How to Be a Good Leader: 3 Questions Every Employee Wants Answered Every Day

The research on employee engagement, morale, and retention is clear: Employees of any age come to work wanting answers to three important questions. The more confident they are in the answers, the more enthusiastic and productive they will be.

The messages from these three answers can’t just be written on a mission statement or given lip-service. They have to be lived and reinforced every day, especially when the chips are down. Each one is necessary, but not sufficient alone to ensure a dynamic, engaged, and productive work culture.

It’s surprising how many leaders and work cultures forget how important these three questions are. Stop answering them or only answer some of them, and your culture will show it; take them for granted and results will suffer.

What are these three questions? And how should leaders answer them?

Everyone wants to know they are worthwhile as human beings first. Treating your employees with respect and dignity gives them the confidence that they can take healthy risks, put their hearts into their work, share what’s important to them, and learn from their mistakes. In the same way, leaders must model the same, showing that they believe in their own worthiness by living authentically, without excuses, and being vulnerable.

Here are three positive ways to answer this question:

Show empathy.  Learn to understand what others are feeling. Ask people genuine questions about how they are doing, not just what they are doing. Take the time to sit with your employees when they’re happy and when they’re upset. Also, avoid the urge to fix or avoid their feelings.

Disclose. Real worthiness is demonstrated through the courage to disclose our feelings, wants, and needs—not because you expect something from others, but because you respect yourself and others enough to put your feelings out there. Openness is the new leadership killer app.

Validate. Most leaders have been trained to recognize people for their hard work and dedication; however, very few leaders are good at validating people. Validation literally means telling someone they are worthwhile, no strings attached. It is about treating a person like a human, not an object. Does this mean performance doesn’t matter? Of course not. Performance is connected to many things, like privileges and promotions, but it is unrelated to a person’s worthiness as a human being. You can say, “You matter to me” and “Your performance is not meeting goals,” and both can be true.

Dan Pink’s best-selling book Drive  outlines the essential drivers of performance at work. One of them is mastery; it is extremely satisfying to get better at something, to learn to do it well. Why? Because it answers the second question “Am I capable?” Great leaders believe that people can and want to learn, grow, solve problems, and do amazing things, so they set up situations for that to happen.

Here are three strategies for answering the capability question:

Be a resource. Don’t rescue. Capability is built when potential is realized through effort. Good leaders offer resources, but don’t take on the work themselves. They clarify deliverables, but don’t micromanage the process. They help set goals, but don’t prescribe how to get there. They clarify problems, but don’t take on the responsibility for solving them.

Resources that leaders should have at their disposal and be prepared to share include information, honest and timely feedback, time, connections, strategies, curious questions, willingness to explore possibilities, an open mind, and plenty of grace so that people can embrace the concept of learning from failure.

Be curious.  An attitude of curiosity can accomplish big things. Asking open-ended questions and asking follow-up questions are great ways to be curious. If you have an unspoken agenda, or are fishing for an answer, or have your next question already formulated, you aren’t curious.

Build on strengths. Nothing builds success like success. Leadership has a lot to do with finding and building on what’s already working. Many times employees aren’t aware of their own unique gifts and capacities, or how these can be leveraged to help the company. When people feel confident in one area, they are more likely to put effort into other areas or continue developing their strengths.

It’s true for children, and it’s true for adults—people want to know the rules of the game of life. Even more importantly, they want to know that the rules aren’t going to change unexpectedly or be applied inconsistently. Like it or not, consistency is more important than the rule itself; leadership is ultimately responsible for ensuring consistency between word and deed.

Accountability means we do what we say we are going to do, we have reasonable rules that we follow, we make promises and deliver on them, and we achieve the goals we set. Cultures that lack accountability become that way from multiple situations and interactions where leaders don’t do their part.

Here are three strategies for closing the gap between word and deed:

Clarify and articulate non-negotiables. What really matters to you? What principles are at stake? What boundaries and behaviors are so important that you absolutely can’t do without them? You need to figure out what these non-negotiables are and make sure everyone knows what they are. Also, keep it simple. Many well-meaning efforts fall apart when things are too complicated or too lofty.

Talk about gaps. What happens when behavior doesn’t match up? Talk about it. Now, not later. In person, not via email. Directly, not through passive avoidance. Frequently, not at the annual performance review. Authentically, without blame or threats.

Own up and make it right. Nothing shows the true colors of a leader more than what he or she does next after a making a mistake. Taking responsibility for choices and behaviors, and being proactive to take corrective action are critical components of accountable work cultures. Good leaders create safe spaces for employees to own up and step up in a spirit of compassion.

Post by: Nate Regier

Dr. Nate Regier is the co-founding owner and chief executive officer of Next Element, a global advisory firm specializing in building cultures of compassionate accountability. A former practicing psychologist, Nate is an expert in social-emotional intelligence and leadership, positive conflict, mind-body-spirit health, neuropsychology, group dynamics, interpersonal and leadership communication, executive assessment and coaching, organizational development, team building, and change management. An international adviser, he is a certified Leading Out of Drama master trainer, Process Communication Model® certifying master trainer, and co-developer of Next Element’s Leading Out of Drama® training and coaching. Nate has published two books: Beyond Drama and his latest work,  Conflict Without Casualties.

Company: Next Element
Website: www.next-element.com
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