One day, sitting in an airport, I overheard someone chatting with his home office following an apparently successful trip to a client. “This isn’t rocket science,” he declared, “You only have to show up and tell the truth.”
Indeed. As a leader, showing up is a large part of the job. Showing up means taking the time to be with your people, participate in meetings, keeping your commitments, and making yourself available to others. The only way to lead people is to know them. The only way to know people is to listen to them. The only way to listen to them is to be with them.
Whether you show up in weekly emails to the team (a habit I learned from David Page) or walking around the office (ala Tom Peters) or simply having an open-door policy, leaders get to learn their teams’ concerns, their ideas to solve problems and their aspirations.
One day, I met with some team members and asked them how everything was going. As expected, they were struggling with some tools and processes. “Well,” I challenged, “what do you want to do about it?” At which point they proceeded to lay out a well-researched and thought-out plan to solve their challenge. “Okay. Why don’t you just do that?” They needed funding. And considering the amount of trouble the problem was causing, the funding would have a nearly immediate ROI. So, I went to my boss, secured the funding and they executed the plan. The team was happier and more productive.
All because I showed up.
Do you make time to be with your team? Do they know that they can come to you?