GROW STRONG TEAMS

RETAINING TOP EMPLOYEES

leadership development

WHAT APATHY IN LEADERSHIP LOOKS LIKE

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Dictatorial and power-hungry people in charge don’t make the worst leaders, surprisingly enough. But when apathy in leadership shows its face inside your business, you’ve got a major hill to climb.

NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY STAND

Maybe it’s something that’s flown under your radar for some time. You’re not experiencing much disagreement or pushback from your team.

But you have this sense that they’re not functioning at anywhere close to the capacity you believe they’re capable of.

This is one of the best clues that your team is under the direction of an apathetic leader. Whether that’s you or someone else you’ve designated the job to.

Things that matter aren’t getting done in a timely fashion. There’s a sense that your team members aren’t feeling truly heard or understood.

Yet empty praise gets delivered to the underperforming team because your leader is “out of touch” with what’s really happening with the team’s performance.

OTHER KEY INDICATORS OF AN APATHETIC LEADER IN CHARGE

As it turns out, team members would rather have a “boss” who was power-hungry or who micromanaged them than someone who acted like they didn’t exist at all.

Of course, that’s the extreme of apathy…Not acknowledging much of anything or anyone else with a relevant and reasonable response. But it’s a cancer that can and will surely take over your entire staff.

That is if they stay long enough at their post.

All other relevant factors considered, like skill suitability for the job, high turnover is a key indicator your leader is apathetic.

That is if they stay long enough at their post.

Lack of open conversations, signs of distrust, high absentee rates, poor decision-making, and increased stress levels are other potential side effects.  

DEEPER REPERCUSSIONS OF APATHY IN YOUR WORKPLACE

Indifference is a way of being towards others that makes nearly every human retreat. 

Sensing a lack of energy, concern, excitement, or passion from a leader instills in your team that they don’t matter. What they want, how they think, what they feel isn’t important.

As your greatest asset, your team needs to feel connected, relevant, and absolutely necessary to the success of your business. If they don’t, you’ll very soon be filling vacancies.

ENERGY LEVELS AND APATHY IN LEADERSHIP

More often than not, a leader who is apathetic is operating at a Level 3 on the seven levels of energy scale. And that leaves your team operating at Level 1. Both of these levels are catabolic in nature.

Essentially, at Level 3, the leader feels as if everything is fine. They rationalize. Coping with the day to day is where they’re vibrating at. This essentially means they’re not leading with intention and appear to have “checked out” on what’s really going on with their team and in the business.

At Level 1 energy, the team members feel stuck. Like they can’t have or do what they choose. They’re operating at a level of fear and feel directionless. Operating at this level long enough causes analysis paralysis, lack of action, and problem-focused victimhood.

Without an engaged leader to steer the ship, it’s an understatement to say it’s so far off course it may never get headed back to the destination.

CORE DYNAMICS AT PLAY WITH AN APATHETIC LEADER

The good folks at iPEC created a coaching certification known as COR.E Dynamics which allows for a specialization in the area of Leadership.

As a certified graduate of the program who coaches clients on leadership, when I see this problem present, I ask my clients questions surrounding two specific dynamics.

The first is the Awareness core dynamic. And the second is Acceptance.

THE AWARENESS CORE DYNAMIC

To explore awareness, I ask not only about self-awareness but also about the awareness my client has of the others they’re charged with leading.

How aware they are of how they show up as a leader. Awareness of their environment and surroundings.

Most times they get a quick sense of how much of their daily responses are based on automatic behavior. Going through the motions doing what is habitual. Like being on autopilot when you brush your teeth or drive your car.

And, if that’s how you’re living your days, it’s a quick realization that how your team is showing up is a direct reflection of interacting with your disengaged, automatic behavior.

THE ACCEPTANCE CORE DYNAMIC

Once you have awareness, you can move onto a better understanding of why it is you behave, act, or respond as you do.

You get to clear a path and unravel how your past experiences have shaped you into what you stand for and what matters most to you

Instead of being reactionary about life happening to you, there gets to be an acceptance of the part you play in creating the life you have…As well as the one you want.

Working through self-acceptance allows you to accept that the past is gone, to focus on the present, and to reframe or shift your energy from a catabolic level 3 into the higher anabolic levels.

IS APATHY AT PLAY IN YOUR WORKPLACE?

To know this, take a quick look at the following criteria. 

If you can answer yes to witnessing two or more of these conditions, you’ve caught it early enough to affect real change with Core Dynamics Leadership coaching. 

  • Boredom
  • Feeling insecure about tenure in a job
  • Micromanagement
  • Minimal progress
  • Poor performance goes unchecked
  • Team members are unpleasant
  • Lack of communication
  • Team feels no confidence for the leader in charge

CORE DYNAMICS AT PLAY WITH AN APATHETIC LEADER

Ultimately, choosing or being the “right” leader in charge is the ideal way to run your business.

However, nobody is immune to making an underperforming choice or becoming stale on the vine.

Energy has a way of fluctuating from a catabolic to an anabolic state naturally for anyone. Leaders aren’t immune to this truth.

The best course of action you can take is choosing instead to have awareness, acceptance, and getting the assistance you need to reframe your way of thinking about your leadership role.

Treated early enough, dramatic shifts in your team and your workplace can follow closely behind when you choose leadership development to squash apathy. Schedule a free strategy session with me to learn how.

BUILDING TRUST WITHIN YOUR TEAM STARTS WITH THIS

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Without this one attribute, building trust within your team will elude you. That trait every good leader needs…to be transparent. 

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRANSPARENCY

Transparency is one of the five requirements to building trust within your team. Arguably, it’s also the most important.

What exactly does it mean to be transparent?

Some would say, telling it like it is. That’s definitely part of it.

Another response is that being transparent is about being yourself. There’s truth to that too.

Others might equate transparency to telling every person on the team every detail about all non-confidential facts related to the business. This is less of what you’re going for when you practice transparency.

CONSIDER VULNERABILITY 

What if I told you that being a transparent leader meant that you needed to be vulnerable? Show your feelings. Share your concerns. That kind of vulnerability.

When you embrace the fact that you don’t know it all, that you’re fearful, hesitant, overwhelmed, or even anxious, you are not burdening your team.

You’re modeling a behavior of opening up that most aren’t used to experiencing in the workplace. They will not only notice, but will be more likely to follow suit.

YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL

As a leader, business owner, or entrepreneur, your role is not to do everything. 

This may be a tough pill for some of you to swallow, but it’s the truth. Unless, of course, you want to continue down the path to complete burnout.

Your strengths are to develop your business mission and vision. A close second is to pick the right team members to help you carry out the operations of your business.

Being vulnerable means you get to ask those team members for help. Call on the support you’ve already put in place around you when you need it. 

You do it, and they will feel comfortable asking for help when they need it too. 

STAY OPEN 

On the flip side of asking for help when you need it is remaining open to two things.

First, remain open to the help you asked for. Don’t allow your inner critic get in the way and tell you you’re “less than” because you couldn’t do everything yourself. Resisting the help you asked for raises distrust in yourself and your team.

Second, remain open to others on your team who are vulnerable with how they feel and what they need help with. Reserve judgment and acknowledge your team member for feeling comfortable enough to come to you with their request.

In other words, remember to be kind. 

Consider asking the question, “What do you need from me to help you feel better about being able to complete this task.” 

BUILDING TRUST IS A PROCESS

As mentioned before, there are five steps to building trust within your team. Transparency is just one of them.

Being vulnerable, asking for help when you need it, and staying open are critical if you want to practice transparency.

To find out more about the other four team trust building steps,  schedule a free strategy session with me. You’ll leave our session with my winning framework on building team trust and growing a strong team. 

WHAT DISTRUST LOOKS LIKE IN YOUR TEAM AND HOW TO FIX IT

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Trust takes time to earn and only seconds to lose. Quite frankly, distrust in your team is the one thing you can’t afford if you want to run a successful business.

As a leader, you can certainly dictate to your team that they trust each other. In reality, that’s a strategy that can lead to resentment and discontent. Even team-sabbotage.

Not sure if your team is as strong as you think it might be? Here’s what distrust looks like in your team to help you sort it out.

LACK OF COMMUNICATION

Your staff members talk to each other, but in a cursory way. 

In other words, conversations are very matter-of-fact. There’s not much interpersonal interaction or open body language when they are engaged in conversation.

This also shows up when you’re leading a meeting or having a one-on-one with a team member.

If you’re the one doing 99% of the talking, you’re likely dealing with some latent distrust from your team.

INCONSISTENCY 

There’s a general lack of follow-through from team members on completing what they commit to doing in the time frame given.

This may be a subtle clue at first. 

As in, the tasks that may fall to the wayside are ones that aren’t in the core job description of the team member. But eventually, it will pervade into regular assigned daily tasks.

RESISTANCE

Resistance shows up as a kissing-cousin to inconsistency.

Instead of showing up on the back end of not getting all their things done, the team member will outright reject the assignment in the first place. At least, in the most extreme cases.

Other times, resistance rears it’s head as anxiety from a team member that they relay to you or another team member when they’re dangerously close to a deadline on a task they’ve procrastinated. 

A PERVASIVE “I” ATTITUDE

Granted, when presented with a choice on whether to do or not do something, the natural question anyone asks themselves is, “What’s in it for me?”

If the only answer your team member can come up with when you assign them a task is, “My paycheck,” you have a bigger issue at play.

Teams that understand their role in your mission as a business will have a pervasive, “We’ve got this” attitude instead.

PREDOMINANT NEGATIVITY 

Nobody who feels negativity all around them at their workplace is going to jump out of bed excited to show up for the day.

That’s what makes negativity in the workplace so dangerous.

Even the most committed and optimistic team members are susceptible to the far-reaching effects of a negative environment. If the energy feels low in your workplace, check-in on the energy of your team.

UNRESOLVED CONFLICT  

Negativity’s close friend, conflict is a sure sign your team doesn’t trust each other. Or worse yet, you.

Conflict doesn’t have to show up as outright voice-raising either. In fact, many times, it shows its face as passive-aggressive behavior.

Internal or external, unresolved conflict amongst your team members is a sure sign of distrust. 

YOU SUSPECT HIDDEN AGENDAS AT PLAY

This concept may be a bit foreign to you. It’s more about using your intuitive sense than your logical one.

If you have a “gut feeling” that one or more of your team members is operating with the intent to manipulate others into producing an outcome that is contrary to yours, you’re probably right.

What’s even more eye-opening is the realization that the team member with the hidden agenda may not even be aware that they have one.

CLIQUES FORM

Also called silos, these are pockets of team members who form a pack, much like animals who hunt do. 

The intention of a clique is to form a tight partnership with one or two other team members that they “trust” and to isolate the rest of the team who they distrust.

Interestingly enough, even members inside the clique may not trust each other fully, but they bond as a form of protection because they are more alike than other members of the team.

HOW TO FIX DISTRUST IN YOUR TEAM

Strong leadership is the way to overcome distrust and to foster a workplace environment based on trust.

And, while it would be fantastic to have instant trust and rapport with and among your team members, it’s not that simple.

It’s a process that takes daily practice. Not just in the workplace, but at home too.

Leaders need to model what a trusting relationship looks like if they want to grow strong teams.

To do that, there are five essential steps.

FIVE STEPS TO BUILDING TRUST

Being certified in Conversational Intelligence, one of the concepts I adopted quickly into strategy as a leader are the following trust-building steps.

Step 1 – Being transparent

Step 2 – Fostering relationships

Step 3 – Understanding others

Step 4 – Sharing and showing

Step 5 – Truth-telling

Each of these steps comes with its own set of parameters and exercises you can use to develop these characteristics.

Is your team showing one or more of the signs of distrust mentioned earlier? Maybe it’s time for a team-building outsider’s perspective. 

For a deeper understanding of how you can use each of these steps to develop a team that trusts, schedule a free strategy session with me. I’ll listen to what’s happening with your team right now and give you some actionable takeaways to use to improve your workplace environment.