One of the painful mistakes I made as a leader…
Earlier in my career, I was the Senior HR leader for a company that grew from 250 to 10,000 employees in less than 5 years through a series of mergers & acquisitions.
As the company grew, so did my team – from 1 employee to 40 in the corporate office, with additional regional HR staff in the field.
50% of our role in HR at that company was to build and manage the infrastructure of HR & payroll – the practices, policies, procedures, benefit/compensation programs, employee relations, hiring & promotion practices, etc. that all of the new companies would operate by.
The other 50% of our role was to do due diligence, plan the integration, onboard, educate and shift the culture of the incoming, new acquired & merging companies.
It was probably one of the most exciting & fulfilling roles for a leader to have (at least one who tends to get bored easily and loves challenges).
A mistake I made, however, was thinking that EVERYONE thrives in. And that they enjoy working in such a fast-paced, challenging, complex environment.
Not everyone enjoys running around with their hair on fire like I did! (pun intended – with the flaming red hair 😉)
We really did build a business dream team but only after I realized that not everyone enjoys the tight timeframes, aggressive goals, and challenges that motivated me.
My willingness to say ‘yes’ to too many things & operate with an “if there’s a will, there’s a way” perspective caused me to stretch my team way past their normal capacity – which created high levels of stress and often caused them to second guess their own capabilities.
Not everyone is ‘wired’ the same – nor do they have the same work-related values.
But that doesn’t make them wrong…and it doesn’t make them a less valuable team member.
In order to be more effective as a leader, I had to learn to:
- first…slow down
- be more intentional about what I said ‘yes’ to and what I committed my team to,
- find out the ideal work pace & type of work that truly engaged each team member,
- recognize & acknowledge the value of those who didn’t prefer the same pace I did, and
- position them so that they could make their highest contribution to the team.
A key lesson I learned…not every employee has to be an ‘initiator’ to be a contributor…
We also need ‘finishers’…those who are willing to stay steady, maintain the process, be consistent, support and are continually reliable/dependable.
We actually need both the tortoise and the hair on a team to bring balance. Both bring value, perspective, energy and contribute to long-term success.
What mistake in leadership have YOU made that later became a lesson for you?