If you’ve ever been apart or watched teams sports at any level – you have probably observed that many coaches lead through fear and intimidation.
TEAM PLAYER OR A DICTATOR (PART 2)
I’ve been on both sides as a player and bystander. I’ve seen coaches criticize players for making mistakes, or yell and scream at players in frustration because the game isn’t going the way the coach would like. I’ve noticed when coaches are “screamers,” their players eventually tune them out, or even worse, become so afraid to make mistakes they fail to give their best effort.
Unfortunately, this kind of leadership isn’t limited to the world of sports. Our workplaces have plenty of leaders who try to lead through fear. Maybe you work for one? Maybe youare one?
Even if you aren’t the stereotypical gruff, volatile, loud, in-your-face type of boss, you may be casting a shadow of fear over your team without even realizing it. Your positional authority alone is enough to create a certain amount of anxiety and stress in the hearts of your employees. Add in some common fear-inducing behaviors leaders often use like hoarding information, losing their temper, and not protecting the interests of their employees, you’ve got the recipe for creating timid and fearful team members.
Fear is the enemy of trust. It’s hard, if not virtually impossible, for trust to survive if there is fear in a relationship. The two are polar opposites just like night and day, black and white, pain and pleasure, success and failure, or even Michigan and Ohio State (Go Blue!).
In order to become a trusted leader, you need to lower, and hopefully eliminate, the amount of fear in the relationships with those you lead. Here are six ways to lower fear and build trust:
1. Be consistent in your behavior – Unpredictability breeds fear. If your employees can’t reasonably predict how you’ll react in a given situation, they’ll be afraid to step out and take risks. They’ll always be on edge, not knowing who’s going to show up at the office, the “good boss” that will support their efforts and have their back should they make a mistake, or the “bad boss” that will fly off the handle and punish them for their failure.
2. Treat mistakes as learning opportunities – High-trust cultures give employees confidence to set BHAG’s – big hairy audacious goals – and risk failure by not achieving them. Rather than penalize your employees when they make a mistake, use the opportunity to coach them on how to do better the next time around.
3. Explain the “why” – Let your team members know the “why” behind the questions you ask or the decisions you make. It will help them better understand your thought processes and motivations and create more buy-in to your leadership. Failure to explain the “why” leaves people wondering about why you do what you do and sows the seeds of doubt and fear.
4. Share information about yourself – The Johari Window is a helpful model that illustrates how you can improve communication and build trust with others by disclosing information about yourself. By soliciting the feedback of others, you can learn more about yourself and how others perceive you.
5. Solicit and use feedback from others – Leaders who rule by fear generally don’t bother soliciting feedback or input from others when making decisions. It’s the boss’ way or the highway. Trusted leaders seek input from others and look for ways to incorporate their ideas into the decisions that are made.
6. Be nice – Say “please”… “thank you”… “you’re welcome”… a little kindness goes a long way in building trust. Simply making the effort to be friendly and build a rapport with others signals to them that you care about them as individuals and not just as workers that show up to do a job.
Action step: Leave a comment. Thoughts? I’d be honored to hear and have you share thoughts. How? Simply leave or submit a comment below and personally commit take one step forward from where you are at today.
Related Posts
Team Player OR Dictator – Photography by Trevor Drinen
This is really interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look forward to seeking more of your wonderful post. Also, I’ve shared your website in my social networks!
Jeremy, thank you very much for the kind words. To say, “I’m a very skilled blogger” is a huge compliment! Why? Because I believe that’s not something I really can say about myself no matter how much I want to say it. Why? Because the credit goes to a team of people that I have and continue to learn from. It also goes to my wife, Leah (soulremedies.net) as I am grammar challenged aka things need editing 🙂 Bottom line: I am very glad to meet you! I’d be honor to hear you thoughts, if you ever want to expand on a post, a thought, toss in a lingering question, or even disagree please feel free. I also wanted to personally extend an invite to to have a cup of tea with me. Why? I’d be honor to get to know you. How? Visit, http://www.trevordrinen.com/starthere/ or toss me an email at: me@trevordrinen.com. Cheers!
Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and I find It really useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something back and help others like you aided me.
I have been surfing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my opinion, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before.
Its Pleasure to realize your blog.The over content is relatively extraordinary, and I really enjoyed reading your blog and points that you just expressed. I incredibly like to glimpse back over a regular basis,post additional from the topic.Thanks for sharing…keep writing!
First things first, hello and welcome! Secondly, thank you very much for taking time out of your day to hang out and interact for a bit. I’d be honored to hear what was useful and how it helped you. Why? I have a lot to learn from your insight, perspective, and story. I’d dig if you would have a “cup of tea” with me? What!?! In other words, I really dig to hear a bit about you: your story, etc… Cheers
Wow, thats a huge compliment – thank you! I’m truly glad you’ve had a good time hanging out this me on this site 🙂 I’d be honored if you expanded more as I think there’s some great insight to be gained from your story. How? I’d be honored to hear what did you find interesting? In reply to your statement, “In my opinion, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before.” Thank you. Know, people fail again and again! I will fail again and again! The ones who are up the next morning are the ones I respect as they like me are living in reality vs some facade. (keeping it real:-) I really am looking forward to interacting with you some more.
thank you very much for the kind words. To say, “content is relatively extraordinary” is a huge compliment! Why? Because I believe that’s not something I really can say about myself no matter how much I want to say it. Why? Because the credit goes to a team of people that I have and continue to learn from. It also goes to my wife, Leah (soulremedies.net) as I am grammar challenged aka things need editing 🙂 Even more so thank you for taking the time to hang with me on this site – It’s an honor to meet you! I’d be really enjoying hearing more about you, you thoughts, if you ever want to expand on a post, a thought, toss in a lingering question, or even disagree please feel free. I also wanted to personally extend an invite to to have a cup of tea with me. Why? I’d be honor to get to know you. How? Visit, http://www.trevordrinen.com/starthere/ or toss me an email at: me@trevordrinen.com. Cheers!