Note:

This is the first in a long series of posts that will explain what I call The 6 Perspectives of Leadership™. This series will lead up to a book launch planned for the fall of 2018 of the book “The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership.” As a reader of this blog series, you will have a chance to think about leadership in what might be new ways to you. The 6 Perspectives™ is meant to be an easily understood, easily communicated set of ideas that teach you how to be a complete, accountable leader, and to easily teach these ideas to others.

Enjoy this many-part series that will be released on a (mostly) weekly basis over the summer and early fall of 2018. You can follow this series on LinkedIn and Medium.

Highlight your favorite part of this article — Clap if you enjoy the read — comment and say why you think these ideas could be helpful to leaders and entrepreneurs.

What is The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership™?

I remember clearly when I realized that leadership was a real thing. I was a boy of about eight years old. I watched my father, who was the owner of a bar called The Round 2, go and clean a mess in one of the bathrooms.

I asked him when he was done, “Dad, why didn’t you just have one of your employees clean it up?” In my mind, that was a benefit of being the boss.

He looked at me with kind and confident eyes, “I pay all of my employees well, but I don’t pay them to do that. This is my bar and I’m responsible for all of it, even when there’s a mess in the bathroom. I always clean those up.”

I walked away with a lot of information to process. But it didn’t take me long to realize that each time my father made the choice to do one of those jobs that he (doesn’t pay his people to do), they know it, they recognize it, they appreciate it, and it must come to mean something important to them. I realized that every choice you make as “the boss” affects the relationships you have with your people, either for the better, or for the worse. That, in turn, affects how well they will follow you. It took me many more years, to be able to put that into words, but deep down, even at eight years old, I knew it was real and I knew it was important.

I grew to take on many leadership roles throughout my life, including several where it was my responsibility to develop new leaders. Through all these roles I relied on the lesson I learned that day from my father, and many other lessons he taught me as well. I found great fulfillment from sharing those lessons with others, helping them to become stronger leaders themselves.

Over the years, I found that in many instances I needed to find quick, efficient ways of teaching others to be effective leaders. I found that I was able to help others make strong connections and deep understandings when I utilized some simple strategies as a teacher:

1. Use visual representations for complex ideas

2. Use metaphor to relay a wealth of information with one idea

3. Use a model that is cohesive, and all parts can be imagined at once, easily.

The way I taught and spoke about leadership had evolved to reflect these ideas. Very specifically, I started using the idea of leading from perspectives. If one were to lead from the right perspective in the right circumstance, they would naturally do the right things.

The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership™ is the model that came out of this evolution of that leadership thought and communication.

The 6 Perspectives builds a mental framework to facilitate thinking about leadership and how to be a leader. (Links will take you to other articles I’ve written that give context and life to those specific perspectives.)

The Foundation — Lead with VALUES and from HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS in all you do.

The 1st Perspective — Lead from the FRONT with VISION

The 2nd Perspective — Lead from ABOVE with STRATEGY

The 3rd Perspective — Lead from BENEATH by ENABLING

The 4th Perspective — Lead from WITHIN by SUPPORTING

The 5th Perspective — Lead from BEHIND by PROTECTING

The 6th Perspective — Lead from the SIDE by EMPOWERING

Even without explaining The 6 Perspectives™ any further, you can probably already see how it works (for the most part). The model is intuitive, the visual aspect is cohesive and flows naturally. It certainly will require more explanation to fully understand it in a truly meaningful way-but you get the idea, and instinctively you know it’s complete.

My father passed away August 8th of 2007. In the following days, a letter arrived for my mother from the former employees of the bar. It was a long letter. It had many different parts and was written by several of their former employees. As I read it, the love they felt for their boss, my father, my mother’s husband, was unmistakable. They spoke with great admiration and gratitude. It was not how most employees speak of their bosses-their words expressed a relationship that was deep and meaningful to them. My family shed our fair of tears as we read their words.

When a leader does their job right, a deep level of trust can be built. Leaders and followers are still human beings, and we are made up of the same parts that desire to build relationships and connections. My father built many powerful connections and meaningful relationships, and he had a thriving business that made him, my mother, their employees, and their customers happy. For a little while, I even thought he was Superman, but I’ll save that story for another time.

This was Part 1 in a multi-part series that will teach and explain The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership™.

Follow me to catch the upcoming posts where I explain in greater details what it means to build a foundation and lead from each of the perspectives. Look for upcoming posts on Mondays.

Don’t forget to highlight, comment, and clap if you found this to be a beneficial read!!

I was working with a team leader recently and he was complaining… “Derek, why do I have to babysit my employees?” After a fruitful discussion, it became apparent that there were a lot of reasons, but they all stemmed from his own inadequacies. It was a bitter pill to swallow for him but it put his team on a better path.

Considering that I don’t want to put his struggles out there for all to read, I’m going to speak generically from this point forward.

Over my years of coaching leaders and building teams, I’ve found that there is a reasonable set of FAQs for leadership roles — leader/boss/owner/supervisor… They go something like this:

Q — Why does everyone come to me to complain about their co-workers?

A — You probably haven’t done one of two things (or maybe neither of these two things).

1. You haven’t invested in interpersonal communication training. I use Color Code but there are a lot of great classes and content out there to help your team members communicate directly with one another in more effective ways.
2. You haven’t been clear with expectations or consistent with accountability. People will test boundaries and frustrate one another when the boundaries aren’t clear. Everyone ends up judging others according to their own set of standards when the leader hasn’t made shared standards clear.

Q — Why won’t anyone make decisions?

A — You haven’t empowered them to do so.

1. It’s possible that you are a micro-manager and have been critical of others when they have tried to make decisions in the past.
2. It’s also likely that you haven’t been clear with what the goals are. When this happens, your people begin guessing what must be done and they ask you to make decisions because they literally have no idea which direction they are supposed to go.

Q — Why do none of my employees want to work hard?

A — You haven’t motivated them properly.

1. To motivate your people so that they choose to perform above the minimum, you need to reach them on two levels. First, they must have an emotional connection to the work, and it’s your responsibility to provide that if you’re the leader. You can start by explaining why the work to be done is genuinely important to the community; speak about why people will appreciate their work. Second, they must have a logical understanding of the purpose of the work. Begin by explaining the cause and effect when they fulfill their job duties. What measurable impact will they have on the client or business?
2. Maybe you selected the wrong person. Sometimes, it’s just a bad fit. The person you hired or selected for the responsibility in question is simply not built for it. You’ll correct this by talking with your employee about their performance. Give them room to talk about how they feel about the tasks and responsibilities. It will become apparent if they hate the work. And if they do, it’s time to recast the role.

Q — Why is there so much gossip among my team?

A — You haven’t set and maintained a set of values. (It takes more than a poster on a wall to set values.)

1. First, you must clearly state that gossip will not be a part of what this team does; then, when you witness it, nip it in the bud right away and address the conflict head on that is causing the gossip. Simply put, this is setting, then maintaining the value of respect for your coworkers.
2. Second, you must facilitate stronger personal connections among the team. Gossip is a symptom of weak trust or mistrust. It’s purpose is to build bonds with those we feel safe, while building up a barrier from those we don’t feel safe. As the leader, it’s up to you to provide opportunities for team members to build trust with one another. This is where team-building comes in. Communication and goal-setting workshops can also help to build bonds. You could assign tasks to be completed by pairs or trios with the intent of strengthening the relationship of those pairs and trios. But remember, this is a “human thing” that has to be overcome with human values.

Q — Why does it seem like all my employees are just here for the paycheck?

A — See “Why do none of my employees want to work hard?” (They’re really the same question.)

Q — Why don’t my employees seem to care about our customers?

A — 3 primary possibilities:

1. You hired the wrong person. Not everyone is built for customer service. Start observing your employees and it’ll become apparent who dislikes people. Give those employees a job that doesn’t face customers. Hire someone new.
2. You’ve over-burdened your employees with tasks that take them away from customer service. Realistically, it’s easy to see when someone didn’t complete a task, but unless a customer complains, it’s tough to see when an employee chooses to do a poor job helping their customer. So… the task will win out and the customer will be ignored, because that’s how accountability works in this situation.
3. You haven’t provided a deeper purpose to the service. It goes like this: Dealing with people is hard; so, we need to WANT to help them instrinsically. That’s going to come from PURPOSE. As humans, we respond to purpose — How does my task make a difference? Why does helping my customers make a difference? When we feel purpose, we rise to the challenge — and customer service is a challenge. Help bring purpose and meaning to the work and you’ll see a difference.

Wrapping it up…

This was inspired by the fact that so many leaders out there struggle with the basics of leading. I hear the same questions over and over. And the questions above… they are just the tip of the iceberg, but they do crop up often.

Realistically, your real struggles are going to be more complicated than the simple answers I gave above. And, the simple answers are really just the beginnings of answers; you will have a lot of work to do to realize those ideas.

Get yourself a leadership coach, read the best reviewed content out there, reconnect with a trusted mentor… Don’t fall prey to the idea that you “don’t have time to hand-hold, people just need to step up!” That’s not how it works. You’ll end up spending all your time dealing with people issues and turn-over if you don’t do the hard work of leading. But if you DO do the hard work of leading, it will pay off with commitment and excellence from your people.

Share this with leaders you know. Who could use a jump-start?

What frustration do you face as a leader? Put your question in the comments.

Derek R. Pangelinan helps leaders lead their teams so that their teams can ACHIEVE MORE, ACHIEVE FASTER, ACHIEVE HAPPIER.

If you found this to be a valuable read — highlight your favorite section and clap clap clap that clap button.

“Why Do I Have to Babysit My Employees?” was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alright… you think it’s your turn for the next leadership position that opens. Then it doesn’t happen for you. Then it doesn’t happen again. And again…

It’s clear to you that “upper management” wants new blood for promotions and that must be why they keep passing you up. Or maybe it’s that they just don’t realize what they have in you. You then tell your supervisor that you’re ready and it’s your turn anyway. This will surely get you the job because now they know you’re ready (because you told them) and it’s obvious it’s your turn since you’ve been loyal for so long and you have that MBA too…

…then it doesn’t happen again!

It’s rigged!

Actually… no, it’s not. When we feel like this, it’s time to look inward.

Most of us who are working our way up the ladder have felt this way at some point. I have worked through these frustrations myself. But more importantly, I’ve helped many a leader or wannabe-leader work through this flawed mindset. It can be exceedingly difficult to see past these perceived injustices when we are in the middle of it, but that’s what we must do when we don’t get that promotion. The way we see our selves in this situation is probably not how others see us. This is the first gap we must bridge.

I’ve found that when I’m coaching aspiring leaders who get stuck here, there are a few things that can help them move through it and eventually move up.

1. Choose to own it.

Forget that maybe there is an injustice happening. You can’t control other people’s decisions, you can only provide them with evidence. So, give decision makers the evidence they need to choose you next time; that’s something you CAN control. It will feel empowering when you adopt this mindset because you’ll suddenly feel more in control (which you are). While you’re here, in this new mindset, be wary of falling back into the old habits of blaming others for undesired outcomes you face.

2. Dominate your current role!

Remember — how you were seeing yourself probably doesn’t align with how others are seeing you (especially decision makers for promotion). So, begin by getting feedback.

“What must I do to show that I’m dependable?”

“What must I do to show that I’m capable of more?”

“What must I do to show mastery of my current role and responsibilities?”

Ask these questions (and more) of your boss, your boss’ boss, other supervisors near your team, your co-workers, cross-functional business partners, a mentor… you need to know how others see and you need to work to reshape that vision to what is necessary for the promotion you want. But one more time — it BEGINS by getting feedback — THEN it moves to you taking action and dominating your current role based on that feedback.

3. Do more than what is expected.

Understand this, if you’re angling for a promotion to a leadership role, you will have to engender trust in others that you can be an example and that you can move the organization forward. Prove this by meeting and then exceeding expectations. Surprise people with your capabilities and deliverables. Now to be clear, I don’t mean go over-board; just take your work quality one or two notches above the expectations. For example, you’re asked to put together a few visuals for a proposal that your boss is giving; nothing special, just some information that backs up her case in the proposal. Now, if based on history, you know that your boss is expecting three or four simple graphs and a summarizing slide, don’t go out and hire actors to film and make an embedded video dramatizing the information; but DO look at animating the slide to more impactfully demonstrate the movement of the metrics that your boss is sharing; and maybe add a handout with room for notes so that while your boss is presenting the information, the audience can take important notes.

4. Help others be successful.

Leaders are there to set others up for success while guiding the team in the right direction. If you haven’t been a leader before, you haven’t had the opportunity to show you have a skillset for this. This is the fourth step because you must first dominate your role and exceed expectations; then, if you have those down, you can make time to help others out. This will get noticed. People will show their appreciation, and more importantly, it will be the evidence you can point to that shows you’re ready to officially take on the responsibility of helping others be successful.

Each of the above four things are completely up to you.

I want to be clear with you. These four steps are where you start. This is a journey of you proving your capabilities and you may have to offer this evidence in multiple cycles to prove your consistency. But that’s what it takes to change others’ perceptions of you. It’s not easy work, and if you’re not up to the challenge of exceeding expectations in THEIR eyes and helping others be successful, then don’t apply for a job that needs that of you. That last sentence is a little harsh, but it’s also reality.

No one is “owed” a leadership promotion or position. Those are earned. And sometimes when we’re perceived to be not ready or not qualified or not a good fit, we might have to work a little harder than the person next to us to prove otherwise. That’s just the reality of human nature and perception.

When those I’ve coached have embraced this, they consistently find themselves moving their career forward. But more importantly, they are happier in their work because they don’t feel like victims anymore.

Own your success!

Take it!

No one will give it to you unless you show them you’re the right one for it.

If you liked what you read, CLICK THE CLAP button until your mouse breaks!!

But more importantly, share it with others who you think could benefit from this. I write to help people who need it, help someone out with this post.

What’s your favorite tip to prove you can lead?

What have you done to secure a promotion? Comment to answer!!

To hire Derek R. Pangelinan for keynote speeches or consulting services reach out to Derek Rey Consulting, LLC.

Making the Jump to a Leadership Role was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Derek, just fut the shuck up and help us get this done.”

That’s (almost) exactly what my employee said to me about 8 years ago during a special project I was leading.

I should explain that we had a great working relationship and strong trust between us. I had worked hard to cultivate this kind of mutual support among the team. So when she said this to me, it didn’t bother me; I knew that what she meant was, “[Derek, you’ve already gotten us completely set and ready to do this work, you don’t need to give us direction right now, we just need you to roll your sleeves up and help.]”

But the above example demonstrates the trap that many strong leaders fall into. We sometimes don’t know when to let go. In my blog a couple of weeks ago I shared a 5-question checklist that I use to make sure that I’m doing my part to set my people up for success. I also cover this checklist in my keynote speeches. In the above example, I had used my checklist to set them up for success, but I didn’t use it to recognize when it was time to let them take over and run the show.

Here’s the timeline with what I did right and also the moment I failed and had to be called out:

March

· I put the team together; there were about 12 of us.

· We covered the scope of the project including the ultimate goal.

· Training and provisions.

· Identified strengths and weaknesses.

April — July

· Focused on individual development to leverage strengths and mitigate weaknesses.

· Developed a couple of back-up leaders to take over in my absences.

· Removed a couple of people who weren’t committed and brought on replacements.

· Strategic delegation increased over time; at first it was with less risk, then eventually with more risk as people proved themselves and sought the responsibility.

· I took a vacation in July and left the back-up leaders in charge. They were exceptional in their work as was the team.

August-September (crunch time)

· Refocused the team toward refining and improving work we had already done.

· Began handing off the work from the special-project team, to a permanent team that would be in place when the project was over.

· Helped some of the team get promoted! (yay)

October

· The last month.

· Major disaster — a huge change came through the pipeline. We had to pivot hard and fast. Workload was going to be very heavy over a very short period of time.

o The team started in right away. They were doling out tasks and mini-projects.

o I stopped the team and said something to the effect of “Hey team. Hold on. Let’s make sure we’re doing this the right way. Let’s figure out who will do what best and assign it accordingly. Then we can write out a gant chart…”

o Then one of my back-up leaders said “Derek, fut the shuck up and just help us get this done.”

It took me by surprise for about 2 seconds until I realized that everyone was laughing at it. No one was uncomfortable. They all recognized that although the work was complicated and challenging, that we were fine. The team could easily handle this. As a team, we prepared for this and everyone already knew what to do.

I didn’t stop to see if they COULD handle it; I assumed they needed me to problem-solve for them. I was wrong and my back-up (stepping up to represent the team) let me know. And like I said in the beginning, we had a relationship of strong trust, so it wasn’t so much a disrespectful example of insubordination, but instead an example of leading upward.

I rolled up my sleeves, got to work, and let the team do the thing that they had gotten so good at.

When you’re a leader, you need to know when and how to actively lead your people; but you also need to know when to fut the shuck up.

If you found this story helpful, share it and CLICK THAT CLAP BUTTON BELOW as many times as you’d like to show some love.

When have you had a hard time letting go? Let me know in the comments.

I’m available for keynote speeches and to teach workshops around leadership development, team-development, and employee engagement. Reach out with questions!!

Story time….

Jay is one of my closest friends. He happens to also be a mentor to me, and a world-class trainer and facilitator. Jay finds a way to work a specific concept and phrase into nearly every workshop he facilitates. He’ll usually pause, maybe even take a seat for added drama, then take a beat to look at the workshop attendees directly, and with intent he will say, “Words matter.” Jay then pauses again, allowing the workshop attendees time to let the idea sink in. After a few seconds he follows it up with something like, “What you say matters and how you say it matters.” I share this story of Jay with you because, as an observer and co-facilitator of Jay’s workshops, invariably this moment becomes a highlight, a moment when participants reflect and realize, at least in a small way, how they may have been getting in their own way, and maybe even hurting the people they lead.

The very best leaders have mastered their use of language. With just a few words they can instruct and inspire teams to take action and achieve with little resistance along the way. They also know what NOT to say. If you want to improve your leadership skills quickly, a great place to start is by looking at your language.

I use a reflective checklist when I’m leading my own teams and I also teach this checklist to other leaders when I mentor or coach them. It’s a set of questions I ask myself to make sure I’ve done my part as the leader. They are (in order):

A. Did I explain why?

B. Did I explain how?

C. Did I provide the tools and training necessary?

D. Did I offer support and allow them to let me know if they needed it?

E. Did I check back in to see how things are going?

For the most part, this covers all my bases and helps me to ensure my people are ready to fly.

Over time, it’s become pretty clear to me when others don’t use a checklist like the one above, when they don’t own their own responsibilities inherent to being the leader. Those who don’t fully own their responsibilities as the leader will shift accountability and blame to others and you can hear it in their language.

If you are a leader, or want to be one, don’t say the following 5 things.

(Or, if you do say any of the following 5 things often, it may be time for you to take a look inward.)

1) “I told them to…”

Telling people to do things is not leading; and yet so many supervisors and managers seem to think that’s all that’s necessary. We’ve all seen a project go south because the team missed a step in the process. An executive will call the team supervisor to ask what happened and that team supervisor will say, “Well, I told them to…” referring the step that was missed. And in fact, the supervisor probably did tell the team to do that step. But without the “why” and the “how” and the “training and tools,” are they really capable of completing the work? Not easily, that’s for sure.

Instead ask yourself, “Did I explain why?” and “Did I explain how?”

2) “Upper management wants…”

Whenever a supervisor says, “upper management wants it this way,” or something similar, it implies that the team-leader doesn’t really buy into it. The team-leader comes across as not wanting to be accountable for the endeavor. There is an automatic loss of trust in this moment. Why would anyone want to put their trust in a leader who doesn’t buy-in to the objective or process at hand or who doesn’t align with his or her own leaders? They wouldn’t. And, they won’t buy-in either.

Instead say, “We are going to do it this way now. Let me explain why.”

3) “…should…”

“He should really do it this way,” “She should want to do it herself,” “they should know why we do it like that…” When we use “should,” we are removing accountability off our plates as leaders, and moving it to the plate of the person who “should” be doing whatever they’re supposed to be doing. The problem here is that a good leader shares accountability with their people. Look at the 5-question checklist above; all the questions are “Did I…” allowing ME to OWN the responsibility. There’s a big difference between “Do they know why?” and “Did I explain why?” If you say “should” a lot, then you probably have a habit of shifting accountability away. If you want to be your best leader, and I’m saying this as straight and as bluntly as I can, you can’t shift accountability away, you can’t blame others for the team’s failure or under-performance, you must own it.

Instead, look inward and ask yourself, “Did I explain why, how…”, “Did I provide training and tools…”, and “Did I support?”

4) “They just don’t care…”

This one is similar to “Should.” But I’m including it anyway because of how often I hear it from leaders that don’t have it figured out yet. Let’s say that you’re a team-member (not leader) on a sales team that is struggling to meet projections. You’re working hard, but you’re also frustrated because your boss rarely talks to you or the other team-members except to say, “you aren’t selling enough, you all need to get out there and SELL SELL SELL!!!!” How would you feel after two or three or ten weeks of this? Pretty down-trodden I’m sure. Will you want to continue putting your all into it every day? Probably not. Then one day you over-hear your boss say to another supervisor on another team, “My sales-people just don’t care.” How would you feel after hearing this? What do you NOW think of your boss?

My experience is that supervisors that say, “They just don’t care…” didn’t ask themselves “Did I explain why?” or “Did I explain how?” or “Did I provide the training and tools?” or “Did I offer support?”

Instead say, “What do my people need from me, so they know why this is important?”

5) “Never” or “Always”

Whenever anyone uses the words “never” or “always” on a regular basis, it’s a strong indicator that they don’t see things accurately and that they also don’t see things from others’ points of view.

“I always rinse off my dishes.”

“He never rinses off his dishes.”

“I never leave the toilet seat up.”

“He always leaves the toilet seat up.”

“I always use my blinker.”

“I never talk behind people’s backs.”

“I always listen carefully to my people.”

“I never ignore the customer.”

“She always ignores the customers, and then lets other people deal with them.”

“She always leaves a huge mess.”

“I always clean up after myself.”

Objectively, we know these statements can’t be 100% right. But if you start listening to people around you, you’ll hear it fairly often. We say “never” and “always” like this because as humans, we tend to judge others by what catches our attention, and judge ourselves by the best of our intentions; but this habit blinds us to reality.

Instead ask yourself, “What’s really going on here?” Look at situations objectively, gathering as much information/evidence as possible. The real situation is often somewhere in the middle where things are grey, not black and white.

As Jay says, “Words matter.” If you’re in a leadership position, or if you want to be in one, I encourage you to carefully re-read this and use it as a moment to reflect. Do you have a checklist like the one above? Do you say any of the statements mentioned above? Just making a few changes in your language can have a dramatic impact on your relationship with your people and the strength of your team.

If you liked what you read above, click that clap button to your heart’s content.

I really want this to be helpful to as many people as possible, so share with any and all whom you think could benefit from reading this.

Read more at derekreyconsulting.com

Derek R. Pangelinan - Keynote Speaker, workshop facilitator

Don’t Say These 5 Things if You’re a Leader was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’re a leader, can you choose to lead by example? — NO! You are always leading by example whether you choose to be or not. Your people are always watching you and what they see, sets the example.

I’ve talked before about the notion that effective leadership is a set of behaviors that will result in your people following you the right way. In my experience as a leadership coach and trainer, I’ve seen that most leaders who don’t take the time to systematically learn those behaviors, like a guitarist practicing their chords and strum patterns, only end up being proficient at a handful of the behaviors leaving most unpracticed. Leading by example sounds great on the surface, but, your people expect more of you. And leading by example is only one of the many behaviors expected of leaders.

What does it mean to lead by example?

Well, what leaders tend to think it means is: If I do my job well, my people will follow suit and do their job well. What it means to those who work for us: As a start, you (leader) need to do your job well if you expect me to even consider doing my job to the same standard. Leading by example, only sets the standard to which people should work toward. It doesn’t mean they will actually work toward those standards. Read the anecdote below to see how a person’s attempt to lead by example went horribly wrong.

A dozen or so years ago I had the opportunity to train a new supervisor where I was working. She was to be in charge of a crew of people whose responsibility was to set the sales floor back to standard after a busy day’s customer traffic and business. There were just enough people on the crew to get all the work done if all the crew-members worked in a disciplined and knowledgeable manner.

Not only was I to train her, but she was also set to train some new associates herself to do the frontline work. On the first day I began to train her, I tried (albeit poorly) to explain that being the supervisor meant that you had to work on your people skills just as much as your technical skills. On the second day, she said to me “I think it’ll be easier if I just lead by example.” So that’s what she did. She worked her part of the sales floor perfectly! It was set to standard every evening. She would even finish early so that she could then go and set the other areas of the floor to standard alongside her employees so they would see her leading by example.

At the end of some nights, by the time everyone needed to go home, the floor looked great. But as time went on, she began to see that her strategy wasn’t working. Her employees were doing less over time and she was doing more; they were letting her do their work, because she showed them through her example that she would. They began to take longer and longer breaks, because she never said anything when they would take a longer break; it didn’t seem to matter to them that she always took her breaks in the allotted time. The newer associates never could quite get the hang of the work; they didn’t understand the details because the purpose of those details was never really explained. The more seasoned employees were getting frustrated because the newer employees weren’t pulling their weight. The associates one night nearly rebelled because it was an extremely busy night and they were short an employee; they felt like they would never get the job completed and also felt like their supervisor (who was trying to lead by example) wasn’t taking charge and developing a new strategy in the moment — to them, this was a losing effort and not worth it. The lead-by-example supervisor finally told them, “it’ll all be OK; just get done what you can then go ahead and leave at the end of your shift. I’ll take care of the rest.” The supervisor was there another 5 hours after everyone else left. Over the next few days, almost all the newer associates quit; they simply hadn’t been given the one-on-one attention they expected and needed from their leader.

In these few days, where everything came to a head, she finally admitted defeat and came to me and another supervisor who had been successful for many years and asked us for help; she asked what she needed to do differently. We were able to guide her through the skills of providing vision to the associates — explaining the why. We helped her develop her skills at giving feedback. We held her hand through getting comfortable with holding people accountable. We taught her how to teach and train others in a way that increased their chances of learning new skills quickly. We taught her to listen to the whispers before they become screams so that she could change course when the crew needed her to. All of this is outside the borders of “leading by example.” And it’s all 100% necessary to be a successful leader.

Dear reader, here’s your call to action: Listen for the words “I like to lead by example.” When you hear them, be aware that whoever said it is probably not doing enough to effectively lead others. If you’re the person that said it, ask for help, you’ve got some learning to do. Find a mentor who can challenge you to develop the rest of your leadership skills.

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Derek R. Pangelinan — Owner/Consultant/Facilitator at Derek Rey Consulting,LLC

The Problem with Leading by Example was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s human nature to watch out for one’s self. But when you’re a leader, the people you lead expect you to also watch out for them. Employee engagement is a result of leadership behaviors, and highly-engaged employees deliver results with very little resistance. But let’s focus on the first part of that last sentence: “Employee engagement is a result of leadership behaviors…” In my years of coaching and developing leaders, I’ve found that some leadership basics are common knowledge, and others are not. In particular, I’ve found that few leaders realize that their people expect them to be protectors. “Protect your people” usually isn’t written into job descriptions. In fact, many weak leaders will take the opposite approach and treat their relationship with their employees as an adversarial one.

But if employees expect their leaders to protect them, how does one go about developing this dynamic in the leader/employee relationship? By following 3 straight-forward steps a new and learning leader can quickly develop a relationship with their people where they understand that their leader is one who will protect them.

1. Declare your intentions of protecting them. Effective leaders will have a declarative discussion with the people they lead where expectations and relationship dynamics are overtly stated. By simply saying, “As the leader of this team, I want all of you to know that I have your back. I’m here to make sure you’re safe in the workplace and others treat you well,” you’ve set the stage for your people to believe that you are there to protect them. You could do this 1-on-1, or in groups, but it’s certainly best to do it face-to-face where your people can look you in the eye as you declare it.

2. Check-in and observe. Make a point of asking your people how things are going. Find out if they feel comfortable in their work environments. It’s critical, however, to do this regularly. In my experience as a leadership coach, developing leaders make the most impact by checking in on a weekly basis or even more regularly than that. A simple, “How are things going? Is everything good or can I help with something?,” is all you need. With sincerity and consistency, your people will open up to you when necessary. But you can’t just leave it up to checking in, you have to pay attention as well. Sometimes your people won’t want to speak up; you’ll need to know your workplace and people so well that you will just know when they need your help.

3. Take action. The adage that “actions speak louder than words” is true. Just imagine if you had your own boss who said they would hold everyone accountable equally and then continually allowed one or two employees to arrive to work late without consequence — what would you believe about your boss? You must follow through on your promise to protect. (Right now, you might be thinking to yourself ‘But when did I say “promise?’ You didn’t, but you didn’t need to; when you’re the leader, everything you say is perceived as a promise.) Provide safety equipment without hesitation. Help your people in stressful and strenuous situations. If you see that an employee is about to make a bad decision, step in. Intervene when tempers flare. If you’re in the service industry, take the lead on handling belligerent customers. Whatever it is — take action.

When I was in my early twenties, I sold shoes for a large retailer in Oregon. One day a man and his son came in for a pair of shoes for the son. They had asked for a size in a style that I happened to be out of. The father, instantly became aggressive. He was noticeably angry and took it out on me. Unfortunately, I was alone that night. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard so many four-letter words directed toward me personally prior or since. And because I was new on the job, and had what I believed to be no authority, I stood there and took it.

I wrote a note to my boss explaining that she might get a customer complaint about me and then described the situation. The next day she asked me about it. After I described again for her what happened, she told me “Derek, you don’t have to take that. We don’t pay you well enough to accept that kind of treatment. Just tell them that this is a family establishment, it’s inappropriate to speak that way and that you’re going to call the person in charge to help them.” I had heard this message before, but since this was the first time I had to face this kind of treatment, I had frozen in the moment. Hearing my boss reassure me was helpful.

We talked on further and through that conversation we discovered that she knew the person who berated me. She said, “I know who that is. We’re good friends actually,” and I saw her face get quite tense as she said this. She told me she’d take care of it. A couple of hours later, the very same man walked in and found me and apologized. I was dumb-founded. My boss had my back and I knew it.

The above event happened almost twenty years ago. But I’m still loyal to that old boss of mine. If she picked up the phone and called, I’d be there for her.

She declared her intentions to protect me, she checked in with me, she took action, and I will forever be grateful.

Derek R. Pangelinan

Owner/Facilitator/Consultant

Derek Rey Consulting, LLC

3 Steps to Develop a Protective Leadership Mindset was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’re in the Portland area and you haven’t tried the macarons from Decadent Creations, a café and bakery in Hillsboro, you’re missing something special. My wife and I came across our first macaron about 10 years ago and they’ve been a favorite treat since then. When we first tried the macarons from Decadent Creations at a farmer’s market a few years ago — we were ruined! No other macarons come even close to the perfection of those at Decadent Creations; every other macaron is simply a disappointing experience now. I can’t even choose my favorite from Decadent Creations… maybe the Earl Grey, maybe the Vanilla Rose, maybe the Pistachio, maybe any one of 5 or 6 others. I’ll take a bite and decide that this one is my favorite, only to change my mind 2 minutes later when I take a bite of the next flavor. The texture, the balance, the clarity in flavor… I meant it when I said “perfection.”

I learned about Decadent Creations because a friend of mine, someone who I had supervised in the past, told me that she started working there. I went to the booth at the farmer’s market simply to support a friend in her new work adventure. But I became an immediate and enthusiastic fan. My friend told me the basic story of the owner, Mindy Simmons. She started her baking business in farmer’s markets with the intention of growing over time and eventually open a full-service retail front. I have since watched this little business grow! More farmer’s markets, a wholesale arm selling to local stores came next, then a permanent counter in a small gift shop, even more farmer’s markets, then a remodel to a home kitchen so that Mindy could bake 24–7 (instead of in rented kitchen space), and then in 2017, Mindy opened her café and bakery maintaining the name Decadent Creations. You can visit it yourself in the middle of downtown Hillsboro, Oregon.

Leveraging the connection I had with my friend who worked for Mindy, I reached out and asked to interview Mindy for a book I’m writing about leadership (that many successes can not be lucked into). When you pick up the book in the near future, you can read more about Mindy then, but for now, I’d like to tell you about one specific thing she said: “What I think about all the time is how I can structure things for people to be successful.” When she said this to me, there was conviction in her eyes and emotion in the tone of her voice. I could see that she expends a lot of energy on this one thing. Her bakery and café now employs about 10 people. She thinks about how she can structure things for every one of them to be successful… all the time!

When Mindy explained this in greater detail to me, she said of her employees “I watch them every day…,” looking for when they struggle with anything; then she asks herself ‘how can I change something to make it better for them.’ She has taken personal accountability for her employees’ ability and opportunity to be successful. If her people are struggling, she takes it upon herself to help them get to where they need to be.

Some people who think they are leaders have come to the conclusion that a “sink or swim” mentality is leadership, just of a tough-love sort. It’s not; it’s an avoidance of leadership. If those people are successful in the end, it’s only because there were enough people who could teach themselves to swim before the business went under — it was nothing more than a lucky roll of the dice. Mindy knows better, instinctively she knows better. Some may call what Mindy does “hand-holding,” but it’s not; it’s “setting her people up for success.”

Weak leaders tell their people to figure it out on their own, great leaders lead their people to find their success.

When you visit decadent creations, you’re going to find employees who care about your experience, they care about the food they serve you, they have pride in the work they do, and they can provide you with world-changing macarons. For now, I think my favorite is the Vanilla rose… but ask me tomorrow and I might have a different answer.

Derek R. Pangelinan

Owner

Derek Rey Consulting, LLC

A Bakery owner’s lesson in leadership was originally published in Vunela on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.