Influential Leadership
You need to connect with your employees or else you will have to pick up. Transparency should never be an issue. You must clearly communicate, or you will not be able to achieve your desired results. Because we are so emotionally charged, we must always make sure we use data to drive our decisions. That helps us to get down to the root cause and be more influential in proving our decisions.
80% of our behavior is habit. If you want different results you have to influence that and manage to that. Data is helpful to trigger that. For example, we noticed a backlog in patient flow that primarily started at the front desk. With so many moving parts, we ultimately decided to enlist help of technology, online check in, kiosks, online payment, eligibility, etc. When we first started talking about it, some managers and employees were adamant as to why it couldn’t work. We did several benchmarks, timed processes and did a complete ROI. We began to be very transparent in our vision, our vision was not to cut jobs and we found out that was where much of the push back and fear was about. What we wanted was to transform our practice and change the culture. We presented the data, along with how we would utilize the skills of those that jobs would change due to the technology and we were able to influence change and ultimately habit.
Transparency and data down to the root cause built trust and ultimately influence team members to become followers.
Knowing why you want to do what you would like to do is your motives question. Even good things done with the wrong motive can become a disaster. There are key things you can do to prevent those disasters.
1. Awareness
2. Action
3. Accountability
In order to get where we would like to go we need to adapt principles that we stay committed to each and every time.
Be Consistent
Consistency can be hard. It requires intention. Without consistency your goals will never be accomplished. If you want to lose weight you fundamentally know what you need to do. Reduce caloric intake so that you have a deficit. You know that you need to consistently work within a range of calories daily. But what happens when you have a cheat day? You slow your progress down, interfere with your mental capacity and then go off track. You lessen your results overall.
This same principal can apply to interactions with others. Years ago I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. In this book he talks about emotions/trust and relates them to a bank account. The more positive interactions you deposit, the more your team will trust and forgive minor withdrawals, but if you consistently navigate negative transactions then no one will look to you for leadership or trust in action.
Need help? Consider a coach, many companies are now turning to business/leadership coaches to help with consistency and team building.
Be Creative
You can learn from so many people, even the people you can’t meet face-to-face. In order to help build relationships you need to possess a teachable spirit and always be prepared. You learn most by listening and asking questions of others. You need to be able to demonstrate to others that you were learning from them it’s a two-way street.
The other way that you can be creative during these times when we can’t be face-to-face is to reach out to your networks to initiate more conversations and try to host interactions where you can see each other even through technology.
Be Purposeful
Being purposeful means being prepared. It means that every day you show intention through your actions. There are many ways you can be purposeful such as:
1. Starting each day with accomplishments needed
2. Holding morning huddles with team members
3. Recap goals and accomplishments through daily communications
4. Celebrate to keep motivated
Be Grateful
Leadership at its core is servitude, it is not about the biggest paycheck or the power. Always show your gratitude for those on your team. We are lacking in leadership all around us and people are craving intentional leadership.
Today, the competitive advantage of your organization is not just quality of your service, if you don’t have that then you have nothing to begin with. Your competitive edge is how you treat your employees, your patients, your peers, it’s the relationship.
“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing.” – Mother Teresa
Have you ever heard the story of Johnny the bagger? Barbara Glanz tells the story of an individual she met when working with a grocery store chain. She was teaching on how one person can make a difference, Johnny wasn’t sure he could make a difference, because he was just a bagger. So he gave it some thought. He came up with giving out a thought a day, each night he would type up a thought for the day and cut them into strips and each customer got one in their bagged groceries. Eventually, no one wanted to go into another line because they all wanted Johnny and his message for the day. Customers told tales of how they would stop in more often to get more messages. Business boomed, but his attitude caught on, suddenly other departments were thinking of what their signature “message” could be and implementing different ways to make the customers feel special.
Great leadership drives great teams who think outside of the box to get the work done.
Be A Good Listener
Preconceived beliefs influence your reactions and hinder your goals. All of us come from different backgrounds. When you listen to hear then you begin to understand but when you are quick to react and cast judgement you lose sight of reality.
I have a longtime relationship with shoes. I like high-quality, pretty shoes. To be completely transparent, I love Jimmy Choo shoes. Once when I was doing a training, I described my experience with shoes to Medicare. I stated, “I believe that I should be able to spend my life in Jimmy Choo shoes.” My husband thinks that any brand will do. Medicare is like this with cataract surgery. They will pay for the standard shoe. Now don’t get me wrong, the standard shoe can work just fine, but as a consumer, I have the right to choose a better lens, one that will correct and provide better vision.
I use this as an example as my love for my Jimmy Choo shoes, as you can imagine, when I say it, all eyes go to my feet. Judgments are being made based on preconceived notions on our own life experiences. Good, bad or ugly. What though, if I told you that I grew up poor. So poor that there were times I had to walk to school barefoot? That even as a small child I promised myself that I would never want for shoes when I grew up? Transparency will break your preconceived notion.
That is why connecting with your employees is so foundational.
Years ago, I worked for this very fluent physician. He spoke very eloquently. One day he came up to me and began a lengthy conversation with me. When he was done I looked at him and said, “I heard blah blah blah, you are not good at this job, blah blah blah. Was that the message you were giving me?” He laughed and indeed it was. You see, I am a much more direct person and appreciate that direct approach whereas he liked to soften the message through his delivery.
Connecting is so important.
Here is what I said, here is what I heard and therefore that is what I did. It is important to connect with your teams so that they hear what you are saying so that they can do what you need to get done. But you need to ask questions to make sure that your perceptions of what was said are accurate.
You need to be able to connect in order to reach your goals. In order to do this you need awareness, action and accountability.