Every day there’s a new guru or coach in the industry posting about leadership adding to the saccharine soup of LinkedIn nonsense 95% of these articles or posts are just ChatGPT written drivel one I saw used a quote from Plato that doesn’t actually exist which amused and annoyed me at the same time
I thought I’d post something about leadership that’s actually usable from lessons learned over the years both from knowing incredible leaders but also my own experiences in watching leaders, to trying to become one myself
I promise no soft focus pseudo inspiration like
Leadership isn’t about titles. It’s not about being in charge—it’s about being there. Queue emojis….. 💼💖
I don’t believe theres a one size fits all approach to leadership. Leadership of a team of 5 employees is very different to leading a company of 500 So Im not going to pretend this is the ultimate guide to leadership such a thing doesn’t exist This is more for the MSK clinic audience business owners with teams under 20
So here goes Michaels top 20 tips written by me and not generated by Chat GPT.
- Set the example of what you expect. If you want people to be on time, be on time yourself. I’ve seen so many leaders not leading by example because they see themselves as somehow special and the rules don’t apply to them.
- Be the hardest working person in the company. When employees see you working your arse off, it inspires them. It seeps into the team. I hate when I see a leader swanning in whenever they like, having long lunches, leaving at 4pm for golf. Your team will not respond well.
- Protect your team from clients. Your team are more important than any one client. I don’t care how big and important they are. You have to show them you have their backs. Do not stand for client bullshit.
- Culture is everything. Do not allow a team member to be disruptive or cause issues. Don’t be afraid to fire people if it’s for the good of the team. Like clients, no one team member is more important than any other and certainly no more important than the team as a whole.
- Knowledge share. It’s really important to involve the team in your thinking processes, why you’re making decisions, especially when it involves their day to day. You never know, you might actually get some great advice. Being a leader isn’t about making all the decisions on your own and keeping everything secret.
- Share your numbers! Being transparent about your company’s position is incredibly important. It makes them feel like they’re important, involved, and it will help them understand decisions you may need to make.
- Share your sucess. If your company is doing incredibly well, generating huge profits, share it. Don’t skimp on wages and rock up in a Ferrari.
- You don’t know everything. Make sure your team know your shortcomings and enable them to fill those gaps. You’ll be far more sucesful when the team says “Michael’s terrible with spreadsheets, let’s give that to John.” That’s how teams are supposed to operate. Hand over the things you can’t do and enable people to take them on.
- Give them confidence to come to you. With anything. It’s so important to have your team feel comfortable speaking with you about problems whether those are business or personal.
- Don’t be the only person people can turn to. Sometimes there may be a reason that your team don’t want to talk to you. Perhaps it’s a personal issue that they’d rather talk to a female team member about or vice versa. Maybe it’s a new employee that’s still a bit scared to rock the boat. Have other people in your business that staff can turn to. Create avenues for everyone to use.
- Don’t be afraid of making hard decisions. Flailing about because you want to be everyone’s friend doesn’t help you, the business or the team. You are there to lead and take responsibility.
- Don’t be a no person. Your default answer to any idea or suggestion should be “Okay, let’s explore it” and unless it’s completely stupid “let’s give it a go and measure its impact”. You have to let people make suggestions and give them the ability to impact the business. If it doesn’t work so what? At least you’ve given it a go and the team know you have confidence in them and aren’t afraid of failing.
- Don’t be afraid to be honest. If someone’s not performing, there’s nothing wrong with telling them. The number of leaders I see saying “Person X is terrible” but never having spoken to them about it is incredible.
- Use numbers, not just your heart. In the healthcare there’s a distinct lake of reporting and metrics. You need to run the business using numbers,
- Consistency matters. Your team don’t need motivational speeches or grand gestures. They need to know how you’ll react on a Monday, a bad day, a stressful day. Stability is underrated.
- Stop hiding behind ‘we’. If you made the call, own it. I can’t count the number of times I said “my bad”. The team will respect you more for it.
- Give direction, not just vision. Saying “we’re going to be the best physio clinic in London” is silly unless people know how you’re going to achieve that. Break things into actionable next steps. “Here’s what we’re doing this quarter. Here’s your bit. Let’s go.”
- Avoid death by meetings. Not much more to say on that.
- Know your team! Everyone is different, whether that’s in terms of compensation or how you talk to them. Some you can shout at, some need more of a hug, others you can be less PC with. I’d suggest knowing their Briggs Myers personality type, it helps. A LOT.
- Finally, targets targets targets. Make sure every team member knows what your business targets are and involve them. These will often be financial but might extend to other business metrics. The team need to know where the business is at all times.
I’m not the perfect leader, far from it. I guess that’s another tip, know your limits. But other than being a bit grumpy when things go wrong (even though I’m very consistent in my grump and rage), generally the teams I’ve had have pretty good things to say about me.
This also isn’t an exhaustive list and I’m sure there are 20 tips that should be in there that other people would suggest and I’ve missed, but hopefully it gives you a bit of a starting point.
