Laura Wolfe Coaching LLC

Supporting the Evolution of Careers, Leaders,

& Climate Consciousness

Tom Peters

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In the early 90s, my major professor Karl Kuhnert introduced me to the work of Tom Peters via Peters’ Leadership Alliance video featuring Harley-Davidson, GM, and Johnsonville Sausage. In turn, I showed this video to my Org Behavior students at LSU for years.

Because it included such simple and classic lessons of leadership, I continued to use it even after the video seemed dated. One I’ve always remembered is Pat Carrigan, the first female General Motors assembly plant manager, walking around and introducing herself to all the employees on the factory floor and shaking their hands. What a powerful gesture.

I listened to a podcast of an excellent interview with Peters on Dan Pink’s Office Hours where he talked about experiences that influenced his management thinking. I also found out about his free resource – dozens of management lessons comprised of thousands of slides for studying and teaching management.

Who says a great education has to be expensive?

Your Legacy

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Behavioral modeling is the most elementary way that humans learn. This means that people observe what others do and then do the same thing. If you’re not sure about that, just let a bad word slip in front of a four year-old and see what happens. It is why mentoring programs are so popular and so effective.

As a manager, this puts a pretty heavy burden on what you do all the time. Because your people watch your actions and do what they see. Then they become managers and manage as they observed. Your example and influence continues. If you have ever wondered why a crappy manager is the way they are, just ask them about managers in their past.

In today’s organizations, managers are asked to do more than is humanly possible. So being harried and impatient and taking short-cuts may seem like the only way. But the view from 10,000 feet shows that what a manager does every day is part of a very powerful legacy that stretches years into the future.

Ask yourself, “Is this the way I want my (manager) descendents to do it?”.

Some lessons:

  • Everything you do as a manager matters.
  • Work for great managers and just soak it up.
  • If that’s not possible, make a conscious effort to not pick up the bad habits of bad managers.

For those with a history of working for bad managers, consider coaching.

 

What do you think?

Tale of Three Managers

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An organization made the decision NOT to renew the contracts of their contract employees (about 10% of the workforce) for the next year.

Managers in one division handled this information in different ways.

Manager 1 let his contract employees know what was going on soon after he found out so they could plan accordingly.

Months later, Manager 2 sent a hasty e-mail to his contract employees telling them because a local news organization got hold of the story and was breaking it at 5 o’clock.

Manager 3 never said a word to his contract employees; they learned their fate on the 5 o’clock news.

Really?

Which of these guys would you want as a boss? Which would you want working for you?

This story started me thinking about leadership and some interesting research I came across recently about authentic leadership. Authentic leaders are defined as those who are self-aware, moral, open, and objective. They create environments where employees can express what they feel and where employees are connected with and use their psychological capital (research-speak for inner strength and resources).

This research found that those who reported to authentic leaders perceived greater support but here is the kicker – these leaders facilitated greater performance outcomes in extreme and stressful working conditions.

In today’s dynamic business environment, I think most workplaces go through some extreme and stressful conditions every year or so. It may be short-lived but it happens. Leaders who can successfully handle these situations should be cultivated.

This is not to suggest that authentic leaders can change a circumstance like the one in the story above, they just support their employees through such craziness more effectively.

What do you think?

Mantra: Better Managers

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young businessman meditating in the gardenMy business now has a mantra. According to Wikipedia, a mantra is a ‘sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of “creating transformation”.’ This mantra came to me a few weeks back while presenting to Acadiana SHRM, which was great fun as they are an awesome group. I was talking about employee engagement and whether it’s the intrinsic or the extrinsic stuff in the workplace that really engages people. I think it is both.

But here is the kicker: Research has found that the immediate supervisor is the factor that most impacts employee satisfaction, commitment and engagement. When I was talking to ASHRM about this, Cultivate’s mantra became clear: Better Managers. I want my work to contribute to personal and organizational transformation through better supervisors and managers.

I have believed for a very long time that managers’ influence is profound. Yes, supervisors affect the bottom line and in the course of their work, juggle many tasks. But, in my opinion, what is most important is how supervisors affect the lives of their direct reports. You have worked for good managers; you have worked for bad managers. You know what a difference it makes.

Rotten people managers create a pretty dim quality of life for employees which in turn impacts their personal lives including spouses, kids, and communities. Great people managers make their people feel better, even in tough industries, situations and economies.

I am not suggesting the focus be on the employee experience at the expense of company outcomes. What I’m saying, and the research supports it, is better managers create better employee experiences and desired results follow.

Bad management manifests in many ways and a recent post in HBR Blog Network points out that it takes many forms. Often the action taken or the inaction is because the manager just doesn’t know what to do. Fortunately, training and development can enhance management quality.

So what does the mantra Better Managers mean?

  • You need to be a better manager. Great managers have a continuous improvement mindset and are always working to improve.
  • You need to be developing your people to be better managers.
  • You need to be working for a good manager. If you aren’t, you are probably looking for a better opportunity.

Better Managers. Better Managers. Better Managers. Repeat the mantra with me and let’s create transformation.

Better Managers: I can help you with that.

What do you think?