Share Yourself

Share yourself; be vulnerable; you are not a robot.  You are not just some manager up on this ladder that everyone must look up to. You are a person and your employees know this, so help them understand that and share yourself.

We are not talking about a cheesy get-to-know-me powerpoint presentation.  (Although, you can do that, even after I made fun of it just now.)

We are talking about letting down any barriers to your personality.  You are human, you are going to make mistakes, so don’t try to hide them.  Embrace those mistakes and follow up with a solution.  Not only will this open you up to your team, but it will also set an example to them: fix your screw ups.

Share your life and be more personable.  What are your drives and goals?  What frustrates you?  What are the key attributes and skills that you bring to the team, and what are you working on to improve?  Keep your sharing around the topic of the team and the business.  By doing this, you are allowing your team and employees to open up around the business too.

They will begin to share similar topics with you.  This is key information that will help you to build the team stronger.  You can use this knowledge to utilize different people on the next project or to have them train another employee.  If you find that you are lacking a skill on the team, hire a new member to fill in the gaps or send someone to training.  Understand their frustrations to try to avoid conflict in the future.

You can share personal, “private” items too, but remember you are still at work representing the business or organization.  Also, just because you share personal items does not mean your team is obligated to as well.  In fact, you need to be cognizant and respectful to what private items your team does share.  If someone is not comfortable opening up in this way, that is their right.  Leave them be.  Most importantly, if someone does open up with personal sharing and it offends or affects someone else in a negative way, you will need to address that situation, promptly.

This leadership stuff can be tricky because it is more about people and relationships than it is purely about the work.  Sharing yourself will open up the team and lead to vital, useful knowledge for everyone’s success.