This is a written Transcription for the Leadership Hustle episode about Employee Satisfaction: Valuing Your Team, from Season 1 Episode 3.

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Employee Satisfaction: FULL WRITTEN TRANSCRIPT

Andrea: Do your employees know that you care? Maybe the better question is why does it even matter? On today's episode, we are going to talk about why it does matter and some techniques to help you get there. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Puzzle. For executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. So how do you show people that you care? Today. This is our second episode and this is one of those topics that I think is important in the fact that people kind of take for granted that, you know, either you care or you don't care and that you just do it right. So we're talking about how do you show people that you care, not just co-workers and teammates, but just people in general?

I, I was at a situation a couple of weeks ago and I was working with an executive. We work on the emotional intelligence. And in this emotional intelligence conversation, he recognized that his first lens is just just get the stuff done right. Let's just do stuff. And so people come up and they talk and he's like, Andrea, how do I show people that I care? And I like literally had to laugh. I'm like, Well, kind of you just you have to care, right? But I think there's more to it than that. So let's talk a little bit about what are those things that that people desire, that show that you really care about them.

 

Michelle: So. Well, I mean, just the basic desires. People want to feel valued, so they want to understand, like, their bigger purpose and how they're contributing. Right? Sure. People they need to feel safe. And as leaders, that's our responsibility to create that psychological safety, create that environment that's going to cause them to feel safe. And and people want to feel like they belong. When you think about where we naturally gravitate, whether it is in the places in our workplace, if it's where we hang out on the weekends, we gravitate to places where we feel like we belong, like we're part of something, right? And you know, when you think about just that, that basic, how do you show that you care? It's creating that environment that is going to meet those basic needs. But what specifically are you doing that's causing those feelings? Right? And I think that's as a as a leader, the number one thing is it's you need to care for your employees. We need them and we need to have them do things well. Right. And if we're going to take the time to interview and hire and bring them on, we need to care about them as people first. And then we're going to coach them to be successful in their career, whatever it is that they're doing within your organization.

 

Andrea: I know so many leaders that are like, I don't care what happens. They just need to get their goals done or they need to get their stuff done. They need to do their work. They need to do it well. I'm like, Yeah, but just think about how much more discretionary effort people would give you if they knew you cared. And as coworkers too, it doesn't have to be leader to employer or leader to to team member. It's peer to peer. It's just like when people know you care. It makes a huge difference.

 

Michelle: It makes a huge difference. Yes. You don't have to care. That's a choice. But if you're wanting or if you're wanting your people to feel like they belong and they're part of something bigger, one of the biggest pieces of that is simply showing that you care. And it doesn't take a lot of effort. It doesn't take a lot of bells and whistles and money and so forth. It's the it's the small social capital that you're developing and growing within your teams and you're also role modeling that. So the people that work together are also showing that they care about each other because now when we have that ripple effect, people then want to help each other. When you care about them. If I don't care about them, you can go ahead and fail. And that's not necessarily a healthy organization. If people just let people fail without helping them learn from it at least.

 

Andrea: Right. Well, I think that we have to recognize that as leaders and and humans in general. But let's because this is about leaders that we do so many things that create these unintended consequences. We don't understand that what we do and what we don't do is being watched by other folks. Right? So if if what's going on and this is just a simple, simple thing, somebody comes into your workspace if you're face to face and you're continue to type or you continue to do your work as they're continuing, as they're talking to you, it's like how much showing of care do you have when you're just like, I can't even stop for 30 seconds to have this conversation with you? You know, that's an unintended consequence. Do you matter? Stop what you're doing, Pay attention. The email will still be there, and you as a leader are not as important as the person who is in front of you, regardless of who that is.

 

Michelle: Correct? Well, and that goes back to the story you and I were chatting about a couple of weeks ago. I had a group of leaders in an organization and I asked them to identify a little more related to personalities, but I asked them to identify based off each personality, what was their best day and worst day. And all four personalities had on their worst day had listed employees and people interrupting, people asking them questions. And so I let everyone go through and talk about their best and worst days and and then pulled back and said, okay, if we believe that someone who walks into your space is an inner. Option. Are we showing them that we care? Are we showing them that.We value them? Are we showing. Them? Are we helping them feel belonged like they belong? No, we're not doing any of those things. We're causing them to feel like exactly what we think and interruption and those actions are going to follow based off of our belief. Right.

 

Andrea: Well, and we ravella we believe that, yes, there are time management things that go along with that organizing structure and let's group some like activities for for questions. But the reality is, as a leader, it's not about you anymore. It's about them. And so when people are bringing you questions and people are bringing you information and you have to stop and do your job and coach them, yeah, I'm like, people get your frightened because it's like, Oh, but these people who I lead and manage are my interruption. If you don't have them, you don't have a job. I'm just giving you that. Right. Well, and.

 

Michelle: Then also how you respond to them is conditioning them for future questions or not asking. And we can condition them. Oh, don't go ask, don't go ask Andrea or anything, because if you ask her a question, she is going to be short, snappy, not helpful.

 

Michelle: We can then condition them to not feel safe. So now we've lost that psychological safety as well, where they they're going to hide their mistakes, they're going to hide and and try not to be noticed. And that's not what we want either. We need them to be successful. So they've got to feel safe. And so to build on that. The other thing is, when we're asking answering, let me change that, answering all their questions, are we taking those moments because they're just moments really, Are we taking those moments and coaching them, Not telling them? Because every time someone comes in with a question and we give them an answer, we've now started to condition them. Oh, and I have a question. I'll just go right to Andrew to get that answer. And now they're not having to think on their own. You are now their brain to a certain degree, Right? Right.

 

Andrea: So we're not elevating them to have an aha moment. And that aha moment is like, Oh, now I feel better because I was able to solve my own problem or work through a scenario and now I can go do it on my own. You know, those are those are so many, so many times over the decades that we've been coaching and leading people, it's like, yeah, every time I work with my team, I tell them, If you have a problem, you need to bring me at least three solutions. Really, if they've already done those three solutions, they would have already thought of them. They'd already tried those solutions versus, okay, I'm out. I have no more ideas. I need somebody to challenge what I'm thinking. And that means I'm showing you respect. I'm showing that I care about you, Michel. If you bring me like I am stuck, here's what's going on. I should ask you questions like, I know you've got this. Show them that you believe them. Maybe even say, I know you've got this. So let me ask a couple of questions and use those questions to help that person discover or debate or brainstorm some ideas of solving some kind of problem. Yes. Otherwise, like you said, they're going to say, okay, I got to come up with three solutions and if I come up with three solutions, maybe they're three stupid solutions. Now they're going to look at me with my eye rolls and things like that. Like, that's fake. That's just fake.

 

 

Michelle: Well, and the one thing you had said was, before we ask them questions, it's letting them know your intention. If you're asking questions because your intent is to help them, right, then tell them that up front. It's like, you know, I believe in you or you know what? I want to ask some questions because I want to one better understand. But to help challenge your thoughts a little bit. So now you've told them why you’re asking the questions versus just interrogating. Because sometimes how we ask questions, people might feel like, Oh, great, if I go in and tell them I can't, you know, I'm confused or I don't know how to do this or I'm, you know, I just don't know where I'm stuck. I don't know where to go with this. She's going to ask me a bunch of questions and it's just going to shoot me down there again. We're going to condition them not to not to feel safe. And so letting them know your intentions of why you're asking the questions so you can help them discover that answer themselves.

 

Andrea: You know, years ago, I had a coworker and we had this interaction. And what he did during that meeting, I mean, man, he just knocked my knees out from underneath me. I mean, this was something that he was known to do. And so I remember walking into his office, it's like, you know, you see, you know, you've got under my skin This this was not a way to approach this conversation. And he looked straight at me and he's like, Well, Andrea, that wasn't my intention. I'm like, But what was your intention? Yes. Was your intention to piss me off or was your intention to show how smart you were? Or was your intention to show me how to solve the problem and lift me? There's an intention behind it. And without those intentions, I think that what we do is we default in taking care of ourselves. Our ego gets in the way, right? And so those egos go into a situation, get into those places where it's like, you know, it's just not like psychologically safe. It's not okay for us to have those conversations. It's easy to show somebody you care, you know, administrative, professional day, we bring in flowers or we have team building days or, you know, we we allow people to take off extra early without doing any PTO time.

 

Andrea: Like we can do those things. Those are rewards. Those are gifts. But do we genuinely, intentionally show people we care, especially during those times when people are being vulnerable, when there's a problem, when they're stressed. And it's that point in time where it's like we can be empathetic, which I feel you like, I feel your feelings, but let's take it one more step and say, okay, let's be compassionate. So let's show I do feel you and how are we going to help you without making you feel stupid, without embarrassing you in some way, in front of others, without putting you in a situation where you feel like people can make fun of you. You know, people need to belong. People need to know what they do matters. Nobody has a nobody has a title of gesta, whatever, right? And making sure that they can they can ask the questions in those most vulnerable, vulnerable states. I wish I could say that word so much better anyway. Vulnerable state, right? Yes.

 

Michelle:

Well, and so that's ensuring that they feel safe when they come to you, that they feel like you know what, I can go ask. I can go ask them or her whomever the questions because they're going to challenge me. They're going to help me think different and help me come up with better ideas. So they want to come to you to have this this type of dialogue because they feel like they're learning. They feel like, you know, I'm going to when know I have this unknown or I have this frustration and I'm really stressed, sometimes they kind of shake it out of me. They kind of help me think differently. They, you know, just give me different perspective. And half the time they're not even telling me anything. They're just asking me questions.

 

Andrea: Right. Well, you mentioned earlier about the questions and how people feel interrogated. We are taught from the very beginning ask questions who, what, when, where, why, how. And that feels like you're interrogating. So we love when we can incorporate the other kinds of statements that lead people to tell us bigger story. Help me understand. Give me an example of what something would look like. Tell me how you got to this point or tell me what you've done already. Explain the process that you went through to get certain things done. When people do that now, you can feel the curiosity. I genuinely care about what's going on. I care about you and what you've done. I'm not trying to tell you what I think without hearing your side of the story and the things and the and the struggles that you've already been through. Now we can brainstorm because.

 

Michelle: Well, it's reducing assumptions, right? It's, you know, it's really easy for us to assume they've done something or they've already done X, Y, Z, or we can ask them a bunch of questions like, Yes, I've done that, I've already done that, which is so annoying. It's it's asking more. No, don't even ask any specific questions. Ask. So tell me, what have you done so far versus have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? Because that becomes almost demotivating, right? Versus okay, walk me through what have you done so far? And then let's let's we'll we'll look a little further from that point. And it's it's engaging them in that type of conversation.

 

Andrea: You know, I truly believe that if you want to show people that you care, you first have to understand and believe in them. You demonstrate that you believe in them. People who know me trust me. My word is belief. And you know that, right? So believe in them. Tell them that you believe in them. Make sure that you address those human desires of wanting to belong and that you incorporate and bring them into conversations and meetings. Make sure that if they're going to ask you something, understand, that's a vulnerable state. And if they need to, that they need to solve a problem or they're stressed that they need to be psychologically safe and that they need to know that what they do is super important. It matters. Right. And when you wrap all those things together about believing and making sure that those desires are addressed, then ensure that you're doing things intentionally. You're not just reacting to life, right? You're intentionally saying, I'm not trying to cut their knees out from underneath them. I'm not trying to make myself look better than you. Right. I'm not trying to make you feel bad for what you've done, but intentional, whether it's in your email, whether it's your face to face conversation. But that intentionality is what separates us from those others that don't understand that. My reaction in doing my job is different than my interaction and my relationship with my coworkers.

 

Michelle: Yes, Well, and it also goes back to we view ourselves through our intentions. People experience us and view us through our actions. And a lot of times there's that disconnect between our intent versus our action. And we don't see it. It's called blind spots, right? We all have them. Right? And how do we get it's getting better at reducing assumptions and reducing those blind spots so people feel valued. They feel like they belong and they feel safe. Right.

 

Andrea: So let's go back to our original question. Do your employees know you care? You have to show them, not just think it. If you want more ideas on how to become a better leader, subscribe like and share to the leadership Hustle.