Leading from the bottom. Using your go to energy🔋
When your team looks at you, can they see what you want them to be?
"Rob! - We need to see what you want us to be!"
That was a piece of feedback late last year that one of my Rocketeers gave me.
It really hit me hard. Not in bad way, but in an inspiring way.
Times are changing fast, and it's easy as leaders to be stuck in the mode of telling others what to do because you did the hard yards before. The reality is, you have to earn that respect of experience again.
Because times are different.
Markets are different. Customer challenges are different. Competition is different and technology is way different.
What better way to connect with your team than to get in the trenches and learn the parts that are frustrating, so that you can help solve them.
It's your chance.
When they look at you, can they see what you want them to be?
So how do you do this?
For me, I go back to what I call my IKEA energy. That was my first job pushing trolleys and doing all I could, for anybody to earn my $3.84 an hour. I learnt what service truly was. So I draw back that energy and I remember my hands on the cart, putting one foot on the bottom rail and taking a deep push off the back to get to the other side of the warehouse and deliver the goods to the customer as soon as I could.
What’s your go to energy?
I'd have to go back to my teen years (13) when I was in oilfields of Texas, being the 'lead off man' on our crew. First off the truck, first to go to the task as the tool pusher would tell me 'lead off man, show 'em what to do' which meant start the hard work of whatever assignment we had for the day. Board roads, pipeline, right of way, cellars, etc. My pusher always had me out front, and it made me stronger for doing the work. I learned to just 'get it done' and 'go to it'. Work never stops, it's how you approach it that determines how it is delivered. We would earn a little respite in the hot days of summer because our crew always achieved more. It's all about the approach to the 'play' as my ex-Marine DS crew chief would call it.