How Are You Answering These Questions?

If empowering our team members requires a significant change in our approach, as compared to what they’re used to seeing from us, we’ll likely receive some curious looks and even some resistance - at least at first. We recently heard an example detailing exactly that as we kicked off the second session of our Emerging Leader Development course with a team of supervisors at a large manufacturing facility. In quizzing the fifteen or so participants on what specific action steps they had applied since we were with them a week prior for the first session, one of the longest tenured supervisors explained that he had been intentional to take the time to check in on each of his team members daily. He had been asking how they were doing, and even asked about their families or weekend activities. Like mine, his behavioral style was very fast-paced and task-oriented. His team had grown very accustomed to him pushing for results with little time for extra chatter. Make no mistake, I’m not suggesting that he’s a bad guy, he was just focused on getting the results that fuels us Driven folks. As he began showing more interest in each of them as individuals, there was bound to be some skepticism…

During the second lesson we covered with the group during that first session, Cindy and I emphasized something that we initially learned from John Maxwell’s Everyone Communicates, Few Connect about what each person wants to know from us as we work to build a relationship, especially that’s a relationship where we hope to earn the kind of authentic influence that will help us lead them effectively. They want to know if we care for them, if we can help them, and if they can trust us. As we show that the answer to each is indeed a yes, the skepticism decreases and the results we’re able to achieve with them as a team increase.

As we develop a reputation for caring for our team members, being able and willing to help them grow in the organization (and in their life), and we consistently show that they can trust us, providing them with the authentic empowerment they’ll need to reach their individual purpose won’t be just words we say but an experience they feel. Let’s tie this together with specific steps any leader can take to provide their teams with support for achieving their own definite purpose through the required tasks involved in working toward the organizational purpose. This will require us to dial in on a few things for each of them - and we’ll work through those next.