Even though I thought it was clear what I meant, I realized that two meetings later nothing had changed. I addressed the issue first by asking: “Do you feel we had good engagement during the meeting?”. I had a team member who, when giving presentations, directed them mostly to remote participations in various office locations, and tended to ignore participants in the meeting room.Īs a leader, I wanted to ensure this person could grow and evolve their presentation skills by including all participants. You can’t be afraid to address the issue. If you want your feedback to help people, your meaning needs to be clear to them. This is how you help others to thrive.īoth coaching and guidance - especially the latter – involve little else but the provision of feedback. As a leader, it's your obligation to provide ongoing coaching and guidance. Here’s what I've learned about making it work and the benefits of it. “Leadership is about others and helping them to grow and thrive.” It can help you to accomplish what leadership is all about: If done right, giving guidance and feedback on the spot in a respectful, clear, candid and direct manner can make you a better boss and can make your team significantly better. 3 steps to get straightforward communication right I am sharing this story about the first three months in my new role to illustrate how being straightforward and direct as a leader can go completely wrong. Motivation on my team obviously dropped and so did the willingness to work with me. Since the company I worked for was still in some sort of start-up phase I thought the only thing that counted was getting as much out of every team member as possible. ”There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” Third, I was so focused on improving this team and making it more effective that I failed to care about them as individuals.Īt this point, I wish I knew this quote from John Holmes: That certainly didn’t help to build a relationship of trust. “Leadership is the ability to model what you would like to see in others.”Įven though I believed, and pro-actively asked for honest and direct feedback, I felt somehow disrespected and confused when other team members adopted the style I modeled. Second, I wasn’t comfortable receiving feedback in the same way that I gave it.
One team member later told me that she got a cultural shock when I came on board - similar to the cultural shock she had when she traveled the first time to Japan. Even the German members of my team were confused by a leader speaking with so much clarity. It was more about the fact that they were receiving the completely unfiltered version of my thoughts. This wasn’t about people not being open to feedback. Whatever was on my mind, I just put it out there. The team was surprised how honest I was, and how I just called out all the things that didn’t work. “Good Communication Is As Stimulating As Black Coffee, And Just As Hard To Sleep After.” – Anne M Lindbergh What happened during the three months after starting this new job was a major learning experience for meįirst, my team wasn't used to such a direct communication style. I called out what I observed, I said what was on my mind and I thought it was totally right and fine to do so. They had been functioning well without me already for almost half a year, so they were wondering why would they even need me.īeing German and familiar with the German way of talking, thinking and operating, I came in with a rather direct approach to communication. I was hired as leader of a small team of four. For me it was one of those new job, new country, new culture, new everything experiences. Everyone was used to separate ways of working and leadership styles. Suddenly, I had to get along with people from all around the world. I took on that role in a company that was located outside of my home country, Germany, where I grew up. In addition to being new to a formal leadership role I had another challenge.
Back then – of course – I wouldn’t have admitted that.
CHITCHAT COM MY HOW TO
I had little knowledge of how to lead with impact and I just didn’t know much about being a good boss. I was more or less thrown into the role and thought: challenge accepted.
When I took on the first leadership role in my career I had no idea what it meant to be a leader. My first leadership role - in a very new world Here’s how we can make it work in today’s workplace. Leaders should tell employees when they screw up, right? But it rarely happens.
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