The Simple Rule My Dad Used to Make Leadership So Much Easier

My dad used to try to talk his customers out of buying his product.

He sold carpet for a living, and he’d walk into someone’s home, look at their floor, and say to this person (who was hoping to give him thousands of dollars in the coming weeks), “You don’t need to replace this carpet for at least another 5 years.”

He was a radical engenderer of trust. If he was gonna err, he was gonna err way over the edge of you knowing that he was in your corner. Not only with customers, but with employees, too.

I remember sitting next to him at one of his company Christmas parties when he opened a card from one of his employees. I read along over his shoulder:

“Cary, I have only been able to give my family this life because all that you have done for me, and us. I will never be able to fully thank you.”

I found myself crying, he crew too, we both crode.

This was the moment I came to viscerally understand two things that have shaped my life and career:

1. a boss affects a person’s life unlike anybody else can, and

2. that has indisputable implications for what the ultimate aim of leadership must be.
   

My dad made what was important to other people important to him, too.

Too many leaders want employee devotion in exchange for the paycheck they receive. But that’s a shit deal, and it doesn’t work because everyone fucking knows: paychecks are exchanged for work, but demanding devotion in exchange for dollars doesn’t work.

What is important to your team must to matter to you.

Now, if at this point in the post you find yourself panicking about everybody getting a trophy, do us both a favor and navigate away from my site and all my content, never to return.

If, however, this makes obvious intuitive sense to you, here’s some specific guidance to help you put this challenging principle into practice:

1. Know what your team members want to achieve in their jobs

Everyone likes to feel good at something challenging, and to know that their being good at it is essential to the team winning. Feed that beast in every one of your employees and you make serving employees and serving the business one and the same. Get clear on the challenging results they need to achieve to deliver an A+ performance, and when they pull it off, reward them (obviously).

2. Know what’s most important to them to spend their personal time on

And then require that they carve that time out, every week. Remind them to make themselves important by prioritizing those things, keep them accountable by asking if they did, and protect those windows of time from the demands of the business at all costs. That Thursday curling league, Hot Girl Walks, stoney solo dates at the museum, MANI FUCKIN’ PEDIS: whatever they need to experience joy, connection, and sense of self.

3. Help them get their career to the place that it can fund their dreams

Ask — point blank — how much money they want to make, and then collaborate with them on a plan that will both serve the business’s needs and get them there. Ask yourself: what value would I need out of them to justify what they’re asking for? Then make them accountable to it. Is there a title they want? Include that in the plan. Don’t have the need to justify the payroll cost? Then you just might have to go my-dad-level-err-on-the-side-of-trust and help them find that job somewhere else. Don’t worry, because you’re having such open communication, they can help you find their replacement at the same time.

Now, none of this is easy, so I invite you to just keep coming back to these simple, connected truths: nothing is more important than the quality of each human life, and very little makes or breaks that outcome like someone’s boss.

What is important to your team must to matter to you.

Hate it or love it, your employees are entrusting the quality of their lives and their families’ lives to you. Imagine the what it’ll do for the quality of yours knowing that you did so well that they believe they could never fully thank you for it.

It’s a tall order, but I can help you get started. The first step is a free goals design session; click here to find out if you qualify.