Why Respect in the Workplace is the Secret to Positive Conflict

4 min read

Respect: Everyone demands it but only the smartest leaders do what it takes to earn it.

Respect in the workplace starts at the top. If leadership doesn’t foster a culture of respect and dignity, why should team members feel compelled to reciprocate?

If you’re suffering from a complacent team and shriveling productivity, maybe it’s time to revisit respect across your team.

Millennials, for example, make up the largest generation in today’s workforce. When asked how leadership could improve their workplace, over 90% of working millennials said they just want their accomplishments recognized!

That just goes to show today’s leaders aren’t doing the bare minimum to earn their team’s respect.

It’s important to foster a culture of respect in the workplace where everyone feels valued and accountable. You can’t create a conflict-free team – nor should you try – but you can encourage healthy team conflict based on trust and respect.

Widespread Lack of Respect in the Workplace Undermines Your Work as a Leader

Imagine a ship where the captain doesn’t respect the crew and the crew doesn’t respect their fellow sailors. Sailors would ignore commands, neglect to share vital information, and lead the vessel to danger.

A lack of respect ripples across your team, dragging down productivity and engagement while creating negative conflict.

People don’t respect someone who hands down orders and disappears until it comes time to enforce them.

When a lack of respect plagues your workplace, trust disintegrates. Workers don’t trust each other nor their leaders. Major symptoms arise like:

  • Team members withhold vital information out of fear they’ll be punished.
  • Negative conflict leads to chronic fighting and unproductive disagreements.
  • People stop speaking up because no one listens to them.
  • Productivity and engagement nosedive. Poor respect, trust, and engagement create a negative feedback loop. The organization gets stuck reacting to problems and can’t focus on healthy growth.

You Can’t Demand Respect in the Workplace – You Must Earn It

Amazing leaders don’t think of themselves as parents managing children or tsars controlling subjects. The best leaders consider themselves the stewards of their team.

A steward is a caretaker. A steward leader doesn’t try to control their workers – he or she invests in their wellbeing. A steward leader knows respect should be mutual and earned. They lead by example, hold themselves accountable, and encourage honest discussions.

Respect starts at the top. As a leader, you’ll have to earn the respect you wish to receive – and it all starts with trust. If workers are used to being neglected, ignored, and punished, it will take some time.

Chronic trauma from negative conflict is sticky and people develop unhealthy coping methods to avoid future negative conflict. You’ll have to work tirelessly building trust to break down those coping strategies and foster widespread trust.

Why a Conflict-Free Team Shouldn’t Be Your Goal

Conflict-free workplaces don’t exist. Even if an organization appears conflict-free, that only means people’s voices are going unheard and neglected. A conflict-free environment means people have stopped speaking up.

Positive team conflict is vital. People voice their grievances and concerns with respect and the team addresses them together. People aren’t shouted down or punished for speaking their minds.

Positive Team Conflict Improves Psychological Safety

Fear is a tricky emotion. When people feel unsafe in their surroundings, their brain triggers fight-or-flight mode. Rational thinking shuts down, giving way to emotion-driven decisions.

Over time, fear erodes a person’s sense of safety. People can’t exist in fight-or-flight mode forever. Instead, their brain adapts with learned helplessness.

They say and do things to avoid trauma and conflict. They repress their true emotions.

To reverse these problems, your team must feel psychologically safe. Only when people feel psychologically safe will they feel comfortable enough to voice ideas and address grievances.

Positive Team Conflict Encourages Growth

When there’s no conflict, it means problems are bubbling below the surface just waiting for a spark to explode.  Think of a shoal that goes unseen by a sailing crew who is inattentive to the nautical charts and GPS. Both lead to disaster.

No one cares about meeting organizational goals – and why should they if the organization’s leadership doesn’t value their contribution?

When team members feel valued, appreciated, and respected, your organization can focus on addressing problems and growth.

Positive conflict digs you out of the reactive cycle. People feel invested in the wellbeing of the organization because leadership is invested in their individual wellbeing.

Trust Breeds Positive Team Conflict

It all starts with trust. Think of the last time someone wronged or betrayed you. Whoever it was no doubt had to earn back your trust. Maybe they didn’t change their behavior and never earned your trust back.

Leadership must show why the team should trust them. As we all know, just saying you’re sorry is never enough unless you make changes to show it. That’s why trust and respect must start at the top.

accountability workplace

Respect and Positive Team Conflict Lead to Better Accountability

It’s a positive cycle: Positive conflict breeds respect and accountability which encourages positive conflict.

When people have the entire organization’s best interests in mind, they voice concerns, problems, and ideas freely. People are held accountable – both for their good behavior and bad.

When team members and leadership are held accountable for mistakes AND recognized for achievements (with respect), that encourages trust.

pyschological safety workplace

Practice Respect and Effective Team Building on the Open Water

Trust and respect don’t happen overnight. Sailors must spend time learning with their fellow crew making mistakes, building communication, and growing.

The same is true of team building. Fostering a culture of open communication, respect, accountability, and positive conflict takes time. Leadership must first earn trust and respect.

Full Sail Leadership lets you chart the course towards growth and psychological safety on the open seas. Our workshops slash turnover rates, absenteeism, and poor productivity in a hands-on exciting environment.

Find out why a day on the water with Full Sail Leadership is exactly what your team needs to start its path towards growth!

 

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Don’t Let Fear Sabotage Your Team – Learn to Manage It and Adapt

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5 min read

Fear is everywhere.

In many ways, we wouldn’t survive without a healthy dose of fear.

Fear prevents us from walking into traffic or balancing on the edge of a cliff.

Originating in the amygdala, fear is a fundamental component of shrewd decision making.

But like any emotion, the key is balance and management.

If we lose control of how to manage our fears, they overtake us.

We stop taking risks. We internalize. We become stagnant.

On the other hand, without fear, we operate indiscriminately as if consequences don’t exist.

The same thing happens across teams – and it can sabotage an entire company’s success.

How Fear is Paralyzing Your Workplace

On a sailboat, fear can be everywhere we look: the unrelenting water, the wind, the unknown.

Even the reliance of other sailors can invoke fear – what if we can’t trust them to make the right choice in rough water?

The same is true of any business. Workers face different fears every day: unhappy clients, scolding from bosses, letting down other workers, potential layoffs.

Like on a sailboat, these fears can paralyze a workplace if they’re not confronted and managed.

Fear prevents us from making rational decisions. Over enough time, sustained fear can impact memory, emotions, and other psychological processes.

Think of the fight-or-flight response.

It’s useful if you accidentally step into the street, see a car barreling towards you, and quickly jump out of the road. But living in a sustained fight-or-flight state would cause intense generalized anxiety – everything becomes a threat.

Even in cases where our fight-or-flight instinct kicks in, we wouldn’t want it to cloud our judgment and overtake our actions completely. Jumping out of the way to avoid a car won’t help if you jump into another lane filled with traffic.

What Does Fear Look Like in Organizational Behavior?

Over time, sustained fear mismanagement leads to burnout.

Fear is also contagious. On a ship, we’ll isolate a sick sailor to prevent infecting the entire crew. An outbreak on a ship at sea is a disaster.

Within an organization, fear spreads like fire. It infects individual workers, departments, roles, processes, relationships, and revenue.

Here’s what a fear outbreak might look like across a business:

  • Personal fears: Letting down coworkers, missing deadlines, unprepared for meetings, alienation from goals and outcomes, etc.
  • Business fears: Departments in frequent disagreement, unclear goals, low confidence, lack of honest communication, low morale, etc.
  • Existential fears: Unstable markets and economic outlook, automation and AI, changing culture, layoffs, etc.

5 Strategies and Techniques to Manage Fear and Avoid Sabotage

You can’t avoid fear completely. It’s a healthy reaction to instability and danger.

Instead, focus on confronting and managing fear. Turn fear into a useful tool for communication, dedication, and growth.

1. Prioritize Psychological Safety

We’ve all been in situations where we feel psychologically unsafe.

Verbal abuse, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, lies – these all take their toll. Over time, we build unhealthy coping tools and adapt learned helplessness. We stop speaking up and setting boundaries.

On the sea, a lack of psychological safety is dangerous. Imagine if the first mate was afraid of stepping on toes so he didn’t alert the captain to an oncoming iceberg! That’s how the Titanic sunk!

The same is true of a workplace. If someone is afraid of being reprimanded or attacked, they’ll never speak up.

A psychologically safe environment is where:

  • People feel obligated to speak up when something’s wrong.
  • People are held accountable for their actions.
  • Disagreements aren’t inherently aggressive – certain words and actions are.
  • Asking for help isn’t viewed as annoying or poor character.
  • Decisions and risks are made for the good of the organization.

It’s not about creating a safe space where everyone says and does what they please without consequences. If people feel psychologically safe enough to say rude things or give detrimental advice, that’s not safe for others either.

That’s why accountability is critical.

2. Develop a Strength-Based Organizational Attitude

Everyone hates performance reviews, don’t they?

Why? Performance reviews or employee evaluations are frightening situations. They drum up all kinds of fearful thoughts like

  • Have I accomplished enough this year?
  • Are layoffs coming?
  • Is my raise on the line?
  • What did I do wrong this time?

I know this might be surprising, but no one likes to be reminded of their weaknesses. We all have weaknesses we could stand to improve. Unless they routinely make other people’s lives harder, then why are weaknesses even worth addressing?

Instead, eliminate fear by focusing on strengths.

Talk to team members about areas they truly excel – and what they dread.

Whether on a sailboat or at workplace, teams perform best when everyone plays up their personal strengths.

This doesn’t mean, however, that we should ignore major shortcomings to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. In most cases, however, we can avoid a situation where someone’s weaknesses are on full display by promoting the use of their strengths from the beginning.

3. Promote Positive Conflict and Accountability

Conflict is painted in a negative light far too often.

We’ve all seen relationships between two partners who never fight. It’s almost eerie – surely no one can avoid conflict forever.

Most times, a lack of conflict means people aren’t speaking up about problems.

Those problems just bubble below the surface until they pressurize and explode.

No matter the situation, people avoid conflict from fears of:

  • Being attacked or shouted down
  • Hurting another person’s feelings
  • Looking stupid or emotional
  • Failure to enforce boundaries

Many times, a worker is eager to express their grievances – at first. Later, when no one is held accountable, boundaries are ignored, and nothing changes, they stop speaking up. What’s the point?

Conflict turns positive when two things happen:

  • People trust they won’t be attacked or get anyone in trouble for speaking up.
  • Others are held accountable, respectfully, for their words and actions.

4. Build Trust to Learn About Their Fears

We can’t assume people will suddenly be comfortable speaking up after years of bad experiences.

If we want to know our team’s fears, we must ask them.

It takes time to earn trust. People need to know they’ll be respected before they’ll speak up. They need to know leaders will provide honest and transparent answers.

Team building exercises are excellent tools for jumpstarting a new culture centered around trust.

On a sailboat out on the open water, leaders and teams must work together toward a common goal in a way they never have before.

Teams can take that new attitude back with them to the workplace and apply the principles of trust.

Trust is paramount.


dailystoke.com

5. Offer Transparency and Stability in Times of Uncertainty

We’re all facing rocky waters right now with no end in sight.

Workers are anxious about layoffs, economic downturns, automation, and acquisitions.

Leadership owes them transparency and stability.

If you don’t know something, say so. Don’t sugar coat things.

At the same time, routines and rituals can help create a pillar of stability in troubled waters. Routine is your lighthouse.

Science shows rituals – no matter how small – calm our nerves. They offer a semblance of control when everything feels out of our control.

Ask any sailor. They’ll tell you their favorite ritual before embarking, like wearing a certain cap or putting on a life vest in a certain way.

Don’t Let Fear Run Your Life – Don’t Let It Dictate Organizational Behavior Either

I’ve seen countless businesses at the brink of succumbing to widespread fear. By fostering steward leadership, business leaders can turn an entire organization’s attitude around.

It won’t happen overnight. Effective team building takes time, effort, and dedication – especially from those in leadership positions.

Tackle business fears on the open water. Learn how Full Sail Leadership development and team building workshops can increase productivity and communication.

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9 Essentials of Steward Leadership Development for Engaged Teams

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5 min read

Today, the term “steward” refers to someone called to look after the passengers aboard a ship – a caretaker.

I’ve found that steward leadership results in engaged teams who are invested in the organization’s mission, vision, and values.

Unfortunately, this is a challenging concept to grasp. Leaders tend to assume a controlling role over their employees – as if workers are a form of capital to be shaped as the company desires.

“I pay these people a good wage, what else could they want from me?”

You can’t just throw money at disengaged teams and expect them to suddenly become productive. Studies show that 60% of workers will consider leaving a position if they feel their work isn’t captivating enough.

Steward leaders, on the other hand, invest in both the financial and emotional well-being of their employees.

Stewards care about the lives and hearts of their crew outside the office walls.

When workers feel valued and respected instead of alienated and reduced to a financial figure, an amazing synergy happens: those team members become the stewards of the organization’s mission, values, and vision.

What is Stewardship in Leadership Development?

In 2013, Julia Kukard, Kurt April, and Kai Peters published an important book called Steward Leadership: A Maturational Perspective under UCT Press.

According to the authors, steward leadership is “a form of leadership that focuses on others, the community and society at large rather than the self.” They explain that a lot of senior leaders tend to adopt a steward leadership outlook naturally as their careers mature.

Mature and experienced business leaders know you can’t force productivity out of people. They know a team needs to feel respect, compassion, and inclusion before they’ll engage wholeheartedly.

How Does Steward Leadership Differ from Servant Leadership?

Under servant leadership, the leader exists to serve the team members. With traditional leadership, it’s the other way around: the team serves the leader.

Steward leadership is different: a steward leader cares for the team members, the organization, and society as a whole. Their actions are done in the interest of growth for the organization’s mission, vision, and values.

Living through example, steward leaders attract talent who hold the same values.

9 Essential Components of Stewardship in Business

Community building, responsibility, and trust within an organization all hinge on these nine components:

  1. Personal Vision
  2. Personal Mastery
  3. Shared Vision
  4. Mentoring
  5. Vulnerability and Maturity
  6. Valuing Diversity
  7. Experimentation and Risk-Taking
  8. Raising Awareness
  9. Delivering Results

Steward leadership, as an attitude, starts with a person who embodies these characteristics.

When you’re out on the water, and things get rocky, what happens? You band together with fellow crew members around a shared vision: getting to shore safely. That shared vision leads to self-governance, which keeps the individual and organization on course.

team building through sailing

A steward leader should inspire trust in team members. No one can put themselves into a vulnerable position without complete trust. People must have faith before they speak up, brainstorm, and offer constructive criticism openly.

Widespread trust empowers team members to adapt their operations and promote the organization’s growth.

Steward leadership can’t manifest without maturity.

It takes maturity and vulnerability to build healthy inter-dependent relationships, rather than toxic codependent ones.

A mature and emotionally intelligent leader realizes they are only as successful as the team they’ve assembled. No single person has the answers 100% of the time.

Emotional intelligence and maturity allow a leader to step back and invest in the people around them, when necessary.

In our blog, you can find countless case studies of companies across the country that have accomplished amazing things through stewardship leadership development. Repeatedly, a caretaker mindset delivers incredible results.

I’ve seen companies on the brink of collapse pull through – and thrive – after transforming their attitude in favor of steward leadership.

Steward leadership begins in the heart. Have you ever seen someone forced into therapy by a spouse or family member? Nothing changes if they don’t have a genuine desire and commitment to change themselves.

To become a steward leader, a person must commit to empathy and encouragement across the team.

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Using Steward Leadership Development to Weather the COVID-19 Crisis

John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

A steward leader asks what they can do for their company – especially in times of crisis.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen companies do extraordinary things to assist their workers:

  • Embracing pets and children in the workplace
  • Sending pints of gourmet ice cream and essentials
  • $250 Amazon gift cards
  • Asking team members to introduce their kids or pets during Zoom meetings

You can bet the companies who adapted steward leadership principles like these will come out of this crisis in much better positions than others.

Here are a few examples of ways companies have risen to the challenge of stewardship during today’s trying times.

Incorporating Families

Goodway Group hosted a half-hour “Family Fun Friday” so workers could introduce their kids. Jillian Gap, Goodway Group’s People Experience Director, said it included “music, magic, and laughs.”

Everyone could use a lighthearted break, especially taxed working parents.

Other companies like F&B NY, The Media Kitchen, and PubMatic also tried to lighten the mood by encouraging teams to bring kids, pets, or a glass of wine to lunches or meetings.

Wellness Programs

Salesforce took major strides towards worker wellness by launching a series of programs and initiatives. The Thriving Mind benefits program provides mental and emotional health resources for employees and their families.

Meanwhile, the B-Well Together twice-daily broadcast connects industry luminaries with their employees to discuss wellbeing.

Salesforce also made Plum Village’s Zen Meditation App available to all its workers through the Salesforce App Catalog.

Material Support

People can’t concentrate on work when their basic needs aren’t met. During COVID-19, Salesforce and many other enterprises launched employee assistance programs to help lift workers out of survival mode.

It’s never been more obvious that every team member faces a different reality and struggle. Steward leaders know not every worker needs the same help. That’s why you see companies like Salesforce jump into prioritizing conversations and connections.

Stewardship Impacts All of Society – Not Just the Company

Treating workers right doesn’t only benefit the company – it improves society profoundly.

Bob Chapman, the CEO and Chairman of Barry-Wehmiller, views his team members as “someone’s son or daughter, mom or dad, brother or sister.”

He points out that his attitude and treatment create a ripple effect: how we treat our team members impacts how they treat their family at home and everyone in their lives.

Think of it this way: how many times have you seen someone lash out and said to yourself, “wow, I wonder what they went through today?”

Taking a few moments to treat workers with dignity, respect, and care can lead to healthier families, quality marriages, and a more wholesome society.

A steward leadership mindset creates team members who share a genuine investment in the company’s vision, values, and mission. When team members care about all business aspects, engagement improves, and productivity soars.

Learn how to become the steward of your team with Full Sail Leadership’s COVID-compliant workshops.

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7 Strategies for Overcoming Fear in the Workplace

5 min read

What is fear? What am I afraid of?

Most people have no trouble naming their obvious fears like public speaking, spiders, or standing too close to the edge of tall buildings.

But what about all the fears we don’t notice? Those are the fears that wreak havoc across our lives.

Fear of success, failure, commitment, change, the unknown.

Overcoming fear in the workplace is critical for creating a growth-centric environment where trust, communication, and strength thrive.

Perhaps that’s why we focus so much on the obvious fears like snakes and spiders. They’re easy to avoid and don’t require serious self-reflection.

I believe the most successful people have a special skill for finding, embracing, and challenging their fears. That’s one thing that sets them apart from everyone else.

7 Strategies for Overcoming Fear in the Workplace and Building Sustainable Success

In all my years on the water, I’ve noticed a sailor’s success hinges on his or her relationship and reaction to fear.

If a skipper is afraid of the waves, wind, and speed, everything will go wrong that possibly can. On the open seas, that’s not the situation you want to be in.

However, if that same skipper looks fear in the eyes and embraces the uncertainty for what it is, he can seamlessly adapt in challenging situations and overcome obstacles. That’s where true success lies.

The same principles for overcoming fear in sailing apply to the workplace beautifully.

1. Think of Yourself as a Steward

anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course

As John Maxwell once said, “Anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course.”

My question to you is, are you charting the course or just steering the ship? Overcoming fear in the workplace starts with those in leadership roles.

I recommend all executives start thinking of themselves as stewards rather than business leaders. A steward functions as a caretaker. They make sure everyone on the ship is heard, motivated, fed, and encouraged.

We’ve all seen over the past few months that our environment can change in an instant. We can’t commit to the unstable world around us, but we can commit to each other. Removing fear starts with proper leadership.

2. Build Trust Across the Team

You absolutely cannot overcome fear in the workplace without trust.

No one wants to wind up on a boat where they can’t trust their fellow sailors. I’ve seen sailors break parts of a ship and shift the blame to someone else. It’s not pretty.

When a team suffers from trust issues, people live in constant fear. People can’t allow themselves to feel vulnerable, so they never speak up – even when they absolutely should!

Distrust on a team is like a windshield crack: Once it appears, it continues to spread. It makes people fearful and deteriorates morale. No relationship can succeed without trust, and teams are no different.

People need to feel respected and understood before they can trust anyone.

3. Lead with Strengths, Not Weaknesses

Everyone fears performance reviews – and why shouldn’t they? Who wants to sit down with the boss just to be reminded of their biggest weaknesses and failures?

In any relationship, highlighting someone’s shortcomings breeds distrust and chronic fear.

I recommend overcoming fear in the workplace through strength-based leadership. When each worker focuses on improving their own strengths during normal conditions, they’ll tap into those strengths when the waters get rocky.

Build trust by praising everyone’s strengths. Constantly reminding people of ways they fall short promotes nothing but fear.

4. Use Positive Conflict as Opportunities for Growth

Most people fear conflict. It makes sense: We’re conditioned to believe that conflict is always negative and riddled with aggression.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. In fact, positive conflict is vital for learning, adapting, and growing.

In my experience, the most successful sailing crews openly debate diverse ways of racing a regatta without fearing an adverse reaction. The key element here is trust.

When teams don’t trust each other, conflict is always negative. Resentment builds, workers disengage, the mission all but vanishes, and turnover rates skyrocket.

5. Make Sure Everyone is Committed to the Goal

A lack of commitment to the organization’s shared goal is a structural issue. If we don’t address the structural issue, it impacts every aspect of operations.

Take sailing, would you want to board a ship where the entire crew isn’t committed to the goal of sailing safely and reaching your destination by any means necessary? If even one crew member lacks commitment, that puts everyone aboard the ship in danger!

Every worker needs to know others have their back in times of uncertainty and chaos. Otherwise, they operate in constant fear of failure.

In many cases, this type of fear must first be addressed in leadership by reevaluating the mission, culture, and onboarding process.

6. Encourage Everyone to Hold Others Accountable – Respectfully

Ever wonder why people who stick with AA or other group counseling program are successful in their goal to avoid alcohol or substance issues while others can’t manage more than a few days? It’s not the program itself; it’s the peer accountability.

Peer pressure can be positive or negative. When we surround ourselves with people who challenge us to do better and hold us accountable for our actions, we strive to meet their expectations.

Respect and support are key here. We must hold each other accountable, but with understanding.

Holding each other accountable encourages everyone to harness the fear of letting people down and channel it into something incredible.

7. Create a Positive Feedback Loop

happy work setting

It’s never been easier to focus on an organization’s failures: missed sales goals, shrinking markets, decreased demand. Every quarter and end of the fiscal year, workers hear about all the ways they failed over the past few months.

Seeing business growth in black and white creates a negative feedback loop that provides the perfect environment for fear to thrive. Behind every individual failure on paper, you’ll find a dozen people who tried their best.

Overcoming fear in the workplace requires a positive feedback loop instead.

When people can see and enjoy the results of their labor, they feel encouraged to continue the work. Positive reinforcement pushes people to outdo themselves time and time again for the greater good.

The only thing more frightening than letting yourself down is letting down an entire company. Rewarding and praising teams for a job well done and recognizing their work is critical for creating a fearless culture.

Build a Team That Runs Full Sail

An engaged and dependable team starts with leadership. As the captain of your ship, it’s your responsibility to chart the course, lead by example, and change course when the winds shift and throw you off course.

Full Sail Leadership helps you create a company culture of trust, respect, and commitment through team building. A growth-centric culture requires structural change – not one-off teambuilding retreats.

Read more about how sailing out on the open water is just what your team needs for overcoming fear, building trust, and promoting strong leadership.

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To Steward is to Care, To Lead is to Steward

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4 min read

I tell people that I firmly believe that organizations need to approach the human resource function through the philosophy of co-stewardship.

When I discuss this, I get a sense of puzzled agreement. The concept seems to make sense to people, but when you press them on what they think the concept means, often they admit that they are not quite sure.

Sometimes the listener conjures up the idea of a church concept of giving money when they think of stewardship. When they do that, they falsely think that employees should be more sacrificial. This type of definition is only one-sided and fails to take in the management component of stewardship. It also completely misses the identity of the steward.

In understanding the identity of the stewarding company, owners and company team members can thrive together. This can lead to greater profits and productivity for the organization through improved employee engagement.

Blessed to be a Blessing

Life is fragile and temporary. Look down the road when a hearse goes by. There is never a U-Haul trailer following it because the person is taking their possessions with them. In the end, we don’t really own a thing. That’s especially true when it comes to the people that are in our lives. It is even more true if we are team leaders or company presidents. The people that work on our teams are entrusted to us by their family members.

team members full sail

As Bob Chapman of Barry-Wehmiller so accurately states it in Everybody Matters, “I realized (watching a wedding) that the people in our company are someone else’s mother or father, son or daughter”. He went on to say that how he treats the people that work in the company impacts how they treat their family members. This new way of thinking for Chapman led him to form the theory of Truly human leadership.

Bob’s new idea of human leadership took off and has become a hallmark of the Barry-Wehmiller culture for the past few decades. The organization is considered a top place to work not because of the perks that it provides employees but because of the caring and supportive environment.

“When we started caring about each team member, they started caring about each other,” Bob says. Chapman continues by saying, “We genuinely care about the people, and we show it through our actions.” I realized that every single one of Barry-Wehmiller’s team members is like that young lady in the wedding. Every single one of them is someone’s precious child, with hopes and dreams for a future through which they can realize their full potential. The power in that revelation was the realization that the people within our span of care are not objects. Some leaders view their people merely as the function they serve—she’s an engineer, he’s a mail clerk, he’s a machinist—and not as the precious human beings they are. When we realize that people are not objects, they are not tools for our success, we have begun to take our leadership to an entirely new level of understanding.” Spot on advice from America’s Number 1 Steward Leader.

Keeping up with the Gallups

rough seas sailing
Image

When a storm comes up on the open water, or in our organizations, there are two directions our human nature can take us:

  1. fear and helplessness
  2. or resilience and engagement.

If leaders have communicated vision, and lead with confidence, human beings are amazingly resilient. There is a documented “rally effect.” I have been in many foul weather races where the winds and waves were storming against the boat. It was the grit, confidence, and vision of the skipper that held the team together to safely and successfully complete the race.

Gallup recently published an article that described the four universal needs that followers have of leaders in times of crisis. These needs include:

  1. Trust
  2. Compassion
  3. Stability
  4. Hope

The storm of the coronavirus outbreak has blown uncertainty into our lives. Millions of people are required to work from home and millions of kids are learning their curriculums from home. The blending of work and home-life is even more complicated. All this has created unprecedented stress on employees’ wellbeing.

A key predictor of employees’ well-being is whether each employee believes that the organization is looking out for their best interest.

Gallup research shows that employees ask themselves on a regular basis:

  • Does my leadership have a clear plan of action?
  • Do I feel well-prepared to do my job?
  • Does my supervisor keep me informed about what is going on?
  • Does my organization care about my wellbeing?

These questions can be boiled down into questions of co-stewardship. The employees ask themselves questions about how they are being stewarded (cared for), and they ask themselves if they are prepared for the job and will they do a good job for the company.

I believe that if leaders adopt Chapman’s wisdom, they will find that their team members begin to adopt an attitude that they are stewards of the company’s resources. Team members will become more engaged, waste less time, and accomplish the mission of the business.

Combining this with an understanding of Gallup’s research will lead us to unstoppable, winning organizations. It’s like the crew on a race boat. The skipper doesn’t own the crew, but he is a caretaker of the crew. The team doesn’t own the boat. They are a caretaker of the boat. Together they win!

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