Rick Salinas is a positive leader.
Wrapped in that six-word declaration is a lot more weight than you might initially realize.
The idea of leading in a positive, upbeat fashion is nothing new. Managers like to encourage, employees like to be encouraged, and the need for positive reinforcement is even greater with the cynicism that has gripped work forces as the nation’s economy has faltered.
But to Salinas, the general manager of Barona Resort & Casino, positive leadership is about more than smiling, waving and small talk while in public. It’s even about more than dishing out bonuses and prizes to high performers.
To Salinas, positive leadership is a state of mind, a personal core value that he has made into an organizational core value at Barona. Salinas says the mental fortitude to overcome the negativity spawned by the current state of the economy starts with him, his leadership team and the examples they set.
“Always remain positive,” Salinas says. “People look to you as a leader, especially in difficult times. They need to hear that things are going to be OK and that you’re willing to remain upbeat. That doesn’t mean that you bury your head in the sand and pretend that there aren’t difficulties, but you need to also make sure you’re honest and open about the things that you can celebrate. Whenever you can, find the good things that are happening in the organization and talk about them.”
There is no magic bullet for staying positive. You need to make up your mind that you will promote the good news as much as you have to report the bad news. You have to communicate often, which includes allowing yourself to be accessible to your employees. And you have to set the example you want everyone to follow — and do it every day.
Set the example
Leaders set an example for their employees on both a conscious and subconscious level. Even when you’re not speaking or sending out e-mail blasts, you need to remember that you’re still communicating. Employees will watch your demeanor, your attentiveness and other nonverbal indicators in an attempt to read what is going on behind the scenes.
If you are withdrawn, aloof or exhibiting any other kind of counterproductive behavior, Salinas says you should expect your employees to do the same.
“Your staff emulates the example you set — it’s as simple as that,” Salinas says. “They’re going to behave the way you behave, not according to what the core values say on paper. People emulate their leaders.”
With that in mind, Salinas has made it a point to live the culture for his 2,975 employees. “Live the culture” has become something of a business cliché, but to Salinas, it has a very real meaning. It means that he must always remain aware of how he’s leading, the verbal and nonverbal messages he’s sending, and use his perch at the top of Barona’s hierarchy to spur positive momentum throughout the organization. Part of that is frequent communication with his management team — which serves as an ongoing informal evaluation process to make sure all of Barona’s leaders are communicating the same messages to all of the resort and casino staff.
“On the conscious level, what you have to do is make sure that your leaders, the people who report to you, can articulate your core values and what they mean — what it means to be Barona Resort & Casino — and making sure the people who report to them understand the same thing,” he says. “That’s very conscious. You set a communication process in place to communicate your core values down to all levels of the organization and the meaning behind each value. We start at orientation with new folks and we hammer our vision statement and core values into them constantly.
“You constantly have to do that all the time, and I can’t stress ‘all the time’ enough. It has to be in everything you do, every piece of communication that you put out there. Every communication we have will contain a core value, so that there is always a core value or our mission statement or a business imperative in front of somebody’s face all the time.”
