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Do you know what a poor relationship looks like?  I can tell you. They don’t want to help. They don’t care. They are uninterested in what you are trying to achieve.  That alone should tell you why relationships, and fostering them, are crucial.

poor relationship management = poor customer/team experience = poor culture

It’s also serving the people you lead by lifting them up. Sometimes, that’s praise. Sometimes, that’s difficult conversations to challenge them to elevate their performance. It’s always about helping them improve and grow. 

Great leaders see the future first. When it comes to relationships, it means leaders see potential in others perhaps before they even see it themselves. And we foster that in people by doing for them whatever we can. Growing great is the goal – not just for ourselves, but for everybody on our team.

How can we be what others need?

• We have to know our teammates. 
• We have to understand them.
• We have to connect with them by being truly interested in what they most want.
• We also have to figure out what they most want and how that fits within the context of our team – and the work. It doesn’t mean we can’t still serve them…but it may mean we have to help them figure out how their improved performance here can help them achieve what they most want. (HINT: We can’t behave like parents who force or coerce children to pursue what they most want. It means we must behave more like parents committed to helping the kids figure out what they most want.)

Why is any of this important?

Because it influences outcomes. It builds respect and trust while generating camaraderie. It impacts the customer experience. 

We know what good relationships feel like…and bad ones, too.  But if you are new at this, working on it, or good and it and want to continue to grow. How? Listen. Employ the leadership recipe we talked about in our first episodes: humility, curiosity, knowledge, understanding, and compassion.

Be genuine and honest. Be dependable. Be fair. Always do the right thing.

Lisa & Randy

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:25 — 48.9MB)

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Cheryl De Leon serves as Deputy City Manager over Airport, Audit Services, Budget, Communications and Marketing, Downtown, Community Services, Finance/ Human Resources, Information Technology, Library, Parks Arts and Recreation. She joins us today to discuss the art of mentoring, a topic she’s passionate about to help grow leaders in city government in Grand Prairie, Texas. City government leadership, like all other leadership, desperately needs committed mentors willing to pass it on, people like Cheryl. 

Lisa & Randy

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:44 — 48.3MB)

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A lack of trust is very evident. Nothing serves as a more solid footing for effective leadership. 

What does it mean to trust? In a word, “confidence.” It’s an assurance we feel about somebody’s character, integrity, competence (ability), and honesty (truth).

Why don’t we trust? Because people, including us, sometimes prove we’re not what we claim. Leaders too often display incongruence – say one thing, do something different. Or contradict what they do and say.

For example, if a business owner constantly preaches that customers are important, but at every turn, he short-changes customers for the profit of the business, employees quickly learn “he doesn’t really value customers; he values profits more.” Employees won’t trust him.

That being said, most everyone has experienced a lack of trust and its impact. The organization, department, and team suffer. It creates distractions, prohibits creativity and innovation,
stifles communication, and team productivity, prevents relationship development and rapport, disengages team members; loyalty is lost.

“Without trust, we don’t truly collaborate; we merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team.” 

– Stephen Covey

How do you build trust? Trust requires every leader to first be a good person. Not some of the time. All of the time.

Will others forgive us for our weaknesses? Yes, if we admit our wrong and fix it, then display behavior that shows we mean it. But otherwise, no.

Don’t blame shift or deflect. Own mistakes. You are REAL.

Great leaders who create and build trust don’t have to be perfect, but they must be willing to honestly own their errors.

Communicate well.

Be transparent. Genuine. Honest and open. Listen. Keep people informed.

Trust requires every leader to be quick to openly share information, as much as possible. They must also deftly be open and vulnerable when they can’t share information, or when sharing sensitive information might damage the employees or the culture. The great leader won’t lie, but will instead openly tell the employees that she’s going to keep the employees properly informed.

Be vulnerable. Trust requires leaders to be vulnerable. You’ve heard that in negotiations, the first to blink loses. Well, when it comes to trust, the first to show vulnerability earns the trust. That’s what great leaders do. They reveal more of themselves to show others the way. They LEAD by going first.

Accountability. Inspect what you expect.

Trust requires leaders to go the extra mile. The most trustworthy leaders undersell and overdeliver. Always. They don’t promise the moon, then fail to launch the rocket…which is far too common.

Keep their best interest at heart. Trust requires people to know you’ve got their best interests at heart – and that you’ll do whatever you can to help them succeed. That doesn’t mean the leader owns all the performances of the people, but it doesn’t mean she knows she’s responsible for it. And if people fail to perform, they know the leader will put in the work to help them fix it.

Also, if they neglect to do their part, the leader will protect the rest of the team – and the organization – by no longer allowing the chronic poor performers to remain on the team. Through trust, your team will follow you into the storm without hesitation.

High-performing team. High outcomes. Period.

Lisa & Randy

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Compassion is the high point in our leadership recipe. Simply put, compassion is a focus on others. That’s congruent with our definition of leadership…

A focus on others, influence and doing for others what they’re not able to do for themselves

This podcast – every episode – is our endeavor to add to the conversation – a conversation about pursuing high-performing cultures made possible by great leaders. 

It begins and ends with a focus on others! That’s the real stuff of extraordinary leadership.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:44 — 37.3MB)

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A lack of understanding is never an advantage. Now armed with facts, figures, and other forms of knowledge, leaders need to use that knowledge in making wise decisions. That’s impossible if we don’t understand. 

Understanding answers many questions, most importantly, “Why?” 

Today, Lisa and I talk about the power of understanding with stories from our own leadership experiences. Share your insights with us. We’d love to hear them.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:19 — 32.3MB)

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The 3rd leadership ingredient is knowledge. Leaders today face unprecedented challenges with knowledge. We’re smothered with data, numbers, intel and other forms of “knowledge.” But we’re also challenged with reality and truth. Welcome to the world of deep fakes – some intentional and much of it likely unintentional. We see data and connect dots. What if the dots don’t connect? Or shouldn’t be connected? 

Knowledge must be vetted. Leaders can verify knowledge – facts, data, etc. One of the best methods for doing that is to rely on others. Humility affords us the opportunity to practice curiosity (asking questions) as we pursue the insights and knowledge of others. 

Perspective matters. That’s why great leaders rely on the perspectives other people can provide to vet knowledge. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!