Are Your People Expressing Their Leadership Potential Too?

 

 

In a certain organization, the management announced a new program welcoming suggestions from their workers. Then a machine operator went to his supervisor to suggest a way to improve the work process on his line.

 

The supervisor said, “I don’t pay you to think; I pay you to work.” “Tomorrow morning when you come to work” he continued, “keep that big brain of yourself in your car before coming in here.” “No, sir. My car is compacted” said the machine operator. And that was the last time he made a suggestion in that company.

 

I remember another organization I consulted for, one of the line managers shared a story to help me understand their ordeal in the organization. Their director had called for a meeting with all the line managers, after discussing what she wanted, one of the line managers made a suggestion on how they could improve the efficiency of their work in the organization.

 

But because the director knew that implementing the idea would cost a little extra fund, she slapped down the manager. And then told them to go back and do the things she had pointed out and not prove to her that they know too much. Yet the idea would have simply improved their efficiency.

 

Business leaders must understand that if all people do in their companies is to execute instructions and follow rules given to them, you can be sure that they are not expressing their own leadership and so, their potential to make a difference in your business are untapped.

 

You see, right inside every human being is the potential to lead; when this potential is developed and expressed our organizations, families and society experience better and more rewarding outcomes. Organizations gain more as innovation will increase in the area of product, processes etc, customers are more satisfied and colleagues find it fun and more rewarding to work together.

 

It’s important to put in perspective that your people have tacit knowledge and/or may see things from a different angle that could be of advantage to your organization but you may not be taking advantage of this to move your organization forward.

 

Moreover, if you refuse to let them express their potentials, you will lose them over time. They might stay for a while as long as the income from your company helps them settle their bills for the moment. Now, a lot of business leaders take advantage of the fact that the job they offer workers helps them pay their bills and so, as long as they have bills to pay, they will keep coming to work. You are right, the pressure to meet up with bills can make people keep coming to work knowing that they have no other option.

 

However, like Aaron Hurst, CEO of Imperative said, “An employee who feels inspired is 125% more productive than a satisfied one,” while they come to work wouldn’t you rather have them unleash their potential in such a way that they are more productive for you? Furthermore, you can be sure they are actively seeking employment elsewhere. A recent research by Gallup show that 70% of Sub-sahara Africa workers are watching and actively seeking new jobs. This is appalling. You can’t build a strong competitive advantage with workers who have one leg in and one leg out.

 

Here are a few suggestions to help you create an atmosphere where your people can express their leadership potentials.

 

Trust Your People To Do Their Job Well

 

I remember Simon Sinek, an amazing, best selling author, told a story of two different leaders he had worked under in the past. The first would require him to send an email, he would draft the email and take it to him for approval before the email is sent to the client. So he said, since his leader would make adjustment, add a few things and remove some others, he never did take responsibility to craft a well intended email even though he could.

 

Then another leader he worked under would require him to send an email, he would draft it and get it across to this leader for approval but the leader would say, not necessary. If you’ve done it send it. The result was that he took responsibility for crafting a well intended email. Why? He was trusted to do it and do it well.

 

Give Room For Learning From Failure

 

Many years ago, the Google’s former Head of HR, Laszlo Bock told the story of Jeff Huber, an engineer who led their Ads engineering team around 2011 or 2012.

 

Jeff had the policy of discussing any notable bug or mistake in a meeting he called “What did we learn?” session.

 

His idea was to ensure that he was not left in blind and as well to reinforce the idea of learning from mistakes.

 

One day in one of the sessions, an engineer who was full of shame confessed, “Jeff, I screwed up a line in the code and it cost us a million dollars in revenue.”

 

Jeff after leading the team through postmortem and fixes said, “Did we get more than a million dollars in learning out of this?” “Yes.” “Then get back to work.”

 

I am not in any way suggesting that people behave stupidly, mess their work up and then expect to be applauded. Yet people could make honest mistakes and the focus shouldn’t be on punishing them but learning from those mistakes and using the experience gained to contribute to the organization’s growth.

 

In fact, if you send an employee away, as a way of punishing him/her because s/he made a mistake, you are losing since he will go with the experience he had gather to contribute to the growth of another organization.

 

Provide Leadership Trainings

 

In most organizations, when people perform outstandingly well in their roles, they are set up to be promoted to leadership roles. The problem is that when they take on these leadership roles they begin to struggle with it and this could engender stress. But why would they struggle with the role? Because no one taught them how to lead. If, for example, an auditor who has performed well is promoted to lead other auditors, it’s important to note that this auditor’s role has moved from getting the job done to taking care of people, in this case, other auditors who get the job done. And if he is not shown how to accomplish through people, he will struggle with it.

 

Provide Feedback That Inspires

 

If you want people to keep expressing their leadership potentials, you have to understand that your word, actions or responses to issues carry a dominant force; in otherwords, they make strong emotional impression on them. Your people look up to you. What you say to them could demoralize or inspire them. And true leaders inspire others. If your Feedback Inspires your people, they will experience psychological safety to express themselves, take initiative and win.

 

Finally, it’s important to note that if all the answers come from you as the leader, then you have a herd of sheep and your organization may probably not reach its full potential. The beauty of a team is that everyone is taking initiative to fulfil their role in moving the organization forward. This you achieve by creating room for everyone to express their leadership. (I’m happy to answer your questions: godswillerondu@gmail.com)

 

Godswill O. Erondu is the Pioneer, Africa Workplace Leadership Summit.