Page 172 - Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders

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GREAT COMMUNICATION SECRETS OF GREAT LEADERS
leader-coach can call aside an employee who is not pulling his or her weight,
e.g., not sharing information with other employees, showing up late for meet-
ings, or regularly leaving work early. The coach can warn the employee that if
the deficient behavior does not improve, the employee will suffer the conse-
quences: restriction of perks, forfeit of bonus pay, or the loss of a promotion.
Discipline will be effective, however, only when it is backed by trust.
Every coach must focus on behavior (what the person does) rather than per-
sonality (what the person is) and must communicate that any punishment is
due to deficient behavior. Vince Lombardi was famous for having a star player
or two whom he could publicly excoriate. Sometimes this was deserved; other
times it was an act to get the team’s attention. Lombardi did not want to play
favorites, and when he purposely went after a star player, everyone else would
fall into line.
Discipline need not always connote punishment. Discipline can take the
form of adhering to a value system, even in the face of adversity. Coaches
teach discipline not so much by their words as by their example. When
employees see a coach making a tough decision, particularly one that involves
personal inconvenience, they learn to respect that coach. Effective discipline
ultimately leads to self-discipline, with employees taking responsibility for
themselves and their actions. When this occurs, the coach has done the job.

RECOGNIZE ACHIEVEMENT

The flip side of discipline is recognition. Individuals who do a good job need
to be recognized. Recognition accomplishes several things: It lets the person
know that she or he is doing a good job, it helps raise the person’s confidence
and encourages him or her to continue achieving, and it lets others know that
the individual is doing a good job and is appreciated. Rudy Giuliani recog-
nizes the contributions of his people by mentioning their names in his writings
and his public statements. Shelly Lazarus at Ogilvy & Mather fosters a culture
in which individual contributions matter; she calls her agency a “meritoc-
3
racy.” Mother Teresa believed that recognition for service has its own
rewards, the sense of serving God by serving the people who are most in need.
It is important to separate the concepts of recognition and reward. Recog-
nition is the acknowledgement that someone has done a good job; reward is
the benefit associated with the recognition. In other words, employees are rec-
ognized for a good job and rewarded with a gift or bonus. Many companies
practice pay for performance, awarding bonuses for the achievement of goals.
While people may debate the benefits of this system, in such a system it falls
to the manager, who sometimes also functions as coach, to evaluate an indi-
vidual’s eligibility for bonus. This practice clouds the development role of