Thursday, August 11, 2016

Dare to Care?

As a leader: Do you really care?
This question has been coming up quite frequently while facilitating leadership workshops, team building sessions & while working on couple of Organizational Development interventions.
As an organization you may have one of your core values as Care. You also may have various forums where you speak about care for your employees. However, as a leader do you really care?
As a leader, ponder on these questions.
  • Do I take the responsibility of my team or team member’s failure?
  • Do I treat my people with respect?
  • Do I share mutual trust, empathy, equality – regardless of age, gender?
  • Am I transparent while sharing information?
  • Am I clear, honest & careful while giving feedback?
  • Do I encourage creativity & am I open to acknowledge different opinions?
  • Do I relate to them & not act like I am above them?
  • How emotionally aware am I about my team? Do I recognize anxieties of my people & am I able to relieve those?
  • Am I only a task master or also a people’s manager?
  • Do I empower others? John Maxwell has rightly said, “Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.”
No amount of learning about leadership theory or situational leadership would help if you don’t respond positively to any of the above questions.
Your team may forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
So will you now dare to care?