3 things to do each month to become a better leader
- Make product feedback a part of daily life.
As a leader you likely have a lot of ideas for your product with not enough time or resource to test them all. So, asking other’s for their ideas might seem like a waste of time knowing their suggestions may take months or years to get implemented, if ever.
But, if your business or team has grown beyond a handful of employees then you’re not on the front line anymore, which means those who are definitely know something about the product(s) that you don’t.
Unless you’ve done a fantastic job of letting go of the emotional connection most people feel towards what they’ve built, you’re likely behaving in a way that limits rather than encourages honest feedback without even realising it.
You can improve your company’s performance immediately by having frequent, honest conversations about the positives and limitations of the product. Ask people to challenge your assumptions, point out flaws of what’s been built and (this is the important part) praise them openly when they do so. You may not act on all of this feedback but your front line need to feel empowered to challenge the status quo if you’re going to continue to improve.
2. Play with data
It’s easy to get bogged down by reporting routines. Once you’ve found your company KPIs / OKRs / Traffic Light data points you might feel secure that month on month you’re making the right decisions because you’ve the data to back them up.
However, if you’re only looking at the data in the same format you’ll always be comparing the same data points against each other. This isn’t a bad thing but it will mean if you’re making any assumptions they may go unchallenged for some time.
Instead you spend some time playing with your data. Try re-phrasing some of the questions you ask of your data or pairing up data sets that don’t normally sit alongside each other. You never know what you might see until you start looking for it and if you demonstrate this data curiosity your team will follow suit.
3.. Make your own performance visible
People leave jobs because of their relationship with their boss. It comes up as the number one reason, year after year. As managers we’re clearly doing something wrong, and we keep on doing it!
You spend a lot of time really focused on what those in your team are doing. You get involved in their work, challenge them to improve and review their overall success regularly and sometimes it can feel like a one way relationship.
Ask yourself (and your team) what do they know about your workload? Do they understand the pressures you might be facing and do they see you as a fallible human who has bad days? Or are they holding you to the highest of standards, which means they can take offence when you’re not perfect.
I don’t mean for you to take every opportunity to tell your team how busy you are or how much pressure you’re under. You’re not looking to spark sympathy (as the boss you won’t find it). Instead put in place a process so the team know what you’re working on and whether you’ve succeeded.
If you can get your team to see you, not just as a manager, but also as someone with deadlines, targets and performance standards to meet you may find that your biggest critics become some of your strongest supporters.
Laura Kelly 