How To Make Your Team Feel Accepted, Part 3 of 4 in The 3 Things Everyone You Lead Want

Every team needs to know they are accepted by their leader and their colleagues.  You can read why in part of 1 of this 4 part series.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You don’t want your team to merely feel accepted, you want them to know they are accepted by you and their colleagues. You’ll want to create a culture in which people genuinely are accepting of one another.  However, remembering that more is caught than is taught, it’s important to remember that this starts with you being accepting.

Does this mean you have to accept every idea or behavior of your team?

No.

It merely means you have to accept the position and experience in which the idea or behavior came from.

Here are two keys to creating a culture of acceptance in your organization.

1.  Stamp out gossip.  Gossip will kill your organizations culture, kill your team’s spirits and prevent you, your team and your organization from reaching its full potential.  If your team has to worry about people talking about them in a negative way when they aren’t there, they won’t feel accepted.  A culture of mistrust is inevitable in a workplace that allows, therefore sanctions, gossip.

Look for an upcoming post on how we create a gossip free workplace in our organization.  Subscribe to the blog here to make sure you don’t miss the post on Gossip.

2.  I’ve tried numerous tools, approaches and techniques to increase the moral of our team over 16 years.  The best I’ve found is a powerful and extremely cost effective tool based on the book The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.  (affiliate link)

The Manage By Appreciation  assessment is an online tool.  After having your team take the 15 to 20 minute assessment you’ll get a report that is packed full of useful information.  You’ll know their primary, secondary and least appreciated language and have specific action steps that will speak most to that person.

If you’ve heard of the Five Love Languages, you’ll be familiar with the Five Languages of Appreciation.  However, the difference between a person’s Language in a personal relationship versus a workplace relationship is huge.  The way the Languages are expressed are also very different.

Knowing if your team’s workplace language of appreciation is; Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Tangible Gifts or Physical Touch allows you to communicate appreciation to them in a personal tailored way.

The more personal your approach to each member on your team demonstrates you accept them enough to pay attention to them.  You accept them for who they are and what they can bring to the organization.

Do you want to work for someone who looks at you as a widget?  As a means to end?

Your team is a group…but they are a group of individuals.  (tweet that)

Learn them, know them and appreciate them.  They will go the distance with/for you every single time.

How do you let your team know you appreciate them?

Other Post In this Series:

Part 1 The 3 Things Everyone You Lead Want

Part 2 How To Make Your Team Feel Significant

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”