People & Values Leadership Lessons - Part One

The following lessons were originally published in Simple Truths of Leadership. Adapted and reprinted with the permission of authors Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley.


Simple Truth # 1

Servant Leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships.

Organizational leaders often have an either/or attitude towards results and people. For example, leaders who focus only on results may have trouble creating great relationships with their people and leaders who focus mainly on relationships may have trouble getting desired results.

2 parts of servant leadership:

  1. The leadership aspect focuses on vision, direction, and results.
  2. The servant aspect focuses on working side by side in relationship with your people.

Application:

  • Let your people know what they’re being asked to do by setting the vision and direction with their help.
  • During implementation, assure your people you are there to serve, not be served. Your responsibility is to help them accomplish their goals through training, feedback, listening, and communication

Simple Truth # 2

Every great organization has a compelling vision

Our Vision. Our Values. Our University.

3 Elements Of Practice For A Compelling Vision

  1. Make sure your team members know what business they are in.
    • How does the work of your team contribute to bringing our vision to life?
  2. Confirm your team members know where they are going.
    • What are your team members working towards? What does the finish line look like?
  3. Find out if your team members are clear on Our Values.
    • How can the values be operationalized in their work?

Simple Truth # 3

Servant Leaders turn the traditional pyramid upside down

The minute you think you work for the person above you, you assume that person—your boss—is responsible and your job is to be responsive to your boss’s whims or wishes.

Who is your team working for? You or the customer?

Empower your people by letting them bring their brains to work. In this way, they become responsible – able to respond – to their internal and external customers. Your job is to be responsive to them, helping them to accomplish their goals.

Simple Truth # 4

All good performance starts with clear goals.

To manage your team’s performance, have one-on-one meetings with your people to establish observable and measurable goals around their key areas of responsibility. Then you and they will have clear performance indicators to help determine whether they are making progress or need coaching to improve.

Effective performance management always begins with clear, observable, measurable goals.

As a leader, I believe one of the best actions you can take is setting clear expectations to take the guess work out of how you want your team to perform.

The excerpts published above are used with permission of the authors of "Simple Truths of Leadership," and have been adapted for the TTUHSC team by Jason R. Weber. For questions and more information, please email Jason Weber, or visit the Office of People and Values website.