Leaders Care
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Loving your people makes the difference in their willingness to follow you into anything, no matter how hard the battle.
John Maxwell
I have two rules when I communicate with my team. First, I spend more time learning about them than talking about myself. Second, I never make myself the center of attention. Let’s take these rules in turn.
If you know more about my kids than I know about yours, if you know more about my weekend than I know about yours, if you know my goals and dreams better than I know yours, then I’m not an effective leader. If these are true, I care more about myself than I care about my team, and to be an effective leader, I have to care more for my team than I care about myself. How do you fix this? A few suggestions.
For the next month, always ask everyone on your team how their weekend was and truly engage them in a conversation about it. When they ask about yours, you say, “It was great,” and leave it at that. It’s about them. For the next month, when you go out with your team to breakfast or lunch, you ask them open ended questions and when it’s your turn to answer those questions, answer them succinctly. Of course go beyond “yes” and “no” answers. This isn’t a deposition. But never make the conversation about you. When I go to lunch with junior partners and associates, I let them talk. I have discussions with them, but invariably we’re discussing their topics on their terms. Do an experiment. Next time you’re at lunch with your team, glance at your watch when you start telling a story and glance down again when you’re done. Yes, you actually talked for that long. Yes, that many minutes did pass by. You’re the boss. They have to listen. Don’t make them listen more than they have to. If you make every casual conversation you have with members of your team about them, you will foster loyalty.
The caveat, of course, is you actually have to care about what they say. You have to care about their kids’ struggles in school, their mother who has Alzheimer’s, the novel they’re working on in their spare time and the charity they volunteer for. These conversations take time. Where do you find the time when you’re busy leading your organization? You take the time that you would have spent talking about yourself and you spend it on them.
This takes me to my second rule. I never make myself the focus of group or one-on-one conversations. You want to focus on others’ accomplishments, whether they’re professional, personal or family ones. You want to hear from them, learn what they’re thinking and what they consider important. By focusing on them, you show you value them. You are spending your time listening to them, you’re not spending their time listening to you. Follow the 80-20 rule. You should spend 80% of the conversation listening and 20% speaking. This is true even if it’s only you and one other person. You always want to learn what’s on the person’s mind – what inspires, motivates and concerns them. By knowing your team, really knowing them, you will better understand how to help them achieve their full potential, and by doing so, they will better serve your organization and those it serves.
So keep the following in mind. No one really cares how your weekend was, but you must care how others’ weekends were. No one cares about your funny anecdote, your diet, what television show you watched last night or your hot take on foreign relations. But you must care about these things when others’ share these stories with you. It’s not about you. Make it about you, and lose your team’s loyalty, passion and commitment in the process. Be a leader who cares, which starts with more listening and much less talking.
