When should a leader stand up for themself?

Key Takeaways

• Learn how and when to stick up for yourself at work
• Different ways to protect your turf in a professional manner
• How to raise your stock and your image with the company

For much of my professional life, I have always held the view that if I always did what I truly felt was in the best long-term interest of the company, and if I always put the best interests of my people and the mission at hand ahead of my own personal career, that in the end I would do just fine.

The basic premise is that if my people and company know that I always have their best interests in mind, the camaraderie, teamwork and results from working for the greater good would carry the day.

While there is certainly validity to this approach, and to a degree it has proven itself out, experience has also taught me that contrary to popular opinion, it is not always in a person’s best long-term interest to put company ahead of self. There are in fact times when being just a bit selfish is in fact the right thing to do.

One of the first inklings I had of this notion was when I came across the following quote by Henry Ford:

“An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.” [1].

In this quote, the underlying message is asking why you would devote your time and effort to making someone else rich. As logical as this question may sound, it is true the vast majority of us do exactly that. That is probably the norm as most people find themselves working for a company or corporation where they rarely have a significant ownership stake.

So, how and why can there be times when doing what is in all likelihood in the best long-term interests of the company be at odds with what is best for an individual?

Let’s look at some real-world examples. Imagine you are a regional sales manager and have built a very strong team of sales people. You and your salespeople, the ones you hand-picked and mentored, are the ones who walk away with the awards at year’s end. They are a tightknit group mainly because of your strong management capabilities, and as a group they lead the pack. Due to growth, the company determines that it must realign regions, and this realignment will cause you to lose two of your best-performing people.

Again, these are people that you identified, hired, trained and developed to be among the best.  Do you let them go?

While in the end, you may have no choice but to let them go, you should not do so without first at least doing the following:

• Make the case that these people were identified, hired and trained by you to be among the best in the company. The company is taking an unnecessary risk by breaking up what is currently a top-producing region. The new regions should be aligned in such a manner as to keep your team whole.
• As these top performers are the direct result of your expertise and performance as a manager, you should be the one to directly benefit from their continued success. If it is not possible to align regions to keep them whole, your compensation should be kept whole for the following fiscal year in which you will be put into the position of having to rebuild your team back to its present status.
• It may be that one of the reasons that company officials decided this alignment is they know you are stronger than the other managers when it comes to hiring, training and getting people up to speed quickly. That is all fine and good, but you should be rewarded for such expertise and not penalized for it. Even in companies that strive to be very fair and just to their people, the reality of it is that as business pressures mount and stress levels rise, the mood of the day will almost always be one of “what have you done for me lately?” When times get tough, quotas are being missed and/or budgets are being blown, no one is going to remember that you as an individual hired those two people that are now making your competition (yes, your peers are your competition) look good — and by default making you look bad.

The time to impress upon your superiors just how good you are and why your team should not be adversely affected is before the changes are mandated and not after.

Presenting this information in a professional, yet strong and compelling manner will make your personal stock within the company rise. Even If you lose the people in this example, by fighting for your team and yourself, you will further differentiate yourself from the crowd and your superiors will take notice. They may also worry that they may lose you if you are not treated fairly as the changes unfold.

There are no guarantees in life, but blindly following the crowd and not sticking up for yourself is not at all likely to be in your favor.

Read more from Gary by clicking the links below:

• How to Build an Award-Winning Team
• Fools Gold or the Real Deal?
• When NO is Not a Negative
• Making the Most of What You've Been Given

For more on this topic follow the links below:

• 3 times you'll have to stand up for yourself at work because no one else will 
• Stand up for yourself good leadership 
• [1] Henry Ford Quotes