In a chaotic world, business leaders cultivate trust and help their employees when they clarify their values, develop their communication abilities, and connect in meaningful ways. Leadership development programs provide a structure and framework for managers to become better leaders.
How are you preparing to be a better manager?
Employees look to their managers and business leaders to help them understand complexities within their organization and the external world. They seek reassurance that their own experiences and perspectives are accurate and that an adequate framework exists to create and maintain stability and move forward.
More than ever, employees must trust their leaders, and businesses must focus on leadership development.
According to a recent article published by Harvard Business Review, trust is comprised of four components:
- Competence: the ability to get the job done
- Motives: our reasons (or reasoning)
- Fair means: consistency in applying the same rules to offer rewards or assign punishments
- Impact: the consequences of all actions
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Clarify Your Values
Your values are the underlying foundation of your decisions and actions (or lack thereof). They are at the core of your motives, priorities, and sacrifices to reach your goals. Your values have a great impact on how you reconcile conflict.
Consider your attitude toward other people. What are your obligations to your family, friends, and community? What will you leave as a legacy to the next generation? As a mentor, what values or core beliefs would you want to pass on?
Below is a sample of values from leadership development. What would be your top five if you were to rank each from 1 to 10 (with one being the most important to you)? What might you add to the list?
Now, consider these important questions:
- What percentage of your focus (your time and energy) is actually spent on these values?
- Is there congruency between your words and actions?
- Would your family, friends, and employees agree?
When there’s a question of right vs. wrong or between degrees of right vs. right, clearly defined values will help you make wise decisions and build trust.
Develop Your Communication and Story-telling Abilities
Stories have power. It’s how we make meaning of life, explain how things work, make (and justify) decisions, define and teach social values, and persuade others.
Great managers and leaders harness the power of storytelling when they communicate facts based on relevant scientific data through truthful stories. They make their stories compelling with five elements.
Elements of Great Story-telling
- A finely tuned beginning, middle, and end, practiced and told with the right tempo, energy, and conviction.
- A protagonist: a relatable hero. They draw your audience in from their point of view.
- A challenge: an obstacle to overcome or a problem to be solved. Sometimes, this takes the form of a person or antagonist.
- A pivotal moment: a confrontation and solution that results in real change for the hero.
- An awakening: the hero’s transformation and how it benefits the hero and, hopefully, others.
Great managers and leaders use stories to help their employees find meaning amid chaos. They organize facts and provide context, differentiating between data and opinion, causation and correlation.
We tell our stories constantly, even when we’re unaware of doing so. Not only do our stories have the power to influence and/or inspire others, they also reflect and have the power to influence our own internal narrative. That’s why it’s so important that managers and leaders share constructive stories that have purpose, truth, and hope-filled action.
Connect in Meaningful Ways
According to the January 2021 article in the Harvard Business Review, “41% of workers feel burned out.” They attribute this to factors including longer work hours, adjustment to remote work, pressure to balance family demands, feelings of job insecurity, and fear of unsafe work environments. (Note that this survey and article were published before January 6, 2021.) That aside, feelings of sadness and anxiety, an inability to concentrate, and a decrease in motivation were reported. Worse, 37% of those surveyed report “having done nothing to cope with these feelings.”
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Leadership Development Tools To Take Action
Managers can take lesson from leadership development programs to take action in five key areas:
- Connect with each team member. This may require that managers reach out more frequently to their direct reports and, in some cases, daily. When calling, be clear that it is to keep the lines of communication open and let them know you are there if they need anything.
- Manage stress (yours and that of your direct reports). While flexibility allows us to adapt in times of uncertainty and stress, routine and predictability provide stability. Block an hour a day to answer questions from your direct reports. Limit the calls or video meetings to 10 minutes each, allowing others to connect with you one-on-one.
- Maintain team morale and motivation. Consider a 15-minute team meeting check-in each morning. Encourage participants to share one word to describe their status, state of being, or intention for the day. Follow up individually as needed.
- Track and communicate progress. Provide feedback and coaching: Help your direct reports identify what worked, recognize their contributions, and celebrate their strengths.
- Identify, redirect, and/or eliminate non-essential work. Encourage your direct reports to share challenges, problems, and early indicators of issues. Frame your invitation so that the plus-one solution is not required.
Sharing feelings or personal challenges with a manager or leader may feel uncomfortable or too risky for some. Respect boundaries. Encourage team members to identify someone they can trust with whom they can connect: a colleague, mentor, or qualified coach.
Demonstrate your own vulnerability. As Dr. Brene Brown writes:
“We are open to uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure because that is the path to courage, trust, innovation, and many other daring leadership skills.”
Creator of the KASHBOX: Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, Habits
Helping You Realize Your Potential
I help people discover their potential, expand and develop the skills and attitudes necessary to achieve a higher degree of personal and professional success and create a plan that enables them to balance the profit motives of their business with the personal motives of their lives.
