Big part of leadership? Just say thank you

How many senior executives rule through fear instead of leading by example ? A lot more than you probably think especially in an era where so many people live in fear of loosing their jobs. What I have found is that really great leaders teach, listen and know how to say thank you rather than going about their business like they know it all. Believe me there are a lot of managers out there who think they know it all but in reality they know very little.

The CEO of Netflix thought he knew his business well and for that he paid a heavy price that has hurt the company and which the company has never recovered. It was his decision yet all employees have to take a bit of this lousy sandwich as Netflix looses business to competitors. Why should he worry ? Even if were to get fired I am sure he would leave with a nice golden parachute .

A real leader has equal readiness to take the blame when things go adversely. It is when things go wrong that true leaders are separated from the pretenders. The weasel leader will gladly accept the accolades when he and his team succeeds, but will find another individual to take the fall when things get tough. When followers see this, it completely demolishes any confidence and allegiance to that leader. True leaders will take responsibility for all consequences of their decisions, even the bad ones. Even when the results were the fault of a subordinate, a true leader will still take all the blame. Perhaps the leader failed to communicate clearly what the subordinate’s duty was, or maybe the leader failed to match the right man with the right job. After taking responsibility for the results, an effective leader will immediately take action to correct the situation.

Effective leaders treat others with a positive regard. Specifically, effective leaders understand the power of appreciation. This goes beyond the Carnegie precepts of “Be hardy in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”

Effective praise is a skill set that must be learned like any other. As leaders we often find ourselves spending and inordinate amount of time identifying what is wrong, identifying mistakes, and concentrating on errors. Effective leaders look for opportunities to find people doing things right and offer them the encouragement they need to keep on doing things right.

According to Dr. Ben Bissell there are five things a leader can do to insure their statements of praise are effective.

Make sure the praise is authentic. Authentic does not mean it must be a tremendous accomplishment. It does mean it has to be honest. You don’t need to wait until your friend has finished a marathon to offer praise. In fact it may be more effective to acknowledge when he has reached a two mile goal.
Make sure the praise is specific. Acknowledging the excellent way in which an irate client was handled is an excellent example. Identify areas of strength and acknowledge them.
Make sure the praise is immediate. Providing positive feed back as soon as things happen is a powerful tool to encourage them to happen again.
Make sure the praise is untainted. Tainted praise has an ulterior motive. Tainted praise often has the addendum “but” attached.
Make sure the praise is private. Recognizing someone in public is often more a performance by the speaker rather than support for the subject of the praise.

Leadership is not a science but rather something very easy: treat people as people and always appreciate their effort. That will get people to follow you a lot more than saying “I did it myself”