THEN to NOW Leadership Shift #3: Tough on Results, Tender on People: The Ritz: Going Above & Beyond
Tough on results, tender on people means holding your people to the highest standards while building meaningful and trusting relationships.
Being both tough and tender, having both high standards and high touch, is the ultimate yin yang of leadership.
We have all had bosses who bark orders without regard to the team’s well-being and who leave positive morale as roadkill in the office. THEN Leadership: Bosses who are only tough on people.
On the other hand, many of us have had bosses who are so tender-hearted, avoiding any and all conflict so nothing ever got corrected and standards slide. That too is THEN leadership: Bosses who are only tender on people.
NOW leadership is tough on results, tender on people!
One of the most powerful ways to build a culture that is tough on results and tender on people is to turn our team into a leadership factory: Making it your explicit goal to produce the next generation of leaders for your organization.
Some of you might be reluctant to fully embrace this notion: Won’t people leave if you make them even more employable?
The ironic truth of course is that you will keep your good people longer, the more you challenge and stretch them, the better you prepare them for their next step. Yes, making your team the leadership factory induces loyalty!
By challenging and stretching them and holding them to high standards, you are tough on results. By deeply and personally caring about their career path, you are tender on people.
The Ritz: Going Above & Beyond
As a Leadership Factory, the Ritz-Carlton is the cream of the crop. The Ritz Carlton was founded in 1983, and their Leadership Factory has endured from the first day they opened their doors. Each team has the explicit goal to produce their own next generation of leaders. As a result, many senior leaders at the Ritz not only started their careers there, but many hospitality leaders throughout the travel and leisure industry first spread their wings at the Ritz.
Ritz-Carlton President, Herve Humler, shares the story of a 14-year-old wheelchair-bound young man who checked in with his family at the The Ritz-Carlton in Dubai. Upon looking through the lobby’s massive windows, the teenager took one look at the gorgeous beach and said to his parents, “I sure wish I could swim in that beautiful ocean.”
The problem was that between the hotel and the beach stood a 200-meter stretch of sand over which a wheelchair could most certainly not travel, crushing the young man’s hope of swimming at that one-of-a-kind beach.
Within earshot of the family’s conversation was a hotel maintenance worker who said to herself, "I’m going to do something about this."
She quickly rounded up a few of her maintenance department coworkers and a mere six hours later….there was the masterpiece: A brand new wooden walkway that the wheelchair could easy roll over to get down to the ocean.
For the team at the Ritz-Carlton Dubai, it was simply another day as a member of their leadership factory. For the teenager, it was the first time he had ever been swimming at a beach.
What Ritz Carlton is most proud of is that nobody needs to tell its employees they have to do these things. Nobody instructed the maintenance worker that she must construct a bridge to the ocean.
Instead, Ritz has built a leadership factory culture that grows and challenges each employee to reach for the next level. Top service. Team members that inspire one another. Growth from within. That’s the leadership factory at The Ritz Carlton. It’s fundamental to creating the memories that last a lifetime so that their guests don’t just stay at the Ritz, but that the Ritz stays with them long after they checkout.
The Career-Path Meeting
Here is a first step you can take: Start holding regular career-path meetings with each of our team members. Simply grab a cup of coffee and have an informal conversation showing that you deeply and personally care about their career progression. Start with: “Karen, it’s been a while since we talked about your career goals. Are you still thinking about…”?
During this career path meetings, you might ask:
Where do you see yourself in 1/3/5 years?
How can you achieve this here?
What do you need to learn? Who do you need to know?
Here is your action step: Make a coffee date (virtual if you must) with one, just one person on your team and start a conversation about their career path.
