This year, listen for how often you hear the word “feeling.”  Listen for how often you hear yourself or your colleagues say “I have a feeling…”

A feeling this manager is the right fit.  A feeling the opening will be a big hit.  A feeling this banquet will run without a hitch.  A feeling we’re on the wrong track.  A feeling (insert the most important objectives of your business here)…

The best leaders work in the truth, and the facts are infinitely closer to the truth than feelings.  I know, I know…having a “gut feeling” about something and running with it is a part of leadership.  But if operating from feelings were always the best way to make decisions, our casino clients would not be nearly as successful!

If you primarily rely on your feelings in your professional decision-making, taking your career to the next level will require a change in your thought process.  Here are five steps you can apply in 2012 that will take you to the next level:

1. Define Your Personal Values

Through several “quiet time” sessions over several weeks, evaluate the five to ten values that define who you are and who you want to be.  These are generally ideals such as trustworthiness, faith, diligence, creativity, sustainability, loyalty, compassion, etc.  Really take the time to refine what these values mean to you.

Next, use your values to create healthy boundaries around your job descriptions.  For example, if your value is trustworthiness and you are a restaurant general manager, one boundary may be that you will never serve a food item if its freshness is “questionable.”  When you live that out your staff will know that freshness is a priority, and you will refine your processes to ensure freshness while controlling costs.  Your reputation for quality will spread in a positive way.

2. Live Out Your Values

Don’t broadcast your values; keep them private at first.  Without the “walk,” the “talk” is worthless.  When challenged, walk the walk.  Your actions will communicate your values without saying a word.

Stay disciplined, especially when holding to your values is the most challenging option.  The first step in real change is always the hardest step.

Getting back to our restaurant GM who is building her value of trustworthiness through impeccable freshness, a major challenge may occur if she becomes aware that every lobster tail in the house has a faint ammonia-like odor.  It wouldn’t be a big deal to just 86 the item from the regular menu, but there is a VIP private event for 30 in one hour and eight guests pre-ordered the lobster tail.  It is 7:30pm and there is no way to procure more lobster in time from the fishmonger.

3. Don’t Hide From the Facts

Most people avoid challenges, but leaders confront them right away.  Your values will provide objective answers when dealing with tough situations.

Our values-driven restaurant GM will never serve tainted lobster, but she and her values-driven team will find a way to satisfy their guests.  Without that value of trustworthiness, she runs the risk of serving the tainted lobster and risking a foodborne illness outbreak.  Even if she did not make anyone sick, she would run the risk of losing a VIP guest, and having 29 other diners telling hundreds of people in the community that her restaurant serves tainted food.

4. Set Challenging Goals

It’s easy to set goals you know you can personally achieve.  But a leader casts vision when goals are set that cannot be achieved alone, but require extra effort from a team that has to commit to growth to achieve the goal.  This takes a dose of faith.  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Leaders take their teams to new and unseen heights.

Define the metrics by which you will measure success, and conduct periodic reviews on your team and yourself.  Be open with the reviews, and whenever possible post a chart or graph of your success.  Don’t expect perfection at first, but keep pushing.  Never lose faith.

5. Expect Success

Knowing you are on the right path with a long-term vision will give you the confidence to persevere, especially when the going gets tough.  So expect success, but give your team and yourself the room you need to grow.

Don’t compare your growth as a leader to our current pace of life.  It will not come instantly like responses to a funny Facebook post, or an IM.  Remember that a true leader’s career is marked by successful progression over time.

And that deserved success will ultimately convert to joy.  So many professionals mistakenly believe that a truly joyful life is manufactured from their own feelings.  A great teacher gave me sound advice not too long ago: You’ve got to discipline yourself so that you live not on your feelings but on truth, and off the truth springs true joy.

Time will reveal how closely aligned, or far apart, your employer is from your values and whether you can achieve values-driven success (and joy!) through that relationship.  If you know it is time to make a change, contact us and we will do our very best to place you into a company that is a better fit for your success.

Our searchable job page is updated almost daily: http://www.strategichospitalitysearch.com/search-jobs.php

Have a great year!!