Expanding Exercise for Humanity- 1st Virtue of Humanity
Loyalty in Great Leadership
Establishing a strong following of loyal people requires two absolutes. The first is trust and the second is respect. Without both, you are probably gaining support through one of the lower level motivators, such as fear-based, safety-based or incentive-based loyalty. But since a lot of us out there in corporate life operate in an infrangible trance of denial, we may not know that we are operating at these lower levels and that our following is potentially at risk.
So, how do we find out if we as leaders are demonstrating behaviors that engender trust and are not succumbing to our lower needs to gain support through subtle threats to job safety and buying our support through the common carrot stick reinforcement technique? The answer is that you must have built in systems that regularly provide specific feedback about how you are doing. Most large companies have climate surveys theses days, but most are annual processes with long arduous forms that employees are often unable to understand. Human factors aside, most of the climate surveys I have seen from my clients are so complicated and comprehensive that the results have to be impacted by large human error issues such as word interpretation, halo affect, attention span, etc.
So, what is the answer? Very simple, create your own simple Take Five Survey. There are great services out there on the web that allow you to create a survey to be taken online by your direct reports and the point is to keep it simple and keep to the important points. Short, one subject lines are best, such as “My supervisor trusts me to make decisions to carry out my objectives.” Have fun with this and change it every other time you send one. (You will want to send a second one of the same version, at least once to check for improvement).
Field Assignment: Go to www.surveymonkey.com and write five questions that you want to ask your direct reports in relation to their loyalty in following you as a leader. Some hints: The questions must ask specifically about trust and respect. Listening and attending to their needs as well as caring about them as an individual person with a full life outside of work are other important aspects of relationship to explore, like"My supervisor knows an appropriate level of information about my personal life and seems to care about what might be going on there". Change the survey quarterly, and do it often, that is the key. But ALWAYS ask about trust and respect. And always do each one at least twice, to check for improvement.
The Gallup Q12
Some of my clients have enjoyed using the twelve questions to measure employee engagement developed by the Gallup Organization. Its easy to find them in a quick google search under “Gallup, Q12”. The important point is that if you truly want to know what you are doing to motivate people to follow you, you have to ask! Assuming will not work. At best, It will keep you in the dark about the hidden agendas even you don’t know about yourself, but others do… or at worst, it may enable your continued denial that you have control for the wrong reasons. In this day and time, that is a dangerous position to take, because anyone can reach out through the internet and expose you. This is one of the positive aspects of modern day technology. Accountability regarding customer and employee satisfaction is made possible through real time communication and the message can get out there in light speed so any leader who thinks they have control through intimidation these days is only fooling themselves. The wise leader knows they can’t put their head in the sand about bad behaviors anymore. And sometimes, we just don’t know how we are coming across, so we have to ask. Part of the human condition is to be blind to our own shortcomings. So, create your loyalty survey today and send us (or post) some comments about what you learn in your process!