A Mid-Week Leadership Tip

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Hey, leader folx! Happy Wednesday! Here's a leadership tip (that you should not need someone to give you because it should be a given) to guide the rest of your week: Show gratitude to your team members every day.

Yes. Seriously. Show gratitude to your team members. Every. Day.

They are bustin' their asses for you and your organization, putting in work that makes you and your organization look good in every arena. They give your team and organization their energy, insights, and skills daily. A chunk of their life is spent in your workplace, and this is time they will never get back to spend with their friends, families, and communities or even dedicate to their passions and healing. Please show them some respect every damn day. Thank them for all the work they do for you and everything they contribute to your organization, even the "basic" things that most of us easily take for granted. Let it be known to every other senior leader you work with that your success is team success, and your team should be thanked for their work. And if you're going to say thank you?

Mean it.

Don't be out here going through the motions and acting like someone is twisting your arm. Don't say thank you because "that's what you're supposed to do." You're not an automaton. You're a human being with a heart and soul. You have feelings. You know what it feels like not to be given respect or gratitude for the things you've done that you don't expect respect and appreciation for. You know what it feels like to bust your ass and have a leader not show you gratitude and take credit for your energy and effort. Take those feelings, handle them with humility and empathy, and don't pass them on to those you lead.

If you think you're leading with humanity, gratitude should be easy, like Sunday morning. And if it's difficult, like dodging a truck while wearing ankle weights?

It would be best if you got your weight up.

This Week's Opening Thought: October 17, 2022

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This week’s opening thought: one of your responsibilities as a leader is not to surround yourself with carbon copies but with people who bring new ideas to the table and will challenge you to evolve and listen to differing perspectives.

Groupthink does not generate progress.

If you’re a leader and your inner circle rarely or never calls you in, disputes your opinions, or offers alternative ideas and concepts that differ from your thoughts?

It says much more about you and where the company is headed with you as its leader than it does them.

Look at the culture you’ve cultivated. How could one expect anything more?

This Week's Opening Thought: July 25, 2022

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TW: Discussion of hate crimes, anti-Blackness, murder, lynching.

This week’s opening thought: Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

Emmett Till should’ve been celebrating his 81st birthday today with friends and family.

But he’s not.

Instead, we’re five weeks away from the sad, traumatic 67th anniversary of his torturing and lynching at the hands of white supremacists at the behest of a white “damsel in distress.”

But, you know, according to many white people, “these things happened so long ago,” and “we [Black people] need to get over it.”

My mother is 67 years old. Does that sound like “a long time ago” to you?

Emmett Till should be having a birthday breakfast right now, possibly with his grandchildren. Maybe some pancakes with a side of hand-drawn birthday cards.

But he’s not.

In September 1955, a few months after his murder, an all-white jury found Emmett Till’s murderers not guilty. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had tortured and murdered Emmett Till, selling the story of how they did it for $4,000. That was 66 years ago.

But, you know, Black folx need to “get over it.”

Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who was the spark for the lynching and murder of Emmett Till, evidently wrote a memoir that was never published. In this memoir, Carolyn claims that SHE was a victim in all of this. She claims she pleaded with her husband and his brother, Emmett’s murderers, not to hurt Till. This is the same white woman whose accusation that Emmett Till made improper advances toward her prompted his subsequent kidnapping and murder. For decades, Carolyn declined to retract her disputed account of the events leading to Till’s murder until recently.

Carolyn has lived a long life with family and grandchildren, joy and happiness.

Carolyn is 87 years old.

Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

But, you know, Black folx need to “get over it.”

Emmett Till was lynched and murdered on August 28, 1955. We’re coming up on the 67th anniversary of his murder.

My mother is 67 years old.

Emmett was a baby when he was murdered, a 14-year-old whose whole life should’ve been ahead of him. But he’s not here today because whiteness is a persistent and present danger to Black bodies. We, as a community, as a people, never get to fully mourn our lost loves and heal our souls because we’re still being lynched and murdered 67 years after Emmett.

Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

Emmett Till should’ve been celebrating his 81st birthday today with friends and family.

But he’s not.

This Week's Opening Thought: July 18, 2022

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This week’s opening thought: When did your manager or supervisor last ask you how you were doing? Like, not the everyday pleasantry “how are you” where you know that your answer needs to be a surface one, but an empathetic, vulnerable how are you where you feel they genuinely care about you?

When was the last time your manager or supervisor talked with you for more than 2-3 minutes about something other than work that wasn’t small talk or a “water cooler” conversation?

When was the last time your manager or supervisor had a one-on-one with you that started on time, touched on work for a few moments, then touched on what you need to feel supported and successful?

When was the last time your manager or supervisor rescheduled or canceled your one-on-one because “something came up?”

When was the last time your manager or supervisor chatted with you from an empathic place about a performance or work-related issue that they wanted you to address and offered their legitimate help and support? You know, talking to you like a person that, like all people, makes mistakes and deserves not to have their dignity trampled on by a herd of vitriol?

When was the last time your manager or supervisor notified you of a performance issue in a timely manner? Like, when the matter first became an issue and not weeks or months after the fact?

Many things can be cited as the driving forces behind the so-called “Great Resignation” movement: inequitable and unequal pay, heteronormative white supremacist workplace culture norms, sexism, a severe lack of flexibility in work hours, I could go on. But the common thread in all of this, the one thing every driving force shares, is a disregard and disrespect for people. People have left companies and are likely currently plotting how they can leave your company without taking on financial hardship because they do not feel valued as people.

Yes, workplace policies and systems leave many of us feeling like nothing more than interchangeable cogs. Yes, Human Resources departments leave many people feeling they have no support if they are being harmed and mistreated at work. But the one person who is often at the center of people feeling invalidated, verbally abused, neglected, and minimized are managers and supervisors. And real talk?

In my experience, managers and supervisors are often the people inflicting the harm or the person who has known about the harm taking place for some time and don’t want to be bothered to “go the extra mile” and support their team members that need support.

There’s a reason people say that clichéd “employees don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses” line as much as they do. It is legitimately one of the core reasons people share in their exit interviews about why they’re leaving, right behind citing an unhealthy workplace culture and feeling devalued or undervalued by the company. We leave companies because we’re at our breaking point and want to care for ourselves. We leave companies because we’re at our breaking point, and we know we deserve better: better treatment, better pay, better time off and flexibility, and better workplace culture.

And some of y’all managers and supervisors do more than your part to get us to that breaking point, whether directly or indirectly.

If you’re a manager or supervisor reading this, I want most of y’all to take a moment to check yourself. I’m sure some of y’all are feeling some kind of way right now. I’m sure many of y’all have gone into “not me” territory. I want you to ask yourself why you went on the defensive when you read this. I want you to unpack why you’re trying to deflect the high possibility that it is you for someone under your supervision that you are passively or actively causing them harm. Then I want you to think about the last time you asked your team members how they were doing. Like, not the everyday pleasantry “how are you” where you’re only seeking the surface answer, but an empathetic, vulnerable how are you. And I want you to be honest with that answer. Why? Because that answer will dictate how you view the five questions after it.

And that’ll give you a pretty good window into the kind of manager or supervisor you are.

It’s not a good feeling to realize that you’re the cliché, is it?

I’m guessing you’re feeling a need to ask your team members how they’re doing now, aren’t you?

I’ll leave you to it. You’ve got a lot of trust and faith to rebuild.