Organizations with supervisors who connect with, encourage, and coach their employees often outperform those that do not. Years ago, Southwest Airlines discovered that reducing the ratio of frontline employees to supervisors enabled supervisors to build stronger relationships, provide better support, and ultimately improve employee performance. As a result, Southwest Airlines maintained a frontline employee-to-supervisor ratio of 10:1, whereas some airlines have ratios as high as 40:1.
What Connecting, Encouraging, and Coaching Looks Like in Practice: 6 Steps for Leaders
What does it truly look like to connect, encourage, and coach? Here are some real-world examples of actions supervisors can take to foster a more engaged and effective workforce:
- Get to know your team members. Learn about their past work experiences, the environments in which they thrive, and their career aspirations. Take an interest in their lives outside of work, including their hobbies and personal interests.
- Support their professional growth. Help employees acquire the skills and experiences they need to move closer to their career goals. If formal training budgets are tight, you can offer to connect them with potential mentors in your network within or outside the company, or look for opportunities for them to participate in projects that will grow their knowledge and skills.
- Recognize them and provide constructive feedback. Praise employees for their good work and offer constructive suggestions to help them improve. Positive reinforcement should outnumber corrective feedback by at least a 3:1 ratio, reinforcing that you support their success. If an employee is not well-suited for a particular role, be honest and encourage them to explore opportunities that better align with their skills and interests—whether within your organization or elsewhere.
- Collaborate when setting KPIs. Involve employees when setting KPIs so that they have a sense of ownership.
- Keep them in the loop. Be generous when it comes to sharing information. Many employees appreciate this and are more engaged as a result.
- Give them a voice. When you have to make decisions that affect employees or that they would want to have input to, share your thoughts on the issue and ask them to share what’s right, wrong, or missing from your thinking. This will give them a sense of ownership in the decision and make them more likely to give extra effort when implementing. (It also demonstrates that giving and receiving feedback is part of how the team operates.)
Why Make the Effort? The Rewards of Being a Connected Leader
None of the steps listed above are difficult, but they do require some intentionality and time. With an overflowing inbox and pressures from above, it can be easy to skip these steps when interacting with your employees.
However, the benefit of this approach is that employees recognize that you genuinely care about their well-being and development. This fosters a workplace culture where people feel valued, rather than treated as mere means to an end. Leaders who prioritize connection, encouragement, and coaching ultimately attract, engage, and retain top talent because employees know they will be supported and given opportunities to thrive.
Addressing the Concern: Does a Connection-Focused Leadership Approach Sacrifice Performance?
If you are worried that this “soft” approach to leadership means sacrificing performance, think again. A connection-focused leadership approach does not mean sacrificing performance. Rather, it recognizes that both task excellence and relationship excellence are essential for achieving sustainable, superior results.
By strengthening the relationship excellence side of the equation, you create an environment where people feel motivated to give their best efforts. You also build the social capital necessary for those moments when you need to ask your team to go above and beyond to meet a challenge.
Additionally, many of the examples outlined above focus on the task excellence side of the equation, such as providing constructive feedback and setting KPIs. When approached through the lens of connection, these accountability steps become more productive and rewarding.
The Bottom Line
Leaders who intentionally connect, encourage, and coach are rewarded with stronger employee relationships and better team performance. If you aren’t sure where to start, begin with the six steps outlined in this article. Your employees—and your own boss—will thank you.
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash
