WALK THE TALK

What type of leader do you think you are? Honestly, it doesn’t matter unless you are egocentric or amazingly insecure. People do not evaluate your leadership based on what you think of yourself. That is silly thinking. What matters more – what type of leader your people think you are. You could ask them OR judge by how they perform. People’s actions are typically truer than their words and intent. If I “say” you are a great guy/gal, but I “do “demean and dismiss you regularly, my actions say otherwise. If I say I will train you, but I don’t, my actions speak louder than words, even with the best of intentions. If you want to do great work to get great results but keep poor performers employed or do not develop your people, your actions say you are not serious about great work. When words/intent and actions do not match – actions speak louder.

How do your customers judge what type of leader or GM you are? 99.9% of your customers and many of your employees will only know you by who you choose to represent you – who you promote and employ. You may be the best business person in the world, but if you promote underdeveloped people who perform poorly in your absence – then that is what your customers think of you? How could they not? Look who is in charge in your absence. You can have the sweetest personality and kindest nature, but if you employ (and retain) rude and dismissive employees, your customers will think of you as rude and dismissive. How could they not? Look who you keep employed. Many leaders are only known (and judged) by the people they choose to represent them. Poor choices reflect poorly on you and the business. How could they not?

This is the best time in years for applications and hiring. When the economy slows, the one benefit is access to more people. As we head into the busy season, now is when you fine tune your crew to max sales. If you keep poor performers around because its convenient for your schedule, you are only days away from being punished and punishing your customers as we enter the best time to capture sales growth. It's time for serious people to do serious work preparing for our busy season.

There is no good time to have bad service, but this time of the year is terrible. Give me 60 minutes with employees in any industry, and I can tell you nearly everything consequential about their leader. When you stand amongst your people, what does their performance tell you about your leadership? All are smart enough to self-evaluate …what does your people’s performance say? Do you walk the talk?