Tales Of Leadership: Show Them Don't Tell Them

Let's say, for instance, you had 20 individuals that you all gave a bike to, and you started at the exact same path, and it was 5 miles down the road, and you told every single one of them to ride down as fast as you can, and we'll see you down at the end. How do you think that'll go? You know, what's fast to somebody? What's fast to somebody else, right? So what ends up happening in leadership sometimes is we tell people something, but we don't show them. So, hi. My name is Luke Wendtlet, and this week's tales of leadership.

We're talking about show them, not tell them. I have been in countless meetings, I've been in countless board meetings where individuals are consistently telling people what to do, telling individuals how to run their roles, telling people, you know, the direction of things and how it should go. But unfortunately, without showing them, they really don't know necessarily what the target might be, what the expectations are. I'll give you another example. So let's say, for instance, you are working for an organization in the hospitality space and you are cleaning rooms, right?

So let's say, for instance, you have 20 different maids or individuals that are cleaning all the rooms, and you tell each one of those individuals that please clean the room. Please clean each and every room. I guarantee you you will have 20 different rooms from 20 different people showing up and on what they feel was clean. Right? So again, it goes back to somebody needs to show somebody an expectations. Maybe it's showing somebody in terms of goals. Maybe it's showing somebody in terms of what the accomplished tasks may look like or what they need to be.

But regardless, we have to move away a little bit from the I told you so to I showed you. So when it comes to leadership, one of the massive gaffes that I consistently continue to see is individuals expect other individuals, including myself. When you tell somebody something that they know exactly what you're trying to tell them to do. How, why, when all those things. So when it comes down to deliverables, you know, again, I ask you, before you can ever get upset at an employee that's working for you, you have to ask yourself, did I show them?

Did I train them? Did I teach them? Do they understand what we actually need them to do? Was this a part of their KPI's key result areas? All those other things. But unfortunately, more often than not, where I feel the biggest disconnect happens between employees, leadership, management, etcetera, is this miscommunication of telling somebody versus showing them so this week's tales of leadership, I ask you, I ask you politely and ask yourself and think about this and really reflect. Have I shown people the expectations before I can ever judge the outcome?

With that being said, I hope everybody's having a wonderful week. This week's tales of leadership I hope you enjoy.