Last article discussed the importance of acknowledging all of your employees no matter what. In this article we are moving to listening and engaging with your employees. All four keys are integrated in the sense that you must do all four to be a successful leader, but they’re also integrated in the sense that when you do one, it causes you to have to do the next.
What I have found is that when leaders begin to acknowledge their employees and they are sincere about wanting to say hello or ask how they are doing, employees will begin to feel more comfortable around their leadership which leads them to open up when engaged. Some of you right about now are saying I don’t have time to say hello to everyone, yet alone find myself embarking on a conversation. My advice to you is that you can’t afford to not take the time.
The only way you, your department, or the organization will be successful is through open lines of communication. You as a leader have to know exactly what the pulse of the team is and there is only one way to get that pulse – talking to them. More specifically, by listening and engaging.
Let’s take a look at how a lot of managers listen (notice I didn’t say leader). The manager is walking into her office and sees an employee walk by so she musters up the ability to say hello. The employee responds back and the manger can tell they’re distant as if something was wrong. The manger feels compelled to ask if everything is okay hoping it’s something very simple that she can quickly handle and move on with her busy schedule. Unfortunately the employee begins to talk about their workload, which leads into processes and systems. She decides at this moment that her day is too busy and she begins to focus on her tasks and how this conversation is taking her away from them. She seeks the first opportunity to say she understands and that she’ll work on it when she has the time.
The employee leaves her office dejected because he felt the manager never truly understood what he was trying to tell her. As a result, he becomes demoralized, begins to disengage, and ultimately his productivity plummets until he either leaves, or the manger fires him. It’s very unfortunate what Stephen Covey points out in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
Why would you as a leader want to take this risk? Why as a leader would you not put your employees ahead of all tasks, projects, or anything else that’s not a true emergency? Your objective is to understand what is happening and if the organization is going in the right direction. Having a true understanding of what your employees are encountering can only happen by listening to them and engaging with them on the potential solutions.
The opposite from the scenario above would be to ask the employee to come into your office and wholeheartedly listen and engage to what the employee has to say. Since employees typically know you are busy, try to comfort them for taking up your time by letting them know there is nothing more important than learning what is on their mind. You can even designate a block of time and communicate to them that if for any reason you are still not in full understanding at the end of the agreed upon time you will schedule a meeting with no distractions to ensure their voice is heard. By wanting to understand what is on their mind will give you opportunity to build a stronger team than you could ever imagine. In Steven Covey’s book that I mentioned earlier he states, “If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” which happens to be Habit #5.
By simply listening and engaging you will have the opportunity to learn about broken processes, inefficiencies, new innovative ideas, and many more benefits. By listening and engaging you may learn of issues your team is struggling with that you may not be able to help with, but the fact that you take the time to listen will create a caring environment that your team as well as employees outside of your area of responsibility will want to be a part of. Your department or organization will be engaged allowing for consistent process improvements which lead to increased employee morale, increased productivity, increased profits, and ultimately, a successful leader.
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