It Really is All About the People

I’ve never understood people in leadership roles who don’t spend time with their team members. I have run across many people over my career who “don’t have time” to meet with their teams, who think meetings are a waste of time, or who seem unapproachable because they aren’t around much. In my opinion, that’s a failure of leadership. I’ve worked with a lot of people in leadership over my careers and the best leadership I’ve seen was by people who took the time to engage with the people of their organization.

One president I worked with met with the leadership team for two hours every Monday. If he couldn’t be there on Monday, we moved to Tuesday. If he was out both days, we moved to Wednesday. It disrupted schedules, but he was committed to finding time for us to gather. People were expected to bring items to the meeting to share information, ask for input, and participate in decision-making. While each of us were clearly responsible for our divisions, we all had a clear understanding of the bigger vision we were all working toward. It meant those individual decisions we made were directed toward that shared understanding. And that came from the time we spent together.

Not only did we share information, so did the president. If he had been in a meeting with a donor, he shared what he learned. He told us about testifying before legislative committees, so we had a clearer understanding about their questions and concerns. When he could he shared information about conversations with the Board or with the Commissioner of Higher Education. As a result, we all had an understanding of the bigger context for our work and the pressures he might be experiencing as we worked to move to a new vision of what our university could be. He made sure we knew what was important to the organization, had the knowledge we needed to do our jobs and was accessible to us when we needed help.

In contrast, I’ve also worked with people who rarely called the cabinet together, and when we were together nothing much was accomplished except a bit of information exchange. While I did have monthly meetings with that leader, and I certainly had access to him when I needed it, I missed out on learning about all the other issues faced by my colleagues. It was leadership one at a time instead of as a team. I don’t think it was a particularly effective type of leadership.

I know some people think I go overboard, but when I worked with a team, I met with the senior leaders individually once a week. That was their time to get problems solved, ask for help, share successes, etc. I also met with them as a group weekly. I asked people to bring issues to that group meeting and worked to make sure it was a safe place for them to ask for help. Some groups were more successful at that than others, but it was always a goal of mine. I also made time to meet people throughout the organization, to invite them into conversation with me.

I’ve read a lot about leadership over the years and the concept that resonates most with me is that it’s all about people. Leaders who don’t care about the people they work with, who don’t work to help people do their best work or don’t understand their responsibility to the health and wellbeing of the people in the organization will ultimately fail as leaders.

What are you and the leaders of your organization doing to engage with people in the organization – both the people you are expected to lead, but also people across the organization? How are you, and senior leaders, teaching collaboration and care for both the purpose and the people in the organization? What are leaders doing to bring people together to the benefit of all? Your answers to these questions and others will tell you a lot about your leadership and the leadership of your organization.

Take care,

Gage