Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
A quote we posted in 2018 on our Global Advisors feed was reposted the other day.
As sometimes happens, this one hit me as I have been ruminating about some team members who have recently moved on and what feels like their lack of appreciation for the enormous effort and care that was given to their development and membership of our team.
“As a leader, you need to care deeply, deeply about your people while not worrying or really even caring about what they think about you. Managing by trying to be liked is the path to ruin.” – Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO
I am a firm believer in servant leadership – and have given everything I could to team members based on the firm belief that ultimately the results provide the reward. When things don’t work out, people move on, etc, it can be tough when they are unaware of the agonising that went into decisions regarding their support, development promotion, etc.
Some of my best friendships remain with mentees, mentors and team mates from my consulting history.
There are some people who see work as transactional. In fact that seems to be increasing with work-from-home. I have seen so many posts of employees who thumb their nose at team-building, interactions with colleagues, etc. A typical quote might be, “They pay me to deliver a work item – that is all they will get from me.”
Firstly, I will never hire someone with that attitude. Most businesses rely on far more than some faceless individual delivery. Competing as a business requires teams that outperform as a team – not a group of individuals. This applies to workers on a factory floor and executives in a C-suite. Good luck to those that have that attitude or where their job is just that. If you can deliver outstanding results that way, then you ultimately put yourself up against billions around the world as remote competition or an automated solution that will also fire in a result via email.
Secondly, while most of popular press bemoans poor / bad leaders (and of course there are many), this is a two-way street. If you as an employee want a leader who cares about you, invests in you and shares rewards with you, then some reciprocity is going to be required.
The investment in employees behind good leadership is often invisible. The hours considering performance, promotion and development. The mentoring and coaching. I even know of a CEO who topped up an employee’s bonus out of his pocket without the employee knowing.
In an entrepreneurial setting, this investment is even more personal.
Of course Costolo is right. A great leader does care about their employees – doing the right thing – without requiring acknowledgement. Ultimately I believe that doing the right thing and behaving according to values has its own reward. It requires a strong sense of self / security. In the case where others abuse this, they reveal their deficiencies.