Make time to connect
If leading starts with teaching, McLane says teaching starts with
communicating.
A good leader must be a good communicator — a job that is
made exponentially harder if your business is spread throughout
multiple countries as is McLane’s business. But there is no excuse
for inadequate communication.
“That is just the job of a leader, being in front of people,” he says.
“Our company has a lot of people, about 9,000 employees spread all
throughout the country, so I have spent a lot of time going to different
divisions, talking to employees and getting to know just about everyone by their first names.”
As your business grows, it increases the importance of having
competent leadership beneath you. You can’t be in all places and
communicate with everyone on an as-needed basis the way you
might have been able to when your company was smaller, which
means you need to be able to know what to delegate to others,
who to delegate to and when to do the delegating.
Knowing how to delegate the operational tasks you used to perform will free up your time to get out among your employees on a
regular basis.
“Delegation is when you can clearly, clearly show someone or
groups of people what needs to be done,” McLane says. “You can’t
do all of the details as your business grows. You have to have the
skills and ability to pass on the responsibility to the people who
handle the day-to-day work, then hold those people accountable.
“Then, you free yourself to be upfront. You have to be that
upfront leader, be able to communicate with employees, walk around and see what kind of job they’re doing, and if they’re doing
a good job, to praise them.”
As your business grows internationally, the ability to free up your
time through delegation will become essential when it comes to
communicating on a personal level with your employees. Between
traveling for business matters and traveling for baseball matters,
it’s something McLane says he has learned firsthand.
“I recently returned from eight days in Poland, where we have a
grocery distribution system,” he says. “I visited almost all of our
employees there just as I do in the U.S., and we have almost 450
employees in Poland. Just like in this country, you have to take the
time to communicate, express your thoughts and ideas, and learn to
listen.”
