As I dug a bit deeper into the SHRM article I referenced last time, I liked how they tied servant leadership back to early Eastern culture citing Laozi, a 5th century Chinese philosopher as suggesting that “when the best leaders finished their work, their people would say ‘we did it ourselves.’” That certainly goes right along with the idea that a genuine servant leader empowers their team to grow, develop, and achieve results without taking all the credit for themselves! One of the best examples I can think of occurred just a few hundred years later, a little bit farther West near the Red Sea, when droves of people came to hear an incredibly influential teacher and he was determined to feed them all before they started their long journeys home.

Both of those examples support what Pat Falotico, former IBM executive and current CEO of Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, said about having a servant leadership mindset, “If you have selfish...

I closed last time by promising to share some things that just about anyone can apply to earn genuine influence and lead the team they supervise or manage more effectively. While that may seem like a pretty lofty promise, I really believe it’s much simpler than it’s usually made out to be…

Just to make sure we’re on the same page though, let’s start with a few examples…

You recently finished up some classes in your off time while working your full time role. You apply for and are offered a position managing the department that you’ve been a part of for the last several years. You’ve always gotten along well with everyone you worked with but they’ve never had to follow your instructions. But starting next Monday, you’re going to need to establish some boundaries and make sure they respect you in this new position. The work environment has always been fairly relaxed but you know productivity could be better if there was...

I truly believe that one of the most essential qualities of leadership is serving the team we’re leading. Unfortunately, the idea of serving those team members is often mistaken for catering to those team members, which doesn’t serve anyone!

As we worked through that quality of service in the last post, I closed by sharing that some of the most effective servant leaders I’ve ever known weren’t willing to accept mediocre performance; they certainly certainly weren’t ones who catered to each passing whim any of the team members came up with. In fact, the leaders I’m picturing as I share this had some of the highest expectations for their team of anyone I’ve ever been around. And because they led by providing a consistent example, their teams delivered on those expectations!

Here’s where I need to stress a critical point… Those expectations weren’t met simply because the leader demanded that level of performance. Those...

Whether it’s what we intend or not, the message we send someone is a huge part of why effective communication is so important! If we want strong relationships that yield overall happy lives, we have to be very intentional about delivering a message the person we’re interacting with can receive rather than just what we want or need to get across. As I shared with a few examples last time, this is often far easier said than done BUT it can become very simple when we apply the right tools…

Effective communication is important to each of us every single day. But guess who has the most to gain (or lose) when it comes to answering the Why is Effective Communication Important? Question…

Since I’m not nearly as patient as Cindy wishes I would be, I’ll just answer that question for you! Anyone who’s accepted leadership responsibility has a tremendous amount to gain or to lose from the energy they invest into each message they share. For the last...

As we consider each area that we can take responsibility for controlling that we’ve worked through to this point, there’s one thing that ties back to every single one… And without being very intentional about how we control this final thing, the control we’ve assumed for each of the others is likely to have a very limited impact!

In the last post, I referenced reaching out to the manager of the company to provide a heads up about our friend’s experience. I shared that he took responsibility for the issue, even though it wasn’t something that he had any direct contact with. I also mentioned that he asked me to pass along an apology on his behalf, which I did. 

Here’s where that final thing we need to control comes into play....

In his role, and with the issues that industry has dealt with over the last several months, he has an incredibly full schedule and I believe he works extremely hard. As Cindy and I teach on the 3 R’s and...

We’ve been looking at different scenarios where team members aren’t performing to the level they’re capable, whether that be through their words or their deeds. In some cases, it can be very intentional. But there are certainly times where they’re just not aware that more is needed. 

For the most part, supervisors, and owners have great relationships with the people around them. That’s how it really should be, right! Solid relationships lead to long term working relationships, but that can also make it pretty tough to have a candid conversation… That said, not addressing a situation can lead to all kinds of yucky business down the road!

One of the fundamentals I learned early on with behavior-based safety, more specifically when addressing at-risk behavior with a peer, was to be very intentional about pointing out the potential for injury from that behavior and be very careful not to question their ability or intent in the process....

A number of years ago, I was scheduled to visit some job sites with the field supervisor at the company I was working with. I met him at the warehouse just before 5am so I could have some time with his team members as he was making sure they each had the materials they would need at each of their jobs that day. Before everyone went their separate ways, one of the most senior team members had apparently lost a few nickels in the soda machine. He was stopping around like someone had kicked his dog. He made a comment about how fitting it was that the soda machine was there. He said it was just like the company, always taking and never giving…

I’m not gonna kid you. That comment went through me like a knife! This fellow had been with the company for around 25 years and was one of the highest paid guys on the payroll. Compound that with the fact that the soles of his shoes likely wore out long before his work gloves, and the fact that the owner of the company was an...

I closed the last post with a commitment to share an example I’ve personally seen of someone who turned their ripples into waves by selflessly serving the people around them. I’m not gonna do that; I’m going to share two… (but I could easily point to dozens more!)

Yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation with a friend I had worked with several years back. Truth be told, he was listed as my immediate supervisor on the org chart but I can’t recall a single time where I saw him use positional authority - with me or anyone else in the company! While I had a pretty significant amount of experience in the work I was hired to do, I had no experience whatsoever in the industry we were working in. He was extremely intentional about helping me get up to speed and was always quick to brag on the work I was doing to the owners of the company; it was incredibly humbling…

I had started our business around that same time. Where many supervisors and managers...