Visibility

A dear friend of mine practices surgery, handling cases where people need surgical reconstruction because of traumatic injury - an automotive accident - or a cancer diagnosis - commonly breast cancer.  Always interested in the medical field, I enjoy hearing stories of cases he is currently working on.

One day he said something very profound in response to a question I had about a basic case he was working on:  "They need to see me more than I need to see them."

This definitely could be correlated to leadership and management.

Ive noticed over the years that some managers are reluctant to give their people the face time that they need.   I'm sure they don't even know the are doing it!

Lets face it - most of the time when your employee wants to talk, there is a problem.  Who wants to hear about a problem??  That's human nature at work!

I've found that having regular conversations with your people will allow them to get things off of their chest as they come up.  These conversations are a lot easier to manage and talk through than a conversation prompted by them - wrapped in built-up tension over the past few weeks.

Next time you realize that you havent had a casual conversation with an employee of yours, go have one!  Im certain that you will dig up some issues that you dont really feel like dealing with, but look at it this way - they will be delivered to you a lot smoother than if they have to approach you - dripping in emotion!

Think you dont have time to be this proactive?  Well, Im sure you wont when an employee calls with: "um... do you have a minute...?"

Try to be as visible as possible to your people.  You will be more approachable and will probably get a sense of things that are about to come up anyway.

Leader or Manager

I love interview questions that cause the applicant to really dig deep for an answer.  I dont think the question "Are you a Leader or a Manager" is one of those questions.  Any applicant would more than likely say "Leader" whether they are or arent really a leader.

This caused me to think - from an employer standpoint: Are we necessarily looking for a leader in this position?

As far as I am concerned, if you are hiring for some kind of management or supervisory position, you always want a leader in that position.  Now, the real question is: Do you hire a manager and groom them to be a leader? or just hire the leader?