Leaders need
to know certain things. Not all things but certain things. Too many leaders
want to know the wrong things rather than the most important things. There are
four categories of knowledge that are always critical to their success.
First, what is
my staff thinking? Too often we assume we know what staff is thinking but we
find we are wrong because we have not asked. I want to know if my staff is as
passionate about our mission as I am. I want to know if our staff is concerned
about issues that I am not aware of. I want to know if there are opinions that
have not been shared. Staff is your key intelligence about what is actually
going on and whether they are in alignment with you. If you don’t ask probing
questions or if staff does not perceive that one wants to actually hear them,
you won’t know.
Second, how
happy is my staff? I friend of mine once did a consultation with a well known
ministry and warned the leader that there was a high likelihood that he would
lose key staff members over some dysfunctional organizational issues. The
leader didn’t want to hear, didn’t believe the analysis and made no changes.
Over the next several years, almost all the key leaders migrated out of the
organization.
Staff
happiness is impacted by many different issues but some of the most critical
include: a compelling vision; ministry clarity; a challenging job; an
empowering supervisor; and a collegial ethos. How do you know if staff is
happy? Just ask! I ask regularly, “What is your happiness factor (on a scale of
1 to 10)? Almost always I get a candid answer and follow up with questions as
to what would make it higher. In doing
so, I am made aware of important issues, some of which I may be able to change.
Third, what
do I need to know? That is a common question I ask key staff members. They know
a lot of things, much of which I don’t need to know as their leader. However, I
trust them to tell me what they believe I need to know. Good staff is intuitive
about what they wish their leader was aware of. Asking them this open ended
question gives them the opportunity to share what they believe I need to know
Follow up dialogue offers further insights.
Four, bad
news and potential threats. One of our rules in ReachGlobal is that we don’t
like surprises. We know that things will go wrong. We know that there are
potential threats to what we do but unless our leaders or staff shares them
with us, we cannot act on them.
There should
be no surprises to the leader of an organization or to team leaders. Thus, in
ReachGlobal we have the SDR rule (Sh** disclosure rule). We know things will go
south from time to time but tell us when they do! We will do an autopsy without
blame, learn lessons and move on.
Proactive
leaders pay attention to the key issues they need to know on an ongoing basis.
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