SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 160,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each Tuesday in our e-newsletter.
Last week, we asked: How well do you stay in touch with your team members’ day-to-day reality?
- Very well — I understand most of what they go through: 51.48%
- Well — I’m up to speed on the big things but not the little ones: 31.5%
- Extremely well — I completely understand what they go through: 13.5%
- Not very well — I’m a bit out of touch with their situation: 3.09%
- Poorly — I live in an ivory tower: 0.42%
The ivory tower is vacant. It’s encouraging to see how many of you are in touch with your team’s reality. Maintaining an understanding of what challenges they face and the work you’re asking them to do helps you build respect and get better performance out of them. It’s not always easy to make time for staying in touch, so even if you’re good at it, you should create reminders for yourself to regularly get out and understand your team’s environment. In doing so, you’re telling them you care about the work they do for you.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS and author of “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”