Trust

“Both leadership and monitoring are valueless without trust.  The “contracts” of intent and mission express that trust. Subordinates will understand and carry out their desires and trust by their subordinates that they will be supported when exercising their initiative.”

– Bill Lind, “Maneuver Warfare Handbook”, (excerpt taken from Chet Richards, “Certain To Win”)

You want people to work to their potential?  Then treat them with respect.  Stop introducing people as “he/she works FOR me”.  From now on say, “They work WITH me”.  Everyone knows you’re the boss.  If your ego needs to be stroked, so that everyone knows you’re the boss, then you might want to go to another website.  

In my 35 years of coaching, twenty-three as the head guy, I couldn’t have done what I did without my people not giving their best every single day.  If you saw us walking out to set up a morning workout you wouldn’t have been able to see who the “head coach” was.  WE went to work together.  WE ALL pulled our weight doing what WE knew would make US a championship team.  

I did not have to watch the other coaches to make sure they were getting their work done, I believed in them.  Because of my belief, I could concentrate on what my job was on the field that day.  If I had a new coach on staff, I would put them with me, so they could get an idea of how I wanted the technique and style of our work to be completed.  

As they became comfortable, I would then assign them to work with an assistant, so they could see how other people did OUR work.   When they were ready, I would put them in their own group.  I didn’t watch over them because I would have taken their confidence from them.  After the group was done, we would talk about how things went.  I always asked that my assistants tell me the whole story.  I never yelled at them, because I had prepared them to be successful, so they felt comfortable telling me their struggles.  We would make quick corrections and they would be ready for the next group.  

Make sure you treat each of your people in a way that is consistent with how you would want to be treated.  Understand what I just wrote, treat them how you “want to be treated” not how you “were treated”.  The most dangerous practice in developing your team is to treat them in a harsh unforgiving way.  “That’s how they did it to me.”  Did you like it?  Are these people you?  How much farther along would you have been had you been trained better and taught where your errors were rather than punished?  

When your team is comfortable, they will feel empowered to allow the organization to evolve around them.  When your person makes slight changes, they will enrich the program so that it will grow in ways that may be out of your field of expertise. 

When your team is working together, even when they are apart, they are an extension of you.  How well they do is directly linked to how well you raised them.  If you are constantly worried about them and feel the need to micromanage, then maybe you need to make some changes.