Leadership Through Conversations

Last week I wrote about a short article outlining some of the insight/bits of wisdom we took from the Global Leadership Summit.

One of our takeaways from the summit which really stays with me is that a leader must have a one on one conversation with each of her team members — every week. Yes, every week!

This practice, a wonderful leadership principle, is important as it seems a great many business leaders are focused on numbers, i.e., their financial results. But let’ s realize that we must focus our attention on our people – on helping our people. It’s our people who achieve our financial results.

At the leadership summit, Marcus Buckingham, author and formerly with Gallup, recommended that in our regular conversations with each of our team members, we should ask about near-term upcoming work with such questions as “What are your priorities and goals for this week?” and “How can I help?”

Of course, as time permits there could be a myriad of helpful questions which we could ask, and certainly including questions beyond business. We want to be as helpful as we can be helping each team member grow and succeed, and we also want to assure the team member that we care about them personally.

Of course, these weekly individual conversations sound great in a perfect world – and they may not be possible. If that is because we are too busy to speak with our people each week, are we really an effective leader?! The mission of a leader is to help her people develop and succeed.

Actually, the renown leadership consultant and author, Ken Blanchard, in his description of servant leadership advocates that we, as leaders, should have a one on one conversation with each of our team members at least every two weeks.

Circumstances will dictate whether these conversations are every week or every two weeks. The point is the the foundation of leadership is conversations, one on one conversations. We must commit to this. Where we have a will to do it, we will find a way.

I believe it is important that senior leaders spend less time in meetings. We can’t avoid meetings, but we can ask those in the meetings how we can have fewer meetings and more efficient meetings. They’ll know.

One idea I’d like to share is that I recommend that try to keep our calendar open for these meetings rather than having them all scheduled. I say that as I often hear “It’s Tuesday and that means I have to meet with my boss at 10 am.” It’s sounds as if it’s an obligation. Rather, I’d like leaders to say “Let’s grab a coffee, talk about the week you have coming up and how I might help.”

Subtle difference, I know. I just want this to be a conversation that we, as leaders, want to have as we want to help each team member succeed.

I mentioned Ken Blanchard before. In his description of servant leadership he advocates clarity of goals and expectations, empowering and trusting our team members with the responsibility to get their work done well and meet goals, and then the leader is to be responsive to her team members as they progress in the their work.

When asked about her leadership, Christine LaSala, who broke through the glass ceiling in the insurance industry, she says “I did it one conversation at a time”. In fact, as Christine and I were colleagues, I can attest to the fact that all 1,200 people in the Johnson & Higgins New York office very likely felt a personal relationship with her, that they were connected. Knowing everyone was a priority to her, so she could be there to help them succeed.

Let’s all of us commit to put an end to our constant busyness and be intentional about conversations with each of our team members on a regular basis so we may help them develop, empower them, mentor and coach them and be responsive to their needs…and watch the acceleration of energy and enthusiasm in our company.