It’s never a “good time” for maintenance. Maintenance is the easiest thing to put off—not just in leadership but in all of life!
Procrastination can be a temptation for the very best leaders. But LATER is not an option when it comes to leading.
Small problems left unaddressed will grow bigger and come back to haunt you.
I’ve seen it time and time again.
Sometimes, it feels impossible to invest in leadership training and company culture transformation when you just need to meet this quarter’s expected financial results.
Implementing leadership development can feel like trying to change a tire on your car while it’s going 70 mph on the highway, because you’re so busy.
But if you don’t change your tires and do regular maintenance, your vehicle breaks down at an even WORSE time.
Being from Alabama, it makes me think of Nascar and the Talladega 500…imagine a high performance race car that never comes in for a pit stop during the race.
I had a client once who was just letting things go. In his mind, he was making the effort to ‘not micromanage’…so he was just trusting the leadership team to do what they were supposed to do. He wasn’t doing any check-ins, no regular 1:1s, no regularly scheduled follow-ups.
He had no idea if or how his employees were growing and advancing. He didn’t have a true pulse of the organization’s culture—to know whether it was healthy or unhealthy. It didn’t end well for him.
Regardless of the level of leaders in your organization, they need connection, collaboration, check-in and support. Leadership culture can never be left on autopilot.
The second law of thermodynamics says that if things are left alone, they get worse not better. You CAN’T just set it and forget it. Leadership is an ongoing, CREATIVE process.
Effective leadership is like keeping your MAINTENANCE done on a regular basis. You have to come in for a regular pit stop just to remain in the race.
It’s the routine, unnoticed, consistent things that we do as leaders that can have the greatest impact.
It’s—taking care of our teams and investing in our people that will have a long-term benefit (even if we don’t see it right away)—and ultimately, it does translates to the company’s bottom line!
