How to be a strong leader without losing your team

Someone wrote to me on Instagram with a question I hear constantly: how can I be a good leader to my team? How do I keep the balance between leading them, allowing them freedom, and still not losing sight of them?

Let me tell you something first. This problem is not unique to you. Anyone who has a business hits this exact point, and it is a critical one.

It starts with goals. You set the objectives for the company: these are the targets we are going for. Then every position inside the company has to focus toward that goal. Everything else I am about to tell you hangs off of that.

Name the job, then step back

Take hiring. In my energy company in Italy, the whole HR area has objectives. You need to know what they are doing and you need to give them orders about what is needed. I get a form once a week: who they are trying to hire, what they are trying to get done. They keep the statistics of the company. They are responsible for making sure training is being done and that people actually know what to do.

When you give an area of the company its responsibilities, and you really name out what you want from them, now you can get away from them. You put competent people in there and you watch their results. You stay out of their way until you see a lack of results, or poor results.

And when you are not getting what you want, you go back in. You correct it. You give clearer orders. You make sure the people can actually duplicate what you want. That is the rhythm of the whole job: you reach in, you withdraw, you watch what is going on. Then you reach in and withdraw again.

Reports you can actually read

You have got to get reports from every area that are easy to read and duplicatable. I have a company in Florida that I just started. Once a week I get a report from every key person in it, and I read them. It is a pain in my neck, but I read them, because then I know what is going on in that person's world.

It is like sailing a boat. You trim the sails and you adjust the rudder to keep it heading in the compass direction you want. Same thing with your company. It usually does not take some huge push. It is tweak, tweak, tweak.

In my sales division I keep statistics on how much promotion we are doing, what we are getting back for the ad spend, how many new salespeople we are recruiting, and how many of my independent contractors across Italy are active every week. And the main statistic, how many new customers and new account numbers we bring in, I could look at weekly, but to be truthful I look at it every day.

Then I watch for trends, because nothing goes up like a skyrocket forever. Life does not work that way. It goes woohoo, woohoo, and then uh oh. So you juggle it. And the report has to let you see inside it. Total customers and total new accounts for the week is fine, but can you look inside and find out who did it? Who is being active? If the report cannot tell you that, it is not doing its job.

Examine it like a doctor

You have to be able to evaluate your company the way a doctor examines you. He checks your pulse. He checks your blood pressure. He listens to your heart and your lungs. How are these parts working? He listens, he observes, he examines. That is what you do with your business, so you can see who you should just let get on with it, and who needs to be adjusted or replaced.

Because there is going to be a lot of demand for your attention. Everybody is going to want a little piece of you. You have to decide who demands it and who deserves it.

The areas that are doing well, make sure they get the love, and then leave them alone. If they are already getting the stats up, tap them on the back, tell them nice job, and get out of their way. The areas that are underperforming, make sure you have the right people in them and clear direction on them. Leadership is a jockeying of those two: validating the people who are producing, and working with the ones still trying to figure it out.

Demanding does not take away from caring

One of the traps I see a lot of executives fall into is this idea: I am not tough enough. I am not mean enough. I am not demanding enough. Forget about it. That is not part of it.

The truth of it is your willingness to care for someone. Your willingness to be kind to them, to be patient with them, to help them. Being demanding does not take away from caring. If you care, they have a tendency to care back. I do not want to get into anything romantic and crazy here, but you have to have a real love for your fellow man to be a good leader. Present people with caring, kindness, temperance, and patience, and they will give you everything they have, partly because they do not want to lose that from you.

Then you demand from them. And as long as they keep producing, reward it. A financial tap on the back does not need to be a lot, but take care of the ones doing their job. Then put your energy into the ones who need help or replacement. Hope it helps. There we go.