Last week I wrote an article titled “How to Drive Better Work by Unlocking Employee Communities.” In it, I talked about how social technologies are transforming how we work and driving the need for employee connectivity in the workplace.
This week, let’s dive a little deeper into this topic and talk about how leaders must influence the conditions within communities for employees to flourish.
Traditionally, leadership comes with formal authority or a title: CEO, Director of Product Development, Head of Sales, and so on. The people in these positions are leaders by definition. But when I talk about leaders, I’m including anyone who tries to foster contribution and positive change in any group of people. A leader is anyone who naturally moves teams toward a particular result. You don’t need a title to lead.
I understand that many leaders have only ever learned or experienced top-down management. For decades, bosses had to provide the ideas and employees had to execute them. But the transformation of the work environment, both locally and globally, demands that these leaders transform as well.
Let the benefits of cognitive diversity – a more inclusive, collaborative, and open space where people feel empowered to create and implement ideas – take hold. When leaders create a safe place for employees to share thoughts and challenge each other, they set aside differences and connect better with each other.
I’ve been facilitating teams for years, and I’ve realized that to help organizations solve problems, I need to draw out their employees’ understanding of the situation. Most teams know their challenges and the solutions better than anybody.
Picture a typical Monday morning where a few employees are gathered around the coffee pot, sharing not only their past weekend events but their candid thoughts on the latest company or department decisions communicated by their leaders. Traditional leaders typically discourage this type of conversation, dismissing it as “watercooler” gossip. In doing so, they are missing valuable insights they need to move their business forward.
So how does a leader move away from the old into the new?
Leaders need to trust and become part of the community, by participating and engaging with its members, by moving away from being the commander and becoming the orchestra conductor, the one who listens carefully to each contributor, synthesizes the information, and directs all accordingly.
If you let go and open yourself to greater transparency, you’ll immediately break the traditional notion of elite pockets of information, which for years has prevented teams from connecting and ultimately contributing to the goals of the organization.
When leaders hold onto information, they prevent teams from seeing the complete (and bigger!) picture. Teams who don’t have this picture will struggle to see where their roles link to the company’s goals, resulting in loss of motivation, frustration, and simply grinding for the paycheck, which rarely works well. They’ll increasingly feel like their voices don’t matter, and they’ll either drudge through their commander’s orders with their heads down, and lips zipped or leave.
When you think of yourself as more of a conductor and begin to lead like one, you’ll naturally find ways to build on the cognitive diversity, support, and trust within the community.
Better work comes from sharing information that encourages curiosity and creativity within a community’s members. Becoming an open and transparent leader establishes the foundation for higher connectivity with teams, and companies need this connectivity to flourish.
When it comes to driving innovation, assembling a way to understand, appreciate and leverage diverse ways of thinking can push any team or organization to new levels. We need to break free from years of trying to fit in, not disrupting the status quo. We must respect that we can all belong to and think different within a community.
Only then can we push the community and the company to improve and grow. If we build trust in the community, we all become better leaders, and everybody will move forward in leaps and bounds together.
If you enjoyed the post, I would be grateful if you shared within your community.
~Lynette
