So leadership is a tough deal, I mean you can’t be your kids friend always and instruct them, you want to be friends with your employees, but sometimes you have to bed the bad guy for both, make a tough decision, an unpopular decision. In raising them or in the case of being the “Boss” it is much tougher steering the ship or getting people where you want them sometimes, the “martial law” sometimes imposed at home rarely works in the workplace. For that matter criticism or constant correct rarely works as well as you would like either.
So let’s get to my point! We as people, as workers typically like to please the people we are working for, whether be my wife to be able to impress her by doing the dishes without her asking or whether it be in the workplace where we want to succeed and excel to impress our boss or peers. Praise goes a long way!
Case in point I volunteered at church this weekend as I do at least quarterly to help with the camera’s and technical arts, I do it because I want to not because I have to or I am compelled by the church to do it, so in doing so I want to do my best, I want to prove I am good and serve as the best cameraman I can be! I try to be early, that is a big deal for me, because I am never early, I try to be at the top of my game and improve as much as I possibly can every time I work, I want to prove I am great and they can depend on me. Well this weekend I was on the main camera, the one that does 90% of the shots fed to the big screens and to broadcast on TV, let’s just say I was having trouble focusing, not on the job at hand, but on the camera, in hand.
The camera was new to me, top of the line HD camera and it was incredible, very intuitive, but HD on a 20+foot screen and you can tell. Now I am hard on myself because I know what I can do and I want to do the best, the director and the production staff want to put out the best product they can so they are sensitive to what everyone does, so suffice it to say everyone is under pressure to get it right and make the pastor and the performers look great. Here is where the lesson come in…
The guy who was the director this week really made me strive to be better and not only be better, but feel better while doing it, which probably made me do even better. Service 1 I seemed to be all over on the focus and they were on me for it, Service 2 and 3 however, I was laser focused to try to do better, but the whole time the direct kept saying in my ear…and the ears of the other staff, “you guys are doing great, wow what at great job you guys are doing, you guys are rockstars”; all the while he would shout corrections and carry on with his job of making the production great!
What a great example of how to get the results you want, give the correction that is needed all the while cheering the staff on what a great job they are doing! I know you will succeed if you continue your model of leadership! Thanks – Bill!