Lead The Leader

Who has the biggest impact on employee performance and employee engagement? It’s the leader of that team. Unless it’s your own team, you have limited influence to improve the metrics you are probably held responsible for.Leaders are the ultimate influencers of team turnover, absenteeism, the teams eNPS score, time to hire, their wellbeing, etc. We all know great leaders, and we all know a few who aren’t so great. These leaders significantly impact your performance in your role.

In HR this also is exactly where you can make the most impact… and it’s also the toughest work you’ll do. Lead the Leader.

☺️💭 Close your eyes and imagine: The ideal world for an HR professional, with amazing leaders and people managers. Managers who have regular 1-on-1s with their team members. Who ask and listen, instead of mainly talking. Leaders who give the right example, and really lead by the company’s cultural values. Team-leads who address underperformance timely, who give regular and honest feedback to help people grow.

In our role we tend to extinguish lots of preventable fires 🧑‍🚒 In an ideal world, so many issues we work on daily, would not even occur. Unfortunately, many of us don’t live in this ideal world, and our reality is:

• 🔥 A burnout that "came out of nowhere", except the signals had been there for months.
• 🔥 A high performer who quietly quits because no one ever told them how valued they were.
• 🔥 A team in conflict where everyone has complained to HR individually, but no one has said a word to each other.
• 🔥 An employee who is surprised and mad that their contract isn't extended, because no one ever mentioned their underperformance.

We can fill this whole newsletter with examples… The thing is - these fires are not caused by poor HR business partnering. They are caused by poor leadership. And many can be prevented.

How can we move from extinguishing fires, to chilling a bit more?

Lead the Leader! Yes, you should absolutely influence the shit out of them. When we get leaders to do the right thing, work becomes so much more fun. At a minimum less fires to put out, but best case scenario the whole company culture improves.

Work might even feel like chilling at the beach! 🌴 Ok ok, that might be taking it too far. But if you’ve ever worked with great leaders, you know how infectious they are and how much positivity and clarity they bring. How much more fun work becomes.

🤔 So why don’t we spend more time with our leaders? We tend to know their blind-spots and issues before they do. So why don’t we more pro-actively coach them, and help them become the best they can be?

It’s often because that’s not the start of the working relationship between a leader and their HRBP. They rarely come to you with the question ‘Can you improve my performance’ or ‘Can you coach me?’

Become a Coach
It’s time to start acting as a leadership coach, because no matter what role you are in within the people team… this is part of your job.

⚠️ So the real question is: How do you influence (read: help) our leaders, getting them to do the right things?

It’s all about change. Influencing others is all about changing behaviour. Lucy Adams (author of HR:Disrupted) is often our inspiration when it comes to change- and how to make change stick. Her tips translate beautifully to influencing leaders.

Example: You need a manager to give more feedback to his team members

1. Make it Easy - Instead of rolling out a full formal feedback framework, introduce one simple habit. For example ending every meeting with "what went well, and what could be better?" No forms, no training, no frameworks. Lower the barrier, and people are more likely to do it. (The forms and training and frameworks can follow later!)
2. Start with a Small Success - One real story of "we tried this and it worked" is worth ten company-wide announcements. 🙌
3. A team that has been given regular feedback, often increases in performance, their eNPS results improve, their turnover lowers. Whatever proof you can find that it’s working - shout it from the rooftops. Because only when managers see it’s working, and the data proves it, are you eventually successful.
4. Don't lose them in the middle - Change rarely fails at the start. It dies somewhere in the middle. Because it never became a habit. Stay close to your managers. Schedule regular check-ins and keep taking about the topic. Not to police the progress, but to reflect together and kindly remind them.
5. Let the ambassadors do the work That manager from step 2? They're your secret weapon now. People trust their peers far more than top-down messaging. You don't need to convince everyone. Just empower the right people and give them a platform.

You might still face this type of resistance:
’I don’t have enough time for this.’
’We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work.’
’Isn’t this an HR job? Can you do it for me?’
’I doubt this works.’

This is where a lot of HR professionals go wrong: they will give their opinion. The problem with that? You lose them if they don’t agree with you. And they can disagree with your opinion. Even though you are probably right, opinions aren’t helpful when you meet resistance.

The solution? Don't give your opinion. Start with a question 🙋🏻‍♀️
Coaches rarely give their opinion. They ask. They ask a lot of questions. When you personally lead with curiosity ("That's interesting, what's the thinking behind that?") something shifts. You listen, they talk. They will feel heard.

Once you understand where they're coming from, you can find the point of agreement. The common goal. The thing you both actually want. Because (in this example) giving feedback is needed to get those high performing team members. And you both want that.

Before you know it, you're not pushing anymore. The best HR professionals don't push change through. They make it obvious, and so easy that leaders choose it themselves. They act as (unofficial) leadership coaches. That's leading the leaders. 💪

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