To be a good leader, Andrew Cagnetta says that you have to not only understand your own needs and motivations but those of your employees, as well.
Understanding the motivations of his 85 employees at Transworld Business Brokers LLC helps Cagnetta empower them by giving them the tools they need to succeed.
“You have to understand what they need to get their job done,” says the company’s president and CEO. “They need training, sometimes they need mentorship, or they need the ability to get resources.”
Understanding his people better has helped Cagnetta grow the business broker firm to 2007 revenue of $10 million.
Smart Business spoke with Cagnetta about how understanding your employees and setting an example for them can lead to a culture of honesty and trust.
Q. How do you find out what motivates people?
Try to have a dialogue with them. When people first start, we have training, and we go out to dinner the first night. I sit there and want to know about their personal lives. Not so much that I’m delving into their lives, but I ask questions like, ‘Do you have kids? Where did you grow up? Do you have brothers and sisters?’ Just getting to know the person first and what’s important to them.
You need to understand psychology. Everyone is not motivated like you are. Some want money, others want to belong, while some just want a place to work. You have to be an active listener and understand your employees’ motivations.
Some may want a lifetime career, while some might need gas money to go to night school.
Q. How do you develop that open and honest dialogue with employees?
It takes cues. Sometimes you’re telling stories, and you encourage them to tell stories. We use a lot of real-life examples in negotiating, so you’re going through these real-life phrases and say, ‘Have you ever run into something like that?’
You kind of drag stories out of them. You can ask the easy questions first — ‘Where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? Did you go to college? What’s your favorite baseball and basketball team?’ You can start to learn a lot about them.
I went through a bad experience at a company where everything was a secret. I didn’t appreciate that and didn’t like the way it felt. Out of that bad experience just came, ‘I’m not going to do that to people; I’m going to be honest and share with them.’
Have an inviting body language and posture. Make some small talk. Tell them they can be honest.
