major reason employees look for opportunities is because they really don’t like the person they report to. This isn’t simply a popularity contest – they want a manager who is consistent, positive, knowledgeable, supportive and ambitious.

Reflection Questions

• How many of the four motivational elements above exist in your organization?
• Are you the kind of boss employees enjoy working for or do you need to make changes?
• What needs to change in order to have an engaging and motivating workplace?

Action Items

• Assess your personal satisfaction level, identify what is missing and what it will take to fill the void.
• Evaluate your workplace on the four motivational elements and commit yourself to making it better.
• Make adjustments and see the impact on both productivity and job satisfaction.

Having just wrapped up two more Front Line Leadership programs, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of potential in the leaders taking the course. One of the requirements of graduation is for each participant to document how they have applied elements of the course and the impact it has on their department.
 
In today’s LeaderFeeder I will share an example of how one brand new supervisor was able to get his team to think more independently and be more accountable just by making a small change to his leadership approach.
 
A majority of front line leaders (team leaders, lead hands and supervisors) are promoted from within. They get promoted based on having strong technical skills, a good work ethic and a positive outlook. They are usually good problem solvers and want to be helpful. This helpfulness can create an ego where they think that they must solve every problem in the work group.
 
As these new leaders transition from being workers to being leaders, they face an interesting challenge.
 
If they continue to answer every question and solve every problem brought to them, the workgroup will become dependent and the sense of fulfillment they receive from their leadership role will diminish.
 
One new supervisor put this challenge to the test. Only having supervised for a couple of months, he found that his employees would be constantly bringing him questions and issues. And he would cheerfully give them answers. Then, as suggested in the course, he reflected on the fact that for 80% of the questions, the employees had the experience and knowledge to solve the problems on their own.
 
So he made a simple change. Whenever an employee brought him a question or problem he thought they could solve, he simply asked, “What do you think would work?”
 
Initially the employees were surprised that he would trust them enough to solve the problem. After a couple of days he found that the number of questions and problems brought to him diminished to only those that needed his involvement.
 
The employees didn’t realize they were “allowed” to decide certain things. The level of positive attitude and motivation increased because the employees felt that the supervisor trusted them.
 
It is amazing that such a small change in approach can have such a significant impact on the morale, attitude and productivity of a department while at the same time making the supervisor’s job easier.
 
Reflection Questions

• If you are in a leadership role, are there questions you answer and problems you solve that you know could be handled by your team?
• If you are constantly giving answers, how does it impact your job satisfaction and the morale of your workgroup?
• How would your leadership role be more rewarding if you could get the team to solve most of the problems they encounter? 

Action Items

• Size up your work group – do they have the capability to think more for themselves without coming to you for every little question and problem?
• Begin asking, “What do you think would work?” when you are presented with a question or problem.
• Give coaching to help the employee make better decisions and develop good judgement.
• Give positive feedback when the employee takes initiative to solve problems on their own.
• Enjoy having some extra time to focus on bigger issues and problems that need your attention.

I was reflecting back on some pre-training interviews with different organizations in the past two weeks. One theme was common – lack of positive feedback.
 
Of all the leadership tools at the manager’s disposal, positive feedback is one of the least expensive and highest payback actions. Instead of focusing so much attention on what is going wrong, make an effort to build on successes. Once employees see that you notice what they do right, they will be more likely to do more of what you expect. 
 
The belief that the paycheck is thanks enough for the work done still sadly exists in some companies. A paycheck is not a thank you, but rather the other half of a contract completed. We know that pay is number 5 on the list of what motivates employees, so if it comes down to money, then chances are your company must not be creating many other positive reasons to work there.
 
Consider a low cost alternative: Praising a job well done.
 
Human nature works against praise and thanks in the work place. We tend to take the good for granted and complain about the bad. Managers create more work for themselves when they only focus on what’s going wrong. By building on successes it makes the leader’s job easier.
 
Often managers themselves hear praise far too rarely. Praising people for doing something right starts at the top of the management team. And, if you want to positively influence your manager, tell him or her what they are doing right.
 
Some managers may think that offering praise will make people soft and perform at a lower level when in fact it helps the team elevate its performance.
 
Reflection Questions
 
Do you give enough positive feedback to others on what is going well? What impact do you see when you offer positive feedback?
 
Action Items

• Play a game. For every one complaint or fault you discover, force yourself to find three positive things.
• Build a desire for human connectedness in your life and this will manifest as a caring persona your employees will recognize as a caring human being. They’ll work harder for you.
• Comment on positive things, not sparingly, but excessively.
• Praise your boss when he gets something right. If you don’t like the boss waffling when making decisions, compliment him when he does make a decision quickly. This will encourage him to do more of the same so he can hear more compliments.
• Encourage your team to praise the people they supervise.
• Remember to praise and thank in a genuine manner. One sarcastic comment can poison the entire process.

Why aren’t other people be as dedicated and motivated as you are to work hard and get great results?
 
And, if you practice the Golden Rule (Treat others as you would like to be treated), why does that only work with some people and not others?
 
In our recent Front Line Leadership course, when asked what they wanted to get from the course, a third of the participants identified that they wanted some tips and techniques for dealing with a challenging employee.
 
So this week, let’s tackle the Golden Rule and recognize its shortcomings.
 
New leadership video clips are on YouTube – we’re uploading lots of clips to help build your leadership skills. Check out our YouTube channel: http://YouTube/uniquetrainingvideos 
 
Have a great week!
 
The Golden Rule
 
Its pretty straightforward, treat people like you want to be treated, or is it? The underlying assumption is that the people you interact with are motivated in the same way as you are.
 
Of course there is the manager’s version of the Golden Rule, “The Person With the Gold Makes the Rules!”
 
And aggressive managers have their own version, “Do unto others BEFORE they do unto you.”
 
Instead of the Golden Rule, consider practicing the Platinum Rule which is to, “Do unto others as they want and need to be done into.” Treat people as they want and need to be treated.
 
Putting the Platinum Rule into practice
 
- Get to know more about the individuals you work with (Peers), you work for (Boss) and who work for you (Employees). Everyone gives off clues as to what motivates them. Some will be more motivated by the need to fit in, others like recognition and many appreciate new challenges.
 
- Be inquisitive or curious about the behaviors others display and remember that in most cases, the behaviors we see in others are a reflection of how we treat them. This helps explain why some employees can be a thorn in the side of one supervisor and be helpful and positive with another leader.
 
- Make adjustments to your approach to see how it improves the relationships and results.
 
The best illustration I can share is that of a supervisor who attended one of our leadership courses. She had a problem employee and was used to catching that person make mistakes. We challenged her to find one thing the person did that was right and give some positive feedback. It took her three weeks to notice something positive! She said, “Thank you for cleaning up you work area, I appreciate it.”
 
The worker simply grunted, hardly a ringing endorsement. Undeterred, the supervisor continued to notice things that were positive and mention them. She noticed that there were more positive things happening.
 
Over a three month period, she transformed the problem employee who barely made his personal production target and was constantly negative, into a prized employee  who exceeded personal targets and actually helped others be more effective.
 
She learned a powerful leadership lesson. She couldn’t get the employee to change until she herself was willing to change. By looking for strengths, she turned the tone of their relationship from negative to positive.
 
Watch a humorous yet insightful video example of the right and wrong way of correcting an employee who is struggling. 
 
Reflection Questions
 
Are you treating people the way you want to be treated or the way they want to be treated? Are you willing to change your approach to see if greater success is reflected in the other person’s behavior?
 
Action Items

• Identify an individual with whom you don’t naturally get along, or who doesn’t consistently meet your expectations.
• Greet the person warmly each day and engage is some small talk to find out more about them.
• Observe the positive things that person does and build on them.
• Watch to see if the individual’s behavior changes towards you.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with a manager in advance of some leadership training that kicks off this week.
 
We were discussing how his management job had changed over the years. More automation, more communication, more regulations and fewer staff on the team to get the work done.  Sound familiar? If you allow it to, all this activity can draw you away from the time to lead your team.
 
No Time to Lead
 
As workload increases, managers trap themselves behind their computers and Blackberries, firing off emails instead of building relationships with their peers and their employees. Instead of one-on-ones, the manager uses group meetings as a convenient way to get the word out. Employees become disengaged, feel the manager doesn’t care about them and become less productive. This in turn causes more work for the manager and the problem snowballs.
 
Just like busy parents who think that “quality time” is more important to children than “quantity of time”, there is no substitute for face to face time between a manager and team member.
 
There is no magic bullet or ultra-concentrated leadership formula. In fact research of highly effective people leaders shows that being a good leader requires approximately 20% more time. The reason is that touching base with employees, providing regular feedback and getting to know them as people can’t be rushed.
 
What do you gain from investing this time with your employees? You get greater commitment, accountability, improved business results and a greater likelihood for promotion and advancement.
 
Reflection Questions
 
Are you caught in the hamster wheel of endless tasks, to-do’s and emails? Are you neglecting the needs of the people around you?
 
Action Items

• Reflect on your time spent on tasks versus time spent with people.
• Even if it means deferring some of your tasks, take time with the people who work with you.
• Observe the impact of spending more time communicating with your peers and team members in terms of morale, productivity and results.

What do people really think of you? Do you even care? Do you care too much?
 
Many of the managers and executives I coach and train start off by being surprised and maybe even slightly insulted to think that they need to improve their leadership skills. After all, they wouldn’t have been promoted if they weren’t competent… or would they?
 
It kind of reminds me of the 1992 movie A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson, playing the role of Colonel Jessep, defiantly states, “You can’t handle the truth!”
 
The term 360 degree feedback has become much maligned because most of the people who are subjected to this feedback are not open to receiving it in the first place. 360 feedback refers to getting feedback from your boss, your peers and your direct reports, a full circle of feedback.

Self-Deception
 
Let’s examine two patterns of thinking that get in the way of an executive or manager accepting and acting upon feedback from peers and direct reports:

1. The individual giving me feedback isn’t credible or qualified to evaluate me. (What do they know!) 
2. I’ve achieved success by being the way I am so why would I want to change?

Let’s tackle each of these.
 
First, any person who interacts with you is qualified and capable of giving you feedback about your people skills. The feedback might be related to how clearly you communicate, how responsive you are, whether you are approachable or not and if they feel encouraged and supported by you. If they work with you more closely they can also speak to your technical skills related to completing assignments both accurately and in a timely fashion.
 
And that brings us to the second point. High achievers can hit a plateau where the same skills and approaches they used to achieve their current level of success often work against them in getting to a higher level of responsibility.
 
The most common term for this is “The Peter Principle” where individuals are destined to be promoted to their level of incompetence. Once you reach that level, you are no longer promotable and in fact, your days may be numbered.
 
While the incompetence could be technical, most likely it has to do with your people skills. At higher levels in an organization your success has less to do with your own output and more to do with mobilizing a team to achieve the required results.

Unaware of Strengths
 
In addition to being unaware of our weaknesses, we can also be unaware of our strengths. Without an appreciation of what we do well, we might inadvertantly stop and lose the benefit of that strength. Feedback can reinforce what we are doing well.
 
Confronting Reality
 
When you get to a place where you recognize that no matter how successful you have been, there is always room for improvement, you can begin to make adjustments. In every single coaching situation I have encountered there are only 3 or 4 leadership behaviors that the individual needs to change in order to unlock greater success. The challenge is to discover what those behaviours are and get help to correct them.
 
Reflection Questions
 
Do you actively solicit feedback from the people around you as to how effectice a leader you are? If not can you become vulnerable enough to ask for that feedback and use it to grow as an individual?

Action Items

• Ask for specific feedback from the people you work with and those who work for you if you are in a leadership position.
• While you can use more sophisticated instruments to measure leadership style and management capability, you can start with these four simple questions:
• What do you think I do really well and would like me to continue doing?
• What do I not do as much as I should and you would like to see me do more of?
• What do I do that you think it best that I stop doing?
• What do I not do now that you think I should start doing?
• When you get the feedback, even if you find it difficult to swallow, be thankful because you are on your way to greater success.