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1-Page Summary of Management Mess to Leadership Success
You don’t have all the answers. Show more humility by listening better and not overreacting.
One of the worst things you can do is be arrogant. Author Scott Jeffrey Miller learned this when he started his first day as a boss by punishing his employees for being late and telling them to find other jobs. Luckily, he realized what an idiot he was being and built a better relationship with his team members.
As a host of popular radio shows and as an executive at FranklinCovey, Miller has interviewed many leaders. He’s found that humility is the quality they value most. Humility requires listening to others, which means keeping your mouth shut. However, when you don’t listen, you end up making assumptions and evaluating people based on your own experience instead of what they tell you.
Empathy is an important skill. It’s about taking the time to understand someone else’s needs, goals and pressures. People who are good at empathy don’t interrupt people when they’re talking, because that shows disrespect. Good listeners also know how to regulate their emotions so they don’t overreact in situations where something upsets them. Before you react, take a step back and examine your values and think about what might trigger you before it happens.
To be trustworthy, be open and clear about your intentions, and don’t overcommit.
Do your colleagues trust you? Do you trust them? Make a list of the people to whom you extend trust and of those whose trust you want to earn. Transparency is very important in today’s corporate world because it allows us to be more honest about our intentions, which helps create a culture based on honesty. One way we can do that is by declaring our intentions up front so that others don’t make assumptions about what we’re trying to do. When I realized this during one meeting, I told my colleague how intimidated he made me feel when he didn’t declare his intentions. He apologized for not doing so and said it was because he felt intimidated by me as well.
Trust is built by keeping your word and following through on commitments. That means that you should keep the promises you make to others. Don’t risk losing people’s trust by not honoring your commitments. Make meaningful commitments to causes that matter to you, and follow through on them.
Model the work-life balance you claim your company values. People need to see the boss take a vacation.
It’s a common problem that people don’t achieve work-life balance. In order to be successful in business, you have to put forth more effort than others do. If you’re not taking breaks, it will affect your productivity and performance at work. Americans are working too hard; 24% of them take no vacation time off at all.
You can’t just tell your employees to work-life balance; you have to show them that it’s important. If they don’t see you work-life balancing, then they won’t aspire to do so themselves. The most influential people are those who model the importance of work-life balance for their teams. Admit that working too much is a problem, because when your employees see you struggle with it, they’ll know that it’s something everyone struggles with and not just them.
Check your paradigms. You might be making outdated or irrelevant assumptions.
Do you make assumptions based on your preconceived notions? You may have a paradigm trap. A paradigm is defined as “pattern” in Greek, and most people follow patterns. For example, Miller didn’t check his paradigm when he was asked to demonstrate his work by someone of lower rank than him in the hierarchy; this person had worked hard toward promotion and it wasn’t recognized. Instead of giving credit for that effort, Miller shut down the other worker harshly before peers and later regretted it.
