What Makes a Good Leader?
How do you know if you are a good leader? What signs indicate that you're leading your team well? Traci and Rob list 10 traits or actions that you can look for in yourself to know if you are—or to challenge yourself to become—a strong leader.
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Overly Human podcast where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Rob:
A little behind the scenes here again. Traci and I, we meet once a week and we record and talk. It's also probably fair to say that one of the reasons we love doing this podcast is because we get a chance to kind of hang out every week and discuss things, and the after and the before of the recording is a lot of fun.
But last week after the recording, we were just talking about things. And one of the questions that came up that we both were wondering about is, how do you know if you're a good leader? What are the signs you can look for to know if you're doing a good job?
So we decided to spend a week and keep notes, and come up with our own top 10 lists of how to know if you're a good leader. Now, I'm sure that this list is non exhaustive and I'm not even sure that it's the end all be all—well, I'm actually really sure of that—but it's still going to be fun. We're going to try something a little different today and just talk about it.
Rob:
How are you, Traci?
Traci:
I'm good. How are you doing?
Rob:
I'm doing real well, living the dream.
Why don't you go ahead and start. What's what's on your top 10 lists? No particular order.
Traci:
No particular order, okay. Well, one that I came up with is you’re not contacted when you're out of the office.
And this goes back to some of the best advice I got when I first was promoted and was managing a bunch of people. My mentor at work, a great man, so much smarter than I am, gravitated towards him all the time, like teach me, teach me, teach me. And one of the things he said was, "When you go on vacation, you should not come back to a bunch of voicemails or come back to a ton of emails or have your staff be calling you when you're on vacation. That is a sign that you're not really leading well".
And I remember thinking about that because usually, especially when I was working in the industry that I was in, a lot of people would complain about, "Oh I never get to take a real vacation. People are always bothering me, always contacting me". And his meaning behind this was that your staff, your team, should really know what's expected of them and they should also know how you think.
One of the best things you can hear when you come back from vacation is, "Well we had this issue, but we came together as a team. We processed it and we thought, 'hm, what would Traci really want us to do? Or what would her expectations be? Or how would she want this to be resolved?'" And if you come back and you hear your team actually say, "We knew that you'd want us to do this way and we kind of agreed, and we got together and we split up the tasks, and we got it done and it's all taken care of." And you had no idea when you were on vacation that all of that happened and they successfully handled it, you should feel really proud. And you should know that you're a good leader, that your team gets you. They understand how you think, what your expectations are of them, and they know how to work together without you holding their hand.
Rob:
Yeah, that's a good one. I think I've said this before. But when I take vacation, one of the things that I do, when I leave for a week, is I completely, before I leave the office, is I take off email, I take off my calendar, I delete Slack and every other way that my team would normally communicate with me. And I tell all of my direct reports, all of the directors, "Hey, I won't accidentally see anything. If you need me, and here's three things that you may contact me about, then you will have to intentionally text me or call me because I won't happen upon anything for this period of time." But I think that's a really good one is the fact that you're not always needed.
Traci:
Yeah. And if you feel like you can't take a vacation or you never really have a vacation, you got to get behind that. It's not a good thing. And that means that there's something amiss in how you're running your team or how you’re not allowing them the authority and the responsibility to run things while you're gone. You either can't let go or they can't let go of you, and neither one is good.
Rob:
Yeah. All right, so it's my turn. You know you're a good leader if people stay at your organization. I've always heard, and I believe it, that people quit managers, they don't quit companies. There is seasons for things. There are times when time for people to move on. But if you've got people who have been with your organization a long time and that continue to stay loyal and have trust, that's a pretty good sign that you're doing something right.
Traci:
That's very true. Yeah, it was one of the things I was most proud of when I was at HGTV is how long my people stayed with me, and it really, really is a sign. It's a sign of loyalty and loyalty is attached to trust. And so, yeah, that retention thing, another question to ask yourself. If you've got a revolving door going right now, it's like, hmm, maybe you shouldn't be pointing fingers away from yourself. You need to look in the mirror and say, "Why is this happening?"
Rob:
Yeah. What's next on your list? And we're on number three, if you're keeping track.
Traci:
The next on my list, which won't be a surprise to you, is that you'll know you're a good leader if your people that work for you can articulate the priorities of the company. And what I mean by that is they understand where you're going and why. And I think this one is really important and a lot of leaders can miss it sometimes because either they have mission, vision, they have strategy, and they know where they're headed. And they know why they want to get there, how they're going to get there. But they haven't communicated it, or at least they haven't communicated it enough.
It's either that, or they don't have mission or vision or strategy. And either they just haven't taken time out of the world, one of the day-to-day, to come up with these to actually spend time strategizing for the company, or they've just not realized the power and effectiveness of having a strategy for their companies.
So your team should be able to say like, "Hey, this is the purpose of our company. This is what our goal is, this is what we want to accomplish in the next year, and this is how we're going to get there. These are the key objectives that we're working on as a team outside of that kind of day-to-day." And I think if your company can articulate that, that's a good sign that you're a great leader.
Rob:
Yeah. And I think what it really comes down to is how often do we have to say those things for everyone to hear it? A lot of the research says that people have to hear things seven or eight times before they're truly able to internalize it. And if you take seven or eight times, times the number of people on your team, that means you’re going to be sick of saying those things before everybody has heard it enough times. And it's okay to be a broken record on those kinds of things because it takes constant refocusing on those kinds of higher, lofty mission/vision value stuff than it does because the day-to-day will pull you back out of that all the time.
Traci:
Absolutely. Yep, that's true. What's next on your list?
Rob:
Okay. Next on my list is, you can remember the last time you were wrong publicly in front of your team and you are always open to being wrong, that's how you'll know if you're a great leader. I think that so often what I see out in the world, or even for managers I have in the past, is a refusal to be wrong. I don't think that we should expect any human to not be wrong sometimes. And if we can't expect that from our leadership, then that breaks down trust.
Your team knows when you're wrong. They know when that is. You have to be able to recognize it and call it out. I think that's such a huge part of being a good leader is being able and being open to it, being open to being wrong all the time. I say a lot that I would rather get it right than be right, and I think that's the mindset we have to be able to bring to things.
Traci:
Yeah, and it so ties into when we were talking about vulnerability on our last episode. It is so important for that, what you're talking about, about being able to say when you're wrong, from an authentic vulnerable place. And if you're faking your way through, if you're faking your vulnerability or you're faking that you're admitting a mistake, it goes something like, "Well, yeah, I messed up here, but it was because of this, this, this." Like excuse, excuse, excuse, because you're trying to protect your image at the same time you're admitting that mistake. That's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about, that people are looking at you being real and saying, "You know what, I mess up sometimes too, and I'm sorry. And if that affected your work day or that hurt you in some way, man, I'm bummed out about that. I'm sorry. I'm still on my journey of growth as well." If a leader can truly authentically admit their mistakes, the trust level on a team is going to go way up. This isn't a fake "I'm just going to like do lip service because I hear that's what you're supposed to do," this is something from the heart that you're talking about. I love that.
Rob:
Yeah. What's next on your list, Traci?
Traci:
Next kind of ties into what we're talking about with teams, which is the culture is good. And oftentimes, I think that leaders don't take a pause to take the temperature of culture. And your team knows if the culture is good or the culture is not good, but leaders might not know that because they can be somewhat removed.
You do need to take a pause as a leader and make sure that your people are feeling valued, appreciated. They feel, like we were just talking about, that this is a safe place to make and admit mistakes. That they feel like the entire team has actually embodied their core values and they're living out their core values. And they also feel like you as a leader have embodied those core values and are living out those core values, so you're not above anything.
And culture, as we have talked about before, bad culture can eat strategy for breakfast, right? It doesn't matter how strategic or how great your business idea is, or even the amount of clients you have. If your culture is bad, your profitability, your company, everything can completely unravel.
A good leader is able to take that pause, take the temperature on culture and see that their culture is good. It's super powerful.
Rob:
Yeah, and I think that's pretty accurate. I think sometimes it's really easy as a leader to not recognize what's going on, right? I've often made the joke that my goal was to make Sparkbox the place I've always wanted to work. And the cruel part of it is, is I'll never get to work there. I've recognized that there is parts of the business that I run that I don't have the best sense of all the time.
Some of that's, for me, is having people I trust that we have that trust relationship with to give me their feedback about how things have changed. Because if I can't sense it innately because of the size of the organization or really my position in the organization all the time, do I have people that I can trust to give me that feedback that I'll listen to?
Traci:
Yeah, that's good. That's good. What's next on your list?
Rob:
The next one on my list is, you know you're a good leader if you get actual critical feedback from your team. And I think this is just such a huge part of it, of you establishing trust where your team is okay to tell you what you need to do better at. There is that power dynamic, we've talked about it before. It exists, but I think you can still open yourself up to have those conversations with people and those earned conversations.
I've worked on teams before and with other people, they're like, "Well, I'm just not ever getting feedback." It's like, "Well, are you open to it? How do you respond when you get it?" And I think that it's so easy to shut down those communication channels by reacting poorly once. That will take you years to get back.
Traci:
Yeah. That's why I love that book, Thanks for the Feedback, so much. Because it's not coming from the mindset of teaching you how to give feedback, it's coming from the mindset of teaching you how to receive feedback.
And one of the scariest questions that we as leaders can ask our team is, how are we doing? Is there anything you want to tell me? Is there anything I can do better? And so many leaders don't do that. They're very ready to give feedback to their team and to sit for those annual reviews or quarterly check-ins, but they're missing that last question that should be in the feedback loop which is, how am I doing? How can I better serve you or better serve the team? And if you can be bold and not too nervous or scared and ask that question, then you're a great leader. It's a really good one to have on the list. I like it.
Rob:
Yeah. What's next?
Traci:
Next one on my list is, you know you're a good leader if you know your people and they know you. And what I mean by this is we really on teams are spending the vast majority of our hours a week with each other, right?
And if you don't know your people, like you have no idea that Sally is getting married in two weeks unless she asks for PTO, or if you don't know that somebody is struggling through a divorce, but everybody else does, or even you don't know that somebody just bought their mom a house or whatever, we really need to know each other.
And I think it's important for leaders to just take a few minutes out. I'm not saying that everybody that you work with needs to be your best friend. That's not what I'm saying, but I am saying that we personally need to know each other. Because when we personally know each other, then we serve each other better, we don't assume the worst. And we also have a deeper trust, a deeper loyalty, deeper level of communication with each other.
The number one way to grow trust on a team is to get to know each other. That's the number one. I tell teams that all the time and they're like, "Well, I don't know how to build trust? How can I really make them trust me?" Get to know them, and allow them to get to know you.
I've coached a lot of leaders who are good at asking people how they are or getting to know their team, but they never give anything up, never open the door even a crack to let people see what's going on in their life and let them in on anything. Because they want to protect, right? They feel like there should be a little bit of a barrier, but I'm more on the side of, it's okay, we're doing life together, be human together.
And don't ever forget that the first question that people that work for you are asking themselves is, does that person that is my boss actually care about me, actually truly care about me? That's the first question that pops up in their mind almost daily. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, period.
Rob:
You made so many good points there. I think the only thing that I want to add is, in the world we live in now where the most of us are more remote than ever, that that means that we have to be really intentional about getting to know each other and create space for it.
There are so many rules and books and articles that I've read of how to run effective meetings, you cut the chitchat, you start with a point and do this. And I think in the world we live in now, one of the things that I'm finding more and more important is to leave room at the beginning and end of meetings for people to just be human with each other and how important that is. And if we can't be in the same space, we have to allow that to happen in a virtual way. And the only way that it can really happen, at least most of the time, is to schedule it to be intentional but to allow space for it.
Traci:
Absolutely. Can't all just be business. It's personal too. What's the next on your list?
Rob:
Okay, so the next on my list is, you're a good leader if you push the credit for things down and you're willing to take the blame or be accountable for the things that go bad.
Traci:
Wow, that's good.
Rob:
Things that go well, you're willing to say, "Hey, this is a great team. This person, this person were instrumental. Couldn't have done it without them. This is their win." For the things that go bad, you jump on the grenades, you step in front of the bullets.
And I think this is so important just because this is what helps build unity, this is what allows your team to know that you've got their back, that you are willing to make sure that they're not all on their own.
And I think that so many of the leaders that I've had through my career, the great managers that I can think of in my past, they knew where the buck stopped and they knew where the accountability lied. And it was a great model for me to just be like, no, especially in my company, they're all my decisions. Even if I've given you authority over something, if there's blame to take, I can take it. That's part of the job.
Traci:
Yeah, it's such an important one. I mean, we all have worked for narcissistic leaders, or we know of or have seen the damage that a narcissistic leader can bring to an organization. And the reason is this exact point that you've just laid out is that if you're not willing to give people the credit they really worked hard on things, if you feel like you have to always say, "Well, that's what my team did or I did." You're taking the credit for yourself and making sure you shine because you have some massive insecurity under the surface. Or when something bad happens, you're immediately pointing fingers because you don't want to look bad.
This is the problem with narcissistic leaders. And we all have a little bit of narcissism in us and ego in us that we have to fight against. And when we feel most insecure is when that really bubbles up to the top. And so we have to do a little check on ourselves to make sure we're giving credit where credit's due. We're taking blame where we need to take blame. Because again, if the trust goes out of the pyramid, the whole pyramid falls down.
When your people see you do that, man, antennas go up, retention starts to be hurt, people get super cynical, disgruntled. And that's why we see that leaders that really do struggle with this kind of narcissistic tendency, they cannot keep a staff. They can't fill positions and keep positions. Because people, man, if they don't see you really acknowledging and recognizing the people doing the work and taking all the credit for yourself or they don't see you, as you say, jumping on the grenade, it's really, really difficult for people to stay in that type of environment. That's a good one.
Rob:
Okay, the last one on your list, what is it?
Traci:
Last one on my list is, you're a good leader if the people on your team insist on excellence in their work, outside of you pushing them. That them, themselves, are bothered by mediocre work. They take real pride in what they're producing, and how they're behaving and acting, and the services they're providing or the projects that they're working on. That they are driven by this inner desire to create excellence in the workplace because this comes from a place of the greater good, right?
You have these people on your team that are rock stars and they definitely want their work to be good. But if you have the whole team wanting the whole team to shine and the company to shine, then you've gotten your team to a place where they're really thinking about the collective results. They're really thinking about the greater good. They really have transcended beyond this sort of individualistic, "It's all about me." And they actually have flipped to the, "I care about the team. I care about the company. I want this to be good. I care about the client and I want them to be happy."
And if you can flip your team and you can see, "Wow, they're not just checking it off the list and getting it out the door so they can go home and have a beer or whatever." They're really dedicated and they take a ton of pride in. Like in Sparkbox's case, they feel like Sparkbox is them. It's like the brand is an extension of them and they want to make sure that everything that comes out of it is high quality and it shines. And if you have a team that's doing that without you even having to ask them to, then you know you're a good leader.
Rob:
Yeah, that's that whole unity thing. You're giving them unity, and they have it around these ideas that we agreed were important. I love when I see our teams not let each other fail and they lift each other up, right? They succeed or fail as a group. That's one of the things that I enjoy most is when somebody's having a rough time with something where other people group around them and bring everything up because they care about the whole and that's more important than the individual piece at that moment.
Traci:
That's good. What's next on your list?
Rob:
The last one on my list, and it kind of fits in with that last point, is you make the people around you better. That's one of the key things about being a leader is the ability to raise up other leaders and to have a positive influence and impact on the people around you. I really do believe that one of the ways that I can look into an organization and see if there is a great or good leader is look to see their direct reports and see how many good leaders report to them.
And that doesn't happen on accident. That happens because they have somebody who is a good leader ahead of them. We are products of the people that we're led by. And I think it's one of the coolest things where we can pour into others and make them better because that gives them the ability to pour into their people and their people. And it's one of those, one small thing can make the whole world a better place for humanity kind of things if we all are better to each other. That was my last one.
Traci:
That's a good one. I feel like it's hard to coach leaders or to be a leader if you don't really want to have a positive impact on people's lives. And I say that because not everybody does. Some people want to have a positive impact on the world around them. They want to create something fantastic or want to be an artist or they want to create a product, and they're all about that thing that they are creating. But not everybody really is worried about the people around them having a positive impact and trying to make the people around them better.
And I think if you have that innate drive where you really do care about the people around you, and you really do want to make them better and point them in the right direction, and just try to share a little bit of knowledge each day because you're trying to help them get to a better place—you truly, honestly care about their success as opposed to just only your success—then that's an innate trait in you that means that you are going to have an advantage as a leader. But it doesn't exist in everybody.
That's not to say you don't like everybody around you or you don't want to be friends with everybody around you, but there's something different we're talking about here. It's a different little thing of where you really do desire to help people shine in a way outside of yourself. You really want them to get a little glory and a little bit further down the football field. And I think that you know you're a good leader if you can feel that inside you, that you really want to have that positive impact every day.
Rob:
Yeah, so that's our top 10 list. That was kind of fun.
Traci:
Yeah, that was fun.
Rob:
What I did is I went through and I wrote up my half the list and then I actually Googled a couple of things to see what other people said because I'm sure there was lists, and I found some. And one of the ones that made me chuckle that I found out there on the internet and it is the number one sign of a good leader is you're worried you won't be a good leader.
Traci:
Yeah. That's a good one. That is a definite good one. Yeah, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, "Blah, why am I listening to this? I don't really care," then maybe that's a sign-
Rob:
There's some work to do.
Traci:
... there's trouble. There's some work to do, exactly. I love it.
Rob:
All right. Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
Announcer:
This podcast would not be possible without the amazing communications team at Sparkbox. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and tell your friends to listen as well. The Overly Human podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. Thanks so much for listening.
