Serving Others to Serve Yourself
SUMMARY
Leadership is about being able to anticipate and meet the needs of not just yourself but also your team as well.
Unfortunately, as we get even busier in this VUCA world, we have that challenge of being able to invest energy in others because we're so flat out, we've got our head down and our tail up, and we're just getting our stuff done, and people feel like they are not being nurtured.
That's the real reason why people leave.
This week, I want to help you to understand how you can shift that situation by being more socially aware, more empathetic, working with your people in a way that says: “I care and understand” by helping you to embrace this wonderful thing called Service Orientation.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you find that attraction and retention of quality people is even more difficult right now than it has been? That’s happening all around the world.
So, as we continue our conversation around social awareness, I want to help you to understand how you can shift that.
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around being more socially aware, more empathetic, working with your people in a way that says: “I care and understand” by helping you to embrace this wonderful thing called Service Orientation.
Over the last few weeks, we've been talking about the quadrant of Social and Emotional intelligence called Social Intelligence, which is all about others. It’s that unique intelligence that helps you to work well with others.
Right now, I'm just about ready to go in a few moments, and work with a group of CEOs and general managers here in Fiji, teaching them about leadership in a VUCA world.
I'm shooting in this brilliant spot with this body of water as my backdrop, and it’s fantastic.
It’s very poignant that I'm here talking about this topic because Fiji is a place that knows how to serve.
You see, I come to serve, not to be served. However, I've learned a lot in my travels around the world in places like this.
There's nothing they don't know how to do to make my stay better, to make sure that I've got everything that I need to be who I need to be so that I can do the training I'm doing.
They think about it in advance rather than it being something that grabs them when a crisis or a problem comes up.
And that's what leadership is all about.
Leadership is about being able to anticipate and meet the needs of not just yourself but also your team as well.
Unfortunately, as we get even busier in this VUCA world, we have that challenge of being able to invest energy in others because we're so flat out, we've got our head down and our tail up, and we're just getting our stuff done, and people feel like they are not being nurtured.
That's the real reason why people leave.
You've probably heard this saying before: "People don't leave organisations; they leave people."
If they feel undervalued by the people they're working with, they will look for it elsewhere.
Service orientation is the third competency in this area of social awareness.
We've talked about empathy and how it differs from apathy which says: “I don’t care", and sympathy, where you just feel sorry.
Empathy says: “I understand.”
We've also talked about having situational awareness so that you can see what's going on around you rather than just being tunnel vision-focused on what you're doing, and you can then be attuned to what's going on.
Service orientation is about anticipating rather than waiting for people to tell you what they want.
To do this, you need to move away from being “ME” centred to being “WE” centred.
You need to understand each individual in your team. For those you don't understand, you need to use the skills we've already talked about to get a deeper understanding of each other.
This is a journey that you will be going on together with your people. It's not something that you are doing alone, however sometimes in leadership, it might feel that way. You feel like: “Am I the only one who understands?”
Well, let me tell you, your people are probably thinking that as well.
As I go this morning into working with these CEOs and general managers here in Fiji, I'm going to serve them.
My whole aim is to make sure that they take out of this what they need. I’m here just because I'm the expert in this area (apparently), and they've flown me in to do this.
The room that I'm working in has a lot of ideas. It has a lot of experience.
What I'm there to do is nurture those ideas and bring them out. I will get them to think differently than what they might have been thinking about things before they came. I will enable them to release from within them what's already there. I will help them remove those roadblocks about how they feel about themselves and to let them go out (after the three days that they're spending with me) feeling more confident in their own abilities.
When that happens, they, too, will be able to duplicate that with the people in their team.
To do that, I need to serve them in more than one way and step up when they need me to. I need to lead the room, but I also need to look around the room. I need to listen and hear what's being said, but also what's not being said. I need to have that situational awareness and use empathy to understand how they might be feeling in their current role or even being in that room with other leaders and feeling like it may not be a place where they can share who they truly are.
Do you know why? This is because they're all human beings, just like you and I, and that’s what we all do.
As a servant leader, it's my role to make sure that I see what's going on, and when there is something that I don't understand, I reflectively listen and have a conversation with them so that I do understand.
Today's a little bit different to where I normally stand in my studio and do this. To be honest, my arm's starting to hurt a little bit, and my camera's shaking.
But that's okay; I wanted to make sure that I got this done and send it off to my team so that you can, get or keep this conversation this conversation going around Service orientation.
So, service orientation is all about asking questions, getting feedback, listening to that feedback and following through on the things that you say that you will change.
When you serve others, you get in return a hundredfold what you expect from them. They want to work for you and want to stay with you because they feel valued, so they don't want to leave.
Service orientation is not about giving up all of who you are and just letting people walk all over you and you doing everything for them. No, it’s not.
Service Orientation is recognising that every one of us is valuable and that we all have talents and gifts that we can utilise together so that we can go to where it is that we're going on this super VUCA journey that we're on right now.
Well, that's it for me for another week.
Join me again next week when I'm back in Australia, and we will continue this conversation around social intelligence and step into the final quadrant of relationship management.
I'll see you then.
