What Do We Care About?

 

by John Keyser

I heard a talk recently, asking “What do we really care about?”

The speaker referenced that so many of us spend our days with heads down, totally absorbed in our own world, focused mainly on ourselves and our own wellbeing.

I thought about the worthiness of this question – and certainly for all those who are leaders in business!

What do we care about in our leadership? Is it meeting our financial goals? And how that will impact our compensation? If that is our focus, are we really leaders? Or are we simply managers or supervisors with perhaps an impressive title? While achieving our financial goals is important for sure, if we truly are leaders, should we not be equally focused on the wellbeing of our people? I assure you, if we are not, they will sense that and our financial results will be inconsistent.

Al Anderson, a leader originally at Johnson & Higgins and now at Aon, has a wonderful principle, “As leaders our satisfaction should come from the satisfaction of our team members.” Yes, Al, you are so right!

The best leaders are servant leaders, said another way, are shepherd leaders. These leaders are devoted to the wellbeing of their team members, and that means how we help them feel about themselves.

Do they feel appreciated and valued, heard and that their ideas matter? Do they believe they and their work are important to our team? Do they know we are committed to helping them learn, grow and succeed?

My invitation to us all for the next several weeks is to examine what we really care about and how we demonstrate that to others.

Most likely, we are spending way too much time with our heads down – so let’s figure out how we spend a lot less time in meetings and in front of our computers and reading from our smart phones.

Let’s get off the executive floor and visit with the people doing the work of our companies. It will mean the world to them and, I promise, letting them know we value them and their ideas will lead to higher energy, our own and theirs, and a winning organizational culture.

How can we change our thinking and become even more effective as leaders?