Leading leaders

There is more need for leaders than there are people who are naturally born - or good - leaders. Therefore, the best thing when hiring or promoting someone to a leadership position is to be sure of the position and the person being a good match. Not every great salesperson is a good sales team leader, and not every good team leader understands what is needed to excel in sales.

One thing I have seen way too often is someone who seems to have leadership experience being a terrible leader. Too many companies need to promote so desperately that they seem to give a chance to anyone up to the task or someone who was in the right place at the right time. It doesn't mean they will be good at it there, or anywhere else. When someone accepts a leadership position for the wrong reasons, they are also less likely to do the work to become good at it.

To ensure that leadership works like you want it to, your leaders need support and guidance from their superiors. It is not helpful for anyone to know they are not getting things right, if no one helps them understand how they will be able to improve.

Leadership can get very lonely, and all possible support is likely to be welcomed by most leaders. If the only conversation with the people above is that results need to improve, they might not. In that case,there is likely to be even more need for support (and venting).

Leaving that leader with only more demands increases insecurity and frustration instead of improving results. If someone in a leadership position feels pressure from both below and above at the same time, things don't look good. Where else can they then ask for support than from their superior?

"Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don't fall in line with people who don't respect us and who we don't believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst."

~ Rachel Maddow

Anonymous feedback is not necessarily the best way to improve things. First of all, you need to make sure enough people are answering to make sure things stay anonymous, otherwise, people will not be comfortable giving useful answers. Second of all, the feedback of someone should go to their superiors to deal with, not directly to the person who the questions are about. I know a case where a boss getting less than perfect feedback from the team couldn't quite cope with the answers. The result was things getting very awkward when the answers then had to be discussed in a team meeting where the boss in question demanded examples of the issues that arose earlier. No one wants and should be put in a situation where you have to give public feedback to your superior in front of the whole team. The team has not been hired to teach their management but to work, which they then have more difficulty doing when their superior's time goes on a personal self-development journey that takes their time and energy too. It will be very difficult to recover a healthy team spirit as well as work with a leader who you lost respect for completely. So, in short, feedback and support should be given to all, but mainly from the top down.