Manage Like You Love Your Team

We talk a lot on this blog about leading virtually. Webmeetings, training and collaboration might be different if you loved them, not just led them.

How do you feel about the members of your team? Do you like everyone? Now, let's take it further. Do you love them? If the very subject gives you the willies, and makes you uncomfortable, I apologize, but it's worth asking.

I'm not asking if you love them in a romantic (or a creepy non-HR-approved) way. I'm talking about how you give feedback, encourage, lead or create expectations for your team. As Lisa Haneberg points out in her new book, "Double the Love- 11 Secrets for Cultivating Highly Accountable and Engaged Teams", this approach can make the difference between success and failure.

Many of us (dare I suggest, mostly men) are hugely uncomfortable with the "L" word. Love, as Haneberg defines it, is not weird, soft-and-mushy-touchy-feely or amorphous. It's a verb, not a noun. In this case, Haneberg says, it means "doing the right thing on behalf of others".

Sometimes that means rewarding them, encouraging them, and being their biggest fan. But (as any parent will tell you) love can also mean giving honest, direct feedback and challenging people's assumptions.

Haneberg offers 11 "secrets" for creating engaged teams.

Read the rest of the article here.

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