Chris Hunsicker breaks down four leadership traits—compassion, stability, trust, and hope—that drive employee engagement. When leaders show all four, engagement hits 69%; without them, it drops to 1%. He gives specific micro-actions like strategic texts and pauses, then walks you through rating yourself 1-10 on each trait to find what to fix.
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He was a killer closer, high energy, first in, last out. But he was burning out his team. They were avoiding him, withdrawing. And so when we sat down, I asked him, why do you think your team's not engaged? And he said, I don't know, man. I show up every single day. And I asked him the same question we talked about in yesterday's podcast. I asked him, I said, yeah, but what part of you is showing up? So yesterday we talked about the wake that you leave in your leadership. Today I want to talk about the trim tabs. And what are the four behaviors that anchor in your leadership that either build trust every day or they destroy it? Good morning. I'm Chris Hunsicker, and this is the dealership war room, Day three, from Santorini, here on my balcony. And this is leadership fire, built daily, fueled intentionally, and delivered relentlessly. So let's dive in to building on the superpower of hope that, that we talked about last week. Leadership isn't about direction. It's about emotional stability. According to Shane Lopez and his groundbreaking research on engagement, there are four traits that cause people to engage. These are your anchor code. Four traits that stabilize, inspire, and retain, especially when everything's under fire. Let me share with you just one piece of that research that is unbelievable, and that is that when these four behaviors that I'm going to talk to you about today show up, 69% of employees are engaged. When they aren't there, engagement drops to 1%. That's not a typo. That's an actual fact. 1%. So let's dive in to how we can add these four behaviors to your leadership today. The first trait, compassion. Do you see me? Am I a person with a name and a story or just a piece on a chessboard that you're moving around? You see, fundamentally, compassion is when a. A leader notices effort or struggle and responds with humanity. Here's a little micro step I'd like you to take to start building more of your compassion today. And that is think of someone in your organization who's been grinding for quite some time. Send them a text, send them a note, give them some kind of, hey, I got you, and I see you. In other words, deliver some compassion. Number two is stability. Can I count on your energy more than the environment? My favorite example of this is John Glenn. During the entire Apollo Moon mission, his heartbeat never got above 100 beats per minute. I want you to think about that the entire time you are landing on the moon. His heartbeat never goes above 100 beats per minute. That kind of Calm, that kind of stability is what creates confidence in the people that you lead and that you manage. And that's what I want you to take out of this. Calm leaders create calm teams. And calm teams can execute because they're focused on the mission at hand and not on managing the drama and emotion around them. Remember, stability isn't being passive, it's being unshakable. That's what you're driving for. That's what builds trust. That's what inspires confidence. That's what retains people. So today, little micro step for you. Every day for the next seven days. Before you walk into your showroom floor, I want you to pause for 60 seconds and regulate yourself and decide which part of you is going to show up and what kind of wake are you going to leave today. The third trait is trust. Do you follow through, especially when it's inconvenient? Because at the end of the day, your word is your wake. And people don't leave companies, they leave inconsistent leaders, even ones that they liked. They were just too inconsistent. And so little micro action for today that I'd like you to take is, is I want you to think of one promise, one commitment, one thing that you've kind of left dangling and you haven't followed through on. And close the loop. Today, the fourth trait is hope. Do I believe we're going somewhere and do I matter to that mission? This is the heartbeat. Hope is what turns exhaustion into belief. That when you cast a shared vision that everybody can see themselves in, then you don't just lead, you ignite. Here's a micro action for you. Take one of your goals and reframe it for your team. Not as a target, but as a mission that we win together. Because leaders are dealers in hope and without it, everything falls apart. Now, here's the truth, and this is a really good truth. You don't have to master all four of these traits today. If you can just take the lowest one and raise it by 10%, you're going to unlock more energy, more connection, and more buy in than any bonus ever could. So here's your war room challenge. I want you to stop for 60 seconds and I want you to think on paper. In other words, write this down, don't do it in your head. And I want you to rate yourself from 1 to 10 on each of these four traits. On compassion, on stability, on trust, on hope. And then look, what's the lowest one? That's your lever. Focus there. Get a 10% improvement and watch the results multiply. Then this evening or tomorrow, I want you to dive a little bit deeper. And here's what I want you to do. Once you take the 1 through 10, and let's say on compassion, you had a 7 and you think, you know what? I'd really like to see that be a 9 for it to be where I want it to be. Instead of trying to go from seven and nine, I want you to go from seven to five and say, why didn't you put five? And you're going to come up with a series of answers. There's things you do, you say and that you don't do and that you don't say that really represent why you're at a 7 and not a 5. Those are the behaviors that if you repeat and do more often, are going to take you from 7 to 9. It is one of the most profound ways to use a 1 to 10 scale to benefit you and not hurt you. So after each one of those where your number is at, you're going to go down two and say, why didn't I put the lower one? And whatever behaviors and thoughts and things come up, those are your recipe for excellence that you want to repeat and use more often. So let's finish with this thought. Compassion earns trust and stability, earns calm and hope. It earns belief. Master these three, you will never beg for buying again. Because your team doesn't need perfection. They need your presence. This is the dealership war room. The anchor code is your blueprint. You raise one, you raise them all. So today, let's go create some leadership fire, and I'll see you tomorrow in the dealership war room.
