What Great Leaders Do - Continuing

Covering rest of the two points which I promised in previous post

4. Create a sense of Belonging and Purpose

An important feeling for all of us is feeling of 'I belong here'. This feeling is everything. It defines the comfort for us, for team. It defines the efforts, real contributions, and the results. It defines how much team is connected with the Organization.  

Fostering this feeling is not easy. Leaders helps to create, nourish, and empower the environment which can help in fostering this feeling.

'Promote Environment for Being thyself' - This is the big contributor to feeling of Belonging. If people feels, they are accepted for what they are and need not to change just to fit in, they feel comfortable. It is not about being rigid, or averse to change or learning. Rather it is more helpful to promote learning. Learning comes from adaptability and adaptability starts with being comfortable with oneself, without being defensive or faking any of the trait just to fit in. Once people are comfortable in being what they are, they are actually better aligned to learn and improve to next level, while being connected to the Organization. 

One of the mistake we can do is to have one mold to make everyone perfect and fit in our own world. That is a trap which seems like working at first, and is very well doable with all the great powers, but it will eventually stop people from learning and to use their genuine talent. Eventually they either just 'fit in' or don't belongs to the place. In both the cases, we loose the talent.

Leaders accept their team for who they are, however, have genuine interest to help them to learn, grow and become better version of themselves.

What Great Leaders Do

'What Great Leaders Do' - I don't buy the greatness of 'Great' word, it is simply a search keyword :) 

Whenever I think what leaders do, few flashbacks always help me, when I heard following advice from my mentors.
  • 'Let us see how we can solve this problem yours way'
  • 'Show people what you think, so they know what you think, and your management style'
  • 'Understanding context, Respecting everyone, Integrity in words and actions are important ingredients to manage the talent'
Adding some observations and learning, I experienced so far. Promising, will not make it a long list, but explanation for each point could be long. 

1. Ensure that People feel safe

This is the first priority for the leaders. They reflect this in all of their actions, and words. They work on it day in, day out. 

Why does this has to be a day in, day out job. Because once you are in leadership role, every action impact the masses. The way you communicate, listen and respond, write emails, body language, how you respond to conflicts, how you react to mistakes and failures, all these are followed closely by the team. Every single action is a clue for team, to deduce that how safe they are around you.

Why does feeling safe so important. Let us understand it from neurological perspective. 

When Human being faces threat (physical or mental), our self-defense mechanism kicks in and make us ready for 'fight or flight'. Result, arteries get tightened and tensed to pump more blood to body elements. Heart works rapidly and hard. When body is working so hard to manage the threat, naturally our brain can not focus on creativity, executive functions or social engagements. 

Hence, if team is not feeling safe, we loose Creativity, Executive thought process and most importantly Social Engagements which is the basis of team work. Loosing these means, loosing the team and organizational goals as well.

Next, important point is how to ensure this safety net.