SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
How “in touch” with the front lines are your leaders?
- Very — they understand the front line very well: 13%
- Kind of — they generally know what’s going on with the front line: 36%
- Not very — they are mostly in the dark about the front line: 35%
- Not at all — they have no idea what’s going on with the front line: 16%
Get Out of Your Office. How can you run a business if you don’t know how it’s running? Sitting in your office all the time and managing your organization without ever seeing how things are working on the front line is akin to driving your car by remote control from your laptop. Get out there. You might learn something. It only takes a few hours a year to walk around your operations. Of course you can invest more time than that and leaders who “get it” tend to do so. Put a recurring appointment on your calendar to meet with your front line in their environment. You’ll be much better informed about problems and opportunities before they happen.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of “Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results” and “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”