At the end of a leadership course, it means a lot to hear participants say, “I’ve got some work to do.”
Because it means they’ve identified specific ideas they can use to be better leaders tomorrow than they are today.
This article is part of our Team Leader Resource Series — a collection of practical articles to help Team Leaders grow their skills, shift their mindset, and elevate the way they lead.
The higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral. — Marshall Goldsmith
“We love Customer Service”
When I ask Team Leaders to share about themselves and their organizations at the beginning of a leadership course, they often say, “We love Customers.”
I believe them.
Interestingly, by the end of the course, many of these same leaders say, “I’ve got some work to do.”
I love that.
Because it means they’ve identified specific ideas they can use to be better leaders tomorrow than they are today.
And I’ve come to believe that becoming a more effective Team Leader is largely about identifying and closing gaps.
In this edition, I share four gaps that generate meaningful discussion in our leadership courses and that participants tell us are extremely helpful.
Gap #1: Do I know what good looks like?
Before you can help someone else succeed, you have to know what good looks like.
Not just generic 5,000 feet in the air platitudes — show empathy! keep calls short! — but deep expertise in productivity, quality, and attitudes.
Team Leaders aren’t typically involved in establishing measurement practices — that remains a critical senior leadership responsibility.
But they are responsible for knowing what those measures and practices are, why they matter, how they connect to overarching goals, and how to talk about them with clarity.
- What exactly is being measured?
- Why does it matter?
- What does a high standard look like?
- How would you explain it to a new employee?
- How would you defend it if someone challenged it?
I always include attitudes and behaviors as part of what good looks like. Good is more than a high score in productivity and/or quality.
It’s also about the kind of behaviors your people bring to life at work.
What attitudes are listed in the job description or discussed in performance reviews?
How often do we talk about professionalism, accountability, initiative, or teamwork in a meaningful and rigorous way?
Let’s get away from vague and aspirational talk about productivity, quality, and attitudes.
Show your expertise.
The clearer we are, the easier it becomes for our people to succeed.
Because if Team Leaders don’t know what good looks like, then how can they possibly help someone else reach it?
Gap #2: Where does my time actually go?
Team Leaders are always busy.
But the question is busy doing what?
Stepping back and knowing exactly where your time goes today is the first step to improving where you spend your time tomorrow.
To achieve that, I ask Team Leaders to complete an exercise to identify where they spend time across a typical week.
We look at activities such as developing staff, supporting staff, administration, personal development, and everything else that keeps them busy.
The exercise doesn’t have to be overly rigorous, nor does it need to be particularly complicated.
But the conversations it generates are powerful.
Many Team Leaders tell me that developing people is important. They talk about coaching, development, and helping their team members succeed.
The exercise helps them compare where their hours actually go with where they believe their priorities should be.
Exactly the kind of awareness we wanted to create.
Participants don’t just look at their own time study. I make sure they also have the opportunity to see where their peers are spending their time.
The exercise is also an eye-opener for Contact Center Heads, Team Managers, Heads of CX, and even Human Resources who may be observing.
These are the people who have the ability to rethink and even redesign the role as needed.
If we truly believe in developing our people, we need to create sacred time around doing that.
We often discover that there is a gap between what we say is important and where we actually invest our time.
Having conducted this exercise many times, I find the first step is awareness — Oh! Is that where my time goes?
Better choices about where we invest our time flow from that awareness.
Gap #3: Do I think standards and support are opposites?
It’s important to have high standards. To see people perform better over time.
It’s important to provide high levels of support. To help people perform better over time.
Some leaders lean naturally into high standards. And it’s easy to spot when their support slips.
The frequency and quality of the support conversations they have with people on their team declines.
Other leaders lean naturally into high support. And it’s easy to spot when standards slip as performance declines.
Sometimes, these leaders begin explaining why high performance isn’t possible.
- “They’re Gen Z.”
- “They haven’t been here long enough.”
- “That’s just the way they are.”
Sometimes, reasons like these become excuses for accepting lower performance.
High standards and high support are not at odds with each other. Leadership requires both.
People need to know what is expected of them. High standards tell people what good performance looks like.
But they also need coaching and the opportunity to succeed. Support helps them get there.
When we begin to see standards and support as complementary rather than competing, we stop choosing between them.
And that can make us better leaders.
Gap #4: Do I think that a score is the same as development?
Scores are important.
They help us understand performance, identify patterns, and create development plans.
But perhaps the biggest realization is that scores themselves don’t develop people.
A quality score of 75% doesn’t tell someone how to become an 85%.
A performance rating of “meets expectations” doesn’t tell someone how to “exceed expectations.”
More information doesn’t automatically lead to more learning.
As dashboards become more sophisticated, some Team Leaders begin to believe that fewer conversations are required.
The thinking often sounds like this:
Our people can (should) read the data themselves and know how to make the appropriate decisions about how to improve their score because they already know our standards.
Data can identify a problem. Coaching helps solve it.
In many ways, the Team Leader role continues its transition into that of coach.
When presented with dozens of data points, we must ask ourselves:
- What is this person doing right and am I regularly recognizing it?
- What is most important for this person’s success right now?
- Is the result I see here a people issue or a systems issue?
- What’s achievable in the short-term? What’s going to take longer?
- Do we have the necessary support resources in place to help this person?
- What’s my overall game plan for this person?
The data may identify the opportunity, but development still happens through coaching, conversation, and accountability.
Because if providing a score was enough, we’d all be improving much faster than we are.
In closing
Scores are important.
They help us understand performance, identify patterns, and create development plans.
But perhaps the biggest realization is that scores themselves don’t develop people.
A quality score of 75% doesn’t tell someone how to become an 85%.
A performance rating of “meets expectations” doesn’t tell someone how to “exceed expectations.”
More information doesn’t automatically lead to more learning.
As dashboards become more sophisticated, some Team Leaders begin to believe that fewer conversations are required.
The thinking often sounds like this:
Our people can (should) read the data themselves and know how to make the appropriate decisions about how to improve their score because they already know our standards.
Data can identify a problem. Coaching helps solve it.
In many ways, the Team Leader role continues its transition into that of coach.
When presented with dozens of data points, we must ask ourselves:
- What is this person doing right and am I regularly recognizing it?
- What is most important for this person’s success right now?
- Is the result I see here a people issue or a systems issue?
- What’s achievable in the short-term? What’s going to take longer?
- Do we have the necessary support resources in place to help this person?
- What’s my overall game plan for this person?
The data may identify the opportunity, but development still happens through coaching, conversation, and accountability.
Because if providing a score was enough, we’d all be improving much faster than we are.
In closing
The mood at the end of these courses is always optimistic and engaged.
I think that’s because each of these gaps is addressable, even in a world where technology changes daily.
And perhaps my favorite thing to hear, as participants are leaving class, is this:
“I’ve got some work to do.”
Thank You for Reading
I regularly share stories, strategies, and insights from our work across Contact Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Experience. If this article resonated with you, I’d be pleased to stay connected.
Feel free to get in touch anytime, or explore more of our work below.
Daniel Ord
[email protected]
www.omnitouchinternational.com
