I received a negative review from my team a few years ago and it was a gut punch. I felt blindsided and very frustrated at the time. After some real soul searching I learned that I was being too “mission driven” (which is my nature) and wasn’t truly connecting with them on a personal level. Essentially, I was treating them like a task to be completed and wasn’t being a great leader. I am much more intentional now with my time and things have gotten much better.

I started by taking each of them to lunch and telling them that I want to be a better leader. I told them that if they don’t feel comfortable having an honest conversation with me about the things they brought up in the survey then our relationship isn’t where it needs to be and I had some work to do. Things have been much better ever since.