You’ve got questions, and we’ve got answers. Hi, I’m Kevin Eikenberry, answering the questions that new leaders ask us. Actually, it’s our goal to help all leaders be more productive, successful, and confident. And today I’m answering an age old question.
The question is how do I reduce turnover? Are you ready? Let’s get started. Turnover is a big problem, and there are lots of factors that can lead to turnover, of course. Unfortunately, often leaders are looking in all of the wrong places, or at least they’re forgetting one of the places that they should look at themselves.
You see, leaders sometimes forget, ignore, or are unaware of the number one reason people leave their jobs. Yes, the number one reason people leave their jobs voluntarily is that they fire their boss. That’s us, so that’s my first point, if we want to reduce turnover, we must realize that we might be part of the problem.
Let me be more specific, you need to realize that you might be part of the problem. Well, that might be a bit disconcerting. You might not have ever thought about it that way. But if you look around your organization and you got more turnover than others, then maybe it’s you.
Now, if you’ve had one person leave recently, it might not be you at all, but we need to recognize that we play a role in this. There’s no doubt about it. Right? So what can we do now? There’s plenty that we can talk about far more than we can accomplish in this short video.
But I want to give you some very specific things that you could do starting right now. They could help you get at the sources or the root causes of the turnover as it relates to you or to me.
So here we go. Number one, think about the culture you are creating. All right. Everyone that’s around, everyone on the team is a part of creating the culture, but we play an outsized role in that. So is the culture that you have created or are creating one that people want to be in it?
Would people describe your culture in positive ways that say, Hey, I want to be here or not? So think about that in the role that you’re playing in the culture that you have. If even you are saying me and this culture is not very good, then that’s part of the problem and you are part of the solution
Next, I want you to ask and listen more. In other words, if when you look in the mirror, you say, Oh, maybe I’m part of the problem, then we need to go figure out what that might be. You see, we aren’t very good as humans at understanding and being self-aware of exactly how we’re showing up with others
So one of the things we need to do is ask people how we’re doing. Ask for some feedback and just find out how we’re doing as relates to whether people want to stay or not. Ask. So is this where you want to be?
How can I be of more help? And that sort of thing? Here’s a specific kind of question to ask. Find out what the team needs from you, both the whole team. You can ask this in a meeting or individually.
So, Joe, what do you need from me so you can be more successful? What do you need from me as your leader, as your coach, so that you can be more comfortable and more confident and be more productive and get more done and want to be here?
Come straight out and say Where my might I be in the way? What do you need from me? In other words, find out what they expect from you and you as a leader. And then lastly, work to deliver on those expectations.
You’ve basically asked some questions now to find out what they want and need from you. So now it’s your job to go out and deliver that. Now, if what they need from you is for you to be unethical, then don’t deliver on that.
But fundamentally, and in all seriousness, if you will stop and listen and ask and listen, you will find out what it is that people might need that you might not be delivering. And when you know that, then you can work on delivering that.
When you do those things, you have a chance to start to reduce the turnover, at least the factors that relate to you. Let me close with today’s tweet. The first place to look to reduce turnover is in the mirror.
Ask yourself, what could I do to lead in a way that would make people want to stay? I hope you liked my answer to this age old question. If you have a question you’d like me to answer, well, send it to info at bud to Boss dot com or if you have specific questions you’d like help with
Send those to info at by device dot com. If you’re looking for more resources to help you as a new or frontline leader. Just go to BudtoBoss.com. Lots of free resources there on our blog and throughout the site.
And if you like this video, you should subscribe. So you can get all future episodes right here. I hope you’ll do that, and I’ll see you on the next video.
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