Focusing on influencing, inspiring, and investing in people to bring their strengths and talents to the conversation is part of the engagement process that focuses on being effective and delivering performance. We first have to focus on people, then performance and then the processes. All too often we start with process, then performance and last the people. Just like Simon Sinek says, Start with Why. Our “why” as leaders in government is our people.
As someone who is high in communication and maximizer (Clifton Strengths), I naturally see people through a lens of strength. I care deeply about the development and growth of people. I love to celebrate, recognize/highlight and share stories about the growth, success and accomplishments of each person to help provide encouragement and foster momentum. An attitude of gratitude for their contributions as humans goes a long way. This allows people to feel valued, known and seen by me and the organization.
In government, we have to recognize that our responsibility as leaders is ‘improving other’s lives’ and therefore we have to create a culture and environment where people can feel supported to grow, develop and build momentum in the direction of their potential and contribute by adding value to our collective purpose i.e., create new leaders at all levels.
In reality, one of the greatest opportunities for effective leadership and innovation is evolving managers/supervisors into leaders and is critical to the success of the team’s effectiveness and innovation. And this requires showing them respect, believing in them, supporting them, trusting them, and giving them opportunities so that they can experience it and give it in return. This requires a leader to care, support and invest in the talent. Often we talk to them about leadership and innovation, yet we don’t always take the time to show them the difference, or align our talk with our actions to let them experience it, so they fall back to the mindset of how they believe they got promoted to the position for their technical expertise. As a result, they inform and instruct their teams how to do things like they did technically, which stifles leadership development, creativity and innovation.