Great leaders truly care about those they are privileged to lead and understand that the true cost of the leadership privilege comes at the expense of self-interest.  ~Simon Sinek

In a recent team effectiveness training session I asked the participants if they needed to know their teammates, personally.  They didn’t all agree.  A number (probably most) said they need to know what their teammates’ technical skills are but they don’t need to know anything about them, personally.

I chose to push them on that idea a bit.  I had a copy of Patrick Lencioni’s book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and I read one of the questions from his 15-question survey to determine if you have a dysfunctional team.  Question #12 states “Team members know about one another’s personal lives and are comfortable discussing them.”  In other words, they care about each other.

Why does caring matter?  Here are only a few of the questions that were spinning around in my mind as I continued to unpack this idea in the training session.

• We spend a lot of time with our colleagues, maybe more than our families; don’t we all want to spend that much of lives with people who care about us?
• Aren’t we more likely to trust someone who cares about us?
• Don’t we all hope that as a person we are more than just our technical skills?
• We want to receive empathy in our workplace, but how can people be empathetic if they don’t care?

Author, psychologist, and executive coach Dr. Henry Cloud put it this way, “In the end trust is about the heart, and someone making an investment in you from his or her heart.  And if you gain people’s trust, their heart, then you also have their desire and passion.”

Maybe we have outstanding technical skills, and every team certainly needs skilled team members.  However, John C. Maxwell stated it well when he said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

You could be like some of the participants in my training session.  You believe that knowing about teammates, personally, isn’t necessary.  You may even think it’s a hindrance to your team’s effectiveness.  There are few minds from history greater than Albert Einstein.  I’d certainly want his technical skills on my team.  Einstein said, “Strange is our situation here upon earth.  Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.  From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men.”

The simple act of caring is heroic. ~Edward Albert