Highly Effective Leaders Genuinely Care about Their People

 

by John Keyser

I recently delivered a webinar entitled Conversations are the Work of a Leader. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart.

I’d like to share from the webinar a few ideas to help readers, especially those who have management and leadership responsibilities, make time for conversations. Specifically, I want to emphasize the importance of conversations with their people – team members, co-workers, colleagues.

In today’s business world, it is easy to be caught up with endless meetings and emails, leaving little time to be with our people, the people doing the work of our companies.

We must realize that our people are also our clients, our internal clients! I offer that highly effective leaders genuinely care about our people, their ideas and their success, and they let their people know that we care!

This means:

• Attending only the meetings in which our presence is essential
• Improving the efficiency of meetings, e.g., setting an agenda and objectives and managing time
• Delegating work and responsibilities that we do not have to do personally, which gives others opportunities to learn and grow
• Getting help designing an email productivity improvement plan customized for each of us based on our personal schedules, energy flow and preferences
• Realizing that the most effective open-door policy is getting out of our offices and walking the halls for at least some time every day
• Making conversations, a top priority, especially one-on-one conversations
• Realizing that the best ideas are bottom up ideas
• Listening patiently, wanting to understand and learn from everyone
• Having the attitude that leadership is how we help people feel about themselves

Let’s remember, our humility is the foundation of our growth.