“Goldilocks” Leadership....Just right

Being a leader comes naturally to some folks and is a lifelong learning process for others. Some folks go through their careers leading others making mistake after mistake and never learning from them.  They struggle constantly and never understand why.  Other folks make mistakes, get themselves in a bit of hot water and become gun shy and afraid to make any more mistakes.  They effectively handicap their ability to lead.  Still others make mistakes, learn from them, implement solutions and move on.  This is where you want to be. These leaders and the most successful leaders learn this Goldilocks Zone style of leadership.

What is Goldilocks Zone Leadership?

This is not a story about a blond girl that gets lost in the forest and decides to free load at the home of 3 bears, but there are some good lessons in that story that apply to leadership.  Goldilocks Zone Leadership is when you are able to balance the line between being tough and being easy going.  This is a struggle that many leaders never break through.  Falling permanently into one side or the other.  They’re too tough or they're too easy going.  In either scenario they will find that their results will never live up to their expectations.  They will always struggle to achieve greatness in their career.  Let’s look through the lens of a leader that’s worked through both sides of this equation and found a leadership style that’s neither too cold or too hot, but just right.

Too Cold

Sandy was a brand new leader.  She had been a top sales performer with her company, always finishing at the top of their sales rankings and consistently bringing in big commission checks.  Her bosses loved her performance and wanted her to help a bigger portion of the company by becoming a sales manager.  This came with a pay raise and a better office so she was all in.  

Sandy knew that working for a tyrant is the worst.  They’re always yelling, they make you uncomfortable and she wanted nothing to do with that.  She wanted her team to love working for her, to see her as a friend and a boss.  She set out to help her team anyway she could.  She was quick to forgive and overlook mistakes.  She gave approved all time off requests and would even pick up the slack for them if they were out.  Needed to come in a little late today?  No problem.  Couldn’t quite hit your goal this week? That’s OK, there’s always next week!

Sandy thought this would be the perfect environment for her team.  No stress at all.  She was right that her team was not stressed, but they always had no motivation.  Worse they knew that they didn’t have to do their jobs.  There was no consequence to failure.  No uncomfortable conversation to be had if you showed up late or missed a performance goal.  Her team slowly began to take advantage of her good nature. Showing up late, taking extra days off and shrugging off bad performances.  As a new leader Sandy’s boss gave her some leeway but eventually became fed up.  She told Sandy that she needed to get it together or there would be consequences.  She pointed out that her team was walking all over her and she needed to get them back in line.  Sandy was both embarrassed and angry when she realized what had happened.  She committed to being tougher.

Too Hot 

Sandy couldn’t allow bad performance anymore.  She began writing her people up for performance and anything else they did wrong.  She frequently threatened her team with write ups or terminations if they couldn’t meet a target or even if they were trending in the wrong direction.  This had a clear impact on morale.

Sandy had always wanted her team to feel happy and motivated at work.  Her sudden switch to a hard and tough leadership style was a shock to the team.  At first they were just surprised, but morale quickly suffered. The team knew they had to hit their targets because Sandy constantly told them they’d be fired.  They started showing up on time, didn’t ask for too many days off and began to come much closer to their performance goals.

At first Sandy thought she had cracked the code of being a good leader.  Being easy on them clearly hadn’t worked, but being tough on them was working.  Performance was up to target and the minor policy infractions had disappeared.  She was finally able to see some goals being hit.  It was short lived.

While she was getting her performance targets, she wasn’t blowing them away.  Her team wasn’t performing above and beyond like she had as a sales person.  Instead she was solidly average.  Worse, her team hated working for her.  It’s miserable to know that you’re going to go to work and get yelled at and made to feel like your job is always on the line.  In that situation her team started to look for jobs elsewhere.  When the first person left, Sandy said, “Good! I can hire someone better.” and she did, but the brutal work environment quickly demoralized the team.  She found herself in a situation where she was constantly having to train new people and could never get top performance out of the team.  She also had to talk to Human Resources regularly.  She didn’t break policies but that didn’t stop the team from complaining to HR, but officially and anonymously.  It was exhausting and it looked bad for Sandy and she knew it.

She realized she had to make a change if she was going to get her team and herself to the next level.  She began to think about what her original goals for being a leader were.  Hitting hard sales targets but having fun doing it. 

Just Right

Sandy looked at what had worked in her career as a sales person.  When she had felt the most motivated to achieve great things and work hard.  She looked back at her previous leaders and how they had led her and she found a few things that were consistent in her leaders where she had felt the most happy and had the most success.

The best leaders were both tough and nice at the same time.  They never threatened her but were always clear on what the expectation was.  These leaders were unafraid to address a performance issue but also took a personal interest in her career and goals.  She felt like they cared.  She began implementing a plan to do likewise with her team.

Sandy began checking in with her team regularly.  She spoke to them about their performance goals and where they currently stood.  She was frank and honest about the performance, whether good or bad.  She ended every performance conversation with a statement of her belief in them and offered to help if they needed it. If someone still missed a goal, they would have a performance improvement conversation.  No threats, no making the employee feel bad.  Just an honest conversation about what was wrong and what right looked like and how Sandy would help them.  The employees didn’t need to be told they could  be written up or fired.  They knew that instinctively.  

Sandy also began taking a personal interest in each member of her team.  She would ask how their weekends went, how their families were or how their vacation was.  She’d engage with them in the conversation and ask follow-up questions.  Showing that she was interested.  If a team member mentioned that they had a sick relative or a personal problem. She’d offer her condolences and remember to ask later how that relative was doing or how that problem turned out.  This had a big effect on the team.

The team began to feel that Sandy cared about them.  This made them feel welcome at work.  They knew that she was dead serious about performance goals and that they had to hit them to work on that team, but they also knew that Sandy cared about each one of them, both professionally and personally.  This created a new team dynamic where Sandy wasn’t too easy going nor too hard on the team.  It was just right.  Her team went from walking all over her, to doing just enough to get her off their back to finally willing to run through a wall for her.

The performance results began to show. Team performance began to shoot up.  The team began challenging the top performing teams in the company and eventually became the top performing team themselves.  Sandy continued her just right management style and her team continued to deliver world class results.  She had finally become the type of leader she had set out to be.  Her boss noticed too and she quickly earned a promotion and now led an entire sales organization with multiple teams, where she was able to mentor a whole new generation of Goldilocks Zone leaders.

Have you ever struggled with leadership?  What did you struggle with and how did you overcome it?  Tell us in the comments below.