Relevant With Follower's Lives

In order to be effective, leaders need to be relevant. We already discussed how leaders need to be relevant with the times. The second thing that leaders need to be relevant with is this: their follower’s lives.

Every leader has followers. And every follower has a personal life. They have families, friends, hobbies, and interests. They have likes and dislikes. They have things going on in their life that can either be really good or really bad. And all of these things affect their workplace performance at some level. An employee is not simply an employee; he or she is a person with a life and a history and a personality who simply works somewhere with you.

So leaders need to practice holistic leadership and get to know the whole of their follower’s lives. They need to be relevant with their follower’s lives. Followers need to know that their leader cares about them – not just about their performance at work, but about their lives. If leaders do this, they will gain commitment, loyalty, and dedication from their followers. Their followers will be more motivated to work for someone who actually cares about them, rather than working for a boss who barely knows their name.

Leaders need to be relevant with their follower’s lives – who they are, what their situation is, and everything about them outside of work. It is an easy step, and it will mean the world to the followers.