Last week, I said a wonderful farewell to people I have worked with for seven years. These are some of the best and the brightest people I have ever worked with or known. These are people who are more than colleagues - they have become friends and my “work family”. It was hard to say goodbye; hard to leave the relationships I have been steadily building over time. It’s always hard to start over, but with starting over comes GROWTH. With taking a new risk comes stretching myself in a new direction, developing new relationships, broadening my circle of friends and colleagues and LEARNING new things. I’ve always been strongly motivated by learning and growing. In every situation, whether there is change or not, there is opportunity for learning, and I have always pushed myself to find places where I grow and develop. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I have had to spread my wings at my current company- taking on roles with increasing responsibility, meeting new people, learning new things, developing skills that will help me for a lifetime. Most of all I am grateful for the PEOPLE I have had the privilege of getting to know on a deep level. I am also so grateful for the warm send off I had; showing me that all of my hard work and efforts truly paid off in the most important area - deepening my ties and relationships with the people I have interacted with over the past seven years. We have done some great work together. I have loved getting to know MORE people; that is one of the upsides of taking on more responsibility as a leader - your sphere of influence increases, you have MORE people from whom to learn , MORE types of people to prove the point that there are a million ways to do things! This has been one of my most important leadership learnings.
I think when I was younger I had the notion that there was a right way and a wrong way to do things. The older and more experienced I have become, I have realized there are SO MANY different styles and ways of doing things, and I have developed a true appreciation for these differences. I have “stolen” bits and pieces from successful people that I deeply admire, have aligned these things with my own style and beliefs, and have developed a leadership style that truly appreciates and recognizes input from a myriad of different types of people. One of my favorite quotes is from Lao Tzu - “Live in your strength”…. each individual has their own strengths, and when that person LIVES in their authentic strengths - the WHOLE is made better.
Each job I have had has taught me to look for the strengths in others. I can see what works, what doesn’t work, and appreciate all of it - either learning how to be or how NOT to be in the process. I’ve been fortunate in my career to have so many great leaders from whom to learn. I’ve also seen leadership styles that just don’t work. The one thing I have learned from all of them is that if you don’t put the people first, you lose. I had an experience once where I got some feedback (indirect feedback, as in a leader talking about me behind my back and someone else sharing it with me…) that my only problem as a leader was that I “care too much for the people”. I was taken aback by this for two reasons - 1) because I felt like this was the highest compliment I could ever receive (yay - it’s working!), and 2) the realization that it wasn’t given as a compliment…… I learned from this moment. I learned to look deeply at something I believe in, examine whether or not it was working, and move forward confidently in the knowledge that it WAS working - evidenced by the success, happiness, and collaborative attitude of my team.
The one thing I have learned in my thirty years in business is that the people are truly everything. When people feel cared for, loved, and respected, they will climb mountains, jump off cliffs, lean INTO whatever you present to them. When you have built this kind of trust, you will develop followership, you are able to present ideas and build plans and develop new ways of doing things WITH your team believing in them. Without this kind of trust, you have a team of self interested, less motivated individuals doing work in a silo. With this kind of trust, you get people working together toward a common goal WHILE enjoying themselves in the process. Work CAN be fun!
When leaders hold true to their beliefs and values, it helps create the purpose - the WHY behind everything. Without this WHY , leadership falls flat. My WHY or my purpose has always been inspiring people to live in their strengths and work from a place of authenticity. I love to ask people to dig deep, find what motivates them, and be driven forward by that. Leadership not anchored in a powerful “WHY” will not create followers and will not carry people through challenging times. The challenging times always come - be it times of hardship or change or evolution of a business model - and if that strong foundation of people feeling cared for and heard hasn’t been developed, it will all fall apart. Teams comprised of a diverse group of people WIN. Teams with people who think differently, who feel empowered to speak up, who know that their voice matters literally will move mountains together. There are times that we just want to tell people to GET ON THE BUS…but without building a foundation of trust and true understanding, people will be riding on their own one person vehicle, and NOT the team bus. The collaborative efforts WON’T be realized, and goals won’t be met. Recognizing differences, leaning IN to diverse ways of thinking and of doing things, incorporating bits and pieces of VARIOUS ideas into an overall plan is what WORKS. This type of team building takes time. It takes concerted effort. It takes listening. It takes empathy. It takes accountability. Most of all it takes love.
Love - there are a lot of definitions, but the one I like the most….
The act of caring and giving to someone else. Having someone's best interest and wellbeing as a priority in your life.
Caring and giving. Having someone’s BEST interest as a priority. When you get to know people deeply, you are able to do this. You are able to figure out what is important to an individual and work toward helping them achieve that; not what’s best for the company, or for you, or even for the overall team, but what is best for the individual. When you are helping them to meet their individual goals, the team goals will fall into place. People who feel loved work together for the greater good. It’s a simple concept, but one that is hard for some to achieve because they think love shouldn’t be part of the workplace, that love should be something only for familial or romantic relationships. Love works. Love wins. Think about the times in your life when you have felt most loved - it is in these moments that you are able to make magic happen. It is in these moments that the impossible is made possible. It’s what works in life; it’s what works in business. People first. I’m able to start a new adventure in my career knowing that so long as I let love be the guiding light for what I do - be it love for the people I work with, love for our customers, or love for the patients that we serve as team, success and joy will follow.