Fix the damn roads.
Maybe this is what your team really needs from you.
You may recognize this title as a key campaign slogan of Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Fear not, I am not here to discuss politics, but something she said struck me as relevant to leadership.
Governor Whitmer shared that in talking to voters during her campaign, she realized they were far more interested in solutions for the nagging problems that impact their daily lives than they were policies and programs with impressive titles that tackled complex systemic issues.
“Every day I drive on crappy roads. Isn’t the role of government to take care of infrastructure and make roads safe and drivable?”
She promised to fix the roads. She won the election. I’m not here to comment on whether the roads were actually fixed. That would be a different subject.
Is this relevant for leaders?
How do the people in your organization, especially those on the front lines, feel about the tools, systems, and processes they are expected to use to do their job?
I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say this is probably an area that is neglected in many organizations where employees are expected to just “get on with it”. Every day they face frustration and unnecessary difficulty in…
