Develop Your Team — the USPS' Future Leaders

Develop Your Team — the USPS’ Future Leaders
By Myrna Pashinski
NAPS Rocky Mountain Area Vice President

You are the district manager, plant manager, MPOO, postmaster, MCSO or manager position and you are on your 1 p.m. Zoom telecon. You are going over reports with your subordinate managers on your team and, all of a sudden, you become the villain.

The words you begin using are more aligned with, “I do not care how you get the job done, you know the job. That is why you applied for the position. You raised your hand for the job; just get the job done! You figure out how to get it done and get it done!”

Or you start saying things such as, “If any of you on this telecon can’t start getting the performance you know I’ve said you need to be achieving, you either need to find a job outside the district or I’ll help you find a way out of the Post Office!” The picture of you on the Zoom starts transforming from the human you are into a person with horns, a pitchfork and flames coming out around your head.

You get to the point where you say things such as, “If you don’t get on board, I’ll find someone who will take your place.” “You better be looking for a downgrade fast,” or, “In 60-days, you better find a job outside this district or I’ll be putting you in for removal.” Most likely, these statements are said out of frustration.

Honestly, as a middle-level manager, your performance meetings are intended to convey daily performance. Yet, some subordinate managers do not understand the magnitude of the hidden message regarding the USPS’ fiscal crisis when you stress performance.

I am guessing some of you feel that way because, on a daily basis, you feel like all you can do is bark orders based on the reports you see on the data thrown back at you. Every meeting, you address errors that occur. But never is there time to bring up even a glimmer of a small performance improvement that needs to be celebrated each day.

We only have time to rush through every error, every day, to push the performance improvements in the USPS’ struggling economic environment. Employees at the street level know their job is to get the mail delivered every day; they know the basics of what has to be done.

As the middle manager, have a more global vision. Your manager gives you a higher global vision for what your responsibilities are. That is, by the way, your manager’s responsibility in coaching and mentoring you. Which, by the way, now is your job — to coach and mentor your postmasters, managers, MDOs, supervisors or however your line of management runs.

It is your responsibility to train them and lead them to the highest level of success possible in your unit. If all management staff are well-trained and they, in turn, assure craft employees are professionally trained, we have an efficiently trained operation that should result in financially profitable units. As a result, this provides EAS employees with the best outcomes in higher NPA payouts every year.

The Postal Service’s financial struggle is real. Seeking necessary improvements to reach financial break-even is vital. It’s important not only to explain to management staff, but helping our craft employees understand is even more critical. The simplest basics of work are the most vital steps we must stress to all employees, including management.

Attitude is essential. As a middle manager — yes, a middle manager — you set the attitude and tone for subordinate managers and their team below you. You are the seasoned manager who can and should be able to take the time to visit each office, provide a positive attitude and guide your managers and their junior team members to the level of performance that leads your office to stellar performance.

You are the one who was promoted to a senior leadership role to help develop future leaders of whom you can be proud to lead your district or division to greatness. Do not be the manager proud of how many of your team you can announce you terminated. Be proud of the time you took to help develop the skill set of the team you either acquired when you raised your hand, applied for the job or was offered the promotion and proudly accepted.

Be proud of the people you helped develop who moved on and were promoted to a higher-level position simply because you did the right thing. Just as ELM 650 stipulates: Train and develop your employees. Those are the basics of your job as their senior manager and a middle manager in the Postal Service.

Do not turn into the manager on Zoom with horns, a pitchfork and flames coming out around your head. Be gratified you are a middle manager and develop your subordinate team. They are the future leaders of the USPS!