Are you surrounded by egos? Have simple tasks turned into complex adventures? Have the mind/political games taken over? Are things not always what they seem?
If you answered yes to any of these, then welcome to Management Land!
Now find the nearest exit and run!
A leader needs to ensure they are always working on and for their team. So, you need to get out of management land and in touch with your people.
An exercise utilized in Cottrell's book is to list your people in the following categories: Superstars, Middle Stars and Falling Stars. Then see how you rated them on their last evaluation. Do the scores match-up with the category in which you placed them? Probably not. Most likely, you have a Superstar and Falling Star with similar evaluation scores. If you are not honest with your people on how they truly execute their jobs, how are they to improve? What will motivate them to do better? Why are you there?
By not improving your Falling Stars you have shown the rest of your team that the Falling Stars behavior is acceptable. It's almost as if you were punishing your Superstars with the extra work you have given them, since you refuse to give it to your Falling Stars.
Cottrell writes over and over again that "people will quit people before they quit their companies". Don't run your Superstars off by under appreciating them and overworking them. They will go to another shift, department or company. They will quit you.
Raise the bar and stop accommodating those pulling your team down. Coach them up. Make them better. Be a leader.
Don’t you want your “weakest link” to be someone you and the rest of your team is proud of, instead of the team resenting them and you?
If nothing else, complete the exercise above and see how your teams’ evaluations compare to their “Star Status”. It could be an eye opening experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment