Employee Inspiration. Motivation. Focus. Loyalty. Going the extra mile. Positive company culture. As is true with so many things, it’s all about the relationships that you, as the boss, create with your employees. Here are a few key points for being a standout leader:
Know my name – and how to pronounce it correctly. Have you ever stood in a loud, crowded room, perhaps at a business conference or social gathering, and suddenly heard your name mentioned over the din of people’s conversations? It’s actually called “the cocktail party effect,” and it’s an interesting phenomenon. Multiple brain studies (here’s just one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647299/) show that when a person hears his or her own name, the medial prefrontal cortex is activated – an area of the brain that basically contains your personality and makes you yourself. We actually take pleasure in hearing our own names, and our brains perk up as if we’re being positively reinforced.
Successful bosses know their employees’ names and use them regularly – especially when delivering praise for a job well done. (There’s one catch: you must pronounce your employee’s name correctly or you’ll achieve the opposite effect.)
You dismissively say you’re “not good with names?” That’s not an excuse. Knowing your employees’ names should be as important to you as knowing your departmental budget or when your next quarterly report is due. In other words, it should simply be a natural part your skill set as a good boss.
Know something positive and personal about me.
Great bosses have the ability to connect with their employees on a level that goes well beyond “hi-how-are-ya.” They make a practice of knowing a few friendly facts about each person, and they use those facts to initiate congenial conversations in the elevator, break room, parking lot, or wherever they might happen to encounter an “off duty” employee. They say things like, “Hi! How’s your new grandson doing?” Or, “Hey! I heard your city team won the softball tournament!” Or, “Wow. I just realized that your tenth anniversary with the company is coming up next week!” Or, “What a beautiful new car! How’s the gas mileage?”
Nothing too complicated or too personal, but something that allows the employee to feel recognized as a person, rather than simply as a worker, and that encourages a back-and-forth conversational exchange.
Treat me like a valuable, respected human being. The common courtesies you hopefully learned as a child will take you far in all aspects of life, including the care and (emotional) feeding of your employees.
Great bosses always use the “magic words” of “please” and “thank you.” They express their sincere appreciation for their employees’ hard work and dedication. (And yes, I realize that you also pay them to do the job, but words of thanks and gratitude can often go farther than a paycheck goes when it comes to keeping people motivated and engaged.)
Great bosses use collaborative words and phrases, like, “Gregory, let’s get together at 3pm today in my office to see whether we can figure out how to streamline the billing cycles,” rather than, “Gregory, meet me in my office at 3pm today, to discuss the problems you’re having with the billing cycles.”
Simply stated, great bosses behave like decent people.
Here’s a wonderful example of a boss treating his employees like human beings:
Recently, I was working as a management consultant for a mid-sized corporation of rehab hospitals. I arrived at a particular hospital early one morning, ready to meet with the administrator. He walked in the front door, greeted me, invited me into his office, offered me coffee, and then said, “Please excuse me for about five minutes. I’ll be right back.” I sort of assumed he might have gone to the bathroom, but when he returned, he explained, “Sorry for the delay. I just had to go out onto the floor and say good morning to all the staff.” I was honestly surprised – and impressed! I asked him about this practice, and he replied, “Oh yes. Whenever I arrive in the morning, the first thing I do is go out and say hello to everyone. And then, when I finish at the end of the day, I go and say goodbye before I leave.”
How amazing! And what truly polite, civil behavior. This man treated his staff as if they were his family: it would be downright impolite not to say hello and goodbye! And guess what? His was the most friendly, well-run, problem-free, profitable hospital in the entire corporation – with the lowest employee turnover, to boot.