Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. I have been allowed the privelege to see and practice great leadership through civic, religious, and social venues. One of my most meaningful experience came while serving as an LDS missionary from the ages of 19 to 21.
At the ripe age of 19 I was given several leadership roles. One of these roles was as a trainer teaching brand new missionaries time management, cultural differences, teaching skills, proper work ethics, and goal setting. Basically I was teaching them everything they needed to know to be successful missionaries. Because these assignments started at only seven months into my tenure as a missionary it endowed me with a confidence that the mission leadership trusted me and thought I was equal to the task. From this I learned that people would rise to the occasion given the challenge and opportunity to do so. Given a new title and responsibility people will often start behaving in a way that is commiserate with that position. In future leadership roles I am excited to find, develop, and put people in positions that they themselves might not otherwise feel they are capable of to see how they grow and mature professionally in a way that is a boon to the company and its bottom line.
As I taught these new missionaries I deciphered a very effective means of training people. The steps for this practical process was to describe what needed to be done, give or show them an useful example, let them practice the given task, and finally give them constructive criticism on how they did. Often people need a mentor or at least an example to glean the skills necessary to successfully perform in their position. However, I also learned through teaching these young missionaries that people intrinsically desire feedback. People want to know how they are doing and how they can improve. People want to be good at what they do and be recognized as such by their peers and superiors. If they feel like you are helping them towards that then they will respect what you have to say and need them to do.
I was asked at one point to train a missionary that had already been working for well over a year, but had only been doing it in English and now needed to learn the language and cultural differences of working in Spanish. What I found was that it didn’t matter how I implemented the previously successful training techniques that I had employed with the three other missionaries mission leadership had given me to groom. I could not get this missionary on board for what he needed to do to be successful in his new opportunity. I informed the mission leadership of this issue and they demoted him back to where he was and they gave me another missionary that transitioned great from English to Spanish. What I learned in this leadership role was that sometimes when people aren’t in the right seat on the bus you can’t force them to want to be in the right seat and if they are obstinate enough that it is best to completely let them go as that type of attitude affects the productivity and morale of others negatively. This is when a leader makes the call to let the person go and cut their losses while they are still low and then move on to the next person that is willing to do what is needed to get the job done.
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