Dear C-suite: Here's How to Celebrate the Creators, Makers & Doers!

To the Executive Leader Who Wants to See Their Leadership Team Win: 

Your team will only ever be as successful as you allow and enable them to be. I am sure that is a lot of pressure, but boy is it such an opportunity!  

I hope this letter encourages you to remember where you used to sit. In that place between associate and c-suite, where your leadership duties were required to push the business forward through strategy and execution. The place before you sat at the top of the tree, when you were still the one building the nest. It may help to ask yourself a few questions to remind yourself of the daily challenges and emotions other leaders in your organization face regularly in their unique position. 

Do you trust and encourage other leaders, even when it may be something you lack understanding of? Do you believe in their ability to prioritize, strategize, and get the job done? When they tell you they need more headcount because they have exhausted all other options, do you hear them? Do you ensure that they are valued, shown respect from their peers, and feel professionally sound? 

If your answer is yes, their opportunities and successes can be endless! You are setting your leaders up to do great things in the name of your brand. This will create an environment of envelop pushing, innovation testing, and better return on investment. You are giving power to the creators, makers, and doers. You are saying, “Yes,” to improvement. Most importantly, you are fostering a culture of trust. As you know, this makes your leaders more invested, and promotes a deeper level of care in every part of their work. 

If you are not certain you do a great job at this – or possibly know you do a terrible job at this—not only may you be stifling the personal development of your leaders, but you are also preventing your brand from growing. Business growth is why you hired them in the first place. You may also be creating an environment where defeat, employee resistance, or complacency resound with a mighty punch.  

Think about running a successful home. Within our homes, we desire productivity, comfort and safety, and some creative projects that take our house to the next aesthetic level. A successful, functioning home life requires planning, developing, and doing! But if there are external stressors, the family within it is impacted. You may have a sick child, a spouse or partner who is struggling with mental or physical disease, or a broken washing machine. These setbacks over time begin to exhaust you, and when you look around the house, it has clearly impacted productivity. What do you do when these setbacks occur? How are you responding?  

While I have yet to sit in the c-suite, but as a leader in my organization and a leader in my home, all I can offer is perspective on what I like to experience from my professional and personal stakeholders, and would encourage the following:  

1. Trust, trust, trust. Trust that although you have great perspective and opinions, you may not be the subject matter expert, they are. Trust them to develop a strategy that will deliver better solutions. Trust that they are going to do what you hired them to do. 
2. Ensure they are treated with respect by peers and teammates. Nothing sucks the light from a bulb faster than negative energy. 
3. Encourage them to try new things and tap into what makes them special—even if it’s different from you or other leaders. Diversity certainly comes from race, age, gender, etc., but it also comes from experience and thought. Make them feel safe to shine! Having a unique perspective from each leader who can collaborate and come together will make your business better. 
4. Show them they are valued. Advocating for your team versus making them feel like they must advocate for themselves goes a long way. Your job is to run a successful business, and it has been proven that happy, recognized employees are more productive! 
5. Give yourself grace. You are not a perfect leader, and neither are they. But I bet if you consider the tips above, you will see a posture change in your team. It feels good to be celebrated and trusted, and if you start doing more of that than you already are, and I have to imagine there’s some element of this happening, or you’d have a big attrition problem and wouldn’t hold the title you do, you will see their head raise, chances taken, and beautiful learnings along the way. You will also be celebrated and trusted in return.  

I close with the reminder to celebrate the creators, makers, and doers—it will not only make them better, but it will also make them stay!