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Bold Leadership
for Organizational Acceleration
By Jim Tompkins Hardcover, 208 pages Tompkins Press May 2007 ISBN: 0-9658659-9-1
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Celebrate Success Encouraging the heart by building self-esteem is critical to being an inspirational leader. To encourage the heart, use these guidelines. Recognize individual contributions to the success of every project. Inspirational leaders understand the immense power of recognition. The need for emotional support and emotional recognition is a part of every person and requires constant attention. Think of football and basketball coaches--they do not sit quietly on the sidelines waiting for the game to be over to provide feedback. They are involved with the game and give emotional support and recognition for each and every play. Inspirational leaders are like coaches. They write notes of appreciation, verbally recognize employees in public and private, and use certificates, plaques or other tangible items to demonstrate not only achievement but also their genuine appreciation for the work done by individuals and teams. Key ways that inspirational leaders recognize others include:
Celebrate team accomplishments regularly. In today’s corporate world, there seems to be more criticism than recognition. If someone does a wonderful job, it’s accepted silently. But if a mistake is made, that person is sure to hear about it. At one time, such criticisms were given in private; but these days, as the stress of being a 24/7 or even, impossibly, a 28/9 world takes its toll, these criticisms often become public. This is difficult for everyone--people care about how others perceive them. Inspirational leaders of bold organizations realize that public criticism harms the business and the company. However, they also recognize the power of public reinforcement. Each time a person, a team, or the whole company achieves a win or accomplishes a significant goal, there should be a celebration. When one person or a team has gone above and beyond the call of duty to contribute to the success, inspirational leaders create celebrations not only to honor those responsible for the achievement, but to let everyone know that achieving a goal aligned with a mission is worthy of a celebration as well. Some leaders prefer to hold regular celebrations and others prefer to hold spontaneous ones. An inspirational leader combines the best of both–a regular celebration that underscores monthly or quarterly progress and spontaneous celebrations for major accomplishments. In this way, their constituents know that the celebrations are special and meaningful, and their desire to pursue the shared vision is strengthened. Recognition and celebration in practice These two guidelines can be seen in the example of Lands’ End, the clothing and merchandise retailer based in Wisconsin. They used creative celebration to acknowledge the accomplishments of their employees. Here are a few of their 2004 activities: For their 40th anniversary celebration, Lands' End picked a theme for the year and aligned it with the 2004 Olympics, calling it “Going for the Gold.” This related back to the positive customer letters they receive, internally referred to as Golden Service Stories. Lands’ End hosted a Summer Olympics from July 13 to August 21, which featured such events as marshmallow golf, a beach ball throw, and a free throw contest. The top five teams at each event were awarded points and the top team for each event was awarded a traveling trophy, and “celebrity” status. The event also included opening and closing ceremonies, and all finalists were honored at the company picnic. On September 29, 2004, employees and their families, retirees, community members, and local students joined Lands’ End for the “World’s Largest Pillow Fight.” After the pillow fight, they made a donation of pillows and pillowcases (valued at almost $100,000) to charity. The pillowcases were embroidered with “Sweet Dreams from Lands’ End.”
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| © 2007 Tompkins Associates |
