This photo was posted on LinkedIn recently and the simplicity and resonance of the message really hit home.

Working with leaders every day I see those who want to be coached, to be & do better and I also those who see others as the root cause of the problem and the reason why they haven’t achieved.

In a McKinsey article titled The Boss Factor: Making the World a better place through Workplace Relationships found in their research that 86% of employees stated that their job satisfaction was based on their relationship with their management.

Our impact on others as leaders is far greater than most of us realise. This triggers my memory to one of my own experiences when I was in my late twenties and working in an L&D Team. I had quite a traumatic event happen in my family, I remember feeling nervous and scared to share what had happened with my senior manager, however, the Director I worked for at the time, didn’t even ask me for any detail or justification. The first thing they did was ask me to book a flight home to my family and take a week to be with them. All of the training courses I was booked to deliver were reallocated to my team. I remember feeling so supported by my senior leader, so seen and trusted.

Of these 12, which are all important and from which I recommend each of us do our self assessment, these are the Top 3 for me:

1. If your team is failing, look in the mirror.  You’re the problem.
It is so common to listen to a leader complain about what their team are not doing or could be doing better. In this situation, I use the analogy that when you point your finger three fingers are pointing back at you!
✅ When you feel that you are starting to raise your finger, take a moment to think about how you are accountable, how have you contributed and how can you take accountability and do something different to create a better outcome.

2. Stop Micromanaging.  If you don’t trust your team, why should they trust you?

How, if it all, does this show up for you? Is it control or perfection that is driving you to be too involved? What are you afraid of?

✅ An MIT Sloan Review – How to Build a High Trust Workplace 2023 cited that trusting employees are 260% more motivated to work.  Where are you standing in the way of trust or the ability to delegate effectively and ensure your team are growing?

3. If your team are afraid to speak up, you have already failed as a leader.
How do you know if your team are apprehensive to share? With a real focus on psychological safety in our workplaces, this is something we should know however Amy Edmundson (Harvard Business School Professor and author of ‘The Fearless Organisation’) has designed a survey to measure this.
✅ Understanding whether you have created an environment where your employees are willing to share without fear of consequence could be your competitive advantage.  
In MIT Sloan Review article When Employees Speak Up, Companies Win they found that relatively few employees consistently share their thoughts and opinions about a multitude of work issues with their managers.

Adam Grant, Professor at Wharton Business School recently shared a quick tip to remove groupthink and encourage greater innovation in teams.  

Instead of brainstorming a problem, ask everyone before the meeting to think about possible approaches/solutions that the team/business could take and come to the meeting with them written on a post note.  

Everyone sticks their post-it note on the board, each post-it note is read out & discussed.  The senior leader must share their contribution last.

Watch how many more ideas are brought into the discussion!

Which of these 12 resonates with you?

I’m curious let me know!