One of the great advantages of giving service is gaining a wealth of experience. I served on the Board of a 400 member organization for 3 years. The last year, I served as the Board President. What I learned as a leader of that organization was priceless. It would take years of seminars and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of coaching to equal the leadership experience and knowledge acquired.

Manage Up, Mentor Down

As Board President, I, along with the rest of the Board, was the boss of the CEO of the organization. We were accountable to the members of the organization and had sole purview to hire and fire the CEO. In this position, one can be tempted to rule with an iron fist. However, that method doesn’t benefit anyone.

I found it beneficial to adopt the mantra, “manage up, mentor down.” When you are someone’s manager, team leader or boss, your job is to enable that person to be successful. When your employees are successful, they make you shine. As a manager, it is your responsibility to provide the tools, resources, and direction needed by your employees.

It is also your responsibility to manage your customer expectations. You customer may be actual customers, shareholders, members of an organization, or your boss. After conferring with your employees to determine what they need to be successful, it is your job to relay this information to your customers.

Let’s say you are a project manager for an IT project. You’ve met with your clients and received a project charter. Rather than lord over your team members to ensure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” crossed, you can let them know that precision is extremely important to this client and ask them what they need to achieve the highest level of precision. At the same time, you can set the expectation with the client that the level of precision expected will require more time, money, or staff. You might also work with the client to relax their standards to a level with which both parties are comfortable.

Most managers work the other way around. They cow tow to clients and promise the moon. Then they turn around like a drill sergeant with their team. In my experience, I’ve found that you burn relationships, deliver unsuccessful projects, and generate unwarranted stress when you do this.

Take the time to cultivate relationships with your employees and your stakeholders. Be a bridge between both parties, rather than a referee.

Share Ownership

When you’re the leader of a 400 member organization, everyone seems to look to you to fix everything. It was tempting to be the savior, but much more enriching to engage the members of the organization.

When employees, customers, and other stakeholders engage in solutions, ownership shifts from the few to all. When everyone owns the organization, everyone feels responsible. Ownership is not just about paying for a service. Oftentimes, members and shareholders say that they own an organization because they monetarily donated, or paid for a share. Ownership is about doing the work to make the organization succeed. In order to foster ownership of your organization, encourage and empower your stakeholders to:

• Participate in events sponsored by the organization;
• Engage in the planning process of the organization;
• Take the initiative to solve their problems;
• Provide a solid financial base.

Everyone wants an opportunity to share their expertise. A good leader encourages and empowers everyone to use all of their skills.

Pay Attention To What Is Shown AND What Is Said

After moving to a new location, some of our long-standing members started to complain about accessibility to the building. On the surface, this was a valid problem. You needed a key, then a pass code to get into the building. Before, anyone could breeze in and out. There was a sense of familiarity and ownership.

Naturally, we sought to remedy the problem by giving access to those members and providing a doorbell so that it would be easy for members to come in and out of the building. And naturally, this did not really solve the problem.

You see, the members were complaining about the loss of that sense of familiarity and ownership which showed up as not getting into the building. Once access was provided, the complaints moved to another manifestation of that loss.

Only 7% of verbal communication comes from our words. The rest of it comes from voice inflection and body language. When listening to your staff and stakeholders, it is important to listen behind the words so that you can understand what they truly intend to communicate. You don’t need to guess what they are trying to say. You can ask questions, as you notice their body language and vocal tone, to clarify what they are saying. At the end of the conversation, it’s helpful to provide a summary statement and wait for the reaction. If someone says, yes, you got it right, but they look resigned, continue to ask until there is a sense of simpatico.

Live in Limbo

As a leader, it’s not your responsibility to fix everything. In fact, the less you are personally responsible for fixing, the better off your organization. It would mean that your organization is rich with resources and its own leadership pool.

Limbo is a tough spot to live in. If you are a natural leader, you want to get the job done and conquer. It may be difficult to witness your organization struggle. As a leader you will need to correctly identify problems, correctly assess the skills and passions of your people, and effectively match the problem with the people. They will have fun and relish the opportunity to fix the problems for you and to the benefit of the entire organization.

While you are waiting to match the problem with the people, you will need to sit with the situation without fixing it.

Be An Example

Whatever you expect from your team, you must be willing to exemplify. You want a team that’s punctual, you have to show up before everyone. You say a lot by your actions. Your actions build the construct for your team. You can list the rules of engagement on a poster on a wall. You can put them in policy manuals and have reams of orientation material. In the end, your team will mirror their behavior after yours.

Teach, Don’t Talk

You know the saying, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” It’s the same with leadership.

When you tell your team what to do without giving them reason or context, they can follow the instructions and complete the task. However, when they need to do the same thing again, you will need to tell them again. On the other hand, if your provide for them the context for the directions, the next time the situation arises they can execute without your presence.

Another reason to teach your team and provide context, is that they may come up with solutions that you could not have conceived on your own. It may take a little more work on your part and a more time initially, but it will pay high dividends for you and expedite execution in the future. Best of all, you’ve empowered your team to execute without your direct influence.

Praise Publicly, Punish Privately

When you chastise your staff publicly, you are alienating yourself from them and making your job as a leader infinitely difficult. It’s bad enough if you chastise the group as a whole. If you single one person out, you are embarrassing that person and you cause irreparable harm to that relationship and your team.

Take team meetings, and other public events as opportunities to praise you team for their performance and highlight individuals who excelled. Take personal evaluations or one and one meetings to discuss weaknesses or short comings.

You shine as a leader when you empower and enable every individual on your team to shine.

In Spirit,
Nneka