Les Sawatsky is the first guru I want to include in my guru series. Definitely the most inspiring "boss" I have ever had. I put "boss" in quotes there because he has never, ever made me feel "bossed" around. Working for (with!) Les, I felt inspired and challenged to do things, but never forced.
When it comes to "bringing light" to the office, to me, Les is brightest person I have ever met. Les Sawatsky's aura shines so bright that I can't help but stutter a bit each time I first start to talk to him. I swear he leaves light behind wherever he goes. I mean, his presence actually brightens rooms.
So I studied him. How does he create that effect? What makes him so inspirational? Here are some of the things I learned from observing a master who brings a lot of light into his workplace (and his social and family life, too, I imagine, as his way of being seems to).
I think there are lessons here for all of us to aspire to. Here are the traits I have noticed about Les, that I think make him so beneficial to the rest of us, and successful in his own life.
1. A conversation with Les is mostly about yourself.
A while ago, somebody posted this on LinkedIn:
When you're with a manager, you get the idea that they are important.
When you're with a leader, you get the idea that you are important.
When you're with a leader, you get the idea that you are important.
In that golden period of time that Les was my manager, our conversations were always about how we could maximize my value to the company. There was this starting assumption, very clear, that I was of huge value to the company. When Les was my manager, I believed that I mattered.
So what did I do? Lots! I believed that it mattered and I believed that I could, so I did!
I set out to create national and global initiatives that would help every person in the company, from the big offices to the tiniest ones (we had nine thousand people scattered across the globe, so I had a lot of scope to play).
I worked long hours, because I was excited about my potential to help others. I never worried about being paid overtime for the work I did outside office hours, partly because I trusted my manager and felt I had a good deal, but also because I was so excited with the great stuff I was doing and was rewarded every time someone from South Africa to Singapore wrote me to say "thank you."
As a guru, Les put me in the situation where people would benefit from what I had to offer. He made suggestions about me teaching what I had to teach (something that has now spun off into my own company, solarosatech.com), and thought about the big picture and nudged me along so that I could do the most possible good for the group within that picture.
Gurus do that. They light the fire that's already within you, so you can do more than you could without them there. They mesh what they know about the big picture and each person's own gifts to find a way to highlight each individual's inner flame for the good of the whole.
2. He leads by example
Les, and some other managers at that company, always made me feel like I was looking up to someone better than me. Not that they were smarter than me, or kinder, but that they were consistently making excellent choices and were successful as a result of that. I could soon see that Les is a person worth emulating.
Here are choices we all could make, but we often get too wrapped up in ourselves to do. Being around a guru reminds you of better behaviour. As Brian Lottman (of the next article) says,
when you hang around gurus and bright people, you become more like a guru yourself."
Certainly seeing great behaviour in others spurs us on to better behaviour ourselves. To do these things, we need to:
Anyway, preamble aside, here are the things I noticed Les Sawatsky doing, and wish I was more impeccable about myself.
a. He does things to stay fit. He takes the stairs, never the elevator, unless as a favour to the person he's engaged in conversation with. Staying fit takes work, but he's a hard worker.
b. He doesn't take shortcuts. It's the same with his workload -- I never saw him taking shortcuts. He wrote the letters that needed writing, made the phone calls that needed phoning, took the time to polish documents instead of sending them out half-done.
b. He has impeccable manners. He never forgets a please or a thank you. He's considerate of others -- opening doors even when his mind must be full of details (how many people do you know who use their own mental busy-ness as an excuse to be indifferent to others? I have never seen Les do that).
c. He's humble. He doesn't talk about his great achievements, though they are many, mainly for the good of the company, and everyone else is abuzz with them.
d. He's more Dale Carnegie than Dale Carnegie himself. Calling people by name, giving praise and honest appreciation, taking the time to smile at people... in my experience, Les is a master at embodying and practicing all of the suggestions in Dale Carnegie's Little Golden Book. (http://tinyurl.com/oa2oaxo)
e. He clearly and overtly loves his wife and his family, and prioritizes them. I believe when you have managers who clearly love and spend time with their families (e.g. Les made time to go visit his daughter in Australia), you feel that you yourself are also more free to live a balanced life. Though Les plows through tons of work, I also always had the sense that he had balance in his life.
f. He clearly and overtly respects his colleagues and their abilities.
At Les' semi-retirement ceremony a little while ago, he made sure that everyone knew that he considered the hard and diligent work of his assistant, Sue Pierce, a key factor in his success. He's never afraid to give credit where credit's due.
3. He will help you if you have reached a point where you need help, and it's within his power to do so.
Another key factor about gurus, and something that Les did for me, is they never try to give you all the answers. They plant seeds of ideas, or ask questions to help you find the answers you are ready to find. Again, they're igniting your own light, not making it for you.
They don't just give you success on a golden platter. Leading by example, Les works hard, and I always assumed that I'd have to work hard too, to succeed in the goals I set for myself under his guidance. I didn't hesitate to set the bar high for myself, and a guru will let you do that. Gurus don't let fear get in the way.
Gurus aren't managers who just give you promotions or privileges because you suck up or you're their buddy. They do give you a chance to earn your promotions or privileges, though. They give you the benefit of the doubt, the tools that you need, and trust that you can get there.
When I was at that company, I was convinced that the main company plan was something like this:
Hire brilliant people, trust them, give them what they need, and keep them happy so they can succeed and make us all money!"
It's a heady and wonderful thing to be trusted. A guru helps the disciple understand what they have to do, sometimes helps them figure out how they can do it, and then actually trusts them to go do it.
4. A guru does not make you feel ashamed for your failings.
People who are good and strong and bright aren't afraid of the dark. Early on in my time with Les as my manager, I had to admit to some rather extreme life difficulties that were potentially going to influence my performance at work.
Many people seem to think less of you when you have to admit that your life is not perfect. As if somehow, because you haven't got the house, car, and 2.4 kids all sorted out, you're not as smart or capable as others. But Les never did that. I never felt like he thought my intelligence was less because of those troubles. When I asked if a certain solution might be possible, he asked questions to see if I had done my homework, and helped me take the steps to make that work. His trust and willingness to help as appropriate lightened my load.
And when I decided on another solution instead, he never made me feel wrong about that either, so of course I worked harder in gratitude.
I think it's very instinctive for us to judge other human beings. When we see someone who seems less perfect or who has made some bad choices, it's natural for us to look down on them in judgment, and to move away from them. To want to work with them less, or converse with them less, maybe. How do gurus avoid doing that?
I haven't asked Les how he did that -- I suppose I never really thought through it until the process of writing this article. But my hypothesis is that shiny bright people partly stay (and are) that way because when they look at others, they see the light. They don't look on all the troubles and the can't-dos and didn't-dos and bad things that happened.
They see the can-dos and the willing-tos. They shine light on the parts of a human that are best for that person, and ask them to bring out more of that aspect of themselves, to share that light with the world.
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