Lead with a Clear Purpose As You Instruct Subordinates (video)

What happens in your office when your supervisor gives you a hopeless, wasteful, and value-deficient task, which offers no value to the company’s strategic objective? Do you just go ahead or find a better way to explain the lack of purpose on that task?

When you try to use a basket to hold water, or push an armoured vehicle to a garage for repair, or maybe it ran out of fuel, you may be busy, but you are not adding real value.

This also calls for what supervisors and leaders do. Indeed, having the right to issue instructions does not mean anything goes. Have you given someone an instruction to do something when you know the outcome is wholly immaterial to the project’s success? Yes, let us keep him/her busy, but yet, if you check, resources are wasted! #leadPurposefully

What happens in your office when your supervisor gives you a hopeless, wasteful, and value-deficient task, which offers no value to the company’s strategic objective? Do you just go ahead or find a better way to explain the lack of purpose on that task?

When you try to use a… pic.twitter.com/QsiLRMUGav

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) August 18, 2023

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Comment 1: The mindset that people need to keep working even if it is non-value adding is a thing that needs to be worked on. Leaders need to know that it is expected of them to pre-plan and project manage their teams efficiently this will allow them see what needs doing ahead of time. Also, as a leader, you will need to ask, how can we do this piece of task in the most efficient way? Are there tech tools and hacks that can get us there in time? If you don’t work efficiently as a leader, you will lose influence.

Comment 2: It is wise to take stock of what you have and where you are before embarking on a mission that could lead to disgrace.

Comment 3:It’s a very wrong mentality of some leaders . ” keep them working ” even if they have to exert their energy with no useful work output , all on the name of keeping them busy . An energy that should have been reserved for useful work is expended on nothing.  But atimes, it is not the leader’s call, but might be the subordinate’s bad mentality as well. ” let us keep working ” even if it is not useful and our energy is depleted- eye service .

Comment 4: Conflict of opinions is a regular occurrence experienced in the workplace.

This could arise between two or more colleagues and between people of different hierarchy, say, a boss and his subordinate.

We must handle conflicts, divergence of opinions and disagreements as quickly as they come, but how we do this tells, to a great extent, our depth of experience and level of professionalism.

Take for an example, a disagreement between a General Manager (GM) and his subordinate Project Manager (PM). For a task at hand, it comes (almost) natural for the boss (GM) to assert his opinion by giving a clear instruction on what is to be done and how.
In this case, the subordinate (PM) will be left with fewer options but to carry out the instructions.

If the PM feels frustrated because he is convinced that his own idea of how the task is to be executed will yield the even better result, whereas, that of his boss (GM) will be unproductive,

The PM may tell his own subordinates of the disagreement, just to give vent to his frustration, but in so doing, he must maintain professional conduct and give respect to his GM and his instruction.
He needs not portray his manager in a bad light to his own subordinates but learn to LEAD BY INFLUENCE.

However, creative and motivational tendencies are harnessed and collosal results are better achieved when the task is clearly communicated, the tools and the right environment are provided but the “how” is given to the experienced subordinates to explore themselves.

Should the subordinates encounter difficulty during execution using their chosen style, they feel free to speak up to the manager for assistance, or brainstorming.

My Response: effective communication as you hinted is the PILLAR of every effective team. Without it, nothing works.

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