Leadership Lessons: What Have You Learned?

Leadership Lessons: What Have You Learned?

David Griffin | Firehouse

"Dr. David Griffin helps you to see the flip side of the pandemic coin and how it gives us a unique chance to hone our leadership skills.

As we all navigate these unprecedented times, it does give us a unique chance to hone our leadership skills during a situation in which none of us ever served: a pandemic. However, it isn’t the pandemic that I’m going to discuss in this column. I’m going to poke and prod you with questions to see whether you will be able to look back over the pandemic and identify how it changed you: good, bad or indifferent. 

As a leader, we always must be evolving, and if you can’t evolve during a situation such as this one, it might be time to take a hard look at yourself.

Self-recognition

The number one question that I have for you is, what have you learned about yourself? Have you learned that you can mentally adapt to an unknown situation and make the best decision possible despite incomplete and unproven information that first might be presented to you? That sounds familiar, right? This is when strong leadership and decisiveness is important. Don’t pass the buck on to someone else. Make the decision, because sometimes you have to, whether you want to or not. If you want the rank and the little collar pins that come with it, then do the job and make the decisions. Be the leader.

You serve your people

How about this question: Have you been serving your people during this pandemic, or have you been serving you? I hope that you answered that you have been serving your people, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. I saw chief executive officers of major companies forgo their salary just to ensure that their team members would get paid during these tough times. On the other hand, I witnessed companies furlough individuals or cut their employees’ pay while the members of the leadership team kept their full salary. I just can’t understand a situation like that. A leadership team is nothing without the people who actually do the work. Try getting a great leadership team together that never made a specific product and then let all of the employees quit. How many products would be made? Absolutely none.

Such a scenario is completely mind boggling to me. As a leader, you serve your people. Period. End of story. If you have a different opinion than that, I feel sorry for you, but I feel worse for the people who must work under you. They’re the ones who suffer, when they should be the ones who flourish."

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Leadership Lessons: What Have You Learned? David Griffin, Firehouse, 2020

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