Have you ever had a relationship that you thought was going well, but somehow over time it just ended without you understanding why? When it ends abruptly, did it catch you by surprise? Did it make you feel disoriented, confused? When it happens, do you feel like someone sucked the air right out of you?
If so, you are in good company. This happens more that you might think.
Although the end seems to happen suddenly, it usually takes time and circumstances to elapse before the end actually comes upon you. But for the one who experiences the surprise ending, they often could have seen it coming if they had only paid attention to the clues. There are always signals to help avert that sort of abrupt end to a relationship. But sometime, through busyness, ignorance, laziness, pride, arrogance, or other demons, we can tend to miss those important clues.
In the past, I have seen these types of relationships hit their final wall both personally and professionally. It is sad to see. Although painful, abrupt endings in relationships can bring us important lessons if we care to learn them. I recently learned this valuable lesson again at home by observing a relationship breakup between my teenage daughter and her birth father.
As I walk passed my daughter’s room, I hear “Not if it is going to be like it was before!” she screams into the phone. “I am not going to take it anymore!”
In mere seconds, the relationship with her birth father had gone from one of congenial respect to one that is non-existent.
She slams down the phone and said, “Why doesn’t he listen to me? I have only told him all this stuff like 1,000 times before.”
As I watched my daughter yell into the phone, I thought about all the conversations that had gone awry for me in the past. I thought about all those times at work that I had an employee telling me about issues that were obstacles or roadblocks in their world. I thought about the conversations that I had with superiors about a reporting relationship that was ineffective. It all swirled through my head as I watched the anger, resentment, and negative emotions permeate our previously peaceful home.
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These quick recollections cemented my notion of how important relations are to effective living and authentic leading. Ignorance toward relationship fundamentals that lead to breakdowns happen in the home, at work, and everywhere in between. It dawned on me that my daughter’s argument that her birth father doesn’t listen to her is just like life at work when I don’t listen to my followers. It is the same feelings that I have when my bosses REALLY don’t listen to me “for like the 1000th time.”
I asked myself ” How many times had I heard that complaint at work? How many times had that been said to me? How ignorant am I?” Ooops…
As a leader, what should you be doing?
It is a leader’s duty to make sure they are aware of how their followers are doing. They need to know:
- What is on their peoples’ minds?
- What more could they be doing as a leader to support their people to be successful.
- What are they “listening” to, but not actually hearing?
If leaders don’t examine these types of questions and their corresponding answers carefully, they could find themselves in the same place that my daughter’s birth father found himself; fired by those that you are supposed to lead.
As a leader, we’ve experienced when a valued employee that does outstanding work hands in their resignation. If you are that leader, you can feel blindsided. Although you know work is not perfect, you have tried to do everything to make it a good experience for the people that work for you. But as an employee, they left a trail of opportunities to correct the situation 100 miles long. They tried to be clear about what was working, where you needed help, what obstacles you were facing. So what happened? How did the “hints” never hit your radar?
It is simple. The employees thoughts, requests, suggestions, and pleas were not taken seriously.
The fallacy in many leaders’ assumptions is that people who are good performers can overcome obstacles regularly without any help. It is assumed that they will understand when leaders can’t come through for them because they are good, mature, and rational folks. Just like my daughter’s birth father. He took for granted that she would be there because she had always been there before, regardless of his missteps and lack of follow through. She reached her breaking point before he knew there was a problem.
Just like many employees, my daughter made her decision to leave/end the relationship a long time before she verbalized her discontent.
A true leader understands that it is their role to support the people that work with them. Leaders must constantly work to ensure that there is an open line of communication to relate what is really going on. More often than not, people will not tell you how they feel. It is not because they don’t want to. It is because have been conditioned to do this as children. Followers will tell you what they think you want to hear. It is not rational, but that is what is so. Leaders have to break that habit. The catch is that they have to coach people how to do it, encourage it, and do it themselves.
Is there a better way?
If there was a really open line of communication between my daughter and her birth father, he would have known how unhappy she was and they could have been able to have an open conversation about it. The key is that it could have happened before it was too late. It is not enough to ask:
- What is going on?
- Or the other drive-by question: “How’s it going?”
Insincere questions that pretend to signal a caring heart is not sufficient. Leaders have to ask follow up questions and follow through with results. Here is the magic though. You don’t have to follow through with what your employee/people want if you tell them you can’t or won’t to begin with. It is hard to say no. It is hard to say that something is not possible. But it is better to do that than to mislead them by not following through.
Be genuine and you get genuineness. Be honest and you get honesty. Be trusting and you get trust.
In order to be a true leader you have to support those that work with you. In order to support you have to know what is going on. If you don’t, they will tell you. Hopefully, like it was for my daughter’s birth father, it won’t be too late to do something about.
Are you checking in?
What are you talking to your co-workers and employees about? Do you really know if the people you work with are content? Do you pay attention to the non-verbal queues that your people are giving you? What are you doing to make the people you work with comfortable to talk to you about what is really going on for them? Let me know what you think… I’d love to hear your perspective!
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Anil Saxena is President of cube214 Consulting.
He can be reached at [email protected]
Image Source: giovanniworld.files.wordpress.com
I guess it boils down to emotional intelligence and whether you have it or not.
In Rick Warren’s book “The Purpose Driven Life” the first sentence is powerful and simple; “It is not about you.” Anil really nails that concept when he talks about leaders. Real leaders (not people who think they are and are not) connect with the people and know what is going on because they ask and observe.
Great posting, Anil!