PEOPLE SMARTS: Caffeinated Leadership

I recently visited a new client in the Mid-Atlantic who operates a very profitable 7-year-old full-service commercial landscape company employing 75 people. I had the opportunity to be side-by-side with the owner from sun up to sundown, and the experience was exhilarating.

I observed the owner interacting with his crew supervisors at 5:30 a.m. before the first truck left the premises, visited a number of work sites, met many of his vendors and was present when he welcomed back his crews to the yard in the late afternoon. It was raining by then, yet the employees were still engaged and seemingly full of energy. There was something special about this owner regarding how he led and interacted with others that made me invest additional time in reflection after returning to my hotel room that evening. For a while it seemed I had more questions than answers.

Why do some green industry business owners do a better job leading their people? How do they obtain more “buy-in” than most others on key initiatives? Who do these people talk to outside of work to gain perspective? How are they apparently able to consistently make all the right moves? Why do they not bend to temptation of taking the easy way out by delaying employee paychecks and vendor payments when business is not so great?

For many owners, coming to grips with his or her own unique leadership style has been a positive learning experience. For others it has been a painful journey of lessons learned the hard way and paid for with dollars that should have been booked as bottom-line profits.

The more I study successful leaders in our industry, the more I see there are certain common practices they seem to apply in a universal manner. Generally, successful leaders seem unwilling to accept the status quo. They are never comfortable sitting by and having fate determine their course of action. Instead, they chose to be pioneers and innovators. They always have their ears to the ground for good ideas and have an uncanny ability to apply the best ones in a successful manner. They are willing to take the risk of a good idea failing. Why? Because that’s one of the ways good leaders learn.

Another common trait among leaders is their ability to inspire others by defining a clear vision of what might be. To use one of Stephen Covey’s principles of personal leadership, “They begin with the end in mind.” What’s more, they encourage others to become a part of that vision. They express themselves in terms that their followers know and understand, and they do it with enthusiasm.

There was a great book published in 1999 titled, First, Break all the Rules. What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently authored by Buckingham and Coffman of the Gallup Organization. I highly recommend it to business owners who are serious about enhancing their leadership skills and knowledge. The authors state leaders have a realistic sense of themselves. They realize what they envision cannot be done without the help of others. Therefore, they are also particularly good at enabling others to act. In short, they have the ability to enlist the help of all those who will make their vision a reality.

The authors also suggest that great managers focus on each of their people’s strengths and manage around their weaknesses. In other words, don’t try to perfect each of your employees, rather, do everything to help them become more of whom they already are. Keep in mind this does not mean employees cannot learn to do things differently. Skills and knowledge are fluid. Talent, however, is not.

What does this all mean for aspiring green industry leaders? Don’t be afraid to break some rules along the way and go with the caffeine once in a while.