Leaders – is your heart full of love or just stone?

In a previous Blog I asked you to think about 3 key aspects of Emotional Intelligence

• How you perceive yourself?
• How other see you or at least your impact on others?
• How you use emotions to build relationships, manage stress or make decisions?

I have worked with a lot of Leaders who have struggled to engage with their teams, they might have tried but results haven’t come and instead they put-up barriers and walls to stop any engagement other than what they see as a purely Professional relationship.

These Leaders are, or have become, in essence stone hearted, they see the relationship between themselves and their team as purely transactional. The concern with that is they now don’t spend time to understand the people around them and as such don’t know how to position themselves with their team or relate to them. This can often lead to withdrawal and hence the transactional Leadership style is adopted. This is not a style that creates much Followership and it certainly doesn’t inspire the people.

So how do you develop from here, because, I am sure that everyone has the capacity to have love in their hearts. If not love, then at least the ability to care for people’s wellbeing, development and progress.

So start small, find out more about the team, don’t worry if it appears mechanical to start with. Then build on it, ask people relevant questions from the information you have gained – how their partner is? or how their Children got on in their exams? or even ask them how their weekend 5k run went? Step by step, slowly but surely build up the knowledge of your team, their goals, and aspirations, what they want to develop in?

Showing you care should be a minimum requirement for a Leader.

Being a leader with even a little love in your heart is one who will get more from their team, inspire them, and even perform better as a group. Being a stone hearted and aloof Leader will not bring long term success and will encourage staff turnover, illness and may even see you as a Leader only bring in like-minded people which will ensure a lack of diversity and ultimately a lack of success.

As a Coach I am here to help you with this, help you unlock that love in your heart and be more satisfied and successful than you thought you could be. So, get in touch and let’s see how we can work together.