Everyone who leads people wants to be a better leader. (If that’s not the case, you shouldn’t be leader.)
Like most things worth doing, though, wanting to be a better boss and becoming a better boss are two different things. Training, education, experience… all take time.
Or not. Here are five things, backed by workplace and organizational science, you can start doing.
Today.
Stop holding so (darned) many meetings.
Ninety percent of employees feel meetings are “costly” and “unproductive,” and they’re right: a Journal of Business Research study found that employee productivity increases by over 70 percent when meetings are reduced by 40 percent.
Why? Fewer meetings gives employees more time to get things done.
And makes them smarter; a Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences study found that when employees attend meetings, the average IQ of each individual drops by between 15 and 20 percent. For one thing, if you feel like a “junior” member of a group, your IQ drops. (As with most things, confidence matters.) If you feel your contributions won’t be valued, your IQ drops more. And if other people overtly or implicitly criticize your contributions, your IQ drops even more.
That’s why great bosses hold fewer meetings, especially when the goal is to brainstorm or problem-solve. Research shows idea generation dramatically improves when people first come up with ideas by themselves, or with at most one or two others. That typically leads to greater diversity in ideas, better analysis of the pros and cons of those ideas, and much greater odds of a larger group (if you eventually decide to convene a larger group; more on that in a moment) eventually identifying the best idea.
So be present, but in the real work world. Not the make-believe work world of meetings.
Embrace the ‘mere presence’ effect.
Speaking of presence: being “present,” giving people your full attention, is obviously important. But so is simple presence.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that physical presence matters. You don’t have to talk a lot. You don’t have to interact a lot. You just have to be there.
As the researchers write, “Mere exposure had weak effects on familiarity, but strong effects on attraction and similarity,” a fancy way of saying the more often we see you, the more we will like and respect you.
That’s especially hard, though, when you’re in a new leadership position. You’re naturally unsure and uncomfortable; you might be asked questions you can’t answer. You might be asked to handle situations you don’t know how to handle.
It’s tempting to spend less time with the people you lead, not more. (I’ve done that.)
But shying away actually makes your leadership life harder: not only do you get fewer chances to gain skill and experience, but you also lose out on the positive effect of just being present.
If you’re nervous about not having the answers, flip it around and ask questions. If you’re unsure you can handle certain situations, ask people for advice. Let people help you lead.
Not only will you become a better leader, you’ll also build a better and more engaged team.
Stop serving feedback sandwiches…
Conventional wisdom says to deliver constructive feedback by starting with a positive, sharing the negative, and then closing with another positive.
Don’t, because feedback sandwiches — a negative wrapped in two positives — are really tough to swallow. According to a study published in Management Review Quarterly, a feedback sandwich almost always fails to correct negative or subpar behaviors.
Three out of four recipients feel manipulated. Nine out of ten feel patronized. And only seven percent actually change the behavioral meat inside the feedback sandwich.
Just be clear. Direct. And encouraging.
While few employees want to hear how they can improve, good employees appreciate the feedback. And they’ll respect you for being open and candid, especially when you don’t patronize them in the process.
… and start focusing on positives.
No matter how feedback is delivered, a University of Bonn study shows that after a few days or even hours people typically forget the negative feedback they receive.
Yet they remember positive feedback for a long time.
Not just the positive (“You did a great job reworking our fulfillment process”) but also the facts accompanying the positive (“and as a result, our shipping costs are down five percent and our on-time delivery rate is up nine percent”).
That’s especially true for new employees. A series of studies published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that praising a new employee — oddly enough, whether they deserve it or not — tends to dramatically boost their performance.
Want employees to be more patient when dealing with customer complaints? Praise them when they take extra time to make things right. Want them to spend extra time training struggling employees? Praise them when they step in, unasked, to help a person in need.
In short, focus on positives. Tell people you appreciate their hard work, not just in general but in specific. Explain why that makes a difference, not just to your business but to you.
They’ll remember how good it feels to do something well, and will want to experience that feeling again.
Which also makes it a lot less likely you’ll need to share negative feedback.
And if nothing else, start saying ‘thank you.’
A Deloitte study shows nearly nine out of ten people wish they heard “thank you” in their daily interactions. A Psychology study shows a direct link between gratitude and job satisfaction: the more “thank you” becomes a part of a company’s culture, the more likely employees are to enjoy their jobs. A Wharton study shows that when people are thanked for their efforts, they’re more likely to engage in prosocial — cooperative, helpful, encouraging, etc. — behaviors.
Granted, pay is an exchange for effort. It’s a transaction. You pay people to do their jobs. As Don Draper would say, “That’s what the money is for.”
But you should also thank the people you work with — as often as possible — for doing their jobs. For being responsive. For being proactive. For being cooperative, helpful, and supportive.
Because every employee is also a person, and every person wants to be thanked more often.
And because we all flourish in environments — whether at work or at home — where expectation does not preclude appreciation.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Jeff Haden
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