I was reminded this morning that my ‘September fresh start feeling’ – end of summer holidays; start of a new school year – is only relevant in some parts of the world.
Others are cold, still entrenched in this academic year and without any sense of renewal until the ‘real’ new year starts in January. But this isn’t just about seasons and the vagaries of school administration. Even for people in my hemisphere, where you’re ‘at’ – and what that means for how you show up at work – can be very different.
Maybe your baby is having their first day at nursery, perhaps your toddler is going up to big school (and that means you need to spend a week picking them up at 11.30am) or your teenager is heading off to college or work and you don’t seem to be needed at all … Or maybe there are changes to the rhythm of your life that have nothing whatsoever to do with children, but are about the role you play for your parents, your partner or your community. It could also just be about you: your health and happiness (or not).
What this reinforces for me is that most of the time we have no real idea what’s going on for other people – and that can really affect our ability to lead. I heard it said recently that the way we receive and interpret things is highly dependent on our own mood. It’s one of the reasons why email, texts or posts – things that are written and read without context, tone or facial cues for example – can have impacts that we don’t intend or expect.
Look at the title of this article. How differently would you react to that same question if you were stressed and running late – or if you were sitting in a car, impatient to get going? That has led me to wonder how everything I do or say as a leader might be heard, understood and interpreted differently by each person on my team today. Do I have any idea of what’s going on for them and how it affects what they receive from me?
Rather than allowing this to paralyse us, here are some ideas on what you can do to navigate it:
⁉️Ask. It sounds simple, but how often do you go beyond the initial, programmed exchange of “How are you?”; “I’m fine”? Dedicating time at your team meetings to asking what’s going on for people is never time wasted because it builds the relationships that enable a team to function better. Try: “What’s going on for you?”, “What’s that like?”, “How are you feeling?”, or even “What do we need from each other today?”.
👂Listen. Again, we know this, but even if you have a ‘check-in’ habit at your meetings, do you really listen to what people say? How do they know they’ve been heard? Try refreshing your active listening skills: repeat back, summarise, check your understanding.
🦢Model. If you want openness, show openness. It can be daunting to reveal things about ourselves when we’re leading. But it’s essential to establishing safety and trust. So, take the risk of explaining what’s happening for you – and, if you need it, ask for help.
🎬Act. One way to show you’re really listening is to act on what people share. Perhaps someone needs to change their working pattern, get help with meeting a deadline or have a private conversation with you. This can be tricky because often we just want our context to be acknowledged and don’t want the extra pressure of working out the answer to kind offers of help. So be humble in how you offer support and recognise it might not be what’s needed.
🧩Scale it. If you’re a leader of leaders, setting this tone might not just be about what you do with your immediate team. How do you set expectations that they are connecting in this way with their people too? Some of this might be about scalable systems like pulse surveys you review (and act on) together or performance management that values measures of engagement and safety. I’ve written before about the importance of getting out and about so that you can build those direct relationships for yourself.
What do you do to understand what’s really going on for people and what difference does it make?
