Establishing yourself and your team

When it comes to disciplining our girls, my husband tells me I am the "hammer" and I call him the "velvet glove." I think there are 3 really important elements to helping my girls learn to be successful in the world.

• Communicate expectations:  I tend to set very strict rules which I gradually ease up as the girls demonstrate they are responsible enough to manage themselves. I think that it is much easier to loosen up the reins than try to tighten them after the fact.
• Issue consequences: To reinforce the rules requires immediate and relevant consequences. A few years ago, when Amelia refused to stay on her chair at a restaurant, I marched her to the car, strapped her into the car seat, and left her there while we leisurely finished our dinner. Don't panic, we were sitting outside and the car was parked next to the patio. Today I can take her out to eat without ever worrying about how she will behave.
• Deliver what you promise: Always do what you say, even if it makes your life harder in the short term. It's important to really think about what you are saying BEFORE you say it. Last week I was grocery shopping with Katie Paige. She didn't want to walk next to me so I told her we going to go home and she would sit in her room until lunch if she did it again. So 10 minutes later I was leaving my grocery cart and driving home to send her to her room. I was ticked off that I would have to make another trip to the store, but I know she learned an important lesson and I won't have to do it again.

For me, these are the characteristics of being a good leader. Which comes back to how to establish yourself with a team you have inherited.

• Establish clear expectations, communicate them in a relevant and meaningful way, and hold people accountable to them. Don't let anyone off the hook until they demonstrate they can be trusted.
• Deliver immediate and relevant consequences if people are not meeting expectations. Everyone is watching you and wants to know what happens if they don't deliver.
• Think about what you say, say what you mean, and deliver what you promise.
• Most importantly, do this because you want these people to succeed. This is about helping them learn, grow, and get better. It's not about you.

Remember the really hard teachers who turned out to be the best ones? They came in really mean, they told us how hard the class was going to be, they scared us a little bit... and over time, if we were good, we learned a lot and we ended up respecting and maybe even liking them.

We tend to focus too much on whether people like us. We should focus more on whether they respect us. Once we build this respect, they may learn to like us.

My last thought on building a team. Get rid of people who aren't helping you create the team environment you want. It is easier to on-board a new hire than to deal with the constant turmoil of an unhappy team member.

Of course, I can't do this with my girls but they don't really have a choice either - we have to figure out a way to work together. Plus I can't think of anyone else I would rather have on my team.