Here is that leader checklist:

1. Articulate a vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision and communicate it to all members of the team. Most organizations may already have a vision statement or mission statement. Look it over. Ask your team to communicate it back to you. See what is missing and come up with that vision that fits the team, organization and you (as the leader).
2. Think and act strategically: Get ready to make your vision a reality. Time to set up goals that achieve that vision, both is the short and long term. Don’t forget to consider all the players and anticipate reactions and resistance before they are manifest. Being prepared is key to success.
3. Honor the team: Frequently express your confidence in and support for those who work with and for you. Use your team to help with every step you take.
4. Take charge: Make sure to set up a workplace environment that is about action (getting stuff done).
5. Act decisively: Make good and timely decisions, and ensure that they are executed.
6. Communicate persuasively: Communicate, communicate, communicate. Easier said than done. Look for ways to insure that communicate happens and people never forget. This is one area that I have experimented everyday of my life. Just make sure that how you do it is simple and the messages are clear.
7. Motivate the team: Set up a workplace environment that your team can not wait to come to work. Enjoys getting their work done.
8. Embrace the front lines: The one thing that I remembered before I was a supervisor was how most supervisors did not spend anytime with the team. They did not let the team do anything other than run the equipment. I promised myself that I would never do that. Including the team is something that I feel is necessary for success.
9. Build leadership in others: Develop leadership throughout. Have no fear in losing your folks to higher opportunities.
10. Manage relations: Build enduring personal ties with those who look to you and work to harness the feelings and passions of the workplace.
11. Identify personal implications: Help everybody appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and future with the firm.
12. Convey your character: Being yourself. Make sure that in everything you do (communications and actions) should point to who you are. Your team should get to know you – through you.
13. Keeping it real: Make sure that you never let over-optimism pop into your team. Success breeds success, but watch out threats, unresolved problems and taking unwarranted risks.
14. Build a diverse team: Leadership is a team sport.. Make sure that your team is willing to be leaders in their particular area. Make sure that your team is not clones of yourself, get and welcome a diverse team.

Walking into a new situation or team can be a little scary. New anything gets the heart pumping. I look forward to these opportunities. Makes me think back and reflect (and practice) my checklist… Try it!

How do you keep your folks motivated and working on what needs to be done? There have been many studies out there that say during rough times about 1/3 of the employees are engaged, 1/3 are looking for that next opportunity and the last 1/3 are not engaged. When you look at it from that standpoint, the simple facts are the engaged folks are staying for what they are doing, the disengaged folks are staying for what they get. Bottomline: when times do really turn around employees will be moving. We all know that the ones that you will probably lose will not be the ones you want to leave.

So, what should you do to really get everyone engaged in rough times? Keeping them motivated is definitely a challenge. Keeping them focused with all the uncertainty around them is difficult. Here are some of the things that I have experienced and shared over my time in those rough periods.

• Communication - is definitely more important that ever. Maybe a better term would be to over-communicate. Being upfront and honest with your employees is critical. Think of the rumor mill or grapevine – during rough times it seems there is something need added every hour. You as the leader, need to address the fear! How do you do that – with open, honest and transparent communication.
• Building relationship – taking that time to sit down with each employee and ask them what is on their mind. Find out where they are in the engaged, looking or disengaged category. Setting up regular 1:1 communications to address work, fears and concerns. Keeping them focused on the bigger picture, but not losing sight on their individual small pieces that make up the big picture.
• Decision-making – insure that you, as the leader, are including everyone on the team in the decisions. Even to the point, of insuring that the lowest level are making those decisions that they should make. Rough times make it easy to have the decisions move up the ladder. Make a point, not to do that. Keep decisions where they should be.
• Recognition - for the work that is getting done, especially in rough times. Many of the cuts and layoffs have passed the work of many to just a few… Take the time to come up with low cost “new” recognition for your team. People like to be rewarded for their hard work and efforts.
• Check yourself – anyway you look at it, rough times can bring out the best and worst in people. Even yourself. Listen to yourself when in a critical or difficult situation. Are you acting yourself? If you are not right, you definitely will be demonstrating that to your employees.

Simple Reminder: For rough times (or not) – LISTENING, EMPATHIZE and CARING – you really can’t go wrong.

• Lack of follow-through on commitments made.
• Openness of communication.
• Amount and availability of communications.
• Incompetent or poor decision-making.
• Incompetent job performance.

Maybe those examples hit home a bit. Are you experiencing them as well? It is always easy to point out a problem or run the other way.. Thinking back on my overall 28+ years, I have had to work through the above concerns many times. What did I do? What did our team do? What could you do? Here are some of my basic working relationship principles that I have tweaked over the years.

If you are a manager:

Believe in your team — their motives, knowledge and skills..

• Spend some time getting to know each team member’s capabilities, interests and skills.
• Understand your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Take advantage of the full capabilities of your team. Work to fix shortcomings.
• Share information with team members that will allow them to understand their tasks and how they fit into the bigger picture.
• Have faith in team members to set appropriate objectives. Let them do the doing..
• Delegate decision-making authority: This one maybe a bit tough depending on your companies overall decision-making processes. Figure out what decisions go where – and share it with the team.
• Negotiate realistic expectations, then have faith in team members’ ability to deliver what we get paid for.

Provide honest business communication..

• Share the good, bad and ugly results.
• No question – Tell the Truth – always; no sugar coating, no politics, no spin doctoring.

For the team (managers and teammates)

Demonstrate open, honest communication at all times..

• Your word is your bond!
• Share information that is important to others — no hidden agenda.
• Explain reasons behind statements, requests and decisions.
• Recognize healthy friction as a key to critical thinking, and respect another teammate’s right to disagree.
• Criticize constructively by sticking to the issue and not getting personal. Try not to think why someone is doing something.

Make realistic commitments and keep them..

• If you say it, then do it!
• Do not overcommit. It is too easy to always say yes.. If you can’t do it, say so.
• Admit you don’t know something. I would rather hear, “I don’t know. Let me get back to you.” Then some made up answer.
• If you find, because of changing circumstances, you can’t keep your commitment, say so early and rework the commitment together.

Work together – you are already there..

• Be responsive to one another’s needs by offering, and accepting assistance.
• Speak up early – especially if it is bad news. Never shot the messenger! We just saved ourselves a bunch of time.
• Always bring forth potential solutions rather than drop a bomb.

Is this the complete answer? No. I see this as a foundation. Level the playing field for yourself and your team…

Related articles

• Keys to Empowering Your Staff (stevebellnow.com)

• Hardly ever acted: there are always plenty of reasons not to make a decision, reasons to wait for more information, more options, more opinions. In my younger years, I heard the phase that there is a right decision, wrong decision and a no decision (the only real wrong one was a no decision).
• Secrecy:  Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of distrust. There really is not very many matters that must remain confidential. If it most be secret – then say so.
• Over-sensitivity:  An inability to be direct and honest with staff is a critical warning sign. Can your manager identify a problem, address it headlong and move on? If not, then the problem will continue.
• Love of procedure or process:  Well, we all know this one is something that just continues to happen. Process and procedure have their place – but, they are not the do all – there comes a time when things just have to happen.
• Have the ability to hire weak folks:  Strong leaders do not feel threatened by their staff. You want the smartest and best people to get the job done. The chain is only as strong as its weakest link – so, no hiring of weaker people.
• Focus on the small tasks:  Do managers need to know everything about everything? Micro-management 101 – enough said.

I bet there are more.. We ran out of time at lunch and had to get back to our meetings. We really had some good laughs over the examples that were shared. The one thing that was true in all of the examples were that these were managers that folks worked for in the past. Not to say that their manager today may not do or say something that makes us wonder, “what were they thinking?”. We all have found ways to get away from those incompetent managers. 

Decision needs to be made (retire or stay)… Time to put in place my usual way of handling such life changing decisions. Here is what I do…

1. Pull out a tablet of paper – draw a line down the middle of the page. Left hand side – Pro’s (taking early retirement); Right hand side – Con’s.
2. Find a quiet, early morning spot to sit and write down everything that comes to my head for each.
3. After I have exhausted my thoughts. I asked my family to discuss this with me. As much as this is my decision, this is a family decision as well. My family is important to me and they are my number 1 supporters, their input is valuable.
4. Grab some more of that quiet time to reflect on my information, what my heart is saying and what my family has shared with me. A decision needs to be made, and will be made.
5. Communicate my decision to my family!
6. Make my decision completely available to my employer – this has to be done by the end of July.

Many are probably wondering what is going on with this? Well, step one, done and am filling in the Pro’s and Con’s. Is there something that you use differently? Please share…