The way you treat employees directly impacts their quality of work.
People work harder for approachable leaders. It’s a proven way to get better business results. Want to know a related way you treat employees that is just as important? What people believe they can do is a critical factor in performance. This belief is tied directly to their self-concept. Put simply: Winners win.
Recent research from Harvard Business School confirms that, “by activating people’s best-self concepts and highlighting examples of them making extraordinary contributions, we find positive changes in their physiology, creative problem solving, performance under pressure, and social relationships.”
Pretty solid results. So how can you, as a leader, play a part in activating your employees’ “best-self concepts?”
- You remind them of what they are capable of;
- You tell them when they’ve done a good job (or a great job);
- You show them that you trust their ability to take the reigns;
- You give them bigger projects; and, most important,
- You do not micromanage.
This idea of “best-self activation” is a take on the Pygmalion research we point to in our Approachable Leadership workshop. Best-self activation says that our assumptions about ourselves increase our performance. The Pygmalion effect focuses more on how other’s assumptions about us affect our performance. Specifically, that “higher expectations lead to an increase in performance.”
This understanding shows up in the first question of our “3 Questions Tool.” The question we encourage leaders to ask is:
“Do you have what you need?”
When you ask someone if they have what they need you are making one very important assumption: if they had everything they need they would perform great work. Further, if someone is having a performance problem coming at the challenge from this angle tells the person you know this isn’t a personal failure. You’re letting them know you believe in them, that they do amazing work, and that the only thing that could explain any other result is a resource problem.
The other way to think about this is: Nobody wakes up hoping to do a crappy job. If you believe this about every one of your employees you’ll see great changes in behavior.
This is huge. Many leaders can get caught up in the assumption that an employee who is having problems is just a “bad apple.” I’ve caught myself doing this from time to time in my leadership career. But when I look back on those times, I realize that many times my assumption led to me behaving in a distrustful and micromanaging way. Not surprisingly, that kind of behavior builds up resentment and feeds the problems I’m concerned about. Kind of a dumb way to get people performing their best, huh?
What I’ve had to realize on my own journey is that being more approachable means being more proactive. I can’t just assume everyone has everything they need. As leaders, we have a responsibility to ask. Not just once a year or once a quarter – all the time, as a regular conversation.
I know this sounds like a tall order, just another thing to add to your plate. It may seem time consuming and low-reward. But in the end this is your “one thing” as a leader. The other thing you’ll notice is once you start the conversation and follow up a few times the conversation will continue without extra effort. You won’t always have to touch base with everyone. People will start coming to you.
When people feel like winners they win. Problem is in today’s workplace a lot of us don’t feel like winners. That is the number one communication job of leaders – remind people they are winners. Then stand back and watch them win.
Do you have any examples of times your belief in someone held them back? How about times that your belief in someone helped them to perform in ways they didn’t even think possible? Has anyone’s belief in you ever torn you down or raised you up? Share your story with us on LinkedIn or Twitter by clicking one of the buttons below. Be sure to use #ApproachabLeleadership.
