The Leadership Legacy

Will your leadership leave a legacy?
What tools will help your team reach their full potential?

Second in the series: The Leadership Legacy-The Three C’s of Leadership

By Ron Yudd

We explored in the first article of this series the qualities of a leadership legacy. We discovered that an effective leader must be driven by their values, grounded in service to others, work to knock down roadblocks, model selflessness and teach their vision at every opportunity. Where does the aspiring leader begin? What are the practical things that can be worked on to develop these qualities? How will these skills ensure a leadership legacy in others?

These qualities can flourish and then be nurtured in others only if the aspiring leader begins the journey with a genuine understanding of the three C’s of leadership:
Communication-Coaching-Cheerleading

This is where the path of the aspiring leader begins. The journey to effective leadership starts with a mastery of these three skills. When these are working at all levels of the organization one discovers a group of managers and associates that are focused on service excellence, happy to come to work, and are surrounded by members that brag about the staff’s performance. Let’s explore what these three C’s really mean and look at some practical “take home” tools under each one.

Communication sounds pretty simple. It is the ability to exchange information. However, it is how effective that exchange is that determines the skill level of the communicator. Real communication means that you are effective at sharing information, not holding on to it. Is information being shared with all players on the team? Is everyone working from the same page? Keep this phrase in mind as a reminder about how important communication is---There are no secrets in a successful business. Information is shared at all levels. Everyone is working from the same script. Think for a moment about a special event in your club. Think of all the information that has to be exchanged among the various teams---the set up crew, the production staff, the service team. Think for a moment if someone withheld information from the others players on that event team. Do you think you would be paged to the function room to “talk” with the member? Now think if there were no secrets-no surprises. How would that event unfold?

To work on communication skills ask yourself as the leader how effective you are at sharing information. Do you work to insure that others on the team share all the information necessary for success? Do you pretend that you are a special event planning “detective” when working with members to really find out what their needs are so you can pass them on to your team? Remember an effective communicator is not necessarily an eloquent speaker but a good teacher that shares with everyone.

The second C is Coaching. Envision for a moment your baseball coach of softball coach back in junior high or high school. Think of the qualities of that particular coach. He or she taught you the fundamentals for success on the ball field-how to position yourself at the plate or how to get ready to field a ground ball. They first made sure that you learned these critical fundamentals and then they worked to encourage you, drive you and discipline you, so you could be the very best that you could be. They helped you raise the bar of your performance, they reminded you of your commitment, and they helped you celebrate when you were successful. It turns out that the truly effective coaches developed good people not just good athletes. Remember all the things that make a great coach—teach fundamentals, encourage, remind, disciple and reward. Include these steps in your daily routine while working with your staff. Each day demonstrate a fundamental of guest service or pick something in the back of the house to drill the crew on. Encourage the staff to practice, remind them of the importance to the whole team’s success. Discipline them by keeping them focused on the fundamental. More importantly, make sure that as a good coach you reward them for a good performance.

That brings us to the third C of leadership - Cheerleading. Actively acknowledging the efforts that your people make is at the heart of cheerleading. Pretend that you are a party planner for the success of your people. Recognize them for something they don’t think you saw them do. It’s not about saying “great job” right on the spot, it’s about coming up to them later and letting them know you saw how they handled a guest or took care of a particular situation. By going out of the way and doing it after the fact the effective leader is letting the associate know that what was observed was special. It deserved to be celebrated. Their action made a real contribution to the organization. The message of celebration is very clear---their actions are important and appreciated and the organization will celebrate that type of performance. It’s all about recognizing their contribution and their performance. Shout it loud and in front of as many people as possible. A practical way to be a good cheerleader is to simply be out in the thick of things during the prime time of service. Make a mental note of the “above and beyond” performances. File those away and then later remind the individual of what you saw and how you appreciated it. Bring several of these examples up at a line up meeting and publicly celebrate how some of the service standards were being exceeded thanks to some individual efforts. Other techniques for cheerleading include passing on praise received from members about particular individuals, taking a moment to ask who did the incredible job at piping the butter for last night’s event or bringing the entire crew out to the function room to be applauded by the guests for a job well done.

Think for a moment how effective leadership skills could flourish in an organization where information is shared, all associates are coached in the fundamentals and exceptional performance is celebrated. The path to effective leadership for all levels of the organization begins here-take the journey to leadership legacy by working on how you communicate, coach and celebrate with your team. Copyright Ó2001 Ron Yudd

Next in the series:
The Leadership Legacy-The 12 Ingredients of the Leadership Recipe