Welcome back to Relationships At Work – Your guide to building workplace connections and avoiding leadership blind spots. I’m your host Russel Lolacher
I’m a communications and leadership nerd with a couple of decades of experience and a heap of curiosity on how we can make the workplace better. If you’re a leader trying to understand and improve your impact on work culture and the employee experience, you’re in the right place.
This mini-episode is a quick and valuable bit of information to get you prepared for the week ahead.
Inspired by our R@W Note Newsletter, I’m passing on to you…
Not What. You Do But How You Do It
I recently heard a great quote that sums up how leadership is perceived. I'd love to cite the quote but after a bit of Googling, it's attributed to way too many people. So I’ll just stick to how it got into my orbit, Scott Galloway shared it on The Pivot podcast, and since he said it, it's just sat with me.
"It's not what you do, but how you do it."
Looking at this from a workplace culture and leadership standpoint, we need to think of it like this:
· It's not the employee engagement we do, it's how we engage with the employees.
· It's not the performance reviews we do, it's how we conduct them.
· It's not the reorg we do, it's how we implement them.
· It's not the project delivery we do, it's how reach that milestone.
Are we doing these things with empathy? Or is it a checked box exercise?
If we understand the importance of the how as much as if not more than the what, we’ll have a better handle on reducing transactional leadership. To illustrate my point, I want to share a few stories.
First, a radio station. It was a small radio station and he was the only sales guy, and he was new. He had some sales experience but he was still trying to get the hang of selling in the radio world while also navigating the expectations of his boss. And he wasn’t always successful. I messed up from time to time.
The what of this situation was the General Manager need to set expectations and goals, and work to connect the dots (aka coach their employee) between where the sales person was to where they wanted to go.
How did the do let him know he wasn’t meeting expectations? They yelled at him from their office so that not only he could hear, but so could everyone else in the radio station.
Or how about this? A busy chain restaurant, that was far busier than others in the chain, was doing extremely well. But the boss wanted to do better. He felt the staff wasn’t motivated enough to upsell their drinks and meals to really drive up their average cheque.
The what here – he invited his staff to come in on their off hours to be trained around salesmanship and product knowledge so they were better prepared when given the opportunity.
How did he do it – he made them come in on their weekends, without pay. And if they complained, he reminded them of how replaceable they were. Super motivativating.
Last story – a Senior Director believes that the best way she can connect with her staff is get to know them better. To have conversations that will build productive relationships.
What did she do – she encouraged people to come into her office, at anytime they wished to talk about anything they’d like. She said she had an open door policy and anyone could take advantage of it.
How did she do it – She only listened to two members of her staff that she had an existing relationship with, denied any criticism that could touch her in any way, and she talked over and through staff when ever offered something constructive.
"It's not what you do, but how you do it."
This is all about intention and it not aligning with the intended impact.
In each of these situations, those leaders are fracturing their cultures and hurting any good will they may have had. Even if those leaders were directing their focus (their yelling, their threats or their dismissals) at individuals or just a few members of the team… others are seeing it and hearing it. It’s doing far more damage than they realize.
Even with good intentions, the execution is really the story that we’re really telling our teams.
As leaders, keep a few things in mind.
- Prioritizing self awareness – we have to know there is an issue if we’re going to address it
- Model Better Behaviours – show that we are the kind of leaders we would want. Patient. Kind. Direct. Honest. And make sure your actions align with that model.
- Get Open and Honest Feedback and Adjust Accordingly. – Staff should be allowed to say that our yelling bothers them and make them feel undervalued and dimished. And we as leaders must listen and then adjust. It shows we’re here to learn and values that input. And we become better leaders for it.
If we really want to improve our leadership, we have to prioritize the HOW as much as, if not more than, the WHAT to truly build the healthy culture we all want to work in.
I promise, it’ll pay off. How about that?
