Don’t Call The Mayor About The Paper Boy/Girl

Have you ever been in a meeting with a senior executive that was wasted on trivial complaints and no solutions? In other words, someone in the meeting is choosing to call the mayor (senior executive) and inform him about something they could solve on their own.

When you are the mayor, you have a city to run. You might think, “There is no time for this … AND there hasn’t been a paper boy/girl in my city for 20 years!” OR “I need everyone to take accountability and solve problems themselves!”

How do you get to a mature organization, where your team will run through walls and bring you solutions? The distinction between there is not time for this and there is no time for you is subtle. Do you care? It is easy as leaders to unintentionally communicate that we don’t care about people? In fact, you might be patting yourself on the back thinking, “People don’t come to me with that stuff anymore”.

How many people will run through a wall for someone that doesn't care about them? The next time you’re feeling like the mayor hearing about something trivial … pause… listen, care and then coach. In the next 3 minutes you will either build an accountability culture for your staff or create a learning barrier for your leadership team.