How you talk to your employees can make the difference between employee loyalty and retention, employee professionalism and employee attitude with co-workers and with your customers.
The words and tone that you use to lead your company is you setting your company culture. Everything that you say and do as the owner/leader of your company leads your employees to feel like they are valued and recognized employees or not.
When I would talk to my employees about my stress and constantly working, I was sending the wrong message. They didn’t need to know or hear about it, that was how I did my work and not about them at all. My employees put in a lot of effort, but my working style was more about me and not them, and after a long day, they didn’t need to hear that from me.
The power behind your words
You are the leader in your business (and your family) but often don’t realize or connect that everything you say influences the people that you are talking to.
You go about your day having many conversations, some may be stressful and quick and when you walk away you may think I could have handled that better, if only I had said this then the outcome would have been so much better.
OR
You have conversations that you managed better that went really well and you walked away feeling great knowing you are getting the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
Whichever way it goes, whatever thoughts and feelings that you walk away with, your employees have the same feelings but they are more enhanced.
Depending on your natural way of having conversations, having just one too many conversations with your employees where they walk away feeling they can not please you, that nothing is good enough, or they just don’t feel great, is a risk that your employees next step may be looking for another job.
Is that a risk you are willing to take?
The difference between being aware and an unaware boss!
One of the most important business leader/owner assets is self-awareness. Being aware of your impact, your contribution, your energy, your relationships, and your leadership style is one of the most important qualities a business owner can have for continued growth and success.
Most business owners believe they are self-aware, but self-awareness is a rare quality.
Becoming aware of your leadership style will help you to understand if you are having a positive impact on your business or not. Self-awareness of how you operate, and the type of impact you are having is the key to understanding the continual shifts you need to create a great company culture, to develop loyal employees and customer relationships so you have continual growth in your business.
The importance of self-awareness
Becoming a self-aware leader is you having the ability to self-assess how your actions, thoughts, and emotions align or don’t align with your internal standards.
It is about how clearly you see your values, passions, aspirations and how well they fit in with your environment and your reactions, including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses.
The goal for self-awareness is to know how you see yourself and for that to be the same as how others see you. When these 2 match, and you feel the alignment, having clarity and steps for improvement are easier from here.
To simply be aware of your impact.
Awareness goes 2 ways, being aware of how you impact others and how others impact you.
Knowing and understanding the parts you play when having conversations with or about someone that triggers your blood to boil is an example of how you may say things that you regret. Having awareness and a plan on how best to handle these situations to get the best possible outcome is a big piece of your success puzzle.
Self-aware assessment
What is Self-awareness – it is the ability to understand your strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and motivators.
Being self-aware means that you take a deeper look at how you naturally show up and react, why you feel a certain way, and why you reacted.
To start becoming self-aware, it is a practice. You may notice your behavior and words when situations are tough or you know you affected someone negatively but being self-aware is a continual awareness of yourself.
To start to notice and understand your reactions, your words, you, start with this new habit:
- Be present during all your conversations, put your phone done, look into the eyes of the person you are talking to, notice their physical reactions to your words
- After all your interactions, ask yourself how did that feel, how was this conversation received, how could I have done this better
- At the end of your day while still in your office, journal about your daily interactions. Write the names down of all your interactions, employees, customers, family and ask yourself, what was great about the interaction, what was not great? This will give you insights and the next day you can adjust if needed.
This is the beginning step to becoming self-aware.
Step to be aware of your impact
One of the best tools that I use to make sure I am always headed to having the best outcomes possible for impromptu and hard conversations is using the 3 intentional words that guide me to come from my best place.
First, pick three words that best describe how you want to show up as a leader. These 3 words will guide how you interact with others. For example: kind, respectful, present once you pick your 3 words, I want you to add “I am….” in front of them.
“I am kind, respectful, and present”.
Prior to going into a meeting say your 3 power words at least 3 times to yourself.
You will feel on purpose, engaged, self-aware and you will notice the impact of saying your power statement.
Your conversations will be intentional, powerful and will feel great.
Did you know that most business owners believe they are self aware but it was found in studies that only 10 to 15 % of business owners are self-aware.
Are you one of the rare self-aware Business owners?
Not sure where to get started? Book for your free strategy session and learn some great business insights. You can of my “Take 5 to Answer 5” – How to prioritize your time and projects to get your sh*t done!