One of the biggest questions presented on Facebook this election season is how to remain friends with people on the other side of the political isle after the 2012 Election. The 2012 Election finals are in. So what are you, as leaders, prepared to do?
Since 2000, the political landscape has become increasingly polarized. Some say that choosing our political leaders this term will result in casting our destiny, which will make life very different for women and for those who value fairness. For others, nothing has been more polarizing and sometimes viserel that deciding this election. The reality is that your employees’ emotions are tied up in the results.
So how are you prepared to deal with this?
According to Martha Finney, a leadership consultant and publisher of HR Career Success, “No one needs to be told that employment is a big-deal issue this time around. But being employers is equally a big deal. And this goes beyond the hard numerical realities of the programs put into place in the last four years.”
Your employees and future employees care about the Affordable Care Act, equal pay for equal work and engagement. According to Finney, the tradition of honoring capitalism and free-market principles may not cut it any more when it comes to interacting with employees.
Emotions are high and deploying emotionally intelligent solutions geared at handling disappointment is important to your current position and when hiring new employees. Here’s why.
The Occupy Wall Street movement revealted that there is a significant number of resentful Americans who believe that helping a company prosper for the company’s sake is no longer satisfying. They want results that benefit their lives, too. This means capitalism is being re-evaluated to its core as the top 2% get richer and the rest stuggle to hang on or plunge from of a comfortable middle class life style.
A non-emotional management strategy would be to say to employees, the election is over so live with it – your’re either in or out and that’s it. Another would be to say, if you don’t like how things are run around here, then leave. The reality is that they have skills you need and new employees could be still vehemently anti-capitalist. This means you return to square one and are saddled with training new employees as you strive to launch your company out of the recession.
How do you emotionally manage disappointed employees? For example, some might feel self righeous and others might feel angry. The Engagement, Retention and Growth training series gives you actionable solutions for engaging employees to champion change and for deploying good emotional management strategies.
Short of sharing the resources from this program with your employees:
- Take every opportunity to show employees the systems that satisfy their health, job safety, and fair pay concerns now.
- Show them how your company is successful and how it makes a difference in the world.
- Show them how what they do makes a difference to your bottom line and how that secures their futures.
- Listen to employees who display negativity in the coming weeks and after thoroughly listening, share your understanding of what disappointment feels like and what your expectations of them are as you go forward.
- Praise publically those who remain optimistic and stay on task and who do not display a nana nana nana demeanor.
My desire is that you retain your excellent employees, handle disappointments and get down to work stronger and more resilient as we roar out of the recession.
Copyright TIGERS Success Series by Dianne Crampton
