The Benefits of Putting Yourself Where the Action Is

The Front-Line Leader by Chris Van Gorder is about leading with not over employees. To be effective as a leader you have to connect with people. You must get to know them—really know them.

Van Gorder has carried with him lessons he learned as a security guard and a police officer to lead Scripps Health from near bankruptcy to a dominate market position. He explains several behaviors that will help to connect with people and lead from among them. For instance he recommends that you:

• Put yourself in situations where front-line employees are serving as your boss or where you can at least work side by side with them.
• Share, through media and conversations, exceptional things employees do to swerve your customers.
• Make managing down your number one job, and instill that ethics throughout your organization. As an example, “Her performance metrics weren’t great, and she became frustrated. We tried to let her know that cultivating relationships with her superiors would never do the trick for her; she needed to take care of her people and let the rest flow from there.”
• Take care of the “me” issues. Caring for employees is not limited to the workplace. The fewer “me” issues you have, the more people stop feeling that they have to look out only for themselves. They come out of there cocoons and think more about others—about the organization, about customers.
• This may seem idealistic, but commit to a philosophy—not a formal policy—of no layoffs except as a last resort. That doesn’t mean jobs won’t change or evolve or people would npt have to adapt, but that you should do everything possible to keep your people employed with you. It introduces a great deal of accountability.
• Share power and information.

Most importantly, the word Van Gorder used over and over again was repeatedly. You effectiveness as a leader working with your front-line comes from repetition. While it can be difficult and is certainly more time consuming, you need to make a commitment to stick with it to reap the rewards of this approach. Face time is something you need to do with your employees and do it repeatedly. “The fly-by is worse than doing nothing at all.”

Here are a couple of other thoughts from Van Gorder:

When I find myself becoming a little too smug as a CEO, I alert myself to all the ways that I’m still learning. This leaves me feeling that much closer to that young nurse and that information technologist who are also feeling their way ahead.

You hear a lot from CEOs about how lonely it is at the top. I don’t feel lonely, because I have purposely surrounded myself with a group of confidant whom I trust to puncture the “CEO bubble.” Their unusual frankness improves my own decision making while also bringing me back down to earth an reminding me of y true identity and purpose as a leader.

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