Leadership by pedrosimoes7

Via Be a Better Leader: Add 300 Meetings to Your Calendar – John Baldoni.

Great read, and something to ponder. Leadership is not about being way out in front of the people you’re trying to lead. Instead, it’s about being right where they are.

It’s so easy to let yourself get sucked up into your day to day activities that you forget about the people who are working with you. A big mistake.  Strong leaders invest time in their people.

Article Think Points:

Leaders Know their People – Isn’t it easy to get so caught up in running your business that you slowly begin to distance yourself from the people working with you? You don’t set out to do this – I don’t think any leader would, but its done all the time.

Baldoni points to the importance of leaders staying connected with the “…reality in which his people live and work.”  This is very important indeed. If the people working with you sense that you’re distant, they’ll likely decide to move elsewhere. Or at least disconnect their heart and passion from what they’re doing with you. Increasing authentic connection with your people, will also increase employee connection to your company, and you as a leader.

Focus: How can I Serve You? By staying in touch with the people you’re working with, you can create possibilities to serve them better. Interesting to think about – the people working for you are there to serve you – but you, the leader, are also there to serve them. Now there’s a viewpoint you rarely see.

I’ve experienced what happens when you fail to really connect with the people working with you – they seem to assume you don’t care about what they need, and in some cases just up and leave. Nobody has to remain with your team, or your company today. I need to be sure my people have what they need to succeed – and I need to be connecting to this conversation on a regular basis.

I also really liked what Baldoni had to say about sticking close to your front line workers:

“Andrew exemplifies a key leadership behavior: go where the work is. In lean thinking, this principle is referred to as gemba, going where the value is.”

Note to self: Don’t get soo busy that you loose contact with your people. Meet with them regularly. Listen. Converse. Discover.