When you become the
leader of an organization, you gain a whole lot more than a
prestigious title.
You also put yourself squarely
under the microscope of all the
people who work for you, says
Dana Gibson, president of
National University. If you’re having a bad day, you need to think
twice before you pound your fist
into the wall or let out a hearty
scream because people will be
watching.
Fortunately, the same people
tend to notice when you do
something positive. With the
goal of fostering a healthy culture, Gibson says she tries to let
her passion for her job shine
through in her personality and in
the way she conducts business
at California’s second-largest private, nonprofit school.
By being both a good listener
and a collaborative leader,
Gibson seeks to demonstrate
through her actions that she
wants everyone to be part of the
school’s success.
Smart Business spoke with
Gibson about learning how to
interact with people by watching
how they interact with others.
See your people. Even if you’re a
company in one location, it’s
getting out to different departments. If you have more than
one location, go to the different
locations so that you get kind
of a feel. It’s not just listening to
people but seeing some of the
informal things, as well, that
you learn by being out.
See how folks interact with
some of their supervisors. Let’s
say an individual and you go
out, and you’re visiting with
another manager in their office;
you can see how they interact
with their support staff.
You learn a lot about people
when you see those interactions. It helps you understand
how you need to interact with
them, and it lets you see how
they interact with other people.
That usually shows a comfort
level that they have. If they are
more structured on how they
communicate or if they are
more informal, that helps you
to know how to communicate
with that person.
Talk to your people. When they
do a good job, say, ‘That was a
really great effort.’ It’s being
sincere when you do that. Give
them the ability to make mistakes. If they acknowledge they
have made a mistake and they
need to correct it and they’ve
learned from it, that’s also beneficial to the organization.
None of us want to make
mistakes as an organization,
but human nature is we are all
going to make them. It’s
acknowledging that that’s
going to happen and letting
people realize that they need
to come forward and correct
them and move on.
It’s a positive when they are
doing things well and giving
them kudos and being sincere.
On the other side, when you have some issues, it’s discussing that through and using
it as a learning experience.
Guide, but don’t lecture. It’s very
important for people to figure
out how to accomplish what
they need to do. It’s the
leader’s job to make suggestions because many times, that
helps them focus where they
need to be spending their time
and effort.
There’s a way you can do that
and not micromanage everything they are doing. It’s more
making suggestions along the
way as you see things and yet,
at the same time, letting them
move forward.
I’m not a micromanager, but I
also like to know what’s going
on and to make suggestions. Try
not to give them specific details.
It’s more giving them guidance instead of details. Like
instead of giving them a list of
here’s the five steps to do this,
it’s suggesting you need to
make sure that you communicate with the right parties while
you are doing this because
there is a lot of vested interest
in it.
By doing that, you hope they
come up with a plan that makes
sure they are communicating
with all the people they need to.
Keep the focus on the team. Emphasize that everybody can
say their piece, and we all listen. We might decide on a path
that not everybody agrees with
100 percent. It’s setting that up
and being very open and blunt about it when you have the discussion.
Here’s the controversial
thing, and we have to make
some decisions on it. We’re not
all going to agree 100 percent,
but once we make the decision
here, we’re all 100 percent supportive of it.
Be responsive. It’s the 80-20 rule.
Eighty percent of the things
take 20 percent of the time. It’s
really trying to figure out what
are those 20 percent that need
to take more time. Most of the
people that have worked for
me have always said they
found that I was very accessible, and it was because I
would respond quickly to most
of their items.
If nine out of 10 items get a
really quick response, but that one that you need to work on
takes longer, they don’t really
notice it because you have gotten back to them so quickly on
most of the things.
Some people set aside a specific time of day. I’ve never
found that works well for me
because there are too many
pulls on your time. If I’ve got
an hour to go through all these
communications, it’s trying to
get through a vast majority of
them in 20 or 30 minutes and
then spending time on the
other ones.
You can be a captive of your
calendar sometimes. Not
everything is as structured as
you’d sometimes like it to be.
Don’t let that rattle you. You
can get back on track.
HOW TO REACH: National University, (800) 628-8648 or www.nu.edu