I recently finished Gallup’s Strengths-Based Leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people follow, by Tom Rather. What I found most interesting in the book was not the 34 strengths applied to leadership, or even how these 34 strengths break down into 4 unique leadership categories. What I found most interesting were the results of the Gallup poll asking over 10,000 followers what they wanted from a leader.

The poll was done with an open-ended question asking for 3 distinct words to describe what the leader had contributed to the follower’s life. Out of 30,000 words, these were the top four. These are the 4 most desired contributions from leaders. If you want to improve yourself as a leader; here’s your list of what your followers want.

Trust

This was the foundational word everything else was built upon. If the followers know your word is not much of a bond, you’ll be paid back in kind. An interesting observation from the Gallup research, the teams with trust issues constantly talked about trust. The teams with the highest levels of trust throughout rarely spoke of it.  In other words, when trust was there, more work got done. Covey organization has covered this topic well in their book The Speed of Trust.

Compassion

This one was interesting because Gallup had more accumulated data on this one topic than any other. They had interviewed over 10 Million people by asking them about whether or not their leader cares about them as a person. In other words, are they compassionate and caring about you as a person. The people who agreed with that statement were:

• more likely to stay
• had more engaged customers
• were more productive
• were more profitable

Stability

Rath points out stability can be created fastest with transparency. He says that followers want to know that you have a moral compass of core values that never changes. They can see it in your decisions and how you communicate. Then, sharing information without holding onto secrets shows the team you are willing to communicate openly. Stability helps to reinforce trust in you as the leader.

When I arrived in our Dallas office I inquired if someone had asked our new VP about the meeting he wanted to call for that afternoon. My colleague quickly said, “I’m not gonna ask him! I have no idea which boss showed up today.” Our VP was not known for his stability and transparency. Depending on which emotion had tagged him on the way into work, he allowed it to drive his communication patterns throughout the day.

Hope

They found that stability was desirable in the moment, but hope was the dominant desire for the future. One way to show this is by looking at your balance of reacting versus being proactive. If the leader is constantly in reaction mode, it appears they are not in control and they’re unable to see into the future. Without vision, it becomes obvious the ship is not sailing in any selected direction. There’s a difference between keeping a boat afloat long enough to be discovered and rescued and sailing a ship from one location to a  selected destination.

What’s the one thing all 4 words have in common?

When I’m providing communication coaching, I’ll get asked questions like, “How do I engage the audience to show them I care?” When I hear this question near the beginning of a relationship I like to respond with a question first. “Do you care about them?”  The typical response is, “Of course I do.” My next question is, “How have you proven that to them recently?”

I don’t teach acting. I don’t teach others how to artificially create a connection through communicate techniques. I coach to expose authenticity. I’m going to make you transparent.

I’ve learned over the past quarter of a century if you want to connect with an audience and gain their support, the most effective method is to be authentic. As a communication coach, exposing authenticity is much easier (and more effective) than crafting an artificial facade based on what you think the audience wants to see.

It’s just that one word…

The one thing all four words have in common is quite simply… Love. Now that’s not a word you hear thrown around the board room too often, but it’s what your followers want.  They want to know you truly care about them. They want to know you see them as worthy of respect. They want to be seen as a person, not a resource. They want to be more than a means to the leader’s end. They want to be loved.

Go love your people and lead them to greatness!
Russ

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Books referenced in this post:

The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, by Stephen M.R. Covey

Strengths-Based Leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people follow, by Tom Rather

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Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a speaker, international trainer, and published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

** Gallup has been polling public opinion since George Gallup founded the firm in 1935.