Have Your Employees’ Backs
The best bosses enable their people to feel safe to speak their minds – especially in tough or challenging circumstances. When employees know that owners and managers will back them up, that inspires confidence and allows them to represent the company in a way consistent with your culture.
Please watch Digging Deeper this week as Dennis talks about the importance of top to bottom trust and the importance of supporting your employees. We’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.
P.S – Culture can make or break a company. Tune into our one hour webinar scheduled on May 12th, 2020, and Bundy Bundesman, Wayne Rivers, and Dennis Engelbrecht will tell you the story of an amazing culture and the greatest construction company of which you have never heard. Limited spots available. Register today! Click here to Register.
Good morning everybody. Dennis Engelbrecht with the Digging Deeper pod series. Today my subject is having
your employees' backs.
What I'm talking about here is just to give an example, let's say we've got a somewhat difficult owner and your
project manager is trying to communicate that there are some changes which are the owner's responsibility and
we'll have to pay for, but the owner's bucking back and let's you say your project manager has to take a pretty
strong stance with that owner. Now, the owner calls and says, "Oh, Bob did this, Bob said that. I think he was
out of line", et cetera. And let's just say that you take the owner's side and now you chew out your employee
or you let them know that he needs to do it this way or that way, that sort of thing.
Well imagine what happens the next time that project manager is in a sticky situation and wants to stand up for
the company. Now he's thinking twice and he's maybe watching his back a little bit to make sure that he doesn't
get in trouble before going out after the company's best interest. Probably pretty easy to see how that could
have negative consequences. I was listening to a podcast by Simon Sinek recently and he was talking about this
subject of having your employees' back being one of the real important leadership traits. And what he talked
about, one of the examples he gave was that the net below the tight rope walker really gives him confidence to
focus on the job at hand, which is staying balanced and staying on the rope.
And I think there's a lot of truth to that. When an employee knows you have their back, they don't have to be
watching out for getting in trouble or what they might be doing wrong. You unlock, if you will, their ability to do
their best for the organization and watch out for the organization. Think about it that way. Make sure you're
supporting your employees, you have their back, and I think you'll find that you have more people really doing
what's best for the company.
Again, Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper. Thanks for tuning in.
