As a leader, you want to be a good advocate for your team. In a vacuum, this seems incredibly simple. Be empathetic, be compassionate – and the rest should come easy.
In reality, being a good advocate means balancing your employees’ interests against other interests in the organization. This means finding balance between the needs and desires of our employees and the constraints from senior executives in the organization.
If you’re new to leadership or new to your team, you’re going to be faced with immediate pressure from your team (and internal pressure) to support for them early. Is someone overdue for a promotion? Does your team deserve higher raises this year? Do you want to revisit the bonus structure or PTO policy?
Regardless of the issue, you need to know how to balance the interests of your employees and the interests of the company.
Address your employees’ needs within the context of the larger organization. Take into account the company culture, methods for handling the kinds of issues you want addressed, and range of solutions that are available to you.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Has some terrible injustice been done? Does this need to be addressed immediately?
You need to understand what the stakes are and what you’re ultimately trying to fix. Are you righting a terrible wrong? Or are you just looking for a small win? If all you need is a small win, be thoughtful about the number of hoops you’re willing to jump through and/or the political capital you’re willing to use.
Look for goals/wins that won’t cause conflict or tension with senior leadership. Not every problem should go to the highest court in the land. Additionally, be wary of issues that come up that have already been legislated by your predecessors or peers. It’s common for new leaders to be seen as the substitute teacher and get tricked into advocating for a controversial topic that’s already been legislated. That should be a red flag that you need more information before tackling a topic.
Avoid being reactive to comments from one or two employees. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to rescue your employees from discomforts that may be relatively minor just so you can look like a hero.
Remember why you were put in this position. Some problems can wait. If there’s a salary disparity, can it wait until the next merit review cycle? Do your employees need new equipment immediately? Will the issue at hand get worse if you have to wait a little longer for a more opportune time?
Understand how key decisions get made
Understand how decisions are made at the company. Why was the budget set this way? Who has the final say? Who sets or changes employee salaries? Do people make changes mid-year? If so, how? Who gets a say in the meetings where things are decided?
Get full context for how the organization thinks about these things. In some organizations, HR drives a lot of decisions. In others it’s finance or operations. Every company is a little different based on their size and culture.
Consider that there may be a good reason for constraints. Something that may seem short sighted to a frontline employee may be necessary based on the perspective of senior leadership. Try to empathize with senior leaders in how they make decisions on these topics (you’ll hopefully be in that position someday). Is there a good reason for an unpopular policy to be in place?
By having a better understanding of how organizational decision making works, you can be smarter about where and how to advocate. By having a clear understanding of the organizational makeup, you’ll be able to achieve your goal in the fewest steps.
Start with a small win or compromise
Most big changes come from a series of small, incremental changes. Consider breaking larger goals up into smaller parts. Maybe a series of micro-victories can get your team what they need. Low-hanging fruit may get you a quick win with your team AND be the first step towards a longer-term solution.
If your department needs a complete overhaul on the employee payscales…well that’s not going to happen overnight. But maybe peripheral changes can be made to lessen the pain caused by the current status quo. Or maybe you can implement a new change incrementally, one job role at a time, starting with your highest need.
If you can find a small win that seems to get things moving in the right direction, then you may be able to get it implemented without needing any outside input. You’ll get more organizational support on a small, seemingly harmless change than something that is perceived as a major change in direction. Why rock the boat if you don’t have to?
If all things were equal, we’d triple our employee salaries. Why not, it doesn’t affect us, we get to play with house money. But that’s not leadership. You need to think about the big picture and about navigating through the trees within the larger forest.
Sure, sometimes you’ll need to put on boxing gloves to champion issues for your team, but if you sincerely think that advocating for your employees means you need to fight with senior leaders, then you might not be in the healthiest organization.
As a last piece of advice, be wary of employees that seem to always be pitting you against upper management. The healthiest organizations have a give and take that happens between senior leaders and employees. If others are leading you towards an us vs. them mindset, then that may speak to a deeper level of dissatisfaction that person is having with the job or company. That may be what needs addressing, not the complaint of the week.
Next time you want to champion something for your team, try following the above framework. Let me know how it works for you. Message me on Twitter or email me. Seeing results? Consider sharing this post with someone who could benefit. Good luck out there.