Develop your people
One of the other things Wilson spends his time doing is focusing on things that help create a solid reputation for his organization.
“Develop a reputation as someone who is focused on people development and leadership development,” Wilson says. “Then you meet people internally over the course of years, and you become a magnet for talent. That’s another objective for any great leader — to develop a reputation that people want to work in that division. They want to work in that company because they know they’re going to get great leadership, great mentoring, honest and fair reviews — all those things that people want from an employer.”
One of the best ways to do this is to open the lines of communication by giving people constructive feedback on their work.
“One of the most valuable things that a leader can do is provide really useful feedback to their people,” Wilson says. “In order to provide useful feedback, they need to be thinking about observing the people doing their work, being in the moment, spending time with their people and the customer talking about their business issues.”
For example, a few years ago, one of Wilson’s managers came to him and told him that one person wasn’t going to make it in their group. Wilson asked why, and he learned it was because the person had presented to a customer group and had failed to hold the group’s attention, but the presenter thought he had done a good job. The manager said he simply didn’t get it, so he wouldn’t make it.
Wilson saw a different situation and suggested he go back to that person and ask why the person thought it went well. He also suggested to ask why there weren’t any questions, then use that to segue into explaining that the audience may have drifted and show him ways he could better hold people’s attention next time.
“Great leaders know how to provide useful feedback in the moment,” Wilson says. “Imagine that individual that the manager would have told, ‘You don’t get it; you’re not going to make it.’ That manager had already written that person off versus taking five minutes and saying, ‘How do you think the meeting went?’”
In order to provide good constructive feedback, you have to have open conversations with people to build a trust with them.
“General
ly speaking, people want to know the truth, but they want to hear the truth in a manner that is encouraging,” Wilson says. “What I have found is there are leaders that have difficulty providing feedback because they are concerned that it will be perceived as negative reinforcement. In reality, you can sit down, and once again, it’s a great questioning opportunity.”
He says to ask what’s working in their role and what’s not working. Ask what areas people have concerns in. By opening up with these questions each time you interact with people, it shows your concern for them, and they will be more likely to listen to constructive criticismin the future if they feel you understandthem and their role.
“The power in identifying a gap in performance isn’t identifying the gap,” Wilson says. “It’s identifying the solution to close the gap, but you have to baseline it around the gap and then work together to find the best way to close the gap.”
