An overall approach to showing you care involves acknowledging individual views, encouraging people, and being sincere in your interest. As a manager, there are four primary ways you can demonstrate to your direct reports that you care:

• listening and being in the moment with your people when they are explaining their problems
• sharing and disclosing information they will find useful or interesting
• knowing something about each of your direct reports
• showing concern, but not counseling

Caring by listening

For listening to be an effective part of showing you care, you have to be in the moment. If you are easily distracted, lost in thought about other pressing matters, or restless and eager for the conversation to be over, then your people will get exactly the opposite impression. It will be clear that you don't care.

Avoid impatient behaviors such as cutting people off in mid-sentence or trying to rush them to make their point. These behaviors tell your direct reports that other things are more important than they are.

To listen in a way that shows you care, actively try to understand. Allow people to finish what they are saying, summarize what they say, and ask questions to ensure your understanding.

Caring through sharing

Sharing and disclosing is about creating an exchange of information that builds trust and shows you care. When you ask for an opinion from one of your direct reports, you should be willing to share your opinion as well. In this way, as you learn about your employees, you allow them to learn about you.

Sharing includes passing on information that direct reports would find relevant to their jobs. This shows your willingness to help them develop in their jobs and their careers. It means going beyond providing the basic information that your people need to do their jobs. Try to pass along anything you think they might find of interest or that will help expand their horizons.

And also disclose appropriate personal information whenever possible. Being a caring manager requires you to make a connection with employees. To do this, you'll need to know something about them, so it's only fair that in return you provide some personal information about yourself.

Caring by knowing about direct reports

To care about your direct reports, you must know them as individuals. To accomplish this, you can ask questions about their lives and observe their behaviors at work. The point is not to pry intimate details from them, but rather to acknowledge and understand their different skills, abilities, and areas of interest. And you can't just do this once and assume you understand them. You must keep in touch with employee concerns and emotions as time goes by.

Treating everyone the same sounds egalitarian and fair, but in practice, people have different needs, aspirations, and tolerances. They're not the same, and treating them as such is the quickest way to demonstrate you don't care about them as individual people. Get to know your direct reports individually. Some may need more attention than others. Some may be motivated by money while others may be focused on having more time off. Discover their individual needs and concerns.

One way to get to know your direct reports is by getting their perspective on the situation, rather than simply having them complete tasks. In addition to asking informational questions such as "Have you completed the inventory?" or "Did you run into any problems?" you need to ask curiosity questions.

Curiosity questions show that you're probing deeper because you care what your people think and how they feel. You show that you respect their various points of view. For example, you could ask "What did you learn from this experience?" or "How would you have done things differently?"

Caring through showing concern
 

As a manager, it's important to let your direct reports know that you want to understand what they're up against. When you show you are sincerely concerned with the things that affect your people, you build trust. But as a caring manager, you need to strike a balance. You must show concern, but avoid taking on the role of therapist.

Part of showing concern is being empathetic. But being empathetic doesn't mean taking on people's troubles; it means understanding how they feel about things. It involves asking yourself questions such as "How would I feel if it were me?" and "What would I want others to say or do?" It also involves keeping an open mind and being receptive to other viewpoints. You'll never understand your direct reports if you hastily dismiss what they say or respond too quickly to other ideas.

As a manager you will have to deal with a wide variety of people in many different situations. When doing so, keep the focus on being helpful, recognize what you can and cannot help with, and find a balance of being empathetic but also firm. There are many techniques you can use to show you care:

• Help, but don't go overboard when someone brings you problems on a regular basis. Select one issue and help with it, but refer the person to coworkers who can help with the others.
• If people ramble and repeat themselves, interrupt to avoid wasting time, but do so by summarizing. This technique shows you're listening.
• Allow venting without encouraging or resisting. If someone is angry, empathize and express your understanding, but don't encourage or resist what's being said, so that eventually the person will run out of steam.
• Deal with chronic complainers by moving them toward solutions. Get them to write down their problems and solutions before you'll discuss things.
• If you need to criticize someone, do so constructively with the focus on helping the person. Be sure to point to the benefits of changing the behavior.
• Ask people how things would need to change to get them more involved. If someone is demotivated, get the person's take on what would make work more exciting and get things moving in that direction.

If you demonstrate to your direct reports that you care about them as individuals, you'll be more likely to build strong, loyal relationships and successful teams. The four primary ways in which you can do this are to listen attentively, share information, know something about each of your reports, and show the right amount of concern. Being able to show your direct reports that you're aware of them as people, understand their needs, and are concerned about those needs is key to managing well.

References

What People Want: A Manager's Guide to Building Relationships That Work

2006, Bacon, Terry R., Davies-Black Publishing, 9780891062165

The Transparency Edge: How Credibility Can Make or Break You in Business

2004, Pagano, Barbara and Elizabeth Pagano , McGraw-Hill, 9780071422543

As a manager or organizational leader, what you do and say is closely monitored by the people who report to you. Your direct reports focus a lot of attention on you. They care what happens to you, and hope you care about them in return.

Being a caring manager doesn't mean you have to become an intimate friend, confidant, or counselor to every one of your direct reports. It means knowing something more about the people who work for you than just the work they do. It's knowing a little about their histories, current situations, hopes, preferences, and desires. It means paying attention to the things that affect them and that ultimately affect their performance.

As a caring manager, you need to show your direct reports that you're paying the right amount of attention to the things that affect their lives. You can display caring behaviors in several ways:

• by showing your interest in both the work and home lives of your direct reports
• by asking about their plans, problems, concerns, and desires – the things that motivate them
• by listening to the personal problems of your direct reports, as much as is appropriate
• by monitoring your employees' workloads, being aware of the factors that affect them, and recognizing when they invest extra effort

Showing you care about your direct reports will lead to a more positive and productive work environment. You'll be better able to motivate and influence your people because those who know their managers care about them are motivated and work more effectively. If your direct reports believe you care, they'll want to work for you and will see you as a better leader.

Taking the time to find out about the things that affect your direct reports will position you to catch problems before they become serious. If you get to know your employees and the problems they face at home and at work, you'll be better able to remove obstacles and support your employees. You'll be aware of the various forces affecting them and be well positioned to head off problems early.

Obstacles and pitfalls

Being a caring manager isn't easy for everyone. Some managers are less suited to it, either because of their natural orientation or because they're unskilled in displaying the appropriate behaviors. On the other side of the spectrum, some managers are perhaps too skilled at caring behaviors and tend to overuse these skills. As with many things, a good approach lies in finding a balance somewhere between the two.

Managers who are more work and task-oriented may find it difficult to display caring behaviors. They may be so focused on getting the job done that they are simply too busy to spend time learning about their direct reports. Other managers may lack the listening and conversational skills necessary to interact well with their employees. Still other managers may believe that work and personal life can and should be kept separate, failing to recognize and acknowledge the effects that each has upon the other.

Some managers may be less inclined to display caring behaviors simply because they truly don't care much about the personal needs of their direct reports. It's important that this attitude change if they are to adopt the kind of caring behaviors needed to bring out the best in their people. And the behaviors will be of little value if they are not displayed sincerely.

It's important for managers to have a reasonable concern for direct reports in every way possible to help them perform and develop. When people know they are cared for, they give their very best in return – resulting in a productive and positive work environment.

People perform better when they know that their leaders and managers care about them. Some managers are better than others at showing their direct reports that they care. They know how to pay the right amount of attention to both the work and personal lives of their employees. Managers who lack the key caring behaviors must learn to avoid being too task-oriented or too busy to care much about their direct reports. They need to develop better listening skills and recognize that work life and personal life are interrelated, and that both affect performance. At the same time, it's possible to go too far. Overusing caring skills can lead to difficulty being firm and a loss of objectivity, and can result in managers getting too deeply involved in the personal lives of their direct reports.

Listening

Listening to what your direct reports say about the things that concern them shows them that they are important to you as individuals. You should:

• Be "in the moment"
• Actively listen and try to understand
• Don't be impatient and interrupt
• Don't be distracted

Sharing and disclosing

Sharing and disclosing information creates a two-way exchange of information and builds trust. There are several things to remember about sharing information:

• When you ask for an opinion from one of your direct reports, you should be willing to share your opinion as well
• Pass on information your people will find relevant or interesting
• Disclose some personal information about yourself as appropriate
• Explain the reasoning behind your decisions
• Share your thinking about work issues

Knowing about direct reports

Showing that you know something about your direct reports as individuals lets them know you care. To discover their individual needs and concerns to some degree:

• Know at least three or four nonwork things about each of your direct reports
• Be aware of all the work factors affecting them
• Ask questions about their lives
• Observe their behaviors at work
• Recognize their different skills, abilities, and areas of interest
• Keep in touch with employee concerns and emotions over time
• Get your direct reports' view on things
• Ask curiosity questions to show you care what your people think and feel
   

Showing concern

Being concerned with the things that affect your direct reports shows them you care. When showing concern, you should:

• Avoid acting as a therapist
• Focus on being helpful, rather than simply being a sounding board
• Recognize there are some things you can help with and others you can't
• Strike a balance of being empathetic while still retaining the option of being firm
• Help, but don't go overboard
• Interrupt ramblers by summarizing
• Allow angry people to vent without encouraging or resisting
• Move complainers toward solutions
• Criticize constructively and focus on helping
• Ask people how things should change