5 Ways to Connect Better with Your Team & Use Workplace Skills Tailored to the Next Generation of Leaders  

As leaders, we constantly model leadership skills to the next generation of executives. But are we keeping pace by teaching them what they need to meet the needs of our customers in the future? Business evolves fast, and customer expectations drive the need for deep, mind-shifting change. These changes also demand that we transform how we lead.

As a VP of Marketing, I recently attended Gartner’s Digital Marketing Conference in San Diego. While many speakers focused on how to better understand and serve customers to meet their new expectations, it occurred to me that what they were recommending applies to leadership, as well.

The resounding theme right now is that “customer experience is the only place where companies can still differentiate.” Customers increasingly want personalized service — and employees are no different. With millennials fast becoming the largest generation in the workplace, they bring their “customer/employee” expectations to work with them. Are you meeting them?

Here are five ways to uplevel your leadership skills to lead the next generation:

See People Multi-Dimensionally
We get tunnel vision and tend to see people for their form and function. Take a step back and see your team in a full spectrum of who they are, as follows:

• • • While respecting professional boundaries, get to know them as individuals. Chances are they have skills, talents, perspectives, and interests that can be highly beneficial to your team.
    • Example: Have a project manager who is an awesome photographer in her off-hours? Leverage her eye for the visual in your brainstorming.
    • The more you get to know what makes your people tick, the better you can personalize your leadership. Millennials expect it, but everyone benefits from being known, seen, and understood beyond just their job function.

Engage with People Where they Are
Technology enables us to collaborate no matter where we are physically located. Yet, we need to take this a step further and open up our concept of how we collaborate so that we engage people in the ways they prefer. Texting, IMing, video collaboration and content sharing, using social channels – these are all part of how people communicate now. The lines of business versus personal life have blurred and, in the end, most of us are simply blending our business lives and personal lives into the same channels. Thus, engaging people where they prefer to engage drives home the point that you care more about the fact that the work gets done, than how and where it gets done. In the workplace of the future, that’s going to be business as usual.

Deliver Enriching, Personal, and Personalized Messaging
Just as customers expect enriching, personal, and personalized messages, so do your people. Thus, think about re-thinking your messaging:

• • • When you communicate with your team, give them something that enriches their lives and careers. Be personal. Show your human side.
    • There’s concern about whether leaders should show vulnerability and emotions in the workplace. The more human we allow ourselves to be, the more people can relate to us. The warm, caring, personal leaders who have bad days, go through tough times, grieve, and have doubts, in the end, foster more loyalty than those who are closed-off in their managerial style.
    • Finally, personalize your messaging. Talk WITH your people, not at them. Open up conversations. Just as you want your customers to converse with your brand, you want your team to converse with you and each other, so create that culture of open communication.

Tell Stories (but Not Boring Ones)
People relate to stories, and they remember them — especially when you make them personal and offer up insight from your own experience. (If this conjures up Uncle Joe at your family gatherings repeatedly boring people with his same-old stories, banish that image!) I’m talking about using the power of storytelling to waken creativity, deepen empathy, and most of all, create meaning in the work your team offers the world. We need stories to anchor us, just as our customers need stories to relate to us. Harness storytelling to frame why your team exists and showcase what your team accomplishes. Make it shareable, as sharing is first nature to the next generation of leaders.

Be Timely
In marketing, we carefully pinpoint the best time to send messages to customers and schedule campaigns accordingly. This way we ensure that customers receive messaging at a time they are most likely to be receptive. Your team is no different. They’re under intense pressure —  inundated by emails, deadlines, updates. Time your messaging for moments when they are most likely to be receptive. (For instance, common sense says that it’s best not to send a detailed, heavy-duty, policy-changing document at 8 a.m. on a Monday, even if you’ve worked all weekend on it. Similarly, staff meetings early on Mondays almost always guarantee wandering minds and a need for coffee. Save it until a Tuesday, when everybody’s in the swing of things, and you’ll likely get a better, more energized response.)

Remember, it all comes down to creating an experience. As we lead, we demonstrate not only leadership skills, but set the tone for priorities, mindsets, and approaches that translate into how our people will relate to our customers. If the next frontier is to compete on customer experience, we need to lead by example right in our own teams.