Have you made your team feel significant? Their performance is a clue.

We want to feel accepted by our bosses, our peers, our families, and even the person sitting next to us on the airplane. We need to feel accepted so we can feel significant. That feeling of significance is almost the gateway to feeling confident enough to perform, contribute, or produce. 

The problem with only accepting people when they achieve certain milestones is that if they fall short, they never feel significant. If they never feel significant, they’ll rarely perform to their full potential. If they don’t perform, their accomplishments are few and far between for everyone, including the leader.  

Leaders who lead with hospitality understand the impact of accepting every person on their team for who they are, right off the bat. It’s our job as leaders to inspire and influence teams such that we bring out their best. Leading with hospitality creates feelings of significance by making sure everyone knows they’re accepted. 

Something magical happens when members of a team truly feel accepted. Without feeling accepted, people obviously don’t feel welcome. On the other hand, when people feel accepted, they feel welcome and they feel significant. When they feel significant, they open up, lean into their skills and potential, and start crushing their work and life, driving results for their teams and leaders.

Bringing it all together:

• Accept Yourself. Before you can accept others for who they are, you must accept yourself for who you are. Teams and employees will follow your lead, and they’ll begin accepting themselves the more they see you doing the same. Take an inventory of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (your emotional triggers which knock you off your game). Become more self-aware of what makes you, you.

• Accept Others. Be inclusive. Despite their quirks, habits, and hang-ups, a leader who leads with hospitality spends time seeking to understand everyone. They look for ways to leverage the value each person brings to the table. Meet people where they are, accepting them for who they are rather than for their accomplishments. When they know you accept them, for them, they’ll slowly but surely feel more welcome with you, on your team, and most importantly in their own skin. That’s when they’ll lean in, step up, and deliver excellent effort and results for you.

• Accept Organizational Realities. Determine what you can control versus what you cannot. Separate issues stemming from inside your team or organization versus those coming from outside influences. Why is this important?  It will help keep your emotions in check, so you can listen to, observe, and stay attuned to the emotions of those on your team. As the leader goes, so goes the team. If you’re stressed and emotional, your team will easily become stressed and emotional, distracting them from performing up to their highest potential. Understanding organizational realities helps you focus your mental capacity and energy on more productive, actionable, and winnable battles.

Need further support in getting your entire team onboard with creating a connected culture? Learn more about the Lead with Hospitality Commitment to Connection Learning Experience here or check out all the ways you can work with my team and I here. 

In Commitment to Connection, your leadership team will learn:

• The psychology of motivating people.
• How to engage in effective one-on-one meetings to connect with teams on a personal, human level.
• How to prepare for and facilitate productive team meetings that bring members closer together; building trust and a sense of purpose within the team’s culture.
• How to use ongoing meaningful written communication to convey team goals whether employees are in the office or working from home.

Learn more about Commitment to Connection here.