Becoming a good leader takes time and practice, but a growing percentage of employees are striving to become better leaders.
According to Google data, search interest in the term “leadership” is at an all-time high, along with related terms such as training, best practices, advice on how to lead a team, and sources for professional development.
Brian Glaser, Google’s chief learning officer, said the conversation likely stems from people looking to lead in an era of rapid business change due to remote and hybrid office policies, changes in global politics and economic conditions, and the introduction of technologies such as AI.
Mr. Glaser has served as a manager on and off for the past 20 years, leading the onboarding, training and leadership development of approximately 150,000 employees worldwide.
Glaser, the leadership expert, told CNBC Make It that people of all experience levels struggle with one of the key aspects of being a boss: “providing really effective feedback that helps people understand where they stand.”
Instead, many managers seek to be liked and avoid critical or constructive feedback.
“As a leader, it’s great to be kind,” Glaser says. While it may make your reporting more popular, “the name of the game really should be respected.”
“If you can’t provide feedback, you might not get the respect you need as a manager,” he says. This can be difficult for someone who is a manager for the first time, or someone who has been promoted and is now overseeing the work of a former colleague.
But “if you just want to tell people what’s working and not necessarily deliver something difficult, your team can become stagnant or repeat avoidable mistakes,” Glaser says.
Glaser’s team is behind Google’s latest People Management Essentials. This is a publicly available, paid course that covers lessons from over 10 Google bosses on what it takes to be a great leader.
Some of the lessons on providing solid feedback were inspired by sports psychology, Glaser said.
“The best athletes, he says, are those who constantly receive feedback from their coaches about their performance, whether they win or lose.” After each match, they debrief and discuss what went well and what didn’t. We believe the same concepts apply to organizational life. ”
Discussing areas for improvement will help ensure future performance improvements. Athletes, including Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and U.S. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, have said learning from mistakes and failures has been a driving force behind their success.
Meanwhile, in the workplace, it can be difficult to tell a report that “we need to improve,” Glaser says, “but through good practice, managers know they can do it, and that’s what’s really important.”
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