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How My Attitude Towards Leadership Held Me Back For Decades

BizyDad

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I remember growing up my school had two or three shelves of biographies. I read them all. Those books deeply impacted who I wanted to be in life at a very young age. I remember many lessons. But this one lesson I had forgotten, until just recently:

All my favorite leaders got shot.

Growing up a child of the '80s, leadership looked like Bill Parcells or Bobby Knight. Coffee's for closers. Anger and cussing in your ear. I didn't want to be that guy.

Growing up, I didn't want to be a leader.

In my teenage years I saw a lot of things that reinforce this attitude. I felt like real great leaders don't have a life. Parcells and Knight were fat. It's like a prison of their own making. Almost like being famous. I didn't want all eyes on me.

When other people would talk about how cool it would be to be President, I would think how cool it is to be Vice President.

When other people would talk about how awesome it would be to be the Godfather, I always wanted to be the consigliere.

I'd rather be Ben Franklin than George Washington. (In my adult life I learned I appreciate just how great a leader Ben Franklin was.)

In early adulthood, I think others saw leadership potential in me. Even if I didn't. I probably frustrated a mentor or two.

When I was 24 I managed a restaurant in Sedona, Arizona. I hated it. 19-year-old servers arguing about tables and tips. I just wanted them to act like grown-ups. The Bobby Knight in me welled up. I didn't last long in that job. I didn't care.

As a kid my dream job was to run a Wall Street type office for a year. I've been blessed enough that I accomplished that dream by the time I was 34. I was the second youngest person in the entire company, and I helped to open up an office here in Arizona. For many reasons, it was a dream come true. For many reasons, it was a nightmare.

Here I was managing people older than my father. Investment bankers. The height of professional, white collar America. I almost lost my mind the day I had to settle a dispute between a 62-year-old man and a 65-year-old man about who's client was who's. I kept my cool in the meeting. I thought I'd come so far since the restaurant days. I was wrong. I tell people that Madoff and Lehman Brothers are what caused me to leave that industry, but the truth is I hated managing. I held out a year to the day, just so I could check the box that the dream had been accomplished.

I think my poor attitude towards leadership also led to my divorce last year. I'm really not ready to discuss that here. But it's a life lesson I'm learning.

After I left the investment banking gig, I landed at the company I now work at. I started in sales, then built up the marketing division, and now I'm a full partner. But almost the entire time I've considered myself the junior partner.

I took on the consigliere role.

My business partner is the kind of blond haired, corn fed Iowa boy that people look up to. Literally. Former college football champion, has great stories, can relate to just about anybody, and he can code. A man of his word. Usually keeps his actual thoughts to himself. Calm under pressure. I've only heard him raise his voice twice. And never to yell.

Me? I'm a fired up Latin man from Jersey. My normal excited tone is considered yelling by some people. I tell it like it is, and I can cut people by being too honest. And I live in the West. My default leadership style doesn't play well out here. At all.

We have a good dynamic between us. He runs the website/software side of out business, I run the marketing agency.

Every January for years I'd walk into his office, wanting to sit down for a strategy session. We'd talk for a few hours. I always looked to him to set the direction for the company. He is the founder after all. At the end of this meeting, he would always wrap up the same way, "I don't know man. I have to think about it." Years passed.

I started hiring people a few years back, for the marketing side of the agency. I made a lot of mistakes. I would get angry whenever things didn't go right. Bobby Knight came back out to play.

The strange thing is these people are still my friends today. They call, they visit, they check in, we hang out. I love these guys. They respect me, they appreciate me.

They just couldn't work for me.

In January of 2019, with my divorce in full swing and my depression kicking in, I went into my partner's office and said, "this year we're not going to do the usual meeting. If my life is falling apart, I need this business to be successful. So this year I'm just going to tell you what we're going to do, and you're going to say okay."

And do you know what he said?

"I've been waiting 4 years for you to say that man."

:rage::rage::rage:

I told you he keeps his thoughts to himself...:rofl:

Anyways, in an effort to not fail my kids and my business, I have dedicated the last 14 months to being the best leader I can be.

Here's what I've learned so far:

A Leader Shares A Vision

Part of why people left was they had no idea where we were going. A lot of the feedback I got from those guys was that we were always spinning our wheels.

This is one of my favorite stories about communicating a vision:

In 1983, Jobs was looking for a new president for Apple. Even though he was a co-founder, he was considered too young and inexperienced for the job of running day-to-day operations, so he was recruiting someone successful who he thought he could work successfully with. He targeted Sculley. It was a crazy idea to try to get the head of one of the country’s most successful companies to come lead a small computer company, but Jobs went after what he wanted. Sculley later remembered how Jobs finished his pitch:

“And then he looked up at me and just stared at me with the stare that only Steve Jobs has and he said, ‘Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?’ And I just gulped, because I knew I would wonder for the rest of my life what I would have missed.”

Source: 'Do you want to sell sugar water ... or do you want to change the world?' - David McElroy


So as the leader, set the course for your company. Communicate your why. Communicate your goals. Communicate the problem you are taking responsibility for.

A Leader Shares A Culture

A leader not only shares where we’re going, but a leader imparts the values we are going to use on the journey.

There are entire books written on this subject that can communicate this better than I can. The best I could do is tell you about my culture, and maybe I'll just write a separate thread about that.

A Leader Empowers His/Her Team

I used to think a leader had to make all the decisions. Then I thought the leader had to make all the tough decisions. But I don't think any of that's actually true.

I can't possibly make every decision every day. In order to get to where we need to get to, I had to find a way to empower my team to make decisions. So I came up with a framework, a manifesto, a set of rules to live by.

First, my team knows that our goal for every client is to implement targeted tactics to profitably acquire customers.

Here are our "house rules":
  1. Never say anything that isn't accurate
  2. Be persuasive
  3. Be better this month than you were last
  4. If you don't know, find out
  5. Don't over promise
  6. Don't use seven words when three will do
  7. Don't let computers do our thinking for us
As long as my people make their decisions with that goal in mind and within this framework, I can live with what they come up with.

A Leader Takes Responsibility

This was my turning point. When things used to go wrong, I used to question the persons whose job it was to make sure it didn't go wrong. Interrogate would probably be a better term. They would take on a lot of blame. I'd probably use some harsh language. I just wanted to get to the bottom of it to make sure it never happened again.

Now, when anything goes wrong, I remember as the leader, it's on me first and foremost. My first question is what did I do wrong? Did I fully communicate what needed to be done? Did I have unreasonable expectations? Did I fully train this person to handle the task?

So I approach the interaction with a lot more humility. Mistakes still happen. But Bobby Knight hasn't shown his face around here in 14 months.

My most recent addition to the team told me in our first week that the reason she took the job was because she wanted to work for somebody like me. She's now been here almost 3 months. I asked her last week how she felt it was going. She told me that that morning she had told her sister she loves going to work. She smiles on her way into work. We're helping people and she's learning so much and we handle our business. We're all just so peaceful. She loves it.

We're all just so peaceful. :rofl:

----------

My friends, I'll leave you with these thoughts.

"You can do anything you put your mind to".

So if you're harboring negative attitudes towards leadership, I'd ask you to explore that. Are your underlying assumptions actually true? Or are you just coming up with more excuses to hold yourself back?

I can't tell you how much time or money I've lost waiting for someone else to lead. But I'm not going to fret about it either. We all have our paths to walk, and it happened to take me this long to learn this lesson life was throwing at me. Over. And over. I'm by no means a leadership expert. But hopefully some of this will help you on your journey.

Practice being a better leader. You'll make mistakes, we all do, but you won't start getting better until you first believe that you can get better.

And I believe you can get better. After all, you're an entrepreneur. Getting better at things is what we do.

Now that you know a little more about me and where I'm coming from, I'd appreciate any leadership advice you have to give. Thank you.
 
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Andy Black

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I remember the story of the business owner who had a note in his desk that he took out whenever people were looking for someone to blame.

It said:

“It’s my fault.”

They could then get on with solving the problem so it didn’t happen again.

...

My favourite management tip is to “Explain what needs done and why and empower your team to figure out how.” (Blaise Brosnan)

...

My favourite leadership tip is that “People listen to experts, they follow leaders.” (Doberman Dan)

...

My favourite business leadership tip is that “The biggest reason for business failure is lack of clarity of purpose”. (Blaise Brosnan)

...

And my favourite parenting tip is to “Be the man you want your sons to grow up to be”. (Craig Desorcy)
 

BrianLateStart

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Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.
 
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Andy Black

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Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.
Ah yes. I have a thread somewhere about that.

Another tip is to “Catch them when they’re good.”

I’ll dig out that thread...



Hmmm... this thread?
Are you a man amongst boys?


Ah... here it is:
NOTABLE! - [Progress] #AndyTalks
 

G-Man

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I almost lost my mind the day I had to settle a dispute between a 62-year-old man and a 65-year-old man about who's client was who's.
HAHAHAHA - been there. Even the ages are close. :rofl:

Pro-tip: First time sales reps want you to resolve a dispute about who owns a client, then client becomes yours. They'll find ways to work it out among themselves after that. :rofl:

Great write up @BizyDad
 

BizyDad

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First off, thanks everyone for your feedback so far. I'll reply more fully later when I have time.

But @Andy Black this video is killing me! Hahaha. I popped it in the background while I get some work done. I got to the 4:10 mark where you rant about kids just doing it vs grownups buying a course on painting. Hit me right between the eyes because I LITERALLY BOUGHT A COURSE ON PAINTING! H/T to BellaPippin. Hahahaha. That's awesome.

Your video is so true and insightful. It'll make me a better leader and a better dad. Thank you for the compliment tip. Others should have a look.

Also, I just want to thank you for being the chronicler or forum historian of sorts. You are always bringing back old posts that people should see in response to things being said now. That's so valuable and I just want you to know that I for one appreciate it.
 
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BizyDad

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Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.

I totally hear your feedback. 9 times out of 10, I agree. If we're talking about raising kids, you're going to get no argument out of me.

But I did it this way on purpose and I'd like to explain the thought process here. First, you'll notice that several of them are phrased in the affirmative.

But the positive I have my team fixate on is the goal.

You see, I am not trying to build a team of me's. I'm trying to build a team of better-than-me's.

And I tell them that this is the expectation. I want them to be better at hitting that goal than I have been.

My clients will tell you I've been pretty good at hitting it. I've set a high standard.

And I tell them that in order to get better than me, they need the freedom to experiment and try things that I might not want to try.

That's how I got to where I got to. Experimenting, testing, trying new things, looking at data and seeing what worked. Doubling down on what worked, eliminating what didn't.

And I have to allow them that same freedom.

It's the only thing that's going to keep my agency relevant. There's too many changes in digital marketing every month.

So I made a list of thou shall and shalt not's to guide their experimentation.

I definitely debated this in my mind as to how it would work. On each rule. Let's take my first rule for example.

Never say anything that isn't accurate.

That's a double negative. Why didn't I just say always tell the truth?

When someone hears the phrase always tell the truth, what they actually hear is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

And in marketing if I tell everybody to always tell the truth, they might let something slip that paints the client in a bad light. I have actually had it happen.

So I learned from that experience, and I now hire people who have demonstrated a history of honesty, and I explain how we are going to learn to be persuasive, and while we might not tell the whole truth, we're certainly never going to tell a lie.

But my second rule I was able to place it in the affirmative. Be persuasive. It's our job.

A couple of the rules I wasn't sure how to frame in the affirmative. Like not letting computers do our thinking for us. This is how I teach my people not to rely too much on algorithms. If we rely on algorithms, we are not learning and getting better, which violates one of our rules. It also doesn't give us any real competitive advantage.

But saying "think for yourself" didn't quite cut it. And I felt like saying "think better than a computer thinks" didn't quite drive the point home either.

Anyways that's my thought process behind the rules.
 

BizyDad

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I remember the story of the business owner who had a note in his desk that he took out whenever people were looking for someone to blame.

It said:

“It’s my fault.”

They could then get on with solving the problem so it didn’t happen again.

...

My favourite management tip is to “Explain what needs done and why and empower your team to figure out how.” (Blaise Brosnan)

...

My favourite leadership tip is that “People listen to experts, they follow leaders.” (Doberman Dan)

...

My favourite business leadership tip is that “The biggest reason for business failure is lack of clarity of purpose”. (Blaise Brosnan)

...

And my favourite parenting tip is to “Be the man you want your sons to grow up to be”. (Craig Desorcy)

Andy, thank you for all this.

This Brosnan guy sounds like the 007 of leadership. if I was going to read one book of his on business or leadership is there one that you would recommend?

Also I want to draw particular attention to your comment about the difference between experts and leaders. I think for a long time I equated the two. And I didn't think I had enough expertise to lead.

Even after I learned that I didn't need to be an expert to lead, I still conflated the two, which led to many of my poor interactions with employees.

That comment is so powerful, I could probably write two or three more posts about other times in my life when I broke that rule.

Like in sales. I used to try and teach people everything they needed to know about something. I'd make their head explode, and they'd walk away, right down the hall to the guy who made things simple and said sign on the dotted line.
 
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Suzanne Bazemore

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Like in sales. I used to try and teach people everything they needed to know about something. I'd make their head explode, and they'd walk away, right down the hall to the guy who made things simple and said sign on the dotted line.

@BizyDad, this is a very helpful lesson to me in real estate. Thank you!
 

AFMKelvin

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Nice post. Every environment has their own leadership skills. Some environments work best when you let Bobby Knight come out. Bit definitely not in an office environment.

Something I learned from watching the organizers of a group of young kids. They stated the behavior they want the kids to model, not the negative to avoid. I grew up with hearing don't do this, don't do that. Instead of telling the kids don't talk, stop fidgeting, it was feet on the floor, hands on your lap, mouths closed. It was amazing to see.

A few years ago, my mother in law was visiting and wanted to learn to ride a bike. More like brush up on it, she rode bikes as a kid. She lives in downtown Chicago and didn't want to practice on busy streets. We took her to an empty parking lot. Empty of cars, but had a single light pole in the very middle. As she was getting ready to go, we told her "stay away from the light pole". She made a beeline right for it.

I'm convinced even though you hear it's a negative, there's something going on in the subconscious that hears "light pole" and you get fixated on it. Should have told her what to do like "ride near the outside edge of the lot".

I see many of your "house rules" are stated in the negative. Give people the positive to fixate on.

I've been riding motorcycles since I was a teen. And the first thing they teach you about target fixation. You go where your eyes are looking. If you want to avoid a pole look away from and the rest will follow. Target fixation can kill you or save you. It's also the reason why you don't tell a kid not to spill his coffee. The brain sees the action of spilling and that's what it does. The labels on coffee cups say "use caution hot coffee" for a reason.
 

Andy Black

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I've been riding motorcycles since I was a teen. And the first thing they teach you about target fixation. You go where your eyes are looking. If you want to avoid a pole look away from and the rest will follow. Target fixation can kill you or save you. It's also the reason why you don't tell a kid not to spill his coffee. The brain sees the action of spilling and that's what it does. The labels on coffee cups say "use caution hot coffee" for a reason.
I was going to write a series of lessons from riding motor bikes. Fixation would have been one of those. I’ve done it... ending up in a ditch 2 hours after picking up my first bike.

“Don’t walk on the grass.” just makes me think of Richard Gere walking barefoot on the grass in Pretty Woman.

“Walk on the path” is better.
 
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Andy Black

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This Brosnan guy sounds like the 007 of leadership. if I was going to read one book of his on business or leadership is there one that you would recommend?
Blaise Brosnan is an institution amongst many business folks here in Ireland. When he launched his last book government ministers spoke at the launch ceremony.

See the video on his company website here:


Blaise has three books out and I have them all but haven’t read them. Partly because I’m just not in reading mode, but also because I found his wisdom easier to consume live at his workshops.

I went on a two series of courses that he gave and they were amazing. The guy drops little nuggets left right and center. He’s also got this calm way of speaking to that has us all hanging on his every word.

Here he is chatting about his little book of quotes that I dip into and out of:

View: https://youtu.be/6S3_3HuEB_I





I’ve learned so much about management, leadership, and management from Blaise.

I’m messing about with whiteboard videos and will inevitably do a lot of his quotes.
 

Andy Black

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Also I want to draw particular attention to your comment about the difference between experts and leaders. I think for a long time I equated the two. And I didn't think I had enough expertise to lead.

Even after I learned that I didn't need to be an expert to lead, I still conflated the two, which led to many of my poor interactions with employees.

That comment is so powerful, I could probably write two or three more posts about other times in my life when I broke that rule.

Like in sales. I used to try and teach people everything they needed to know about something. I'd make their head explode, and they'd walk away, right down the hall to the guy who made things simple and said sign on the dotted line.
That’s exactly it. You can spout the technical facts all you want and people will listen to you but it doesn’t make you a leader.

Remember the story of Henry Ford being asked what he knew about XYZ and him wheeling in his panel of experts to answer the questions?

And we all know the armchair quarterback with encyclopaedic knowledge of what we’re doing wrong and how XYZ guru says you should do ABC in that situation.

It’s one reason it galls me so much when everyone wants to run to yet more technical courses and become an “expert” when they can help people with what they already know.

I touched on that here:
You don't need to be an expert

I feel leading is a lot simpler than people make out. Again, we don’t need to run to yet more books on it. I did a vlog about that quote here, albeit it only addresses part of what makes a leader:
People listen to experts, they follow leaders

If you’re going to be your own boss then by definition you need to step up and be a leader. You don’t need to be even more of a technical expert.

I think @Kak wrote about this somewhere when people ask what the most important skill that business owners should have. Most people say “sales”. Kyle says “leadership”. I agree that leadership is higher than sales - having employed a salesman who didn’t have biz dev skills.

(BTW... my answer to that question was “the skill of building profitable businesses that can run without you.” because plenty of good leaders and salespeople don’t have good businesses.)
 

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I totally hear your feedback. 9 times out of 10, I agree. If we're talking about raising kids, you're going to get no argument out of me.

But I did it this way on purpose and I'd like to explain the thought process here. First, you'll notice that several of them are phrased in the affirmative.

@BizyDad very insightful! You have me thinking about when it might be better to use the negative form or even a double negative!!
 

AFMKelvin

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I was going to write a series of lessons from riding motor bikes. Fixation would have been one of those. I’ve done it... ending up in a ditch 2 hours after picking up my first bike.

“Don’t walk on the grass.” just makes me think of Richard Gere walking barefoot on the grass in Pretty Woman.

“Walk on the path” is better.
Wow 2 hours after getting your bike. Hope it wasn't new. How did it happen?
 

BizyDad

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Love this part!

One of my favorite leadership stories is in the Bible when Jesus walks up to dudes and is like, "Follow me." And suddenly dudes are disciples. That's a leader.

I've always wanted to do to that. And that moment is the closest I've come so far. Only took 6 years of rapport building.

Nice post. Every environment has their own leadership skills. Some environments work best when you let Bobby Knight come out. Bit definitely not in an office environment.

That's a good point.

And I think a good leader knows either how to adapt the leadership style to the situation, or knows how to get the right people on board for his/her leadership style.

@BizyDad very insightful! You have me thinking about when it might be better to use the negative form or even a double negative!!

Here's one.

You're not wrong.

That's one of my favorites. It's the old... I don't disagree... Or do I?

Feel free to use it whenever appropriate. I often used it in response to a sales objection.

I apparently say it so much, an employee made a meme of me saying it.
 
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Andy Black

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Wow 2 hours after getting your bike. Hope it wasn't new. How did it happen?
I followed someone else who didn’t gaf about who was following him. There’s a lesson in that too...
 

AFMKelvin

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I followed someone else who didn’t gaf about who was following him. There’s a lesson in that too...

Yeah that's why new riders always go in the back when travelling in groups so they can take it slow.

There's so much you can learn when riding motorcycles and you'll remember everything because your life depends on it.
 
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I was on the same boat until I used the Cosmic Master's hypnosis.

I was a tire kicker until my intuition grew to an unprecedented level.

Never looked back ever since.
 

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Something very simple, yet crucial in my opinion is to go against a common belief: "Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself"

As a leader you can't expect your employees to be of same mind that you do, and you will have to find out how each individual respond to different ways of communication.

I for instance, want the facts out cold and simple. I don't mind too much the way it's communicated.

Some people would be very demotivated and find that way of communicating too harsh. To those people you have to find out what motivates them, and then use the kind of communating best suited toward them.

Another thing than communication is the question of the whip and carrot. Some people thrive when whipped, other people (and the majority too, I believe) thrive from receiving the carrot. Again. Just keep in mind that everyone is not like you, and you have to treat different people in different ways.
 

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Something very simple, yet crucial in my opinion is to go against a common belief: "Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself"

As a leader you can't expect your employees to be of same mind that you do, and you will have to find out how each individual respond to different ways of communication.

I for instance, want the facts out cold and simple. I don't mind too much the way it's communicated.

Some people would be very demotivated and find that way of communicating too harsh. To those people you have to find out what motivates them, and then use the kind of communating best suited toward them.

Another thing than communication is the question of the whip and carrot. Some people thrive when whipped, other people (and the majority too, I believe) thrive from receiving the carrot. Again. Just keep in mind that everyone is not like you, and you have to treat different people in different ways.

I think that is a good point.

But I think it is only one school of thought, albeit the school of thought I subscribe to.

Another school of thought is to get employees who respond best to your leadership style.

Pros and cons to either approach. In your example one issue is if you give a person a carrot and the other the whip, everyone can see you play favorites.

Another issue is the mental gymnastics can be exhausting, and not everyone is up to the task.

Personally, my feelings have been evolving in the past year. I currently think it is best to foster each person on the team to be a leader, even if that is just a leader of themselves. Those who rise to the challenge, give them a little more responsibility.

I believe the leaders job is to set the standard and hold others accountable to that standard. Ever since I've been progressing in this direction, my office has been running more smoothly.

I've evolved as a leader just in the 3 weeks since I wrote this post.
 
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Pros and cons to either approach. In your example one issue is if you give a person a carrot and the other the whip, everyone can see you play favorites.


I've been called out on this exact thing actually.

I asked for feedback from my team, where a person responded, that I was treating people differently.

I then asked if he felt like I was favorizing, or if it was as he'd said it; that I treated people differently, because I know I do, but in my opinion I have to, because people respond differently to ways of communication.

I feel that after explaining the reasoning behind it, there has been a good understanding .. Ofcourse he may still be brooding and not telling. I don't feel that's the case thought.

Apart from this, I do agree with your viewpoints about a leaders job and the importance of helping your employees evolve towards better personal leadership.
 

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I've been called out on this exact thing actually.

I asked for feedback from my team, where a person responded, that I was treating people differently.

I then asked if he felt like I was favorizing, or if it was as he'd said it; that I treated people differently, because I know I do, but in my opinion I have to, because people respond differently to ways of communication.

I feel that after explaining the reasoning behind it, there has been a good understanding .. Ofcourse he may still be brooding and not telling. I don't feel that's the case thought.

Apart from this, I do agree with your viewpoints about a leaders job and the importance of helping your employees evolve towards better personal leadership.

It is really good that you sought out the feedback and were open to criticism. Open communication is huge with that style of leadership.

But the other problem I discovered with that style is it doesn't scale. You'll eventually spend too much time dealing with those kinds of talks.

Great for small groups though.
 

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Worth to mention might be that my team is a production unit on a nightshift ..

Non-educated work at odd hours do require a special kind of breed in people, haha.

I have 15 people on my team right now, but am also very selective of the people I take in. I only hire through vicar personel, so my team has a chance to see and work with the people before I take them in.

That way I can make sure it's a great fit and there is chemistry amongst the guys before I hire anyone.
This approach has helped me filter some guys who is bulldozing forward to give a good impression, just to show lack of stability after a few weeks.
 
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seeing how this can turn into a book suggestions page, I'd like to put up this author's book for the running of best leadership book: How To Be A World Class Leader: Using Science To Become One of The Top Executives in the World: Hough, Patrick: 9781983272295: Amazon.com: Books
I like that idea. Thanks for contributing @Lyinx and for the book recommendation. Can you take it one step further? What are three takeaways you got from the book? What is one surprising fact you learned?
 

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