Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/330408
June 2014 | Construction Equipment Distribution | ZZZFHGPDJFRP| 45 Management FRQWLQXHGRQQH[WSDJH in Product Support hands of the manager. Does that mean the department manager is a poor leader? That depends on how open that department manager is to new styles of leadership. A good leader in that position will recognize the other individual as a leader, too, and will harness his or her skill set for the betterment of the overall department. A poor manager may feel threatened by this employee and will isolate and treat them in a poor manner to push them away, resulting in an overall loss for the department and the resources it could have had access to. In the end, some other department or company may get lucky and gain this employee. $WWULEXWHVRI/HDGHUV If you quiz leaders as to the most important quality a leader should have, you may receive a wide range of answers such as: vision, focus, organi- zation, common sense, trustworthiness or any of a variety of similar traits. In my experience, the most important trait for a leader to have is one that really intelligent people also share, humil- ity. Intelligent people are often not smart because of what they know, but because they know what they don't know and are not afraid to admit it. Excellent leaders aren't excellent because they can do everything; they excel because they know what their shortcomings are and are willing to surround themselves with people who fill in those gaps. Taking this one step further, they are also not threatened by a person on their staff who has skills beyond their own. They will encourage those people to do what they do best and provide support rather than obstacles. They will create a management framework in the company that utilizes the talents of these people to help manage their department or location. As a side effect, these locations are not as hampered by vacation time, illness or turnover. In our day-to-day dealings at Doggett Equipment Services, our biggest hurdle in our overall objec- tive of making 18 locations work together under consistent processes is getting the local mangers to accept the empowerment we are prepared to give them. Much like giving a teenager the keys to the car, if they are not ready for that responsibility, nothing good will come of it. We need our managers at each location to function independently of one another, but still work in a cohesive environment that makes the operation flow smoothly. We face a huge shift in their way of looking at their departments. We are asking them to view the parts and service departments as one, and cooperate with one another to achieve their goals. Until this point, they have never been given this type of responsibility. They have been controlled and micromanaged to such a degree that we have to tear down the old system far more than we intended and rebuild it as we need it to be. This results in far more drastic changes than we first anticipated, more chaos for them, and more headaches for the management team. The end result will be well worth the effort, and early indications point to the new system taking effect, but we have to also groom these managers to be ready to be the leaders we need them to be, so we involve them in this rebuild of the infrastructure so they have a clear understanding of why and what we are doing. They will be more comfortable in this environ- ment and thus more likely to accept the ownership we need from them.