When the world changes, leadership need to change, too. No company is too big to avoid this reality—even one of the mightiest retail giants on the planet.
I’m speaking of Walmart, which earned recent press for its shift toward prioritizing genuine compassion among its leadership. Today, its famed Manager Academy curriculum doesn’t just focus on the nuts and bolts of supervision, it also focuses on driving emotional intelligence.
The Walmart example represents a broader corporate awakening to the realization that empathy and kindness matter. And they don’t just matter to younger workers. Certainly, Gen Z and millennials tend to be credited with the movement toward people-centered, meaningful workplace cultures. However, I know many boomers who are no longer willing to tough it out at their jobs. They’re well aware that they have alternatives to where they work, and they’re exercising their options at an ever-increasing pace, according to LinkedIn research.
In other words, if you’re holding fast to how things have always been done, you’re not tuning into what people need now. You’re not validating their concerns. Even if you’re not unkind, you’ll lose people because they’ll feel no connection with you, your leadership, or your company. By establishing stronger, more caring relationships with employees, you can enjoy a host of benefits.
For instance, when you truly know what motivates and energizes your team members, you can help them perform at their highest capacity. This will also spill over into ever-climbing productivity and improved customer interactions. As people become more excited about what they do, they’ll bring more passion and innovation. It’s a positive cycle that can lead to better output and outcomes on paper, which creates a proverbial win-win for everyone.
How can you change your leadership style to make people the heart of every decision or discussion? Try adopting some new practices into your managerial tool kit.
Tap into your inner “cat” instincts
Cats are known for being curious. It’s important to lead with a mindset of curiosity. As a leader, curiosity can help you become kinder in your dealings with employees. How? When you’re curious, you’re not as quick to pass judgment. On the contrary, you want to find out the underlying reason for an issue or behavior. Plus, you could get a nice boost of personal well-being.
Curiosity could cure many of the challenges we face on and off the clock because it tempers our desire to lead with harsh tones and judgments. Demonstrating your curiosity reduces friction between you and your team. It lets them see that they’re not labels or cogs to you. They’re team members you want to know—and support.
These days, we can measure just about anything, including how well our people-centric leadership approaches are working. Building metrics around relationship development can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. For instance, you could track one-on-ones with your teams.
One-on-ones aren’t project updates. They’re dedicated, regular employee meetings designed to allow employees to discuss whatever they want with leadership. Years ago, I discovered how powerful one-on-ones could be, especially when I gave them the time and energy they deserved. One of my direct reports only wanted to talk business during her one-on-ones. Another preferred to tell me about her personal life. In both cases, the employees were in control, felt heard, and realized I cared about them. This helped solidify and build the trust we enjoyed for years while reducing unnecessary turnover.
Move past work-life balance
It’s time to forget about work-life balance and embrace work-life integration. We can’t separate ourselves, and we shouldn’t have to. I recently had an employee tell me she needed time to go to the funeral of a friend of her former mother-in-law. No bereavement policy would cover something like that, but I supported her going. I never said, “You need to get your work done later.” Why should I? She shouldn’t need my permission to be a human. She just needs to communicate with me, which she did.
When you see your role as assisting your team members in integrating their lives, you give them a gift. You say, “I understand that life happens.” You also give them no reason to go anywhere else because you’re valuing them and their wellness needs in a tailored, adaptable way. Right now, 83% of workers want to be appreciated for their uniqueness. Allowing them to live real, full lives, you’re satisfying that desire.
Talk about expectations from the beginning
Is your typical onboarding process just orienting people to your company and nothing else? If so, you should be more deliberate in bringing everyone into your culture. The first few weeks of an employee’s time with your company are the perfect opportunity to discuss expectations and how you want to work together.
This conversation will involve laying out what you each expect from the other. Listening and learning right away opens the door to developing a mutually respectful relationship. Be sure to ask about the support your new hire will require from you as the boss. It’s unfair to have high expectations of someone if you’re not providing them with the necessary tools, resources, and authentic compassion.
Strive for employees to feel valued, not just satisfied
We hear a lot about low employee engagement rates. But there’s a problem with employee engagement surveys: Even at great companies, engagement rates rarely increase. Not long ago, I met with a client whose engagement had dropped to 37%. What they didn’t realize was most employees treat engagement surveys as an in-the-moment, check-the-box activity. As a result, engagement levels are just a momentary snapshot rather than representing whether or not the culture is truly engaged.
A better measurement to look at is how valued your employees feel. Value equals fulfillment, which is something more workers are striving for. Employees want to be in roles that enable them to do something important. An employee can be satisfied without feeling valued, but value keeps the employee contributing day after day.
Empathetic leaders will rule the world of tomorrow. The sooner you start to cultivate your ability to manage others with compassion, the more successful you—and they—will be.
