Just like Lennon calls on us to keep looking after our “love plants”, we have to look after our people. Since we are leading people, we will replace the word water with care. Personal concern for them, their well-being and their success. If you can give them what psychologists call psychological safety they can be at ease and perform at their best each day. What usually happens is that we, either knowingly or inadvertently, threaten our team’s psychological safety by not protecting them from outside influences or with our own conduct. This threat puts people on edge and sends them into the fight or flight response where they look out for themselves instead of the well-being of the organization and of their leader. Take an inventory of your staff or team, take a brutally honest, reflective look at yourself as a leader and commit to act. Too often we read negative feedback and explain it away as a defect someone else is responsible for. In your mind that absolves you of responsibility for their discontent, in their minds you are ignoring them and their needs again. A golden opportunity to water your plants squandered.

What a concerned, responsive leader would do with negative feedback is to seek out as much information as is possible or available. Be deliberate about your efforts to learn and correct the problem, or minimally, let them know why things have to be the way they are. Don’t be stealth about it either, be overt about your search for this information and be open about your desire to correct it and why. There really is no benefit in trying to be covert about your work, they’re going to talk about it as soon as you begin so be out in the open about it. Another advantage to this approach is that people will be willing to volunteer information, someone will literally walk into your office and say, “I heard you were investigating this problem” then they will proceed to give you information you would have never otherwise had access to. This pipeline is of tremendous value to leaders because it helps you avoid conflict, maintain morale and move your team forward. Ignoring this information source will lead to problems and could ultimately result in your downfall. If you’ve ever been married, try attempting to solve your wife’s problems without any input from her. Simply tell her what she needs to be doing and then stand there proudly waiting for effusive praise. The same principal is at work in your office… Just less intense… usually.

My wife, Megan, is into style and fashion. You name it, she is informed on it. Seasons, colors, fabrics, swag, fleek, slayed, she is on top of it. While writing this article she, my sisters and other female relatives were in a conversation about hair when she reminded them that you need to brush, brush, brush. If you want your hair to do what you need it to do, you have to keep brushing it. In the same way, if you want people to learn something or understand it to be important you have to talk, talk, talk. In my first principal assignment my supervisor, Debra LaVoi, would tell me that we have to tell people seven times before they get it. Over the years I would repeat her advice countless times to anyone who would listen. Following the advice of this mentor helped me keep people informed to the point where one teacher shut down another who tried to play the “I didn’t know” card. The repetitive nature of my wife brushing her hair and Superintendent LaVoi sending emails, memos and letters keep your people informed and life at work predictable for those who depend on you. The comfort and predictability that comes with being informed is essential to the psychological safety your people need to be at their best.

In 1967 the Beetles rocked us to ‘Love is all you need’. Later Beetles cofounder, John Lennon would take it further and say that love is a gift, a precious plant that requires your daily attention. It is easier to love and encourage your team to greatness than to criticize them there. If you are fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to lead, make the most of the experience for everyone in your organization. Nurture your team, let them know that you are interested in them, their needs and their ability to successfully do their jobs. When they feel like you have their backs they will have yours. When that happens you will see that they will work harder to make your vision and mission come to life. They will not want to let you down and they will seek to revel in your approval. Essentially, they will pay it right back in the form of hard work so get out there and as Megan Brown would advise you, brush, brush, brush… SOAR!