Audience: Leaders and Managers
Overview: Leaders and Managers interested in what they can do to positively grow their staff and impact their organization’s culture.
By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
The other day I ran across a blog post I’d saved from April, 2022 entitled Two Ways to Help Your Team Members Feel Heard.
Communication is one of the biggest dimensions of culture and this post speaks to learning how to communicate and practice gratitude and humility in the workplace.
It goes on to share research showing those who experience gratitude are more likely to seek feedback and ‘…act with humility.’ And those managers who show more humility have employees who subsequently report ‘…higher levels of team voice’. One supports the other.
A simple example happened to me just yesterday.
I sent an email to the Administrative Assistant of an organization apologizing and saying I must have inadvertently deleted some information he had sent that was needed for an upcoming meeting.
I ended with sharing how much I appreciated his talents and everything he does for people like me who lose things. He was gracious enough to tell me not to worry about it and that I’m not the only one. I exhibited gratitude and humility and he felt heard and responded.
However, I feel there are a couple of other behaviors needed that require a bit more introspection to be successful —self-awareness and self-regulation.
They require stepping outside of yourself, assessing your current communication approach, and becoming more intentional about developing and successfully sharing something like gratitude and humility.
Self-awareness
The ability to be aware of your own behaviors and actions. It’s natural for most of us to have bias about how well or how effectively we think we communicate. Do you already share gratitude and practice humility? What types of things are you sharing when communicating with your staff? How often do any of us do or say something and receive a response different than what we perhaps expected…or none at all?
Self-Regulation
When you identify and take responsibility to change or institute a behavior. This is the final piece of the puzzle for improved communications. Because regardless of introspection and desires, unless you regulate your own behaviors to respond to the expressed needs of your employees, nothing really changes.
Our Organizational Behavioral Intelligence™ (OBI), shows us that organizations that practice clear and empathetic messaging and communication skills have resulting data indicating a strong and healthy culture.
Why? When employees feel connected and cared for, their feelings of trust and well-being escalate—key indicators for any culture. It’s the type of culture people want to join and grow with. This type of focus impacts retention, performance and productivity as your organization moves through the inevitable world of change and growth.
Take a first step
Strengthen your communication muscle and help begin to develop your organization into a culture into a strong and healthy place where people want to work. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer at The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, meeting facilitation, consulting and training.
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