Thousand Yard Stare

Someone (not from my own organization) asked me this question over the weekend:

"From a leadership perspective, what do you think about someone who gets all the most difficult work because they do their job well, but it also reflects the weaknesses of others on the team?  On one hand, the person doing their job well should feel good that the organization sees their abilities, but it's also frustrating if that's only because others can't help carry the load.  What do you think?"

(By the way, I love it anytime someone starts a question for me with "From a leadership perspective....")

The answer is not as simple as "reward the high performers and route out the low performers."  Some great leaders have adopted this maxim, and while there are certainly some giant truths in it, leadership is never that simple.

Here are some guiding questions and principles I responded to this question with:

• As a general principle, you do want to reward your high performers.  If you reward your low performers with time, attention, job security and tons of coaching, it most definitely will communicate to others that the bar is set pretty low.  In fact, you will likely lose your high performers if you do this.
• I challenged the person asking this question to think about what it is they really want to see happen.  "Do you want easier work?  Do you want the lower performers to carry more?"  In essence, I'm asking: "What does it mean to reward a high performer?"  Does that always mean more money?  Some jobs don't allow for that.  Low performers carrying more weight can mean disaster in some cases.  And rewarding a high performer with easier work is no solution.  Those kind of achievers will get bored, and again, you communicate a very low standard if you do that.  But thinking about these rewards is an important part of leading your best people.
• In this case, the person and I talked about scope.  A reward might be a smaller but deeper and still challenging scope of work.  Fewer but still more challenging tasks.  Others could take the easier tasks/responsibilities and have more of them without much loss.  Sometimes it may mean the opposite.  The reward might be more scope, with less actual responsibility.  Basically, you need to decide whether this high performer is a deep specialist with a narrow scope, or a leader with broad influence and less responsibility.  
• How are you handling low performers?  Are you coddling them or holding them accountable?  Do you have a way to do that?  Do you have structure and leadership in place to make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing?  This accountability could be as simple as a better and clearer job description, goals, and regular meetings.
• A mentor of mine recently told me that a general principle of teams are that they break into an 80-10-10 bell curve.  The top 10% of the people are on board.  They don't need a ton of coaching, just encouragement, rewards, and rising challenges to keep them engaged.  The bottom 10% will really never make it, never really buy into the vision, and suck time and energy from the organization that tries to keep them engaged.  The middle 80% is where most of our energy should reside.  These people waver with the tides.  They're good performers.  They see value in the vision and mission of the organization.  But they need continual coaching and help to stay in the game.  This 80% is where leadership can get the most bang for its buck.  

Leaders, there are no simple answers.  You just need to have a bias for action and get engaged in what's happening through the ranks.  If you're not sure, sit down today and make a plan to get in the game and lead.  If you do know what's happening, think about where you're investing your time and resources and what all of it communicates to those you lead.  Are you creating a haven for people to coast and repelling those who want to soar?  Or are you creating the standard you really want and perpetuating it in everything you do?

jd