The Biggest Blind Spot: Lack of Responsibility as a Role Model

Sitting in a boardroom with your leadership team, you might be seduced into believing that you can drive change for employees while avoiding the pain of self-inventory. You might even imagine that your problems are caused by everyone else--and that you have earned the right to expect the trust of employees without taking personal responsibility as the role model for communication practices that build trust.

It’s no wonder. The demands of customers who want the latest innovation, shareholders who push for short-term gains and a Board of Directors who are eyeing your performance can take up all of your head space.

Leaders like Costco Co-founder Jim Sinegal and current CEO Craig Jelinek are role models for customer service and team spirit at the retail giant.  They have earned the trust of employees--and it has paid off for everyone.  According to glassdoor.com, Costco outperforms Wal-Mart and Target in culture and employee satisfaction. And, Costco is outperforming its competitors when it comes to the top line and the bottom line for the past five years. Jelinek and Sinegal have staked the long-term success of Costco on a culture of happy employees and customers. They believe that if employees are happy, they will be more productive, and together with happy customers, they will reward shareholders.

Is that philosophy too simplistic or too complicated for the rest of us? Our ability to drive profitability begins with how we interact with employees, and pushes out to customers and shareholders. Consider your interactions and relationships within the organization—and how your employees would describe them.

Too often we lose our competitive edge not because we don’t understand business, but because we have forgotten the real work of business, which begins with the people who work for us.

According to Harvard professor and Ph.D. John Kotter, 70% of all change initiatives fail. Why? Not only are we distracted by the latest trends in change management, most leaders involved are, despite their good intentions, still trying to change other people through one-way downloading disguised as a change initiative.

Responsibility begins with your review of the practices that make you unhappy and your contribution to those practices. For example:

If you are not being a role model for the behavior you are expecting from others, your success will be limited to incremental gains here and there. However, if you are willing to take ownership of team practices and collaborate with members to make them better, you will earn the trust of others.  You will overcome one of the biggest blind spots of all—responsibility as a role model for employees, who hold an indispensable key to your success.

About the Author

Lou Solomon is CEO and Founder of Interact, a communications consultancy that helps business leaders and their teams build authenticity, make connections, earn trust and build influence. She is the author of “Say Something Real” and is also an adjunct faculty member at the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte.