Supervisors Succeed by Sharing

As a leader, how much do you share with your team?

When it comes to leveraging your success and keeping your team positive and performing, sharing is a powerful tool.

Successful supervisors share what they know about the organization, including upcoming changes and strategic moves. They share their own personal goals. They share the resources needed for their team to achieve its goals. The list could be very long. The challenge to many leaders is that they don't share enough. Centered leaders know that by sharing the whole is made greater than the parts. By sharing, you do not diminish your excellence but rather increase it.

I'm not talking about private, personal details about your life. Share those if you want to, but that's not what I mean here. Successful supervisors share generously the details of their work, their vision, their values, and their goals.

Supervisors succeed by sharing knowledge, power, and responsibility.

How are you doing at sharing?

What extra detail could you share with your people today?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Develop more sharing and more team excellence in our workshop Supervising for Success. Contact me today to bring this one-day workshop to your location.

Comments

Let Them See You Work

If you can't seem to hire good performers with a solid work ethic, you might need to develop them. Maybe start by showing them what that looks like, or as John Maxwell has said "Know the way, show the way, and go the way." You know, walk the talk. I know a LOT of leaders who complain about work ethic. Maybe they need to let their people see them work... -- doug smith

The Benefits of Supervisory Training

When was the last time you had any leadership training? How often do the supervisors in your organization get training? If you are like most organizations, it's never enough. Some teams go without any supervisory training at all and expect supervisors and managers to learn as they go, on the job. Unfortunately, while it is memorable to learn from your mistakes, it comes at a high cost. People get tired. People leave. Important accounts go away. Customers complain. And teams struggle without the skills and knowledge it takes to build cohesive teams that are capable of solving problems, improving performance and achieving goals. Admittedly, I can be expected to support training since I'm in the business. Still, take a closer look at your own leadership career and decide for yourself. Are leaders better off with more training and development or with less? Supervisory training can generate benefits that pay off long after the training is over. Here are just a few of the things sup

Leadership Warning

If you visit the dark side, don't get stuck there. -- doug smith

Careful Expectations

Change agents don't always play by the rules. Expecting them to is the act of a fool. -- doug smith

Start Positive

I went thru a grumpy period in my life. It was like a rut that was so deep no light could get in. It fed on its own bumpy grumpiness until that's all I could feel. Yuck. Forget that now. Now, I start with a positive thought. I could be wrong about finding the silver lining, but I've learned that I won't see the silver lining unless I look for it, and that's the place to start. Even the smallest positive effort has a positive impact. Let's start there. -- doug smith

Freedom and Responsibility

Freedom without responsibility produces more harm than good. Responsibility without freedom sparks certain revolution. High performance leaders don't FIND the balance, they CREATE the balance. Start by listening. -- doug smith

Perfect Relationships

Is your partner perfect? Are you? I've made enough mistakes in my life and in my relationships to know that the search for perfection is illusive at best and at worst, frustrating. There are no perfect people out there waiting for us, to fall in love with us, to fix us, to bring us what we need, to fulfill our dreams. But that's OK. In fact, that's wonderful. We don't need a perfect person in order to create love. Love creates the perfect person. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Celebrate Progress

When was the last time that you were frustrated in trying to learn something? If you can't remember, maybe it's time to learn something new -- something tough and challenging. Truly worthwhile endeavors are often struggles. The satisfaction comes not only in the final result, but also in the progress toward that final result. The best way to avoid a sad let-down once a goal is achieved is to enjoy the journey all the way thru. Celebrate your progress! Not so much that you feel finished, but enough so that you feel able. Celebrate progress, and then keep on progressing. As that beat poet and philosopher Harry X. Tudas once said, "Feel in the groove but continue to improve." -- doug smith

Be Demanding, Not Demeaning

Are you a demanding leader? The good news is that people like to be challenged. They won't ever ask you for it, but they enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that is only obtained by tackling something tough. So you can be a demanding leader. As long as you are respectful as well. No one, absolutely no one, wants to work for a demeaning leader. Someone who insults your integrity or your character is no fun to be around -- and even worse, is not effective. As a motivator, demeanors diminish rather than build. No insults. No lost patience. No anger. Persistent, gentle prodding. Strong instructions and insistent follow-up, yes. Insults - no. Leaders can be demanding without being demeaning. Go for it. -- Doug Smith

The Five Qualities of Successful Leaders

What makes a leader successful? There are many lists. Sometimes the lists go as high as 100 qualities. Sometimes they are fewer competencies but still too many to remember and too many to clearly assess on a personal basis. It's part of the difficulty of taking a 360 evaluation and making sense of it. I like Adam Bryant's approach of focusing on five key leadership traits. We can quibble about which five leadership traits matter the most, but this is a workable list. My own work has also identified five leadership traits that I believe clearly shows the strengths needed and how great leaders use their flexibility (or centeredness) to optimize their use of those strengths, even though we each vary in which strengths we use the most. It is built on the work of centuries of personality sorters and bears similarities to several prominent ones which focus on four traits. I see these four strengths as Clarity, Courage, Creativity and Compassion. The fifth s

High Performance Leadership

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