Voices

I am pretty sure I never yelled as a leader. I am guessing someone will read this and correct my memory but I simply don’t recall. Well, on second thought, once I did. I was 25 years old and a new manager and I tried it for emphasis. It failed miserably! I made a conscious choice not to raise my voice ever again. And I refused to work for someone that screamed or yelled. I just couldn’t handle it.

My Dad (best Dad in the world), was a yeller. He would raise his voice in anger and frustration (and probably untreated high blood pressure). I in turn in my younger days did so also. I am sorry to my kids and wife for all the times I did. We seem to learn from our parents. I have a video of an example of this on my iphone that proves the point. My little grandson is 2 years old at the time and his Dad is asking him “What does a cow say?” And the little guy replies “moo”. And Mike asks “What does a dog say?” And my little buddy says, “Ruff-Ruff”. Then Mike whispers and says what does a lion say (in a very soft voice) and the little one whispers back: “roar”. His Dad whispered, so he whispered. Even though it was a roaring lion!

You will smile when you watch the video but it further proves a point. We observe and we follow.

Now, I am not a ‘softie’. Well maybe when it comes to my grandkids, but over the years I hate to say that I probably had to terminate many people for poor performance. Now that would probably be less than 1/2% of the total employee count but over thirty years, I would guess 50-100 in total. Before we did, we tried everything. We tried holding them accountable, additional education and changing their seats ‘on the bus’ with different roles. We tried inspiring them, changing teaching techniques (verbal, auditory and visual), providing coaching and mentoring and we tried counseling and probation. Many times, the employee would self eject because they realized it was a bad fit. But sometimes, we would have to have that difficult discussion and agreed to part ways. We had a responsibility to the other staff to make these difficult decisions. Too many jobs and families depended on it. But no matter how bad things got. I just didn’t believe in raising our voices. It didn’t seem to accomplish anything.

My most successful teams simply did not want to disappoint me. That was far worse than if I yelled. They wanted to please, achieve and win. They wanted to hear me praise them, thank them and reward them. They wanted to do the right thing because it was so.

It seems to me the world would be a better place if leaders (in business and out) would recognize a simple theme that I tried hard to practice: I didn’t need to raise my voice to be successful. Instead, I simply needed to improve my point.

I became a better leader when I explained the ‘why’ or the reason, we were trying to accomplish something. I over-communicated in almost every circumstance ‘the why’. I like to think we succeeded not out of fear but out of work ethic and pride in our jobs.

If you work for someone who yells and tries to intimidate you, to quote a famous someone; they are a loser.

They might win short term but they will lose long term.

Don’t follow their lead. One day, when you retire, you will be judged by others. They will remember how they were treated and led. It’s up to you how you want to be remembered. And it’s up to you how you want to treat people.

Have a great day and thanks for reading this.

With a goal to “help the next guy in line”, Glen Cavallo, a 30+ year healthcare executive has chosen to share the many lessons he has learned with others. Glen does this by serving as a coach/advisor to leaders at all levels of organizations, as a board member and as he presents inspirational speeches at regional, national, annual and awards meetings.