The Easter Bunny & Spring Cleaning
I recently did a Google search for the words spring-cleaning and leadership and in a nanosecond had 11-million hits.
I suppose that means that people are thinking about spring-like activities of cleaning up & out and renewal.
But, I suspect that people are looking for a quick fix for their leadership woes and, simply put, quick fixes seldom fix anything.
Leadership problems are systemic, deep-rooted and if untreated they can turn cancerous to the entire organization.
So instead of spring-cleaning do the hard work involved with being a leader and do it all the time. Be more like the Easter Bunny:
- He doesn’t have the star power or celebrity status that Santa has
- He doesn’t have Santa’s publicist team that that can spin an absent Christmas present into blaming the customer by convincing everyone that they must have been naughty
- He doesn’t have Santa’s team of elves working nonstop generating product
- He doesn’t have Santa’s magical sleigh to allow him to be everywhere all of the time.
Five Lessons:
… But he does have millions of people relying on him. Follow these five lessons from the Easter Bunny to improve your Leadership performance:
- Don’t rely on star-power to be a leader. Simply and quietly go about your business. Walking the walk is infinitely more impactful leadership system than talking the talk
- Don’t spin anything, if someone has been ‘naughty’ treat him or her like a pro and manage their performance
- Non-stop activity is exhausting for your entire team. Pick a product – in this case, painted eggs – and be great at producing it.
- Don’t magically appear and then disappear. Take time to walk around and talk to your people. Show up when things are busy; lend a hand to load a truck, anything to connect with your people.
- Make it fun. The Easter Bunny creates a competition where people have to search a bit and are rewarded when they achieve success!
