LEADING WITH TRUST

She had been my manager for four months and we had a ??-??-?? meeting scheduled. I had gone prepared with a list of items that I wanted to update her, such as status of key interventions; where I needed help etc.

I walked into the meeting. I asked her how she was doing and then dived straight into my list. She stopped me and said "before we get into this, tell me how are 'WE' doing?" She sensed that I was confused, so she clarified - "how do you think, you and I are doing in our work relationship?".

I remember being silent for a couple of moments if not few minutes given her senior stature in the organization besides being the reporting manager here.

I had been working for almost a decade and this was the first time in my career that a manager has asked me so during my early days of tenure. Seeing me surprised, she decided to help me by putting forth few questions with a smile -

1. What do you think is working well for both of us?
2. What do you like about working with me?
3. What do you think I should do differently?
4. Do you feel comfortable to share anything with me?

She does these conversations regularly with all of us in the team. That's why, I believe, she has won the polling award "People's choice Most Favourite People Manager" and her team is the most cohesive, happy and high performing team always.

??In the era of?#hybrid?or remote?#workplaces, geographically-spread?#teams?and multigenerational workforce needing dynamic adaptive leadership styles; the?relationship?between a reporting manager and their each team member, comes to the forefront only when there is a problem. And most conversations are focused on 'How and Now' owing to the paucity of the time that we all face.

This is even more specifically pertinent for?#mid-seniors to higher ups always.

??In usual puzzling quest, most leaders (especially 1st time managers or new hires in a new job at new organization) ponder whether it's better to be feared or loved as a leader. Harvard Business Review in its research with veterans Amy Cuddy , Matt Kohut and John Neffinger refute the idea of being feared while arguing that leaders can do much better and create wonders with 'love' via establishing trust through warmth and mutual understanding always.

Beginning with warmth, in form of empathy & compassion, allows trust to develop; facilitating the exchange and acceptance of ideas i.e. people really hear the message and become open to it. Subsequently, cultivating warmth and trust with your team also boosts the quantity and quality of novel ideas coming forth from them or proposed.

Henceforth,?leading with trust and empathy are the key for not just sustaining happy,?high performing team; but for supporting positive employee experience that is all about well-being, being heard and happiness.

In fact, Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley has quoted trust and empathy are non-negotiable essentials for sustaining high-performing star teams and to be a true leader in any given moment in their bestseller book 'Simple Truths Of Leadership'.

And creating an environment of trust take intention, effort, deliberate action and consistency by people managers than leadership think and HR merely. And empathy shall always translates into compassion.

In the short story above, my manager build and earn my trust by opening herself to scrutiny besides exercising empathy so that she could become a better leader.

Now you've a clear understanding and in fact, a cheat sheet too in form of tiny questionnaire from excerpt above to how to lead with trust and empathy.

What more can you add to this cheat sheet aka questionnaire?

SO, DO YOU LEAD WITH TRUST?

Follow?Sudhir Mehta?|?Watch out?MusingsOfAnHRGuy?for more

#HighPerformingTeams #LeadershipTruths #EmployeeValueProposition #EmployeeExperienceFromPeopleManagers #LeadingWithTrust #EmpathyVsCompassion

Credits - Shilpa Vaid; Simple Truths of Leadership by Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley, MusingsOfAnHRGuy