How Helpful Are You Really?
Being an effective leader requires more than merely managing people.
Effective leadership is about taking charge of a team—rather than being in charge.
Certainly, there is always the chance that you might need to manage closely and get deep in the weeds with your team at times, but it should by no means be your only mode of leadership.
Effective Leadership
Effective leadership—the kind that truly makes a difference and has a lasting impact on workplace culture is, somewhat ironically, about not being in charge. It’s about taking charge of those in your charge.
In other words, being responsible for the people you oversee. Leadership is about looking after them!
This highly impactful leadership style gives a team the right tools to do a job well.
Supportive Leadership creates an environment with the right culture to facilitate success and provide the support to help build and maintain a team’s health and resilience.
Start With Empathy
If you want to be an effective, highly impactful leader, start with empathy.
Empathy in a leader is their capacity to understand what other people are feeling without them having to say anything. Empathic leaders put themselves in another’s shoes and try to understand their feelings and why they behave in a certain way.
An empathetic leader is a leader who knows how to show genuine interest in their team members and their feelings. Supportive behavior is a fundamental aspect of building any working relationship, and it’s largely based on connection and trust.
Naturally, empathy at work leads to compassion in the workplace. If leaders follow an empathetic approach in all aspects of a business, the overall work culture will always benefit.
What Does Empathy Look Like?
Here’s what empathy could look like. As a leader, you walk into the office of one of your team members. You might say, “I’ve noticed that your numbers are down for the third quarter in a row. I was wondering how you are doing, and I’m concerned about you. What’s going on?”
We all have performance issues. Maybe someone’s kid is sick, maybe they’re having problems in their marriage, or maybe one of their parents is at the end of their days. We don’t always know what’s going on in their lives, and, of course, whatever it is, it will affect performance at work.
Empathy is being concerned about the human being—not their output.
Help Your Team Succeed
As a leader, you have an important role to play in maintaining a healthy work culture. What you do today will influence what your colleagues do tomorrow.
Multiply these actions over the course of six months, and you can either end up with a wonderful place of work or potentially the opposite.
Effective leaders lead by example. You have a tremendous impact and influence on your team. Increase your support by going to the next step – provide the support and tools your team needs to succeed.
Leaders sometimes fail to see that being truly helpful means knowing what and how to provide what is needed.
It’s one thing to offer help, but it is quite another to give that help in a way that matters and is actually helpful.
Just because you think you are helpful – does not mean you are helpful.
Misunderstanding Your Impact
Well-intentioned leaders can be especially prone to false or misguided understandings of their helpfulness. You might focus too much of your attention on a company’s big picture and strategic vision but a woefully inadequate amount of time on the day-to-day workings and implementation of such objectives. Leaders can easily become unhelpful obstacles by not spending enough time on the smaller, detail-heavy processes with their team (where 90% of the work gets done).
What is Your Next Move? Listen
A big part of this process is almost removing yourself from the equation. In other words, it is all about serving your organization and the team. Allow the team you lead to define the terms on how you can best help them. Listen. Step aside from yourself and let those whom you are offering to help tell you exactly how you can support them and give them what they need. You may be surprised to learn that you were not nearly as helpful a leader as you originally thought!
Have Mental Supports in Place
The impacts of mental health issues in the workplace often go unnoticed and are poorly understood.
Although it’s a given (and the law) that employers are responsible for their employees’ physical safety and well-being, all workplaces stand to benefit by increasing the focus on their employees’ mental health and safety needs and establishing procedures to address those needs when they arise.
Most adults spend the majority of their time at work. Consequently, many of us will experience and deal with different forms of mental health pressures while on the job, whether due to work or what we experience in life and bring to work.
Proactively provide the support and leadership your team needs. Have effective support structures in place ready to help team members cope and resolve mental health issues.
Maintaining mental health in our day-to-day lives allows us to enjoy life better and helps us cope with a wide range of emotions in a healthy way – including your own!
Effective, highly impactful leadership is about creating supportive workplace environments that put people first.
