Leadership in Giving

 

Leadership Is Giving

When I was a young boy I recall an occasion when my dad, who was a hard worker all is life, had the opportunity to move into a supervisory role at his employer. My dad had always been a "hand" as he always referred to himself, as to say, he was a worker...told the person who was offering him the promotion that he did not want the promotion because it was too much trouble dealing with the on again, off again issues of dealing with personnel matters and as he told the story as I remember it, wasn't worth the aggravation and added stress he wanted no part of, he just wanted to do his job.

This was the example I had as a young boy, I never thought of my dad as anything other than a strong, hard working and dependable person, which he most definitely was, but it always left a question in my mind. Why would he not want to be a boss, as I thought about it. My answer would come years later.

When I entered the workforce as a teenager, actually at 13 years old, far too soon to be considered legal working age. But then again, I needed to work to buy my own clothes for school and to have my own spending money because things just were so difficult from a financial perspective at home. Which again had me wondering, had my dad taken the supervision position, he would be making more money and in my child's mind, that would solve all of our problems, if only I knew what I didn't know then. What I do recall is that I did not share my dads ideas about being a boss. Even at that early age I felt that I wanted to be a decision marker, a difference maker and someone who could be a leader of others.
 

Taking the Steps Necessary

After working for a brief period after graduating high school, I became a department manager at 19 years old, I had earned the opportunity because I was a hard worker, showed up everyday, got the job done and stayed as long as was needed to make sure we were set for success the next day. Which is what I had to offer, and management took notice. But I had no training to understand what I needed to know to be a leader of others. That part would take much more time than I ever could have imagined. After all, what I thought of what a leader did was to tell others what to do, and make corrections when needed. It never crossed my mind that being a leader was anything other than that alone...and how I would be assessed by management.

I had held the assistant manager position for approximately one year prior to being promoted to manager. In that one year experience our department went through numerous changes in personnel coming off of a record grand opening for the store I was in. The person who had been my manager was being called to go to another location which opened the opportunity for me...and I wanted it, but I wasn't sure what I really was getting into...I had skills to develop and lessons to learn, and there would be many. But above all was how was I going make those around me better. I had no idea, at first, how to do that because all I was focused on was getting the job done.

What I knew about being a leader was minimal at best, and it consisted of things I thought were primary to leading others, like holding people accountable, taking away excuses, addressing mistakes and telling others what to do, which I know now is far from what a leader does or is.

I was not a good leader at first for all these and other reasons. I felt like if I led by example and was the hardest working person in the department that others would catch on and up. It was not nearly that simple, in fact that style made others actually weaker which in turn made my job harder as a manager. I became irritable and hard to communicate with because I simply could not figure out how to get the most out of my team, it was a struggle everyday.

Compounding matters was the leadership style of my supervisor which was to just pound on people to get the work done. So changing my style was not encouraged, in fact I only was pushed to be tougher. And this was my existence as a leader in my early 20s. With mixed results from a personnel and performance perspective.

Pushing Through

By the time I made the decision to make a career in retail I was in my late 20s and recently promoted to a merchandiser role and still trying the develop my leadership skills, it was a slow but steady process. The company I worked for provided some effort to teach us some leadership skills by assessing ourselves first. But we really never received the type of resources needed to move the needle on our individual leadership improvement, because all our our exercises were for the total team, and did not address individual styles, personalities and needs.

A predictive index (PI) when I was 30 would have been a huge help, but that would not come for another 20 years, when I was 50. In the meantime, I had to figure it out almost on my own on how to be a leader. The answer was not so easy to come by, in fact it was painful.

Seeing the Light

I became an executive at 29 years old, with the same company I had started with some eleven years earlier, but the issue still existed. My leadership skills needed work, and I knew it, the trouble was the company leadership was focused on results only and not so much interested in how people were doing and how we could do better by them, to provide them what they needed...it was always about what we needed. In essence I had become part of the equation or problem as it were.

On one occasion my supervisor, and General Manager for the entire company who was boisterous with a big forceful personality who truly enjoyed a good argument, which he always seemed to win, came to me one day fired up and mad about a situation at one of our stores and he told me in no uncertain terms to fire the person he was mad at over something which was not unethical, immoral or illegal...it had to do with the conditions of the department when the owner of the company visited and the GM was simply passing down orders. It was the first time I had ever stood up and said what I felt in my total being, I told him, I would not fire the person in question, because he had not done anything which could be considered for termination...it was only because someone was mad over something which they did not have all of the information, but was ready to pull the trigger an ruin a persons day, and possibly their short term life over and I was not going to accept it. I told my supervisor we can line them all up together and fire them all...but who do you have to replace them with? To which I got no reply other than to fix it. To say blood pressures were high would be to say its cold in Antarctica...it was hot.

It was My Moment

It was the very first time I felt like I was a leader, a true leader who stood up for others when they needed me. And it set me on a path that carried me until the end of my days in the retail industry. But between then and my last day there would be more bumps in the road, but what was gained was invaluable for me, my growth as a leader and to those who were part of my team and I might even add those on other teams who knew where I stood when I came to defending right and standing up for others.

I finally realized what I was supposed to do and that was to prepare others for life, to be a mentor...to listen, to give guidance, to be the defender of those who could not defend themselves and to always stand on principle which was never an issue for me, but for a period of time I allowed others to stand over me and to quiet my voice, but that was not going to happen any longer. This as I stood on the threshold of 40 years old. It took that long for me to figure it out. But I will also give credit to four people who always had my back and were those who under no circumstances would leave me when the chips were stacked against me...or so it may have seemed at the time. These were men who I could tell anything to, anytime and they would tell me exactly what I needed to here. It was tough love I tell you, but I don't believe I would have survived without them, and that is no exaggeration. Four names only
Anthony
Bill
Bob
Malcom

Closing the Loop

In my days since I left retail, almost nine years ago now. I have built so many new muscles I never knew I had, or even needed. Soon after I arrived in a new segment of the industry I had spent my entire adult life in, I met a person who had a very similar background. I knew then I was exactly where I was supposed to be. He validated to me in conversations we had, about the struggles I had early on and how I had finally arrived at understanding my role as a leader - and what it meant was it was all part of my growth. That is to get where I was, I had to go through the other stuff.

Reflecting on Dad

When I think back on the opportunity my dad had to become a leader, I realize he didn't miss the opportunity to make a difference for others, instead he chose to be an example and mentor to those around him. He gained a ton of respect for being a high performer and while we was never the boss, he was the boss when it came to getting things done. If I learned anything from my dad it was just that.

Someone once told me I needed to make my mark, to which I told them, making a mark is not for me to do, I am giving of what I have learned over the years and the mark it is for others to make.