5 Essential Strategies to Be a Successful Boss from Radical Candor
“Being a good boss is hard for EVERYONE…” If you have ever been a boss, you know how true these words are. And if you are just starting as a boss in your small business, you’re about to find out how challenging leadership can be.
Radical Candor by Kim Scott explores what it takes to be a good—even great—boss in our modern world. Gone are the days when my way or the highway is an acceptable leadership strategy.
Employees expect to be embraced as their whole selves, respected for their ideas and contributions, and engaged as team members (and rightfully so). The job market is very competitive, and if you want to retain staff and get their best work, you need to be a boss that people want to work with.
5 Essential Strategies to Be a Successful Boss from Radical Candor
1. Care personally about your employees
To be a good boss you must care about your employees. That includes their work life and home life, their goals and dreams, their fears and insecurities. Your job as a boss is to help your team members thrive and that requires caring about their whole selves not just their work.
Caring about your team facilitates trust, and trust will allow you to have honest, forthright conversations. Your team will be more receptive to your criticism and praise, and they will fell more confident giving you feedback.
2. It isn’t kind to avoid criticism
No matter how uncomfortable it may be, criticism is essential for your business and for your employees’ wellbeing.
An underperforming employee will never grow if you avoid telling them what needs improvement. And their poor work will bring down the rest of the team, as others are likely doing extra work to pick up the poor performer’s slack.
Imagine if you were a sports coach and you never told your team how they needed to improve. You would be failing at your job. And as a boss, if you never give negative feedback to your employees, you are failing at your job. But much like a sports coach, it is your job to go beyond that criticism and follow it with advice and strategies for improvement.
3. Your ideas aren’t inherently the best
As the boss, if you insist that your ideas always take priority, you’re missing out on the enormous potential of your employees. Your role as boss is not to know the most or to impose strategy. Rather, your purpose is to get the most from your team.
When faced with a challenge or opportunity, you need to work collaboratively to find the best solution. Create time for team brainstorming and debate to ensure that everyone is heard and a joint strategy is reached. Not only will this produce better results, it will also increase employee engagement and create greater buy-in to execute new strategies.
4. Buy-in requires clarity
Even if you acknowledge that your ideas aren’t always the best ideas, there may be times when you have a business idea or strategy that you want your team to believe in and adopt. In this scenario, it is your responsibility to explain that idea in a clear manner that your team can understand.
When putting together a strategy pitch or meeting discussion, consider your audience. What do they already know and what pieces of the puzzle might they be missing? What evidence do you need to convince your team that this strategy (and the extra work that will come with it) will likely be effective? Buy-in for your idea is essential for successful execution, and Trust me - it’s a good idea isn’t a great way to get buy-in.
Often when something is clear in your mind, it’s easy to forget that other people don’t have the same context. It’s your job as the presenter to make sure that you provide all the information necessary to help others understand how your idea would work and why it would be beneficial.
5. Poor performers can’t stay
Unfortunately, when someone is performing poorly and has failed to improve after coaching and clear messaging about the nature of the problem, you need to let them go.
Their poor performance will hurt you, your team, and your business.
And while it may be hard to see at the moment, letting someone go from a job that does not suit their skills will give them the opportunity to find a position where they can thrive. Let them know that you care about them, and they can contact you to discuss jobs that would be a better fit. Offer to make introductions or to write a letter of recommendation.
The person being fired will be hurt and maybe angry, but if they know you care about them, they will probably reach out when they are ready to find the right job.
Radical Candor: Small Business Book Review
I give Radical Candor by Kim Scott a 3.5 out of 5 stars for small business owners. This book was very much written for managers in large organizations, but there are certainly valuable lessons any manager can use.
The fundamental message of this book is essential for any boss: care personally about your team and get the most from them through collaboration, trust, and coaching. And there is valuable advice on how to talk to and work with different types of team members.
If you are looking for a book on modern management, Radical Candor would be a great a start. Just be prepared to skip ahead when you hit a section that doesn’t apply to small business owner.
