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Why the Best Leaders Do the Dirty Work
Some people think that once they ascend to a leadership role (or to a certain level of leadership) that they are immune from doing "real work" anymore. And even if you don't feel that way, if you spend a little time as a fly on the wall with groups of front line employees, you will hear that perception regularly.
"They don't do any work" or "I have no clue what they do all day" are not terms of endearment; instead, when people use those phrases, they are sharing their feelings about their leader's is effectiveness and connectedness.
There is no question that as a supervisor, leader, director (pick your title), you have different responsibilities than you had as an individual contributor. However, the best leaders realize this isn't an either/or proposition. There is much to be said about leaders being willing to get their hands dirty doing the work of their team — sometimes.
Before I explain my point further, let me say this isn't a post to justify micro-management or to imply that delegation isn't important. This couldn't be further from the truth. Rather, this post is about ways that you can, through your actions, both engage with and endear yourself to your team.
What is "the Dirty Work"?
The specifics of the dirty work will vary by company and your specific role. If you are in leadership in a manufacturing or a construction company, your dirty work might be really, well, dirty. In general, think of the dirty work as the stuff no one wants to do ; it is unpleasant, difficult, tedious or there is just too much of it. Sometimes, it is the actual work of the team — when there is too much of it.
Ways to "Get Dirty"
Lending a hand. A big order comes in. It is Black Friday. There's a big push to finish a project. You are shorthanded due to illness. If you have the skills and experience to do the actual job, get up from behind your desk. Stack boxes. Pick up a phone or a shovel. Make a sale. The best leaders know that sometimes the best thing that they can be doing is physically helping the team.
Taking over other tasks in a pinch. Maybe you can't do their job (or you are rusty – and you end up being more of a problem than a help). In this case, what other work is getting in the team's way that you could do for an hour or a day that might really help them? Perhaps that is your dirty work.
Getting more help. This could mean more resources, a shifting timeline on other work, or additional staff. When you show that you know a team is struggling or needs help, when you provide that help, they will see you as engaged and aware of their needs. This is your job!
Finding other ways to engage. Maybe they don't want you anywhere near their work, but perhaps you can do some of the paper work, or buy the pizza or donuts, or find some other way to tangibly show your support for the team and their work.
Taking the time to effectively coach and train. Lest you have forgotten my earlier point, this isn't about doing the work of your team all the time. Oftentimes your most important work is to accurately, carefully, and fully train your people to do their jobs more productively. When you do that, they will be better prepared and truly need you to step in to help in tangible ways less often.
And What is Your Dirty Work?
This is a great question for you to ponder.
I've given you some examples and ideas, but my main point in this piece has been to get you thinking about how your actions reflect how engaged and empathetic you really are. Think about ways and situations where you can pitch in and play a part, more as a team member than as a "boss".
When you find the right balance here and show your team by your actions that you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty at the right times, you will build credibility, trust, and create a more effective team.
Balance, yes. If you begin doing the work all the time, you aren't allowing others to grow and you aren't doing your job. But if you never step foot on the shop or sales floor, you unnecessarily distance yourself and lose touch with the realities of your team.
Think about this balance and take action on your thoughts. If you want to be a great leader, seen as supportive by your team, remember that it is ok as a leader to get dirty sometimes.
The best leaders know they are in the performance business – both for themselves and their teams. If you want to have an ongoing plan to build your personal and team productivity and effectiveness, join leaders from around the world as a member of the Remarkable Leadership Learning System. This one skill at a time, one month at a time approach to becoming a more confident and successful leader is a flexible way and effective way to build these skills – and not conventional (it just works!). This system allows people to learn without travel and allows them to learn in multiple ways whenever works best for their schedule – and encourages them to learn by teaching others too! Get $916.25 worth of leadership development materials including two complimentary months of that unique system as part of Kevin Eikenberry's Most Remarkable Free Leadership Gift Ever today.. Kevin is a bestselling author, speaker, trainer, consultant and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group.
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We're Hosting the Leadership Development Carnival
What is a Leadership Carnival?
Good question.
For a number of years bloggers in all sorts of topic areas (including leadership), have banded together to create posts that highlight the recent work of other bloggers in that category. Here's how Wikipedia describes it:
A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.
I've contributed to many over the years, but this week we host it for the first time. (Thanks to Becky for convincing me to do it and doing all of the real work.)
There is a leadership development carnival post every month, but, perhaps not surprisingly, we are doing it differently.
Rather than mentioning and introducing 30+ bloggers and their writing at one time, we are spreading it out over several days – since we know there will much you would like to read, but if there is too much you'll be overwhelmed.
Yesterday we posted Day 1 of the Carnival, and starting tomorrow there will be more posts (the number of days and posts included hasn't been determined as of this writing). Starting tomorrow you'll be able to find the newer ones on my blog, or you can just keep coming back to this post, because we will update it with links to the new posts in the series.
So you when you go to read more you will see great recent writing from the best and brightest leadership thinkers and writers on the planet. If that doesn't intrigue you, I wonder why you read this newsletter. . .
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