Go ahead, be honest, do you have any leadership blind spots that have slipped up on you over the years? Are you really leading your OOH team proactively or do you find yourself tending to “react” to whatever the day/week has in store for us? Blind spots can adversely affect you or any leader. Frankly, they’re easy to miss – and capable of causing immense damage without ever getting noticed.
Just between you and me, grab a piece of note paper, and take the following Leadership Blind Spot Survey.
How intentional are you about these 10 common blind spots. ate yourself on a scale of 1 on the low side (meaning I REALLY need to work on this) and 5 on the high (meaning I got this and I’m continuously intentional about making this happen).
1. Not Being in Recruitment Mode
- How strong is your bench?
- Any key people who MIGHT leave over the next 6 to 12 months that would be difficult or impossible to replace?
- Are you looking right now for the talent you are likely to need sometime in the next 6,9,12 months?
2. Not Establishing a Process for Hiring
- How do you avoid bad hires? Bad hires typically cost 5X salary over 18 months.
- What 3 or 4 clear, quantifiable hiring steps do you consistently follow to find the best possible applicant?
- What steps do you take to ensure the candidate is EXACTLY who you think they are on paper?
3. Not tying Personal Goals to Company Goals
- Fact of life: Your people will never work as hard for you as they will for their families or their own futures.
- Can you name the most important personal goals (not business goals) of the people who report to you?
4. Not Building a Culture of Accountability
- ALL OOH teams that maximize their potential have a culture of accountability.
- Do your people always know exactly what is required of them and when? Do they know the repercussions if expectations are not met?
- Do you set clear expectations that can’t be misunderstood?
5. Creating Learned Helplessness
- How often do you say, “If I don’t do this, it won’t be done properly”?
- When you are unavailable, does the organization stop or slow down because people need your approval?
6. Not Capturing Best Practices
- Do you have a “playbook” for the most important recurring activities?
- Do your people have a documented “best practices” summary of top performers in their role?
- Does that institutional knowledge walk out the door when someone leaves?
7. Not Creating a Good Onboarding Experience
- Have you ever said about a newly hired employee, “their smart, they’ll figure it out”?
- Ever taken the time to determine how long it takes a new hire to become profitable or make a contribution to the organization?
8. Not Knowing How to Coach
- Do you have a coaching plan for your own direct reports?
- What are the top 2 gaps that you’re working on with each employee in order for them to improve?
9. Not Focusing on Lead Generation
- Even the best OOH teams will have attrition each year from their book of business.
- Have we identified the top lead generation activities for each individual on our OOH team and how much of that is required?
10. No Methodologies and Systems
- Have you created systems and processes for the important things in your business such as acquiring an advertising customer, land owner or managing the customer experience?
- Do you hold people accountable for following those systems?
How did you do? Is there room for improvement?
Don’t be too hard on yourself, most of us have plenty we can work on to improve our performance as a highly effective OOH leader.
Need help with sales skills or coaching to take your out of home company to the next level. Learn more about OOH Sales Mastery at oohmastery.com or Contact Dan Nausley at dan.nausley@sandler.com, 423.702.5579.
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Lisa & Dan Nausley and Reggie Piercy of Sandler Chattanooga have developed the OOH Sales Mastery Program after more than a decade of training/coaching thousands of OOH Operators across the country in sales, leadership, and executive coaching.
