If you work at SecureState LLC, Ken Stasiak wants to see what you can do.
A lot of executives say that, but Stasiak lives it. The founder, president and CEO of the 50-employee security solutions company tries to put as much responsibility into the hands of capable employees as he can, and he only intervenes when there is a problem or issue that needs to be solved from the top rung of the company.
“I kind of let them run a bit, see how they’re doing, and then offer guidance and input if I see that they’re struggling,” Stasiak says. “But if they’ve got it, I usually let them run with it.”
Smart Business spoke with Stasiak about how you can empower your employees to take charge.
Q. How do you give people the tools and resources to take something and run with it?
I like to have personal one-on-one meetings, so that there are no misconstrued notions about what is going on, like you might have with e-mails. What was said that wasn’t conveyed properly. So I really make myself available to my team. I like to do things via person because you can get a much more finite idea of what we want to accomplish. So really making yourself available to the team is one of the biggest things you can do to motivate them to be successful.
Q. What are some of the keys to staying accessible to your employees?
The biggest thing about staying accessible is delegating. If you delegate your tasks appropriately, you have time. If you take too many tasks on of your own, you obviously won’t have enough time. The challenge, from a management and leadership perspective, is to make sure that you have enough resources so that you have time to spend.
I’ve been in organizations where you can’t get even five minutes with your boss because he’s too busy doing everything else. Obviously, that’s ineffective leadership. It provides no guidance for the team. My role is really to jell — to make sure the team and all the players on the field know the calls, how we’re going to play, what we’re going to do. So a lot of times, I’ll get up, walk around and talk to people, ‘How’s it going, what are you doing, what are you seeing?’ and I correlate all that information back, so that when I talk to someone, I’ve already talked to three different people and can bring all those perspectives together.
