Asking for Input

Asking for Input

In my last several blog posts, I’ve been writing about SLII? micro skills—leader behaviors that help direct reports get things done while increasing their motivation and confidence. In this post I’ll focus on Asking for Input—a supportive behavior that not only develops mutual trust and respect between leaders and direct reports, but also benefits the organization.

Why should a leader regularly ask direct reports for their input? There are multiple reasons; I’ll talk about three of the big ones here.

Asking for input engages your direct reports.

The Gallup organization—famous for its employee engagement research—has long recognized that one of the primary reasons employees become disengaged is because they feel their thoughts and opinions don’t count. This disengagement has a significant negative impact on productivity and the bottom line.

The leader who charges ahead and makes decisions without asking for input from followers contributes to employee disengagement. A study conducted by John Izzo, author of Stepping Up: How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything (Berrett-Koehler, 2012), found that the number one reason employees don’t take more initiative at work is that their leaders fail to get their input before making decisions. This is right in line with our own research on organizational change. When those who are being asked to change are not asked for their input, the change is likely to fail.

Whether it’s on a small project or a large change effort, the principle is the same: by asking for input, leaders can turn disinterested employees into an engaged ones.

Asking for input sets up a mutual, two-way conversation.

In the old days, leadership was regarded as a top-down conversation. The assumption was that the leader was the one with all the answers and the people doing the work were merely “hired hands.” Today, we recognize that leadership is more of a side-by-side endeavor, where both leader and direct report work together to create results.

By asking for input and listening well, leaders create connectedness and build trust with those they lead. A climate of trust leads to more productive employees and a healthier organization. In our research of more than 1,000 leaders, 59 percent of respondents indicated they had left an organization due to trust issues, citing lack of communication as a key contributing factor.

Asking for input also reduces the chance of miscommunication. For example, suppose you’ve just given instructions on an assignment to a direct report. To ask for input, you might say, “I’ve been talking for a while and would like your feedback. Why don’t you recap for me what you’ve heard, so I can make sure I’ve given you the direction you need to be successful?”

Asking for input stimulates people’s best thinking.

Not only does asking for input improve employee engagement, but it also taps into people’s inherent intelligence and creativity. Let’s face it: direct reports often know more about their jobs than their managers do. They also have far more power and potential to contribute to the organization than leaders often realize. From the 3M Post-It? Note to the Starbucks Frappucchino?, stories abound about employee innovations that went on to become multimillion-dollar revenue earners.

But even when focused on everyday projects, asking for input invites employees to participate in problem solving and contribute their expertise. The positive results are two-fold: The employee has more job satisfaction and the organization benefits from the employee’s knowledge.

If leaders don’t ask for input—and value that input—they may be hurting their organization more than they know. Keep in mind that when Steve Wozniak was an engineer for Hewlett Packard, he tried five times to get management interested in his idea for a personal computer. Wozniak finally left HP, teamed up with Steve Jobs, and founded a little company named Apple. Talk about a missing out on some good input!

In the coming weeks, I’ll be covering the remaining SLII? micro skills, so watch this space!

Matt Brown

I am passionate about designing and delivering Leadership and Management Development to help your people to be the best that they can be and to drive your business forward

4 年

Great article Ken Blanchard. Too many leaders are scared to ask for the input of their people, but if they are focusing on the crucial leadership task of supporting their people to become the best version of themselves then the leader should have nothing to fear!

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Denise Padín Collazo

Executive Leader, Award Winning Author, Mentor to Fellow Women of Color

4 年

Great reminder on how important it is to stop and ask for input. Thanks for asking for my input Ken Blanchard!

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Rune Haugen

Mitt spesialfelt er bedre ledelse og forbedring av arbeidsprosesser. CoFounder Hva N?? AS

4 年

Hi Ken Blanchard. When managers ask for creative input and ideas and they get it from their employees, employees must experience that they are valued through good feedback. This builds trust and optimal motivation. I left an organization after my ideas for business development were first ignored by my immediate manager and then after a year made his own.

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Fabrizio Contardi

Leading Marketing and Sales Officer driving growth in FMCG and Direct Selling for healthier lives

4 年

Fantastic article Ken Blanchard and thanks for asking feedback. In my opinion to build trust and respect a leader must be authentic when asking for people input and has to be humble and committed to welcome that so to further improve. Authenticity and respect spark creativity and self confidence in people.

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Its great to see you do what you say: Asking for input on an article about asking for input. This is a great read in a time where employee engagement has increased importance and value.

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