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 Today’s guest post is by Mike Figliuolo, the author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. Here’s Mike:
Your team doesn’t trust you. Honestly. They don’t.
Trust is key to effective working relationships; yet, as you climb the corporate ladder, trust seems harder to earn and easier to lose.
What causes a team to not trust their leader? You. Yes, you. You’re unpredictable and your team doesn’t know what to expect from you. But, these are fixable problems.
Trust is about an ability to rely upon or expect a predictable outcome. When you act in ways your team doesn’t expect, it erodes trust and makes them wonder what you’re going to do next. If you want to get a sense for how much your people trust you, you can take this Trusted Leader Assessment online – it only takes 3-5 minutes and you’ll get a comprehensive analysis of your results after taking it.
If you can clearly lay out how your people can expect you to behave in a variety of situations, they’ll have a basic expectation upon which to build a foundation of trust. These expectations have to be personal and meaningful enough to you that they guide your behavior. I refer to these guiding principles as “leadership maxims” which are rules of behavior or conduct. The collection of all your leadership maxims becomes your personal leadership philosophy.
Defining Your Leadership Philosophy
I encourage you as a leader to define your own set of leadership maxims. They can be as simple as one of mine which is “What would Nana say?” For reference, Nana was my grandmother. I can use that maxim to guide my behavior. When faced with difficult choices, I simply ask “what would Nana say?” and my choice becomes clear. When I explain this maxim to my team, they’ll better understand how I make choices and they’ll see my behavior as consistent with this maxim. It is this consistency that forms the basis of trust.
If you want to define a powerful leadership philosophy, here are a few steps to start with:
- Be yourself. When you write your leadership philosophy, spare your team the corporate-speak and tell your personal story instead. They can spot a phony a mile away.
- Give in to emotion. Articulate your leadership philosophy as a set of reminders of stories that have deep emotional meaning for you. The reminders are touchstones to guide your behavior. The stronger the emotions associated with the story, the more likely you are to change your behavior to be consistent with the lesson the story reminds you of.
- Lead yourself. You have to know where you personally want to go in life and define your personal code of conduct before you can lead someone else. Write down reminders of your code as part of your philosophy.
- Lead the thinking. Your job is to set direction, challenge outdated thinking, and define standards. Create reminders that force you to do these things on a regular basis – not only during the annual strategic planning process.
- Lead your people. Get dirty. Know their jobs. Know them as individuals – not as a box on an org chart or a job title. When they know you care about them as a person, they’re much more willing to give you everything they’ve got.
- Lead a balanced life. If you’re burned out, you’re worthless. Set your boundaries and stick to them. Let everyone else know what they are. Balance applies to your work too – have enough work you love to do to balance out all the mindless tasks you don’t enjoy. Again – create some simple yet personal guidelines that remind you make decisions that keep you in balance.
- Pull it all together. Document all your reminders of how you want to behave on a single piece of paper. Tack it up on your wall or carry it on a card in your wallet. Having that simple reminder of your approach to leadership always within arm’s reach will help you live up to that standard every day.
- Share. Tell people your personal story. Share your triumphs and failures. Help them understand the experiences that have made you who you are as a leader. When you share, you help them understand you better. That understanding and the vulnerability you demonstrate while sharing builds trust between you and your team members.
The Bottom Line
The sooner you commit your leadership philosophy to paper, the better off you are. Be sure it is personal, authentic, and free of jargon or buzzwords. Share it with your team. Live it every day. Help them see you’re really not that complex or unpredictable. Morale, productivity, and trust will all increase as a result. Take the Trusted Leader Assessment to see where you stack up. The results can make a big difference in helping you build trust with the members of your team.
 Mike Figliuolo is the author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. He’s the managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development firm. An Honor Graduate from West Point, he served in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding his own company, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Co., and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He regularly writes about leadership on the thoughtLEADERS Blog.
 There is a commercial on television where a woman and man are sitting in a reception area, the woman turns to her husband and says, “I just want to stop paying checking fees” and a woman at the reception desk says, “If you want to stop paying checking fees, then stop paying Checking fees.” I love this commercial because of its simplicity.
Simplicity is beauty, especially when one wishes to rally a large group of people with a single message. The message must be clear. I am not sure what the message is regarding Occupy Wall Street protestors, as what I’ve heard varies and some pieces are complex. This doesn’t work for most folks, many wish to have something clear and simple to follow before they get on board to champion and rally with others. I know I want to know what I am rallying toward and the outcome this rally is to achieve.
Of course most of us know some of the reasons behind what drove people to Occupy Wall Street. I recognize people want desperately for the decision makers who put the world economy at crisis to take notice, to pay for their mistakes, for corporate greed not to get the best of us. I know people are frustrated feeling starved while big CEOs took in buyouts to pay themselves handsomely. I get that, I feel for those sharing their stories on the “We Are the 99 percent” webpage and I ache for the populations of all countries who are suffering with the loss of homes and jobs. What I am not certain I understand is what outcome these folks wish to achieve by doing what appears to me to be an un-focused sit-in.
What I wish everyone understood is that all of us, by choosing to ride the wave of boom and buy, we were a large part of the train that brought us here.
But think about this…WE have the power to change things in this world with actions that can truly affect Wall Street. Think about it, if 99% of us are financially hurting or trying to make sense of where we find ourselves within this brutal economy, then the number-odds are pretty much in our favour.
Mere groups don’t create change, actions do.
Gathering in groups in Tanzania, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain did not accomplish change. Showing the world by committing to being part of covert operations and dangerously sending video footage overseas to present to the world the atrocities occurring within their borders did. Being brave enough to organize with a clear message of what they will and will no longer accept and then taking action to gain world-wide support, this created change. Gathering was only a step in the process. Simple message, understood outcome and actions toward that outcome achieved their goals. They were the majority, and they acted together in solidarity to accomplish an outcome.
Like those countries, the majority here have the power to make every day choices that will speak more loudly than a sit-in or a tent in a central park location. We don’t have a simple message such as, “oust the dictator”. WE do have the power of numbers, but not only numbers with messages on placards, but numbers who make every day choices and take everyday actions to truly guide where our countries need to go, and we have the freedom to do so.
We all need to Occupy OUR Own Street and we can do it by using the power of the purse, even if all you have are pennies.
- If you want a better environment, change your spending habits to green or ecological companies.
- If you want to increase small business, then buy from small business.
- If you want to grow local businesses, then shop at local businesses.
- If you want more jobs within this country, start purchasing brands made only in this country (if you can find some).
- If you want better transit then choose to ride on transit until the sheer numbers force it.
- If you don’t like how a company works, fight it by not giving it your money, then support the kind of company you trust.
- Be strong enough to fray from the party line and vote for what is best for the 99% and your country instead – listen to your heart not the rhetoric.
- Be willing to teach your children fiscal responsibility by showing them and modeling for them the kind of change we need to take as individuals to contribute to positive change.
You got it, do the research, make the choices and then do these things in large numbers and there you have the power. But, you have to know the outcome you wish to achieve so you know what to choose, and then you need to choose it. Stop whining because things have changed and you want it back the old comfortable way but still want OTHERS to drive the change for you.
Right now isn’t comfortable for most of us, right now we are in a great shift and shift means leaving our comfort zones and making decisions that will CREATE the change, but we need to know what we want.
CHOOSE, ACT, and make it YOUR responsibility right at home:
- Share what you are doing with others and give them a chance to make it their responsibility, and then share it some more.
- Tell people where they can buy, how they can make different decisions, find a way and a path that makes sense, movements require action.
- Show people what actions will help, where they can turn and what support you have found.
- Repeat the actions over and over again in as many numbers as you can to drive change.
Be the leader you were meant to be…Occupy YOUR Street.
 Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.
You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak
Are cell phone warranties worth it? Based on my personal experience, I don’t think so. This is a customer service post, a little experiential story about my opinion on cell phone warranties…
I purchased a cell phone at Future Shop in 2010. This was already an expensive purchase because the previous cell phone wasn’t working and the repair option was more expensive than the purchase option. Due to this, I was talked into buying what the guy referred to as ‘insurance’ for my phone, Future Shop calls it a PEP (product exchange plan) Warranty. Now, a year down the road I feel a bit misrepresented because I was under the understanding it could be cancelled (I just didn’t realize it had to be done within 14 days of purchase).
I’ve never needed the warranty; the phone never broke nor was it lost, nothing. I did, however dislike that phone model immeasurably and finally contacted my service provider (different company) for an upgrade to a better phone at my own expense – not through Future Shop. Thus, I am no longer using the phone for which the insurance policy was purchased and the phone is not being used by anyone. I made the assumption that by no longer having that phone in service, the warranty could be cancelled. Let’s take a look at that warranty cost:
Cost of warranty to date: approx 125.88
Owing until warranty ends: approx 251.76
Total cost of warranty: 377.53
This is what I discovered today
- I can transfer the warranty to another phone, oh but wait, it must be one purchased from Future Shop.
- Warranties at Future Shop can NEVER be cancelled.
So, I get to receive a charge on my credit card every month for nothing, zippo. I am receiving no service from it, there is no customer satisfaction because of it, and it feels rather slimy to realize that when a warranty is no longer needed or worth the money spent on it that there is no option but to pay it. Apparently, it is a company policy to NEVER allow customers to cancel their warranties. I asked @FS_Connect on Twitter to better explain it by saying,
“@FS_Connect – what wise words can you use to explain no cancellations on warranties for cell phones no longer used? would luv to understand”
But so far they have chosen not to answer….perhaps they are looking into it???
I can cancel my life insurance policy, my home insurance policy, my car insurance policy. I can stop paying for a lot of things when I no longer need them, but not this phone warranty.
A question comes to mind, is there a commission on these at the store level? Is this why they are pushed so hard? From the report in the next paragraph stores can gain as much as 50% the cost of the warranty by selling it to you.
Reading this post at the Financial Edge piqued my interest on warranties in general and I wish to add this; by the time a 3 year warranty is completed, pricing for many electronic items generally comes down and your total cost of a new one often equals or is less than that of the warranty costs already spent on the old one.
I understand why cell phone service carriers require a locked in term for a new phone, it is because they are trading the price of a new phone at a discount and can afford to do that so long as you are tied into the plan they devise. There is a give and take here, it costs them to offer free phones for a 3 year plan – they are giving you something in agreement for the deal and it makes sense. When it comes to electronics in general, it is this author’s belief that a warranty is not worth the paper it is written on. Technology is travelling at a rate where expecting 3 years for a cell phone is equivalent to expecting 25 years from a computer, so I have learned my lesson.
So, what exactly did I get for this warranty? $377.53 of ‘peace of mind’, oh but this comfort only covers a year, of course that was the year that the Manufacturer’s warranty covered so what did I really get? A monthly visa charge. The next two years I will see a credit card charge on my Visa for 10.49 a month and it will be a fantastic reminder of how unfortunate it is that Future shop has lost my business, (not to mention all other companies any possible warranty purchases). You see, for the 251.76 out of that 377.53 I have no product or service coming my way, nothing will be exchanged, the insurance is moot. In fact, I now carry a loss for which I cannot recoup, and unlike service provider terms, I can’t even buy myself out of this one. I can only remind myself – buyer beware of all things warranty.
We are living in a new age, Future Shop – an age of customer experience and customer satisfaction. I am on to the electronics warranties deal and now know this is where your electronic profits come from, and am happy to share the story with anyone and everyone who will listen. Why? Because I feel having purchased a warranty is like having been talked into buying thin air.
Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.
You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak
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