Maricela, I particularly like your connection between servant leadership and sports. I think it provides timely examples for us to consider when bridging theory with practice (and determining whether or not our theories hold true in real life).

Robert, I have always been a fan of the weekly 1:1. Done well, I find the practice akin to mentoring (a practice critical to personal/professional growth and development). And I think that your organization’s model, in particular, provides an important and necessary framework for the successful delivery of feedback. I like the structure created by the three domains – and the expectation that feedback in one or more of the domains is intended to promote and encourage high performance. Over time, the regularity of these meetings also allows a more meaningful relationship to develop between supervisors and their direct reports – further encouraging productive and genuine conversations about performance (both when performance exceeds expectations and, on occasion, when it falls short).

Mentorship is also critical to engagement. If you ask almost any leader in the veteran, boomer or x-generations, they will tell you they had a professional (non-family) mentor who helped with their careers. Today, leaders seem too impatient and overscheduled to mentor. I know I can be guilty of this. This week I was at the White House with a group of business leaders from our region to discuss job creation and the economy. U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios talked about an initiative called “impact investing” which refers to funding specific mentoring programs for youth around the country. It reinforces that millenials crave engagement and networking just like we all do, but they need direction. We all need to play a role in developing them as future leaders.

Feedback is the most important manager tool in any situation and I have used it successfully for nearly 10 years in a range of settings including coaching basketball to managing lifeguards in stressful rescues. It is a model I first learned about, and continue to learn about, from The Manager Tools series of podcasts and would highly recommend them to everyone. (http://manager-tools.com/podcasts/manager-tools).

At my organisation we have defined high performance as the multiple of technical competence x personal competence x cultural alignment. So when we provide feedback (weekly at 30min 1:1 meetings with all direct reports) we are in effect doing a performance review every week and the feedback can be provided in any or each of the three domains. With this clearly articulated a direct report knows that feedback about personal competence is not judgemental it is part of how their performance is being measured and is almost always taken in the spirit in which it is offered – to encourage high performance. Fundamental to this is asking the team member if they are open to feedback on their personal competence. If they say no, this speaks to their alignment to the organisational culture (openness) and is noted in their performance review.

Being able to deliver (and receive) feedback effectively is something that can be learned, needs to be practised and in my experience has underpinned the success of our team and organisation.

It is important to hire and coach effectively. However, not all managers are able to hire everyone on their team. Many times managers have inherited staff. Still, it is the manager’s responsibility to cultivate a teamwork environment. They can find employees’ strengths and utilize them in ways that would benefit the organization. Instead of pointing out what “they” are doing wrong, there are other ways to resolve a potential critical situation. A manager can identify the strong points and exchange in dialogue on how to continue to align employees’ strength with the organization’s mission and guiding principles. This not only benefits the organization, but it makes the manager into a leader.

Whenever leadership comes up, I think about sports. You can often see who the leader-first players are from the servant-leaders. For example, we have seen very talented players such as Terrell Owens, LeBron James and Deion Sanders who put their statistics first, then teamwork second. Typically they flaunt their wealth, cars, and other material possessions. They also can be showboats and difficult to play with on the team. Then, there are the servant-leader players like Peyton Manning who can coach players to win games together. Finally, we should also be optimistic that a leader-first person can become a servant-leader. Tony Romo has been growing into a servant-leader player and Jason Kidd changed into a servant-leader when he joined the Dallas Mavericks. We all have room to grow.

I appreciate your comments. Thanks for sharing. A couple of thoughts:

1. You raise a very good point: “Some people are afraid to criticize.” I’ve definitely witnessed this first-hand. It has a profound (negative) impact on the organization, as well as the individual. Which brings me to your second point (which I also support wholeheartedly).

2. “The goal… is to achieve the best for the association.” It reminds me of Peter O’Neil’s discussion of servant leadership (also at the LSAE annual convention last week). The phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in “The Servant as Leader,” an essay he first published in 1970. In that essay, he said:

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

In other words, as servant leaders we have a responsibility to our constituents (and, in turn, our staff) to ensure growth, development, learning, quality and excellence.

Some people are afraid to criticize anything because they fear conflict and don’t want anybody to think badly of them. But constructive criticism is necessary to identify what needs to be changed, rearranged, or corrected. It can be done without hurting people. (It is usually more of a critique, than a criticism, anyway).

The goal, when constructive criticism is offered, is to achieve the best for the association or business. If everybody shares that goal, the “criticism” is more likely to be seen as positive.