Today’s hybrid workplace offers challenge after challenge when it comes to meaningful connection. If we want our people to move forward as a united front in this new world of work, guest Michelle Johnston explains that we can’t lean on our old ways and expect new results. It’s time to be intentional about setting aside time for meaningful connection among your people.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Dr. Michelle Johnston is the Gaston Chair of Business at Loyola University New Orleans, a management professor, a top executive coach, and the author of the recent book, The Seismic Shift in Leadership: How to Thrive in a New Era of Connection.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
FROM POWER TO CONNECTION
The landscape of communication has changed, and businesses must evolve along with it. Amidst the endless Zoom calls and email threads, how can we find meaningful connection? Guest Michelle Johnston says leaders must begin to value connection over power. She used to think it was all about control: “And so I would march into the classroom, and I was the expert, and they were the students. They were to listen, and I was to command and control.” She believed that you “never let them see you sweat.”
But this method of leadership didn’t work. When she realized that she was missing the element of connection, she began to explore what “connection” really meant and how she could apply this concept in her leadership style. This led to her “seismic shift” from the transactional model to the reciprocity inherent in conversing and connecting with others.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
A Culture of Fear
“As a professor, you publish or perish, right? So I had my head down for years, publishing, publishing, publishing. And then when I lifted my head up, I was like, ‘I wanna be an executive coach.’ And now, all of a sudden, I’m coaching these leaders, and I’m seeing that they’re doing the same things that I was doing, that they still thought that they needed to lead with command and control. It was all about power, and they were inadvertently creating these cultures of fear.”
Connection Starts with You
“So once I saw that it was happening in the workplace, that’s when I decided to write. And then I went and I said, ‘Okay, I know it’s all about connection,’ but […] I didn’t know what that looked like, felt like, sounded like. What in the world is this thing called connection? I also knew that it had to be at three levels. I knew it had to start first with yourself. Because when you’re trying to be perfect, perfection equals disconnection.”
Getting Personal
“I’m not asking for a silly icebreaker. I’m asking for you to just ask a question about your people to show that you care about them as people. That it’s not just getting on the call and business as usual. […] That’s not gonna work anymore. […] Let’s spend a little bit of time talking about personal stuff. I also want your listeners to know too, I’m not advocating for them to be anybody’s therapist and to memorize the names of all dogs, all babies, ages, activities, not at all. I’m just saying that connection has got to be intentional, and it’s gotta be a way for you to show interest — genuine interest — in your people as humans.”
What’s Your Story?
“Through that process of having my students own their journeys, I then owned my journey. And once I owned it and didn’t try to pretend, […] then people didn’t find me fake. They’re like, ‘Oh, okay, I get you now.’ When people hide pieces and parts of themselves, that’s when people make up typically incorrect versions of you because they feel that you’re hiding.”
Taking Time to Reflect
“If you really wanna disrupt, you have to connect. So let’s spend an entire day in different groups owning your journey, going through personality tests, having a common language, owning your communication styles, and really doing all these group exercises that require self-reflection. That to me is the answer to your question […] So you have to own your journey and your story, and then you have to share it so that others can trust you. That’s how you create psychological safety in teams.”
Understanding Your Style
“On my first sabbatical, I developed a communication assessment because I found that teams struggled the most with communication, and I wanted to give people a common language. […] I highly recommend as a team to go through that process together. Everybody takes their communication assessment and goes around and says, ‘I’m a people communicator. I focus on relationships and connection.’ And then the next person says, ‘I’m an action communicator, and I really just focus on the bottom line and results.’ And then the third category that I found through my research is the content communicator, which really just focuses on the data and the research. And then there’s the technology communicator who just wants to get it done — efficiency. […] Once you go through this process, you realize why a lot of teams break down and communication breaks down — it’s because we’re all valuing different things when we’re speaking and listening.”
The Bottom Line
“What I’ve found in all of this research — interviewing these 18 leaders, trying to figure out what connection looks like, feels like, and sounds like — is that listening was absolutely imperative. And yet so many people admit that they’re not very good listeners, especially on Zoom. I referred to that Zoom call I was on yesterday for four hours. You know, so many people turn their cameras off. Well, if 92% of a message is non-verbal, then you only have an 8% chance of being effective at communicating if you turn your camera off. Right? So we have to figure out how to show up as good listeners, particularly in this hybrid environment.”
LEARN MORE
Pick up a copy of Michelle Johnston’s new book, The Seismic Shift in Leadership: How to Thrive in a New Era of Connection, on Amazon or wherever books are sold.