Are You in the Right Seat?
Episode #107 Host: Tammy J. Bond
In this quick, yet critical episode, Tammy J. Bond tackles a fundamental leadership challenge: ensuring you have the right people in the right seats on your organizational "bus”. Prompted by a leader struggling with under-delivery (not under-performance), Tammy challenges the common impulse to start with people. Instead, she provides a strategic framework to audit your organization, starting with the needs of the business before assessing the talent you have. This episode is imperative for leaders planning their success for the upcoming year and looking to replace disfunction with intentional structure.
Key Leadership Insights
- The Performance Gap: If team members are doing "solid work" but lacking creativity or "anything extra," the problem likely isn't the person's effort—it's the position's fit or a lack of clarity from the leader.
- The Strategic Bus Audit: Don't start with the Who (people). Start with the What (the seats/positions needed) to achieve your goals.
- What: Define the positions, expectations, and goals required for the next level of growth.
- How: Determine the model or required competencies for success in those seats.
- Who: Then look at your team members to see who possesses the qualities and qualifications to fill the defined seats.
- Hope is Not a Strategy: Relying on the hope that someone will "figure it out" or move on is like "throwing a dart blindfolded." Action is required to align people with position expectations.
- Beyond the Resume: Many leaders hire based on the resume, not the heart or true organizational need. Hiring for impressive qualifications without clearly defining the position leads to mismatched talent.
Actionable Tools & Strategic Questions
- Audit Your Team's Energy: Use the Working Genius Model (by Patrick Lencioni), or similar tools, to discover what parts of the job give your team members energy versus what leaves them feeling frustrated. Align their roles to maximize energy and momentum.
- Know Their Place on the Bus: Ask your team members what they want more of, what they want less of, and what truly lights them up about their job.
- The Avoidance Trap: If you're avoiding the conversation, you're wearing the avoidant behavior hat. You must have the conversation to clarify how the individual can win at their current position.
Leader, lead yourself well first. Get your expectations clear. Be intentional about taking your organizational "bus" apart and putting it back together based on the needs of the growth model, not the people you currently have. You might discover your bus should become a spaceship!
(Discover Derek Gorse’s artwork - spaceman art reference from episode)
What other bold conversations would you like to know how to navigate?
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Leadership Sandbox Podcast is brought to you by Tammy J. Bond
In today's swift-moving employee market leaders are far too often putting people that are technically good at their jobs into leadership positions, without first developing them on how to be leaders of people.
How do you course correct, or better yet make sure you don’t make that common mistake? Develop your people to lead others from the moment they join your team. For more tools on how to develop others around you, contact us today. We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Amazon Podcast, or Spotify.
