If you want to see solid leadership on display, take Jenn Penney’s Monday morning spin class at the South Shore YMCA. She has a strong following of loyal cyclists who are willing get up and grind through her 6:00 am class. Why? Because she exhibits qualities that all good leaders should emulate. She runs a great class and when it’s over you leave feeling like you have accomplished something, you’re energized and ready to tackle anything that comes your way, despite being in a bit of physical pain. Isn’t that what you want from your team? [Well, minus the physical pain anyway.]
I found myself wondering why I enjoy dragging myself to this Monday morning ‘painfest’ on a regular basis.
The answer was simple - good leadership. What do we want in our leaders? We want them to be prepared, in command, instructive, supportive, and acting like a role model. That’s what we get from Jenn.
To be a bit more technical, strong leaders find a healthy balance between their supervisory function, skills training, coaching those skills, and mentoring their team to be their best every day. They have a vision and are very deliberate about how they help their teams envision success, yet are flexible enough to let it happen rather than forcing it.
Jenn comes prepared with a plan. Her class is choreographed to a wide range of pop, country, rock and R&B music. She tells you what the plan is and invites you to participate.
Once class starts, it’s clear that she is in charge. She gives you clear and specific instructions to follow. You know what you need to do and despite the noise and chaos around you, she clearly tells you what you should be doing through voice commands, hand signals, and pointed reminders. She is supervising her class and keeping us all focused.
While you are rolling, she’ll give you pointers like when to be out of the saddle, how to drive the pedals, when to relax your shoulders, and how to keep your balance. She is training us on good form and proper technique.
What she asks us to do is hard, at least for me, anyway. There is NO quit in her Jenn’s vocabulary. She never speaks of what she doesn’t want you to do, only what you can do - and do more of! She isn’t over the top, but there is a steady dose of “you’ve got this!”, “I know you have more in you”, “push”, “you can see the top”, “you feel strong… add a gear”, “push those pedals”, and “my legs hurt too, we can do this!”. It might sound like constant cheerleading, but it’s not. It’s well-placed, encouraging comments that are aimed to get more out of you. It’s great coaching.
Finally, she shows us how it’s done. At any point in class if you want to see the right way to do it, just look up and you will see it. She sets the pace, drives the action, leverages good technique and executes consistently. She is an excellent mentor.
Being a good leader is not about doing amazing things, it’s about simple things done amazingly well. How do you focus on getting the simple things done well on your team?
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