Читать книгу The First Two Rules of Leadership - Cottrell David - Страница 4

Every day thousands of people quit their jobs. They reach their limit and realize that enough is enough. They bid farewell to friends and co-workers. They exit a familiar, comfortable place and enter an unknown territory – new job, boss, peers, and environment. They are convinced that the unknown has got to be better than the current situation that they know all too well. They believe that anything, anywhere, would be better than where they are.

So, they leave.

During their last day on the job, they have an exit interview with human resources and are asked: “Why are you leaving?” They respond that they will be paid more at the new job, the benefits are better, the new job is closer to home, or the hours are better.

In most cases, this is not the whole picture.

If you believe the exit interviews, great people leave good organizations to start over someplace else because of money or for more advancement opportunities. Why would they say anything else? After all, the person leaving doesn't want to burn any bridges and has nothing to gain by telling the whole truth. Instead, they give reasons that are believable, but not accurate. Most exit interviews do not uncover the whole truth.

Occasionally, the difference in money is significant enough to warrant a move, but most of the time it's not about money or career advancement. Money is only one piece of the puzzle, and perhaps a small one at that. Most people want more than just a paycheck – they want to feel good about where they work, who they work with, and what they accomplish together as a team. In one survey, 89 percent of leaders stated that they believed employees leave because of money.1 Yet in a parallel survey of employees who left organizations, 88 percent of people said they left for reasons not related to money.2 Let those statistics sink in…only 12 percent of people left because of money. In another recent study of 17,000 people, less than 10 percent cited compensation and advancement opportunities as the most critical aspects of a job.3

Consider the situation from the perspective of the interviewer: When you interview someone for a position and ask them why they are considering leaving their current job, what do they say? Have you ever heard anyone say, “Because you are going to pay me more”? Probably not. The most common response is something like, “Because my efforts and contributions aren't appreciated where I'm currently working.” If people on your team are interviewing with other organizations, that is probably the same answer they are giving in their interviews.

People who plan to leave do not want to initiate a confrontation. They just want to walk out the door and not look back. They want to escape from a situation that has become toxic to them. Most have reached a point where they hate coming to work.

Even more problematic is when you have people on your team who are disengaged. They have mentally resigned from their job – and have told everyone but you that they are “out of here.” Those employees will do far more damage to your team's performance than anything a competitor could do. They infiltrate your team with disloyalty, distrust, and apathy.

The truth is that most people who quit and leave, or those who quit and stay, made a decision to quit their leader. Their resignation or disengagement has little to do with pay, benefits, distance from home, or long hours. They quit because something between them and their leader has gone awry. The desire and ability to do a good job became overshadowed by the obstacles and frustrations faced every day. Ironically, most of those frustrations were created by the very person who, on the first day at their new job, enthusiastically greeted them, shook their hand, and welcomed them as an important link on the team.

Of course, some people quit simply because they are not in the right job for them at this time in their life. But these people are rare exceptions rather than the rule.

Do people quit because their leader is incompetent? Probably not. Most leaders are in the roles they are in because they have the competency to do the job well. Do they quit because of the leader's lack of desire? It's probably not that either. Most leaders want to do a good job and want be successful.

People quit because they are exhausted. They are exhausted from implementing bad decisions. They are exhausted from redoing work when decisions were made before all the facts were considered. They are exhausted because they perceive that their leader's ego is preventing the nourishment of a positive work environment. They are exhausted from trying to figure out why incredibly smart people keep asking them to implement decisions that appear to be really dumb. They are exhausted from working for leaders who they think really do not care about them.

They are exhausted because their leaders are not empowering them or supporting them, and they are thus prevented from doing their best work. They lose trust in the person who is supposed to be leading them and they start looking for someone else they can trust.

Long-term effective leaders are competent and also passionate, trustworthy, creative, and humane. The Gallup organization found that the single most important variable in employee productivity is the quality of the relationship between employees and their direct supervisors.4 That relationship requires a leader whose expectations are reasonable, is consistent, cares about them, values their uniqueness, and encourages their growth and development.

Great leaders develop skills that help them understand people and get results through the efforts of other people. Leadership is complex because you are dealing with real people, each of whom has needs and desires. The greatest leaders learn how to break the complex task of dealing positively with everyone on their team into its simplest form.

The First Two Rules of Leadership is direct and simple. It is not about a new leadership strategy. Strategies come and go. What you will learn in this book is tried and true regardless of the strategic focus of the time. Likewise, the principles apply to businesses in every industry, as well as schools, hospitals, churches, and even homes.

If you are a leader who wants to improve morale on your team, decrease turnover, increase your own job satisfaction, improve results, and have a whole lot more fun leading, this book is for you. Regardless of your current situation or how you got to where you are, the next move is yours. This book outlines how you can make better decisions and treat your team with dignity and respect at the same time.

The people on your team want to win and they want to be led by a winner. You are that leader. Read, pay attention, and follow the first two rules for leaders: Don't be stupid and don't be a jerk.

1

Unpublished Saratoga Institute research, 2003.

2

Leigh Branham, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave (New York: Amacom, 2005), 3.

3

This 2011 study was conducted by PDI Ninth House and included data from 2006 to 2010. Some of the results were published in Tom Daniel, “A Long Engagement: How to Retain Top Performers,” Talent Management, 24.

4

E. Frauenheim, “Managers Don't Matter,” Workforce Management, April 4, 2010; K. A. Tucker and V. Allman, “Don't Be a Cat-and-Mouse Manager,” The Gallup Organization, September 9, 2004, www.brain.gallup.com.