Encouraging Peer Acknowledgment
ByOne of the the things we strongly encourage in Leadership Made Simple is analyzing successes your team is having ( we assume every leadership opportunity involves some team, group, or at least another party ). If you are appealing a group of people to question “what caused the successes” in a particular situation, some fascinating things tend to happen automatically.
As the team drills down into the factors that caused the success, it nearly always comes down to what some specific people did well. “Linda did an outstanding job doing such and such,” or “Joe had a major breakthrough in such and such.” What will regularly happen when Linda or Joe are acknowledged is they will turn around and acknowledge others. “Well, thank you, but it wasn’t just me. So and so made a huge contribution in such and such area,” they might say.
When these acknowledgments happen, look who is providing them. It is their peers! Why is this so vital ? In our informal surveys over the years, we have found that peer acknowledgment is more vital to people than that from their boss in more than 8 of 10 suitcases . Reckon about it. You have some level of expectation that your boss is going to acknowledge you, but you have NO expectation that a peer will. So, it is much more special when you do get that acknowledgment from a peer.
Your leadership role, and a vital leadership skill, is to encourage the team to question their successes. The peer acknowledgment is a natural side benefit of doing that. Try it!
Warm regards,
Ed