Ties That Bind – The Loyalty of Leaders

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The Critical Mass of Loyalty

We all desire to be surrounded by loyalty. Knowing that the people with whom we share time and share lives have our backs. We value the quality in family, employees, and customers. Yet we spend so little time considering the catalyst that encourages this – the loyalty of leaders. Without it, encouraging loyalty in others is not sustainable. Admiral Grace Hopper once said,

Loyalty is a two-way street – loyalty out leads to loyalty in.

Loyalty Interwoven

Some form of loyalty factors into every level of our lives:

business or career success
leadership
personal relationships
spiritual growth

Often loyalty is the missing factor that helps lead us to success in many endeavors. Without loyalty

We cannot gather and lead effective teams and success eludes us.
Leading or being lead becomes problematic. Loyalty is what creates the dependent bonds that allow us to follow or care enough to lead.
All personal relationships fail because they drop to the level of simple transactional relationships instead of the caring and devoted connections that become permanent.
We cannot devote ourselves to enlightenment and growth because we will never to open to having our heart touched or our soul fulfilled.

So critical is loyalty as a factor that the author of Think and Grow Rich and many other self-improvement tomes Napoleon Hill once said,

“Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life.”

The Loyalty of Leaders is the Critical Key

The best way to garner loyalty is to give loyalty freely. By freely I mean that you build relationships and award loyalty without reservation once trust has entered in. And often that’s the missing factor.

Loyalty was Once a One-Way Street

Go back a few generations and one-way loyalty was the expectation. A company demanded loyalty of you but there was little loyalty in return. In fact, often your loyalty was taken advantage of.

For many years in the Japanese business culture that same level of loyalty was the standard. People would gladly sacrifice themselves for the good of the organization. Lower level executives would take the hit for the mistakes made by upper level executives.

The New Landscape of Loyalty

Over time, as younger generations watched their elders being tossed away again and again, a little cynicism developed. People were not longer willing to give unfettered loyalty and get nothing in return. You can call it selfishness if you want. Yet I believe it has more to do with our innate desire for loyalty from the people around us. Therefore, what we were once willing to set aside we cannot ignore any longer.

You want loyalty. What makes you think no one else does?

The Qualities That Demonstrate the Loyalty of Leaders

What are some qualities that demonstrate loyalty? Use the word LOYALTY to remember to practice these qualities in your life.

Love others before they deserve it or earn it. Care enough to want to add value to them.

Open your mind to the positive attributes of others. Too often, we look for reasons to not enter a relationship instead of the reasons to enter. If you are looking for a reason to be unhappy or dissatisfied, you will always find it. EVERYONE has positive qualities, the question is how do you bring them out.

Yield to the needs of the other over your own. It’s hard to be loyal to others when you are too busy putting yourself first. A loyal person always puts others first.

Accept others as they are, warts and all. Realize that YOU can’t change them. Be prepared to take them as they are or not at all; and in most cases not at all is a choice that causes you miss out on anything positive that could come from the relationship.

Live to serve others. Seek to add value in every encounter, with no expectation of receiving value in return. Relationships, whether business or otherwise, are not always transactional; it’s not always a trade. Be prepared to accept value when it is offered to you, but don’t expect it.

Trust others. This is critical. You cannot give loyalty unless you trust and you cannot receive loyalty unless you are trusted. In an interesting twist, people who don’t trust are generally not trusted. Think about it, how many people do you trust who quite clearly do not trust anyone else?

Yearn to spend time with others. In a busy world, we too often have a tendency especially with business relationships to want to go in, conduct our business, and go out. Big mistake. Take the time to build. Get personal. Ask questions beyond the sale. Build friendships, not just business partners.

Applying the Traits

When you apply these traits, you will develop loyalty to others and earn loyalty from them.

The loyalty of leaders builds mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationships that touch the heart.

With the loyalty of leaders you can add value and receive value.

You will build a team.

It starts with caring. Unsure of ways to show you care? Download my FREE e-book 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care (without breaking the bank).

Why Aren’t They Showing Loyalty? The Revolving Door in Your Employment Office

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Loyalty is as Loyalty Does

Do you miss those days of company loyalty? Do you know people who have stayed with the same company for 10, 20, 30 years or more? Do you wish you had people like that? Believe it or not, loyalty is not a lost attribute. It IS still possible and how we think about loyalty is going to make the difference.

Are Millennials Disloyal?

The short version of this is not necessarily.

I have expressed before my dislike for generalizations based on age periods. it is almost always negative and non-productive. However, there is evidence to support that people in the workplace born in the time period defined as Millennials do not stay in jobs as long as others.

A Gallup Report from 2016 finds that 21% of ages 22-37 in the workplace have changed jobs in the last year. That’s significantly more than any other age group. It goes on to suggest that they are the least likely to stay in their same job for long and the least engaged.

However, it also suggests that the willingness to leave is not driven by whimsy but rather by the perception that the current job has nothing more to offer them.

Rejecting the Loyalty Scheme

This movement towards job hopping is not really that new. It started as far back as the late 1960’s and has grown since then. It has been born out of what generations have observed in the workplace over the years.

The Baby Boomers (1945 to 1964) were taught loyalty from their parents and grandparents. You left school, went to work for a company and stayed with them your entire career (at their discretion). Very rarely did you have any control over what role you filled, whether or how you advanced, how you grew, when you retired, etc. You were expected to be loyal to the company at all costs.

However, very rarely was that loyalty returned. Some organizations rewarded loyalty by returning loyalty to their people, but most focused on punishing disloyalty and showing very little appreciation for those who were loyal.

Something seemed terribly wrong with that and as other generations have come along that have increasingly rejected that concept of loyalty. It’s not a lack of work ethic. It’s an expectation of rewards and returns.

Changing Loyalty Landscape

The trend is shorter stays at one company – sometimes 3-5 years at the most.

Why? Because part of the new thought on loyalty is they expect it to be a two-way street. If they are loyal to the company they expect some loyalty in return.

Their willingness to change jobs quickly isn’t because they are fickle or lazy or disloyal. It’s because they perceive that the company has nothing more to offer them, including loyalty. If they don’t see opportunity and don’t see your commitment to them, they are more willing today than ever before to pick up and move on. They will keep changing until they find what they are looking for.

As a leader, we must change your thinking to follow that theme. Be willing to commit resources to help somebody become better at what they do. Have direct conversations -where you mostly listen – about what each person desires and hopes for. Look for how you can help them find that within your organization. Invest in them.

Do all this with the knowledge that they most likely will NOT be with you forever. They may eventually take what they have learned from you and go somewhere new. That’s the gamble of investing in people. The alternative is a bigger gamble with consequences even more significant if you lose (and you will).

So think in terms of how you can maximize your investment over the short term and long term. If you can get somebody up to speed, maximize what they can produce for you, and maximize their potential over the time period they are with you, then it’s a win-win.

Encouraging Loyalty

So here’s some tips to help you along.

Focus on Relationships — Building relationships with your employees. Understand their desires, understand their dreams so you can help them move towards that. Remember the three questions you must answer for them are do you care for me, can you help me, and can I trust you.
Focus on Growth — Invest in your employees with formal training, modeling, mentoring, and providing them with challenges to push them out of their comfort zone. The more you can help them and move them closer to their potential, the better they are going to produce for you.
Focus on Empowerment — Equip them and authorize them to take the steps they need to take to produce for you.
Focus on Communication — Communicating with them at all times. ALL TIMES!
Focus on NOW — Forget about forever. Work on building loyalty for the time they are with you, allowing them to give you the best return while you are giving the best to them.

Here’s the Bonus

When you invest in your employees and give them time, resources, training, caring, and influence – show them loyalty – then many of them will be loyal in return. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them. But the ones who count. Remember you are looking for the golden ones anyway; the ones who will yield greatest returns for you. You are mining for gold. As Dale Carnegie says,

“Developing your people is a lot like mining for gold. You have to move a lot of dirt to get to the gold. But you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.”

Your Action

What will you do today to begin looking for the gold?
How can you best invest in your employees for the short and long term?
What are you willing to give up to reach that?

Do you need help navigating the employee engagement landscape? Want to get started? Schedule your FREE Discovery Strategy Session today.

Salute to Veterans – Sacrificing to Move Ahead

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Giving Up for the Team

When a baseball team is up to bat, the objective is to move a player around the bases to score. With the way that the rules work, there are a variety of ways to move a runner to the next base. One of the ways is for the batter, at a critical point, to create a situation to get himself out to allow a runner to advance; for example hitting the ball deep to the outfield so a runner can tag and advance or bunting the ball so the only play is to first base and a runner can advance or score. They call that a sacrifice and the reward for the player is that it doesn’t count against them in their batting average. It’s been a legitimate play in baseball for over a hundred years.

Many of baseball’s greatest players made other sacrifices as well. Especially during World War II, many of them enlisted in the military and spent time overseas serving our country. Some died, some were injured, but many came back and resumed their careers. Here’s some of the greatest players and how they served:

Joe DiMaggio, New York Yankees – “Joltin’ Joe” played Major League Baseball from 1936 to 1951 and is known as one of the most complete players in baseball; in other words, he had all the skills you would want a player to have. But when the war came, DiMaggio willingly left baseball from 1943 – 1945 to serve US Air Force. Upon his discharge, he resumed with the Yankees and had a stellar career.
Bob Feller, Cleveland Indians – Feller, a pitcher, played in the Major Leagues from 1936-1956. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and brought America into World War II. On December 8, Bob Feller left baseball to enlist in the US Navy and gave up four years in baseball to serve. As skilled and dominant a player he was, many wonder how much more Feller could have accomplished if he had stayed in baseball those four years.
Warren Spahn, Boston Braves – Spahn was also a pitcher and is the winning-est left-hander in history. He played from 1942 to 1965, including the 1948 World Series where the Braves battle cry was “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain“. During WWII, he served in the US Army, at one point suffering injury from shrapnel and received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. When the ware ended, Spahn went back to Braves (and eventually other teams) and continued to dominate batters, even winning the Cy Young award for the top pitcher.
Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox – Williams was arguably the greatest hitter in baseball and played from 1939-1960, leaving for a while to join the US Navy and then the Marines, serving from 1942-1946, and recalled in 1952. Like Bob Feller, many wonder what more Williams could have accomplished had he stayed in baseball during that time.

These men saw something greater than themselves and greater than baseball and chose to serve when it was necessary. Certainly there were those who thought they should have stayed in, that they were more valuable in baseball. But they didn’t see it that way.

Sacrifice to Serve

Over the years, many men and women have felt the same way. My nephew Cody is currently serving overseas. I have many friends who also have served or are serving. They all know there is something greater than themselves, greater than anything they might accomplish during this time. They are giving up careers, family, and much more to serve this country. In some cases, they are sacrificing all of this for the benefit of people in other countries. While some may question that, they do not. They serve, for a greater good.

Like in baseball, they sacrifice themselves in order to help others move ahead.

Thank you to all Veterans for the service and sacrifice you have made.

Action Plan

Make it a point to say “Thank you for your service” to any Veterans you encounter day and every day.

The Key to Your Personal Loyalty

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Personal Loyalty

The Critical Mass of Loyalty

Some form of loyalty factors into every level of our lives:

our business or career success
our leadership
our personal relationships
our spiritual growth

Often loyalty is the missing factor that helps lead us to success in many endeavors. Without loyalty, we cannot gather and lead effective teams and success eludes us. Without loyalty, we cannot lead or be lead by anyone because loyalty is what creates the dependent bonds that allow us to follow or care enough to lead. Without loyalty all personal relationships fail because they drop to the level of simple transactional relationships instead of the caring and devoted connections that become permanent. Without loyalty, we cannot devote ourselves to enlightenment and growth because we will never to open to having our heart touched or our soul fulfilled.

So critical is loyalty as a factor that the author of Think and Grow Rich and many other self-improvement tomes Napoleon Hill once said,

“Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life.”

Loyalty Out Leads to Loyalty In

The best way to garner loyalty is to give loyalty freely. By freely I mean that you build relationships and award loyalty without reservation once trust has entered in. What you don’t want to do is wantonly through your loyalty around to whomever is the flavor of the week.

What are some qualities that demonstrate loyalty. Use the word LOYALTY to remember to practice these qualities in your life.

Love others before they deserve it or earn it. Care enough to want to add value to them.

Open your mind to the positive attributes of others. Too often, we look for reasons to not enter a relationship instead of the reasons to enter. If you are looking for a reason to be unhappy or dissatisfied, you will always find it. EVERYONE has positive qualities, the question is how do you bring them out.

Yield to the needs of the other over your own. It’s hard to be loyal to others when you are too busy putting yourself first. A loyal person always puts others first.

Accept others as they are, warts and all. Realize that YOU can’t change them. Be prepared to take them as they are or not at all; and in most cases not at all is a choice that causes you miss out on anything positive that could come from the relationship.

Live to serve others. Seek to add value in every encounter, with no expectation of receiving value in return. Relationships, whether business or otherwise, are not always transactional; it’s not always a trade. Be prepared to accept value when it is offered to you, but don’t expect it.

Trust others. This is critical. You cannot give loyalty unless you trust and you cannot receive loyalty unless you are trusted. In an interesting twist, people who don’t trust are generally not trusted. Think about it, how many people do you trust who quite clearly do not trust anyone else?

Yearn to spend time with others. In a busy world, we too often have a tendency especially with business relationships to want to go in, conduct our business, and go out. Big mistake. Take the time to build. Get personal. Ask questions beyond the sale. Build friendships, not just business partners.

When you apply these principals, you will develop loyalty to others and earn loyalty from them. You will build mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationships that touch the heart. They enlighten and enrich and are profitable; sometimes financially, sometimes spiritually, sometimes relationally. They add and receive value.

That’s the key to a successful life.

Customer Loyalty Isn’t Really a Secret

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Loyalty to Your Business

“I learned from Mr. Wrigley, early in my career, that loyalty wins and it builds friendships.
I saw it work for him in his business.”
Ernie Banks

Loyalty to Your Employees

In yesterday’s post, we talked about building employee loyalty. We emphasized investing in them, building relationships with them, focusing on growth, focusing on giving loyalty, focus on empowerment. When we focus on what we give to the employee of today then most will give loyalty in return for however long they are with us. Some won’t, no matter what we do. That’s the risk we take.

Loyalty to Your Customers

How is it any different with our customers? We HOPE to build customers for life. The reality is that most will leave us at one point or another for a variety of reasons. Some may abandon us for the lowest bidder. Some because what we provide is no longer necessary for them; they have outgrown us or simply no longer need what we offer. That said, building customer loyalty is still possible and could be boiled down to this simple statement:

Treat your customers like you treat your employees.

The same things we focused on to build employee loyalty make a difference to your customers as well.

Customers are interested in doing business with people they believe care for them, can help them, and can be trusted. They more than a product from you, they want a relationship. Treating your customers as your friends takes the relationship beyond the exchange of goods and services into something more meaningful, effective, and profitable. If your thought is “well I wouldn’t want to be friends with my customers!” then you either need to change customers or (most likely) change YOU.
Customers want to be treated with respect and regard. They, like employees, want to feel that they are important. That their contribution counts. That they make a difference in your life.
Customers want you to help them grow. Whether you help them grow their business, grow their profits, or grow them; customers want what you provide them to add value beyond the product or service they purchased. They are looking for you to look out for them and help move them closer to their goals.
Customer are looking to be empowered by you. It makes anyone uncomfortable to feel totally dependent on someone else. It makes them feel helpless. If you teach them to develop enough knowledge and ability to make intelligent decisions and provide input, you make them feel in control and loyalty will develop as a result. My family doctor has worked with me enough to where I can ask intelligent questions. He welcomes my questions and input. We make treatment decisions together. He makes me feel in control of my healthcare. That’s why he is still my family doctor for 15 years.

Your Actions

How many of your customers would consider you to be their friend? How would they define that?
Think of your best customers. What can you do TODAY to show appreciation?
How can your empower your best customers to deepen your relationship?