Author: Jennifer Ledet

Dominant leaders typically want things done correctly and quickly. It’s easy to fall into the habit of “just doing it yourself.” But effective leaders know that they have a responsibility to help their team members flourish. That, I’m sorry to say, my dear fellow control freak, means that you will have to let go.

Hi, my name is Jennifer, and I am a control freak. There, I’ve said it. It’s true. I’m not proud to say it out loud, but I know I have half the battle won, just because I’ve recognized it and admitted it.

My control habits go way back. As a mom, I had difficulty leaving my children with a babysitter. My husband urged me for years to get help with the housework, (freeing me up to tackle high-return-on-my-time work projects) until I finally relented. As far as my own business, I haven’t been quite so bad, quickly realizing that having a professional tackle the back-end work on my website and social media would be a lot smarter than trying to accomplish those tasks myself.

The main reason that I had the courage to “come forward” is that in my work with leaders – “C-level” retreats, training programs, coaching, and consulting – I have talked to dozens of executives who admit to the same problem. Apparently, it’s fairly common.

Leaders, there are a number of signs you might be micro-managing.

You may be:

1. Thinking that the world will come to an end if you aren’t handling every task, from the large to the small;
2. Spending time on administrative tasks and admit that someone else could handle them quite proficiently;
3. Barking at team members that it’s your way or the highway;
4. Doing everything yourself and just realize that you are needed to tackle higher-level responsibilities that only you can do;
5. Telling team members how to accomplish tasks and just accept that they got the expected results their own way;
6. Having each task done to your exact specifications and welcome a job well done.

Try these action steps that you can take now to aid in your recovery:

• Constantly look for ways to develop and cross-train team members;
• Design a development plan for each employee, getting input on their interests, aptitudes, and strengths;
• Prioritize your own work and focus on those high-rate-of-return responsibilities that you are uniquely qualified to do and delegate other tasks;
• Mentor team members and empower them to handle the typical workload so that if something happens to you, or if, God forbid, you should decide to take a vacation, your business won’t come to a screeching halt.

You are right, it’s a challenging road to recovery, but I am confident that you can do it. Think of me as your sponsor and our community as your support network.

Welp, I gotta run. I need to go throw another load of clothes in the washer…ER… UH… I mean, I need to call a very important client! (Okay, maybe I’m not there yet, but I am a work in progress!)

YOUR TURN! What will you:

• start doing,
• stop doing, or
• continue doing

to loosen the reigns and allow team members to flourish and get the job done without your controlling their every move? Use the comment box below to share your action plan with us!

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Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

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Have you ever heard that you should never ask a question for which you don’t already know the answer? Maybe I read that in a John Grisham novel. While that may be true for an attorney who’s cross-examining a witness, for executive leaders, it is quite the opposite.

We often have the misconception that the leader is supposed to have all the answers. When I was a new leader, I certainly bought into that idea. I worked so hard, because I never wanted to admit to team members that I didn’t have an answer to one of their questions. I put in overtime, trying to overcompensate for my shortcomings. It may have taken me a while to get it, but I realize that the best leaders don’t have all the answers.

It’s simple. The greatest leaders ask the best questions.

Henry David Thoreau said,

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought and attended to my answer.”

Demanding, commanding, or ordering will neither engage nor empower your team members. Asking for their input? Now that’s where you’ll really learn something!

Asking great questions is a powerful technique for garnering more information about a problem or situation, for seeking feedback on your performance as a leader, and for getting input and finding new opportunities to serve your customers.

Over the years, I’ve worked with leadership teams to help them to all start “rowing and growing” in the same direction. Asking questions is a big part of what I do. I liken it to when you go to a concert and the performer tosses a beach ball out into the crowd and then watches the crowd volley it back and forth. I ask a question of the team – often a tough and sometimes uncomfortable question, step out of their way, and let them volley it back and forth. Quality information, deep thoughts, and feelings are shared, problems are solved, turf wars are abandoned, and departmental silos are torn down. Simply because I asked a few carefully crafted questions.

I REPEAT: Carefully crafted questions. You only get answers to the questions you ask, so learn how to ask powerful questions!

So let’s get to it. Here I’ve compiled a list of

12 Questions Thriving Leaders Ask Their Team

• What makes you proud to work here?
• What do you think we should do in this situation?
• Is there anything that I’m doing that is getting in the way of your success?
• How do you see me as a leader?
• What lessons have you learned through this experience?
• What should I be doing more of? Less of?
• What do you think you/we could have done better/differently in this situation?
• How would you rate my communication skills and why?
• What aspects of your job do you love most? What aspects of your job are most challenging?
• What ideas do you have to improve our business/grow our organization?
• What are our customers saying?
• Are we doing anything that is no longer effective and that we should stop doing?

Adjust these questions to fit your particular situation. The one thing they all have in common is that none of these can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and, in fact, none can be answered with a one-word response. That is by design. By crafting and asking open-ended questions, you will prompt more information and gain greater insight from your team member.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the most important facet of asking great questions. I say this with deepest affection, but please, for the love of God, Shut up and listen to their responses! This can be the trickiest part. Even though I am a big talker, I finally learned there’s a time to talk and a time to zip my lip. I encourage you to do the same. (Too bad I didn’t learn that until after I was out of school!) But, it’s a skill worth practicing.

Make room for silence. Sometimes your colleagues are quiet because they are taking time to formulate their answer(s). Sometimes your team members are quiet because they’re hoping you’ll jump in and save them from having to answer. Don’t do it. Let there be silence and patiently wait for the other person to answer.

Voltaire says,

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

Dare I presume to paraphrase Voltaire? I dare. I say,

“Judge a leader by her questions rather than by her answers.”

Dare to ask questions for which you don’t already know the answers. Develop your ability to craft questions that will extract information, input, and insight. It is a power-full tool to have in your toolbox.

YOUR TURN:

• What is one question you are asking your team each day?
• What are your best techniques for engaging team members?

YOU have very particular, superstar strengths in certain areas. It’s why you were hired, or why you started your business, or why you were promoted. However, unless you’re leveraging that unique skill set every single day, you are cheating your company, your team members, and frankly, yourself.

Marianne Williamson said, “Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.” Put in a slightly different context, I’d say, “A leader playing small doesn’t serve her organization.”

I’ll give you a couple examples of what Marianne and I are talking about.

Imagine an executive leader who sent out three (yes, three) emails warning team members not to leave coffee stains and King Cake crumbs in the break room. (If you don’t have King Cake crumbs in your break room, call me to learn about this delicacy). To me, this screams that he is avoiding dealing with much bigger issues. Why? Maybe because he feels like he’s in over his head. Maybe he is afraid to tackle the bigger issues, or most likely, he feels more comfortable dealing with these small-potatoes-situations.

Another prime example is my coaching client, the CEO, who came to me because she was a stressed out Sarah, working 16-hour days, a walking zombie, and her personal life was falling apart. When we delved into why she was doing this, we talked about the fact that she had a quite capable staff who was ready, eager, and able to do their jobs. Through our work together, she discovered that she was a card-carrying control freak, who feared her team members wouldn’t perform tasks to her standards and it would all be a reflection on her. So her employees were sipping daiquiris on the parade route while she worked herself into a coma.

Attention executive leaders: You need to play your part and handle the responsibilities for which you are uniquely suited – whatever your position or role might be – and let others on the team do what they are qualified to do.

If you’ve been playing small,

Ask yourself these questions to help you play big:

• Could someone else easily take on this responsibility? Could I mentor a team member so he/she could grow into this responsibility? Become a master at delegating what is yours to do. Spending a little time on the front end to train a team member will be worth it if it relieves you of a less than high-level task going forward.
• Is this the highest and best use of my time right now? As a leader your time is valuable and should not be frittered away on tasks that someone else can and should easily do.
• Have I become the team problem solver? Instead of trying to always have the right answers, strive instead to ask good questions. This will spur team members to think critically about the situation and foster their own good problem-solving skills.
• Am I being super tactical? Am I caught up in the weeds of my business, or am I being strategic, focused solely on the big picture? Truly successful leaders actually have what I like to call bi-focal vision. You must be able to focus on both the long-range vision for the organization, as well as on the steps that you’ll have to take to achieve that vision.
• Do I step up and make the tough decisions that are mine to make, or do I shy away from those decisions and potentially lose the respect of my team? An effective leader gets the necessary input, but ultimately has the courage to make difficult and often unpopular decisions that are in the best interest of the organization as a whole.
• Am I holding my cards close, preserving the status quo, or am I taking calculated risks that take me out of my comfort zone? On the other side of uncertainty lies opportunity. To truly be successful, a leader must get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• Do I often try to go it alone? Often a C-suite leader can get to a position or to a point in her career where she feels isolated and lonely. That’s when it’s a good idea to hire a leadership coach to work through and process the many issues that come up in your leadership role.

Playing small as a leader serves no one. You have a responsibility to step up, speak up, and reach up to expand fully into your role and give the best that you have to give to your organization.

COMMENT BELOW:

What are you doing to ensure that you are playing BIG?

What steps can you take to leverage your unique set of skills, gifts, and talents so that you’re contributing at the highest level to your organization?

An irritant can be the catalyst for the creation of something beautiful and valuable.

One of the most delectable foods you can eat in our beloved bayous is an oyster po-boy. Talk about delish! My mouth is watering just thinking about it! But watch out! Don’t be surprised if you crunch down on a pearl. (No need to worry about pearls if you’re slurping down raw oysters on the half shell without chewing. Your teeth will be spared. But ca c’est bon!)

Pearls are formed when a piece of grit, sand or shell get trapped inside the oyster. It protects itself from irritation by secreting a liquid around the particle, which eventually, over time, builds into what we know as a pearl.

Many managers tell me that they spend a large part of their workday resolving conflicts and settling disputes among team members. When we think of “conflict,” we automatically think that it is always a bad thing. This is not necessarily true. Like the irritant to the oyster, something valuable can come from conflict.  Actually, conflict can be a very positive thing when it challenges leaders to explore new ideas, sparks curiosity about differences, or stretches the group’s problem-solving efforts.

A little dash of hot sauce, or a bit of conflict among team members is inevitable. Managing conflict within a work group can be quite a challenge, and your team needs a leader who can channel it for the greater good of the team.

Leaders and managers, you are probably constantly faced with playing “referee” between two or more of your employees. (This is a complaint I hear often!) Although I’m certainly not a relationships expert or a counselor, I have had quite a bit of experience in this department (unfortunately).

Try to practice a few of my “pearls” of wisdom to help you help your employees resolve conflicts with as little bloodshed as possible.

Executive Leadership Pearls of Wisdom to Manage Conflict:

• Foster an open-minded work culture so that employees will realize that their way is just one way of looking at things. Instead of asking themselves “How can I win?” they should ask themselves, “What can I learn?”

• Teach team members to get their emotions under control and to gather their thoughts before they say something that they’ll regret. Explain that the only decisions that can’t wait are those involving the safety or health of others. All other decisions can wait until facts are gathered and emotions are checked.

• Encourage employees that if they must criticize, to criticize ideas not people. Teammates should focus on the issues instead of blaming or insulting others, which would only result in the negative, destructive type of conflict.

• Train yourself and employees to use active listening skills. For example, try restating what the other person is saying before responding. Listen to the whole message rather than just what you want or expect to hear.

• Urge the team to ask questions rather than assume. You know the saying, when we assume…. Well, you can only guess what another person is thinking or what their motivations are.

It’s easy to talk about these pearls of wisdom, and hard to actually perform them regularly. Kind of like talking about the need to exercise, when we really just want to kick back and have a strawberry daiquiri. It is important as a leader that you use these team-building techniques so that your team members can learn to work out disagreements on their own.

CHIME IN:

How do you deal with conflict in your workplace?