Both of these got me thinking about what is my view of leadership. I have blogged a few times before about this, so here is the latest installment. First some history.
I managed for the first time in 1977 when I was the manager of two restaurants, Taco Villa, in the Northampton/Amherst area. I started as employee #5 and we built it to 65 employees over 2 sites. Just out of college, this was a fabulous small business experience. I learned hiring, firing, finance, scheduling, process excellence and many more small business skills.
What did I learn about leadership from that experience? It is really hard to fire someone, and role modeling behavior that you want to see, is really important. The first person I fired, I was so upset I rehired him. It was complicated; he was stealing from us and was dating the owner's sister, and they were pregnant at the time. Yes, I said they. Of course the owner, her brother, gave me the assignment to fire him. As I said, it was complicated!
One way I role modelled behavior was washing dishes. Some people just work slowly and they get run over in a fast moving restaurant. The easiest job was washing dishes but you had to work fast. Some people just are not coordinated and don't move fast. I would often throw myself into the dish washing and show them how to organize the job and move fast to keep up in busy times. Some people observed and paid attention, and some ended up as "road kill" on the floor of the restaurant. I think this accomplished two things. It showed that as the manager I was not afraid to get my hands dirty, and wet in this case. It also showed them a system of dish washing that they might not have been aware of. I was always tweaking the system to make it faster and better quality aka clean dishes. BTW, I was also getting a whole bunch of dished washed if we were running out. This explains a lot about why at church, I jump into the dish washing job more often than not. Of course, I have to fight Murg for it, because it is a perfect introvert job.
My second experience with managing was in the early 1990s when I managed a team of 18 people at Polaroid. I had IT, planning, finance, work redesign and training working for me. Here I learned to pay attention to what motivates someone and to use that information for coaching and developing. I learned that everyone is an individual and you need to tailor your development to them. The conversations are all different. I also learned here to not play favorites among my direct reporta and that admitting a mistake is one of the best things you can do as a leader. It buys you a lot.
I have managed a few people since that time but not a huge team. Some day I want to manage a large team again to apply all of the leadership training skills that I have been imparting on 100s of managers in the last 20 years.
So what does this say about my leadership philosophy. Here are the headlines:
- Don't play favorites
- Listen to people to figure out strengths and individual motivations
- Be courageous enough to move or fire someone if they are in the wrong position. They almost always end up in a better spot than the one they are currently in
- As a Myers Briggs "F" and "P", managing these preferences in the workplace is critical
- I am really good as sensing what is going on with people even when they are totally unaware. Use this a a tool and realize it is a gift
So for today 3-17-10, those are my headlines. Unlike my business leader, my thoughts are more scattered, maybe not as clear, but they are mine.
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