Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership. On today's discussion and employee
engagement, we're going to be talking about the second letter in our culture acronym,
the letter you understand people. If you haven't listened to last Thursday's episode
on Consider Yourself, go back and do that. It's a good kind of
kickoff to this acronym that we discussed and created many years ago on the Hacking
Leadership podcast. When it comes to employee engagement, understanding your people it is
absolutely a prerequisite. You know, if you've considered yourself and now you're moving
forward to the next step, you have to understand what your people are looking
for. And this could be from as simple as you know. Some people
like to be I don't want to say micromanage, but they want more support.
Other people want to be left alone. And figuring out what your people
want individually, not your what your team wants, but what each individual person
on your team wants. You need to do that as a leader, and
you need to show up in a way that each of them want you to
show up, not as the same person for all of them. Yeah,
I think it's such an important piece of this, you know, truly Understanding
people is having i think, a true curiosity and passion for what motivates people.
What are they interested in, why are they here, what are they
looking to accomplish, What are the things that they want to be involved in,
what are the things that demotivate them? Like, really really understanding them
as individuals, as you said, is such a critical piece when you're talking
about culture now based upon the level of leadership that you're in that you know,
that can be difficult if it's talking about hundreds or thousands of people on
teams. But as a leader or a leader of leaders, the people that
you're typically responsible for are are in a small enough group that you can definitely
get to know them in a way that helps you to understand who they are
and what they do. And again, this does not mean that you know
every single person. You have to have this tremendous you know, knowledge of
and kind of personal relationship where you spend time together like none of that.
I'm just saying that you understand them in a way that it's clear or what
they need from you as a leader, it's clear what again, what they're
trying to accomplish. Both maybe you know professionally, but also then personally as
you start to kind of unpack those relationships. But those things are so critical
to making sure that when you're when you're considering yourself and now you're understanding your
people, when you're in a space where you're building strategies or having conversations,
you are well aware of the people in the room. You're you're aware of
their demeanors, You're aware of their leadership styles, You're aware of the way
in which they react to things, and that could be so helpful as you
are continuing to, you know, talk about the culture that you want to
build and implement things that are going to be helpful and having a healthy culture.
Right. I think when we wrote this, we intentionally left out the
word your It doesn't say understand your people, it says understand people. Now,
you do have to understand your people, you do have to, but
you have to understand people. You have to you have to like people.
So you have to go into this from a standpoint of understanding what it is
that people want individually but as a whole. When it comes to humanity,
there are certain commonalities that we have. We want to be appreciated for who
we are, whatever that looks like, we want to feel like our voice
matters, whatever that looks like. We want to feel like we're not just
kind of grouped in with everybody else, but we're looked at as individuals,
not just as part of a team, although being part of a team is
also important. So you have to understand what things link us together in commonality,
and you don't have to look much further than inside yourself to figure that
out, because these are things that again are universal. And then once you
understand those things and you apply that lens to the actions that you take towards
your people, you'll have a much higher likelihood of understanding them individually and leading
them in a way that allows them to feel like you're considering their engagement that
you want them to be fully engaged. They will not fully engage in their
work unless they feel understood as people in general and as individuals. And so,
you know, whatever you can do as a leader to get yourself there
is important. Each person who is on your team is the main character in
their own story, and you're just a supporting part. And so in your
own story, you're the main character and they are supporting parts for them.
You are the one that gets talked about at the dinner table at night.
You are the one that has a very very large impact on their mental health
and potentially even their physical health as employees, depending on how you go about
leading them. So, you know, I want to give some advice to
leaders on how to understand their people a little bit better. But first I
want to get up towards one of our sponsors. All Right, if you're
a leader of people and you're trying to understand your team better, it starts
with very simple things like just asking them, sitting down with them and asking
them about themselves, not just about the type of leader they want you to
be, but what they're looking for out of not just their job, but
out of you know, their short and long term goals, and and really
internalizing them, writing them down and remembering them in a way that lets you
interact with them with those things in mind. Every time you interact with somebody,
it needs to be with the in the mindset of Okay, this is
where this person wants to go, not just tomorrow, but five years from
now, and and what am I doing in spirit of helping them accomplish that
goal that they have articulated to me? They may change it. You may
have to revisit with them all the over and over again, they may refine
it. But but whatever it is in the moment, that needs to be
your frame of reference when it comes to interacting with them and helping them accomplish
those things. Yeah, I think it's critical too, like to share with
them the intention of what you're doing, and also share that with them your
thoughts and like your your your goals and your passions and those types of things.
I think that when you're when you're looking to understand people and connect with
people, it's important they understand you. And so I think that you know,
as you're thinking about those conversations and getting to know people, telling them
upfront why you're doing it, saying things like, look, we're looking to
build the best culture possible here. And I truly believe that, Like,
the more that we understand each other, the more that we realize what the
skills are and the strengths are that we bring, The more that we understand
how we're motivated, how we're demotivated, how we like to get recognition,
how we like to talk about accountability. Like, as we have more of
these conversations collectively, it helps us to function better as a team. It
helps us to get our work done more efficiently, more effectively. It helps
us to celebrate each other's uniqueness and the things that we all bring, you
know, and so I want to start with that, like, let me
tell you a little bit about me and how I see the world and what
I do and what I think and what I'm trying to achieve in my life.
Like by doing that as a leader, I think it's super helpful.
So that way you're walking through this conversation sometimes maybe you've never had them,
or you're having them for the first time. It doesn't seem foreign, it
doesn't seem like you're kind of overreaching. You're giving them the context to why
this is important to you and why you're doing this right. And the more
you can share about yourself, the more you will show your people who you
are. You know, people want a leader who is not just predictable,
but who they view as the real them. They don't want a leader who
they think is a different person when they're leading you versus when they're at home
or where they're with their friends. You know, they want to know that
you're just whoever you are, and that they can rely on that and that
you're not putting on an act or a show. The more you can share
about yourself, the more likely you are to have people who believe that's what's
actually going on here, because it's just about information. The more information they
have that will be checked against other information they have, and the more they
see consistencies amongst that information as they learn things about you over time, the
more likely they are to think to themselves, Okay, Lorenzo is the same
person when he's here as when he's not here. That is a person who
is predictable and reliable and trustworth the and who you can follow. A person
who is giving conflicting information not intentionally but just because they're withholding whatever they can,
or they're playing their cards too close to the vest. We'll get out
is little things that seem to be contradictory to each other because there's just not
enough context to put the whole thing together and to paint a picture. And
that's when you get people who just they keep you at arms reach and they
don't inherently trust you with what their long term goals are because they haven't seen
that you're willing to trust them with yours. It starts with you, trusting
them with yours if you want to see any type of engagement when it comes
to them. Thank you for joining us on this discussion and employee engagement.
We'll see you all next Thursday for the next one and we'll talk about lending
air support. Have a great day.