Somebody…

When the leader stops believing, someone will soon be leaving.  

I wrote this thought down a couple years ago when putting together version 5.0 of the Eight Essentials of Leading Teams.  When a leader stops believing in one of his/her team, I had observed, that someone would soon be leaving.

Fired from the system.

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a trend.  As the economy has worsened, more and more leaders have decided that a warm body is better than nobody.  Leaders, using the term loosely, have become more and more tolerant of mediocrity.  This is a classic ingredient in the recipe for a slow, and systematic death.  Once the leader loses belief in another and loses the desire and the will to confront, the leader becomes the problem.  The leader is now positionally in place and influentially…

GONE.

The rest of the team sees this with 20/20 clarity.  The leader, not so much.  Here’s what the team sees when they look at a leader that now tolerates warm but unproductive performers.  They see someone that they, insert top performers, no longer believe is worthy of their best effort.  They see a leader that they no longer want to follow with their committed best.  This leader is now the problem.  AND…

somebody will soon be leaving.

Somebody we can ill afford to lose.

The recipe for leading any team is simple and really HARD.  There are thousands upon thousands of nuances to “transforming a collection of individuals into ONE.”  And one of those ingredients, one that is never easy and one that takes uncommon strength coupled with deep humility, is a relentless closing of ones own integrity gaps.  Huh…

If you find yourself talking about one of your team with your builder, your coach, your inner circle, your spouse, your best friends, your YPO forum, your TEC group, your whatever, stop wasting your words.

STOP.

Start facing the one person that needs to hear your words.  Tell them where you are losing your belief in them.  Be very clear, concise, and direct about what you expect.  AND, take the time to ask them what’s going on? What am I missing?  Are you hurting somewhere?  Have you lost your desire for this team and this work?  How can I help?  

Listen to their response and go deeper.  

Write it up and make sure it’s clear, concise, and direct.  Candid conversations without the written word are a waste of time.  Write up exactly what you want.  Give them the chance to turn toward you and to turn up their performance.  And set the bar for performance and hold them, and everybody to the target.  And make the hard call if the performance does NOT turn.

Leaders are believers.  Never forget that our belief in you, as our leader is essential to sustaining our best performers best efforts.  And, the moment we sense that your belief is waning our eyes start to wander and before you know what happened, somebody will be leaving.

Somebody we can ill afford to lose…