by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

In NY Times ‘Corner Office’ article, July 2018, journalist David Gelles asked Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin Enterprises, “What does great leadership look like?” Branson replied, “Somebody who looks for the best in people. In the same way that you water a plant, you praise, don’t criticize.”

  Sounds easy doesn’t it? It makes a lot of sense, too.  However, what executives perceive as easy and making a lot of sense doesn’t seem to always match their reality. Will we ever break our “critical,” counterintuitive cultural flaw?

Our management oriented culture doesn’t help either. It has pursued a doctrine of ‘what’s going wrong’ for a very long time. By doing so it helps to deflect from our executives’ own shortcomings; that is, keeping the spotlight on failures within staff and their organizations. From an early age we experienced a good deal of criticism from hard-pressed parents who tend to focus on shortcomings within their children and external factors rather than themselves. And so the behavior perpetuates itself.

Looking into the mirror and observing our own faults is tough and, since so many managers are unsure about their next moves and many of their decisions, it can be all too easy for them to deflect attention toward holes in their people’s activities. It can sometimes give them a feeling of assurance that others are “screwing-up” and therefore feel vindicated regarding their own missteps.

How about trying more of a leadership approach instead? It makes a lot of sense because it focuses much more on “what’s going right.” If we’re not in this corner, we need enormous incentives as human beings to change. One possible incentive is to take a big interest in certain successful organizations and note how they managed to progress rapidly despite the odds. Branson has built a number of successful ventures; including Virgin Records, Virgin Airlines, Virgin mobile phone services, as well as hotel and space travel interests from scratch… so he must have done something right.

Herb Kelleher did the same at SouthWest Airlines, where he created a highly positive, people oriented environment and succeeded despite everything his neighboring airline, American Airlines, could do to put a spoke in his wheel. Other successful enterprises like Zappo Shoes, Nucor Steel, SAS Software and FedEx succeeded despite the odds, due in large part to the positive, people oriented environments they developed. Gordon Bethune also succeeded in doing the same at Continental Airlines with an incredible staff turnaround before it was gobbled up by United Airlines.

Another option you might pursue is to visualize how your enterprise might look in three years; if you increase its revenues, profits, infrastructure, staff engagement levels, and customer satisfaction by as much as 20% every year, in all areas, over that period of time. Also visualize what it would take, through specific in-house initiatives, without having to invest a lot – other than time – to accomplish such success.

It’s likely you would start out with a compelling vision and purpose to accomplish the 20% gains you dreamed about. Your less critical respect for your people would ensure they benefit directly from those gains, in the same way that your owners or shareholders do. You would invest in team tune-ups to encourage a feeling of positive progress and you would have fairly regular social events to spur camaraderie. Beyond that, you would figure out ways to empower your teams as much as possible, and certainly inspire them to absorb as much know-how as is available to keep them ahead of the pack. Such activities require a positive mindset, where you focus your people on what’s going right rather than the opposite.

An important adjunct to such activities was defined by Branson’s daughter, Holly, in the same article. As a prospective successor to her father, her answer to the same leadership question was: “A good listener. Make sure you’re listening to everybody in the company and to your customers.”  Positive and genuine listening can be a tremendous motivational factor, especially if you can engage your people in helping resolve the things that come to the surface. It’s much less effective where executives or managers take on the responsibility for resolving such issues themselves: other than where they might be of crucial consequence.

Put your included people together in “pairs” – one of the most effective team formats – to resolve organizational opportunities or issues. By making your people a good part of the solution, they feel included; which is another potent motivator.    

The sort of gains indicated above could, assuming you have a solid product, service or program, come from the following three key actions you should pursue tomorrow:

• Encourage a “what’s going right” culture – a leadership one – not just for the next three weeks, but for the next three years to really reap the benefits.
• Either strenuously study the leadership activities of known successful “what’s going right” enterprises and adapt them to your own company: OR directly involve your people in pinpointing enterprise opportunities and issues, pair them-up, and then challenge them to resolve what’s required in a positive manner…plus some praise at their efforts.
• Follow-through over an extensive period of time is essential in order to reap the benefits of a positive culture. Help pairs clarify the mid-point of their particular initiative, so they can figure out in advance of how to avoid things falling flat or petering out at a crucial point…something that is all too commonplace.

To learn more about workplace people engagement, talk with: