Leadership Lessons - Show UP!

Imagine a time in your school career when you had a Substitute teacher for the day. When you see that new face sitting behind the teacher’s desk with their name written up on the whiteboard, you got a little excited. You know that the rest of the class is going to be fun. Maybe you’ll watch a movie and fill out a worksheet. Maybe you’ll get put into groups with your friends and have a free discussion. It’s exciting.

But… What if your teacher was absent once a week? What if your teacher left for two weeks one month, came back to work for 3 days, and then left for another week?

You’d either have a new substitute every day or become more acquainted with the Substitute than your Teacher! Your lesson plans would feel more cluttered and you’d start to get robbed of your education.

Now imagine if your boss did the same thing. Imagine being a leader and not showing up.

Besides our parents, teachers are the first Leaders that we are introduced to. Teachers are amazing and selfless people that shape us during our childhood phase of development.

Teachers create a solid lesson plan for the year. They form instant bonds with their students to understand them as individuals. When your teacher is constantly absent your education is diminished as a result.

The same goes for business. Your leader or CEO will have a business plan. Just like a teacher has a lesson plan. If your leader doesn’t show up to act on this plan your work is diminished. Everyone is in a scramble to try and catch up and make stuff up as you go along.

So as a leader, it is crucial that you show up! To be a better leader you need to show up for your team every single day. When you find yourself in a position where people rely on you, you’ve given up the right to be selfish 100% of the time.

I know that this seems like such a simple concept but trust me when this aspect of a leader is missing, everything falls apart. If work starts at 6am, 8am, 1pm, or even 6pm you are the first one there and the last one to leave. You should want to greet your team as they clock in. You should want to lock up the door on your way out.

Here are the POSITIVE side effects of just showing up.

Your team will trust you more – You’ve now proven to them that they can rely on you to be there and will subconsciously allow them to rely on you when they need your help.

Your team will respect you – Being there for your team every day makes them respect that you care enough about your team to be there.

Your team will also show up – Setting a precedent that punctuality is important and practicing that yourself will motivate your team to show up as well. When you don’t then you’ve got people trickling in all the time.

Your business can thrive – Just like a teacher missing class when you miss work you’re set behind. When you show up your business has more potential to grow!

Being a leader means that you cannot be lazy. You HAVE to show up!

This blog post has been entirely focused on just making sure that you get your physical body to where it needs to be for your team. In future posts, I’ll go into more detail about how to be a leader once you’ve shown up.

Let me know if you have any stories of your Leader not showing up!