Sound Wisdom Blog

Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Four Questions Smart Leaders Ask to Build Employee Relationships by Phillip Van Hooser

If you lead others and want to take your success (and that of your organization) to the next level, knowing how to build employee relationships is critical. I’m talking about engaged, honest, productive employee relationships. But often, leaders are too afraid to ask an employee’s opinion of the leader’s performance. If you really want to be successful, you really want to build employee relationships that are strong—and you’re really brave—ask your people these four questions. 

If you lead others and want to take your success (and that of your organization) to the next level, knowing how to build employee relationships is critical. I’m talking about engaged, honest, productive employee relationships. But often, leaders are too afraid to ask an employee’s opinion of the leader’s performance. If you really want to be successful, you really want to build employee relationships that are strong—and you’re really brave—ask your people these four questions. 

4 Questions Smart Leaders Ask to Build Employee Relationships 

Before I get to the questions, let me offer a word of caution. If you really want to build employee relationships that support individual or organizational success—you must be emotionally prepared for the responses you may get. Period. 

If you, as a leader, ask any of these questions then counter with a defensive, angry rebuttal, you’ve shut down any hope to build employee relationships that are honest, trusted or productive. 

With that in mind, here are the four questions smart—brave—leaders ask their people.  

1. How am I doing? 

Your first purpose with this question is to initiate a productive conversation. And you want to discover how satisfied, how confident your people are in your leadership. But the purpose is not to get your employees to tell you how wonderful you are. Asking your followers for feedback may initially seem strange to them. They may be thinking, “Is he serious? This must be a trick question.” or “Can I trust her if I answer honestly?” 

But to build employee relationships that are beyond transactional, leaders must be willing to open the door with honest, direct dialogue. Your people need to know you are serious about hearing their views. And they need to be reassured  you have their best interests and the best interests of the organization in mind. Your people need to know you have their back. 

2. What have I screwed up lately? 

You want your people to be encouraged to tell you not only the good news, but most especially the bad news. Often our actions and engagements with employees are well-meant, but may be perceived in a completely different way. So leaders can’t assume “no news is good news.” 

When leaders are willing to accept negative feedback and take action to correct their performance, employees notice! Not only does this open the lines of communication with employees, it also models behavior leaders want in their followers. When you’re trying to build employee relationships, that’s a win-win! 

3. What are other leaders doing that impress you? 

This question helps you tap into your followers’ experience with other leaders. The most successful leaders understand the unique motivations of their people. And this question helps you understand specifically what each follower likes in their leader—what they respect, what they favorably respond to. 

4.  What can I do to help you right now? 

Want to build engaged, committed employee relationships? Ask this question, then act on the response, and you clearly show your level of commitment to your people. That commitment from their leader is something highly valued by employees! 

One final word of caution. Talk is cheap when leaders are attempting to build trusted, engaged relationships with employees. Being brave enough to merely ask these questions will not be enough. When employees know you know the answers to these questions—they will expect you to take action.  

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Phillip Van Hooser, CSP, CPAE is the recipient of the 2019 Cavett Award from the National Speakers Association. He is committed to helping organizations transform their business outcomes by transforming the talent of their people. His book We Need to Talk: Building Trust When Communicating Gets Critical is available from Sound Wisdom on February 18, 2020 and can be preordered from AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks-a-Million, and Porchlight Books

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Eileen Rockwell Eileen Rockwell

Your Best People Are Leaving…and I Know Why by Sam Silverstein

I work with a lot of leaders. One of the things I find consistently is that when key people in the organization leave unexpectedly, this has less to do with the employee’s level of commitment than it does with the leader’s level of commitment—usually in one, two, or all three of the areas you just read.

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Your organization is in crisis. A key person—or maybe a bunch of people—just left, and now you’re struggling to deal with the consequences. 

Before you talk yourself into believing that you’re the victim here, let me suggest some tough questions. Please answer them honestly. 

  • Are you personally committed to telling your people the truth? How does your team know for sure? What evidence do they have to the contrary? 

  • Are you personally committed to standing by your people, even when all hell breaks loose? How does your team know that for sure? What evidence do they have to the contrary? 

  • Are you personally committed to making sure your word is your bond? How does your team know for sure? What evidence do they have to the contrary? 

I work with a lot of leaders. One of the things I find consistently is that when key people in the organization leave unexpectedly, this has less to do with the employee’s level of commitment than it does with the leader’s level of commitment—usually in one, two, or all three of the areas you just read. 

Consider: When someone doesn’t tell us the truth about problems that are holding back their team…whose fault is that, ultimately? Who is supposed to model the commitment of telling the truth, even when the truth hurts? We are. 

When someone walks away from the organization when all hell breaks loose, whose fault is that really? The leader’s, of course. That’s who’s supposed to show what total commitment during tough times looks like. 

When someone says they want to stay on as a contributor in a key position long enough to finish a strategically important project…and then walks away in the middle of that project to go work for a competitor, whose fault is that, ultimately? Well—who hired that person, or set the process for hiring? Even more importantly, who is supposed to live the commitment, day in and day out, of one’s word being one’s bond? Obviously, it’s the leader. 

Your key people are leaving because of a lack of accountability. And that starts at the top, with the way the leader thinks about the people in the organization. Accountability is the highest form of leadership. When it isn’t there…the best people leave.  

Key people leave because they don’t enjoy the people they work for—meaning the leadership. They leave because they don’t enjoy the working environment—which is the responsibility of leadership and which connects directly to leadership’s perceived willingness to be personally accountable for fulfilling important commitments. And they leave because they can’t achieve the mission they’re supposed to achieve—because they’re constantly being undermined by leadership that doesn’t tell the truth, won’t stand by them, and doesn’t live by “my word is my bond.” 

Those are all things that the leader can and must control. 

When the leader is personally committed in each of these three areas, as well as others just as important, guess what happens? People bust their humps to avoid letting the leader down…even if the competition offers them more money and better benefits to jump ship. 

So, consider. Maybe it’s not really about them lying to you. Maybe it’s not really about them walking away from you when things get tough. Maybe it’s not really about them failing to honor their word. Maybe it’s actually about the quality of the relationship you were committed to. Maybe that relationship wasn’t strong enough for them to want to stay on your team, for them to believe they had a future with you. 

If that hurts to read, then that probably means this article is worth reading again. When you’re done, e-mail me at info@samsilverstein.com for some ideas on how to turn things around. 

This article originally appeared here on www.samsilverstein.com

Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. Pick up a copy of his most recent book in the No More Excuses series, No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability. You can follow Sam on Twitter @SamSilverstein,  Facebook @SilversteinSam,  Instagram @samsilverstein, and YouTube @samsilverstein. 

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