I have been talking with Garrett Ledbetter over at The Leader Effect about what our experiences have been with leaders throughout our careers. We both had great bosses as our first experience and have had a variety of different experiences with leaders since the first one. Garrett approached this from an event he did with college students, asking what they expected from their first boss. He created a survey and had students check what they thought would be important for their first boss to do to help them be successful.

This got my thought processes about leadership into overdrive. This isn’t just something for college students and those who employ college students, this is really about all employees!

Gary Chapman (some will recognize his work in marital relationships where he created the 5 Love Languages model) worked with Paul White to write “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace“. The subtitle of this book is “Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People”. The concepts are that we all have a specific style of being loved and appreciated, and when someone speaks that style, we feel loved and appreciated. However, when we don’t experience that style, we often don’t feel loved or appreciated; even when the other person in the relationship is yelling in one of the other languages or styles.

Employees have a set of expectations of their leader and the leader has a set of expectations of their employees. Unfortunately, many times this is a ONE sided communication of expectations. Our annual performance reviews have created ways that the leader communicates their expectations to employees, but many (not all) leaders never reciprocate and discover what their employees and direct reports expect from them.

What ends up happening is the employee feels the weight of the expectations from their leader, but they don’t feel any love or appreciation, so they feel like they are just another number, a cog in the system and can become dissatisfied and even burned out in their job. Have you ever heard the saying that people go to work for a great company and they leave because of a bad leader? I think lack of awareness on the leader side significantly contributes to this! But, it doesn’t need to!

I took Garrett’s list of expectations and had each of my employees identify their top 8 expectations of their leader (me), in rank order. I then sat down in my next one-on-one with each employee and we talked through the list. I am committed to making sure I meet their expectations of me. If it wasn’t clear to me what the action would look like, I asked for examples. I’m relatively confident that through a stroke of divine intervention, I knew some of these things, but there were others that I didn’t.

I have been blessed to have a great team working with me for many years. One employee has worked with me for 16 year at two different jobs. Is it all roses and sunshine every day? Absolutely not! We have disagreements and don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. However, we have a very healthy respect for each other and I am intentional about asking how I can help each employee be more successful. Showing intentional care for the employee and speaking in the language they prefer to hear contributes significantly to that success.

I am writing this during an interesting time in our culture. The COVID-19 virus saw us move from a typical office environment to a work-at-home environment almost overnight. I haven’t actually seen a couple of people for 6 months and most I only see in little squares on my computer screen. However, we talk at a minimum once a week and most of the time multiple times a week. I know what each employee expects from me and I work hard to meet their expectations. My team is dealing with the current environment pretty well. I can’t accept all the credit, but I also believe part of it is because they are being led well. Or, to make a bad dad joke, they are being Led Better by using the Garrett Ledbetter index of leading. 🙂

As you reflect on the last 6 months in your leadership journey, would your employees say they have been led better? Do you know what they expect? Is this a good time to ask them how they want to be led and then set the expectation for yourself that you will meet those expectations?

If you would like to engage with me in further conversation around this and other leadership topics, fill out the form and let’s start a conversation. I love to have valuable conversations about helping leaders lead better!