In our society today, we’re seeing work ethic decline at a rapid pace. If you look around your work environment, you see it every day, coworkers doing the bare minimum to get their pay. But there’s something inside you that makes you strive to excel, even in the midst of such mediocrity, as you take work ethic personal integrity to heart.
You see others waiting for their orders, waiting to be told what to do, and if they haven’t been told what to do, you’ll see them leaning back in their chairs, checking their phones, participating on social media, searching for something on the Internet, wandering the halls, playing Candy Crush, or solitaire, while you feel the urge to do something different. You have an inner compulsion to do something to increase your working environment, support the organization, increase your own personal and professional integrity and productivity.
You could be a huge influence on the world around you.
You might look around at the leadership where you work and think that they were endowed with certain stages of life which prepared them for their positions in the organization. Maybe they were born with it, inherited it, or went through expensive training to qualify for it, but there are others hidden within the ranks of staff which have the drive, enthusiasm, and experience in the trenches to make huge contributions and increase productivity exponentially.
Management can be found regularly honing their skills, by taking continuing education classes and courses to expand their knowledge base beyond whatever they may have learned in the past because running any organization effectively is a moving target, especially as general work ethic and commitment to productivity among the workforce declines.
Management teams are made up a variety of individuals who have varying areas of expertise, some are formally trained, and others rise up from within the ranks of an organization. Those who rise up find the decline in a personal commitment to work ethic and professional integrity unsettling.
If you are thinking you’re prime grade material for moving up into management, you might be right. If you are, you will notice that you have a commitment and dedication to life, which you approach much differently than your coworking peers. While others are perfectly content to punch in, and punch out, to get their wage and go home to lay on the couch in front of the tube and drink beer, you can be found studying after work, and engaging in activities which make you feel like you are enhancing your quality of life while doing so.
But if you really have what it takes, you have some good communication skills and are able to influence others to take the high road. While in the trenches, you will find yourself encouraging others to do better, to achieve more, to offer greater contribution to the organization. In a sense, you are like a cheerleader, making others feel better about contributing to the greater good of the organization, and getting them to play (work) with others. These are earmarks of an effective team builder.
You may be in an organization where micromanagement abounds, which generally promotes a lackadaisical working environment, where people are unwilling to work unless they are ordered to do so. This is not a productive work environment and it puts tremendous pressure on management to adopt even more types of pressure to get production numbers out of staff, which leads to poor worker satisfaction and high turnover rates in human resources.
Effective management is more about promoting the vision of the company through empowered workers who share the vision of the organization, who desire to support and receive satisfaction for playing out their role in the best way possible. This is the difference between leadership and dictatorship.
In the most effective organizations, how are they able to get the ranks to join the team and offer their skills, talents, and abilities to support them?
The workers are empowered, they have a clear sense of where the organization is going, they not only see the vision, but they clearly see the part they play is integral in moving the organization from where it is today, to where it wants to be.
Our society has gotten extremely lazy due to technological advances. Back in the day, if you were going on a trip, you had to plan, get fold-out maps printed on large pieces of paper, chart your course from where you were to you wanted to be. This skill (which transfers nicely to management) was lost in our society, because now, when we want to go somewhere, we only need input our destination and don’t have to think or do anything else, except to turn when our phone (or other navigational device) says to turn.
Unfortunately, this is the attitude of the current workforce today. Not to think or do anything until your told to do so.
Of course, this does not apply to you. You’ve taken an interest in the organization where you serve. You know the management, the leaders, their particular styles, the hierarchy, their ideals, goals, challenges, and achievements. You’ve taken interest in these things because for you, this is not just a job, this is your profession, and you feel like having a good working knowledge of your surroundings is a key component in your readiness for joining the ranks of leadership.
You know the workforce cannot be bullied into productivity, they can, though, be encouraged to ins a sense, follow the leader, if they have a powerfully positive leader to follow. You know that if the greater part of the workers could adopt your model of work ethic and professional integrity, this organization would thrive.
Leading in this manner is all about relationship. Building on a foundation of trust and integrity. How you interact, positively influence, and communicate with your people, helps to create a powerful team which is highly supportive and effective.
This relationship exemplifies your ability to connect with the team. Not to worry if it’s not 100% on point, as team building is a process, and it is continually in a metamorphosis to the next level, so persistence and reliability are so important.
The best leaders have good judgement. If you don’t have a natural inclination to quickly assess and given set of circumstances, weigh all the data which is available at the time, and head toward a solution, these are skills which can be learned and honed over time.
These skills in particular will help build relationship throughout all ranks as you can be relied upon to keep the organization positively focused and moving forward without loss of momentum.
The most successful organizations are not dictatorships, they are families. Many family members with varied skills, talents, gifts, and abilities gathered together, supporting each other for the familial organization.
Be aware of the individual strengths and weaknesses of each family member and help create for them environments where they can shine, and the whole family organization becomes more than it’s ingredients. It transforms into a work of art.
Are you ready to make a difference by encouraging others to take a more effective role in the world in terms of work ethic personal integrity?
