Want to Be a Great Leader? Do This 1 Thing First
Kyle R. Wall, PA
Partnership Management / Physician Relations / Managing Director / Physician Recruitment / Executive Director / VP / Healthcare / Physician Assistant, PA / Hospital Relations / Account Management
"What is the key to leading people?
"I think I know," a man sitting in the back corner said, somewhat hesitantly.
I thought. "Now I've stepped in it. He's about to whip out some leadership cliché or channel his inner John Maxwell or Stephen Covey." I started scrambling to figure out how to recover from the dead-end I was creating.
So I was only half-listening as he said, fairly quietly, "No one cares how much you know until they first know how much you care about them."
"Yeah, we're in charge, and, yeah, we talk about targets and goals and visions, but our employees don't care about any of that stuff for very long. We can communicate and engage and connect all we want, but no one really listens to us. They just smile and nod and go back to doing their jobs the way they always do.
"Our employees don't really care about what we want them to do until they know how much we care about them. When an employee knows--truly knows--that you care about them, then they care about you. And when they know you care, they will listen to you and they will do anything for you."
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com. PUBLISHED ON: DEC 22, 2016