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Recently I was interviewed for a leadership podcast, and the question that caused me to reflect on a lifetime of leading was: How do you show you care for your employees?

I landed on 6 key actions:

One, the easiest and most important is to connect them to the organization and the mission and the objectives of the organization in a very simple, articulate way.

How: Explain in respectful and appropriate language how each person’s work contributes to the success of the entire team

read more about the Mission

Two, show a high level of trust and confidence in them and in return you will get that back.

How: Explain what’s happening. I think most leaders, not because of ill-will don’t want to worry anybody, so they’re not going to tell the full truth about what’s happening around them.

And one of my consultancy clients were laying off people, because of economic reasons, there wasn’t enough work. But they stopped telling people what was happening and why people the project ended and there was no work.

People saw that the people in charge had stopped communicating and their coworkers just disappear. They began to assume that the company was in big trouble. The company was financially solid, still making a profit, had good sales and lots of potential work in the pipeline.

I coached the president to hold town halls and open the books as much as possible that was happening to give people confidence that the company was solid.

read more about talking to you people in tough times

Three, get off your butt, get out of your office and go see how people are working and ask them what’s going on in their lives, and in their workplace and show a little empathy.

How: Find out what’s going on, fix the little problems, be empathetic with people and that’s as equally simple and as complex as that.

During one of my walk arounds, I learned that a young lady working for me had a chance for a scholarship to go to nurses’ school. She couldn’t afford to travel, so the company paid for a hotel in Vancouver attend the application interview.

I didn’t have to do that, but trust me, that the word got spread that I helped her with this and, suddenly, people thought “If they’re going to do that for her, they’ll help me out,” and morale loyalty and trust goes up.

Four, deal with poor performance. Nothing will demoralize you people quicker than seeing a coworker get away with poor performance.

How: Pull your big boy or girl pants up and deal with poor performance.

No one comes to work wanting to do a bad job, create the desired expectations, provide the resources required for that person to improve, and monitor, mentor and support the behaviours you expect.

You are the Boss and eventually you will have to bring people up to the standard of performance or move them, respectfully, out of the organization.

Learn more about performance agreements

Fifth, have a little class and dignity.

How: People are not stupid or unrealistic, they understand that when times get tough layoffs may have to happen. But that is not license to treat people like so much trash being kicked to the curb.

Even if you have to fire somebody make sure that everyone sees that person being treated fairly and with respect.  That translates onto the shop floor or the rest of the office or the rest of the team, or they go “You know what, they treated that guy okay, so maybe they will look after me.

Finally, do the things no one would miss if you didn’t do it.

How: When I learned that someone on my team had a death in their family, I always send flowers from the organization and the team.

The cost? $30

… $30 for a little bit of caring.

It is those low cost yet important little things that become exponentially important to that person and the rest of your team.

I have a coaching client who was promoted from a specialist engineer to the dizzy heights of team-lead without the company investing in the skills she needed to transition from specialist to leader.

Because her boss and company did not recognize that they were promoting her into a new profession and invest in her accordingly, their accomplishment was to turn a fine and capable engineer into a poor supervisor!

The difference:

• Specialists use their skills and experience to create a product
• Team leaders need management skills, a knack for problem-solving and the ability to plan and manage the work – NOT to do it!

So, what is a team leader’s skill set?

1 Balancing between leadership and management

These are two separate skills:

Leadership is communicating a common vision of a future state; gaining agreement; then, motivating others in a forward direction.

Management is results driven and getting the work done.

Your job as a good team leader will constantly switch from a leader to a manager as situations require.

2 Be a Team Builder and a Leader

The leader sets the “tone” of the team to lead them through the various team development phases to the point where they begin to perform.

Read about teams

3 Be a Problem Solver

Identify the possible “causes” that lead to the problem, then analyze possible options and alternatives, and determine the best course of action to take.

4 Be a Negotiator and Influencer

Negotiation is working with others to come to a joint agreement. To avoid power struggles, develop influencing skills. Influencing is the ability to get people to do things they may not do otherwise.

5 Be an Excellent Communicator

Being a communicator is a two-way street as. A good way to get a grip on managing the information comes and goes is to ask yourself the following questions: who needs this information? Who gathers and delivers it? When or how often do they need it? And, in what form?

Read about communicating

6 Be Organized

Think of what you need to organize; project documentation, contracts, emails, memo’s, reviews, meetings, etc. It’s almost impossible to stay organized without developing good time management skills.

7 Become a Planner

The skill of planning can’t be underestimated. There are known and logical steps in creating plans. You may well own your team’s plan, but others depend upon your success.

8 Manage Budgets

At the heart of this is the skill is managing the budget, particularly costs. You will need a knowledge of financial systems and accounting principles.

If you are new to team leadership, don’t be overwhelmed by all this. There are well-understood methodologies, tools, guidelines, and procedures to help you on your way to developing the life-skill of leadership.

The first thing you need to do is book time with your boss and ask what their performance objectives are; what does he need you to do to help them be successful; and, then what professional development do you require to be successful.

Read about partnering with your boss

I was speaking to a group of Project Managers recently. Before speaking to any group, I interview a cross-section of attendees to see what they want to get out of my session. To a person, the pre-event interviewees wanted to learn more about leading teams of peers.

As Project Managers, it is a fundamental part of their role to lead teams people of different pay-grades, levels of responsibility, authority and roles to achieve success with whichever project they have been asked to achieve.

That said, we know the ‘iron-fist’ or the ranting & raving like a lunatic leadership styles does not work even when there is a clear line of command. They certainly won’t work when there is a dotted-line or matrixed relationship like a project team.

The only difference between you and your colleagues on that team is that you’re in charge and someone is holding you accountable for the project’s success. To accomplish your goals, you’ll be expected to motivate, facilitate, encourage, communicate effectively, build trust, and resolve conflict with the disparate members of the team.

How?

1. Set a positive foundation click here to read more on relationships 

• Establish a relaxed environment, where everyone is encouraged to share opinions and ideas.
• Ask for input from everyone, and encourage quieter members to speak up.
• Use active listening skills, like paraphrasing and asking questions for clarification.
• Insist on respect for one another and, for tasks taking a lot of time and effort, consider developing a team charter to define your team’s goals and how the team will work.
• Use participative decision-making tools, and try to ensure active involvement and commitment from the team.

2. Empower Team Members

• Leaders who give power to others can be very influential and motivating.
  • Give praise wherever it’s due.

3. Be Flexible click here to read more about courage

• A heavy-handed approach can cause resentment and non-compliance in a team of peers.
• Adapt to the changing environment.
• A flexible leadership style can deal with changing circumstances without compromising your leadership role.
• You need to help your team adjust to changes in direction, circumstance, and priority.
• When you’re open to change, your team will see that, and they’ll be more likely to accept change.

4. Set Goals click here to read more about setting goals

• Having a clear direction is essential.
• If there’s no central direction to follow team members will have their perspectives that could lead your team down very different paths.
• It is much easier to keep people working together effectively if objectives are clear.

5. Support and Protect Your Team

Each team member may have their regular job to do in addition to the team’s specific tasks. This means that commitment to your team may be a secondary priority. As the one who is ultimately accountable, concentrate on getting the support and resources your team needs to do the job well.

Focus on these three key areas:

– Obtain resources – Your team may quickly lose momentum if it encounters resource shortages. If you get your team what it needs – when the team needs it – your status, influence, and ability to motivate can increase significantly.

– Manage stakeholders – Many people outside your team may strongly influence the team’s success. First, you may encounter outside resistance from various sources.

One way to gain the respect of your team is to protect it from negative outside influences so that that team members can produce great work.

– Obtain management feedback – Ensure that management knows what’s going on and that your team knows what management thinks. This can be a delicate balancing act because you don’t want to run back and forth with too much information. Figure out what each side needs to know to remain satisfied, and then provide it.

Three crimes led to one of the darkest moments in the history of the Canadian army.

Let me rephrase … one crime and two subsequent sins.

Click To Read Part 1

Click To Read Part 2

The Crime

The crime happened when two members of an Army unit deployed to Somalia captured, tortured and beat to death a Somali civilian. This was a violent crime, and in due course, the justice system dealt with the perpetrators.

The First Sin

A sin occurred when the unit and the system tried to cover up what happened. There are reasons for this, but all of them are inexcusable. When a few brave souls tried to expose the deception, they were victimized for being disloyal. As with all cover-ups eventually it began to unravel, the lies were exposed, and an inquiry was launched to ‘get to the bottom’ of it.

The Second Sin

A cardinal sin happened when leaders were not held accountable for failing in their leadership duties. The public inquest revealed that many in the camp knew the beating was happening and did nothing to stop it. When a cover-up was launched, leaders at every level were complicated by omission & commission.

The Repercussions

Some careers were slowed down, but to my knowledge, only one leader was punished. The Company Commander who was on leave and wasn’t in the camp at the time.

The Major accepted responsibility for his soldiers because he issued an order to stop civilians from sneaking into the camp and because he was their boss. In the end, he went to jail, was drummed out of the Army and lost his pension.

What has this to do with harassment in your workplace?

There is no excuse for anyone to harass, abuse or cause violence on a co-worker or employee.

If it were to happen, you must conduct a fair, transparent and rigorous investigation into it. If found to be true, the full weight of your authority should fall like a hammer on the perpetrator, up to and including being fired and the police being called.

If you cover up and try to protect the organization or excuse people you are equally guilty by omission as surely as the perpetrator is by commission.

Because you have lost your ‘moral authority’ to lead.

Read More about moral courage

In my opinion, every person who held a leadership position involved in the Somalia affair and that did not stop the crime or expose the sins should have been sent to jail.

And if I were the judge, the jail terms should have been longer & longer for each higher rank.

These people FAILED as leaders.

Police supervisors who cover up, ignore or excuse bad conduct; church leadership who knew but didn’t act to stop heinous crimes; your supervisors who turn a blind eye to harassment should pay a high price for their sins.

Why?

Because you are a leader!

You get paid as a leader, and you have the office of a leader!

You are responsible for the lives of the people who work for you

You cannot be able to stop every bad thing that might happen within your organization.

BUT, you can create a culture where every manager and supervisor knows that it is his or her job to stop harassment …

Dead in its tracks

In Part 1 of this series, I made the case that predators likely exist in every workplace.

And I posed the question: What can leaders do to protect our people when most people have been victimized at work at on average five times before they say something or quit.

Why Are They Not Saying Anything?

1) Most feel they nowhere to turn for help.

2) They have no faith that leadership will believe or support them.

What Is A Boss To Do To Provide Safe Harbour

Legally and morally, you are required to provide a safe place to turn.

Legally, the courts and governments have found that workplace harassment & violence is to be treated no differently that any other type of Occupational Health & Safety matter.

Morally, you are responsible for developing policies and procedures to keep employees safe.

What Are The 3 Actions You Need To Do:

1. Implement a Policy & Procedures

Developing a policy is the easy part, just Google ‘harassment policy and the name of your state or province’ and you will find all you need.

But you must do more. Because adding one more policy to that giant thick book of policies is useless unless it is lived and breathed by everyone.

Implement an education program with lunch & learns, guest speakers, role-playing, etc. to educate everyone on the policy and what it means.

2. Evaluate the risk

Form a committee to review any history of violence in your workplace by:

– Asking employees about their experiences and concerns for themselves or others.

– Implementing a whistle-blower line

– Reviewing any incidents of violence

– Assessing the workplace for the risk factors associated with violence.

– Getting information from your industry association, workers’ compensation board, occupational health and safety regulators or union office.

– Seeking advice from local police service

3. Get Serious

You are responsible.

As the senior person in your organization, you must champion and personally communicate your commitment to a safe workplace.

When Army developed harassment policies in the 80’s, they used posters and peer training to educate the troops. That helped, but trust me, when the CO and the RSM personally came and talked about it … we took it seriously.

So get off your duff and demonstrate that you are serious

And when something comes up take it seriously, investigate it and act.

Build A Culture Of Safety To Provide People Somewhere To Go

Whether caused by predators, mental health issues, drugs & alcohol or challenging clients providing a safe workplace is 100% your responsibility as the leader.

Just as you take the financial health of your company seriously, invest the same into providing a workplace safe from violence and harassment.

Why?

Because it is the law,

It is the right thing to do, and

You are responsible!

In Part 3, We Explore The Leadership Responsibilities

Boards and executive teams everywhere spend an unbelievable amount of time and energy on developing their company’s mission statement.

To be fair, this is important work as it helps to focus the organization but, in my experience, high-level mission statements do nothing to motivate frontline staff.

In fact, the Gallup organization found that only 20% of U.S. workers feel proud of or engaged by their company’s mission statement.

Most companies promote their mission by putting up posters, give out mouse pads and coffee cups. If that doesn’t work, they push managers to explain their precious mission differently so that it will finally sink in. They believe that once those darn employees finally get it life will be all sunshine & roses and profits will climb.

Sorry to tell you that this is not going to happen.

Why? Leaders think big & are future-focused, and workers are focused on very intimate, personal and local issues.

read about reaching leadership nirvana

Focus locally

When I ask workers what matters to them, they say what matters most is their ability to support their families, have good-paying jobs and hope to have a better life for their kids — and do what they can for their community.

When you have invested so much energy into that lofty mission statement, the idea of a local mission may not make sense. Because a corporate mission is supposed to give employees something big and important to believe in and work for: but employees connect to what they do every day; their team and the community in which they work.

I could list similar examples from around the world. But when I was a leader of a large NGO we had two mission statements, the official one – World Peace – and the local one – Every person who needs help will get it – and that was the one that inspires passion.

You must understand that the mission that matters most to your workers is the local one.

You’ll find it’s almost always about keeping the doors open and the community healthy.

My recommendation is to ask your workers what’s important to them:

• What does it take to operate in their location?
• What does the plant mean to the local community?
• What would be lost if it went away?
• Ask your workers to imagine the company closing; what would they do to keep the doors open and deliver on their mission?

Talk about the questions and the answers on the shop or office floor, and invite every worker to respond. Listen carefully to what they say, and craft their local missions.

read more about how to talk to your people

Then start doing those things — now before they don’t give a rat’s patootie about anything.