Approachability is critical for leadership, as it fosters healthy and necessary communication between you and your team. You may see yourself as easy to approach—yet when you are frequently preoccupied, stressed, or driven, they come to perceive you as off limits. It’s as if your people are trying to call you, but the line is busy. Make an extra effort to be poised, invite dialogue, and be willing to turn off your internal chatter long enough to hear them out. Doing so allows others to access your leadership, coaching, and advice, and in return, volunteer critical information you need to set strategy and make good decisions.
Self-coaching:
- What are the risks in NOT being approachable? That is, if people are reluctant to come to you with something important, what might be at stake?
- What can you do to engage your people more frequently, inviting their ideas, opinions, updates, and feedback?
- What feedback have you received about your level of approachability?
- What can you do to quiet your internal chatter when listening to others?
David Peck
Executive Coach
and President
Leadership
Unleashed
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Based on client experiences / lessons learned, our weekly LeaderTips have been offering self-coaching themes and topics of interest to leaders since 2004. They are often published in BusinessWeek Online, sent weekly to our clients, and hundreds of other corporate leaders worldwide. I invite you to forward them to others, who are also welcome to subscribe using the link below. Note that over 100 of these tips appear in my book, Beyond Effective: Practices in Self-aware Leadership. Click here to subscribe to LeaderTips via email.