There is a crucial lesson that Lisa, an experienced emergency room nurse, leader, scholar, and professor of nursing, emphasizes to all of her students: “Before you do anything else, check: Does the patient have an airway? Is there adequate circulation? If those things aren’t there, none of the other issues are going to matter.”
That is not just good emergency medical practice. It’s also a great metaphor for one of the most important rules of building a positive reputation in the workplace: Play the long game with people to build real influence but remember that the long game is played moment by moment by doing the right thing in one short-term interaction after another.
When it comes to winning the trust and confidence of colleagues, Lisa says, “You have to play the long game. Over time, you get a reputation for making good decisions and not just getting things done, but getting the right things done and getting them done right. When you say no,” she adds, “people know it’s not because you don’t feel like doing it, or because you are overwhelmed, but because there are good reasons. Likewise, when you say yes, people know they can count on you to follow through.”
Here’s the formula for the long game:
(Do the right thing moment by moment) × over time = Real influence
The long game of real influence is a generous, other-centered focus that adds value to every interaction. And, in turn, the value you add:
What does that look like in real life?
Lisa knows the rules, often better than the bosses. She is relentless about ethics, procedures, and doing the right thing, but she also cuts through unnecessary bureaucracy. She is a workhorse who always has a very long to-do list and yet isn’t drowning in it because she executes on one concrete deliverable after another.
She is well regarded, but she does not seek to be “most liked” by her peers, subordinates, and bosses. Rather, she is focused on continuously improving the working relationships between and among the many people—up, down, sideways, and diagonal— who must work together on patients in emergency situations.
When “Lisa says so” that means she has vetted the available information and applied it consciously to the current situation. Lisa does not pull answers out of the air. She pulls them out of evidence-based rules, procedures, marching orders, good logic, and proven best practices.
Lisa is eager to please, but not more than she is committed to making the right decisions and taking the right actions—and helping others do the same. No matter how many things there are to do at any given moment, she always keeps three things foremost in her mind: priorities, sequence, and execution. She focuses on what’s most important, in what order, and how to get it done.
People want Lisa to be more powerful because she uses the power she has, every step of the way, to help others avoid unnecessary problems down the road or around the corner, get more of the right things done right early and often, and build up their working relationships through more positive collaboration experiences and improved outcomes.
That doesn’t mean that Lisa and the other go-to people I’ve studied are perfectly selfless saints. Rather, they have learned that true servant leadership—adding value to others in every interaction up, down, sideways, and diagonally—works. They know, to the core of their being, that their servant leadership makes things go better for everyone, including themselves. That doesn’t always mean doing whatever their colleagues may need or want in the moment but, rather, being enough of a true servant leader to try to always do in the moment what they believe will ultimately make everything go better for everybody.
Improving the quality of your leadership, no matter your role, is one of the best career investments you can make: