Four fundamental acts of leadership that will instantly help your people
Are you a manager? Great! You’ve got the chance to improve the lives of those that work for you by doing these four simple things.
1) Remind everyone of the context they’re working in.
What I’m talking about here is the environment you and your team are dealing with. You might think this is obvious, but the reason you’re the manager is to make this stuff obvious. Want an easy spot to start? Ask your own manager what they’re dealing with. This creates the wider context in which you and your people work.
Do it now: Open your calendar and schedule a meeting with all of your direct reports. Topic: Context.
2) Remind everyone why the team exists – it’s purpose, what it’s actually supposed to do.
If you’re like most areas, you’re that caught up in trying to get today’s work done that this stuff is either lost or assumed. Take the time to reset this, as it allows everything to flow better as people can now start to make their own decisions and get on with things. And disagreements will be more easily sorted. (And please don’t wheel out the bland corporate mission and vision for this stuff – your people are relying on you to make it real.)
Do it now: When you open your calendar and schedule the context meeting, including ‘& Purpose’ in the topic. AND, start weaving the purpose into every communication you have with your people. Yep, every single one.
3) Let your people know what the plan is.
I’ve got no doubt you’ve got a plan. You made it as part of the business-wide planning process a few months ago, or you’re currently ‘working on’ the plan. You maybe even put the word ‘strategic’ in front of it. But you and I both know that no-one’s reading this thing. It’s the ultimate in corporate papework.
Here’s the thing – you already know what the plan is! Just answer this question:
‘given the context your area is in, and why you exist, what are the big things your area needs to do in your view’.
The key part is the last three words – in your view. You’re paid to come up with a plan to get the work done. Sure, get the views of your people, but your money is earned when you make the decision. Now tell them what it is. No fancy document, no templates, and no mention of ‘strategic’. Just let your people know what the work is, and when it needs to happen by. And write a name next to each thing.
Do it now: You guessed it – this is part of your meeting that we scheduled for Context and added Purpose. So you’d better get out that piece of paper and write down what needs to be done beforehand.
4) Clarify the most important task each of your people is doing.
By ‘task’, I don’t mean small things, I mean the most crucial piece of work that each person needs to deliver to make sure the purpose of your area happens. Have a discussion and get yourselves onto the same page in terms of why the task matters, what the actual outcome is and what quality is good enough (these two are harder than you think as requires imagination). And don’t forget to discuss what resources will be needed and what the actual milestones and final deadline is. Don’t stop until you’ve got something scrawled out that you both understand.
Do it now: With your calendar still open after scheduling the context, purpose and plan meeting, schedule a one-on-one meeting with each of your people called ‘Clarify Your Work’.
LAST BIT
This stuff is leadership. Not the only thing involved in leadership, but it’s the guts of it! Yet when we do our scans to find out why organisations aren’t delivering, the frequent one-sentence summary would be:
‘We’re ready to work boss, just tell us why we’re here and what you really need and we will actually do it!’
Over to you now – have you opened your calendar yet?
(One last thing, please don’t say you don’t have the time to do these things. Face the truth – we never have enough time to do everything. It’s not time, it’s what you prioritise.)
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