Developing a strategy for ‘Connection’ can have enormous influence on the way your people think and connect, and plays an important role in fundamental transformation of any businesses culture and work environment. There are three behaviour-based concepts that must be adopted and learned in order to successfully transform connection: attentiveness (focus on others), alertness (emotional sensitivity to others), and adaptability (resiliency to respond to changing events).
There is no one of these more important than the other, but the easiest to achieve is probably ‘Attentiveness – focus on others. Many leaders are so task focused that they forget to be people focused. They forget that they rely on others to get the work done, and if those “others” are unhappy, unmotivated, and disengaged from their leaders, the quality of their work declines.
Some leaders even go so far as to acknowledge the need and value of attentiveness, but say tasks must come first in order to meet team or corporate level goals and objectives. This is a major cop-out of their true purpose. It is no wonder that a task-focused leader has employees who show up to work, only to earn a paycheck.
Employees who have a strong work ethic and like their job will put as much of their heart and soul into their activities as they can, for as long as they can. We would consider these people “ideal employees.” Eventually though, their lack of connection with the leader will negatively affect their morale and motivation. When this happens, it is very likely these high performers will leave your organization.
Employees who are below average performers fare even worse in this scenario. Under a task-focused leader, these employees never have a chance to learn new skills or develop their talents. Their poor attitude will worsen and poison the attitude of their co-workers. Worst-case scenario you keep these low performers in your organization. Most of them will compel you to fire them. However, by the time you do eventually fire them, you have given them ample time to poison the work environment and take others down with them.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.