This post originally appeared on Forbes.
Recent polling shows that 1 of every 4 adults globally is experiencing significant loneliness, and the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has warned of an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” There are many ways for individuals to try to mitigate their own loneliness, but given that we spend so much time at work—for the average person, it’s 90,000 hours over their lifetime—doesn’t it make sense for leaders to address the human need for connection and belonging?
Jerry Colonna, venture capitalist-turned-executive coach and author of Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong, thinks so. In a recent conversation, he explained how it’s possible for leaders to create work environments that are actually good for people. He believes the workplace can foster relationships that are “a kind of intimate collaboration, where people can finish each other’s sentences and really spark creativity between each other.” For Colonna, this quality of connection is possible even though not everybody gets exactly what they want all the time. It’s still work, after all. But leaders who are willing to connect deeply in work relationships will get better results. These four approaches can help both leaders and employees accomplish more and feel good about their work.
Show Your Own Humanity
For people in positions of power, “The number one challenge that needs to be overcome is the belief that they have to be right, get it right and be infallible,” Colonna explains. “Because of that belief system, more often than not, they fail to do anything or fail to say anything” when conditions are unclear or there’s any risk. Too many managers, he says, have “a basic belief that if I say the wrong thing—one thing—I can’t take it back.”
Instead of being overly risk-averse and self-protective, Colonna recommends leading with authenticity: “Start by being more human yourself.” Employees want their leaders to show empathy for how employees are feeling, he notes, but they also want to know that their leaders have their own feelings. In practice, this means acknowledging one’s own potential for error or unsureness: “The news this weekend was really, really hard. I don’t know what to say. But I want you to know that I was feeling fill-in-the-blank.”
Attend Carefully To What Employees Need
Most employees want more time with their managers. But since managers are usually rewarded for throughput and efficiency, and can feel overloaded with meetings, they may give short shrift to investing the time and energy that deep listening requires. Instead, they can default to what Colonna calls “fast pattern matching,” making quick judgments about situations based on their own past experience.
Although fast pattern matching can be a useful business tool, Colonna says leaders create problems when they “try to use that skill set inappropriately.” For example, he says, “A colleague comes to us and they are presenting a challenge and we immediately go to fast pattern matching. We run the risk of actually not listening to the situation or the person—and they feel unsafe, they feel dropped, and they feel uncared for.” In addition to creating distress for the employee, the manager may also miss a more accurate but unexpected pattern in favor of looking for an expected one.
Give Context For Leadership Actions
Part of the leader’s job is to deliver bad news when necessary. Colonna believes employees are fully capable of receiving bad news, particularly when they’re treated with dignity, but he recognizes that some leaders will be untruthful, inappropriately apologetic or overly protective of employees—mostly just to make themselves feel better.
He encourages leaders to provide employees with the context for their decisions. This helps employees tolerate and accept difficult news—they can continue to feel safe in their work environment and believe that they have a place there. For example, here’s how he advises having a conversation with a team member after another team member has been let go: “I know that our letting Jane go may make you feel nervous. Let me assure you that the business is fine. And out of an abundance of respect for Jane, I’m not going to share with you the specifics of her termination. But rest assured that, as we always do, we treated her with dignity.” Colonna says this contextual conversation will help reduce fear and sustain connection. As he explains, “You can’t say everything. But can you say something? Yes.”
Revisit Tough Conversations That Go Awry
One typical stance leaders take is to “think we’re going to increase productivity in a work environment by pretending that our colleagues are not human beings with human feelings,” says Colonna. “The reason we do that is that we’re terrified that they’re going to turn it into a therapy session. Or worse, we’re terrified that they’re going to say something and [we] won’t know how to respond.”
But even if a difficult conversation goes badly, it’s usually possible to make the situation or relationship better. For leaders who mess up an interaction with a subordinate, Colonna recommends that before trying to repair the harm, they should recognize if they’ve been operating out of their own insecurities and trying to feel better about themselves. For people who have equal power, Colonna prefers this framing: “I will take 100 percent responsibility for my 50 percent contribution to a bad encounter.” Revisiting an encounter that did not go as you had hoped is much trickier if you’re in the role with less power, he notes, but you can still say something like, “Look, when I approached you about this, my hope [was] such-and-such. Obviously, it didn’t go that way. But I remain hopeful about the circumstance changing, and I’m open to hearing more feedback and more context so that I can better attune to what it is.”
It’s also possible to reset by explicitly taking responsibility for what went wrong, Colonna notes. You can say, for instance: “I wanted to circle back to a conversation that we had last week. It really feels to me in hindsight that because I was carrying anxiety or frustration or irritation from another situation, I kind of took it out on you. And that’s not who I really want to be, so I want to give you more context, which I failed to do last time, for why I still have to say no to your request. But I also encourage you to continue to come to me and I commit to do my best to continue to grow. Because, just like you, I’m a work in progress.’”
There will always be work conflicts and management decisions that are not supported by all employees. But when leaders are willing to acknowledge their own failings and behave with compassion and humanity, employees are more likely to feel safe, accepted and connected.
Onward and upward—
LK