Let’s be honest, there are millions of articles, videos, tutorials, books, and other resources out there telling you how to be a better leader.
Leadership for me is about doing what you can to take care of the people in your charge, and as much as you can learn tips and new ideas to try, ultimately, you have to find your own style and adapt to the environment you find yourself in.
As long as you care about people, know why you do what you do, and behave with integrity, you’re half way there. If people know (or at least think) you care, you’re doing ok.
But there is one thing, one mistake, that if you make it, you will find it extremely difficult to recover from.
Leaders have many responsibilities, but one of your main roles is to help others believe. To believe in your vision and to believe in themselves, to inspire them and help them achieve their potential.
When people feel inspired and motivated, they’ll take personal responsibility for their development, they’ll increase their efforts and performance so they can be even more valuable to you, and they’ll give so much discretionary effort because they believe that you will notice, appreciate, value and respect them.
If you’ve not come across the term ‘discretionary effort’ before it’s essentially the extra effort people put in to their work, because they want to, even though they don’t have to.
Even more so, when people feel valued and respected, their sense of loyalty also increases, and loyal people are extremely valuable to any leader in any organisation.
As a leader, you have to understand and aim to meet these expectations. You need to acknowledge the effort, recognise the growth, appreciate the work, the commitment, and the loyalty, help people benefit from opportunities that may arise, and help them progress in the direction they wish to move.
If you’ve reached the stage people are asking “what’s the point?” you’ve lost them.
Steve Cooper, 2024
Failure to do this, could significantly impact on the success of any team, department, or organisation. If you overlook or ignore the work, fail to recognise the progress o provide opportunity, and make people question,”what’s the point?”, then you’ve lost them.
Imagine a scenario where someone wishes to progress to a more senior role in the hierarchy. You encourage them to put in lots of effort, take on additional responsibility, undertake lots of training, push themselves to be as valuable to the business as they can so that they’re ready for such an opportunity, and then, nothing. No opportunity, or worse, the opportunity exists and is then taken away. Their first question will be “what’s the point?” and even worse, others will see what happened, and will start to wonder “what’s the point?”
This isn’t about giving people everything they want, that’s not realistic. But it is about integrity and respect.
Never allow people to be treated in such a way they reach this stage. If they do, if they lose confidence in you and don’t feel you are true to your word, the damage will be extremely difficult to repair. You’ll lose the commitment, the desire to succeed, and all the discretionary effort the organisation had benefitted from.
Ultimately, it creates a negativity that spreads through organisations like a poison, and your leadership will amount to nothing. Sure, you may retain your position in the hierarchy, but no one will follow you, and a leader with no followers, well, that’s no leader at all.
At the same time, that once motivated, hard working employee, is now seeking employment elsewhere, and you’ll soon have a vacancy to fill.
Have you ever reached the stage you’ve wondered “what’s the point?’ How did it make you feel?
Think Can Will 