Rely on a good staff
Chances are, the best talent is not going to come right to yourdoorstep, so you have to get out of your office and search outthe best workers. In Dzierzawski’s case, the steel industry is atight-knit group, and the cream of the crop is well known. Buthe still has to work his network to get the positives about thecompany around that circle and to potential employees.
Dzierzawski also needs to find out for sure if the employeehas the skills needed to excel at his company.
“Our key employees are, many times, those that are willing totravel, to make sacrifices, especially family sacrifices for thegood of the organization,” he says. “That individual is notalways so easy to find. Our company is very global. It can bevery demanding on an employee to sacrifice weekends because they are traveling to the other side of the world or areat a construction site for some time.”
Dzierzawski estimates that he is out of the office about 40percent of the year. That means once Dzierzawski finds thebest people, he has to empower and heavily rely on his staff toget the job done while he is gone.
“My general approach to being a leader is … relationship building with our colleagues in Germany and with customers,” hesays. “You’ve got to get out of the office to achieve those objectives. You are out of the office, you are focused on the customer,you are focused on colleagues from the headquarters. Therefore,you have to rely on a strong staff to continue to manage the dayto-day operations of the company.”
Making sure your employees know you have faith in themwill go a lot further than if you are constantly looking overtheir shoulder.
“When it comes to executive staff in particular, it’s all aboutempowering people and showing your confidence in thoseindividuals and encouraging them on a regular basis that further increases their confidence in their abilities to performtheir functions,” he says. “So, it’s key that you have good people, again, and that you demonstrate the confidence in them tocarry out their responsibilities. I think it’s very key to avoidmicromanaging. It’s an area that you can easily slip into without recognizing it, though.”
To avoid micromanaging, Dzierzawski recommends pushingthe responsibilities that you can delegate as far down the ladder as possible.
“One key is you’ve got to be informed, especially with theamount of traveling and time away from the office,” he says.“You’ve got to keep informed as best as possible with as muchinformation as possible, especially with all the importantissues. You have to keep informed but, at the same time, try tokeep one step back so you clearly demonstrate how you areempowering the people below you and demonstrate a trust inyour executive team in order to execute those responsibilities.
“I will slip occasionally to micromanaging, but I try to leaveit where my executive staff are the ones making the decisions,”he says. “I leave it up to them to come to me to bounce ideasoff of, share, discuss issues and try to, if they feel it’s necessaryto come to discuss with me, to come to a collective decision onimportant issues.”
