Leading by your true north has a lot to do with purpose.
Purpose.
Big word, right?
Let’s break it down. What do you believe in? What’s behind that? What’s even behind that?
It’s important to know what you define yourself by if you are going to be in a leadership role – some people or circumstances will push on your values, you must know where you’ll bend and where you’ll break.
At the end of the day my true north, my personal mission, is to improve the lives of those around me. It encompasses my life as a parent, as a spouse, a professional, and as a member of my community.
Now, how do I lead by my true north without fighting against myself when the needs of the one are different from the organization or even another person?
The simplest answer is, I try to do right by everyone if there’s an opportunity to do that.
That’s not always possible and I freely admit I’ve failed while on my way to being better at living my mission. That doesn’t mean I’m a ninja expert, all leaders should always be working towards perfection on this. It’s not a walk that ends.
In most cases, my purpose can align to anything I choose to do – it’s my interpretation that determines where and how I do good. Only once in my career have I deemed something terribly unethical and totally against my true north. I did what I believed in during that situation, I found another situation and transitioned out as quietly as I could.
Below are a few scenarios, the solution used, and what I learned. Remember, always improve...
Problem – financial issues: A staffing cut was coming to some departments within the business. Leadership had to make the cut or someone else would likely do it for them.
Solution: We were not set up efficiently, so we came back with a proposal to reorganize the departments and use the effort to better performance (Lean 6 Sigma, 5S, Deming’s Theory) and ensure the right people were on the bus to make the change work. We also gave people job listings as they left along with the opportunity to find a position elsewhere in the company. I stayed connected with most of them until they found work (or found someone else to help them if they were mad at me).
What I learned: Being let go is a terribly difficult experience. Giving people your best is always important, holding yourself to a flawless standard is essential when letting someone go. It’s going to be the hardest day, possibly of their lives, and they deserve the best you can give them.
Problem – abuse of leadership: I had a supervisor who was threatened by me. He would suggest I was after his job and would occasionally go into long fact-finding missions in email records to try to catch out minor issues which mostly didn’t even exist. I was the second party I had seen go through this experience, the first didn’t make it.
Solution: I learned to keep exceptional records of all correspondence and actions. Everything was tracked, everything was indexed, and every act had a paper trail to prove the act happened. Eventually the person in question would again repeat this behavior and be dismissed.
What I learned: I learned three things from this experience. The first, it’s all about finding the right seat on the right bus. This same person became a different guy in his next environment – he became someone I cared about and respected a lot. We eventually talked about the old days and shared admiration for one another’s strengths – it is one of the oddest and best things that we did that. The second, it takes a lot of energy to lead by accountability vs leading through collaboration/communication. I would argue that the accountability first leader is a very stressed and tired leader and will eventually have either a capacity or a trust issue to deal with. Finally, I learned it’s better to walk through the fire than run away from it. This experience was essential to my growth and to eventually becoming an executive. If I erased it, I would be less personally and professionally.
Problem – harassment: I was approached by someone on my team who was making unwanted advances and suggestions towards me, this is before I was in leadership. I was young in a professional environment and had no idea how to deal with it. It would eventually escalate, well after I asked it to stop, to include text messages and other aggressive overtures.
It was pretty bad.
Solution: After giving three chances to the person to stop all efforts with me, I engaged with HR and turned in all correspondence. I gave many chances because I didn’t want to negatively impact this person’s career; I just wanted her to stop. The HR person was kind while I was beside myself, being male and overweight it wasn’t something I ever expected to encounter.
What I learned: People deserve protection from the aggressive and inappropriate behaviors of others – that’s not what a working environment should allow. I saw exceptional leadership during this situation from my HR team, I still follow the HR leader that helped me through it on LinkedIn. I hold her with great respect and esteem as a professional. I watch for issues like this in my teams and do my best to protect against them happening. No one needs to live this kind of experience.
Overall, leading by your true north is about you holding on to what you believe in. You are never going to be perfect and neither are the people you are leading nor the company you work for. Nothing in this world is perfect, everyone is going to make mistakes – try to remember that as you lead people (both about them and about you).
Learn, grow, improve. Help others do the same.