By: Tony Marciel
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with a local Chick fil-A owner/operator. He shared Chick fil-A's philosophy on leadership and serving guests. As you can imagine, I heard many nuggets of wisdom (no pun intended). Probably one of the most 'smack-me-in-the-face' comments I heard was (paraphrase):
"When things are going wrong in an organization, it's the leaders fault. Either he created it or is allowing it. Do not sanction incompetence."
I marvel at how this message is phenomenally simple and clear. To hear it come from a tangibly successful leader was a jarring realization that this type of thinking isn't academic; it is vital for a healthy organization. At the end of the day, the leader sets the tone and well-being of the team. Period. I love that purity.
Now for this to thinking to thrive, it requires that the leader sees, and recognizes, what's not going well in his/her organization. And that could be tricky. Is the leader engaged? Does the leader have blind spots? Has the leader surrounded himself/herself with 'yes' people? Does the leader have the emotional intelligence to 'sense' something is amiss?
I tend to think that if a leader is plugged in and actively measuring the health of their team and his/her staff then, yes, he/she is probably already ensuring the right adjustments are taking place. It's the leaders that aren't asking or taking a team's pulse that then allows dysfunction to fester.
So, what kind of leader are you?
Are you intentionally leaning into your entire team to check the temperature? Have you identified what's not working? Are you fixing it?
Or....are you the problem?
