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When Our Relationships Fail

For so long we have been stacking legislation upon legislation in a vain attempt to alter negative outcomes and change peoples behaviour.

This has spectacularly failed and we see a rise in poor well being, low engagement, unkind leadership, mediocre productivity and a rise in pyscho-social harm.

The most impactful actions you can take to shift these stats is to become lovers of people and understand what people need to perform at their best and what prevents that..and that will only ever come though deepening relationships and the intentional curiosity and recognition of what individual team members need to thrive and excel. The big shift in leadership for his season is a deeper handle on human psychology.

Latent skills and high functioning contributions lay hidden under the ridiculousness of regulation and legislation. Regulations do not change belief systems. We apply punitive measures to chastise error and failure when what we need to do is to be moving in closer and closer to understand the why events happen and foster the encouragement of solution discovery as a standard practice. Anytime you have punitive action, you bury your opportunity to uncover truth and the pathway to better. We are suffering from the gap between relationship and knowing deep functional data.

People talk much about "Courageous Conversations" (which I personally believe are nonsense - feel free to ask me why) however, what is really courageous is for a leader to first determine that people don't come to work to wreck organisations, and secondly, that real courage is to be able to look at ones own leadership and discover where systems and processes have facilitated error and systematic failures. Remember, YOU have what you lead and YOU have what you tolerate. We are where we have been led.

A courageous conversation had with yourself makes discovery possible and change towards excellence imminent.

My first people workshop this year is titled "Dangerous Leadership". (Not for the faint of heart)

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Love stops at 9.00am 



This is a very strange concept I must admit, but it has been troubling me for some time now.



For the better part of 15 hours between when we leave work and reengage the next day, we experience for the most part a loving kind supportive environment within our family unit. And yes I know that differs for some and they do not experience what they should in terms of care and loving kindness. However, the latter only makes my point more vivid.



Which is; that it is an experiential oddity to go from the comfort of ones home to an environment where for so many unkindness, tension, toxicity, disregard and a lack of basic humanity exist. 



We know people leave leaders not organisations. We must therefore examine both our attitudes and belief systems about what work should feel like if we want to grow revenue and outcomes. 



I speak from a leadership stance when it comes to the whole idea of creating environments where people can thrive and do their best work. Where motivation is by affirmation (MBA - The 5 Languages Of Appreciation In The Workplace, September 2012  by  Gary D Chapman). Do your teams flourish under your leadership? What do you believe about how we should treat people?



This is going to sound very harsh but what might our partners say if they saw how we lead and who we become in our roles of authority and power. 



It is apparent that in a positive way teams need to know a few things about us to function at high levels. One is Consistency or you could say Predictability. Is my behaviour consistent and implicitly kind? Teams who experience leaders who are erratic in their character and style of leadership do not produce the consistency of outcomes expected. People need the stability of certainty of environments to function at their best. Ambiguity of behavioural expectation is a significant constraint to productivity. When unexpected adverse conditions appear, (as they will) the consistency of (good) leadership behaviour (trust) holds them in place. 



Love is always a loaded word and unfamiliar when spoken in relation to a work context. But never-the-less, if to be loved for who you are and appreciated for the contribution you make is a precursor to performance we must ensure that a leadership personality mutation does not occur when we walk through the office door in the morning.



My foot note would be this: If people find themselves in undesirable home environments and then experience your kindness at work... you become a life saver by how you lead. However, if they go home in a mentally dishevelled state from work and their home provides no solace...you will wear that state of mind consistently in their role and performance. 



Here is an opportunity to make people feel like they have belonging. And there is no doubt at all that when people find their place, they find their peace. And peace allows for engagement, retention, innovation and a profitability of outcomes. And that underpins your leadership. …