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This year has delivered a unique set of challenges that most leaders were never trained to handle (especially when they occur simultaneously). From employee burnout to staffing shortages to hybrid workforces and more, leaders must tweak and adapt their traditional skills; but the vast majority haven't been taught how to pull that off. So here are three vital areas where your company's leaders desperately need some assistance and guidance.
Skill #1: Learn To Respond Constructively When Employees Share Their Problems
With employee stress sky-high, there are going to be problems aplenty. But based on the Leadership IQ study, The State Of Leadership Development, we know that only 26% say their leader always responds constructively when employees share their work problems. And if someone says their leader always responds constructively when they share their work problems, they're about 12 times more likely to recommend the company as a great employer.
Furthering the challenge in 2021 is that when leaders are stressed themselves, they're going to find it increasingly difficult to respond constructively to their employees' problems.
Among the many skills leaders can employ to perform better on this issue is empathic listening. When an employee calls a leader and starts verbally unloading a seemingly endless list of problems, it's far too easy for the leader to say, "What do you want me to do about it?," or "Life's not always fair," or "You think you got problems?," or any number of unempathic retorts.
Listening with empathy (i.e., seeing the world through another's eyes) isn't always easy. Across the thousands of people who've taken the test "Do You Know How To Listen With Empathy?" around a third of respondents failed. And only around 20% of people achieved perfect scores. This is a tricky skill to master.
One technique I recommend teaching leaders is confirming that we heard what the employee just said and corroborating that we understood them correctly. Just follow this three-step process:
- Step 1: After the employee shares their work problems say, "I want to make sure I really understand what you're saying."
- Step 2: Restate what you heard them say.
- Step 3: Say, "Did I get that right?"
While most active listening aficionados use the first two steps, most of them miss the third step, asking whether we actually heard them correctly. We haven't listened successfully and empathically until the other person says, "yes, you got it right." And if they say, "no, you didn't get it" or "you're wrong," then we need to say, "I'm sorry I got it wrong, can I try this again, because I really want to understand your perspective?"
Skill #2: Learn To Deliver More Effective, And Less Emotional, Feedback
A Leadership IQ study found that only 20% of people say that their leader always delivers constructive feedback that has helped to improve their performance. Meanwhile, 40% of people say that their leader never or rarely delivers constructive feedback that has helped to improve their performance.
But if someone says their leader always delivers constructive feedback that has improved their performance, they're nearly eight times more likely to recommend the company as a great employer.
When people are already stressed and emotionally fried, the single most important step in delivering constructive feedback is stripping away any emotions and keeping the conversation as calm and analytical as possible. The less emotional someone is, the smarter and more rational they're going to be.
One technique I recommend teaching leaders is the FIRE Model. The FIRE Model is a four-step process that we humans use to evaluate our surrounding world.
- 1. First, we notice some Facts.
- 2. Second, we make Interpretations about those facts.
- 3. Third, based on our Interpretations, we experience emotional Reactions.
- 4. Fourth, once we experience those emotions, we have some desired Ends.
Now, when a leader is about to deliver constructive feedback, the first thing they need to do is ask themselves, "What are the facts here?" That one question forces us to look at the facts and set aside our interpretations, reactions and ends.
In fact, when you're preparing to deliver feedback, it's a great idea to literally write down the Facts, Interpretations, Reactions and Ends by drawing a 4-box grid, labeling each box with an element of the FIRE model, and then slotting each bit of feedback into the appropriate box. Once that's done, you can simply cross out the Interpretations, Reactions and Ends and build the conversation only around the Facts.
Skill #3: Learn To Set Goals That Stimulate And Inspire Employees
One of the greatest antidotes to burnout and stress is having something positive and stimulating to focus on. When a leader can emotionally engage their employees in doing something important and invigorating, it's much harder for those employees to feel stressed and emotionally fried.
Yet, based on the Leadership IQ study, Are SMART Goals Dumb?, we know that only 35% of employees say that they're always learning something new at work. Meanwhile, 52% of employees are never, occasionally or rarely learning new things. As bad as that sounds, it gets worse: Employees who are always learning new things are ten times more likely to be inspired than those who are not.
I recommend teaching leaders how to conduct monthly motivational conversations. And specifically, I suggest you teach leaders how to ask their employees the following two questions in those conversations:
- Question #1: "What things would you like to get better at this next month?" This forward-looking question lets employees know that you want them to grow and that there are stimulating things on the horizon that they can learn.
- Question #2: "What things are you better at now than you were last month?" This question gently nudges employees to recall all the learning they have experienced and use that to more positively reframe their work experience.
This year has delivered a unique set of challenges. But if you're willing to tweak and upgrade the skills you're teaching your leaders, you'll find that not only will your leaders thrive this year, but they'll also have an advanced set of tools for the rest of their careers.
