One of the most critical arts of 21st Century leadership is one’s ability to strengthen the common bond of interconnectedness and interdependence among the team. As Labor Day marks the official end of summer for most companies in the U.S., many employees may be coming to work this week with the end-of-summer blues.
How can people leaders re-energize the team? Savvy leaders who facilitate teaching and learning discover the most significant accomplishment of effective communication. Encouraging the team to share their summer time experiences through mini story-telling, departmental blogs or photo boards, or through the use of approved collaboration technologies (like FourSquare) can provide a positive venue to help others learn more about their colleagues. Additionally, it serves to reinforce company values by demonstrating respect for the individual and engages employees in new ways. By discovering what employees enjoyed over vacation, what unexpected challenge (s) might have risen and/or had to be overcome, fosters both teaching and learning for everyone and strengthens the trust factor in the process.
As people leaders begin to approach the last quarter of 2010, taking the time to learn about their employees, including their summer experiences, opens the door to further idea sharing, enhanced collaboration, and important insights to recognize and reward that can eventually lead the team to a new level of performance.
