Just a little leadership feedback

Have you ever gotten some positive, validating feedback you didn’t expect?

A conversation that told you that you had done a good job, even though you knew you weren’t perfect?

I got three bits of very affirming feedback a while back, and they are things I still remember today. Maybe you’ll resonate with this story.

Back about 20 years ago, I was working for The Schwan Food Company. I had been recruited to go out to southwest Minnesota as a director of learning and development to help start a corporate university.

The president of the university was a really sharp guy with a vision of how we could run training like a business inside the company. He had also been a U.S. Army Ranger officer. He knew how to create a great leadership team and take an organization through challenges to reach a goal.

I reported directly to him in my role running all the “back office” parts of training and learning. My department’s job was to provide the curriculum and processes for learning throughout the company. We handled everything from the initial training request to the creation and development of training (with classroom delivery handled by our excellent instructional staff) as well as marketing, evaluation, and performance consulting.

It was a technical kind of leadership role, but my real job was to create the conditions for my team’s success.

Like my boss, I provided direction on what we could become and how we could get there. I supported the development of new skills in each of the team members. I had one-on-one meetings with my team members where I talked not just about the work assignments, but about where they wanted to grow and develop their skills and careers.

I made sure that everyone stayed informed about what I knew to be coming up. They got customer feedback. I involved them with the business customers they supported and helped them improve our processes. I pushed them to continue their professional development and made opportunities available in L&D.

This worked very well.

We won four corporate university awards those next two years in a row!

But as cool as that was, that wasn’t the unexpected feedback.

One of my instructional designers was in the MBA program at the nearby university. She had an assignment for class to interview and analyze the leadership style of a leader she respected.

She chose me to interview for her assignment.

Also about that time, the manager of instructional design that reported to me had an opportunity to be promoted to a regional training manager position. I strongly supported his bid for that role and he did a great job for the region. (I was proud that he was promoted to my role as Director of Curriculum sometime after I left.)

I wanted to be a leader who would grow people so they could do great things. The interview request and the promotion of my direct report were gratifying bits of evidence that I was living up to my leadership intent. But still, I knew I was far from perfect as a leader.

About a year after I had left the company, my former boss came through town and we had lunch. I don’t remember what the specific context was, but somewhere during our conversation we were talking about my team at Schwan. I was worrying about the things I could have done better. He said with a chuckle, “Your people would do anything for you, Steve.”

That stuck with me: A leader doesn’t have to be perfect.

This can be tough for technically-minded leaders. We tend to strive for perfection according to a scientific ideal. Fortunately, this isn’t required, and the mindsets and skills are learnable.

But we do have to connect with others as people, show them what better things can be possible, keep them informed, respect them, and invest time and resources in helping them go where they want to go.

And like my boss did for me, give them affirming, appreciative feedback about what they are doing right.

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be human, be positive, and apply your skills to the mission of your team and to its people. You can do it.

If you’d like to talk more about ways to do this, please reply or let’s schedule some time to talk.

–Steve

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