There is a management school that says that if you want an employee to do something, you order him to do it.
Make it clear and concise.
Set expectations and tell them to meet them.
Now, there is merit in this. In a workplace, you need to say what you need from your people.
In fact, you can “command” them to do so.
But this is where many leaders find themselves stuck.
They think because they’re the boss, it says so right there on their business card! – that they can command people to work hard and innovate.
Telling people what to do is like a magic trick. It looks simpler than it is, and the real work happens behind the scenes.
If you skip all that, you run into problems.
Your motivated employees with the right attitude will do their best.
Or should I say, they will do their best to do their best.
But this management style doesn’t work without trust, even if your employees want it to.
Unless you give it time beforehand, your people won’t follow your orders for anything more complex than working on a photocopier.
You might think I’m exaggerating.
Or you can think of counterexamples, like in the military. Refuse to follow orders and you’ll end up in court of the “martial” variety.
Except anyone with military experience will tell you that’s nonsense. He is a terrible officer who relies on his rank to lead his people.
I remember a story I heard. At the inner door of an officers’ mess, she says something like, “If by passing through this door you lost your rank, would your people follow you?”
The military loves a strict hierarchy.
Deals in fractions of a second, life or death situations.
Still, the best military men stress the importance of leadership. Do you want your people to follow you to the edge? You can’t just order it and hope for the best.
It may be much safer, but the corporate workplace is exactly the same.
People want to be innovative, inspired and productive.
But they need help to get there.
Who knows why, but poor leadership causes us to shut down the parts of ourselves that we need the most.
Great leadership invites us to be the best of ourselves.
If you want your employees to give you their best work, you’re not alone there.
But if you take the time to build the relationship with them… well, you’ll be in the minority.
The top tier of leaders who seem to always get the best out of their people.
This sounds obvious, but it’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of your day.
And once you reach those lofty ranks where people below you have people below them, it can be hard to cultivate all those relationships.
But if it was easy, everyone would do it.