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This past week, I went to a conference in San Diego and it was really good. I met some great people, made some friends and they had some great speakers that were there.
One of the guys was a former CIA operations manager and he was on stage telling a story and part of his job was like recruiting spies and dealing with all that. And he was telling a story about a situation he had with some of the higher ups giving an order or something they needed and his team and the need for his team or that his team had.
His team had been in this foreign country for a month, tracking certain things being transported, something of that nature. And the higher ups, they just left and the higher up higher ups had something they saw and they said, send them back in.
But he knew as the leader that they needed the break. They were tired. They were exhausted. They just spent a month of heavy work tracking these things and doing what they had to do.
So instead of just sending his team in knowing that they were tired to try to make himself look good or whatever it may be, he went and talked to the his boss and whoever it was and said that wasn’t a good idea. And instead he offered just to go himself. And that’s what he did.
And so we talked about and before about serving your team. And that’s what he was talking about. He actually used the term servant leadership because he said you’re supposed to care about your team. And it’s not about you, of course, it’s about serving your team and helping your team and looking out for your team.
And in that situation, he was looking out for them.
Question for you with that is how well do you look out for your team?
Another speaker, he was talking about his experience as a leader.
His name was George. I don’t remember his last name at the moment. He was talking or he gave his story of when he first had a company, he had nine employees, they were going along and suddenly all nine people in his company quit.
They just left.
And of course he wanted to have a pity party and wonder why everybody was leaving. But hefinally had to face, he said, the fact that the reason they were leaving was him. And so if he had to do a turnaround, he actually used that term, that was kind of part of what he says he does, is he had to do a turnaround in himself in the circumstances to change that, to become a better leader that doesn’t drive your people away.
And I thought that was pretty good because it shows one of the principles that we need to have as leadership is that we need to take ownership of it.
In whatever situation we need to take ownership.
And also it’s the leader, not the team. In general, in most cases, it’s the leader, not the team. And I was thinking with that later how sometimes I hear business owners or people saying that there’s no good employees anymore. They can’t find good people and things of that nature.
And I really think, and I’m not saying it’s this case in every circumstance. I hate to use absolutes, but in general, I think it really just shows a lack of their leadership. I don’t mean that as an insult on them, just that they need to grow.
Because if there’s all these issues with their employees, then it really is probably a reflection on them and their leadership. It could be, I know some people just want to hire people for very little money and then they complain about the level of work they get.
You need to pay your people fairly. And so I think sometimes that’s the situation in that, that people just don’t want to pay people fairly. They want to pay them the minimum amount and then expect all this much for them.
I remember as a small business owner, when I first started my first business, I did video production. And one of the pieces of advice that was given to me or that I read was that you don’t want to fight based on price. You don’t want to make yourself a commodity, but you know, watch out for the people who just want to spend the minimum amount for it. Because generally those people who just want to spend as little as possible, they often want the most and they’re often sometimes the worst customers.
Now I know that’s a little bit different, but it’s still kind of a similar mentality that sometimes some leaders, they just want to pay the minimum amount and expect all this. And of course, that’s a reflection of your leadership. That’s a reflection of, you you’re going to get in the sense what you pay for. You need to pay people fairly.
But also, if people aren’t doing what you want them to do, where they aren’t getting the results that you want, then if you’re paying fairly and that attracts people, then you need to look at your expectations you’re setting, how you’re treating people and all of those things. Because ultimately, if you can’t find good people, it’s probably because you aren’t setting good expectations, you’re not hiring well, you’re not paying well enough. All of those things come together.
Anyway, I thought I would share those two stories about the one, the CIA guy about serving and with the guy who realized he really needed to take ownership and turn himself around and that the issue was him and not his team. I hope something about this helps you somehow and I’ll see you next time.
