Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve

In HBR article, Open Leadership: A New Paradigm Emerges, social media expert Charlene Li, says, “Leaders never really had total control over their customers and employees; what they have to give up now is the need for control.” Letting your people go is not about a reduction in force-- “letting your talent go” refers to asking the people who choose to follow your vision, “Have you used your best self today? Why, how, -or why not?” Letting go is a mental and stylistic shift for a lot of leaders.

Granted, of all the things leaders do to move their company forward, spending time as a coach (and having the interest and ability to coach) is often not high on their list. In fact Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones in HBR, Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? discovered that leaders are better at inspiring rather than imparting or developing “how to.” But leaders can encourage people to get a coach. The important thing is to develop a lot of entrepreneurs within our organization; the best intrapreneurs may be allocated resources such as IT and marketing in your business plan, and empowered to drive their supporting visions forward.

Leader Richard Branson believes that taking care of business begins with taking care of people. In his recent book, Screw Business As Usual, Branson says “I've always believed that by taking care of people in my companies the rest will take care of itself. This can be something simple, like allowing people to job share or giving them the chance to run their own show. This has worked for us and has also built a pretty special group of people around the world who are not only passionate about Virgin, but also about making a difference.”

Goffee and Jones say that “tough empathy” is a quality of successful leaders whom others choose to follow, and that showing tough empathy is about “giving people what they need --which may be different from giving them what they want,” yet these leaders “care intensely about the work others do.”

Mark Murphy researched talent leaders who balance the business side and human side in Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give it Their All and They’ll Give You Even More. Murphy found that both “challenging” and “connecting” with employees is required to foster optimal performance. Murphy recommends that leaders encourage people to set  HARD goals (not SMART goals), because these leaders see significantly higher financial performance, innovation and retention of key employees.

Caring at home and in our community but not at work defies logic; a whole person cares all the time. People notice loving leadership when you:

·        Wear your heart on your sleeve- show what you're passionate about;

·         First care about people, then care intensely about the work they do;

·         Ask people to bring their best selves to work, and practice tough empathy.

photo image courtesy of net_efket