As discussed previously, two principle responsibilities of leadership are selecting people to join our team, and routinely evaluating each team member’s performance going forward from the date of hire.
Over the past couple of decades, we have coached through eight key characteristics for selection and evaluation of personnel. The eight attributes consist of 5 character attributes: Available, Faithful, Teachable, Enjoyable, Responsible; and 3 technical capabilities: Administrative, Communication, and Technical skills. In a previous installment, we discussed the first attribute: Available (click to read).
This week we are providing a bit more detail on the second attribute: Faithful.
The first aspect of faithfulness regards the performance of responsibilities: Does the person follow-through with necessary and assigned tasks; are they self-motivated; do they demonstrate initiative or constantly need to be told what to do? A person who is faithful will engage diligently in the performance of their responsibilities and, if needed, even seek direction by asking, “What else can I do?”
The other aspect of faithfulness is the “second-mile” characteristic: Thoroughness of work. The person who is superior in this regard is one whose work is consistently more extensive than required; they are simply not satisfied with a minimalist work-product; they want to “get it done” and yet are committed to doing so with excellence and distinction.
As stated previously, a singular quality, including faithfulness, is only valuable when the other characteristics are also in gear. Certainly, we have all seen the adverse effects that occur when a totally “task-oriented” person, who is deficient in other aspects, negatively skews the culture of our team. Even so, we definitely do need to determine whether or not the candidate or team member is faithful. The answer can determine suitability for participation on a team.
Faithful: a person who gets the job done thoroughly and with initiative. This is one of the criterion - and a very practical criterion – that together with the other 7 criteria is useful in gauging the potential or actual effectiveness of a member of the team.
In the weeks ahead we will discuss each of the remaining attributes and technical capabilities listed above. We have found that this comprehensive set of metrics continues to constitute a very effective and yet simple methodology for assessing candidates for employment and then, for those who are hired, evaluating their on-going performance.