My last post focused on how to avoid being a Bad Boss. This week I’m diving a little deeper. How do you know if you are an Awesome Boss or a Bad Boss?
The moment you become the boss, supervisor, of anyone, you have the delightful task of managing people, and adding a whole new slew of responsibilities to your day. Even at the earliest stages of leadership, responsibilities extend well beyond the tasks of supervising, scheduling, opening procedures and the multitude of new bullet points on your job description. The how to of actually managing people us often left as a small (and therefor grossly disproportionate) single vague entry:
supervising
leadership duties
training
In my head, the reality of the switch to a leadership role looks more something like this:
As a leader you are responsible for juggling personalities and skill sets, managing expectations, cultivating motivation, and nurturing the work environment and work culture. This is HUGE.
So how do you know you if you’re doing all this leadership right?
Never just assume you’ve got awesome boss status!
Self-awareness might just be the holy grail of being a great leader. You need to be able to recognize your own flaws and mistakes and be able to learn from them. Without self-awareness we will never be able to grow ourselves as leaders. Rarely anyone is naturally entirely self-aware, especially if they are new to leadership, so a system of checks and balanced is a helpful way of getting there.
Maybe you get great accolades from your boss during your annual review. Awesome! That is certainly something to be proud of. But, you can’t stop there. The problem with relying on just your boss to give you feedback about your leadership skills, is that they are not being led by you. They don’t have that experience first-hand and they are a step removed than you are from those who do. Feedback from your manager is important (I mean they are the gatekeepers to your continued employment so you want to make sure they’re happy with what you are doing!) but it’s only a little piece of the cake.
They key to really finding out if you’re rocking the socks of your staff is your staff. So how do you find that out? It’s not like they are going to tell you you’re horrible to your face unless they’re handing you a resignation at the same time.
I like getting grades. They motivate me. At work I use different metrics to track and “grade” my own performance. Sometimes I even reward myself with stickers. Qualitative information is equally important. I want to know what things are working and what’s not and why and for whom. I’m always looking for new ways to extract this information but these are my solid go-toes to keep me on my toes.
ANONYMOUS SURVEY
This one is introvert gold!
It combines getting grades (optional) with super levels of introverted privacy for me and for my team. A survey allows me to reach out to everyone on my team and let them know that I am open and asking for their direct feedback. I make it anonymous so everyone feels comfortable to be honest and gives anyone who would never normally approach me to have a venue to do so.
I’ve had amazing results with this (as in number of responses and value of input, not necessarily amazing scores, I do alright though!). It highlights areas I need to work on that I might not have recognized and things I can change to make experiences better.
If you’re keen to try it for yourself, check out my Evaluate my Bossing Worksheet where I go into more detail about how I set up my survey, what’s in it, and what I do with the results.
TALK TO PEOPLE
Building trust with your employees is one of the most valuable contributors to a happy workplace for them and for you. It takes time to build meaningful work relationships but once you have, they can be priceless. Employees that trust you will be more comfortable giving you honest feedback and be able to provide you with a forum for open discussion. The easiest and most effective way to develop these relationships is to spend time with people one-on-one: conveniently the perfect introvert setting!
Employee-centered phrasing to request feedback will also help your team feel more willing to openly share. Ask them what you could do to improve their experience or what you can do to help them succeed in their jobs. Seeking this type of feedback shows them that you are interested in their experience and acting on their input fosters positive relationships built on trust and respect.
Colleagues are another valuable source of feedback. They may see behaviours in you that you don’t, or they might have suggestions on how to make improvements. Find colleagues at your responsibility level that you can share and swap experiences with. Not only does this provide you another opportunity for review from another perspective, but also builds relationships with other departments which improves the work culture for both of your teams.
TALK TO YOURSELF
You introvert boss will excel at this one! Do a self-check every once in a while. Did you handle that situation to the best of your ability? What could you have done differently? If you were your own boss, would you be living up to your expectations? What would you ask of yourself? What are you looking for in your own manager?
Set time aside just to brainstorm about your own performance. How can you improve life at work for your staff? How can you keep creating a happy work place?
I’m big on personal journaling and often find work things sneaking into the pages. Writing helps me sort through things. Even last week, while writing Subtle Ways to be a Terrible Boss, I picked up on a few areas that I can improve on too.
PUT IT INTO ACTION
Feedback is useless you do something with it. Ignoring feedback especially after you requested it can be damaging, leading to resentment and decreased respect.
Always make sure to thank someone for their feedback. Don’t take it for granted. It may have taken a lot for them to voice a concern even if it was encouraged.
Take the time to review your feedback, think it over, and then make a plan on how you can improve. Share information about your plan. Of course, you may not always be able to make all the changes your team would like to see. If that’s the case, recognize their input, and share some information about the challenges of making it happen or why it may not be possible. Show them you value their input and have at least considered it.
RETENTION RATES
If you’re not already tracking retention rates start now! Get to know what your turn over rate is. Set goals for improving retention (another grading opportunity!) There may be other factors affecting retention such as overall employment rates, company finances, and personal situations of employees, but trends in retention over time are often very accurate gauges of employee experience.
Resignations are also opportunities to gather somewhat unbiased feedback about employee experience and your leadership experience in disguises. Exit interviews are great ways to re-cap an employee’s experience with you and with the company and they may be a little more inclined to share openly with one foot out the door (provided you’ve already given them a decent reference!)
CONTINUED LEARNING
Self-development fosters self-awareness. Continued learning and leadership development should be a regular part of your managerial responsibilities. As leaders, we strive to develop our teams, but we also need to remember to continue to develop ourselves as leaders. Schedule time to improve your own skill set, collaborate with other leaders, keep up to date with trends, and read. No matter what your primary job function is and the skill set it requires (cook, sales manager, site supervisor) as a boss you automatically have a secondary, but equally important, set of skills and responsibilities to maintain – your leadership.
There is a wealth of easily accessible and often free information out there so there is no excuse to neglect your self-development. For the introvert learner there are online reading materials, podcasts, Ted Talks, bloggers, online forums, and a wealth of online courses and workshops. For those who like some more person to person contact there are conventions, classes, even meet ups.
END THOUGHTS
Treat your employees like you would like to be treated and don’t forget to do the same for yourself. Recognize your own improvements and successes and reward yourself everyone in a while too!