Are your roosters destroying a potential 10X culture?
Are you a leader who aspires to a 10X culture in his organization? If yes, then most likely your hope is that your leadership and management, are doing their best to groom the employees. However, are you aware that anyone who tends to repeat any of these 7 phrases, demonstrates a rooster mindset (mindless crowing to alarm people at a fixed duration), not a 10X leader mindset.
So do you have roosters in your workplace? Are they destroying a potential 10X culture?
1. Monday morning Blues
Managers talking negatively about the Monday mornings are signalling to the whole team a lack of love for the work. If you don’t even love coming to work, how are you going to even want to create breakthroughs? A 10X workplace is where people love to return to!
2. You should do it like this
Managers have teams because the teammates each have a special skill to contribute. While feedback is a great thing, it is important to be non-intrusive. People, if given freedom to work the way they like can give you extraordinary results. Roosters expect pen of hens to follow them. Potential 10X leaders believe in empowering their people to deliver their best and then some more.
3. Statistics say this
Yes, they do. And there’s always a point in numbers. However, success is more than just numbers. Do your managers focus only on numbers, or are they leaders in making, who learn from project outcomes or from previous RCA reports? Are they killing the culture of innovation because they don’t see numbers? If they are, then the 10X culture is also getting killed bit by bit.
4. Contribute in the Meeting
Some people are silent contributors. Others Ask too many questions. There are those who contribute to conversations, others who listen and process information, those that derail the conversations, and those that let their work speak for them. Most managers and leaders focus so much on correcting / changing people’s weaknesses that they never let people play fully to their success.
5. It shouldn’t take so long
You do not know how long it takes. Or maybe you do. However, did you take your team in confidence? Did you take the subject matter experts’ consent before you committed to the client, before the client request for some new change? If not, well, you’re killing the confidence and trust your team has in you. Result – No 10X culture anymore.
6. Do as you’re told
“Then I might be directly told by the CEO! He tells the VPs, they tell you and you tell me what to do. So, might as well listen to him directly.” Don’t be surprised if someday a teammate with a backbone responds in this fashion. A bossy micromanager reflects poor trust. It indicates a rooster that believes in chasing the hens and pecking at them mindlessly. It doesn't show empowered human leaders.
Truth? You chose these people to do what you requested to get done. Now you want to also tell them how exactly to do it. You don’t invite questions either. Well you get the drift, don’t you?
7. I’m taking the day off
Respect, support and collaboration are human. To crow every day in the morning and evening once, is rooster behavior. 10X teams are cohesive. Everyone works with the same levels of commitment, and exercising hierarchical privileges is a sure shot way to destroy the 10X spirit.
So now that you have identified the roosters at your workplace, how are you going to transform and nurture them into 10X leaders of the future?