I'm begging you not to carry this red flag!

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Ahoy,

I want to start today slightly differently.

Today I have something new to announce…

Except I’m not fully announcing it yet…

Weird right?

Over the past few months I have been putting something together I’m extremely proud of, and excited to share with you all.

But here’s the thing, I’m not revealing everything yet…

So I’m not going to give away too much right now, but what I can say is this:

If you are a CEO, founder or senior manager in a start up, you’re excited to start growing your team and your business, and you want to make your dream company a reality, this is for you.

On top of that, if you love insane discounts, crazy guarantees and the chance to take one of only 5 spaces, you need to be in the waitlist!

There are literally thousands of you that read this newsletter, and if I just opened this up it would be a mess. So join the waitlist below to be the first in line.

Here’s a sneak peak…

Now onto today’s actual topic!

I want to very quickly go through my thoughts on the whole “you’re not here to make friends” sentiment that seems to exist with some leaders.

The main argument you see here is that sometimes leaders have to make tough decisions.

Putting it bluntly:

That you have to do the things that p*ss people off.

• You have to stay late

• Filing that report late was unacceptable

• I know that’s not your core role but I need it to happen

I know nobody wants to hear these things (I definitely don’t), and so the argument is based on the fact that it’s easier to get stuff done, achieve the aim, when you’re not friends with your team.

It gives you the separation to throw out the tough choices.

However…

Here’s my counter argument.

That’s nonsense.

That is an attitude taken by those that have taken up a leadership position purely for the love of the power.

It’s dangerous, and ineffective over the long term.

Not to mention, it leads to a toxic work place and often a culture of bullying.

I know if the goal is to make more money, and you thrash people until you make more money, you have technically achieved the goal.

But what if the goal is to continue to make money over the next 5 years?

Year 1 might go okay but then you’ll start to lose people…

You’ll need to focus on hiring and training…

You’ll burn people out so they work even less at a lower quality…

By year 3 your team is done.

You’re no longer going to be hitting the goals, and if you are, it wont be as successful as if you’d taken a different route.

So for me, this attitude is clearly not healthy.

The sentiment though does have a bit of weight to it though.

What do I mean by that?

You can’t be best mates with your team. At the end of the day, sometimes you need to make decisions that people wont like, you physically can not please everyone all the time.

But that doesn’t mean you have to be a d*ck about it.

• Be kind

• Have a laugh

• Make people relaxed around you

Maybe don’t hit the club with them every Friday night…

You need to have good relationships with people.

For me, that is the corner stone of a good leader. Their ability to build healthy relationships with people.

You’ll never inspire if you’re constantly beating people down.

By building a foundation of good relationships, when you do have to make those tough decisions that people don’t like, they are far more likely to look at it from a place of understanding.

I know this to be true because I’ve experienced both type of boss that both required me to do the same, pretty terrible job at one point.

(Side note: we used to refer to a surprise job that nobody wanted to do as an “exciting opportunity”… Not really relevant but it still makes me chuckle)

The boss I had a bad relationship with ordered me to do it and gave little interest how I felt. It would be fair to say that I was not on my A game.

The boss I had a good relationship with approached it from a place of understanding:

“I know this is going to be terrible, and I hate to ask this from you but I need you to…

…It’s not going to be fun but I need this done well because…”

By taking the time to care about the relationship we had they presented this “exciting opportunity” in a way that made me care about the outcome and therefore produce better work.

So here’s the summary:

Build relationships with your team.

“I’m not here to make friends…” is a terrible attitude and will not have you stand out as a leader in the long run.

So take the time to build relationships.

You rely on your team more than they rely on you.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition. And I hope you click to join the wait list, I am so excited to share more with you all!

As always, have a great day.

Reece

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