I love the quote “If you think you’re leading, but no one is following you, you’re just taking a walk.” The key is that to lead you must have influence with others. You need their attention and their willingness to ‘follow’.
Well to get people to follow you, there are three questions that all potential followers (be they employees, team members, volunteers, whomever) have in mind, that must be answer in the affirmative for them to allow you to lead them. Because you can’t lead them, you can’t influence them, without their permission.
Those three questions are: “Do you care about me?” “Can you help me?” and “Can I trust you?”
Do you care about me? The old adage that “people don’t care how much you know [or how much ‘authority’ you have], until they know how much you care” is as true today as ever. Sadly, over the last couple decades fewer and fewer ‘leaders’ truly seem to care about the people on their teams – and it’s not lost on their people. If you want people to follow you, you must show them that you care, and do so in ways that are meaningful to them.
Can you help me? Oddly, this is the one that I’ve seen many good managers get wrong. The reason is that the manager assumes the ‘help’ the team member needs is being told how to do their job. That is rarely the real challenge for the employee. (That’s ‘micro-managing’, and I haven’t known anyone who likes that!) Usually, the help the person needs is to have the manager remove roadblocks, provide appropriate resources so they can do their job correctly, prioritize work or simply provide reasonable expectations. The simple solution is for the manager is to ask “how can I help you be more successful in your work?” Then truly listen, and act on what you hear.
Can I trust you? Okay, while rather obvious, this is a tougher one. Because trust is earned, over time. It isn’t something granted or bestowed just because you’re ‘the boss’. In fact, trust is usually earned most in those situations where it can be lost. The question from the employee really is “Can I trust you to protect me and act in my best interest, not just yours?” Or more simply stated “Can I trust you to ‘care about me’ when it’s important to do so?”
Our leadership mastermind groups go into these questions, and so much more, in much more detail. To check them out go to our sister company site here.
