Think about a leader you’d still go out of your way to help, even years after working for them. Chances are, what comes to mind is something small, like the way they remembered something you’d mentioned in passing or noticed you were going through a rough period and took a minute to ask about it. The fact that they asked probably meant more than they ever realized.
Good leaders are often servant leaders who put their teams first. To do this well, we have to know what the people on our teams need and want, and Leading with Presence is how we begin.
Self-Assessment: Leading with Presence
Please take a few moments to reflect on the following questions. Where can you identify opportunities for growth in your leadership?
When my schedule fills up, are conversations with the people I lead the first or last thing I cancel?
Have I followed up recently on something someone on my team shared with me?
If I can’t keep a commitment, do the people affected hear it from me before they have to ask?
Could the last person I recognized tell you exactly what I appreciated about their work?
Is there a recent misstep with someone on my team I’ve left unaddressed?
Would everyone on my team describe the way I treat them in the same terms?
Have I asked anyone on my team lately what it’s like to work with me?
In my last few conversations with the people I lead, did I ask more than I told?
This self-assessment is a starting point for understanding Leading with Presence. Reflect on your responses, identify areas for growth, and use feedback from others and your ECFL Leadership Coach to guide your development.
Connection is built over time through our everyday interactions. The way we connect can strengthen a relationship or, in the worst cases, create distance. And, most of these moments don’t feel significant when they happen. They’re ordinary conversations and interactions, but together, they influence how connected people feel to us. Leading with presence means giving these moments, and the people in them, our full attention.
Part of paying attention is knowing what our teams need, and this starts with asking. Many leaders put this off because they aren’t sure what to ask. A few open-ended questions go a long way, such as “What’s on your plate this week?” or “What’s one thing going well, and one thing that could be better?” Asked regularly and informally, questions like these show people we care and often bring up issues the data never could.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
People notice patterns in how we treat them (and others), so consistency is important. When our behavior changes depending on the situation or the person, it’s more difficult for people to know what to expect from us.
Common Mistakes Leaders Make with Connection
Even well-intentioned leaders can weaken their working relationships without realizing it.
Watch out for these seven patterns in your own behavior:
Confusing Visibility with Connection: Showing up to every meeting or sending frequent messages can still leave people feeling unseen, especially when you don’t ask any questions or follow up. Being physically present is only the starting point.
Inauthentic Vulnerability: Sharing something personal builds trust when it serves the relationship. Oversharing or staging an “authentic” moment for effect leaves people uneasy, especially when the team ends up managing the leader’s feelings.
Treating Connection as an Annual Event: Relationships are best developed through frequent connection, so a yearly retreat won’t cut it. A few minutes of real connection most days will do more for a team than a big holiday event followed by months of silence.
Using Feedback for Corrections Only: When feedback is offered only when something goes wrong, our teams may protect themselves and withdraw. Constructive feedback is harder to hear, especially when positive feedback is rare.
Inconsistent Standards and Favoritism: Unequal fondness or access quickly creates divisions within our teams. Leaders can fall victim to this unintentionally by spending the most time with people similar to them, or who speak up the loudest.
Skipping the Repair: Criticism or unmet expectations fester when nobody recognizes and fixes them. Small hurts can linger longer than leaders realize, and silence afterward can easily read as indifference. When in doubt, ask specifically if there is an issue.
Forcing One Connection Style: Some people bond through social activities and group sharing, while others connect through meaningful work or one-on-one conversations. Giving people a say in how they connect makes your effort go that much further.
Which of these patterns might the people we lead recognize in our behavior?
Strong connections allow us to better understand the people we lead. Over time, we learn what they care about and how they work best. Teams benefit as well, since it becomes easier to address concerns and stay focused on our shared vision. Research by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, drawn from 360-degree assessments of 87,000 leaders and published in Harvard Business Review, shows how our teams’ trust in us rests on these connections.
They identified three elements behind colleagues’ trust in a leader, and positive relationships carried the most weight. Weak relationships cost leaders about twice as much trust as inconsistency does, and good judgment and consistency weren’t enough to make up the difference.
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
Gallup’s State of the American Manager report found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units, meaning much of the difference in engagement from one team to the next depends on their leader.
Connection also influences how we handle accountability. Gallup describes clear expectations as perhaps the most basic need employees have, and expectations are more likely to be accepted when they come from a leader people already trust.
Feedback works the same way. Zenger and Folkman include giving honest feedback in a helpful way among the behaviors that build positive relationships, so a correction handled privately and respectfully can strengthen a relationship as readily as it tests one.
Connection proves most valuable when things get difficult. The Center for Creative Leadership points out that strong relationships help organizations absorb disruption. However, when these relationships are weak, setbacks do more damage and take longer to recover from. When people feel respected and understood, they have a stronger foundation for honest conversations and working through problems together.
Reading about connection is easy, but most leaders stall when it comes to putting it into practice. These first steps work for any team size, in person or remote.
Work on One Pattern at a Time. Choose one of the mistakes covered earlier to focus on first. Decide what you’ll do differently the next time the situation comes up. One habit at a time is more likely to stick, and consistent change is more noticeable to the people around you.
Begin with a Check-In. Start your next team meeting with a short personal check-in, such as one win and one challenge from each person (with the option to pass). Watch how each person responds, then adjust the format to fit their energy and comfort level.
Reach Out to the Person You Know Least. Think about the person on your team you know least well and schedule a focused conversation. Approach with curiosity and leave your own agenda behind.
Check How You’re Being Received. Conduct a short survey each quarter—ideally anonymous so people can answer honestly—based on four statements: “I feel seen. I feel supported. I feel informed. I feel safe to speak up.” Choose one or two changes based on the results and tell the team what you’re doing differently, since closing the loop by following up shows your effort isn’t for show.
Here are some best practices for leading with presence:
Protect Time for Your People: Make regular time to connect with the people you lead, and treat it as a serious commitment. If something comes up and you have to cancel, take responsibility for finding another time. People often read a leader’s calendar as a statement of what’s important, so one-on-ones that stay on the schedule, even during busy weeks, show people they’re a priority.
Follow-up on What’s Shared: Return to something a person shared with you earlier. Ask how something turned out or whether an issue improved so they know you listened and remembered. A brief note after each conversation, with one or two details worth remembering, makes this easier to keep up. Remembering personal milestones, such as a birthday or a child’s graduation, also shows people you see more than their output.
Keep Your Promises: If you say you’ll send something or look into an issue, follow through. Doing what you said shows people they can depend on you. If circumstances change and you can’t do what you said, let the person know instead of leaving them wondering what happened. Being considerate is part of building strong connections.
Make Recognition Specific: When someone does something well, tell them what you noticed and why it was helpful. Specific recognition lets people know you noticed their effort and understand what they contributed. Amy Bradley of London Business School notes that people who receive positive feedback are more likely to pay it forward to others at work, so a specific word of recognition can reach beyond the person who first hears it.
Own Your Missteps: If you interrupt someone, react poorly, forget something important, or fail to follow through, address it. Acknowledge what happened and make an effort to reconnect instead of hoping it will be forgotten. Relationship researcher John Gottman found that the ability to repair after conflict says more about a relationship’s health than how often conflict happens, and that repair attempts made early in a disagreement are more likely to succeed.
Inquire Honestly About How You’re Received: Pay attention to how people react to you, especially if a pattern emerges over time. If someone’s behavior changes or you can sense their trust wavering, consider what may be causing this and ask what you could do differently. Asking a question like “What’s one thing I could do that would make your job easier?” and acting on at least one answer shows people their feedback leads somewhere.
Every organization has a vision written down somewhere, whether on a wall, a website, or the first slide of the quarterly meeting. Most people won’t remember the exact wording. What they will remember is their connection (or lack thereof) with the leader doing the talking. This sense of connection is a big part of what makes the teams we lead want to help get there. Leading with presence gives people a reason to believe they're included in this vision.
Strengthen your understanding of Leading with Presence by sticking with the following resources. Use this opportunity to note new insights and adhere to practices that will enhance your leadership journey.
