Can I Offer You Some Feedback? - Episode #95
Show Notes:
In this episode of Research Revealed, Sara discusses the importance of developing human-centric skills in leaders. The shift towards valuing skills such as empathy and emotional intelligence highlights a trend towards more collaborative and inclusive organizational cultures. Sara provides steps to develop these skills, including active listening, empathy, and emotional intelligence training. She also emphasizes the need for a culture of feedback and recognition. The implementation of these skills should not only focus on individual development but also on integrating them into team and organizational practices. Embracing these skills is crucial for effective leadership and managing change. Stream more episodes wherever you get your podcasts! Subscribe today so you never miss an episode!
Below we are offering a transcript of the podcast for accessibility and reference.
Episode #95: research Revealed: High trust leaders
Do you know what you don't know? Well, unless you're like me, you're probably not steeped in the latest research on team effectiveness, leadership development, and organizational behavior. In this Research Revealed, I'd like to share with you a recent piece of research and reveal what it means to you.
An employee retention survey by the organization Great Places to Work found that employees who were welcomed by high-trust leaders are four times more committed to their company. This statistic is huge. When we think about four times more committed to their company, it really showcases the vital role that trust and leadership has in an organization and towards its success.
A high-trust leadership model creates an environment where employees feel valued, supported, and connected to the company's goals. This trust not only enhances job satisfaction but also increases that employee's commitment. When leaders establish and nurture trust, employees are more likely to stay longer and contribute to that organization's success. Again, when we're talking about high-trust leaders, these are folks who trust their employees to do their job.
So what are some steps that you can take if you want to move in this direction? First, how can you model transparently what it means to be high trust? When we're talking about transparency, this is tricky. There is always some information that we choose not to share, and also times when we decide that we want to share everything.
Leaders in general, when we're talking about transparency, should talk about how much transparency they can actually do and what is and is not being communicated. But there are some things we can communicate on such as our company goals, challenges, successes. This transparency helps build employee trust and helps everyone feel like they're included in the journey and they know what's happening.
Second, focusing on building genuine relationships. How do you take the time to engage with folks on a personal level? Whether you're in-person or you're hybrid, you need to make time to get to know people. We're more than just folks who are getting work done, showing up, and then leaving.
It's important to show empathy, actively listen to hear what concerns folks have and what their aspirations are, not only for their own development, but for their department or for their entity. How we take time to build those strong personal connections means that we are investing in that person to be able to later make the withdrawal. You can't take from an empty bank account. You have to make investments along the way, and that helps strengthen those commitments and those relationships.
Lastly, thinking about recognizing and rewarding contributions. How are we acknowledging employees' achievements, team success, and progress towards goals? Now sometimes when we talk about recognizing reward, not every organization has the budget to do rewarding the same way that let's say a corporate or a for-profit company might do.
If you are in an organization where you don't have extra money to spend on recognition and rewards, what are the other ways that you can show people that you're grateful for the work they're doing or that there was a large achievement? We want to be able to demonstrate value that really shows that this individual contributed to the team. Perhaps you can offer things like autonomy or additional flexibility on projects, or potentially a first choice on different types of initiatives that might be organization-wide. There are ways to show recognition that are non-monetary, but nothing beats money in the end.
So, some questions to move going forward. If you're going to be thinking about implementing and deciding to have a more trust-centric approach, think about how can you measure and improve the level of trust in your organization between leadership and employees. Now, if you don't know where it's at right now, you're going to have to start there. Right?
We can't improve it if we don't know where we're starting from. And it could be that there is low trust that you're starting from, or potentially trust in different pockets across the organization. But if you don't start with a baseline of understanding where you're coming from, you won't be able to improve along the way.
The second question to consider is what are some of the specific actions you can take to ensure that trust is built before this employee comes on board in the onboarding process and maintained throughout their career? That's a long time. Right? Your employee started as a prospective employee. How do we ensure and show that we actually trust employees all the way from the candidate experience to the day that they choose to move on to a new organization?
That trust, again, this might be for some folks several years or an entire career. We want to start trust-building early and it requires ongoing effort. It's important to consider how you can make that best impression and show candidates, new hires, and established employees that they're welcomed and valued throughout their journey so it doesn't feel different from when they first started to when they've further gone on in their career. Your actions and consistency is what shows them that you really mean it and that you are wanting to move forward.
By focusing on thinking about these steps and addressing these questions, you can create a high-trust environment that enhances employee commitment and drives some of the success. Trust is essential for not only maintaining retention on a team but also cultivating a motivated and engaged workforce.
This has been Sara with Research Revealed. You can reach me at podcast@mod.network. We would love to hear from you on other research you'd like to explore. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. We'll see you next time.