Managing “things” in the work environment can be difficult.
At work, “things” (like money, resources, assets, products, copy machines, etc.) can get scarce, can break, and can cause frustration. But with things, we at least have a chance of success when it comes to managing them. However, when it comes to our most important asset, people, we really don’t have the ability to manage them. Our best bet is to let them manage themselves and we simply try our best to lead them in a direction for team success.
When it comes to leading people, one of the greatest difficulties is balancing the variables associated with human beings. First, we have to be able to balance everything in our own lives. Then we have to deal with others who have the same balancing acts in their lives.
How many of you have balancing everyday life figured out? How many of you find it a constant challenge simply to manage your own work/life issues? Do the variables in your life keep changing?
It can sometimes seem like we are that person who has too many spinning plates on sticks to manage. Except we actually have it much worse than that… our “spinning plates,” meaning our people, have opinions, bad hair days, attitude problems, and competing interest outside of our own that we have to deal with.
So, with all the variables in managing our own schedules, resources, needs, desires, etc, one might imagine the truly massive undertaking leading others might be.
I mean think about it… human being are very complex creatures.
We come to each day with troubles, schedules, family situations, financial issues, varied histories, frustrations, joys, conflicts, and much more. Leading people can become quite difficult if who we are leading are having personal difficulties with balancing their end of the equation.
And when other people’s problems spills over into our laps, it can be downright maddening. Which brings me to the subject of toasters.
Yes, I said toasters. Specifically, toasters with variable heating dials. These are delightful kitchen devices that can heat and crisp our bread slices, bagels, and pastries to make them delicious if they are properly set. If they are not properly set, they can produce an unrecognizable smoking or flaming piece of charcoal. You see, just like toasting bread on a normal setting, when a skilled leader has an employee issue infiltrate their world, most of the time they handle it well. They can produce a warm and welcome response. A properly functioning leader of people is like a properly calibrated toaster would whose dial is set correctly for the task.
However, many people are built like toasters whose dial settings goes from 1 to 7+ when it should probably stop at a setting of 3 1/2. Occasionally, something happens in the kitchen and the dial gets bumped up to that 7+ setting. A slice of bread goes in and something charred and ruined comes out.
Have you ever had a boss make you feel like their dial was set too high? Did they char your back side because they were out of control? Did something bump their dial setting up to 7?
Or, do you possibly char your people on occasion? Does this happen in your world of leading others in a busy, complex, plate-spinning work environment? Do you allow your dial to get bumped up to a 6, 8, or even 10? Do you even notice when your dial has been moved up? Meaning: do you overreact and char people who really were simply looking for or needing your help?
Take a look at your “leadership toaster” and examine how you are built. Do you need to fix your dial so that it cannot get bumped up to a scorching level?
Perhaps you need to recalibrate how you are fundamentally built so that you can install some natural governors in your leadership roles to keep from toasting your employees past the point of recognition. This may be a great self assessment, or perhaps some coaching. Or, perhaps you need to have pressure relief valves installed into your life. This would allow you to let off steam when the pressure of managing your own life, while balancing your leadership responsibilities, mounts too high. Have you been on a vacation in a while?
What are you doing to examine who you are as a leader, where you are on your leadership journey, and what you are doing to recalibrate your dial so that you can lead others more effectively?
----------------------------------------------- Tom Schulte is Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership & CEO of Recalibrate Professional Services. He can be reached at [email protected]
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