Heard a great comment the other day. “Resist the perception of pride. You are probably not as good as you think you are.”
As owners, leaders, and managers, we sometimes let ourselves become the biggest obstacle. I was working with a company a few months ago and had the opportunity to spend a few hours with the frontline staff. As we unpacked how the company was progressing one team member stated that the owners and managers were causing the biggest issues with the process and the ability to produce amazing results. They also mention, with great frustration, that we have a lot of skill and a lot of experience, why don’t they let us use it.
Resist the selfishness of pride. To maximize your impact you must have depth of relationship with your people. The way you treat people says more about you than it does them. Are you aware of where your people are and what they are going through and what they are dealing with. False humility is pride in disguise. Not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.
7 habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey challenges us to “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood.” Do we have written processes and do we review them with our team often to confirm things are working like we have planned. I have often heard owners and managers assume the team is the issue without realizing it is our broken process and broken team work.
Try refusing to plant seeds of pride. Trusting in yourself. “I got this. I can figure out all the answers we need. If I have to, I’ll just do it myself. We don’t need those changes.” You will reap what you sow. You can’t harvest what you do not plant. If you want amazing results you must have amazing people who are empowered to allow their creativity and experience (with guardrails) to help create those amazing results. You must have clarity of desired results and impact. Oh yeah, don’t forget to catch people doing good work and say “Thank You”, “Great job!”