Common Sense Leadership: Caring about the People with Whom We Work

Continuing our series about Common Sense Leadership, this week I’d like to discuss how essential it is to genuinely care about our teammates.

By the way, I wrestle with the question of how to refer to the people with whom we work. Should I refer to them as colleagues, co-workers, employees, staff, direct reports, peers, team members, or teammates? I like teammates best, because treating people such that they genuinely feel like teammates has a huge and positive impact on our leadership.

Okay, back to our subject, caring matters!

Sure, we can get things done by telling, by ordering, and by command and control. But trust me, we will not have a winning organizational culture in which our teammates truly caring about how well we serve our clients, are proud of our work and organization, are supportive of one another, are highly energized and loyal, and contribute ideas for improving productivity and increasing our revenues.

People need to know we, as leaders, genuinely care about them.

In his wonderful book, The 100/0 Principle, Al Ritter, a management consultant and executive coach, stresses that relationships built on conversations, creative (intentional) listening and caring are the key to success. I absolutely and totally agree with Al Ritter!

Relationships being the key to success in our business and personal lives means slowing down and making the time to develop relationships through conversations. It means asking questions, listening to learn, being selfless (it's not only about me) and developing a genuine concern for our teammates' success.

The title The 100/0 Principle exemplifies the premise that we should take full responsibility for developing relationships without motives and without a question of, “What's in it for me; what will I get in return?”

Let's not think about meeting a person halfway, rather offering ourselves to others for the sake of the relationships without expectations of a return benefit. This principle is lived out through our desire to have these relationships.

Caring about our teammates and developing relationships through conversations is really Common Sense Leadership. Watch the vigor it instills in our teammates!