Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership. On today's discussion on employee
engagement, I want to talk about an interaction that I had on LinkedIn that
I've been thinking about a lot since having the interaction, and I wanted to
kind of, you know, get get Lorenzo's thoughts on this, and kind
of talk about this a little bit because I think it really impacts employee engagement
in organizations. Adam Grant, who you know, was a friend of the
show. We follow him and I think his content is fantastic. He posted
something recently. It was a kind of a funny joke screenshot meme of a
person who sent a text message to their boss, likely and it said we'll
be a little late today because of who I am as a person, and
the caption was basically when you've run out of excuses and again, just a
funny joke. And one of the people in the that saw that comment made
a comment underneath it that said that it's interesting that this person felt a need
to provide an excuse or reason for missing work, and you know, shouldn't
shouldn't just simply saying I will not be in for work today or I'll be
late today. Shouldn't that be enough? You know, why why should a
person feel like they have to you know, uh, you know, compromise
maybe their privacy or or you know, talk about whatever issues you're going on.
Isn't it? Isn't it simply enough to say I'll be late or I
won't be in for work. And you know, I have a tendency of
you know, taking things too seriously. And replied to that person and said
that that sounds pretty transactional, and that if the employee wants a relationship that
is more than transactional, that yeah, I think that an actual reason or
an explanation is necessary. You know, I said that if I would provide
an explanation for absence or tardiness to any person if I value their respect and
the relationship. And that's that's whether it's an employer or a family member or
a friend. And I think that's where the difference lies. I think,
you know, for some people, what you would provide to a friend or
a family member reaches a different level than what you would provide to an employer.
And I've been thinking about this a lot because their comment isn't wrong,
right, Like, if you if you're a person you should be able to
dictate what the relationship is between you and your employer. And if you don't
want to share an explanation as to why you are late or why you are
you know, not going to be at work that day, you shouldn't have
to. And organizations that require that, you know, like I'm gonna just
work tomorrow, Okay, make sure you bring the documentation, doctor's notes,
I want to sign medical release forms like that's that's ridiculous, right if you
if you're an organization like that, get out. But but yeah, you
should be able to dictate the relationship between you and your employer. But I
don't think I'm wrong either, Like I don't think that this is a this
is a black and white issue of you know, one of us is right
and one of us is wrong. I think this this person was right,
and I think that it's the right thing to do. And so when it
comes to employee engagement, this is an important thing to this us because you
know, in my heart of hearts, I believe that in organizations where the
relationships between employers, between leaders and employees rise to the level of more than
just that transaction, that better work gets done and people are happier and more
engaged, and when it doesn't exist, they're not. But again, is
not up to each employee to decide. Yeah, I think it's a great
conversation to have, and you know, the realities. I think you're both
right in the aspect of like, you shouldn't feel obligated to have to share
or feel the sense of guilt to share overshare. Maybe what's going on if
you can't make it to work, you can't make it to work. But
on the flip side of that, a lot of what we talk about is
building culture and building you know, kind of these authentic relationships and having trust
and having the ability to want leaders of organizations to also like, you know,
do more than just the bare minimum. So that's kind of how I
look at it. It's like, it's perfectly fine if you want to have
a maybe you know, maybe it is a transactional relationship. There is kind
of like here's the minimum expectation, here's what I need to do, So
I just do this, and then what I expect from my organization is do
exactly what the organization or the leaders of the organizations say they're going to do,
and then I'm good, Like I do my part, they do their
part, I walk away, I don't have to think about it when I
get home or whatever. Like it could be that type of a situation and
both parties could be perfectly fine with that. I think if you're thinking about
the idea of building culture and elevating a team and a relationship between a leader
and the team, there's this kind of middle ground where it's like, you
know, we do more than maybe the minimum expectation. We add a little
bit more to make sure that people understand or that there's there's a relationship of
such to say, like you know, I don't want to miss work,
but I need to and here's what's kind of going on. And it's even
just a little bit like I, hey, Chris, like really under the
weather today, got up, got dressed, wanted to make it in,
but just do not feel great and don't want to get the rest of the
team sick. You know it won't be in today. And then your response
is, hey, it's all good, like thank you for you know,
get well have some time. Like that element of sharing is not really from
a place of, in my opinion, of like the guilt of I owe
you a reason, but more of the I owe you know, I want
my team and my leaders to understand that that there's something that's going on,
and it could be a flat tire, it could be a family member,
it could like there are plenty of things that could be going on without having
to overshare to be able to do that, But then that also sets the
standard for the relationship that I want to have with my leader, so that
my leader can understand a little bit more of a peek into my life of
what's going on, that they they know that I'm being authentic, that they
know that I'm being honest about what's happening. Because I want my leader to
also not just do the bare minimum of their job or their expectation from the
organization. I want them to look out for me. I want them to
be a little bit more open with things around my career, my progression,
my my development. So again, it's kind of a I see this as
a little bit of a contract between the two if that's what you're looking for
when it comes to the environment that you want to work in, right,
right, and again, it should be up to each employee to decide on
their own what type of relationship they want with their leader, because again This
isn't the relationship between an employee and their company. The company doesn't there's no
relationship there. The relationship is between the person and their direct leader or whoever,
or set of leaders, whoever they are, and each person should get
to decide that. And if you're a leader of a team with a lot
of people on it, you may have people on that team who really want
that deeper relationship, who really want to have the relationship where you talk more
openly about what's going on in your lives and who want that level of trust
and of you know, kind of back and forth. And you may have
people on the exact same team who don't want that at all, they want
the transactional relationship. If you, as a leader, are kind of putting
one above the other on a like a higherarchy call basis as far as you
know what, because maybe you want that more, you want more of a
relationship, and then you have an employee who doesn't want that. If you
are, are you know, kind of giving employees like that the cold shoulder
or or treating them differently because of it, that's a problem you shouldn't be
because again, neither is wrong. Where where it's wrong is when is when
one person articulates that they want the benefits of both. Right, So,
if an employee is saying that they want that, they don't want to have
to say anything more than just I won't be in today. But they also
want you, as a leader to go above and beyond what the bare minimum
of your job is in order to help them progress in their career and to
you know, and to and to get where you want to go, and
to accomplish more more goals. If you want a leader like that, good
luck finding one. If you're not willing to to, you know, put
forth some effort on your side of the of the deal. Also, it's
just how people work. People will want to do more for you if you
want to provide that type of relationship with them, there has to be some
type of reciprocity there. Saying I want to be a leader doesn't mean you
give up your right to have that reciprocity in those relationships. It means that
you meet people where they are and you start doing things in a way that
is in you know, kind of in service of what each person wants.
If you're a leader, you're trying to figure out how to navigate this.
There are some things that you can do. I want to go over that,
but first let's get up to ward for one of our sponsors. All
Right, if you're a leader of people and you have multiple people on your
team and you're trying to navigate this, this is one of those times where
it's not the right thing to do to sit each of them down and say
what type of a relationship do you want? These are things that have to
happen in the moment and on the fly, based on experiences that you've already
had, because it's it's going to be very difficult for each employee to articulate
what type of relationship they want in this context without the benefit of looking at
previous interactions that have already happened. You as a leader, it's your responsibility
to kind of make notes on what type of relationship it appears a person wants
based on how they're interacting with you, and then, based on that information,
sit down with the ones you need to sit down with and say,
hey, this is what i'm seeing. There's nothing wrong with this. If
this is the type of relationship you want, I'm perfectly fine with that,
but I want to make sure that i'm meeting you where you are and that
I'm not getting the wrong impression here, So talk to me about this and
let me know, because I want to make sure I'm serving you right and
that I'm holding my end of the bargain as your leader to making sure you
get is what is needed. But if this is the type of relationship you're
looking for as a purely transactional one, that's fine. Let's get that out
in the open and we can talk about it, because I don't want you
to feel like I'm short changing you or giving the cold shoulder at all.
But again, it has to happen in the context of you've already seen this
happen a few times, and now you want to kind of clear the air.
Not having those conversations and just assuming that a person wants a specific type
of relationship will likely end in air. You will probably assume incorrectly. There
could be employees out there who think this is the right thing to do,
and maybe they want something deeper they don't think they can get it, or
maybe they've had bad experiences with leaders in the past and they want a deeper
relationship with you. They don't have to ask for it. Getting it out
in the open is a good thing to do, but again it has to
be in the context of things that have already happened, so you can talk
about it in clear the air. Yeah. I think the other part of
it too is be upfront and tell tell them upfront what it might look like.
Say, hey, you know, obviously we have benefit time, we
have sick time, we have things things in life are going to happen.
That type of deal. Kind of here's what my thoughts are on this,
Like, you know, if you need to be out, you need to
be out. Like there's not an obligation for you to have to share what's
going on if you don't want to, but it is helpful if in case
there's something that we can support or help you out with or those types of
things. So kind of like being the leader that also shares and kind of
gives permission to understand kind of what the expectations are and then answer questions about
it and kind of discuss examples of it, because what sometimes happens sometimes people
don't know. Sometimes, like in this example, around the the need or
the want to say what's going on, some people don't know. Maybe what
is the right way to approach it, or maybe their previous job did this
way and this jet Like there's a lot of things that happened that we don't
really even talk about or like would never come up in a training around,
like here's the proper way or here's a way in which you can call out
or provide information, like I think that that falls on the leader to also
kind of establish some of those norms, to share those those types of things
like and and maybe you don't do it collectively with the whole team. Maybe
it happens in the moment, in the moment with each leader or with each
person, somebody calls out or somebody says this, or somebody feels that,
you know, they need to leave a voicemail with them, like coffee and
sneeze in every ten seconds, like just saying hey, like you know,
I heard you know you voiceout. I want you to get better. That
type of thing. If you're that sick where it's hard for you to even
you know, breathe to call without coffee or season, you can just text,
you know, saying like you don't you don't have to do that.
I don't need to proof on the other side of the phone or the voicemail
like those pick those moments to kind of share your perspective or your thoughts on
how you want that relationship to go, and then provide people with some clarity
or the permission to kind of approach it in a way that makes the most
amount of sense. Right, absolutely, and again, these are these are
things, this is this is leadership, and there's some gray area here.
But whatever, whatever it is, and whatever you decide to do, it
is never the right thing to have these conversations in the moment when the particular
issue is happening. A person you know, says they're not going to be
into work today, or they're calling out, you know, saying over the
phone to them during that same conversation, hey, let's talk about their relationship
and how you want this to go. That is never the right thing to
do. You wait until that that particular issue is done and over with,
and then you pull them aside when they're at work again and everything's fine.
In the moment when a person is articulating their inability to come to work or
be at work on time, whatever, it is, nothing but compassion for
the moment and get better, feel better, whatever you need, let us
know. And then after these situation is over, and they're back at work.
Then that's when you start having broader conversations around the relationship. Let the
individual dictate how they want the specific interaction to go in the moment, and
you won't go wrong as a leader. Thank you all for joining us on
this discussion of employee engagement. We'll see you here next Thursday for the next
one. Have a great day.