“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”
-Napoleon Bonaparte
In the last lesson, we reviewed evidence that showed that appreciating your people leads to closer relationships, closer bonds, and increased job satisfaction. We found that it has a pronounced effect on organizational morale and we learned that it does not have to cost much.[1]
Effective leaders appreciate others. This appreciation goes far beyond formal recognition. Effective leaders say thank you. They ask what their employees think, and they get to know a bit about them personally.[2]
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Lou Solomon, CEO of Interact, related what 1000 workers thought of their managers in a survey on the top communication issues that employees say prevent their bosses from being successful.
Not surprisingly, leading the list (at 63%) was failing to recognize employee achievements. It is on top of the list, but it is not the only way that bosses fail to appreciate their people. Here is the whole list. Review it and see what other issues are related to a failure to appreciate others.
Source: The Top Complaints fr0m Employees about their Leaders. Harvard Business Review.[3]
Failing to recognize achievements is the most obvious way to fail to appreciate others, but it is not the only way. We fail to appreciate others when they are not worth our time, when we don’t know their names, or when we are uninterested in their lives outside of work.
In short, appreciation is about much more than formal recognition. If you really care about others, it shouldn’t be difficult to find ways to communicate it and harness the full power of appreciation.
What About You?
Do you fully appreciate others?
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References
[1] Sturt, D. (2015, November 9). The easiest thing you can do to be a great boss. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/11/the-easiest-thing-you-can-do-to-be-a-great-boss?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr
[2] Solomon, L. (2015, June 24). The top complaints fr0m employees about their leaders. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-top-complaints-from-employees-about-their-leaders
[3] Solomon, L. (2015, June 24). The top complaints fr0m employees about their leaders. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-top-complaints-from-employees-about-their-leaders
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Dr. Darin Gerdes is a tenured Professor of Management in the College of Business at Charleston Southern University.
All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.
This post was originally created for Great Business Networking (GBN), a networking organization for business professionals where Dr. Gerdes is the Director of Education.
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