High Performance Leadership

What would you say if a news reporter asked you how much you cared about your team members? Do you think about them when you're not at work? Do you enjoy the time that you do spend together? I've had some wonderful team members in the many jobs I've held. Some that made work feel more like play. Some that remembered things about me that made my life easier and happier. Some that set such good examples for me that I emulated their behavior and became a better person as a result. Team members are a big part of our lives. It's not just work. It's important to care about our team members as well. We spend too much time with the people we work with to pretend that we don't care about them. What does caring about them mean? Treating them all with respect and dignity. Speaking openly. Accepting, and giving both positive feedback and feedback for improvement. Laughing. Sometimes, even crying together. We're all people and the more that we recognize that th...

Does each team member on your team know how much you care about your vision, your mission, your goals? Even more importantly, do they each know how much you care about them? Team members look to their leaders for skill, for initiative, for courage, compassion, creativity, and clarity but most importantly they look to leaders who care. Showing your team members how you care about them will develop the type of loyalty and effort you need as a high performance leader to solve problems and achieve your goals. It's what we want, but it is oh so easy to overlook. Leaders often take for granted that people know how much they care. Sometimes, leaders don't even invest the level of caring that is needed for people to feel valued and connected. It's hard to measure, this caring, but without it all of our other measures suffer. As leaders, we need to care, and we need to communicate that caring to our team. Team members don't expect us to be perfect. They know that we...