The EQ Leader

Chapter 7InterpersonalCreating the Bonds of Trust

Leadership is about empathy. It's about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.

—OPRAH WINFREY

I was at a meeting with other CEOs of entrepreneurial companies where the topic of discussion centered on workplace challenges. One CEO, Ted, who owned a chain of restaurants, was concerned about the manager of one of his locations. As far as he was concerned, the manager was a good guy, had great business acumen, high standards, was honest, but Ted couldn't understand the high turnover rate of staff at that one location. It was more than triple the turnover rate at his other restaurants.

We suggested he go back and talk with the manager about the situation. Find out how the manager saw the state of affairs, whether he saw it as a problem, what it might be, and how he might deal with it. In addition, we suggested he meet privately with some of the staff and get a sense from them of how things were going.

It didn't take too long for Ted to get a clearer picture of what was happening. The manager thought things were just fine. He went on about the younger generation having no work ethic, not listening to him, and so on. The staff, on the other hand, detailed several examples where the manager was rude to them, didn't support them when customers were being unreasonable, gave mixed messages in his instructions to them, and generally was not pleasant to work with. What ...