As professionals, we are constantly seeing Leadership memes, quotes, or suggestions. A leader does this, a leader does that. A true leader will… well you get the point. So it got me thinking about what we “like” what we re-post, and what we want other people to think is a priority for us in our leadership journey.
Team Appreciation
This is a post from LinkedIn by Leadership First. They post a lot of Leadership “food for thought”, suggestions, and memes. I like their posts because they are simple ideas that are easy to put into action.
The true “food for thought” that hits me is, the “how” and if these ideas can be put into action. Have you ever seen a friend or coworker post or like a leadership quote, yet you know they don’t behave or act upon it? In this example, I picked an easy one, appreciating your team, and making sure you say thank you for a job well done.
I say easy one because most companies have an employee appreciation program. So it may not take much creativity from you as their leader. Maybe it’s something like “casual Fridays”, or monetary rewards like company stock. But do you thank your team every day? Every week? Do the employees who go above and beyond receive the accolades they’ve earned? Or has their over-achieving become the new expectation?
In my leadership, I made a conscious effort to say thank you to each person as they left for the day. At the end of my shift, I’d do one last walk just to say thank you and goodbye to anyone working later than me. Occasionally there were days, I just ran out the door but those were an exception rather than the rule.
How did I show appreciation for the team? On my last management assignment, I would buy the team snacks out of my pocket, so each could have a snack for their break. When I would see one of my team buying lunch, I would scan my card and pay for their lunch. As a management team, we would have a pizza party for the entire department when we hit a goal. In all fairness, the company empowered its leaders to show appreciation regularly, because as a whole they knew employee job satisfaction is directly related to customer satisfaction.
So my challenge to others developing their leadership, is how do you put the leadership memes and quotes into action? Is it something you just use to impress others with the “idea” of it, or do you think of ways to incorporate it into your leadership style? Share your thoughts in the comments.
I think for me mostly it’s about holding myself accountable. When I see a quote I like that is aligned with my leadership style, I like to post them to hype myself up and keep myself accountable to that exact value. I try to make a conscious decision to continue my leadership style in the direction I want to take it and hold myself accountable with constant follow-ups.