We are living in a world that is changing fast and getting more complex. In this environment, leadership is difficult—no one ever said or thought it is easy. People are an organization’s greatest asset, many say, but it is not followed up with action, and employees are disappointed at the lack of caring, development, or career paths. This is a business risk and needs to be addressed along with a much larger focus. The talent in our organization is key to our success in the workplace. If our best talent is going out the door, we will have shortages of critical roles, and our leadership pipelines will be scarce in the future. How do you know where to focus your efforts to be the most effective leader? Let’s go into more detail now on how to challenge yourself in new ways to meet this demand.

Firefighting

The first thing you need to do is stop firefighting. What do I mean by that? You get distracted and pulled into the immediate needs or tasks in front of you. The question is, does reacting in this way bring the most long-term value for you, your team, and the organization? It is easy to jump into a tactical problem because it feels good to find resolution and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. I challenge you to step back and evaluate the situation before jumping feet first into these types of situations. Sure, you will have problems arise that you have to tackle right away, but I would say 70% of these situations are not critical and do not need your attention right in that moment. By allowing ourselves to focus our efforts on the constant demands for your attention, we are distracted from the more important goal of building our teams.

Obviously, you cannot spend all of your time in developing your team. That is not realistic. However, I would highly recommend you spend at least 20% of your time coaching and mentoring others for their benefit and the benefit of your organization. Schedule this time like you would any other meeting. Plan for these conversations and understand that you are guiding and not telling them how to be better. You will need to ask powerful questions to get your team members involved with their own development and to own the outcomes. Where you are guiding them will determine the types of questions you will ask. It is better to ask open-ended questions (i.e., ones that cannot be answered with “yes” or “no”) so you can gain perspective about how they think and approach challenges, understand where they are coming from, and begin to understand their perspective. Here are some questions to get you started:

• If you could do it over again, what would you do differently?
• What is the opportunity here?
• What is the challenge?
• What is the part that is not yet clear?
• How do you want it to be?

I will give you an example of when I was caught in firefighting mode, and it hurt me professionally. I stepped up to a director role in another country, where I was asked to build the capacity of my newly formed department in this region. As you can imagine, it was a daunting task, but I was up for the challenge. I fully expected to build this amazing team and have time to develop and coach them. Unfortunately, I quickly jumped into the multitude of actions and tasks that needed my attention, which did not include developing my team. Our region was so successful in acquiring new clients, and much of the time-consuming work fell on my team to deliver on what was sold. It was a tall order, and my team and I were having trouble keeping up. Not only that, but we also had critical department handoffs that were not well established and not ready to handle the volume of work coming through.

We wanted to drive sales and revenue, especially through new clients. But because we never set the foundation for how to get things done between departments—that is, who was responsible, what the tradeoffs and guardrails were—we struggled to handle the current capacity of work. The processes and workflow were haphazard and not well understood. I was so busy trying to keep up with our client demand that I really had no time, or so I thought, to develop my team. Once we finished one project, the next one was lined up to start. There was no room to breathe, step back, and evaluate what was working and what was not, and we had a lot that was not working. I felt exhausted and constantly stressed. I never had the sense of accomplishment because it was always more, more, more! I felt it taking a toll on my health and, to be frank, I thought I could easily suffer a heart attack or stroke at any moment. This is not a good place to be as a leader. Does any of this resonate with you?

I was always the first one in the office and the last one to leave. I even got locked into my office in London once. The security guard bolted the door on his way out at 8 p.m., so I couldn’t get out of the office until the morning. This was truly a low point for me, being locked in my office overnight, but it gave me time to rethink what I was doing and how much time I was spending on trivial tasks.

The big question to ask yourself is whether you would like to be seen as a leader or a manager. What is the difference? Generally speaking, a leader uses influence and inspires teams to get things done. People follow leaders. A manager tends to be more directive, as in a command and control style, telling employees what to do. People work for the manager, but this role is viewed as controlling an outcome. From this perspective, managers can get stuck by managing tasks that are right in front of them rather than delegating them. They can feel as if they will never get out from behind the huge pile of demands and tasks requiring their attention outside of their team. Does this sound like an inspirational leader that you would want to work for? I am thinking not, and this is why you need to be aware that if you get stuck in this cycle, it will suck all the life out of you and eventually your team.

I finally realized the toll my firefighting was taking on my team and made a choice to stop focusing on what was right in front of me or who was shouting the loudest. To take back control, I needed a strategy that helped regain my sanity and gave me ownership. What did I do? I actually started working less and scheduled focused times for all of my key responsibilities. This allowed me to bring balance back into my life.

From that point on, I decided to arrive at the office at the normal start of the day. I made sure to incorporate a break in the middle of the day, even if it was just a 15-minute walk around the block outside. It was important to get away from my desk and computer to get fresh air. Surprisingly, the break boosted my productivity, I was much more efficient in my tasks in the afternoon, and I could leave at a decent hour. I was no longer the last one to leave the office every night. I also made efforts to spend more development time with my direct reports. In doing that, I realized I could delegate more and give some developmental opportunities to those on my team. It felt great to lift some of the burden off my plate and also to see my team grow their skills. It was a win-win situation.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” – Buddha

By shifting my viewpoint about my team, I was able to think about them as future leaders within the organization. I was giving them opportunities to show their strengths and was building up their experience and confidence.

Motivation

Another challenge I see with leaders I work with has to do with motivation. Have you ever experienced a time when you were on a high-performing team? There have been particular moments in my career that I remember in the moment thinking, “Wow! That was an amazing experience and I want to learn as much as possible from this situation.” When I reflect back on these moments, I think about what made everything work so well. I experienced strong leaders who respected all that we had to offer, and they leveraged our strengths. We also had unified goals and personal goals we were working toward. Everyone in that department, at all levels, was learning from one another, because we knew we all had different life and career experiences to share that were valuable.

Why is it so difficult to achieve this kind of zen-like team? What are some obstacles in achieving high-performing teams? There are many things that get in the way—from your personal style, to the reporting structure of the organization, and to the culture of the team. We have all experienced, in ourselves or in other leaders, challenging situations like denying there is a problem or deferring responsibility.

In driving for higher-performing teams, we need to shift our mindset to overcome these challenges and focus our efforts for better outcomes. I have seen leaders with positive outlooks have better outcomes than those who are negative. The way we perceive our work and our disposition have a huge influence on how our team feels about the work. It is absolutely imperative to create an environment where employees feel good about their sense of accomplishments.

Focus

As a leader, where you focus your time and energy has a direct impact on how successful you will be as a leader in your approach to the work environment. You have a choice about how you interact with others. If you look at certain situations from a macro-level, like overall organizational culture or your discouragement working with your direct leader, it doesn’t give you a way to empower yourself to take control over the situation. However, if you think about ways you can directly impact or change situations that are challenging, then you might realize the change you seek because you have more influence over it. For instance, you could choose to be a better role model or build out your network within the organization. Essentially, what you focus your attention on directly impacts your effectiveness across work and even beyond, including family, health, finances, and more.

The challenge with focusing our time and efforts in the overarching space of our organizations is that many things are out of our control and we have limited influence, especially in large organizations. If we, as leaders, stay at this level, then we could be wasting a lot of effort and start to feel frustrated that nothing is changing. Essentially, at the end of the day, it is too big of a challenge to tackle easily, so we waste time spinning our wheels thinking about what could be. We spend our energies on “if only” scenarios instead of breaking down the issues into more manageable chunks that can have an impact.

To have more impact, we need to bring our thoughts and actions down to a more localized level. Instead of playing a victim role and being reactive, you can shift to being proactive and action oriented. Think about your goals and the challenges you have in obtaining those within your organization (or beyond). Really examine what is holding you back. Are there things that you can do and have influence over to change the path or outcome? The way you approach a situation can really change the outlook and outcome.

Let’s look at two opposing perspectives to demonstrate what I mean. What if you feel your workload is too heavy? If you frame your thoughts from this view, then you can feel overwhelmed and not empowered to do anything about it. What can you do to turn this thought around? How about working to clarify with your manager your areas of focus that align with the business priorities? This allows you to be in control of the situation and have meaningful conversations with your leadership about where to focus your efforts for the most impact. In contrast, framing your thoughts from a defeatist view where you believe you can’t rectify the situation leaves you without focus and direction. My advice to be a more effective leader is to approach challenges with an eye for action, even if you can impact only a couple of items. At least you can start from there and see how it goes. Focusing on the things you can do something about allows you to be more in control. You have a choice about how you spend your time and effort. My advice to you: Choose wisely!

This action-oriented perspective takes practice and conscious effort. I recommend working with a coach or your manager on what you should be focused on at work to gain clarity and to align yourself with the organizational goals. In the same way, you can do this with your team so they can learn to be more proactive and focused. We can’t be involved in everything. Learn how to guide your team to apply their valuable resources to the areas with the greatest potential impact.

Productivity

Another challenge we have with our teams is the disappearance of a standard work day. We live and work in a 24/7 world. News used to be once, maybe twice per day, but now it is instantaneous. Same thing with our organizations—what we are being asked to do isn’t contained nicely in a 9 to 5 job anymore. How do we help our teams to find a balance, so they are not working 12+ hours per day?

You need to focus on productivity. Why? Because we have limited energy and time to invest in any given task. By demonstrating healthy behaviors like eating right, getting enough sleep, and spending time outside of work, we encourage the same in our teams. Having healthy habits, being able to manage emotions, and applying focused attention on tasks are closely correlated. Work with your team to determine the best way to use their energy levels and encourage them to listen to their bodies when they need a break, either mental or physical.

You can also provide guidelines on what you expect from your team. For instance, I would let my team know that when I was on the road traveling and there was an urgent need to speak to me, they could text me and I would get back to them the first chance I had. This guideline allowed them not to expect an immediate response, but to know that I would respect the urgency of needing to discuss a situation. There are many things you can do with your team to encourage boundaries in the workplace as well as to provide more flexibility if the task requires time outside of normal business hours. Find ways to give employees back some of their time—so they don’t feel the organization is always taking every waking minute—should be a priority for finding a balance and supporting longevity.

Vulnerability

To be an effective leader, I encourage you to show vulnerability. This trait is truly one of the most difficult parts of being a leader. One of the leading researchers and TEDx top speakers, Brené Brown described vulnerability like this: “Lean into the discomfort. You have to give opportunities to show your true self to others. Have the courage to be imperfect and to tap into your authentic self. This is essential for connection.” Her TEDx event on YouTube[1] currently has more than 37 million views. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out.

In her research, Dr. Brown found a surprising fact about those who embraced vulnerability. She discovered that those who were honest with themselves and accepted the imperfect parts of themselves had more compassion toward others. By letting go of control, you can look past the failings of others and appreciate their efforts. Let in the experience and don’t let yourself go numb, but rather look toward how it allows you to grow as a person or employee. Dr. Brown suggested that people (leaders) who embraced vulnerability were viewed more favorably than leaders who did not. Employees want leaders to show that they are not perfect. Employees don’t want uncaring robots as their managers.

Part of what Dr. Brown’s research showed was the need for authenticity, flexibility, and a desire for connection. We will explore each of these aspects now in the context of what it means as a leader.

Authenticity, flexibility, and connection. These are the three words I hear consistently from leaders when they discuss how to achieve synergy within a team.

 

Authenticity

Let’s explore how to be an authentic leader and the importance to your team. Have you experienced leaders who weren’t bringing their true selves to work? Did you feel they were hiding from something or acting in a way other’s expected them to? We all have met leaders that we sensed weren’t quite trustworthy. Employees, and especially those on your team, will pick up on the need you feel to “put on an act” at work in a leadership role. You may think you are doing a good job at being what you think you should be or emulating someone else’s style, but your team is good at picking up signals that you are not being your true self.

When you show your honesty, your team will build the trust and respect you are hoping to achieve. This behavior also ties closely to building an ethical foundation as a leader. Doing so allows the team to be open with you because the trust goes both ways. It can build a positive work environment because the team members do not feel they will be thrown under the bus at any moment. How many of us have experienced the finger pointing in our direction for something that went wrong and have alone shouldered the blame for it? Many employees have stood alone in these situations, which is unfortunate.

How do you create an authentic and positive environment for your team? The first element ties back to being emotionally intelligent especially from a self-awareness perspective. You have to know how you are being perceived by others in the things that you do and say. By knowing yourself, you can recognize when you are deviating from your true, authentic self. You also need to be genuine to yourself and others. Transparency is key to this element. Your team will quickly pick up on nonverbal signals, especially if they are incongruent with other aspects of your leadership or work.

Another piece of authenticity is having a balanced perspective. We all have unconscious biases, and they play out in our working with others. In recognizing these areas of bias, realize that you may have blind spots. You can mitigate those areas or at least recognize when you are being unfair in a situation so that you can get better at combating those behaviors. Being fair to all does not always mean being equal. It means you give all people a chance to excel wherever they might be in their career path or trajectory.

Lastly, authenticity means that when it comes down to it, you will do the right thing. One of the most universal ethical beliefs, regardless of culture or religion, is the moral imperative to treat others as you want to be treated. Be sure to be empathetic to your team’s concerns and the journey they are on. Organizations can feel like a rollercoaster ride sometimes, and I am afraid this will only get worse in the coming years. If you are a leader of integrity, your team will ride the wave with you, even though they may need to hold on with everything they’ve got. But with the trust you have built and the respect you have earned, they will believe you will be forthright and honest with them even if that means you have to say, “I don’t know, but when I do, I will let you all know.”

At the end of the day, your team will determine whether you are an authentic leader or not. It is one of those intangible qualities that most people can intuitively sense. It is not something you can fake, so don’t try. This is the difficulty with being an authentic leader, because each leader will be different. But that is the point. Teams don’t want cookie-cutter leadership; they want you to be yourself but also have the team’s best interest at heart with everything you do.

You might be asking how to demonstrate authenticity to your team. It ties back to really knowing yourself and your values. We each have our unique style and preferences. For instance, some of us are more extroverted than introverted in our preference of how we gain energy. We may have certain political beliefs that guide our community values. We could follow various religious beliefs. All of these things factor into our true selves and how we show up at work. Employees should understand that others we work with may not have the same energy, political, or religious grounding as you do, and that is okay. Be vigilant not to use your judgment of these factors on others. Instead, balance demonstrating your belief system with open respect for others who may feel differently. Approach others with curiosity and open-mindedness, and respect their perspective. That will go a long way toward building and deepening trust and authenticity.

 

Connection

This element is one of the easiest to do, but the most often neglected. Once you become a leader, it is your responsibility to understand your team from many aspects. Looking at individuals on the team as unique and understanding what motivates them is extremely important. This can go beyond work and certainly is a must in global teams. I have seen very successful and respected leaders who know every person they come in contact with during their workday. It is as simple as knowing the café workers’ names. Do they have children? In your global teams, what foods do they enjoy? Are they the same favorites as yours?

For your team to believe you care, you have to show it. We spend so many hours of our days at work. Sometimes we see our coworkers more than our families. Be sure to embrace those moments that a connection is revealed. It is something as humans we all aspire to have.

In my interview with Garry Ridge, the CEO of WD-40® Company, he described the culture at his company, which we all can take a lesson from:

People are still people. They want to be treated with respect and dignity. Most of us want to learn something new every day. We want to have the freedom to be able to be involved, and the reason people want to be involved is they want to feel like they’ve made a contribution. One of our biggest human desires we have is to belong. 

We are all human. We have hobbies, and most of us have a family. It is finding those things we have in common that we can talk about regardless of where we are in the world. The best dispersed projects I have been on were the ones that kicked off with an initial face-to-face meeting. It is difficult to be mad at someone you have met in person and understand as a human being.

One secret shared in an interview with Cathy Susie, VP of Human Resources for Schneider Electric™, is to put a picture of whomever you have a virtual meeting with on your computer screen or have it next to you to help make that connection, as if they are right next to you. Otherwise, it is too easy to multitask or get distracted by something else. You need to give the person your undivided attention, as if that person were face-to-face. In addition, her team uses a WhatsApp® group to tell funny stories, share vacation pictures, and congratulate one another (e.g., birthdays, weddings, recognition). That is how team members connect with one another regularly on a personal level.

Flexibility

The other trait mentioned consistently by inspirational leaders was giving the space for your team members the flexibility to grow and try new things. This means that they will make mistakes, and they sometime will fail. But encourage them to take on new challenges, because that is how you and the team will learn the most. You can build an environment where employees feel they can learn and grow and not feel fearful that any minute they might get fired for failing after trying something new.

In order for our employees to grow, they will need the flexibility to take some risks which means they might not get it right every time. Many of us, as leaders, hate the word failure because the word holds a strong negative connotation. The interesting thing is that we all need to learn from things that we do—in the form of experiences or just plain trial-and-error. Things just don’t go well all the time. That is reality! What if we reframed our perception of failure to mean learning lessons? By shifting our mindset to approach a situation as more exploratory versus accusatory, we switch to a coaching role. By allowing your employees to determine how they will approach tasks versus telling them what they should do, you can observe their thought processes and approaches, which can give you better insight on best ways to coach them through challenges. In many situations, you’ll never have all the information to make a decision to move forward, so you and your team have to be okay with taking some risks. Just be sure they are educated risks. Therein lies the challenge.

Here are some questions you can ask during this exploratory conversation:

• How do you think this situation/task went?
• What did you do and what was the result?
• What, if anything, would you do differently next time?

By asking these three simple questions, you can have a meaningful conversation and get further insight into that person’s actions versus beating that person down because something didn’t go as planned. Be cognizant of the words you use and really try to stay away from negative words. You need to practice the delivery of the message and chose your words carefully, because the conversation can have very different outcomes if not handled right. Addressing failure is a skill. In coaching models, you will find there are times to be directive. Here’s the thing, though: You can be both directive and kind. Being directive does not give you permission to be mean-spirited in your delivery. Refining your communication style is very important as a leader, because words matter to people. The best leaders have their people’s best interest at heart, and so that is where the message should be coming from to be the most effective.

In thinking about global teams, I received a great piece of advice during my interview with Cathy Susie, VP of Human Resources at Schneider Electric:

A challenge with working with people from around the world is that we are too reliant on email. It is easier for you to fire off an email than to schedule a call at 10 p.m. Don’t take the easy way out just because it’s more efficient.

 There will be many opportunities in the near future for driving teams through challenging times. With technological advances, the speed and voracity of change are hitting everyone. How do we help our teams through this? This is where you need to be savvy in change management; it will be a necessary skill for all leaders to excel in the next 10 years and beyond. Helping your team adapt to what is coming while having a positive outlook and attitude will make a world of a difference in how you approach your work. But be careful; there is a balance between holding teams together and getting results without burning them out in the process. Burnout is the leading cause of absenteeism and health issues down the line. Be aware of this in your teams and address it as you see it pop up. Helping your team members prioritize what is important to focus on and where they should spend their time will help conquer a seemingly endless list of must-do’s. It’s about focusing on a few things and doing them right while building confidence within the team.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy

Here is a great piece of insight from one of my interviews with Michael Ratican, a senior leader in the biotech industry at Global Training & Development at Amgen®:

Good managers recognize that there’s an energy flow within their organizations, and either they’re astute to it or they think their people are managing it, or not. Any manager can demand expectations or set goals—that’s easy. But if you don’t have the right culture and energy, then you’re a mess.

Perfectionism

This leads me to another characteristic to recognize in your team—perfectionism. Believe me, I am guilty of it! But it is not your friend and will hold you back from reaching your potential. We do not have the luxury of being perfect in this fast-moving world. I have coached many people in the idea of “good enough.” This is very difficult for some people, including myself. However, perfectionism does not serve us well. To hold onto this mentality will eat you alive.

That is, perfectionism can lead to burnout. In those who are perfectionist, you will see higher levels of burnout because they can’t say “no,” or they want everything to be the best it can be every time. Finding the balance between perfect and good enough is a skill that can be learned, but it needs to be practiced and encouraged. At the end of the day, to be perfect all the time is not worth it, and you and your team will not be recognized for this extra work. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is detrimental to your organization, because agility and speed are key to success and to being competitive in the future.

“Learning is going to be everyone’s adventure. If we stop growing, leaders especially need to be open to self-reflection, feedback and insight, without it we can’t be authentic.” — Michael Ratican, Global Training & Development at Amgen

 

Key Takeaways:

1. Stop firefighting and take charge by taking back control of your work life. If you spend more time looking ahead and understanding what larger business results you are trying to achieve, you can be more proactive in your career and less stressed by meaningless activity.
2. Be purposeful with how you are spending your time. Part of your job as a leader is to develop your team. Leading requires inspiration and influence, so be sure to leverage both of these and limit your time on tasks that might seem important in the moment, but don’t add any strategic value to you or your team.
3. Focus on developing healthy habits within and outside work so you can focus with more clarity and be more productive. Our work hours have expanded, but we can use some of the downtime when waiting for information to take care of ourselves and to foster quality relationships.
4. By demonstrating vulnerability as a leader, you show your imperfections, and research has shown that builds trust with your employees.
5. People follow authentic leaders. You need to develop your own self-awareness and determine where you have blind spots, biases, and preferences. This will help you be a better leader, because you will recognize those times when you have a differing viewpoint that could limit your capacity for empathy.
6. Find the human connection to those on your team and other you work with. Employees don’t want to feel expendable or like just a number. This is most critical with virtual teams, because you don’t have the benefit of seeing team members in the office every day.
7. Focus your efforts as a leader on working through “learning lessons” instead of framing situations as failures. Flexibility can work in a few ways. By allowing your employees to determine how they will approach tasks versus the what, you can observe their thought processes and approaches, which can give you better insight on best ways to coach them through challenges.

 

[1] Brené Brown, “The power of vulnerability,” filmed June 2010 at TEDxHouston, Houston, TX, video, 20:13, https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en#t-664000.

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