Would you rather laugh or cry?  Would you rather feel awesome about yourself or doubt your abilities?  Would you rather receive encouragement or condescending remarks?

My guess is that we all would answer – laugh, feel awesome, and encouragement, respectfully.  So guess what…our friends, families, coworkers, Guests, customers, students, and bosses all would rather laugh, feel awesome, and receive encouragement as well.

OneMoreStep thought for this week: Lead with LOVE.

Those of us in leadership roles at work, at church, at school, or in the community should lead with love.  Those of us that are not in a leadership or management position can still lead with love.  Mark Sanborn’s best selling book, “You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader” unpacks this concept that anybody, anywhere can be a leader.  I whole-heartedly agree.  That said, when we lead, we should lead with love as opposed to leading through fear or intimidation.

Lead with LOVE…make it about them

Focus on them.  If we do it right…it should be all about them, not us.  How can we make them smile?  How can we make them happier?  How can we get them further along in their career?  Leaders of teams can make a huge impact in the lives of each person on their team, if they lead with love.  Rather than focusing on our own agenda, our own goals, our own “reputation”, and our own success…focusing on them makes the impact

It sounds dramatic, but all of us have the opportunity to impact and change people’s lives…if we want to.  We all have the choice to respond to an email with condescending remarks, or rise above and handle the situation in a more professional manner.  We all have the choice – do we take the extra five minutes here or there to teach, coach, and encourage others, or do we simply navigate our way through our busy schedules focusing on our agendas, our lists, and our own self serving goals.

When we lead from a place of love, we create magic.  We create magic for the people around us.  We create magic for our organizations because if we do it right, the organization will be successful; achieving desired financial results, etc.  The extent to which we can bring ourselves to care…to truly, genuinely care about making others smile…making others laugh…making a difference that matters to them might just be the OneMoreStep that makes somebody’s day, makes somebody smile, or even changes somebody’s life.  We all can do this…if we lead with love.

I’m blessed to have a great job, at a great hotel, in a great city.  I’m most thankful for some of the people I have the privilege to work with.

In my role, I lead a department of roughly 35 people.  While they’re all leaders, five of them are in supervisory roles in the department.  They lead with love.

Opening night at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was December 15^th.  So naturally December 14^th was somewhat of a marathon day, putting the finishing touches on everything, preparing, and troubleshooting last minute stuff.  I LOVE the day before opening night.  It’s the final day of “pre-opening”…when you can walk through the hotel, watching everything sparkle with no Guests in the building.  The next day, the lights come on, and it’s showtime…from that point forward Guests will be in the hotel every single day and every single night.  So the day before opening is always exciting.  You feel anxious, excited, nervous, determined, and extremely emotional all at once.

Tom Bastek and Mike Moshenko went OneMoreStep…and then another OneMoreStep on December 14^th.  We all started our day at 7am sharp.  I held a team meeting…a quick huddle to fire up the troops for what we needed to be an efficient, productive, and intense day of last minute preparation.  The message was that we get one chance to make our opening night successful: there’s only one opening night…we have to be great.  We were so fired up.  We crushed through the day, and found ourselves in a bit of a predicament at around 8pm.  We had a couple of outstanding items on our list, and we realized we hadn’t even begun to complete them.

We needed to print out thousands of Identity Membership cards in preparation for thousands of arrivals on opening night.  So needless to say, it was a daunting, time-consuming task, which seemed impossible given our time crunch.  We also realized that we had never received our marketing collateral – brochures, key packets, property maps, etc.  Since we are in the marketing department, it’s semi important for the loyalty-marketing program to have marketing collateral on opening night.    We had only known each other for one month at this point…so needless to say we had no clue how our warehouse process worked, and barely knew where the warehouse was.

Tom stepped up, and said, “I’ll take the cards…I know it’s late, but we have to get it done.”  He had been on his feet for 15 hours, but there was no way he was going home until the job was completed and checked off our list.

He painstakingly printed out card after card after card…at our Identity Membership booth for the next four hours.  The next night, on opening night, we were prepared to handle the masses.  Thousands of Guests flooded into the hotel when the doors opened at 8pm, and everyone came right to us for their Identity Membership card.

We were ready…all because Tom went OneMoreStep.  I’ll remember that night for the rest of my life.  It was pretty cool.  We had just met a month prior, but couldn’t stop talking about how much we loved the hotel, the people, and our product.  Tom continues to lead with love everyday.

Mike stepped up as well.  As we brainstormed just how in the world we were going to get 25+ boxes of marketing collateral from the warehouse (I had no clue where it was, or how to get there) to our desks…Mike said, “Hey I drive a pickup truck.  Why don’t we just load it up with our stuff, and bring it back here tonight.”

That’s exactly what we did.  Mike and I saddled up in his truck, backed it up to one of the loading docks at the warehouse, and did our thing.  On opening night, we not only had all of our brochures and collateral at the Identity Membership booths, but we also picked up enough collateral for our partners in Concierge…also Mike’s idea.  He was leading with love then, and he continues to do so in his role every single day at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

While I’m at it, here’s three more…

Danielle Stevenson is also one of our Identity Membership Supervisors.  Just last weekend, I passed her in the casino at around 3pm on a busy Saturday afternoon.  Confused, I said, “um, you’re here early…” To which she replied as she hustled right passed me, on a mission, “I’m just taking care of something…”

Later that night, I asked what in the world she was doing, arriving three hours early for her shift?  She had dealt with a Guest issue in one of our retail locations the night before.  The guest wanted to use his Identity points to purchase a few shirts and was unable to complete the transaction.  So Danielle came in three hours early for her shift last Saturday, took care of the comp in our retail location, picked up the shirts for the Guest, and personally hand delivered them TO THE GUEST AT MANDALAY BAY, where he was staying!  That’s OneMoreStep…and that’s leading with love.

Lisa Cocco is also one of our Identity Membership Supervisors.  Lisa is our resident mother for the department.  All of our staff lights up when they see her coming around the corner, and I certainly do the same.  They all love her because it’s so apparent that she loves all of them.  This was clear yesterday when Alicia came into work for her shift.  Alicia’s grandmother had just passed away. Alicia had called Lisa earlier in the day to work out scheduling issues for the funeral, etc.  Lisa of course made the necessary adjustments to her schedule and took care of her.

I happened to be meeting with Lisa at her desk when Alicia arrived for work.  She came into the back office, set her purse down, and made a bee line to Lisa…she buried her head on Lisa’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around her for hug.  Lisa hugged her…was there for her…and clearly loves her.  She leads with love.

Julie Margeson is our Membership Trainer.   She is tasked with training our Identity Membership team on processes and all necessary computer applications.  She doesn’t stop there…in the last four months Julie has devoted countless hours meeting with and training ALL of the departments in the hotel on our Identity Membership program.  She comes in early, stays late…comes in on days off if need be, and she does it all with a smile on her face.  She loves her job, and she loves her coworkers.  She leads with love.

Thanks to the team for leading with love every day.  You make it easy for me to strive to do the same.

Have a great day.

Taylor