While balancing a couple of competing career paths, I started to work at Rocky Mountain Federal Savings and Mr. John Dilday. Fresh out of college, John was my first “real” boss away from my hometown.
John was self-made and a master of self-promotion. John was his biggest fan.
He was also a master motivator before such a category existed. He praised, thanked, recognized and encouraged. He mentored. He shared knowledge. John was also able to use threats, cajoling, ridicule and shame with the same frequency and without even a noticeable shift of gears. He could press buttons that I didn’t even know existed. And it worked.
But above all of that, John Dilday was a challenger. He did it every day. Asking about what you could do a little better, making sure I was not sitting on the laurels of a good month or even a good year. He promoted me to manager; not because I deserved it but because he could challenge me more then. I was nothing special to him, he challenged everyone equally and constantly. Always pushing for better in his team and in himself.
To this day, I still summon some Dildayisms when challenging others to be more than they are now. May use a little different language pattern than John did but the context is still the same. And also to this day, I credit John with a big piece of my drive and internal motivation to push myself and others forward. And finally, to this day, I would still stretch myself and my performance for that man.
Status quo is a curse phrase for effective leaders. They find themselves in the position of appreciating today’s effort and performance while constantly striving for more. Effective leaders recognize the near endless capacity of human performance.
To add some more challenge to your team and guide them to the performance in which they are capable of delivering, work on:
- Asking the team what the potential is and how high can they grow their performance and skills.
- Watching diligently for signs of comfort and complacency in team members.
- Understand the individual motivating factors of team members and appeal to each one of those on a very personal level.
- Help team members set targets and track results to build self-challenge mechanisms and systems.