You Can’t Make People Join Your Team By Burning The Boats

“What’s your management style?”  It is the question you are bound to get in any interview loop. What is your answer?  Are you an empowering leader or an autocrat? When you chart a course what will drive your team to follow? Leaders lead and employees follow. If only it were that simple. 

Legend has it that Cortez and Alexander the Great burned their boats because they were outnumbered and wanted to ensure their troops would not retreat. Sometimes your employees will have no choice but to follow you. Great leaders know that your team members can respect the individual, the role, or the company. Fantastic leaders understand the power of making deposits in each of those accounts that they can use to draw their team forward. 

When an employee says, “I will follow you no matter where you go”, it is a good indicator they respect you as an individual. Most employees are not cavalier with their lives. They want to know that they’re in the best spot they could be. Have you done everything you can as a leader to help your employees do their very best work? How well do you understand their strengths, their desires and what is restricting their performance? Your opportunity for investment is only limited by your desire.

Managers can hire, fire, and determine who gets paid. All of those are motivating forces but they are short lived. Employees motivated by fear or greed will shift their focus when the moment passes. If you want someone to truly respect the role that you are in, you need to make it stand for something. What value is your role bringing to the business? How critical is your team? Are others so inspired by what you are delivering that the work itself is attracting talent for you?

You are leading a small team in a big company. It might feel like you have no control over how your team perceives the name on the paycheck. The truth is most employees don’t quit companies they quit managers. You absolutely shade the color of the glasses that your team members look through each day. Employees respect and follow companies that they believe are a part of something bigger than themselves. When the alarm clock goes off employees with purpose hear the call of significance. Clarity of purpose fuels the resilience we all crave in our hardest moments.

Take the time to reflect. What will your answer be the next time you get asked what your management style is? It may make the difference in knowing that you will never need to look over your shoulder again as you are taking the mountain.