How do I engage my team?
This seems to be the question of 2009. Especially when there is a Boomer at the helm and a Generation X/Y workforce. Alright, leaders, this may not be what you want to hear, but it’s time for you to work on something.
What? Oh GAWWW>>>>here she goes again. yep.
Engagement is about relationship. If your team doesn’t feel they have a relationship with you, they will not engage. Even if they have a great team leader, manager, etc. They need to feel a connection with the top person in the organization in order to really put forth their effort. You can run but you cannot hide. Relationship with everyone in the company, yes, that’s what I said.
I will make it simple for you bottom line guys, your time is valuable. Perfect for you ROI-focused leaders: This post has multiple uses: You can use it on your team, your kids, your spouse, and your golf buddies, the gas station attendent, even those hard-to get along people you run into randomly on the street.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIP WITH ANYONE:
Ingredients:
- Willingness to grow the relationship.
- Respect for the individual(s) in the relationship.
- Emotional Intelligence. (EQ)
Directions: Develop and demonstrate ingredients 1-3 in the relationship for a lifetime.
Serves: Everyone.
That’s it? Yes, it’s a simple recipe. But not easy. You can’t wait for willingness, respect, and emotional intelligence to be brought to you by your team first. You must bring those ingredients, (model them, your team will in turn learn it from you. What are you modeling right now?. If your team is disengaged, you must take responsibility and look in the mirror. It starts with you.)
Just so you know, EQ has been measured in over half a million senior executives and CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace. Hmmm, there’s a great starting place for you.
(To measure your own emotional intelligence, contact me and I will walk you through an inexpensive and assessment to measure your EQ and give you some homework to build your score) julia@mentaliron.com
Your primary function is to get work done through other people. Gen Y, although they don’t admit it, as a whole, has a very low self-management ability level. Therefore, your emotional intelligence must be super-tuned to handle them.
It’s time to stop compaining about our workforce today and start building our own leadership skills to be able to handle the relationships we need to have to engage our teams.
As a leader, you need not only to leverage your time, but to leverage your energy over the long term. If you are skilled at being in relationship you will enjoy the leadership journey over time. That, my friend, is a sustainable business practice. Going crazy and being frustrated is not. Having a disengaged workforce is becoming the downfall of many businesses right now. I suggest you stay in business for the long haul, increase market share, and grow your bottom line through gutsy performance: increasing your emotional intelligence, and learning how to be in true relationship with a team that will be loyal and work hard to produce the results you want.
Tags: Disengagement, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Management, relationship, team building
