Leading a team is difficult. You have to work with different personality types and navigate what motivates them while learning their personal strengths.
It’s just like coaching a client to get fat-loss results. It’s not one size fits all.
One specific behavior that highlights when I wasn’t effectively leading my team was the day they stopped bringing me problems.
The day your team stops bringing you problems is the day you no longer lead them.
Trust has been lost. They have zipped their lips for a couple of reasons.
- They don’t don’t think you care.
- They don’t feel safe.
Both outcomes are a failure of leadership.
And the antidote to both is building a strong relationship.
Most business owners are results driven and they want to get someone on the team so they can jump straight to getting something done that helps to grow the company.
If they skip the relationship part, they are creating a wall between themselves and the team member.
Again, there’s parallels to being a Fitness Coach. They want to know about their client’s home life and what they do for a living and what hobbies they are into.
A business leader must do the same with their team.
Simon Sinek states it like this…
- If we manipulate people, they will give us exactly what we pay for
- If we inspire people, they will give us more than we ask for
You have to show you care and people will go above and beyond. And it can’t be fake because you get something out of it. Real and authentic relationship building.
The second symptom is safety. When people feel like their leader will chew them out or have an emotional outburst, they will not feel safe to speak up.
They might speak to their co-workers or their spouse (because they feel safe) but they won’t go to their leader. This is problematic because you can’t help the person if they don’t speak up.
They are suffering in silence.
And that never ends well. The person becomes a festering ball of stress. The problems keep on stacking until they are boiling and make an emotional decision. They quit abruptly, take it out on their family at home, have a random outburst on a teammate. Heck, it can even manifest physically in the body.
It’s not healthy for the teammate or leader to suffer in silence.
Both of the failures in leadership can be remedied. It all comes to communication and getting to know your team on a personal level. Find out what’s beneath the surface of the person doing “the stuff” for the business.
Again, I’m a shining example of a failure in this department. My personality is to go-go-go and not stop and look at the past victories or spend time on getting to know people. I have moved too fast in the past and now I’m learning to slow down and smell the “get to know you roses”.
Hopefully this was helpful for you. Please tag someone on this post that could benefit from reading it.