Leadership Effectiveness & Planning

As leaders, we spend much of our time and effort setting business goals, developing plans to achieve those goals and helping ensure employees understand how they fit in.

With so much going on, it’s all too easy to get lost in the work and detach yourself from the human element of the workplace. 

In a recent post, I talked about why people follow leaders – because of how they make people feel.

The first sure-fire tip to help engender positive feelings about you and your leadership – and get people to follow you – is to paint a picture of the future.

Why do people follow leaders?

Hint: it’s not because of that really great PowerPoint presentation on the new strategy you gave at the quarterly all-hands meeting. Or because of your tenure. Or title.

The simple answer is we follow leaders because of how they make us feel. (And by the way, to be a leader, you need to have followers.)

There's nothing as invigorating or energizing for me as spending time with clients working on some of their toughest internal communication challenges. I spent some time recently training leaders on two-way communication with a focus on how to plan any kind of communication, as well as the six ultimate interpersonal skills needed for a productive and successful interaction. The day was filled with education, lots of interaction, and significant chunks of time dedicated to practicing the critical skills. I celebrated with these leaders as they connected the dots and saw immediate application for what we covered, and I felt their frustration when the perfect moment for empathy during a role play turned into a lecture of a valued employee. 

When you ask employees, they want to be able to connect with their leader—today more than ever before. Employees want to know what you have to say; they also want to know what you stand for.

Here are some tips to help your employees get to know you:

If you ask employees, there’s a short-list of what they want from their leaders.

As you read what follows, think about how you’re doing, and where you might need to focus to better engage your employees.

Here’s what employees expect:

Know your audience and speak to them. Great leaders inspire employees to action by giving them feelings of significance, community, and excitement.

Leaders provide the context and inspiration to move organizations to success. That means it’s the leader’s job to paint a picture of the future or deliver difficult messages with clarity, courage and compassion.