Steps to Better Leadership – Part 2

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Christopher Gayle, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

Emotional Connection

Q: Why is Trump so popular? How did he do this? What’s his secret?

A: Everything Trump says is highly emotionally charged; he speaks to the emotions and fears of his supporters. It doesn’t matter if his message is aggressive, angry or xenophobic – it still resonates with people.

Q: Why do we fall for TV commercials? Why do your children listen to celebrities and the “bad kids” more than they listen to you?

A: Because advertisers and the bad kids both know that before they can get someone to take action (buy product “x” or to start smoking), first they have to connect emotionally in a deep and powerful way. Whether they communicate the feelings of “fun” or “cool”, or make you feel special/important or through fear or negative peer pressure; either way, the first step is to make a very strong emotional connection.

If you can make a strong emotional connection, your ability to Lead and have people follow becomes much easier.

We’re not talking about “logic”, so get out of your head (analysis) and get into your heart and emotions. If doing this is too “mushy”, too beneath you or too uncomfortable, then please make room for the Leaders who can and will. You’re about to be eclipsed.

It doesn’t matter if the emotional connection is positive, healthy and beneficial (Martin Luther King) or negative, full of rage and destructive (Adolph Hitler). Step one is always to create a strong emotional connection. I strongly advise exercising a strong moral and ethical foundation – and stick to the Light Side of the Force – as you start connecting with people on an emotional level.

More specifically, by a strong emotional connection, I mean understand your followers by seeing the world through their eyes or “walking a mile in their shoes”. Understand the physical and emotional reality of their world: their problems, hopes, goals, aspirations, fears.

- Advertisers have invested untold amounts of money studying the emotional “hot buttons” that deeply trigger you and lead you to buy things you really don’t need.

- At the start of every romantic relationship you’ve ever had, you actively did and said things to connect to your new partner on an emotional (romantic, seductive) level to convince them to “follow you” or “take action”; for example to go out with you on a second date (let’s keep this G-Rated people).

If people don’t think you care – zero emotional connection – they will never buy into your message or willingly follow you.

Getting people to willingly follow leadership is a big problem in the workplace. There’s a massively huge difference between following because I’m inspired to follow, and following because I need a paycheck.

All too often we hear how management and senior executives “just don’t get it” or “they just don’t care”. Over time a chasm of resentment, cynicism and distrust grows between employer and employee. Leadership; as well as creativity; is totally absent in these environments.

We also hear about businesses that were very emotionally connected to their customers in the beginning when the business was new and the founder(s) had a burning mission to change the world! But over time the business “lost its innovative edge” and started losing customers, usually because the core team lost emotional connection with its original purpose.

>> Emotional connection leads to influence.

Dishonest, disingenuous, self-serving, manipulative emotional connections will work, but the results will be short-lived, and as history has shown time and again the backlash can be enormous.

Genuine, honest, pure, win-win emotional connections from a place of sincere humility can radically transform your workplace, your relationships, and your family dynamics for the better.

Simple, Fast, Free Action Steps

1. Cultivate humility.

No one is obligated to follow you, or participate in your personal or professional world.

Customers don’t have to buy from you.
Employees can quit.
Business can find other strategic partners to work with.

Be open to learning. Generate the courage to hear some very strong, potentially unpleasant feedback.

2. Learn to step into and understand the world of others.

In the context of the workplace, what do people love and hate about working at your company, in your division or department?
What help or support do they need? What pains are they burdened with?
Never punish or retaliate if the feedback you receive is strong and negative. I’m sad to say I’ve seen this happen on more than one occasion and the damage to morale and to the relationship between manager and employee is catastrophic.

You can always disagree with the feedback, but never retaliate or punish.

3. Appreciate their world

One of the most powerful tools I use to create change – a tool you can use right now – is to create a safe space for people to be heard and then honor and acknowledge that their perspective and point-of-view is real and felt.

Whatever your employees, spouse/intimate-other or children see, feel and experience, is real and true to them. Honor it, acknowledge it and appreciate it.

If you can’t humble yourself and open yourself up to create a genuine, sincere emotional connection with those you’re supposed to lead – as is appropriate for the purpose of understanding, honoring and acknowledging their hopes, wants, pain points and frustrations – you will forever have an uphill struggle of pushing, dragging, threatening, punishing and fighting people to move in the direction you want them to go.

For some of you, taking action to begin the process of creating or rebuilding emotional connections will only require a small shift in your focus and priorities.

For others this may require you to start to change and evolve who you are from the inside out.

People will always care more about how they feel and what they want, way more than anything you have to say as “the person in charge”.