"Would I Work For Me?"
Throughout our careers we have the opportunity to work for a lot of different bosses. We get the chance to see a lot of different leadership styles, some good, and some bad. We have the opportunity to see how different leaders react to different situations. How do they react to stress? How do they communicate? How do they celebrate team success? How do they deliver bad news? We learn a lot from every boss we work for. Even if what we learn is what NOT to do.
As leaders at Pride, one thing we don’t get the opportunity to do is to see ourselves lead. We don’t get to watch ourselves interact with those around us. Unfortunately in life we don’t get to watch the “instant replay” to see how we handled a situation at work. But what if we could? What if at the end of every day we could watch the playback of that day’s events? Do you think there are things we would do differently? Would we change our behavior based on the things we watched ourselves do? More importantly, would we see the kind of boss that we would want to work for? We need to ask ourselves, “Would I work for me?” Hopefully the answer to that question is “Yes, I would work for me!” But if there is any hesitation, we need to look at our actions and find out what we need to change.
Here are four effective leadership practices that we can all improve on:
- Communicate Openly – Share information with people on your team. They can help come up with solutions if they understand the problems. Get them involved in the decision making process and they will be more willing to do the work.
- Address Your Employees’ Needs – Listen to people’s concerns. People want to know that what they say matters. Take action to show that you care. If people feel their boss cares about them, they will care about the job and their boss.
- Focus on the positive – Tell people what they’re doing right. People are more responsive to positive reinforcement and are more likely to perform better. By focusing on solutions and not problems, the work group becomes more productive.
- Correct Mistakes in Private – Both the person who made the mistake and others in the work group are less likely to become resentful when corrections are handled privately and professionally. Embarrassing people in public will always have a negative effect. Use mistakes to help people learn to do their jobs better.
We may not be able to watch ourselves lead, but we can learn to recognize positive leadership skills, both in ourselves and others. As we eliminate the undesirable traits and strengthen the positive ones, we truly can become the type of leader we would want to work for.
(Adapted from the Video Visions training program “Would I Work For Me?”)