Without question, the most important factor in your ability to lead your people is the relationship that you have with each individual in the organization. This factor is so overwhelmingly important that there really is no 2nd place.

We are getting into one of the “core” areas of learning about leadership. This has a lot to do with Dombecky Theory of Micromanagement.

More about that topic at a later date, but right now let’s get into the relationship you have with your followers.

Let’s begin with a quote from a book by Stephen D. Sample entitled “The Contrarians and Guide to Leadership”. In it, he is quoting George Clements on leadership. “Steve, let me give you some basic advice about leadership. You should spend a small amount of your time hiring or directory ports, evaluating them, exhorting them, setting their compensation, praising them, kicking their butts and, when necessary, firing them. When you add all that up, it should come out to about 10% of your time. For the remaining 90% of your time you should be doing everything you can to help your direct reports succeed, you should be the first assistant to the people who work for you.”

This all gets back to what we were discussing a few days ago, and that is, in order to be an effective leader we need to be able to diagnose what our people need from us to perform the tasks that we asked them to perform.

Another part of this relationship formula is, in fact, the personal relationship we have with our employees. The more we know about our follower’s personal goals and what they need to receive in return for the time they spend with us in the workplace, the better we are able to determine what is they need from us at any given moment to perform any given task. When we talk about receive in return, we go way beyond the paycheck.

Beyond that, it gives us greater insight into how to communicate what we need to communicate with them, in order to support their efforts.

I know for many of us, this might be a huge shift in the way we look at life as a leader. If we are going to maximize our effectiveness as a leader, maybe it’s time to make huge shifts. Not to mention the fact it is infinitely easier to make a huge shift in the way we think, than it is to make huge shifts in personnel, which is usually the result of ineffective leadership.

Let us know what you think, and have a great Fourth of July weekend.

Curt