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Your People Skills Will Make The Difference

Written by: Allen Hatton

Article Overview: Despite the fact that I am in the business of providing people oriented business solutions, I can’t say that I have always been the best or most motivating and inspiring leader. However, let’s just say I view myself a work in progress and teaching the things I teach brings it all to the forefront for me. You can do the same thing in your organization by learning the people skills and teaching them as you go along. To really learn people skills you must take an interest. To take an interest you need to identify the need and that is usually the problem. The best way to identify a need is to ask others where you need improvement. You can do that in a number of ways with a broad array of assessment tools designed to help you to better see yourself. Please remember that as the boss you (metaphorically) carry a badge as well as a gun.

Your People Skills Will Make The Difference

Despite the fact that I am in the business of providing people oriented business solutions, I can’t say that I have always been the best or most motivating and inspiring leader. However, let’s just say I view myself a work in progress and teaching the things I teach brings it all to the forefront for me. You can do the same thing in your organization by learning the people skills and teaching them as you go along. To really learn people skills you must take an interest. To take an interest you need to identify the need and that is usually the problem. The best way to identify a need is to ask others where you need improvement. You can do that in a number of ways with a broad array of assessment tools designed to help you to better see yourself. Please remember that as the boss you (metaphorically) carry a badge as well as a gun. The badge is your mantle of authority while the gun equals “You’re Fired”. No matter how nice of a person you may be, you still carry a “gun” and many folks out there are just not going to risk being on the receiving end of that gun. So, publicly asking those who report directly to you to identify where you need help is probably not the best way to get accurate answers. Of course you can work up to that, but not right out of the gate.

In firms that are less than progressive I see and hear leaders constantly invoke the “that’s just the way I am” excuse for NOT taking the time to develop themselves as inspirational leaders. Please don’t confuse inspirational business leadership with charisma and great orators. There is a ton of research at this point that tells us that we can inspire people on a daily basis without all the hype. As a matter of fact you can even be “a nice guy” or the “quiet type” and have people working their tails off for you. We recognize that there are different styles of leaders and lots of varying personalities that make it to the top, but the principles that make for great leaders remain constant.

In a November article in Fast Company Magazine, Leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith writes “Nice Guys Can Finish First”

Goldsmith says “Imagine a world where technical skills, educational pedigrees, even professional achievements and track records no longer matter”. He goes on to ask that, if this were the case in your world, how would you hire people? Who would get promoted and who would be cast aside? Goldsmith states “Chances are you would start paying very close attention to how people behave- how they treat colleagues and clients, how they speak and listen in meetings, how well they extend the minor courtesies that either lubricate daily work life or create friction. Welcome to the real world at the higher levels of organizational life. We apply these behavioral criteria to almost any successful person, but sometimes we forget to apply them to ourselves. In turn, we forget that our behavior may be holding us back. All other things being equal, your people skills, or lack of them, become more pronounced the higher up you go. Goldsmith asks “Who would you rather have as a CFO? A moderately good accountant who is great with people and skilled at managing very smart people or a brilliant accountant who’s inept with outsiders and alienates all the smart people under her?” The CFO with great people skills will hire people smarter than themselves about money and will be able to LEAD them.

The idea is that it’s not enough to have a high I.Q. You have to be smart - and something else. That something else is really “Emotional Intelligence” ( EI ). If you’re not a believer in Emotional Intelligence then I suggest you check out the research. For example: The US Air Force used EQ to select recruiters and found they increased their ability to predict successful recruiters by nearly threefold. In another case, experienced partners in a multinational consulting firm were assessed on EI competencies and it was found that the partners who scored above the median delivered $1.2 million more profit from their accounts than did other partners- a 139 percent gain ( Boyatzis, 1999). Does that get your attention!! It should. It certainly gets mine.

The good news is that these behaviors can be taught and learned. As a result, you can get better at employing them. If employed correctly, these behaviors should equal incrementally better profits in the long run. If you want to find out more and or get some training in this arena give me a call.

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