By Dr. Ray Benedetto, DM, LFACHE, Colonel, USAF, MSC (Ret), Co-founder of GuideStar, Inc. and Co-author of It’s My Company Too! How Entangled Companies Move Beyond Employee Engagement for Remarkable Results

Here are two more specific actions that should be core to your efforts as an effective leader as you continue to answer the question, “How do I purposely work to earn the trust of others?”

Challenge the process. Being an effective leader requires self-awareness, which is the first level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).  Being aware of self is a prerequisite before challenging others to think and do differently. EQ is the foundation for effective leadership, especially when seeking to find root causes to delays, breakdowns, and other obstructions to production and results.  Challenging the process requires leaders to step back, be brutally honest with themselves and the situation, and ask the right questions, such as “What’s not working the way it should?”

Recognize that 85% of problems within any company are caused by systems that aren’t working right rather than the people involved.  Effective leaders exercise self-discipline, subjugating their own impulses, emotions, and thoughts to ask critical questions without blame.  Approaching obstacles and challenges objectively can dissipate tensions that naturally arise when things aren’t going right.  The objective of any exchange in situations like this should always be wanting to do better and helping others to do so as well, which is where EQ comes into play again.

The third level of EQ is Social Awareness, which involves organizational awareness, service orientation, and empathy toward others. A leader cannot effectively address internal processes without first understanding how these processes affect outcomes and the external challenges it faces.  Since no leader has all the answers, one must express empathy, i.e., caring toward others, to understand what those who are dealing with the issue head-on face in getting their jobs done. This understanding is essential for inspiring others to overcome their immediate obstacles and aspire to achieve loftier goals, which leads to the next action.

Enable others to act. In his book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins shows how effective outcomes depend more on having the right people with the right attitude and skills in the right seats at any time.  In short, the collective work of many, rather than a few, leads to sustainable success.  When you hire someone, what are your expectations?  Do you expect them to grow in their jobs and take on new challenges, or do you expect them to “sit in the corner and color?”  I would hope the former rather than the latter.

Leaders throughout a company, not just the CEO, are responsible for establishing, building, and protecting a culture that includes the right practices that drive success.  The most effective leaders root these practices in a pervasive sense of how individual and organizational purposes align, including the empathy toward others and the organization’s service orientation that must transcend one’s personal wants, needs, or desires.

Recall the discussion about Character and Shared Core Values in Blogpost #2. If you have the right people with the right values aligned with your company’s purpose, you should have the confidence to allow them to act as they see necessary to address the challenges before them. Your responsibility as a leader is to develop your people so they can act this way – autonomously with freedom to act within defined boundaries. People who are enabled and empowered to act and make decisions within their purview gain confidence to challenge processes that need improvement.  In so doing, they become better at what they do and in the manner with which they approach future opportunities and challenges. You also develop their confidence and competence when you enable them to continually invest their KASH – Knowledge, Abilities, Skills, and Habits – through daily actions, which motivates them to return with more energy the next day.

Questions for the Week:  Are you meeting all company goals and objectives?  If not, what are the processes behind each one that is not being met?  Are the processes sufficiently detailed and defined so everyone involved has a clear understanding of their roles and the interactions and integration with others?  If not, who needs to be engaged in process redesign to overcome identified deficiencies, and how are you going to enable and empower them to act with the new design?

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