Five Behaviors That Help Leaders — And Personal Relationships
In a strong romantic or family relationship, you should always be trying to win the other person’s heart, even after you’ve already won it. You can’t take another person for granted just because you’ve been married, or friends forever, or just because they are your parent, child, etc.
This mean you pay attention to them, you listen, you make time, you offer encouragement, you laugh at their jokes, you find ways to make the relationship fun and interesting. You focus on them rather than trying to be heard or seem impressive.
Even after you’ve won someone’s heart in romance, if you don’t continue to woo your partner, then eventually you will both become distant, disconnected, and disinterested. From there, a breakup is more likely if not inevitable. And staying together in such a relationship is just as painful. There’s no chemistry, unity, or creativity. You’re going through the motions.
No need to go into details, but let’s just say that painful life experience has shown me this to be true.
Retaining employees is just like this in many ways. If you put forth effort to maintain an active and engaged connection with employees, you can mutually thrive and stay connected. And staying connected means retaining awesome workers who love your customers and patients.
So what does it look like in a work setting to continually invest in relationships with your employees?
Make Time
You’ve got to make time for your staff. This shows them that they are important and it builds trust. If you fail to spend time together, then mutual understanding and respect begin to die. Even if you work elbow to elbow every day, that’s not enough. You’ve got to make uninterrupted time to talk.
In a work setting, this means one-on-one time. Schedule it and stick to it. Make it a regular occurrence. During this time, spend more time listening than talking.
Did you know that face to face time releases oxytocin in the brain? This leads to increased trust, which is an essential thing for work teams that want to remain effective and stable.
The Infinite ROI of Showing Gratitude
Possibly the greatest lesson I’ve learned in work and relationships over a few decades of adulthood is that showing appreciation is the cheapest and best way to strengthen your connection with someone. This works with your spouse, partner, employee, and peers.
Take the time to notice what you value in the other person and LET THEM KNOW. And do it A LOT.
Gratitude has immense power to raise the results of your business. Gallup has reported that more appreciation at work creates more productivity in employees. Wouldn’t you like that result for a $0 investment?
Cultivate Talent
Teaching and building up your employees’ skills is one of the most epic no-brainers in leadership: You get better employees, they become more engaged and productive, and they become more likely to stay working for you.
At one company that I helped, creating customer service training and leadership skills training were a huge reason why employee engagement was strong. Employees learned new skills and they enjoyed being part of an organization that invested in them. This company enjoyed low turnover and had leading employee engagement scores as well as outstanding financial performance.
Another benefit of training staff? You become a workplace where people WANT to apply to work at. Being a destination employer means you have an easier time recruiting and more of your employment offers are accepted by better candidates. People want to work in places where they’ll grow.
Helping your loved ones grow is a powerful way to show them that you care. Sometimes they need your honesty, sometimes they need your perspective. Just like with your employees, family and friends want to grow.
Create Shared Experiences
In a relationship, creating shared experiences helps to bond you. It gives you an opportunity to experience new things together and you create memories that belong only to you. This could be a fun date, a movie, or travel.
At work, it’s possible to replicate this during team huddles, with team building, or scheduling social events. As long as there is a genuine intention to enjoy a shared experience, these types of events can be powerful.
However, just like a couple that plans an outing and doesn’t have meaningful connection during their time together, these events can be pointless if not done well. It’s easy to “go through the motions” of team building but not put your heart into it. These types of events, whether a stand up huddle or a major offsite, should involve intentional connection rather than just being a pointless happy hour. Some ideas:
Have team members share what they enjoy most about their work
Have people talk about their ultimate work related dream
Take team members through a personal history exercise to facilitate truly knowing each other
Use the time together to engage the team in solving business problems while tapping into everyone’s ideas and creative energy
Help team members understand each other better using a personality exploration like DiSC or MBTI with a skilled facilitator
Practice Transparency
Nothing kills a relationship faster than being secretive. Living separate lives without communication is a true recipe for disaster and it destroys trust. Being transparent shows trust and gives partners a sense that they are on the same team.
Similarly, being transparent at work is an essential element for building trust and safety. There’s an immense sense of distrust and lack of loyalty that employees feel toward their employers in the current era and this stems largely from a lack of openness (and too much dishonesty) about the business and its intentions. In a 2024 study from PwC, only 67% of employees highly trust their employers.
In that same study, only 60% of employees reported feeling that they are highly trusted by leaders. If workers do not feel trusted by leaders and they do not trust their leaders, we have an opportunity to improve. ZengerFolkman, a human capital development firm, found a strong relationship between staff retention and trust in their 2023 study.
Clearly there is a trust gap. Remain closed off at your own peril.
Conclusion - Build Winning Relationships
Relationships, whether at work or not, require ongoing maintenance. Investing the time and thought into others helps to ensure that they see value in being a part of your life and/or your business. Investing this energy is not only common sense but it brings financial rewards, as well.
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