Do you know what the best predictor is of whether or not a new employee in many large companies will find themselves having a terrific supervisor? Unfortunately, all too often the answer is dumb luck.
Few companies have a genuine commitment to the following MindSet: every employee in this organization has a right to work for an outstanding supervisor.
This simple commitment – if taken seriously – can make an incredible contribution to the success of any company or organization.
For this universal condition to be present, however, it requires organizations have a common vision of what it means to be a leader within that company. Unfortunately, this is seldom the case. Much more often, what we see are various individuals who have been promoted into team leadership positions because of either seniority or technical expertise. Some end up being good at leading humans – many are not. Thus, the average company runs operates by a “leadership roulette” of sorts.
When you have a common vision and understanding for what constitutes a leader within your system – and you provide systematic training to assure that every supervisor understands and embraces that leadership approach – you not only get consistency across your culture, but you get another tremendous benefit: the common language and understanding of leadership across divisional silos enables leaders to actively support the success of one another and the building of stars within and across all divisions and branches of your company.
MindSet refers to this as team leadership. It constitutes a difficult and lofty goal for any company to pursue, but it is an achievement that will pay tremendous dividends. Replacing dumb luck with a universally embraced, purposeful, coherent, and consistent approach to leadership is often the key to a successful, resilient, and lasting enterprise.
Co-Founder of MindSet, LLC.
