4 Ways Any Leader Can Be More Generous

Few things are as wonderful as working for a generous leader.  Just so we are clear, I am not just talking about generous financially, though that is definitely part of it.  The most generous leaders also freely give of their time, energy, wisdom, and influence.
Some of the most generous leaders I know are Randy Ongie and team at MAG Bookkeeping.  Recentlyone of the MAG team members, Ivy Sprague, wrote about the organization’s culture of generosity.  What makes their team generous is unique and something all leaders can learn from.  Check out her comments below:
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The term “generosity” usually makes us think of money given to causes or people we value. But as leaders, there are so many things we can give to those around us that don’t necessarily have a dollar value, but pay incredible dividends. In our day-to-day work, we try to give our colleagues these gifts:

• The gift of assuming the best—when there’s a gap between what’s happened in one of our teams and what we expected, we fill that gap with trust. We assume the best of those we work with, rather than automatically assuming the worst.
• The gift of attention—nearly all our interactions in our companies are done by video, not only because we want to keep connected with all our virtual teams but also because video conferences make it really hard to multi-task and “check out” of the interaction. People matter to us, and we want to give them our full attention when we’re meeting. We also share our weekly Highs & Lows on our private Facebook group, and leaders make an effort to read those posts and let our teams know we’re thinking of and supporting them when the Lows are expressed. We text, we email, we call and let those team members know we’ve heard them and we’re here for them.
• The gift of information—not every team member needs to know every detail of our decision-making, but we make an effort to share regularly with all our teams what’s happening at the higher levels of our companies. We host virtual “chats” so our contractors can ask questions of their leaders, and make sure we’re regularly updating our teams on our victories and our challenges.
• The gift of personalization—we’ve got a really cool practice in our companies called “Frugal WOW“, where we send small gifts to clients and our team when they’ve achieved something awesome or when they’re working through a big challenge. OK, these gifts really do involve money but the point is that they don’t cost much. We make sure these gifts are specific to the person’s interests and personality, to show that we really know who they are and what they’re doing. For example, when this red-haired writer was working through a particularly busy season, I got a tin of cookies from a colleague with a note saying I’m her favorite “ginger snap.” And it pretty much made my entire week!

How can you be more generous with your teams in ways that don’t cost a thing?

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