“I miss my previous leader and the trust we had in our team!”

These were the words of a senior leader expressing to me the other day how much he misses his previous manager.
He was sharing how, in the previous team, they knew the names of everyone’s partners, kids or pets, which brought a sense of closeness among the group.
They knew when someone had to leave a work call to pick up/drop off one of the kids at sports practice.

People want to be more than just a number, more than just a job title, more than just “your greatest asset” in a job description. They want to be humans and treated as such.

If you are a leader, try to learn a bit more about your team members’ personal lives during your next interactions (without making it feel forced, of course). You’ll see the difference it makes when you can genuinely say, “How was your weekend? Did you and Peter do something nice?”

Feelings do matter! After all, it’s the human connections that truly makes a workplace thrive.