Q: Sometimes I don’t think my employees are listening to me as their leader. Do other leaders ever feel that way?
A: Yes they do. You might try doing and saying things a little differently to peak their interest.
Something that I try to remember is not to be too predictable. It’s okay to follow policies and systems, but when you become too predictable as a leader, people start to say “We know what Dan’s going to say”. Or they may say, “Here’s what Dan will do.”
There are certain points that we try to make to our employees not just once, but many times so that they remember them. Often times we start to say them the same way and even handle situations the same way
When that starts to happen, people begin to read you like a book. In fact, whether it’s employees or customers, we should occasionally do things differently so that people listen to what we say each time they have an interaction with us. It’s not that what you’re doing is incorrect but consider doing things and saying things a little differently to get different results. Consider shaking things up a bit.
HOMEWORK TO HELP YOU LEVEL UP
Here’s a little homework to help you think outside the box: Read some books that you may not have ever thought of reading. This will give you some new ideas and principles to practice. It will make you less predictable and maybe more effective.
