Leveraging Leadership

Spotting Small Wins: Celebrate Consistency and Growth - Keys to Stronger Teams

• Emily Sander • Episode 186

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Chief of Staffs are reminded to celebrate both team and individual wins, especially during hectic times. Emily shares examples like acknowledging milestones in developing life-saving medical devices and recognizing a team member who overcame personal challenges. She suggests celebrating with small gestures, public recognition, or private notes, and emphasizes not to overlook consistent high performance.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

01:21 The Importance of Reminding the Team of Their Purpose
03:39 Recognizing Individual Achievements
04:30 Consistent Performance and Final Thoughts

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You know those weeks where things are going crazy and coming at you from every direction and you have deadlines looming and you're trying to get stuff off your to-do list, but more stuff is piling on faster than you can check it off, and people are hustling and grinding and the team is getting up early and staying late, but they're kind of getting tired and burnt out. That is the moment to make sure as chief of staff, you're celebrating wins. So in the craziness, in the in the fury of everything, your job is to celebrate wins. What do I mean by this? Do I mean being a cheerleader and rah, rah, rah, let's go guys. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes that's what's needed. If someone's like, okay, they're having a bad day. Something didn't go their way, they got a bad break, but they're not seeing all the things they do well, they're not seeing all that they accomplished. It's time to remind them of that and give them a little pep speech. Certainly being a cheerleader and rah rah, rah in that sense is part of your job. More to it though, more to it is reminding people why they're doing what they're doing. Reminding the team why we're doing what we're doing. What are we driving after? Ultimately, what's our end goal? A lot of businesses and teams have 18 month goals, have three to five year goals. Three to five years is a long ways away. Most people's brains can't. Fully conceptualized three to five years, like it's out there one day, whatever, most people can hold about three weeks in their head and really visualize and experience that. So if you've got a long-term goal that you're driving after, and chiefs of staff have to keep that long-term timeline in mind as well as the intermediate, the media one, and the immediate, the like right now timeline and what's happening all in view at the same time. A lot of people lose sight of the big picture and the overarching trajectory, and you have to remind them why we're doing what we're doing, why we're working so hard. For this goal. and we all get lost in the craziness of the day and the tunnel vision of like, oh my gosh, this is the most important thing. And like, I'm just having to do this'cause it's right in front of me, da, da, da. And it's like, whoa. Okay. Why are we doing this? I had one chief of staff who their company made this medical device that legitimately saved lives, like it legitimately helped patients in hospital beds detect something and potentially save their life. so keeping the big picture in mind, keeping the overall goal in mind, Hey, if we make our product this much better. For an 18 month goal, it will save more lives. That's why we're doing this. And so the fact that we made this milestone, we rallied as a team, and no one thought we could do this, but we did, is a huge moment of celebration. Let's make sure to celebrate that and not just boom, go on to the very next thing and get caught up in all the trials and ordeals of that piece. Let's celebrate this piece. Oftentimes people go, oh my gosh, like look how far we have to go, and you might have a long way to go. But look how far we've come. Let's remember all the things where, like where we are now, used to be a pipe dream. That used to be a moonshot. That used to be like one day we'll get there. Now we're there. Now we're there because we did it, and we have to celebrate that moment. So those are the team wins you can celebrate and those can be like in big kind of more public ways. Other important ones to celebrate are individual wins. So as chief of staff. You can be looking and watching and just listening and saying, okay, I've seen this person over the last three years and man, oh man, do I tell you three years ago they would not have been able to do that. They would not have been able to do that in front of the team like they just did. That's a huge win. And that's something they worked on. I know they've worked on that. They've talked to me about it. We've done some coaching about it. they've had a whole thing about it. Now they're able to do that and I wanna make sure that they know that. I wanna make sure that they understand how far they've come. Pointing that stuff out to people and having a small win. It can be a little conversation in a hallway. It can be a handwritten note. You send them. It might be, I don't know, a gift card or flowers or whatever helps them feel motivated or celebrate that win. It can be quiet, it doesn't have to be public, but something to help them acknowledge that and celebrate that with them. So. Part of your job, and this is a fun part by the way. Sorry, my voice just got really shrill there, but I'm super excited. this is a fun part about being chief of staff is You get to go into your day and go into your week and say, where's my win? Who do I get to celebrate today? Whose win do I get to celebrate this week? What team win? Do I get to celebrate with my colleagues this month or this quarter? You get to look for that stuff. And I would look for it, early and often, as they say. if someone is continuing to do something well, don't take that for granted. If they do something consistently well that helps the team, and maybe it used to be like, oh my gosh, like she's so good at that. Like, oh my God, like, like let's tell her about it, compliment her on it and it's a big deal. And like the second time she does it like, oh my gosh, again, that those emails are really great and they help the team and then they kind of come out regularly and it's kind of like, yep, that's what she does. And yep. Okay. Don't take that stuff for granted. If someone is reliably, consistently performing well, it might be celebrating the fact that like, now you've done this for 18 months, two years. Like that's a feat in of itself. You've kept these up and you've kept the quality of these up, and they continue to help our team and continue to inform people and the thought you put in behind it. is demonstrated each time and is appreciated each time, so we're gonna celebrate that. So even if someone is just is, is just doing the same thing over and over and over again. If that's above and beyond, if that's high performance, if that's helping your team, that's a win. That's a huge win. So be on the lookout for those as well. Alright, hopefully this will encourage you and inspire you to go out and look for a win today for an individual on your team, for, your team overall. and have fun with this part of being chief of staff'cause it truly is one of the best parts about being chief of staff. and I'll catch you next week on Leveraging Leadership.