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Leadership Lessons from the United States Naval Academy – Expect What You Inspect
Leaders motivate and inspire their followers to collaboratively pursue achievement of an established vision. Thus, the very nature of leadership necessitates employee interaction, direction setting, and performance standard establishment.
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Economic downturns worry employees at all levels of the organization. Whether an executive, manager, or individual contributor, marketplace uncertainty brings employment risk. As businesses retrench to protect precious resources while maintaining quality and productivity, every organization member is asked to do more with less, to work harder and longer than before. Consequently, frustrations run high and job satisfaction low. Yet these same professionals cling to their positions out of the fear of the unknown because it appears to them that, in the depressed market, no one is hiring.
At first glance, warning against taking care of one’s employees appears contradictory to what most would believe is an important function of every manager. Context is important here. Too often, managers ‘take care of their employees’ during the performance review process.
StrategyDriven Professionals continually seek to excel personally and professionally. As such, these top performers become the ‘go to’ person superiors rely on when difficult and/or critical tasks need to be completed; knowing they can rely on these individuals to get the job done right the first time. At times, however, these significant taskings diminish the professional’s ability to achieve his or her personal goals. Rather than revise the goals, managers taking the easy out nebulously promise to ‘take care’ of the professional during the performance review process. Reliance on such promises places the professional’s demonstrative achievement of personal goals and organizational value in peril and as well as his or her career advancement.
From time-to-time, managers ask subordinates to perform tasks beneficial to the company that do not directly contribution to the individual’s goal achievement. These managers often promise to deliver some benefit to the employee as compensation for the adverse impact of these activities. As a ‘team player,’ the professional may feel compelled to accept the boss’s offer and perform these tasks. When doing so, however, it is important for the professional to eliminate the risk of not receiving the promised benefits once the work is completed.
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