A leader who cares

What is the purpose of your life? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Why am I here? What have I come to accomplish, to learn, to give back and how can I serve?

I recognize not everyone comes at life from this perspective, and I know that these are hard questions, however, most of us, at some level, have thought about these things.

What are the questions and conversations you are having with your team members that help them feel like they matter as a human and not just a producer of the work? Are you interested in their overall wellness? What they are doing to care for themselves and their families. How they are doing, really?

Hmm, some deep questions. Is everyone rushing from one task to the next to just get the ticks on the tasks, and moving the work forward, or does your team know there is a deeper purpose to their workand the value they bring to your organization.

Satisfying the work that you are paid to do, is of course important and critical. However, as a leader, your people are more than just their work, more than just their tasks and more than just the productivity they give the organization.

Great leaders will tap into the whole person paradigm. What motivates and moves your people forward? Not just as a team, as an individual?

How aligned are your individual contributors to the role that they are in? What is the best way to motivate each individual on your team? Can you take the time to understand your folks and do they know that you actually care about them as a human and not just as the person who does “x” around here.

I bring this up because while we all know this aspect to be important, my insight and observation is that there are still far too many places where the topic is both a non starter and in fact an inconvenience and insult to the leader to think that anything other than results matters.

That old saying, people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care is a true story.

Inauthentic interest is also smelled a mile away, don’t ask about the weekend unless you actually want to know.

Who cares about you at work? Who do you care about at work? The remote working life of many in the new world, may have actually fractured your team dynamic and made it more difficult to connect to your individual contributors. People need a leader who really wants to know how they are doing.

Where are you on this spectrum? I’m asking, I really care to know. Let’s help you connect with yourpeople.