Anonymity is addictive and contagious. It's easy to withhold our real thoughts and feelings. People in organizations do this all the time. For all kinds of reasons. Your responsibility as a leader is to make sure people aren't allowed to be anonymous.
Effective communication happens in an arena of trust and respect. My firm belief is every single person comes to your organization to succeed. They want to be a part of something. They selected your organization for a specific reason. Do you know what it is?
When you are talking to one of your direct reports, how easy is the conversation? How relaxed is the person you are talking to? Are they looking you in the eye? How's their posture? Are their arms crossed? Do they seem distracted? If any one of these factors are occurring during a conversation with someone you are responsible for, you have to listen to what isn't being said.
They may be mouthing the words they think you want to hear when in fact they are counting the seconds until this painful session is over and they can fade away into the woodwork - again.
Often a manager will seem genuinely surprised when an employee leaves. "Linda submitted her resignation yesterday - I thought things were going well!" No one was listening to Linda. No one was truly in tune with who Linda was, what she aspired to be, how she felt about her job, the company, her co-workers.
If you manage people you have to pay as much attention to what they aren't saying as to the things they say or the actions they take. Your goal is to make it easy for employees to say what's on their mind so you don't have to work so hard to read between those lines!
Effective communication happens in an arena of trust and respect. My firm belief is every single person comes to your organization to succeed. They want to be a part of something. They selected your organization for a specific reason. Do you know what it is?
When you are talking to one of your direct reports, how easy is the conversation? How relaxed is the person you are talking to? Are they looking you in the eye? How's their posture? Are their arms crossed? Do they seem distracted? If any one of these factors are occurring during a conversation with someone you are responsible for, you have to listen to what isn't being said.
They may be mouthing the words they think you want to hear when in fact they are counting the seconds until this painful session is over and they can fade away into the woodwork - again.
Often a manager will seem genuinely surprised when an employee leaves. "Linda submitted her resignation yesterday - I thought things were going well!" No one was listening to Linda. No one was truly in tune with who Linda was, what she aspired to be, how she felt about her job, the company, her co-workers.
If you manage people you have to pay as much attention to what they aren't saying as to the things they say or the actions they take. Your goal is to make it easy for employees to say what's on their mind so you don't have to work so hard to read between those lines!
Laurie Taylor
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