Avoiding Your Leadership Deflategate

I’m guessing you’ve heard something in the news lately about deflated footballs, fines and penalties related to it. While I’m not a New England Patriots fan (I live in Indianapolis after all), this isn’t really about Ideal Gas Laws, balls hidden in bathrooms or the content of text messages.

This is about much more than deflated footballs.

And while some people like their footballs a bit underinflated, feeling that it helps their performance, no wise leader wants their team members underinflated.

Unfortunately it happens all the time.

Here are four things that leaders do, intentionally or not, that deflates the spirit, energy and engagement of their team members. If you are doing one of more of these things very often you are creating a deflategate in your organization far more serious than the one every sports talk show is rambling on and on about.

Giving no positive feedback

I’ve heard it hundreds of times from misguided leaders: “I don’t need to tell them when they are doing their jobs right, they know.” And the corollary: “no news is good news.”

I’m being very kind when I say “misguided.” There are many people that say they don’t need any positive reinforcement. The reasons vary, but mostly come from a glass half empty perspective. Can people “get by” with little (or no) positive feedback and reinforcement?

Sure.

But people can survive on bread and water alone too? Do we want people to survive, or thrive? Your job as a leader is to help people grow, achieve, move closer to their potential and thrive. That won’t happen with partially deflated team members.

Giving all negative feedback

Admittedly, this is a kissing cousin of the one above, but they aren’t the same. Getting some negative or corrective feedback can be helpful. In fact, well-delivered and well-intentioned negative feedback can be better than none at all, but if all you hear is negative, deflation isn’t far behind. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? You work hard on a project and think others (like a boss) might actually notice; but all you get is corrective comments. We even use words like “they burst my bubble.”

Sounds like deflation to me.

Not trusting your team

Do you work harder, more effectively and more energetically for someone you know trusts you or someone who doesn’t? Do I need to say more? Trust creates trust. (Tweet That) If you want to inflate the energy, confidence and productivity of your team members, trust them more. When you don’t show your trust or grant more trust over time, you are deflating them, a little at a time.

Not caring

The old, but powerful line is, “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care about them.”

Again, who do you want to work for? Someone who cares about you and your success, or someone who doesn’t? If you don’t care, learn more and finds ways to care. If you do care, show it.

The four simple actions I have just shared are all ways to deflate your team. Unfortunately, sustaining these actions will do more than deflate a ball by a small amount. Continually done, you can deflate people all the way to 0 psi. No energy, no engagement, no fire, no passion, and probably, no longer in your employ.

On the other hand, unlike a football which has a practical upper inflation limit, when we turn these four deflators around, we inflate people more and more – helping them continue to grow in the energy confidence, trust and proficiency.