Be A Better Leader - 20 Leadership Hacks For Managers.

I managed large teams for over 15 years in corporate and have been coaching C-Level clients for 15 more. During this time, I've probably run into every scenario a manager can experience. 

​Here are my top 20 hacks to make you a better leader (in no special order): 

1. Motivate people, don't command them. It's a lot harder, but you will like the results a lot more. Find the fuel that energizes them.

2. Identify your key employees and reward them so they know they're valued. Don't worry about losing poor talent.

3. Translate upper management's vague directives into things your team can understand and take action on.

4. Never bullshit your staff. If something requires secrecy for the good of the company, just be clear on 'I cannot discuss that’.

5. When things go well, don't tout yourself to upper management, tout your team. You'll get the credit as well.

6. Don't worry about losing poor talent. In addition, the best thing you can do for your best people is to get rid of the worst people.

7. Elevate the individual and team as a whole when someone does great work. Let them take the limelight.

8. When someone on my team screws up, be the responsible "buck stops here" person as the manager. Act as the umbrella to ensure the wrath of senior management does not rain down from above, and it's your responsibility to discipline them after you catch shit from on high. In addition to that, any discipline effort should be an opportunity to learn from mistakes. Help them to help themselves when they need to recover from a mistake.

9. Don’t be their friend. It's not worth it. You are no longer "One of the guys/girls" You can have fun, don't be a jerk, but you will never be one of them again. Don't try to be. Be cool, but not that cool, otherwise you will get walked on.

10. The more you make your employees feel like they're working with you, and not for you, the smoother the sailing. That being said, make sure boundaries are clear.

11. Always remain calm. The way you react to and handle situations will have a profound and lasting effect on your staff.

​12. Criticize in private, praise in public. Praise often, punish seldom.

​13. Figure out the intricacies of discipline and HR at your organization.Any serious disciplinary actions need to be absolutely by-the-book. Get help and a buddy in HR.

​14. Learn to listen. Especially to the new hires. And the quiet ones.

​15. Be loyal to your employees and they will be 10X loyal right back.

​16. Learn to delegate. It creates frustration in the short term, but saves you huge amounts of time and makes people feel more important in the long term.

​17. Create an environment that people want to work in. I find people work harder and are more motivated if they're happy. Don't micromanage, treat people with respect, and create a sense of joining a team rather than a top-down approach.

18. Always be fair. Everyone talks to each other and compares the slightest things whether you like it or not. If you have favorites or treat someone differently, eventually people will find out. This will definitely effect how they see you.

​19. Create an open door policy. My favorite policy is that I never mind when people ask questions about the situation or what they need to do. I'd rather someone mess up rather than doing noting. Of course, I'd rather someone ask me questions so they can figure out how to do things on their own, effectively, and efficiently too. Similarly, this also helps with building respect, creating a sense of team, and having more motivated and happy people.

​20. MOST IMPORTANT: Take care of your people and they'll take care of you. 

Hard Work Beats Talent.

Caught the new episode of Mad Men last night — one of my favorite shows. In the middle of all the soap opera antics of the story (I do love Roger and his comments though), I study the interactions of the characters at work. How they speak to one another, how they talk to their clients, and what they accomplish during their time at the agency.

What shines through, and many people probably miss, is how they are so successful. Let's look at two characters, Don & Peggy.

They have talent — they are the creative sparks in each of the agencies they represent. But it goes deeper.

They are 100% committed to their work:

• They work late.
• They take work home.
• They interact with their colleagues during many off-hours.
• They are willing to push themselves AND their teams.
• They think and breathe their work.

Unfortunately, if you view the teams who work for them, they are presented as lazy, comical, and people who lack direction. They go home on-time and party (sometimes they do work late).

Both Don and Peggy are talented — but it's their commitment, drive, and hard work that delivers.

That's enough of Mad Men for now. Let's talk reality.

If you want to succeed — if you want to move up in your company — if you want your business to explode — you have to HUSTLE at work.

You need to work A LOT. Think about what you're working on ALL THE TIME. Obsess about it — LIVE it. You can't get that promotion by putting in a "9-to-5" attitude.

Here are some tips I have my clients try:

• Arrive at your office early. I used to hit work at 6:30 AM and start working — I would clock 2-3 hours more work than other people trundling in at 9, Did it work? The Chairman noticed I was always the first car in the parking lot — ultimately I won the Chairman's Award. With my current business, I start at 5 AM. Because it's MY business (I wrote this blog post from 5-6 AM this morning).
• Work while you are at work. Don't ditz around — no surfing, no wandering around — make your time at work count. Every minute.
• Ask for more work from your boss. Usually do this after a good meeting with them where they've complimented you on your progress/work.
• Stay late. Ask if you can help out on a project. You don't have to burn the midnight oil all the time, but put in 1-2 late nights a week — stay until 8.
• Work on the weekends. I get up at 5-6 AM and work until 9 AM on Sat/Sun. That gives me an extra 3-8 more hours of work in the week without it affecting my home life.
• Think outside the box. Get your head thinking where everyone else isn't. Go where the puck will be going. Mention new ideas during meetings — but be positive.
• Do extra-credit work. I used to do this ALL THE TIME. I would keep my ears open and listen for opportunities or gaps where I could approach management with help they might need, a new idea how to do something, or a side-project which would make the company millions. It worked ALL the time.

If you try 2-3 of these tips, I promise you will begin to get more done, get greater exposure (with the people who matter), and start to see openings where you can succeed.

I know, I know. You have a spouse, kids, parents, friends, responsibilities, and a myriad of other obstacles. But at the end of the day, if you want to succeed at what you do, you have to hustle.

And that's the truth.

P.S. If you want to watch a great video on Hard Work Beats Talent, watch this.

There's A Talent War & The Ceasefire Is Over.

With so many companies focused on simple survival during the downturn, with so much job loss and anxiety among those who survived, it was easy to forget about the war for top talent. But the downturn was just a temporary truce; the battle is about to erupt again in full force. And ironically the companies are the most at risk of losing their best leaders are ones that responded most vigorously (but often misguidedly) during the recession. By Michael Watkins at Harvard Business Review.

Why? Because there is tremendous pent-up demand for new opportunities and advancement among high-potential leaders. According to a recent study just 10% of high-potential leaders lost their jobs during the recession (with many quickly securing new opportunities). But fewer than usual received promotions or moved to new companies. So at the first sign that the job market is heating up, many will be dusting off their resumes and seeking greener pastures.

Companies that did a clumsy job of managing cost-cutting and restructuring during the downturn are particularly at risk of losing their best talent as conditions improve. Given plummeting revenues and the need to get costs under control, many firms rightly went into crisis mode. But the way they went about making the reductions varied greatly. For some, it was a process akin to taking a meat cleaver to the organization, with rapid, often indiscriminate cuts, and the attitude that virtually anything could be demanded of the survivors (longer hours, reduced salaries) because things were so dire.

These same survivors, especially the most talented of them, understandably feel absolutely no loyalty to their current employers; they will jump ship the instant they feel it's safe to do so. In fact it's a wonderful time for strong companies to consolidate their positions and accelerate out of the downturn by cherry-picking the very best talent out of competitors who have (probably irreparably) damaged their corporate cultures. Some attention to effective on-boarding is also warranted as it will help you to retain the talent you hire.

If you are leading a company that fell into this trap, what can you do? If you aren't already highly focused on how you will retain your best talent in the next couple of years, you should be. In part, this means launching immediate efforts to rebuild the culture and restore trust. This may, unfortunately, require that you bring new top leadership that hasn't been tainted by what was done while the business was in survival mode. Beyond that, you should be looking hard for any sign that the job market is heating up and anticipate what you need to do to rapidly adjust compensation and benefits. Above all, you should have a clear view about who your top talent is, be communicating actively with them about their potential, and charting attractive pathways for them within your organization. And you should be doing these things now, because if you wait six months, it most likely will be too late.

What about companies that did a good job of managing talent during the recession? Are they in the clear? Well yes and no. One very fine company that I work with, a Fortune 100 firm, is a case in point. It did virtually all the right things during the downturn by moving quickly but deftly to reduce costs. Executives took the lead in pay cuts, job losses were managed through attrition to the greatest extent possible and then via merit. Alternatives were offered to displaced workers where possible. Above all, the company did a wonderful job of communicating through the whole organization why it needed to do what it was doing. And it continued to invest scarce resources in the development of its best leaders despite enormous pressure not to do so. The net result has been minimal damage to a people-focused culture, and the company is beautifully positioned to accelerate out of the recession.

So the good news is that this company's high-potential leaders harbor strong loyalty and are inclined to stay. The bad news for the company, and others like it, is that they will be very attractive recruiting grounds for firms that didn't do such a good job during the dark times. And the desperate need for those firms to recruit leaders to replace the ones they've lost — or are about to lose — is going to rapidly bid up compensation and benefits. As is usually the case when it comes to talent, no good deed goes unpunished.

Michael Watkins is the author of, most recently, Your Next Move.