WHY - Humility is the secret to employee loyalty

When was the last time you heard your boss make some of these statements?

"I don't know, let me ask Sally.” “My employee Sean came up with an idea that I want to run by you.” “Nick, I am confident you will make the right decision without my input." If you were one of the few people that heard your boss say something like this recently (in the last week or even month), tell your boss to keep up the great work. If you aren't one of the few leaders that is commonly willing to admit they don't have the answer, commonly share the credit with their employees, or willing to trust their employees to make the right decision, you might consider the impact this could make on employee loyalty.

Did you know: The US Department of Labor Estimates that todays earners will have 10-14 jobs by the time they are 38. (see more about these interesting facts - watch this video. I personally only worked for four companies by the time I turned 38. It has also been well documented from company employee exit surveys that the number one reason employees leave a company is not for money but because of their boss. Recent articles about the emerging "Me Generation" are suggesting that the times of people working for one or two companies their whole career are being looked upon as not only a thing of the past, but almost as ancient as 8-track tapes.

Those of you that live in the U.S. might know some of the famous stories about the legendary service from the fashion retailer Nordstrom. I personally had the pleasure of working at this great company and watched several of the leaders demonstrate what "Being Humble" looked like. One year, at an annual employee meeting, Blake Nordstrom, 4th generation Nordstrom family member and CEO, related a story about visiting New York and having to meet with Wall Street Economists. This meeting was during the ".com bust" and the economists were drilling him with questions about how the economy was impacting Nordstrom's sales results. Now, anything Mr. Nordstrom said to these guys could probably impact the Nordstrom stock price. And yet, his response to the question was: "You know, I don't know anything about the economy and its impact on our sales but I do know that we need to sell more shoes." This is also the same guy you would see out on the sales floor helping customers and employees during every sales event. The morale: It's not an accident that Nordstrom is recognized as one of the top 100 companies to work for and has low employee turnover. Of course, it takes more than one leader being humble to achieve results like these, but it starts one leader at a time.

Three things leaders can do to show their humility:

1. Give full responsibility of something to one of your employees. Employees need to feel a part of something and feel like they own it. Yes, of course you are still on the hook for their deliverables and depending on the employee's skills and experience you may need to be involved to help them succeed. Trust them to own it, let them have the conversations with your peers and your boss on their own.

2. Defer the credit. It is human nature to want to be valued and it is human nature to want to be seen as doing a good job by our boss. It's much harder to say, "John I am glad you are happy with the proposal. I also want you to know that Sally not only came up with the idea, she wrote the proposal on her own, and I would like her to have an opportunity to discuss the details of her proposal with you."

3. Most companies use some sort of annual performance review system. The performance review conversation is usually an extremely anxious time for most employees. While generally, the intended purpose of an annual review discussion is to provide the employee with feedback on their achievements, development areas, and potential career progression, it can also be a great time to show your humility. Ask your employees: What can I do to support you better or help you develop your skills? While this is a relatively simple question, in my experience, it's rarely asked. After conducting thousands of 360 feedback surveys, the feedback suggests that most leaders could do a much better job of actively helping their employees grow and develop. This is something that takes time and you need to be deliberate about it. The annual review can be a good time to turn an anxious discussion into something you and the employee can both use to help the employee succeed.

These are relatively simple practices and I am not claiming to be an expert about humility, but I do know I personally have worked with a few great leaders, ones that lived these practices and I would chose to work with them again.