{"id":11149,"date":"2018-07-31T23:52:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T23:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandler.dsstaging2.com\/case-study\/leading-kindness-building-mutually-respectful-relationships-your-team\/"},"modified":"2022-12-19T17:05:07","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T17:05:07","slug":"leading-kindness-building-mutually-respectful-relationships-your-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandler.com\/blog\/leading-kindness-building-mutually-respectful-relationships-your-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading with Kindness: Building Mutually Respectful Relationships with Your Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

People will work much, much harder for their own reasons than they will ever work for your reasons. You, as a manager, have an obligation to find out exactly what those reasons are<\/em>. And the very best way to do that is by leading with kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key to a mutually respectful relationship with your team members is simple empathy and kindness: genuine interest in each one of them as a human being, not just as an employee. As it happens, that interest is rare, but not all that difficult to establish. All you need to do is engage from time to time in an authentic one-on-one discussion that isn\u2019t obviously focused on your<\/em> motives \u2013 such as hitting team performance targets \u2013 and is<\/em> focused in like a laser beam on the other person. During this conversation, which might unfold during a private lunch that you share with the team member who reports to you, you can ask about what\u2019s going on in this person\u2019s life outside <\/em>of work. How the family is doing. What this person\u2019s hobbies and interests are. What he or she is trying to accomplish in both the short and long terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t \u201csmall talk.\u201d It\u2019s not something for you to use as filler in between the \u201creal\u201d conversations you have with this person about work issue. It\u2019s you showing authentic interest sufficient to create trust and connection within the relationship. It\u2019s personal concern \u2026 which is the foundation of kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, you might be tempted to think that the advice you\u2019ve just read is simple common sense, and that all managers ought to have these kinds of one-on-one sessions with their team members on a regular basis. And you\u2019d be right. The reality, though, is that most managers don\u2019t<\/em> have meaningful one-on-on exchanges about anything other than work issues with those who report to them. They lead with the to-do list. How do we know? We asked. Over a long period of years, during our speaking and training events, we\u2019ve asked managers in a wide range of industries to raise their hands if they can identify even one <\/em>important personal goal (as opposed to work-related or financial goal) from one <\/em>employee who reports to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s rare that even a single hand goes up!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guess what? If you don\u2019t know anything about an employee\u2019s most important personal goals (such as feeling financially secure enough to get married, or putting a child through college), then there\u2019s no way you can expect to tie those personal goals to the performance targets that you want this person to hit for you. That means there\u2019s no way you can expect the employee to commit, on a personal level, to attaining<\/em> those performance targets. And that<\/em> means there\u2019s no way you can coach the person effectively, because the employee won\u2019t be engaged enough to participate in the coaching discussion in any way that changes behavior patterns!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only <\/em>way to learn what really matters to your employees is to treat them with a level of respect, curiosity, discretion, and authentic, sustained interest that will get them to open up to you one-on-one about what really matters to them most when they are outside<\/em> of the workplace. If you haven\u2019t had that kind of conversation yet \u2013 it\u2019s time to lead with kindness, instead of the to-do list!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schedule a one-on-one session with each <\/em>person who reports to you \u2026 and use that discussion begin creating a relationship that\u2019s based on empathy and kindness \u2013 on your concern for them as a person, which must extend well beyond the daily concerns of the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way: If the employee\u2019s first response to you suggesting this meeting is concern that he or she might be \u201cin trouble\u201d \u2026 that\u2019s a sign that you definitely have not<\/em> been leading with kindness up to this point, and that you haven\u2019t yet established a mutually trusting, mutually respectful relationship!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out these blog posts to learn more about building mutually beneficial relationships with your sales team!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People will work much, much harder for their own reasons than they will ever work for your reasons. You, as a manager, have an obligation to find out exactly what those reasons are. And the very best way to do that is by leading with kindness. The key to a mutually respectful relationship with your team…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120],"tags":[1076,1033,1157,1035],"class_list":["post-11149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-bonding-and-rapport","tag-leadership","tag-leadership-skills","tag-management"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLeading with Kindness: Building Mutually Respectful Relationships with Your Team | Sandler Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"People will work much, much harder for their own reasons than they will ever work for your reasons. You, as a manager, have an obligation to find out exactly what those reasons are. 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