Why You Can't Boss People Into Greatness
May 03, 2022
I Wish My People Would…
When it comes to driving your #businessperformance to greatness, team #leaders and line #managers make this mistake:
They act like a #boss and spend their time telling people what to do (and sometimes when to do it), only to find themselves wondering why their #team won’t #think for themselves.
It's a mistake because if you want your business to be great, you need to help your team be great. Last time we checked...
"You can’t boss someone into greatness.”
- a Clarism
If you’re being bossy, the only ‘grate-ing’ that’s going on is you - on everyone else’s nerves.
The consequence is going to be you having to do the thinking for everyone. It’s like hitting a serve in #tennis and running around the other side of the net and returning the ball back to yourself while your team watch you do it!
You find yourself complaining and saying “I wish my people would…
…Be more #accountable
…Take the #initiative
…Think for themselves
“If I have to do the thinking for both of us, one of us is redundant.”
- a Clarism
You are paying for 100% of the person to be there but only unleashing 50% of the #talent they can bring to the business…and it’s your fault (FYI...the #warfortalent should start inside your business)
Instead, what if we became #coaches for, not #bosses, to our people? What if we decided to #ask more than we #tell? This will help them become their best and do their life’s best work while in our care and beyond.
Imagine if your team felt that they could bring their best self to work every day? People will #produce exceptional #value when they feel exceptionally valued.
So, next time don’t be a bossy bully, no one loves that guy/gal.
Leave the grating for the cheese and leap into leadership by asking questions to help understand what they think and #coach the gap between that and the thinking you want your team to have.
#leadership #business #team #work #leaders #talent #people
COMING SOON TO A BOOKSHELF NEAR YOU!
WEEKLY FERGASM
Coach Killer:
“Any dumb or accidental action that causes an enormous let down, especially if it occurs at a critical time.”
- Urban Dictionary
(NB - ‘Coach’ Killer, not ‘Boss’ Killer).
Every sport has one.
In my sport of netball, a dumb, coach killing move is a defender ‘breaking’ (i.e. being offside) on your centre pass.
Or that time I panicked when the score was even with less than a minute to go, threw the ball out on the full, literally handing the turnover to the other team for them to safely diddy bop the ball down into their goal and win the game.
But that ‘enormous let down, occurring at a critical time’ wasn’t the most critical factor that day – it was me! Oh my lordy was I into myself after that one.
But you know who wasn’t critical?
My coach – who was compassionate, kind and curious to my cause, which is what made him a great coach, and turned me into a great player.
He certainly was not bossy, a bully or bravado at all - which he totally could have been by the way, as he was the world #1 male Goaler at the time.
Which got me thinking:
Why do we have sport coaches, but in business we have bosses?
The overarching plan is the same really – to out play/out behave the other players – even in an infinite game.
And in sports, we refer to the best of the best as GOATs – Greatest of All Timers.
Makes sense – because you can’t boss someone into greatness, you can only coach them. And sports have coaches.
But just imagine if our organizations were more like a bunch of GOATs getting together every day working toward a common cause?
And could a coaching approach champion such a sight to behold?
My Bestie Ang and I where it all began before repping at National, State and Regional levels.
We still netball together 20 years on – including that day I blew it.
We won’t talk about the Grand Final of the same season where we took each other out in ‘friendly fire’ going for a glory intercept though 😂
Written by Lisa Ferguson - Leadership Coach
WEEKLY CLARISM
Leadership is all about influence. IN is a prefix for INTO and FLUENCE is the latin derivative of fluid or FLOW. Therefore INFLUENCE is about helping others get INTO-FLOW. We are at our best when we are in flow state.