If you aren’t caring you aren’t leading
Loriana Sekarski
Loriana Sekarski is the founder and president of BONSAI, a consulting company that transforms leaders (and businesses) into the best version of themselves. Outside of BONSAI, Loriana serves as an adjunct professor at Washington University's graduate student program. Additionally, she's fine-tuning her passion project, TakeFlight, a program that addresses domestic abuse within the Christian community.
If you are intensely task-driven or are uncomfortable with or don’t see the need to reach out to connect with your followers, this article is for you. Or, if you have a leader like this who reports to you, read on.
I have interacted recently with numerous people in leadership roles who are not regularly connecting one-on-one with their team members to have meaningful conversations and check in with them. Here are the reasons I hear most frequently:
- I didn’t think it was important.
- I’m too busy.
- They are busy and I don’t want to interrupt.
- I see them in a team meeting.
- How do I respond to their response? What if they tell me how they are doing?
- Isn’t a text enough?
- I don’t really like them.
- I don’t really care about how they are doing.
- I don’t feel comfortable talking to people beyond a meeting agenda.
When leaders fail to connect, they fail to lead.
When leaders fail to connect, they don’t build a team.
Especially in the current work-from-home situation, people need check-ins more than ever. The stress from uncertainty and isolation is compounding, and it’s easy to miss visual or verbal clues about how your team is doing if you’re only meeting by phone or video call. It seems the response to this heightened stress goes one of two ways: either leaders lean into it, or they ignore it altogether. If the latter describes you or one of your leaders, you need to first diagnose the reason why to formulate an appropriate response.
Let’s look at a few of the possible reasons why leaders ignore this issue and some solutions for each reason.
"The need to nurture others is a key factor we use in our leadership assessment."
Lack of priority
Sometimes leaders don’t realize the positive impact connecting with their employees on a one-on-one basis has on the relationship. When one-on-one connections occur, that person receives belonging cues that they are an important part of a team. It also creates a safe environment where they feel free to divulge problems, share solutions, etc. (the book Culture Code by Daniel Coyle is a great resource here). Time invested in building these relationships increases long-term performance.
Awareness: Not connecting impacts team and individual performance.
Solution: Schedule on your calendar at least monthly (preferably bi-weekly) check-ins with each person. Start with 30 minutes and let them own at least half of the agenda. Check-in between meetings via text on how they are doing.
Lack of comfort
I am surprised how many leaders are admitting to me that they are uncomfortable checking in with their employees/volunteers on a personal level. Because they are uncomfortable broaching the subject, don’t know how to navigate these situations, or are not sure how to respond if something comes up, they avoid it altogether. The need to nurture others is a key factor we use in our leadership assessment.
Awareness: Not connecting conveys the leader doesn’t care and the person doesn’t belong.
Solution: Start developing skills and a level of comfort with nurturing others. This may be outside your natural tendencies, but it is imperative for leadership, especially when the people you need to connect with are volunteers.
- Develop a list of go-to questions to help start these conversations.
- See this action list for specific suggestions of ways to express caring for others.
Lack of desire
Perhaps hard to believe, but I have met a few leaders lately who really just don’t want to know or care to know how their people are doing. There is no sincere desire to respond at a personal level. They just want the work done.
Awareness: People leadership is not the best match. It also might suggest some deeper work that’s needed, for as believers we are called to care for others.
Solution: Shift positions so that people leadership isn’t part of the responsibilities or put in place a chief operating officer (COO) type of position to work with the team.
The bottom line is this: If you aren’t aware of how your people are doing, both at home and in the organization you lead, you are missing vital information and not making the essential connection required for high-performing teams. There isn’t the “real work” and the “people work”—it is all your work as a leader. Once you view it like that it eliminates a lot of pressure (such as feeling guilty for taking time for it) and elevates it to the right perspective.
