7 Powerful People-Tasks You can do Today
Great people accomplish great things. The question is, how to develop and maximize greatness in others.
5 things you can do with people:
- Understand and accept them.
- Correct and punish them.
- Honor and reward them.
- Develop and trust them.
- Connect with them through shared values and vision.
Of all the things you can do with people, controlling them is the toughest.
7 powerful-people tasks you can do today:
- Trust someone to move forward without you.
- Establish clear goals.
- Give authority.
- Set deadlines.
- Celebrate progress.
- Learn and adapt as you go.
- Have a tough conversation. Nagging disappointment indicates procrastination. Invite them in and say, “Let’s talk.”
- Invite commitments. Real commitments are freely given, not coerced.
- What are you going to do?
- When?
- How?
- What can I do to help?
- Identify the top three strengths of a teammate. How might their strengths be maximized, specifically? Have a conversation to explore options.
- Identify the points of positive energy in your organization. Spend more energy fueling hot spots. Deal with negative issues, but don’t be distracted by them.
- Love someone out of your organization. They don’t belong. Be kind and generous, but begin to help them go, today.
- Develop someone’s skills.
- What behavior holds back one of your high potentials?
- What behaviors create a different future?
- What are they doing well that could be even better?
Bonus: People-tasks are about behaviors. What specific behaviors take you, them, and your organization where you want to go?
Success is about people.
What people tasks are important for you today?
How have people been sources of happiness or sadness on your leadership journey?
Download: 7 POWERFUL PEOPLE-TASKS YOU CAN DO TODAY
Great post Dan, thank you. I think that the connection with the team is the hardest. Every member has it’s own mind map. The real challenge is to drive them to a common side of the map (goal setting, f.ex). by the way, I think in point 6, you ment “leave” not “love” :o)
thanks for sharing.
Thanks Luis. Perhaps the difficulty of connecting with diverse people is one reason isolation is easy. In my world, accepting people as they are is key.
“Love them out” was inspired by Jack and Suzy Welch’s new book: The Real World MBA.
Excellent post..One of my favorites. I think Love fits for number 6. If someone doesn’t belong, how can you help them transition out. If at all possible, make it work for everyone.
Thanks Bill. Sadly, when it’s time to let someone go, we treat them like dirt.
You use “develop” twice in this post. As I have come to “know” you through your posts and comments, I’m quite sure you don’t mean taking control and telling them what to do to get better. I believe you are saying “work with them to facilitate their becoming all they could be.” More in the way of “facilitate the development of” rather than “develop.”
Effective leaders listen, engage, empathesize, and engage. They don’t control, manage, or (my belief at least) develop.
Thanks John. I see the world through the lens of developing others. EVERYTHING is an opportunity to develop. Sometimes, I need to let things go. 🙂
If you are referring to… “Of all the things you can do with people, controlling them is the toughest,” that statement is a bit tongue in cheek. We can control people in some ways. However, developing and releasing is where it’s at.
Cheers
Dan, I know this is going to sound a bit far-fetched, yet I believe leadership “vision” or the lack thereof—is the great power of leadership happiness, fulfillment and wellness. And I believe it’s a matter of mind, not matter.
Most leaders have a good handle on their professional credentials: Education, training, experience, and broad aptitudes. And they realize what makes them soar among the leadership and management ranks is their organizational vision.
However, while managers are doing craftsman-like work in the present, one of the indictments of upper-level hierarchy is, ironically, their blatant lack of vision. This criticism is often linked to their short-term solutions to long-term problems—which translate into bandaid performances and the eventual adoption of a perspective that is of the “rearview mirror” kind. Indeed managers must make fast decisions because they are harried by the expectations of the present. Also, plans for the future cannot be enacted without finding the key to the present, and understanding how the decisions of today will impact the organization’s tomorrow.
Those leaders with vision, though, have also made a decision to move the organization forward. Their blueprint of the management maze is their willingness to invest time, effort and honest self-evaluation—like architects who know the proposed use of a building before they design it. Leaders need the same sense of purpose in order to develop an integrated vision for achievement. They collect information, ponder the overall situation, and only after “visualizing” the outcome (as if they have already achieved it), they act. Vision is their secret, for they know the subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between actual experience and a vividly imagined one. Thus, their vision or visual experience begins working to make the actual experience come true.
Leadership vision is a mental attitude, and the one factor over which each person has absolute control. So, if one’s thoughts determine one’s attitude, and one’s attitude determines one’s success, then vision can preordain one’s professional achievements.