Cheerleading as a Competitive (Business) Sport
Managers make all the difference.
The difference between employees staying and employees moving on. Between teams who thrive—and teams who flounder. Between hitting business goals and missing the mark. In fact, recent Gallup research shows that a remarkable “70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.” Imagine for a moment two people in identical jobs with the same level of difficulty: one can feel supported and encouraged…the other ignored and neglected. Clearly, the manager matters.
“The single biggest decision you make in your job—bigger than all the rest—is who you name manager,” says Gallup CEO Jim Clifton. “When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits—nothing.”
The challenge for managers is that often the very traits that fueled our climb to a leadership position can trip us up once we’re there. For example, I’m a Restorative in StrengthsFinder language, which means I see problems, er, easily. I’m a Fixer. In a way, this strength is a gift, because it has helped me build a company. I can generally anticipate the fall-out from a problem and come up with a plan of action quickly.
The shadow side, of course, of this strength is also that I see problems first. Celebrating the wins does not come easily for me. Both by nature and nurture, I might take an hour or two (at the max!) to celebrate the win before I move on to fix the next issue.
In my experience, most successful people share at least a bit of this mindset. We are hungry. The jobs we lost or the person we forgot to call back stay with us far more than our track record of actually “being very responsive” or beating out the competition 95% of the time. We are motivated by excellence and want to bring everyone along.
But for my fellow “fixers” in leadership and team management, what feels like problem-solving to you may (and often will) feel like criticism to someone on your team. According to Gallup, the Four Needs of Followers are hope, stability, compassion and trust. Too much focus on your team’s struggles can erode the confidence they have in you and their future. So if you’re a problem-solver (which is probably why you got promoted), how do you maximize the skillset of the people beneath you and help them climb higher in a way that encourages growth and trust?
Lately, my answer to this conundrum (see, problem-solving!!) is to lean into strengths.
Not my strengths, though—my team’s. Some of the recruiters on the Forge team are more technical; others are more sales oriented. Each one has a different viewpoint and skillset that they bring to the table. I am fortunate to have each one of them here, and my job as the leader is to match them with the right jobs that utilize their skillsets best.
Exceptional leaders recognize the good and hold it along with the opportunities for improvement. They stay true to the high standards that make their work great—and also savor the wins. Seeing the good matters. Saying it out loud to yourself and to your team makes it more real, more tangible and more likely to be followed through on. And the reality is that if we don’t notice the good in our team, someone else will . . . and will recruit them away.
So I am committed to celebrating the wins and how far we’ve come. Recognizing that we are changing people’s lives, one connection at a time. And that each person on my team is growing and developing—and teaching me a lot as well.
Celebrating them, in fact, may be our most easily accessible competitive advantage.