Effective Communication: How to Build Trust in Today's Workplace

“Come on in, Ted. Grab a seat for our quarterly meeting, and let’s find out which balls we’ve been dropping for the last six months and who needed support but didn’t get it!”

Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

If you’re not meeting with your direct reports regularly—like every single week—that’s essentially what you’re saying. 

You heard me. You should be meeting with your managers on the same day, at the same time…  Every. Single. Week.

Why? Because it’s your job to empower them. To keep your finger on their pulse, give them your undivided attention so they can ask questions enabling you to dig deeper.

Effective leaders stay curious.

Not sure what you’d even talk about that often? Here are four questions you should be asking your direct reports at every meeting: 

• What’s going well? (This is important because people rarely focus on what IS working.)

• What isn’t going as well as you would like it to? (This opens up the space instead of leaving people defensive.)

• What do you need from me to get your job done?

• Do you have any questions for me?

Now here’s the kicker: as you ask each question, stay curious. Stay open to new ideas and viewpoints. That’s where the magic happens.

If you immediately jump into fix-it mode or draw conclusions… stop yourself. Pause. Take time to reflect on what you’ve heard and give thoughtful feedback. And when the situation calls for it, or when you sense doubt, ask more questions! Chances are your team will have more to share.

Weekly meetings are an opportunity to empower your direct reports and encourage them to self-reflect on how they’re doing and what they need. When they know those same questions are coming every 7 days, they’ll become intimately related to what’s working, what needs to improve, and how they can advocate for themselves. 

This practice creates accountability while simultaneously communicating that you trust your people to step up and speak up.

When each individual knows that they have a spot on your calendar, the neatest thing happens: they will start driving the meetings so you don’t have to! That, my friends, is how you know you’ve rounded a corner.

Get human, see results.

Most folks will welcome this type of weekly contact. People want to do well at their jobs and are looking for managers to act as coaches—to give direction, answer questions, ASK questions, and support the team as human beings.

Here’s the thing: work has changed since the start of the pandemic. People are no longer willing to be treated like automatons. They’re no longer willing to put off living their best lives so they can work themselves to the bone for someone else. They’re human beings, and they expect to be treated that way. They expect you to show up that way too.

They want to live their best lives AND do good work. 

The pandemic also cracked us all open emotionally. People are more willing than ever to open up and share, to be authentic, and to get vulnerable. They want to be seen, heard, and appreciated, and they want the same for others.

This new world of work demands the same openness and authenticity from leaders.  Sharing yourself authentically with your team opens the gate to trust and rapport. Do you need to share all your private business? Of course not! But you need to show that you’re human, too. 

Weigh the risks of losing sight of your humanity.

Here’s what happens when you don’t pay attention to your team’s humanity: I had a client whose employee asked for a rare day off. For her husband’s funeral. Her husband had been suffering from cancer for two years and had finally passed away. And my client had no idea he’d even been sick. He felt terrible that he hadn’t known and wasn’t given the opportunity to support his employee. He realized he had failed to create an environment in which she felt comfortable sharing this life-altering news with him sooner.

If you don’t have a solid rapport with your team- especially your direct reports- and you notice you haven’t been empowering your people at levels BEYOND their jobs, there’s still time to fix that. 

Step one is to get a really good coach (ahem). 

Step two is to get your weekly 1:1 meeting on the books with every single one of your direct reports and start asking the four questions above.  Even more important? Make sure never to cancel, except in an emergency. 

Nobody will be “quietly quitting” when they have consistent, weekly meetings with you to share authentically about how things are going and what they need to do their jobs well. 

Remember: Your teams want your leadership and engagement, not just for you to sign the check and delegate work. And they NEED you to care about them. It’s time to start showing them that you do.

Want to strategize how to be more effective in your weekly 1:1 meetings to skyrocket your overall team’s potential?

Schedule a call with me by clicking here.

I’m your solution to that uncertainty you might be feeling when I say weekly meetings will make a difference for you and your team.