9 Things your team wants to hear from you
- HERE’S WHAT WE’RE DOING…. A leader is supposed to LEAD. You should always welcome input from the team, but there’s a time to ‘take a vote’ and a time to be clear with your direction. You need to be able to make decisions and stand behind them. If you are wishy-washy, your team will capitalize on your inability to make decisions. Your team needs to know where you’re trying to take them. You need to be able to say ‘no’, especially to moves that would be inconsistent with your core values and vision.
- THIS IS THE SITUATION…. People want to know what’s going on. Odds are they’ll find out, or even worse, they’ll fill in the gaps with their imagination and gossip. Be the kind of leader who ensures everyone knows, even when you don’t have all of the details and/or answers. the information. Don’t zap morale or rob yourself of your team’s insight and support.
- WHAT DO YOU NEED? This is crucial for two reasons. First, your team needs to know that you care about them on both personal and professional levels, and that you want them to succeed. Second, if you have a clear direction in place, you want to be able to capitalize on all single team member’s talents and abilities. If they are not able to give it their all, you need to know why.
- TELL ME MORE… Great listening skills aren’t just for your patients. Listening is not a ‘technique’ that you pull out when you want to increase case acceptance. It’s a learned skill that should be incorporated into ALL communication. Let your team know that you are more interested in their contribution than hearing yourself talk. Give others permission to share their perspective—or heck, invite them explicitly if necessary! Your silence in an invitation for others to share their ideas and insights.
- REMEMBER OUR CORE VALUES/VISION…. You are the CRO… Chief Repeating Officer. If you don’t restate your vision and expectations often, it’s YOUR fault when the team falls short. You can’t share an expectation one time and get upset six weeks later because the team lacks consistency. Did you know that it takes a minimum of SEVEN times for a message to stick with your team? It’s not about staring over the shoulder of everyone on your team all day long and micromanaging.
- I TRUST YOU. If you can’t trust a team member, is it your problem, or theirs? If you are skeptical by choice, always assuming people are out to cheat you, that’s YOUR problem. Until you address it, you’ll never truly have allies on your team. You need to trust their integrity, their judgement, their confidence, and their passion – and you need to ensure that they understand how much you depend on them. If a team member has broken your trust, why are they on the team? Don’t blame the labor shortage. Keeping them on the team is costing you, big-time.
- YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. The flip side of trust applies as well. If your team can’t trust you, why should they do you the great honor of allowing you to lead them? If you aren’t trustworthy, you can’t expect the same of your team. Tell them you’ve got their back, and then work like heck to fulfill the promises you make.
- WE CAN DO BETTER. One of the toughest, most crucial parts of leadership is to show more confidence in your team than they have in themselves. Yes, you want to congratulate them when they exceed expectations, but this also means not coddling them when they don’t’ live up their potential. It also means admitting when you fail to live up to those standards, too.
- LET’S CELEBRATE! Have you created a culture where the only reward for great work is more work? Instead, make it a point to celebrate your wins, both large and small. Ditch the excuses we all make for not celebrating (we did well, but we have a long way to go. It’s a good thing we had a great week, because our month has been horrible. The only reason we met our goal was because of that big case) It’s not just about celebrating professional successes – take time to celebrate personal milestones as well!
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