Wednesday this week, an older woman with a red carry-on sized suitcase in tow was laboring to make her way down the Avenue of the Americas in New York City. From her crotch to her ankles, both legs of her gray sweatpants were soaked with fresh urine. She stopped abruptly and arched her back in a motion that appeared to be a seizure. There were at least 20 people within 10 feet of her at that moment.

I was one of those folks. I was in a tremendous hurry to get back to Radio City Music Hall after lunch to listen to the end of the second and final day of incredible leaders at the World Business Forum. I distinctly remember hastening my pace as this woman seized up because I was concerned that if I had to stop and help it would make me late for the 2 pm session.

On my long plane ride home yesterday, I thought again about that woman and became very troubled.

I teach leadership, I blog about leadership, and I had just spent a day and a half listening to world-class speeches on leadership. Yet, when the moment on that street in NYC came for me to assume responsibility and do the right thing, I failed to act and never looked back. I was too busy learning and writing about leadership to walk my own talk in the moment of need. I was too busy to care, something I have repeatedly said is the cornerstone of leadership.

I’d love to tell you that I will behave differently the next time something like that happens to me, but that would be a lie. I recognize that I need to behave differently, and I give intellectual assent to the fact that I want to behave differently, but I honestly don’t know that I will.

It’s not brain tumors that cause anemic leadership. It’s heart disease.

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Nine Supportive Leadership Behaviors

A few days ago I blogged about how recent research suggests that value congruence – the extent to which employees can behave at work consistent with their own self-image – might enhance employee engagement. Employees are just not likely to fully invest their head, hands, and hearts in work they don’t find meaningful.

But employees also need to believe their work is manageable. This recent research also showed a link between perceived organizational support and engagement.

Individuals feel safe in organizational contexts perceived to be trustworthy, secure, predictable, and clear in terms of behavioral consequences….Individuals with trusting interpersonal relationships in supportive organizational environments are able to take risks, expose their real selves, and try and perhaps fail without fearing the consequences (Kahn, 1990)…Thus, supportive management and interpersonal relationships foster feelings of psychological safety that increases willingness to engage fully in work roles. (Rich, et al. 2010, p. 621).

Just to be clear, let me show you some of the questions the researchers asked employees in order to measure perceived organizational commitment:

• The organization takes pride in my accomplishments
• The organization really cares about my well-being
• The organization values my contributions to its well-being
• The organization strongly considers my goals and values
• The organization shows little concern for me (reverse scored)

Employees need support at work if they are expected to deliver the performance and citizenship that result from engagement. If employees believe they work for folks that don’t value their contributions or care about their well-being, they won’t feel safe enough to fully engage in their work.

I think this is ultimately a supervisory issue. If the organization is sincerely trying to provide this support to employees but discovers that individual supervisors are not fully “engaged” in the effort, those supervisors need to be developed or replaced. If you as a supervisor work for an organization that does not sincerely care about you or your direct reports, you should do your best to stop that “shit from rolling downhill” and provide those you have been given the privilege to supervise with as much support as you can.

As I’ve said a number of times, there is no substitute for caring. We now have some credible evidence for a link between caring, engagement, and employee performance.

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Help Your Employee Kick Ass

Fairness Matters

In my last video, I talked about the importance of relationship to leadership.  In those four short minutes I mainly discussed how healthy relationships are characterized by mutual expectations that all parties recognize as legitimate.  I also encouraged you to learn to become an independent and interdependent follower so that you can recognize, appreciate, and encourage that in others when you have the privledge to lead.

I did not get a chance to talk about the importance of caring, which I discuss in this brief video.  There is no substitute for performance – being very good at your given responsibilities – and no substitute for caring – about what you do, why you do it, who you do it for and who you do it with.

You simply MUST learn the value of caring as a follower.  If you don’t develop this as a follower, it will be very difficult to develop as a leader.  We don’t trust people that we think don’t care about us, and you will not accomplish very much as a leader if people don’t trust you.

Remember this: you can’t fake caring.  All we have to do is listen to what you say and watch what you do over time and it will be obvious what you really care about.

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Trust

My Bottom Line

My Favorite Way to Think About Leadership: Part 2