Leadership Training

My salon manager and I just returned from a 3 day leadership training session with Strategies in Connecticut. We meet with the same group quarterly for additional training. It's great to catch up with other salon owners from around the country, dealing with many of the same issues. Most of the salons are already team-based pay; others are in the process of converting.

We spend a lot of time this session on Leadership and Coaching Techniques and the distinction between Managing and Leading. You MANAGE systems, you LEAD people. It sounds simple, or even unimportant, but it seems that each attendee has a lightbulb moment when they start to see the difference and the importance.

I realized that I've been doing a lot of things wrong! For example, I have a team member who, in spite of my telling how much I appreciate her, feels unappreciated. I feel like she feels unappreciated every time she doesn't get her way. I do appreciate her, so the problem must lie with her, right? Well it occurs to me during this class that not once have I asked her what "appreciation" looks like to her. I'm appreciating her in my own way, but it is not how she wants to be appreciated. Our old conversation might have gone something like this:

"I feel like you don't appreciate me."
"But I do, I think you're great. We're really lucky to have you on board."

If we had that conversation today my reply would be:

"What can I do to show my appreciation? What does appreciation look like to you...describe it to me."

My original answer was defensive. I basically told her she was wrong. I'm sure she felt really appreciated (and listened to) after that! We both left the conversation frustrated.

I will be trying to put what I learned into practice and hopefull I will have much more productive conversations with my team!