Robbie Anderson had to
fight a lot of naysayers when he arrived in Cleveland
nearly three years ago.
As senior director of the
Cleveland hub for Continental
Airlines Inc., he had to knock
out rumors both internally and
externally that the airline was
taking the next flight out of
town. For Anderson, the best
cure was calmly repeating a
message that combined reality
— Continental committed millions to improving the hub —
with his sense of humor, telling
people if they knew something
he didn’t, they should tell him
before he settled in. Building
that cool confidence is part of
being a leader to Anderson
because he believes he sets the
tone for his people and needs
to be cognitive of that. That
means he is constantly looking
for ways to instill a positive feel
into the company and help his
2,200-plus employees grow.
Smart Business spoke with
Anderson about how important
it is to be positive and why you
need to know the aspirations of
your leadership team.
Listen to where your leadership
team wants to go. One of the
most rewarding aspects of leadership is watching people grow
and helping them succeed.
When I first arrived, I sat
down with each member of
my leadership team and spent
time talking to them and asking what their goals and aspirations are. I asked them
about their backgrounds and
experiences, and I said, ‘Where
do you want to go, what do
you want to do, and how can I
help you get there?’
Using some of Zig Ziglar’s
thoughts, you can get anything
out of life if you help other
people get what they want.
That’s really a motivating factor with people, somebody
who takes the time to listen
and really cares about them as
far as both their personal and
professional aspirations.
Help employees move toward their
aspirations. One of the things
we do to help employees who
want to advance is we give
them a mock interview. We
know the skills and attributes it
takes to be successful and we
apply that to the process, so
we’ll sit down and say, ‘Let’s do
a gap analysis; let’s see where
you are versus where you need
to be.’ And we do that, and we
give them feedback. We say,
‘You’re lacking experience on … ’
We give them tangible feedback and then develop a plan
of action tailored to their
needs. We say, ‘Let’s give you
that experience; let’s help you
walk through that.’
That helps tremendously.
When you look to your past,
you can find a few people that
took time to be a mentor and
that really helped foster your
personal growth. It goes back
to the old saying, ‘People don’t care how much you know
until they know how much
you care,’ and this really
shows that you do take a genuine interest in who they are
and what they’re about.
Have an open discussion with your
staff. One of the ways I communicate is a round-table discussion. I’ll go out to the break
rooms and just have an open-door session where I give
them a company update, then
I open it up to a Q&A.
Employees are very quick to
let you know if something is
not going right, so then we sit
down and say, ‘Tell me why
you think that.’ So we’ll go
through the analysis and either
go through the authorization
to do what they need or
explain why we can’t.
That’s critical; it’s part of having credibility with your team.
They may not like the answer,
but they know that you are at
least going to give them an
answer and explain why.
The other thing is you have to
make sure with the open-door
policy you guard against not
using the proper chain of command. Usually one of the first
things I ask is, ‘Have you talked
to your supervisor about it?’ because I don’t want to undermine
what they’re about because
they’re supposed to be the credible leader for the agent to be
able to get the resources needed to do their job.
Be a positive influence. Something that you constantly
have to be aware of is what attitude you have. We have a
concept here called ‘shadow
of the leader.’ It’s just being
cognitive that you are always
casting a shadow, and the
biggest thing you can do as a
leader is encourage the employees and give them reason
to have their mood elevator go
up.
We all make better decisions
when we’re happy versus
angry or concerned about our
future, so I do a self-check
with my employees where if
they see that I’m concerned,
then I’m casting the wrong
shadow.
You can always find negatives in life, and you can
always find positives. We
always have opportunity to
improve, and we never want
to take our eye off the ball, but let’s not focus on the negative,
let’s focus on the positive.
Be willing to say you don’t know. You get listening thrown out a
lot as lip service, but I’ve
found that I don’t always have
to have all the answers if I ask
a lot of questions and really listen to what my employees or
customers have to say.
At the end of the day, it’s
really my employees and customers that best understand
what’s going on.
You can only go through so
many years of college and
training, and one of the best
ways to learn is through
other’s experiences. So if you
don’t know, don’t be afraid to
ask. And don’t be afraid to say,
‘I don’t know.’
HOW TO REACH: Continental Airlines Inc., (800) 523-FARE or www.continental.com
