The topic of love/care and trust has been on my mind lately. It has often been said that trust is essential when working with employees, but it is a reality that many managers do not trust them. I believe, because we do not know them, we are unable to trust them. Because we do not know their strengths and weaknesses, or we assume they have weaknesses. This puts us at a disadvantage, as we assume they do and speculate what that weakness might be.
As a result, it is difficult to develop your employees if you do not know them well enough. You cannot manage what you do not know or understand. Imagine if you got to know them a little bit. Ask them what they like and dislike about their job. Ask them where they want to be in a year or five years. Be open and honest about your own failings and past challenges. Applogize when you need to. Ask them about their weekend, their family, their dog. Once you get to know someone, a sense of trust develops between you.
I suspect that most managers care about the welfare of others. Many people were not taught how to show that you care outside of our immediate families. Some people may see it as a sign of weakness to show compassion for a person or a team. One definition of Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions as well as recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others. Can that be considered caring for others? Can’t we practice that every day?
Leadership should begin with a mindset of trusting employees, but also loving/caring for them as human beings first and foremost. Having a trust and caring mindset every day will enable you to handle situations with people who will let you down. It will also help you lift up others. They might surprise you with their abilities and commitment to the work. By doing so, you will at least have the opportunity to improve the development of a person, a team or organization. You will learn more about each other over time through working together more closely together. In addition, you will learn more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses as individuals and as team members over time.
