Keeping Your Leadership Role – Principle #1

There are numerous books and articles written on the subject of leadership.  Some are written by great authors, others by outstanding businessmen, professors and scholars, and so on.  Other excellent leadership books have been written about many of the Presidents of the United States, successful military leaders and self-sacrificing servants like Mother Teresa.

                This article and the next five are going to be some of my experiences that I have taken from two of the best supervisors anyone could ever hope to work for.  One was a very humble and kind gentleman who was a Funeral Director.  I worked my way through my first two years of college at the funeral home.  His last name was Chadwick.  I will share two principles of leadership that I learned from him.  The other supervisor was at a steel mill whose last name was Conley. He was a former football player at a mid-level Division I university.  I will share four leadership lessons in which I experienced under his supervision. 

                Why did I even mention these gentlemen’s last names?  Because, I call the lessons that I am going to share “My Six Chad-leys”.  I cannot begin to tell you how these experiences have helped me throughout my careers, especially in the area of leadership.  This is enough for an introduction.  Let’s get to the first “Chad-ley”.

CHAD-LEY #1 – Help Them Into The Bus, Not Under It

                The steel mill where I worked had some very stern rules.  Basically, this was due to safety reasons, but the experience I am about to share probably came about to a company and union agreement.  Since there were many continuous 24-hour operations, it was impossible to give the workers a lunch break of 30 minutes or longer.  So, the company and union agreed that for all employees would get a 20 minute paid lunch break.  In other words, for the maintenance departments and all other ones who could stop working for lunch, they would do so but would not take any longer than the allotted 20 minutes.  Thus, this meant that they were only working 7 hours and 40 minutes but receiving 8 hours of pay.  The workers on the continuous operations would eat at their stations.  With just 20 minutes for lunch, the worker had to basically bring a boxed lunch, or maybe he/she would have time to heat up some soup.  BUT, there was no time for cooking. 

                Plant Protection Department (the steel mill police) caught wind of the Steam Power Department cooking large meals.  They also heard that they had radios and televisions which were also forbidden.  So, they performed a surprise check of this department’s lockers.  It was said that it took a couple of vehicles to haul out all of the items not allowed at the workplace.  So, Plant Protection decided they were so successful with their surprise “raid” as it had been called by Steam Power that they would perform other departmental checks.  They would notify the department superintendents of when they would be performing these surprise checks or “raids”.  Needless to say, they continued to find forbidden items in worker’s lockers.

                They contacted Mr. Conley and let him know the date that they would conduct the check in our department.  He contacted the shift foreman about three nights before the check and told the foremen to let it slip that Plant Protection was going to perform a check sometime in the next couple of days or so.  And, they would also repeat the check within a couple of months or so without notifying the department superintendent (I am not sure if this subsequent search happened OR if it was ever going to happen). Of course, the workers either took their illegal goods home or hid them somewhere other than the lockers.  When Plant Protection performed the check, they were shocked that they did not find anything.  Our department got a great write-up and review by the “steel mill police.”

                Now, you know why I titled the first “Chad-ley” what I did.  While not throwing his employees under the bus, Mr. Conley also attained a glowing report of his department when it came to its’ employees going by the rule book.  You may ask, but didn’t he go against company rules by tipping the men off.  And, this is where the leadership question comes in – Was the company’s goal to catch workers doing something wrong or was it to have a cook-free environment?  While working as a Senior Coordinator for a school district, I had to visit struggling schools, sometimes with the state’s Department of Education field representatives.  When I would visit the schools, I always called first to let them know that I or the state representative and myself were coming for a visit.  Some in the district office would ask me why call them first if you want to really see if they are doing what they are suppose to be doing.  The previous experience taught me that I didn’t want to catch them doing something they weren’t supposed to, but it was to get them to do what they should be doing.  If these schools would do the right thing on these days, hopefully they would see the benefit and make it a part of their daily work.

                This first “Chad-ley” instills the foundation of all leadership principles.  It is T-R-U-S-T.  If trust doesn’t exist between supervision and employees, your organization is in deep trouble.  Trust in a working relationship is no different than those in any other relationship type.  Once it is broken, it is very difficult to get it back.  It, too, like any other mistrust experiences takes time and small steps to re-earn the trust.  And, as a supervisor or employee, the organization may not have the time for this to happen.   The one thing, the employees learned was that their department superintendent would take the initiative to build trust by helping them into the bus, not under it. 

                Now, this is not to say that Mr. Conley was a doormat for the workers to tread on.  The next “Chad-ley” will give a leadership example of where he took a strong stand against departmental employees.  Its principle will be discovered as the one principle that helps leaders keep the trust they have already earned.