Do you listen and take action or just hit delete and hope? A communication question

As employer and as a leader, you are going to get negative emails from employees from time to time because life happens.

How you respond to those emails can be the difference between solving a problem and creating new one. By the way, not responding at all is a negative way of responding because every person wants to know that their point has been heard.

Try and see the issue from the point of view of the employee, if you cannot, ask questions, and ask the employee what they would like to see happen. You might be able to fulfill their wish, but maybe all they wanted to do was vent; venting can be cathartic for people.

There are too many people in authority who feel they must defend and counter every argument, rather than listen, understand, and try and help a person get through the issue.

Leadership often means you must put the needs of your employees ahead of your own ego.

So before you hit that delete button, before you decide to ignore that person, ask yourself: how am I helping this person by my action (or lack of)?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam