Visibility is a Great Leadership Strategy

A colleague recently received a promotion, and one focus area
for him will be visibility—being out in the workplace where he
can interact with direct reports, and frontline employees. It’s
an excellent strategy that has many benefits.

Communicating Your Message: The first benefit is that it gives
you yet another opportunity to get your message out. Whatever
your “message” is, you communicate it more effectively when
you interact with direct reports and employees, where they are.

Perhaps you want to emphasize the purpose of your organization.
When people are connected to the grand purpose, they’re more
engaged in their work, more committed to the organization’s
goals, and more productive in their jobs.

Or perhaps your message is that you’re there to support your
direct reports, or the employees. Whatever your message is,
interacting with employees, or Management By Walking Around, as
it’s sometimes called, is a great opportunity to communicate
that message.

Harnessing the Power of Relationships: Another benefit is that
visibility and interaction enable you to build relationships
with your employees. As my colleague said, he wants to know
them as people, not just as names on an org chart.

Leadership, and just about any related topic—customer service,
teamwork, sales—is all about relationships. And visibility
enables you to build the trust that is the foundation of any
relationship.

The Emotional Intelligence concept says that people are more
engaged in their work when they feel a strong positive emotional
connection to their leaders. Building relationships is about
understanding employees’ frustrations, accomplishments, and
aspirations.

It’s hard to connect if you’re not where the workers are.

Overcoming the Information Vacuum: Visibility also eliminates
the information vacuum that occurs when you as a leader are not
around very much. The old adage “out of sight, out of mind”
doesn’t apply here. If you as a leader are NOT very visible,
employees will start to wonder why.

And when they ask “why,” they have an information vacuum,
and they’ll quickly fill that vacuum. Unfortunately, they
probably won’t use YOUR information about why you’re not
there (how hectic your schedule is, the important projects
you’re working on, etc.).

No, they’ll fill it with THEIR information—maybe the boss
doesn’t care, maybe we’re the lowest on the boss’ priority
list.

When you’re visible, you’re eliminating their information
vacuum.

Whether you’re new to your position, or whether you’ve been
in it a long time, one of your leadership strategies should
include visibility. That means interacting with direct reports
and frontline employees where THEY are most comfortable: In
their work place.

How visible are you in the workplace? What are your direct
reports and employees saying about your visibility?

Until next edition, keep leading the way!

Copyright (C) 2011 by Terry Wall

Please feel free to send me your comments, good or bad, because
I always welcome your feedback.

Listening When You Know You're Right Is Hard to Do

I was discussing the topic of listening with a management team recently, and they all agreed that it's easier to talk about listening than it is to actually do it. They're right. You know the things you should do--maintaining eye contact, looking for nonverbal cues, keeping an open mind--but actually doing those things is difficult. Especially when you're 100% sure you're right, and the other person is wrong.

The more certain you are of your position, the more vulnerable you are to doing a bad job of listening, and the harder you have to work at listening. Usually we think that certainty is good, that that it makes us more confident and forceful. And that's true.

But it's also true that certainty can mean we don't devote as much effort to listening. Not just hearing, or going through the motions of listening, but REALLY listening to the other person. Not listening is dangerous. We can miss important information.

Or we can send the wrong signal. As leaders, we're supposed to listen to others, to be open to opposing viewpoints, to be reasonable. But if we're so certain of our own position, we might just start thinking of other things, we might start glancing at our watch, or computer, or our blackberry.

When that happens we insult the other person by showing that we don't respect the person enough to give his or her view a fair hearing. And that's when the other person loses respect for us.

It's an old adage, but true: God gave us two ears and only one mouth because He wants us to do twice as much listening as talking. Most leaders I know can do a better job of listening, but it takes hard work and discipline. Especially when we're convinced we're right.