And the Greatest Human Need is.....

William James, widely considered the father of American psychology famously stated, "the deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated". Think about it, we literally come out of our mother's womb screaming for attention... and for most of?us, that desire never goes away. We crave attention and recognition from our parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, etc., the list goes on and on. We are simply hard wired this way. Perhaps the best personification of this is in the workplace in the boss - subordinate relationship.

Over the years in employee surveys and focus groups, in one-on-one meetings, and in exit interviews, I have heard a familiar refrain time and again; my boss doesn't respect me or my work, my contributions are not appreciated, or I'm leaving to go somewhere where I'm not taken for granted. Because the workplace is ripe with opportunities for leaders to recognize and acknowledge the hard work and contributions of their people, you would think it would be happening frequently and on a wide scale basis. Unfortunately, my experience is that is not happening often enough. In fact, according to many sources, a bad boss is the?number one reason?why?many employees quit?their job. If that is the case, what then constitutes a bad boss?

It is certainly easy to identify a leader or manager who is abusive or who uses people like parts in a machine. A part (employee) is worn down or wears out, and the abusive manager just replaces it with a new part (new employee). Sadly, I suspect we've all seen someone who manages that way in our careers. In fact, it reminds me of the t-shirt I saw on a fellow runner once during the Marine Corps Marathon which said... trample the weak, hurdle the dead. Put another way, who hasn't seen a manager who gets great results, but leaves a trail of bodies in his or her wake? Unfortunately, many organizations not only tolerate this style of leadership,?but view managing tough as a virtue.

But what about the more subtle forms of leadership or managerial malpractice? For me, it goes back to the old saw about how "the soft stuff is harder than the hard stuff". Leaders understandably have a tendency to focus on the hard stuff, i.e., hitting sales and productivity targets, making budgets, and so on. Because of this, it is easy for them to lose sight of taking care of the people side of things. In this case it is not what the leader actually says, it's often what he or she doesn't say. Rather, it's an act of omission. It’s simple things like missing an opportunity to say "thank you" when an employee goes above and beyond, or acknowledging that employees really do have a life outside of work. It can be as simple as showing interest in employees as people, and acknowledging their humanity.

One of my early mentors shared a technique with me on how he did this. He kept a three-ring binder in his desk with a data sheet on each of his direct reports. That data sheet contained information such as the employees birth date, school affiliation, hobbies, children, children's activities, etc. He never missed the opportunity to acknowledge an employee birthday or family achievement for any of his people. For example, if your son was on the football team, he would mention on Monday morning that he saw him in the game on Friday night, and the pride he felt. Or if your child was in the marching band or any extracurricular activity, he was the first to congratulate you. In addition, he never missed the opportunity to send a note of thanks or encouragement, or a condolence card during a family loss.

Needless to say, this man was held in high esteem and viewed with great respect. He had what I like to refer to as the "give a darn" factor. He cared, and people knew it. But what about all the time it took to do that? To keep up his data system, to write those notes, to take all that time? He would tell you that not only was it time well spent; it was a great investment in his people. I'll pose that question another way. Would you rather spend a portion of your precious time making people investments as my mentor did, or working on people problems? Things like interpersonal conflict, team dissension, and turnover?

I'll close with this thought. As I've mentioned before in this blog, I spent the first five years of my career as a teacher and coach, with the balance spent working with people in organizations. One of the things I learned and internalized is this; it doesn't matter whether someone is fifteen or forty-five, they generally respond to the same stimuli. A positive approach and a pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants.... but is much more effective, and yields much greater results.

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with a colleague. and sign up to read all of my blog posts at: www.build a betterboss.com. Even better, register your email there and be the first to receive future articles.