Fit for duty does not equal fit to lead

Just because you’re good at your job, it does not mean that you will be a good leader. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see organizations make when it comes to their human resources. While I believe strongly in succession planning and employee development, growth does not always equate to promotion into a leadership position.

To determine how to best recognize and reward your employees, speak with them about their career aspirations, build upon their strengths and move them into positions and environments where they’ll thrive. Don’t automatically assume that the next step for every star performer is management.

I’ve seen far too many organizations lose fantastic employees because they were forced into management positions they could not handle. Going from a staff position to managing a group of your peers is not an easy thing for anyone, let alone someone who does not have the right set of skills to take this on, or even the desire. Just because someone can manage a task, it does not mean they can manage people.

Here are some questions to ponder before promoting an employee(s) into a leadership position(s):

  1. Is management even what they want to do? Forget for a second if they would even be right for the job. If they have no passion for a leadership position and you force them into one, you’ve defeated the purpose of recognizing and rewarding them.
  2. Are they qualified? When I ask these questions, the response I often get is, “Well, if I don’t push them to take on a leadership position, I’ll never know if they’re a good fit or not.” However, people fail to realize that leaders often don’t carry titles. The people you should look to when filling leadership positions are those who are already leading your teams informally. You may have intelligent and hard workers on your team but who do they look to for direction, support, guidance, feedback and decisions?
  3. Is there another way to promote them? Promotion does not always mean taking on a management position and growth does not always happen through upward movement. If you have an outstanding employee who is not fit to lead, you may consider creating another promotional opportunity for that person. What about a new job with new or more responsibilities and meaningful benefits?
  4. How would the team feel if you promoted this person? It doesn’t just matter how the employee feels; don’t forget about the team you’re asking this employee to lead. I have met a lot of employees who are well-respected by their peers for their knowledge but despised for their lack of people skills. If you promote someone in this situation, you’re not just letting that person down but you’re letting the entire team down.

So, consider the implications of promoting employees into leadership positions before actually doing it.

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Too little too late: Losing your star performers

They’re the most loyal employees you have. They’re your hardest workers. They understand both quality and quantity, producing the best results and the most results. They’re always willing to learn and teach. They represent your organization with pride. They’re coworkers love them; your customers love them; you love them. They’re your star performers.

But, why would you wait until they have one foot out the door to get them to stay? So many leaders and organizations make this very mistake all too often. Specifically, I see leaders and organizations overlook five specific areas.

1. Training and Development
This starts with hiring practices. It is a misconception that many recruiters and hiring managers have that just because you hire someone who is extremely qualified, it means that they will require less training and development. This is far from true. If anything, they might have different needs when it comes to the areas in which they need further development. Richard Branson says it best: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

That’s what development is all about: growing our people, helping them improve their current skills and develop new ones. One of the most heartbreaking stories I heard was from an exceptional coworker about why she left a company. She said she begged the company to pay for her to take a class and they kept putting it off, year after year that she would ask. Finally, she saved enough money to pay for it herself. When she put in her notice, they asked her why she was leaving and she said, “On several occasions spanning several years, I gave this organization the opportunity to invest in me. I wasn’t asking to go back to school for a degree or to attend an outrageous number of conferences each year. I asked to have one class paid for so I could learn one new skill. The organization told me that it could not afford it. So, I invested in myself and now, I can’t afford to offer up my new skill to an organization that wasn’t willing to invest in me.”

2. Career Growth
Career growth can mean many things. It can mean simply investing in training and development of your staff. It can also mean providing new opportunities for people, whether it’s a lateral movement or upward movement within the organization.

Give people a chance especially if you already know their potential. Some organizations make it impossible for their employees to move up internally which is why they have high turnover and onboarding becomes the busiest process in the organization.

3. Meaningful Recognition
Problem? Yes. The problem here is that organizations assume that people like to be recognized the same way, which is not true. Some people enjoy being the center of attention while others prefer a more subtle form of recognition.

What does this mean for leaders? It means that leaders need to get to know their employees. It sounds like a daunting task but it’s worth the investment. If you customize and personalize your recognition programs and decisions, your staff will feel truly appreciated and special. If there’s only one or two generic ways of recognizing people, the recognition loses its meaning and value.

4. Playing Favorites
Misconception: rewarding your star performers equals playing favorites. This happens the most probably during performance review time. Managers give everyone the same rating because they don’t want to have tough conversations and because they don’t want staff to think they’re playing favorites.

High performers hate this! They feel like their time, hard work and results are for nothing when their lower performing peers are receiving the same review rating and/or raise and not expected to improve performance. If they’re not recognized for being better, they’ll either stop being a star performer or they’ll leave, neither of which are good for an organization.

5. Salary
While many believe this is the number one reason why people leave organizations, it is not. However, it still is important. The biggest mistake I see leaders make is throw money at their star performers as they’re heading out the door. If your employees have already accepted another job offer and are giving you two weeks notice, it’s probably not the most ideal time to offer them a raise. If you truly value them, you would have given them a fair raise a long time ago.

The most embarrassing thing about watching leaders do this is that they either look so desperate because they’re essentially begging the employee not to leave or they look silly because they actually believe it’s going to work. It usually doesn’t.

Attaining star performers is an opportunity. Retaining them is a privilege earned by grasping the opportunity to do everything in your power to provide them the best possible work environment in which to thrive. Lesson learned? Don’t fall into the trap of losing your best employees because you did too little too late.

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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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The power of learning to unlearn

There has been a lot of change in a small period of time in the workplace. Organizations are constantly making changes to keep up with competitors or become the next best thing. Even in industries that used to be steady and stable like healthcare and education, we’ve seen layoffs, closings and mergers in the past few years.

Through all this change, I’ve seen a vast array of struggles and coping methods. The most interesting to me, however, is watching people try to unlearn things. That’s right, unlearn. The beauty is that those who were able to do it survived some of the greatest changes in organizations.

Often times, people going through change have a hard time accepting new ideas, new work and new people and that’s to be expected. The problem I see is not so much that they cannot learn new things or that they don’t want to but more so that they have a difficult time letting go of the way things used to be – a problem with unlearning what they’ve known for years or maybe decades.

While most people struggle with change, I’ve seen a common theme in those who overcome their struggles and it’s the ability to unlearn things. They are able to make connections between what was, what is and what could or should be. They know how to evaluate the differences and determine whether a change is good or bad. Then, they unlearn what they knew previously if they think the new way is better.

The magic is in unlearning because they aren’t committed to believing that what they used to know is necessarily the right and only way. They can hear the reasons for change, understand it and thus, embrace it – if it’s a good change, of course. These are not easy things to do because it’s natural to gravitate towards the things we are comfortable with rather than unlearning them.

If we all focused on the power of learning to unlearn things when we are dealing with a lot of change, we may be able to better see the benefits of the change. How have you struggled with unlearning and how did you overcome that struggle?

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Accountability without support does not work

As an HR professional, I could not agree more that we need to hold employees accountable for their performance. In fact, I find that leaders don’t do this enough. However, the biggest problem I see leaders make when it comes to accountability, besides the fact that they don’t do it enough, is that they try to hold people accountable without ever providing the proper training or support.

If your team is not meeting expectations or you’re not meeting your numbers for the month, why not start by asking what you can do? Too many leaders look first to blame their staff – they’re not working hard enough, they’re not competent enough, they don’t care about their work enough. Well, sometimes, it might be because they have not received enough resources, guidance, technology or training.

Next time your team falls short, don’t look for blame but instead, look for areas where you can help. If you don’t know where the problem is or how to help them, ask. Ask for feedback from the staff. They usually know exactly where they need help and what would help them do their jobs better.

Leaders should take ownership in improving and developing their teams to be successful. Once you do that, then you can set clear expectations and hold people accountable. Only when you have done everything in your power to make your team successful can you realistically hold them accountable for performance.

Invest the time in your people and it’ll pay off. Not only will you develop a strong team that way but you’ll boost morale. People will want to work for you and do their best every day because you invested in them and believe in them.

Once you’ve done everything to make your team successful, you can hold them accountable. As a leader, you have the power to give employees encouragement, tools/resources and independence to do their work, make decisions and succeed. If you don’t give people the tools to do their job effectively/efficiently, you can’t expect fast/accurate results.

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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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Leadership fail: A “make everyone happy” attitude

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we often want to make everyone happy. As leaders, we don’t take pride in firing people, writing people up, not taking people’s ideas or leaving people out of important decisions but the truth is that we may very well have to do these things sometimes.

One of the greatest leadership fails I’ve seen is avoiding difficult decisions, crucial conversations and other unpopular but necessary actions. I’ve seen leaders let their employees get away with some of the worst behaviors because they think that talking to the employees about their behaviors will make things worse and the employees won’t like them anymore. First of all, this is a poor excuse for not addressing people problems. Secondly, the reality is often different from the leaders’ perceptions.

A leader with a “Make Everyone Happy” attitude can be extremely detrimental to a team. We’ve all seen them. They’re the ones who ask everyone in the organization for their opinion before making a decision and values every person’s opinion the same. They’re the ones who give poor performers a good review because they don’t want to have “that” conversation. They’re the ones who try to reward everyone, even people who aren’t doing their job well…or at all.

In hindsight, these leaders are actually hurting themselves and their teams. A “Make Everyone Happy” attitude can:

  • Slow productivity. When we try to make everyone happy by including them in every decision, we never get a decision made or we end up making a decision without everyone because we need to meet a deadline – and then, they get even more upset with us because we asked for their opinion and didn’t wait for them to give it. Sometimes, involving too many people in a decision, assignment or project can hinder productivity. Leaders must know when to include everyone and when not too.
  • Devalue high performers. If we treat our poor performers the same as our high performers, our high performers will start to notice. I see leaders do this a lot when it comes to performance reviews. Whether we like it or not, employees talk. Our high performers will find out if you rate a poor performer similar to them and they will become less motivated to do a good job. Why should they go above and beyond if we don’t recognize them for it?
  • Ruin a leader’s reputation. Employees will stop trusting us if we are always trying to make everyone happy. They will notice. Trust will be broken. Leaders must focus on doing the right things the right way, which may not always be the most popular thing that makes everyone happy.

Trying to make everyone happy can often backfire on leaders and do the opposite – piss everyone off. Great leaders aren’t afraid to stand alone, which is why they rarely have to.

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Leverage relationships to reach success

You hear it all the time now – build relationships, develop a strong network and connect with other professionals online – but what are you supposed to do with all of these new connections? Leverage these relationships to reach success.

What people fail to tell you is that it’s not just about building relationships but it’s about really getting to know the people in your professional networks and maintaining those relationships. Only then can you take advantage of that network to help you grow and develop your career. This is easier said than done. It requires a lot of time and effort.

Understand the People in Your Network

Get to know the people you’ve connected with – beyond their name, job title and place of work. Find out what their strengths and obstacles are so you can leverage their strengths and perhaps, help them overcome their struggles (it’s a two-way street).

Professional development is much more than figuring out what the next job in your career will be. If you know the strengths of each of your connections, you’ll be able to easily reach out to the right people at the right time, and it’s often when you least expect that you will need them. You may want to leverage their expertise for a project you’re working on or when you’re trying to find a specific resource or learning opportunity.

Maintain Your Relationships

In order to be successful, you need to turn the connections you make into a network of long-term relationships. This requires continuously reaching out to people, learning about what they’re working on and keeping them posted on what you’re working on. This can be as simple as a quick LinkedIn message once in a while for some connections or it can be a regular phone call or coffee break for your closer relationships.

Strong relationships are easier to keep up with but if you have a difficult time maintaining some of your other relationships, try scheduling them into your calendar. Place a reminder for every four months or so to take five minutes out of your day and write them a message. How awkward would it be to ask for something, even advice, from someone you’ve lost touch with? They may not even remember you.

Take Advantage of Your Connections

Taking advantage of your connections does not indicate a one-way relationship where you take and never give. You’ll also benefit from helping others. It all goes back to the first point about understanding the people in your network.

When you are working on a project you need guidance on or when you really are ready to make that next step in your career, you’ll know exactly who to reach out to for what because you’ve taken the time to get to know the people you’ve met and develop a true relationship with them.

Perhaps, you’re not even looking for a job for yourself but rather, you’re in a fortunate position and are looking to hire a strong team of professionals. Leverage the relationships you’ve already built to find the best talent. It might not be them but other people they know.

If you stop thinking of your connections as people just to “have” in your network and start building relationships with them and staying connected with them, you’ll be able to better leverage them to reach success in your current career or future career.

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Leadership fail: Micromanagement

I posted a poll on my blog for about three weeks. I asked the question: Which type of manager is the worst? 80% of people said that a micromanager is the worst type of manager.

Essentially, people would rather have a manager who was totally hands-off and a manager who is not personable or approachable. So what’s so bad about a micromanager and how do leaders avoid micromanagement?

Micromanagers are annoying.

To employees, it feels like micromanagers are nagging them. Micromanagers are constantly asking for progress reports and telling employees how they should do every little thing.

What should a leader do instead?

Ask, listen, and coach. If you ask your employee how things are going, listen to what they have to say. Don’t jump to conclusions and start telling them how to do something. Then, if they need help, offer suggestions and guidance but don’t solve their problems for them. Help them solve it themselves. Give them time to try before asking them for an update again.

Micromanagers are hurtful.

Micromanagers ask employees to do something and then turn around and tell the employees how to do it or do it for them. This makes employees feel that they are not trusted or competent, which can be very hurtful especially if it’s not true.

What should a leader do instead?

Trust your employees! Provide them the resources and then hold them accountable for accomplishing the assignment. It really is that simple. Surprise your employees by trusting them and they might just surprise you by doing a great job!

Micromanagers are harmful to team morale.

Micromanagers focus too much on managing the work that they forget to lead their people, which will quickly diminish morale. Micromanaging people also makes it feel like you think you’re the only one who knows how to do something and that you’re not part of a team working together.

What should a leader do instead?

Allow people to contribute. Get to know your team and their strengths and areas they want to grow. Then, utilize that information to make appropriate assignments. If everyone contributes to the cause, they will begin to feel like a team again. Avoid creating the me vs. them culture.

Realizing you’re a micromanager is the first step. Being proactive in changing your micromanagement tendencies is more difficult but will put you on the road to becoming a better leader.

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Growth doesn’t always happen through upward movement

That’s right, growth doesn’t always happen through upward movement. In fact, To grow, sometimes you have to move laterally or maybe even downwards. Sometimes, you also have to standstill for a while because there’s more to learn where you are.

I’ve seen Directors move back to a staff-level position before becoming VPs of large organizations. It’s not always about the title or hierarchy; sometimes, a job or department or even an organization just is not a good fit and that’s okay. Moving to a lower position in a department or organization that allows for more growth is better than staying at a higher position where there is no growth or learning.

So, what do you do if you want to grow? Growth is about learning, grasping new opportunities and finding ways to improve yourself. When it comes to career growth, here are three tips I’ve learned from experience:

  • Get yourself a mentor. Find someone who can guide you in the right direction. Having a mentor in your organization can truly be one of the best things for your career. Your mentor does not have to be your boss or even someone from your department, for that matter. For me, I was able to find my mentor in a VP that I rarely work with directly but has grown herself in a way that I admire. Plus she’s willing to put in the time and effort to help and advise me, and that’s the first characteristic of a great mentor.
  • Develop a “can-do” attitude. Attitude goes a long way these days. It doesn’t matter what industry, job or organization you work in, the workplace is becoming a busier place everyday. Technology and society have made it possible to do more with less. Sometimes, it can feel like everyone is “too busy” or that nothing is “their job.” If you’re willing to do whatever it takes for the team, no matter how big or how small, you will build stronger relationships that will help you grow your career. In such an individualistic society, it can be refreshing to have a collectivist mindset.
  • Push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things. Don’t just stay in a job because you know how to do it. If you’re not being challenged, you’re probably not in a job that is going to help advance your career. If you’re looking for new job opportunities, don’t just look for ones that are directly aligned with your experiences or your degree. If there’s a great opportunity to learn something different, whether it’s a whole new job or just a new project/assignment, take it and diversify your skills. Trying new things, gaining different skills and taking every opportunity to learn will help you build your value proposition.

If you’re scared of doing any of the things listed, ask for guidance. If you don’t have someone to ask, go online. For example, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter chats are great places to connect with fellow professionals that are ready and willing to give you great advice on how to learn and grow.

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