Why Don't Managers Care? - Power Hour Coaching

Good day, good day, good day, everyone. How are you? This is Bernadette Boas, and this is Power Hour Coaching, where I pretty much just assist you in whatever questions, challenges, or stories, maybe decisions and opportunities that you're working on and, uh, provide you tips, strategies, sometimes tough love, so you can be that powerhouse leader that you're meant to be. Everything we do at Ball of Fire Coaching is all around giving you the skills and the talents and the expertise and the knowledge as to, uh, what you need to be self-aware of, and then what do you need to do to really accelerate, um, being a powerhouse leader and creating those riches in your work and life that you deserve. Uh, so today I really wanted to talk to you about, uh, a very popular and active conversation that's going on, uh, on LinkedIn today, but it has been a theme for a very long time. And actually, it's everything that my practice is built around. Um, but yet, you know, today's, um, kind of stream of conversation really got me really motivated to wanting to talk to you about it. So it all started like this, and if you want to join in— and I should say before we get into it, if you have a question, story, or challenge, or maybe you just need some advice on something, uh, while we are live or even after, then just post those comments or questions in the section below, and I will see them while I'm here, and I will make sure I get to them before we close out. But if I don't and you come through and watch the replay, I will still be tracking this live so I can make sure that you get the support and the help that you need and deserve. All right. So at any point in time, post your comment and, um, I'll keep an eye out for it because we are streaming across, uh, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. So you have a lot of places where this might be streaming through, and take advantage of getting some complimentary expert, uh, and passionate tips, advice, and tough love. Um, all right, so again, we're going to be talking about Why don't leaders care? So let me give you some backstory as to how this, um, got, uh, kind of in my line of sight and what really got me excited and pumped up to talk to you about it and get your input and your insights and your comments. So Phil Geikes— I might be pronouncing that wrong, I'm sorry, Phil— um, he posted, or— or I should say reposted a posting from Gary Vaynerchuk. I know him so well, and yet his last name can often catch me. And I love, absolutely love what Gary always shares because it's so simple but yet so profound. I'm always almost like, why didn't I think of that and share that? However, so he shares a post a week ago that Phil happened to come across. And the post has a photo on it. And the photo says, the secret to being a good leader is to actually care about what your employees— about your employees. Let me repeat that. The secret to being a good leader is to actually care about your employees. And that caught my attention, not only because it was, you know, a certain post, But at the same time, again, I deal with this every day in the work that I do. So he also complemented that image with some, some additional context. And he says leaders who care about their employees and work for their employees rather than thinking that their employees work for them will disproportionately attract people that are hardworking and want to work for them. So it almost sounds like a negative, but it's actually a positive. So basically, people will want to work with you, people will want to follow you, people will want to walk through a fire for you if you actually care about them. So of course, that kind of got me all juiced up. And I then, in compliments to Gary and Phil, I then shared also a post that basically asked the questions— the question, why don't leaders care about their employees? And I got a response pretty quickly from David Kirkdorfer, and basically he says, um, I'm, I'm shortening it up here, but he says lack of time, lack of incentive, lack of accountability to one's— to employees' happiness. And again, that struck a nerve for me because he's actually and absolutely right. And yet there's such easy solutions to all of those things. So I went ahead and I said, okay, so let me think, what are some additional reasons why leaders just, you know, don't put the time and the effort, as David said, the time into really caring. And I said, well, they have a lack of patience. You know, dealing with humans, it can be very trying, right? And, you know, so one might lose their patience in just having to, and having to kind of care and love on their employees. I can't, I can't tell you how often when I get onto coaching calls or into sessions with a group and they, they are, they are exasperated by the amount of time, effort, and work that it takes to manage the people side of the business. And yet, especially as you or anyone advances in your career, entrepreneurial or corporate, you're going to learn that all of that tactical, technical skill work that you used to do, expertise work that you used to do, isn't where, you know, your time and your effort goes into. It is the people. Um, so I would say lack— definitely lack of patience. And then what I also noted too is I do a lot of DISC assessments, and of course, 360 assessments and a number of other things with clients. And what I also find through all of that work and through our work together is they, a lot of them often struggle to actually connect, to actually have personal interpersonal relationships with, with others. A lot of them will struggle socially. Not that they can't hold their own, but they're just uncomfortable about what do I say, you know, how do I cross the line, or when do I cross the line of getting too personal, and then how do I really feel as if I'm being genuine about it. Uh, I often found, um, not necessarily in corporate, um, when I was in corporate for 25 years up until 2007, uh, the networking and the, um, kind of the collaboration between people, uh, wasn't difficult for me, but it was all centered on business. It wasn't centered on personal at all. Uh, and I commented that back to Phil, uh, in his initial post. I said, well, you know, my whole experience is around the fact that I wasn't willing to be open and, um, vulnerable and to really care about anyone else. When I was in that mindset throughout my corporate career. I said, however, I've learned ever since in the last 14 years that life is just opening up, being vulnerable, being genuine, being transparent, being authentic, and connecting with people. Because life is about connections, relationships. It's not about our power, position, and prosperity. So Bringing it back, that lack of personal connection really can severely impact, uh, one's ability to, um, forget about just the connection, but if you are ambitious, if you have goals, if you have aspirations, you know, it can hold people back from advancing in their career. And that's why I thought this subject was really important for all the reasons David said, for Phil, for Gary, because it is business is the people. Uh, we used to— I think in the '80s or '90s, we, you know, there was always this mantra of your people are your number one assets. And it kind of got so overused and so, um, neutralized that it didn't have any kind of importance to it anymore, or validity to it anymore, or relevance to it anymore. And I think especially in the last several years, that has come roaring back, recognizing that our people are our number one assets, family, friends, community, work. They are our number one assets. And so for— it begs the question, so how do I recognize that our people are our number one asset? And then how do I, if I'm not comfortable, if I'm not there quite yet, how do I make the time, to David's point about lack of time, find that incentive, have the accountability to the employee's happiness, you know, gain that patience and learn how to connect. And that's what I want to kind of share some ideas and some tips with you today. Now, I will say the one kind of core message I always try to convey to groups, to individuals, even I responded to Phil in regards to it, is the fact that people are not robots. And you as a leader are not a robot. You know the old saying about leave your emotions at the door, you know, leave your baggage at the door, anything that, you know, you have going on outside of work. The minute, minute you, you know, come into work, whether that's online or through an office, you know, leave all your personal stuff at home. I fed into that. I absolutely fed into that throughout my, throughout my career. I thought that that was, you know, the lane I should be in and what I should be doing and how I should be acting and treating other people. And it— and there's nothing further from the truth because we're not robots. We are people, and we are people with a lot of heart. We're people with a lot of struggles, a lot of challenges, a lot of junk, a lot of baggage. And in another aspect of my work, a lot of bitches. And so why I can relate to this subject so tightly is because— and you know, there's a shameless plug— but I had written the book, which is my personal story Shedding the Corporate Bitch, shifting from bitch to rich in life and business. And what this is all about is the fact that my insecurities, fears, negativities— what I call bitches— prevented me from wanting to reveal and be vulnerable and strip down and be raw with other people, especially in the workplace. And therefore It also put up a wall of actually really caring and being compassionate and graceful and kind to the people that I worked with. I was just expecting that they would just show up just like I was showing up, pretty much robotic and getting the work done. And at the end of the day, leaving and going off to whatever was going on in their personal life, because I wasn't bringing it in. You know, I was kind of putting on this, you know, um, this shield armor, a mask, uh, that, you know, pretty much was, was meant to cover up all those fears and insecurities and negativities. And yet, yet, and this is big, you can't cover them up. They will project out. And oftentimes insecurities, fears, negativities, uh, all kind of get projected in a very Robotic, bullying, aggressive, um, non-service-oriented leadership. And that is exactly my story and what I captured. Um, and since then, in the last 12, 14 years, have learned very, very hard. Um, at the same time, with great gratitude that life is all about connecting with others. And you don't want to get woo-woo. I'm really not a woo-woo person either, but I will say that it's connecting with the heart, it's connecting with their mind and their, you know, their, their brain. You can kind of go there if that's more comfortable with you, but it is connecting with the person themselves. And why is that important? Well, and because even David said there's lack of incentive So as Gary said, you know, um, leaders who care about their employees and work for their employees rather than thinking their employees work for them will disproportionately attract people that are hardworking and want to work for them. So there's your incentive. You know, you kind of, you know, little bit being genuinely caring, and your people will respond in such a way that, one, they'll feel appreciated. Um, I would suspect that, you know, they're going to feel as if they are being heard. And, and sometimes it may not even get to the point of understood or agreed with, but they're being heard, which then leads to them feeling valued and that they're contributing, uh, and that they, you know, that they are appreciated for what it is that they're doing. And in that little bit, all of a sudden you have someone who is definitely letting go of their own angst and frustrations and feeling unappreciated and overwhelmed and stressed out. And all of a sudden they're becoming an employee that is more optimistic, more, more willing to go beyond, you know, what, you know, they're called to do. And they're willing to, you know, attract other people to the team and want to be part of the team and continue to grow with the team. And so to David's comment about a lack of incentive, I would challenge any leader And actually, I did this a couple of weeks ago. It's in a conversation I was having with a senior, senior executive. And we were talking about, you know, this similar subject, you know, all the soft skills, all the things that people don't want to talk about, because it's much easier to talk about the hard, hard numbers, you know, the metrics, the revenues and the profit and the bottom line and the top line and everything that's included on the P&L and beyond. It's harder to then say, all right, so I do need my leaders and my team to be cared for and to care. But how do I— how do I measure that? How can I measure that? And so the discussion led to, well, things almost that, that Gary said, well, you could be measuring whether or not you are attracting or repelling people from your team. From a leader's team. So are they having turn? You know, are they having high retention? Are they having, you know, high or low employee satisfaction? So there's a whole number of ways of metrics that you can use and you can embed into whether it's individual performance reviews, employees, or the leaders themselves, Or it's part of a team's measurement and goals. Or it's a part of the company's not only goals and measurements, but also culture. Because a great deal, which we won't get into, into, but a great deal of whether or not one leader cares is whether or not there's a culture of all of the leaders caring about their people. Now you might all, you know, always have a one-off, someone who just doesn't get there, not because they don't want to, but just because they're— they are a bit more— not even introverted, because this has nothing to do with whether or not someone's introverted or extroverted or a people person or a, you know, individual contributor. This has to do with someone genuinely caring about the fact that this individual that's working for me is a person, not a robot. And therefore, they do have things going on. They, they do have stress over the economy. They do have stress over the rising prices of food and gas. They do have stress over, you know, the pandemic. They do have stress over, you know, health insurance. And all of those things, whether you want to believe it or not, and whether they're work-related or not, they're all feeding into whether or not your employees are, you know, effectively contributing in their work, or if they're just kind of passing time. Okay, so there's tremendous amount of incentives. And going back to that, that senior vice president I was talking about, he even in our conversation, he, you know, was having that same question, like, okay, so how do we start measuring this? So I started sharing some of the, some of the ideas that I had, and then all of a sudden, like, a light bulb went off. If you just take a minute to think about these things, something will come to you around the fact that there's no excuse to lack of time, lack of incentive, lack of accountability. So all of a sudden, he's like, well, wait a minute. I could— and this actually was teaming, like people working together, and the caring, and these really being stakeholders to one another, and partnering, and collaborating. So he was like, well, wait a minute, I can certainly measure whether or not, you know, 2 or 3 people are effectively individually and as a group working together and caring about each other's success and also caring about their challenges by, you know, seeing the progress that they're making on a project or the way that they're handling challenges and overcoming issues. Or dealing with conflict and disagreements. And so, you know, the next thing you know, he's scribbling up a storm on a piece of paper. So there's a lot of ways, going back to the lack of incentive, there's a lot of incentive, um, to an individual, a leader, caring about the people that work for them. Because as Gary said, you know, you're working for them. And they're helping you and contributing to your success. So in turn, you should be working for them to help them be successful. Uh, so then, uh, I want to kind of leverage David's feedback. Uh, lack of time. Well, when I first saw that, I thought, shoot, now there's a lazy excuse if I've ever heard one. Because think about it. Now, I get what he was probably meaning in regards to lack of time, because, you know, the whole effort of people development does chunk out a lot of time from your calendar. And yet, even if you weren't, even if you weren't to kind of put some intentional blocks of time each month for your, for your team members, And because that looks overwhelming and time-consuming and you have so many meetings and it constantly gets canceled and you don't have, you know, you don't have the time. But just think about simply what you could do when you get on the next one-on-one call talking about anything, or when you get a team status meeting and everybody comes onto the, onto the line or into the room, or when, you know, you're all of a sudden walking down a hallway with someone that you happen to even just run into. There's all those opportunities. There's tons of opportunities, not just what I believe and what I think David was even saying, you know. I don't— you know, there's tons of time apart from where individuals get overwhelmed thinking that, oh well, what this means is I'm supposed to like all of a sudden block out all this time for my people individually, let alone in a group. And that is overwhelming, whelming when it comes to, you know, the time. And yes, that should be done. That should be done. I'm a coach, you know, that's what I would be telling you is yes, you need to block out— your job is people, and therefore you need to block out time for each of your people, you know, on a frequency. But let's take that out. And get— because I want to get rid of this excuse, the lack of time. Again, so Sally, how are things? What can I do to make you more successful? What do you need to do? What do you need in order to be more productive? Are you, you know, okay? Or how are you dealing with X, Y, and Z, this big change that's going on in the organization? The fact that, yes, you know, prices, you know, all over, you know, all over the world are increasing and it is impacting our own, you know, our own work, your ability to do your job. And therefore, you know, what's that showing up as for you? You know, there's, there's tons of opportunities in your day and/or in your week with your team members individually or as a group, to just simply intentionally ask questions that will allow them to feel as if, you know what, this person sees me. They, you know, they recognize that I'm not a robot. They recognize that I'm just not a workhorse here, you know, chugging away to accomplish a task that they can check off their list. And therefore they're— they really, you know, care for me. They, they see me as valuable and important, and they see that yes, I might be struggling, but at the same time, you know, I, I, I'm dealing with a lot. And they're hearing that and seeing that and kind of recognizing that and appreciating, you know, that I need help. You know, that doesn't take much time sitting in a, sitting in a status meeting. And I share this a lot in my work, an example that I had had, and I just wish when I learned it and observed it for a good couple of years, I wish it carried through with me for the next couple of decades, but it certainly has in the last decade. I had a boss in my late 20s, maybe early 30s, I think late 20s. And she wasn't, you know, she maybe was 7 or 8 years older than I was. And I was a buyer, and there was 5 or 6 other female buyers as well. Nikki had this uncanny ability to connect with people. Uncanny. And to the point where she could be scolding you and she could be disciplining you and she could be really upset about whatever. And yet, you know, she cares. You know she's doing it for your, you know, for your good and your growth. And, you know, you know that it's going to be all right once it's kind of addressed and maybe resolved, maybe not, and moved on. And, uh, and she went beyond that. And if we're sitting in a room together in a status meeting, for instance, she made sure, you know, that she addressed everybody individually. And then she gave them and met them where they were in kind of the way they need to be addressed and communicated to and managed and motivated, inspired. And that's a little off track to what we're talking about around caring, but all of what she demonstrated was caring because she actually met each of us where we were. So for instance, Annie, uh, was a seasoned— what I'll call a seasoned, um, woman from France, and she was very put together, very polished. But yet, well, there's no but there. And she needed, you know, some stroking. She needed some, you know, praise. She needed some motivation and inspiration in order to even address a really, you know, ugly or difficult, you know, issue. And Nikki would actually kind of morph into this individual that was perfect for what Annie needed. And then she'd come to either Gail or myself. Gail was from Staten Island, New York. I'm from Philly, and especially really from Philly in my 20s, uh, because I had just moved away from Philly. And, uh, you know, we didn't need the coddling and the stroking and the woo-woo. We needed just give it to us straight, you know, no BS. Get tough love, so to speak. And again, Nikki would morph into this, you know, individual. For instance, with Annie, physically she would like move in, she would reach out to touch her hand. With Gail and I, she'd sit up straight and she'd go into a power position, you know, sitting across and behind her executive desk while we're all sitting around her. And she would— her voice, her facial expressions, her body was all very different. At the same time, it conveyed to us that good, bad, or ugly, what was— whatever was going on, she cared. It was through the questions and, you know, that she asked, through the communication, the way she responded to our questions or our commentary. To the way that she kind of addressed us and presented herself around something. All of that shows that you're caring, especially, um, genuinely. Like, it wasn't a force. It wasn't like a check off the list. I have to care about my people, so I'm going to ask them some questions every time I get together with them. Caring means that you're going to actively listen to understand, not just to kind of wait until you have an opening to talk, and to actually take it in, feel it. You know, that's where compassion, empathy, uh, comes in, to where you're actually appreciating what, what that is, you know, what that employee is telling you or sharing with you or discussing with you, and that you're actively listening and contributing to that dialogue or that situation or you know, maybe the, the question being asked or the challenge that they're dealing with or the request for help that they have, um, whatever the case might be. So does that take time? Sure, it takes time. Uh, however, the ROI, if we want to talk, you know, business speak, the return on investment is huge, so far beyond even what Gary said around the fact that they're going to want to work with you. They're going to want to follow you. I say, you know, go into a fire for you. It even goes beyond that. So, there, you know, the excuse— not excuse, but the reasoning of lack of incentive, there's tons of incentive in you being a leader who actually genuinely cares about your people. As far as the time's concerned, it doesn't have to take much time. Simply asking, how are you? And intentionally, genuinely listening, feeling, and contributing to that doesn't take much time. And then if you choose to, you know, you can move on to having those dedicated, focused one-on-one block of calendar type of coaching and development opportunities between you and an individual or you and your team. And then, all right, so then David went on to say, which I agree, lack of accountability to employees' happiness. And again, I think that comes back to the metrics we were talking about against the incentives we've already talked about is You know, yes, every leader needs to be accountable to whether or not their employees are showing up and they are, you know, actively contributing, or they're just kind of, you know, watching the clock and waiting until 5 o'clock hits. You know, as a leader, let alone as the business and the company itself, they need to be interested and concerned about that metric. And you can measure it through, you know, employee satisfaction surveys, that type of thing. You can measure it through retention or attrition. You can measure it through the amount of workload that's accomplished, due dates that, that are achieved or delayed, budget— budgets that are met or over— overrun. There's a number of ways you could be measuring any of that. But leaders definitely need to insert into their own, their peers', seniors', measurements of care, measurements of compassion, measurements of service leadership. Because again, people are your greatest assets. And therefore, you should be spending every day thinking, how can I ensure my people are taken care of? They know that they're cared for. They know that I'm here for them. I'm working for them to develop and make them successful. I'm asking the questions. What do you need to be successful? What do you need to, you know, to do your job? You know, what's going on in your world? And how are you handling and managing? And genuinely ask them and then contribute to them. I had mentioned lack of patience and, um, I would certainly agree. People require a lot of patience. Uh, I tend to be, I tend to prefer the four-legged kind of, uh, relationships. Um, kidding, but, uh, I am a dog lover, but yes. Building relationships and genuinely caring does, you know, take patience. I, I'll say to my clients quite often, I'll have them, especially if they're parents— I'm not a parent other than to a four-legged friend. Uh, I do have a lot of nieces and nephews, different from parenting, I understand. However, I tend to always use the analogy of parents and children. You know, leader and employee, or boss and an employee, have that very similar dynamic that, you know, whether it's about discipline and structure and routine, and yet at the same time, safety, security, support, uh, you know, compassion, empathy, being heard, being understood, being valued. All of those things are no different from a parent to a child than a boss to an employee. And so I'll often say that, you know, just like a child, they may kick and scream. They may fight you all the way, all along the way. They may be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no to everything. They might be, you know, you know, I don't want to call it lazy. They might be, you know, not pulling their weight. And so forth and so on. But they want that leader, they want that parent that comes along and gives them that structure and that discipline and those routines and that compassion and that caring, because it does, it does allow them to feel beyond valued and, um, uh, contributing, but it makes them feel safe and secure and stable. And therefore Forget, you know, the blood loyalty between, you know, a parent and a child, but looking at it from a business perspective, it would also feed that loyalty, that willingness to do whatever it takes, that wanting to be part of your team, um, as a result. So just kind of think about all of that. And then, uh, I touched on lack of personal connection or personal relationships. Again, it was hard for me, you know, especially when I was networking as an entrepreneur for the last 12 years, but mostly for the first 6 years it was heavy, intense, you know, going out to entrepreneurial events and to women's events and looking for potential, you know, clients and strategic partners and vendors and needing to go and you know, put on a smile and chit-chat and do the small talk and, you know, connect and connect and connect. And it was hard for me. People look at me like, oh, well, you're so outgoing and extroverted. And but yeah, no, I mean, I still, you know, from the small talk, get me into a deep connected relationship conversation or, you know, connection, and I'm all the in. But when it comes to just even, you know, the small talk or the small connections, even in a work environment, was always challenging for me. And my first— I would say the last 3 of those 6 years that I was heavily doing it as an entrepreneur, it really burned me out. And it burned me out not from the volume of meet and greets. And getting to know people and going out and stretching that engagement or that relationship building. It was all about just how artificial others were toward me. And I wasn't taking it personally, and that's not what I mean. Um, but it's more so I was going out to genuinely meet people, learn about them, understand if I can support them, if they could support me, if they could support my clients or my network. And, you know, therefore I was all in and trying to really learn about people. And yet, um, after a good number of years, I just, you know, got so stressed out because it just turned into people pushing business cards. And the minute you start introducing yourself, they start introducing themselves, but then they go off on who they are and what they're all about and what they need and what they want from you and blah blah. And it was like a grab, grab, grab.. And I thought, this isn't, this isn't relationship building or relationship connection or even business connecting. This is just a, you know, selfish, uncaring type of, you know, grab bag, so to speak. And I got really, really burned out from it. And so I would say I haven't been at one of those events in years. Probably since I've been on my own for 14, that was 6 years, so it's been 8 years. However, I look— I took all of that and I looked at from a leadership perspective with whether or not it's my team members or it's my clients or it's vendors and strategic partners or coaches that I work with. I looked at, okay, so what do I want to be as a leader? And how do I want to contribute, and how do I want to even be seen and received? And I— caring was one of those big elements that popped up. Compassionate and, you know, empathetic. I even needed to— well, compassion I didn't need to work on. Being vulnerable was my big area that I needed to work on, is just letting letting my guard down and being open and vulnerable and raw with others. So if you are not in a place where you feel as if you're able to connect with whether it's your peers, your boss, your employees, then just say, okay, well, self-awareness is the first step. And that's a great place to be. And, you know, becoming aware of where you may or may not be struggling, and therefore you seek help for it. You know, relationship building takes practice. It sounds odd to even say that caring takes practice, but we are so— we are humans with so many different demands on our heart and our mind and our time that we have to get to a place— you have to get to a place where you recognize that the rewards of really caring and opening yourself up— and because you have to meet them where they are, you can't expect them to care if you don't care, right? So if they're struggling to care, it might be a reflection of you struggling to care. So you can look at it as, okay, so what do, what do I need to do to help us move to the middle? And so you start with yourself first and you say, okay, so what can I be doing to move myself closer to the middle? And yes, it might, you know, take being vulnerable, being open, so forth and so on, and that's really hard and difficult. So what can be my first step? And I would say just ask questions of other people. I would give you no other tip than that. If you really want to learn how to be a caring leader, simply learn to ask your people with a genuine heart questions that make them feel heard, seen, appreciated and cared for. And that's as simple as not just, how was your weekend? But more so, so, you know, how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? You know, how's the family? How are the kids? How, you know, how are you feeling today? How can I help you be successful? What do you need in order to, to do your job and to do it well? What are your goals? What are your aspirations? What do you want from me? And what do you want from this job, slash hopefully a career that I can support you with? And now when people say, well, there's a, you know, then this lack of time. There's this whole time thing. Well, beyond that, those, all those questions, if all of a sudden it's, well, I'd like, you know, to be mentored or coached or trained, you know, then yes, then it's going to require more and more time. But lack of time is not an excuse for you simply asking your people individually and/or as a group and checking in with them on how they are, what they need, how you can support them. And how can you help them be successful? Right then and there with those simple, with those simple questions, you not only will have them starting to open up, but then you'll start wanting to open up because they are. So you can take away, and that's what I was, I've been trying to do, is you could take away your stress about, oh, I have to open myself up, be vulnerable, let my guard down. You could take that away initially by just simply allowing them to. And then trust me when I say, once you, you know, have that connection with them, you're going to want to start sharing more with them. You're going to want to start, you know, being vulnerable and open. Good, bad, and ugly. All of it. Now, there is, you know, some limits to what you need and want to talk about in the workplace. But at the same time, there's, you know, vulnerability in the workplace that is absolutely necessary to not only show that someone cares, but it's tremendously critical for trust. It's tremendously critical for partnering. It's tremendously critical for conflict management and dealing with disagreements and for building accountability. And for, you know, working through and working toward common goals. And if you want to be able to achieve all of that from either your peers or your, your team itself, then you need to be the leader in getting everyone to care about each other and invest time in asking questions and learning about your people and recognizing that they are indeed people, not just robots who are showing up to do your work. And as Gary said, and I'll leave all of you with this, as Gary said, oh, I just lost it. Okay. Hold on a minute. I'm going to find it. As Gary said, leaders who care about their employees and work for their employees rather than thinking that their employees work for them will disproportionately attract people that are hardworking and want to work for them. And I would hope that, you know, your goal, your incentive is even much more than that. Not just having hard workers, um, that want to work for you, but that come with, you know, great passion and vigor and optimism and positivity to want to do excellent work and even to follow you into a fire. And what's better than that? What greater incentive do you need? All right. So that's our conversation for today. And again, keep in mind at any point in time, should you have a question or a challenge or a decision or an opportunity that you need some expert advice on some tips, maybe some tough love. You want to extend this conversation and really learn how you could be a caring leader, then feel free to book some complimentary time with me. No obligation at all. Just you and I addressing whatever it is that you're thinking about and wanting or challenged with. Go to coachmebernadette.com/discoverycall and I would love, love, love to help you. To learn more about, uh, myself and everything we do at Ball of Fire Coaching, just go to ballofirecoaching.com and, um, you can learn all about us there. All right, so for myself and everybody within the Ball of Fire Coaching community, thank you so much, and I'll look forward to seeing you right back here next Thursday for another Power Hour Coaching. Take care, everybody. Bye.