Leaders, listen and take action! This is a direct way to get more buy-in from your team. Spend time with them, listen to them, understand their obstacles and the problems that need solving. Then, lean in and remove the obstacles.
Freeing your people up will allow them to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently, and they will buy into you more. Part of your job as a leader is to make their jobs and lives better, enabling them to work more effectively and efficiently for better results.
If you don’t listen to your people, or worse, if you listen and then don’t act, that’s the worst thing you can do. You’re better off not even talking to them, not listening and not asking questions. When you listen, you give them hope that you will do something. When you don’t take action, it destroys that hope and their buy-in.
You can always circle back after you’ve listened to them and had time to determine your priorities and where you’re ready to take action. Some actions may take longer, and you can communicate that to them. Keep them updated. If you just ghost them and don’t follow up, they’ll assume you didn’t do anything with their feedback, and that’s not good.
So, listen and take action. Circle back. Prioritize what you can solve now and what will take more time. Sometimes, you might listen to their complaints or challenges and find that you can’t help with them right now, or at all. That’s part of the deal. Even delivering bad news, but being upfront and direct—in an empathetic, caring way—will be appreciated much more. They’ll know where they stand with you and on the issue.
Not communicating and not circling back means they never know what’s happening, leading to frustration. The quickest way to gain buy-in is to take action, and the quickest way to lose it is to do nothing. So, as you go through your leadership journey, get with your teams, listen, take action, and watch how they will go to work for you.
