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What all leaders have in common is the challenge of getting the most out of our crew, which depends on three variables: the leader’s needs, the organization’s atmosphere, and the crew’s potential competence.
Leaders must free their subordinates to fulfill their talents to the utmost. However, most obstacles that limit people’s potential are set in motion by the leader and are rooted in his or her own fears, ego needs, and unproductive habits. When leaders explore deep within their thoughts and feelings in order to understand themselves, a transformation can take shape.
My experience has shown that helping people realize their full potential can lead to attaining goals that would be impossible to reach under command-and-control.
They need to make it easy and rewarding for crew members to express themselves and their ideas, and they need to figure out how and when to delegate responsibility.
The top reason was not being treated with respect or dignity; second was being prevented from making an impact on the organization; third, not being listened to; and fourth, not being rewarded with more responsibility. Talk about an eye-opener.
We had nowhere to go but up. Still, up is not an easy direction. It defies gravity, both cultural and magnetic.
They are more perceptive than you give them credit for, and they always know the score—even when you don’t want them to.
It taught me not to give up on people until I have exhausted every opportunity to train them and help them grow.
my job was to create the climate that enabled people to unleash their potential. Given the right environment, there
If your bosses see you lifting burdens off their shoulders, and they find out they can trust you, they stay out of your face. And that gives you the freedom you need to operate independently and improve your ship.
IT’S FUNNY HOW OFTEN THE PROBLEM IS YOU.
Whenever I could not get the results I wanted, I swallowed my temper and turned inward to see if I was part of the problem. I asked myself three questions: Did I clearly articulate the goals? Did I give people enough time and resources to accomplish the task? Did I give them enough training? I discovered that 90 percent of the time, I was at least as much a part of the problem as my people were.
As a manager, the one signal you need to steadily send to your people is how important they are to you.
Realize your influence, and use it wisely. Be there for your people. Find out who they are. Recognize the effects you have on them and how you can make them grow taller.
never to take any ethical shortcuts.
If what I’m about to do appeared on the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow, would I be proud or embarrassed?
Forget petty politics, don’t worry about whether you’re going to upset anyone or ruffle anyone’s feathers; if it is the right thing to do, figure out a way to get past the egos, a way to get around the bureaucratic infighting, and then do it.
It’s important that you not undermine your superiors. In any organization, your people need to know that you support your chain of command. If they see you freelancing, they will feel free not to support you when they disagree with your policies.
Each person who talked to him had his complete, undivided attention. Everyone blossomed in his presence, because he was so respectful, and I realized I wanted to affect people the same way.
When people feel they own an organization, they perform with greater care and devotion. They want to do things right the first time, and they don’t have accidents by taking shortcuts for the sake of expedience.
with good leadership, freedom does not weaken discipline—it strengthens it. Free people have a powerful incentive not to screw up.
The best way to keep a ship—or any organization—on course for success is to give the troops all the responsibility they can handle and then stand back.
Trust is a human marvel—it not only sustains the social contract, it’s the growth hormone that turns green sailors into seasoned shipmates and troubled companies into dynamic competitors.
If you wait for the bureaucracy to act, people will forget why they’re being recognized in the first place.
bureaucracies create rules and then forget why they were needed in the first place, or fail to see that the reasons for them no longer exist.
In today’s fast-paced world, rules should be treated as guidelines, not as immutable laws, unless they truly are critical.
Every leader needs big ears and zero tolerance for stereotypes.
If all you give are orders, then all you will get are order-takers.
Innovation and progress are achieved only by those who venture beyond standard operating procedure. You have to think imaginatively, but realistically, about what may lie ahead, and prepare to meet it. You have to look for new ways to handle old tasks and fresh approaches to new problems.
I realized, firsthand, the power of information. Those that have it prosper. Those that don’t, wither.
Sometimes a solution is so simple and so apparent that we ignore it.
DON’T WORK HARDER. WORK SMARTER.
when you see a bad trend developing, you need to yell and holler until people pay attention to it.
positive, personal reinforcement is the essence of effective leadership.
Social interaction is getting lost in a digital world that trades more in abstractions than in face-to-face relations.
you can’t “order” an outstanding performance. You have to plan, enable, nurture, and focus on it.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Anything you can do to understand your people, support them in tough times, and nurture their gifts will pay benefits to your bottom line.
If you want to climb the ladder, you have to do more than your specific job; you have to do things that affect the lives of others in the organization.
The key to a successful evaluation is whether or not your people are surprised the day you give them their grades. If they’re surprised, then clearly you have not done a good job of setting their expectations and providing feedback throughout the entire year. If you’re communicating expectations and feedback on a continuous basis throughout the year, you will minimize, if not eliminate, people’s surprise when you give them the final evaluation.
More than anything else, your people appreciate honesty from you. Even if they’re doing something poorly, it’s better to get it on the table early in the process so they have time to fix it. That’s the key to being a good leader: ongoing counseling and consistent honesty.
If you surround yourself with people exactly like yourself, you run the dangerous risk of groupthink, and no one has the creativity to come up with new ideas. The goal is not to create a group of clones, culturally engineered to mimic one another. Rather, unity is about maximizing uniqueness and channeling that toward the common goals of the group. Too often individuals champion their individuality as an excuse to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That is no formula for success in battle or in business.
how we got there was just as important as getting there.
If you don’t intend to act, then don’t bother to ask if it is going on. It will only make matters worse.
Articulating the feelings that your people are afraid to speak is a large part of what leaders, including ship captains, do for a living.
The best skippers blend fairness and strength, and they learn from life, not just from a book.
Lead by example; listen aggressively; communicate purpose and meaning; create a climate of trust; look for results, not salutes; take calculated risks; go beyond standard procedure; build up your people; generate unity; and improve your people’s quality of life.
I believe that a leader’s final evaluation should not be written until six months or a year after he or she leaves the organization. The true measure of how well you did on your watch is the legacy you hand your successors.
By doing new and innovative things, you may create jealousy and animosity. Try to be sensitive to that.
Getting an entire group to excel is worth any number of offended peers.
