Your move: Leaders act as if everyone is watching

“It’s not a problem unless you get caught.”
“It’s not like she heard me.”
“He doesn’t have to know. We don’t have to tell him.”
“Those things are confidential so they can’t talk about it.”

Sound familiar? Perhaps, you’ve even said these things before without meaning any harm. These aren’t just things that our employees say. I’ve heard these exact words from organizational leaders and even Human Resources (HR) and Compliance professionals. Sometimes, it’s easier to let things go if we don’t think others will find out. It can be more convenient to take the shortcuts because we think it’ll still get us the same result without anyone noticing.

You don’t get in trouble if you don’t get caught, right? Well, the truth is you never really know. Whether we like it or not, when we are in a leadership position, we are on stage 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. We’re in the spotlight whether we’re at work, online or out on the town. We represent our work, our employees and our organizations no matter where we are or what we’re doing.

So, how do we handle such pressure of being a leader? Live by one rule: always act as if everyone is watching. If we do this, we’ll have a better chance of always doing the right thing and doing the right thing means that we don’t have to remember and keep track of all our secrets or stories.

As leaders, we’re responsible for a lot of tough decisions and difficult conversations. We’re often forced to act quickly, which sometimes leaves us little time to thoroughly evaluate our decisions and their consequences. Even in times of turmoil, leaders must remember to do the right thing even though the right thing will not always make everyone happy.

An example that I’ve seen many leaders struggle with is fair compensation. I’ve seen leaders and HR professionals engage in unfair pay distribution and defend it by convincing themselves that the employees will not talk to each other about their pay.

Even when it comes to confidential matters like pay or severance packages or employee relations concerns, leaders must act as if everyone is watching and do what they know is best. The most successful leaders I know always have ethics at the forefront of everything they do.

So, what’s your next move? Will you act as if everyone is watching?

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Why workplaces should have an alumni network

Almost every college and university in the world has an alumni network for their graduates to stay connected to the school and to each other. Why haven’t businesses followed this concept?

No matter how great you are, how independent you are or how confident you are, you do not reach success without people. Put the ego aside and think about all of the wonderful employees who have made your business a success, including the ones who have left to pursue new careers and opportunities.

Remember, not every employee leaves because he/she is fired or because he/she hates the company. Many people leave organizations because of personal reasons, professional opportunities elsewhere that they just can’t pass up or other priorities. Often times, they leave with mixed emotions, knowing how much they love the organization and its people.

So, why are we just letting these people go and not staying in touch with them? Business isn’t just about revenue anymore. It’s about relationships.

Developing an alumni network for your workplace is one of the best ways to build relationships. Everything gets reviewed online these days. Employee satisfaction is no exception. With sites like Glassdoor, your current and previous employees are rating their satisfaction with working at your organization.

Maintaining and engaging a strong alumni network allows you and your business to improve in areas of need and continue doing the things you do well. Alumni feedback is just as important as the feedback you receive from current employees. It allows you to see trends in employment and employee satisfaction.

Engaging alumni also keeps them in your recruiting pool. For example, if a phenomenal employee left for a better opportunity, you can keep engaging them so that when an opportunity becomes available at your organization, they’ll know right away and might just consider coming back. You save time and money in recruiting, hiring, orienting and training because they’ve already worked for your organization, know the people and understand the culture.

There are also other ways to keep good employees around besides keeping them employed. Alumni can also be customers, business partners, donors, board members or volunteers. Forgetting about your employees who have left your organization is too common of a mistake that organizations make.

I wrote a recent post called Leverage relationships to reach success to encourage jobseekers to build real relationships with people in order to find new opportunities. It works both ways. Organizations need to leverage relationships with alumni to reach or maintain success.

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Ditch the television, pick up a book (Part 1 of 3)

Good leaders don’t just keep up with best practices in their areas of expertise, but they keep up with best practices in leadership. Either way, it means that they are reading up on what other professionals are saying, what researchers are finding, and what the media is reporting.

If you’re reading this post, you’ve made progress of your own. You’re reading this because my post or the subject of my blog interested you because you have some commitment to being a good leader. Maybe you manage people, maybe you started your own business or maybe you are that team member who acts as an informal leader, even to those you work for.

Whether it’s a book, a magazine, the newspaper or your favorite blog, reading enhances the way we think. It allows us to think differently because we are reading about other people’s perspectives or about new ideas.

Reading also makes us more knowledgeable so we can engage in meaningful conversations, better network with other professionals and bring fresh ideas to our work. It’s amazing how reading can open up our minds without us even realizing it.

What’s on your reading list?

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My first leadership lesson, courtesy of my mother

As I started this blog, I got to thinking: what do I really know about leadership? What does anyone really know about leadership?

It’s one of those concepts that is constantly changing. If anything, leadership is not static. It’s always evolving.

My mother was raised in a culture where being an elder was the definition of being a leader. The older you were, the more respect you received. It did not matter if my mother never agreed with my grandma; she did anything and everything grandma told her to do.

Yes, based on that definition, my mother should think I’m the most disrespectful person ever. She doesn’t though. My mother has come to understand that leadership is different depending on where you go because it differs from culture to culture, from generation to generation, and from organization to organization.

So, even though in my mother’s culture a formal leader was defined as someone who was older, the best leaders still had common characteristics. Think of it as a manager versus a real leader in an organization. There are plenty of managers who don’t know how to lead their people.

As we continue to explore the difference between a manager and a leader, keep in mind that the definition of an exceptional leader is going to change throughout time or across cultures, and the best of the best are the ones who know how to adapt.

So, there’s our first lesson: good leaders know how to adapt to change.

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