We have historically focused on developing “hard skills”-- we call many of our trainings “skill-based,” or give merit to fact-building. But only in recent years have we given the “soft skills” the stage they deserve. The “soft skills” deal with our inter and intra-personal interactions, where the “hard skills” deal in tasks. The “hard skills” help us navigate a google doc; the “soft skills” help us not yell at our co-worker. Each has its rightful and important place in our development as leaders. But while it’s easy to understand how to learn how to navigate google docs, it can be trickier to understand how to learn to navigate the heart.
I would like to offer you this simple question to ask yourself each day, or each week, to shift your mindset in this direction: How am I b.u.i.l.d-ing my team today?
Do you truly trust in the abilities of your team, the possibilities available for your project, the opportunities designed to nurture growth? Belief matters.
How many stories of mentors, leaders, and those that left an impact on our lives begin with “S/he believed in me…”?
Some simple ways to demonstrate that you believe in your staff include:
Stephen Covey urged us to “seek first to understand rather than to be understood,” and boy do I get that one wrong all the time. Because I want you to UNDERSTAND WHERE I’M COMING FROM and also WHY I HAVE IT SO HARD. Working hard on being understood is just a stubborn-headed way to clutch tightly to your “rightness.”
As a leader, your job is to seek understanding first. Seek to understand. What do they need/feel/believe/want, and why do they need/feel/believe/want those things?
Some simple ways to demonstrate that you are seeking to understand your staff include:
Doing a job because we’re told we have to do the job is fine. But doing a job because we believe in the mission and purpose of the job? Because we see how our efforts are part of a greater whole? Well, that’s a freaking miracle. I think most of us like to believe we’re making some small measure of difference in this world, even our own tiny corner of it. We like to think that something we do matters, even to one person.
As a leader, are you just checking off tasks, or are you inspiring your team toward the greater vision?
Some simple ways to inspire your staff include:
L: Love
Oh, love them. And don’t take my word for it! All the Very Important People are saying it too—love is the way to staff engagement, productivity, retention, growth, success. If you don’t love them in the active agape sense, which means love in action or deed; a generalized love for humankind (which is to say, I, as a human, care about you, as another human, and want good things for you)-- they won’t love you—and by extension, the work. And they won’t go above and beyond. They won’t lift an extra finger for you or their teammates. And they won’t stay. Agape love is the currency of love in the workplace, and it's an essential element of productive teams. Where there is agape love, there is trust.
Humans want to feel loved (seen, heard, and valued) in every meaningful relationship, and of course, that includes work relationships because many of us spend more time in any given day with our work relationships than any other.
Some simple ways to love your staff are:
D: Demonstrate
Get out from behind your desk. Step around your cubicle. Open your office door. Roll up your sleeves. Work late if they have to. Get in early if they are, too. Be the first to volunteer.
Be the kind of leader that they can always find because you are right there beside them.
The softer side of leadership might feel… well, all soft and squishy. It’s kind of intangible and therefore hard to contain in a spreadsheet or put on a flowchart.
But it’s how we remember people, both in the short term and in the long term.
It’s how we talk about leaders who impacted us.
As a leader, how will you b.u.i.l.d your team today?
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Please join us for some real talk-- on this topic and more. Sign up for our free webinars on how you can be a better leader. https://www.tlpnyc.com/free-workshops