One of my favorite things as a leader has always been the joy of working with and visiting with team members. I love to learn more about each person, both personally and professionally. It’s also a great time for me to answer questions or help with a problem. As leaders, we must realize that it takes each of us doing our part to make a great firm.
Team members need to know that we understand and believe that they are each important, and we demonstrate our understanding by initiating feedback sessions with them.
An easy intro, for me, is to ask, “How’s it going?” That is my signal that I would really like to know what a team member is thinking. Additional, specific questions might be: What are you working on? What advice do you have for me? What can I help you with? What do you think I should know? If we don’t initiate the conversation, how are we going to know anything that is going on?
