Marcia's Leadership Q and As: Leadership Means Learning
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Q. There’s a gap in communication with employees in the past year? What’s happened, and how do I fix it?
A. The role of leadership is to learn, understand and create a place where people can discuss issues and solve them together. No one person has all the answers, so ask for help. Ask for ways to handle issues that come up. If only a few people have to solve all the challenges and problems for a company, anxiety and mistakes mount. Use all the resources in your company, as well as outside perspectives. When you’re IN the system, you often are not objective. Education and training help. Asking questions help. The more people talk, the more communication flows and fears and problems often dissipate. Communication builds trust.
Q. Young people join the company, work an hour or two hours and need a break. After a few weeks, they want a promotion. What is the current work ethic? What can I expect?
A. Leaders create the culture. New employees and recent graduates often have different expectations; they want more freedom and autonomy. It’s your job to learn the characteristics and values of your prospective employees in the interviewing process. Find out what they most value. What experience did they have from their home environment, school experience, and any internships? It’s easier to hire for skills, but newer generations have different thinking (they developed a different work ethic from home and school oftentimes.) Will your new hires fit your culture? Does your culture need to adapt (and how) to hire enough new employees? Earlier generations often had jobs through high school and college. Some students in current generations had parents that didn’t promote having a job or doing chores, and they had free time to engage with their devices. Communicating expectations in the hiring process, describing your culture and your/their expectations, onboarding and training, and having a mentor/coach may be essential elements you need to add for your future.
Q. My management team is stuck. We have hired some diverse and younger managers in the past months, and they ask very different questions. Our senior managers struggle with some of the new ideas, fast pace, and new technology. What can we do?
A. At first, introducing diversity (change) may be uncomfortable. It is new, different, not the way things have been done in the past. Some people resist change or being changed. Other people welcome it. To integrate the people into the changing culture, pivot the leadership thinking and culture to become a learning organization. Create teams where people focus on the work, but people identify what their knowledge and strengths are and what they’re able to contribute. Also, as people work together, have them identify what they need help learning. Not everyone will bring the same strengths—if they did it would be redundant and boring. Continue to create hubs of communication, where people with customer and company history/knowledge can share and mentor others. Younger people may bring in new ideas they’ve learned recently. Emphasize that the more people learn and communicate together, the stronger the team becomes.
