#real talk with Lisa Duerre
As leaders, we need to always remember the human side of our team. You can’t lead someone well until you take the time to get to know them.
What are their strengths? What are they not great at? Think about how you can best align them with your business objectives so they can feel fulfilled and empowered to do their best.
If they’re doing great work but it’s not where they want to be in five years, you have an awesome opportunity. You can help them figure out a great pivot with their path to reach their dream opportunity while benefiting now by establishing trust and loyalty.
Understand What Matters to Your Team Members
Do you know what matters to each member of your team? Are you clear on their preferences and strengths? If not, you’re missing out big time. You need to know how each of your team members are wired if you want to create job satisfaction and engagement. What are the potential barriers at work and at home that can be impacting their day-to-day success? Think about their commute, their family situation at home, their experience, their career goals, and their personal values. All of these details are essential to determine what may affect their engagement at work.
When was the last time you sat down with each team member in a one-on-one conversation to ask them purposeful questions about what matters to them and what’s in the way of their success?
Trust Your Team to Do What You Hired Them to Do Instead of Doing the Work for Them
Dude, this may be a surprise, but you don’t have to always save the day for your team. It’s not helpful and is certainly not the way to increase job engagement. Ask them to make a recommendation to solve the problem they bring to you. Then, kick the tires on their recommendation and share any fatal flaws you may identify as a way to coach their perspective. Set the tone of a coach and support them as they work out problems on their own. Don’t leave them on their own if it’s too risky – use your discretion on when you need to step into the situation.
If you need to step in, be clear on why you stepped in and make it a learning opportunity. If you want engaged and committed team members, you need to make space for them to grow and learn and give them parameters to fully step into that role.
Solving the problems all the time trains them to not think on their own and sends a message that you don’t trust them. Dude, it’s stifling and demotivating.
Value Their Uniqueness And Yours
My leadership impact jumped significantly when I intentionally hired or promoted people who were great fit for the job and dynamically different from me. I’m a fast-talking, fast-moving extrovert who loves innovation and making decisions in real-time. If I stacked my team full of people with a similar personality as mine, and I did that for a bit early in my career, I’d miss out on great perspectives and complementary skills that make our team more effective.
I adapted to start building my team with people skilled outside my area of genius who were different than me while still aligned with our values. That’s when our business unit really took a great step forward and became the benchmark for high performance and engagement.
As leaders, we need to always remember the human side of our team. #truth it’s essential and makes an enormous difference in how you get work done, the results you achieve, and the legacy you leave.
Wanna chat and see how I might be able to help you get awesome results at work and be present for the moments that matter in your life? Let’s do it! Book time on my calendar: http://bit.ly/meetwithlisa
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