Do You Care to Lead? by Michael G. Rogers

Author:Michael G. Rogers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119628446
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2020-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Pause, Reflect, and Apply

How well do you know those you lead? What can you do to know and understand them better?

Spend Time with Them

You can't nourish your people if you don't know your people. You can't know your people unless you are spending time with your people. You can't build relationships and trust with your people unless you are nurturing them, spending time with them, and getting to know each of them.

Leadership is a relationship job and many times an extrovert activity. Even if you are an introvert by nature, you are going to have to put your extrovert hat on from time to time to do leadership right and build important relationships with those you lead. Closing your door won't work. Saying you are too busy won't work. Thinking that employee nurturing can wait won't work. Being out and public does work.

Spending time with those you lead is critical to building understanding, trust, and connection. The only way you can strengthen relationships is to invest in those relationships, which requires you to be present. The only way you can get valuable feedback and help and support those you lead is to get out from behind the desk.

I knew of a CEO who was leading a 50,000‐person organization. He could have made excuses and said he was too busy and there were too many employees to connect with and many would have believed he was right. But because making a connection from the top was important to him, he came up with a way to make it happen. While he was traveling, he would always ensure the meetings he held were in company offices. He would schedule time out of his day to walk the floors of the office greeting people, asking them about their families, hobbies, work challenges, and things they were proud of—general chitchat. Weeks or months later when he would return to that same office, he would review his notes from the previous visit and then greet everyone he could by name and ask for updates on each of them and their families. Did it make an impact? Yes, it made an impact on those employees whom he spoke with and it made an impact on the entire company as word spread about his thoughtfulness. It also made an impact on him as he felt more connected to the people doing the “real work.” Additionally, he was able to gauge morale, gather ideas, and receive input and feedback on how to improve. Of course, this CEO wasn't able to get to every employee, but he made a genuine effort to get to as many as he could.

Entrepreneur Richard Branson once said, “The best ideas come from people who get out from behind their desks and chat directly with others, learn from them and build trust.” He practices what he preaches. A while back, a friend of mine shared the following personal story of Branson with me:

Some years ago, I was given the task of organizing a medical symposium in the south of England.

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