One morning at the airport, I overheard an employee talking about her new boss. “He’s a nice guy,” she said. “He makes me feel good about working here.”
Like many employees, this young woman is more influenced by her boss’s “soft” skills than his technical skills. His interpersonal skills were what mattered most: including his ability to communicate, motivate and showing genuine concern. These interpersonal traits influence people to decide to quit or stay. When a manager lacks these skills, or actively cultivates their hard-edged opposite, workers who have choices will jump ship or lower their productivity.
I experienced this myself when I went into the military service right after college. My boss was a special persona great boss. An experienced veteran and a former Special Forces medic, he was the type of person who always put the needs of others before his own.
One night I pulled duty that required me to stay up all night on New Year’s Eve. It was a night that seemed it would never end. I was tired and miserable. Saturday morning, when I still had several more hours to go, the phone rang. It was Joe, my boss. He asked if I had plans for lunch and that his wife had made something and wanted to bring it over to me. While I don’t remember what food they brought over, it was a meal I never forgot.
That one small act of kindness showed me he cared. It taught me more about leadership than all the degrees and diplomas hanging on my wall. It confirmed the truth of the old military saying, “If you take care of your troops, your troops will take care of you.” It’s still true today, no matter what kind of business you are in.
The older I get and the more I see reinforces that leadership techniques and fads change with the times, but caring about individuals holds constant. Caring for people can’t be faked or replaced.
On the other hand, no manager should be a pushover. A caring manager must also be respected. He or she must be able to generate results.
Soon after my boss treated me to that special meal, he gave me the worst chewing out I’d ever had. I deserved it and did something to deserve it. It hurt moreand made a deeper impression on mebecause of the respect I had for him. When you respect someone, you always value what he or she has to say.
Businesses that do a good job selecting, training, and developing their managers will enjoy higher productivity and lower turnover. While it’s hard to measure the impact soft skills have on productivity, I strongly believe an employee who feels good about working for a company or a boss will want to contribute much more than the minimum acceptable level.
In the years I led people, I never met an “average” workeronly people I saw the potential to become much better. I think it was General Omar Bradley who said, “There are no such thing as bad soldiers, only bad leaders.” Sure–the workplace has its share of problematic and difficult to manage individuals. There are many bad managers. But what I notice is good managers are able to transform difficult people into better people. Exceptional workers have exceptional managers as their leaders. The only difference between the two groups is the quality of the leader.
I imagine my first boss saw me as an “average” individual with a short attention span, high maintenance, inexperienced, and scattered brained. Fortunately for me, he took the time to train and develop me, even though it often frustrated him. He was a true leader. He understood leadership of people is a transformation process, and with the right tools and a willing attitude, he could make the transformation happen.
Gregory P. Smith
Greg Smith helps organizations accelerate workplace performance. He is a nationally recognized speaker and author. He has written five books including his latest, Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to High Retention. Greg has been featured on Bloomberg News, PBS television, and in publications including Business Week, USA Today, Kiplinger’s, President and CEO, and the Christian Science Monitor. He is the President of a management-consulting firm, Chart Your Course International, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464. More articles available:
http://www.chartcourse.com
Hiring an employee can be a big step for many small business owners. It means the end of doing EVERYTHING yourself and passing off some of the work!
In order to make the experience rewarding for both you and your employees there are a few things that every boss and leader should do…
1) Reward people for a job well done. Its frustrating working for someone who enjoys all the financial rewards of the efforts put forth by the entire team, especially if they don’t recognize what everyone has accomplished and contributed.
It doesn’t take much to acknowledge the effort of your staff. It makes a HUGE difference in the working atmosphere when you take a few moments to acknowledge your team. People like to know that they’ve done a good job.
2) Always provide a balance between positive and negative comments. Your job as a leader is to recognize the talents of those around you and feed them with the motivation and positive energy to take YOUR ideas to entirely new levels. Help them serve you better by building up their confidence… not tearing it down.
3) Step up and accept responsibility for your projects. At the end of the day if things don’t go according to plan, in my opinion, the responsibility falls onto the leader’s shoulders. Stand up and accept the responsibility should anything ever go wrong.
If your staff always bear the burden of projects gone bad, it will drag people down and destroy your working environment. Start contributing to the emotional bank account of those around you.
If you acknowledge the behavior you want to see more of, you’ll start seeing more of it. Be positive and accept some responsibility when things don’t go according to plan.
4) When you have good people it’s your responsibility as a leader to hold on to them. People with talent will take your company to entirely new levels but if they keep leaving, the growth of your company will be stinted.
People with skills know that they have options. Hanging the carrot of a potential big pay day will only work for a certain period of time. After a while it wears off and they start looking elsewhere. The last thing you want is for them to end up with your competition.
So the moral of the story is find good people, train them, treat them well, and your business will take off.
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1. Retrain your self-talk, to remove selfish from your vocabulary and replace it with self-care. In order for you to take care of the people you love you need to take care of yourself first. Friends, family, loved ones look to you as a model, make sure to model self-care, taking time to play, relax, and read. This is especially important for parents; this will give your children the confidence to have the same healthy behaviors.
2. Give yourself time for delays and unexpected events. When mapping out your day add an extra hour cushion to your schedule. This extra time will keep you stress free and running on time if some of your appointments are delayed, or if you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while, so you can enjoy a spontaneous conversation without the guilt of running behind schedule.
3. Balance out your commitments. A great way to cut down on a hectic schedule is to balance out all new activities by removing an old activity. Don’t add anything new, work, classes, volunteer activities, etc unless you first remove something from your schedule to balance it out. This will help you to let go of projects and time wasters that no longer serve you.
4. No is not a bad word, in fact, it’s not only a complete sentence it’s a great stress reducing word. There is no need to justify or explain when you say no to someone’s request. Just give them a friendly smile thank them for including you and tell them you can’t do it this time. If you are having trouble getting used to saying no right away, tell the person you need some time to think about it, then call them later and decline to be involved this time.
5. Maximize your commute and errands. If you have errands to run for business or home combine them to one trip. Make doctor’s appointments for yourself or your family members back to back and see if you can get appointments first thing in the morning before the doctor is running behind. Order you business supplies online to save time, most business supply websites can store your most frequently ordered purchases in a file so all you have to do is select the item you want and have it delivered with just one click.
6. Improve your home environment one room at a time. Even if you have the budget for a complete makeover, remodeling and redecorating can be very time consuming and stressful projects. Try working on just one room at a time. Pick a few rooms in your house that you enjoy the most and spend most of your time in when your home. Select your favorite and create an environment that is pleasing to the eye and gives you comfort and positive energy. This will give you a haven in your home and the encouragement to tackle another room when you’re ready.
7. Being spontaneous is a very exhilarating feeling that gives you a real sense of freedom. Make sure to leave time in your life every week to be spontaneous. Cutting things out of your life that are time zappers and stressful will also give you the energy to be spontaneous. Keep at least two weekends a month free from scheduled activities. Then you can decide to take a short trip, have a date with your partner, a special family event, or kick your feet up and do absolutely nothing and feel wonderful about it.
8. Highlight those time wasters. Instead of just making up another long to do list so you can beat your self up about all the things you didn’t and couldn’t possible have accomplished in one day. Make a realistic to do list. Put the things that are most important to YOU on the top, then next to each item list the amount of time you think it will take to get it done. This will help you get your important things done and show you where your time wasters are.
9. Under promise and over deliver. This is very useful in business and in your life. By selecting reasonable deadlines you avoid the stress of crunch time, use your time effectively and you will be able to finish ahead of schedule giving you satisfaction for a job well done and turned in early.
10. Define what life and work without stress would look like to you. Describe what your ideal schedule is, what leisure activities you want to do and who you want to spend time with. By creating a detailed image of what a stress free schedule looks like, you can begin to take the steps necessary to clearing out the stress.
About The Author
©BZ Riger-Hull.www.in-spiros.com For valuable free articles, assessments, & practical success toolsmailto:A1@smartautoresponder.com Certified as a Success Coach, “Four Agreements” Facilitator, & Tele-Course leader We help you communicate powerfully, reduce stress, Strategically Attract success, & increase your financial well-being.
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