Smile, It’s Monday: Your Weekly Wake-up Call to Become a More Effective Leader

If you suspect a man, don’t employ him,
and if you employ him, don’t suspect him.
--- Ancient Chinese proverb

Here’s one of the burning questions that I have observed keeps leaders up at night: “How can I be sure the people doing the work are really doing the work?” Many of these leaders come into work the next day and—reacting to their insecurity about whether everything is getting done up to snuff—ask questions about how much work has been done, such as “Did you get Isabel’s feedback on the proposal yet?” or “When do you think you’ll have the report?” These transactional conversations are necessary at times, but when they become the centerpiece of the employer-employee verbal exchange, they sap the same energy these employers so desperately need in their employees for their companies to be successful. This week, take stock of the transactional conversations you have with your employees, and reflect on how you can make these dialogues more transformational. Ask yourself how you can punctuate the targeted questions you ask your employees with more reflective, open-ended questions that enable them to question the purpose of their work and how it contributes to the organizational mission and the betterment of society. Consider how you can rise to one of the greatest challenges every leader faces: to help people connect with and then live their higher selves.