Servitude Leadership
The higher up in an organization you go, the harder you work for others - not the other way around. I’ve seen the classic mistakes that leaders make where they think they’re entitled to be served. They become an executive and they think everyone beneath them should serve their highness, wrong! As you grow and build your career, the group of individuals that you serve grows too.
I’ve managed a number of people in my career and am hyper conscious of the notion that people need to be treated a certain way in order to perform at their highest level. No one wakes up in the morning and goes, “I’m going to give 110% today because my boss told me to.” No one likes to respond to fear either and say “I’m going to give 110% today because otherwise I’ll get fired.” People need to find their own internal motivation - external motivations are fleeting and boss-satisfaction is the ultimate dissipator. As a leader tasked with growing a team and a company, you need treatment tactics that look like servitude. People need leaders that are willing to serve them to make them better and achieve their internally motivated goals. In times of strong performance this is easy for a leader but in challenging times, that’s when the level of service needs to ratchet up.
I’ll never forget that when COVID hit in 2020, my former boss, David, made it damn clear that he was going to do everything in his power to serve his 300 person team. He was going to be there, offer endless help, provide emotional support and be in the hull of the ship “removing water from the boat”. The team didn’t need to serve him, he was serving the team and in turn, the team worked hard with him (not for him).
I’ve worked for organizations that take the vantage that “You’re lucky to work here.”
I’ve worked for organizations that take the vantage that “We’re lucky to have you”
I want to build a culture and an organization that promotes the ladder. It turns out that those ladder companies are indeed the ones that people should be lucky to work for, not the former.
We’re lucky to have the people that work at Xeal. Take that for granted and it’s the fastest way to lose your people and to lose respect as a leader. Tell someone that they should be begging to keep their job and you’ve lost as a leader. Scare your employees that they’ll be out of a job if they don’t fall in line and you’ve lost as a leader. Correct your employees action by helping show them how to do it and why getting it right matters for them (even if you have to show them over and over), then you’re serving.
While I’m new to the Chief Revenue Officer role and have never built and scaled a sales organization - the laws of leadership still ring true - you set the mission, the structure and then you serve your people by getting in the boat with them, not directing from the lighthouse. Your team doesn’t want to work FOR you, they want to work WITH you and they are intrinsically motivated - so finding their musical notes to play the right chords is how you start to serve. It’s not “I need you to do this for me” but rather “We need to do this to hit certain goals, your contribution here sets the tone”
I’m still early in this, I’m still learning, which is why I’m doing it out loud.