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staff meetings regularly with your employees as a
standard practice. Let your employees know that
you will have time to be completely focused on
them in these standard meetings, whereas you will
typically be preoccupied with other projects on your
plate if they just randomly stop by with issues.
Secondly, remain neutral and help to redirect your
employees focus to things they can control and
impact. In these meetings, allow employees to
discuss issues that are barriers for them. If their
concern involves someone else’s work attire, start
time, productivity level, etc., redirect by asking “what
have you done to help?” Typically the answer is that
they’ve done nothing besides bring the issue to your
attention – tattling. Your role is to remind them of the
things they should be focused on in order to be an
asset to the team. It is your role to inform them that
tattling is not helpful. Do not under any circumstances
go home and bellyache to your closest friends and
family about this employee if you are not willing to let
them know that their behavior is counterproductive.
If you do, then you are not being helpful as a leader.
Share the feedback directly with the employee.
If redirecting doesn’t help, facilitate dialogue WITH the
third party. In very few situations should you start to
over-manage and take on this issue for an employee.
You will very quickly learn how true or important the
issues are once you offer to bring the other person
into the dialogue. If there is truly a conflict that needs
to be resolved, what better way than getting all the
parties together for a conversation?
Finally, use these meetings for status updates and
to share with each person what they do that is
helpful and what they do that hinders. Base each
person’s individual goals on the outcomes of these
conversations. Call the individual up to greatness
and develop their capacity to see themselves
as capable people who take helpful action, not
dependent employees who must come to you for
every situation that arises.
GREAT LEADERS PERFECT
EMPLOYEE CIRCUMSTANCES
Conventional engagement surveys ask questions that
suggest leaders need to ensure employees have a
best friend at work, trust in their leadership, and have
very clear lines of communication. Again, in theory
these are good things to strive towards. My question
is, “once the action plan
2
is over are your results
better?” If the answer is “no”, that is likely because
engagement without accountability is useless.
Positive psychology research has found that happiness
is correlated to taking personal accountability for your
circumstances and thriving in your given circumstances,
not necessarily having cushy circumstances. Great
leaders understand this and make sure their people
are bulletproof and successful in almost any situation.
If leaders provide cushy circumstances, that’s great,
but that is not the reason people succeed or the
reason they are happy. It is important that leaders
actually challenge mindsets so employees can see
their circumstances differently. It is important to ask
“what would make your life easier?” AND “what are you
willing to do to get that?” or “how can I support that?”
We have to share responsibility with employees about
creating environments where everyone thrives.
You have a choice: make people more capable or
try to fix their circumstances. More capable people
are much more fun to lead. And you will help keep
them from suffering. They have pain because they
aren’t prepared for what they are being asked to
do, because we aren’t consistently developing them
to be more capable. Capability ensures that in the
short run, employees step up and move through
the challenge. Over time, employees end up with
lots of great data that is not corrupted by drama.
Data that lets them know they can come up with a
solution that makes sense. They learn that difficult
circumstances are exactly the circumstances in
which they must succeed.
THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS
Actually there are. Please stop providing carte
blanche for people to ask whatever they want. One
ill-placed, stupid question can halt progress forward
for days, weeks, or even months while people try
to find the answer to some unanswerable question.
Some questions are actually ways of resisting
change by asking every possible question, even
the irrelevant ones, and halting progress. We try to
justify and give answers to questions like “why do
things keep changing?” Really? Is there an answer to
that? As leaders we have to help people ask better
questions. Do not allocate resources to answering
questions that don’t lead to better accountability.
Instead, help reframe questions and
challenge employees to ask themselves:
• What can I do?
• How can I help?
• How can I improve my skills so that…?
Ask them for three things they could do to get the
information they want, build their skills to be more
effective, or be helpful. Then use your resources to
get them busy on their list.
CHANGE IS HARD
Change related to divorce, death, the birth of a new
child etc., is hard and we need to give people time to
adjust to those types of changes in their lives. Many
organizations have employee relations departments
and personal assistance programs to help people
with those types of issues. Organizational change is
not as hard as we make it out to be. Actually, we
have been soft on building resilience in our people.
What we have done over time is allow people to
be resistant to change instead of building their
competence to be better able to handle it. We
excuse people’s inability to adapt to change, even
citing personality types as an excuse. Instead, ask
people to get behind changes and actually capitalize
on change. If they are unable (not to be confused
with unwilling), create a development plan to help
them become more adept. If they are unwilling to
step up, that is a different situation. In that case,
ask them what’s their plan to transition outside the
organization? There is no third option. You cannot
allow people to stay on board when they refuse to
engage. If you do, then you have made a choice to
have more drama on your team.
Step into your role as a leader and think critically
about the things you do that add to less than ideal
conditions in the work environment. The work climate
is a reflection of your leadership. Make it a drama-
free, peaceful, and successful place to work.
HR
Cy Wakeman, President, Cy Wakeman, Inc.,
has spent more than 20 years cultivating a
revolutionary approach to leadership. Cy teaches
people how to turn excuses into results and
transform unhappy employees into accountable,
successful members of the workforce. An expert
blogger on FastCompany.com and Forbes.com,
her ideas have been featured in The Wall Street
Journal, The New York Times, The New York
Post, and on SHRM.com. She is the author of Reality-Based Leadership—
Ditch the Drama, Restore Sanity to the Workplace & Turn Excuses Into
Results and The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: Know What
Boosts Your Value, Kills Your Chances & Will Make You Happier.
Reach Cy at
1
The average drive by meeting takes 45 minutes and typically provides little value.
2
Action plans are a list of actions the leadership of a company will take to address problems that surface as a result of an employee engagement survey
Leadership
