In this podcast, Kevin Hancock speaks to MaineBiz publisher Donna Brassard about how losing his voice changed everything in a day. He shares how he overcame this challenge and created a fruitful new leadership style from the lessons he learned. Kevin began sharing the leadership role with everyone at Hancock Lumber and found that great ideas were everywhere and people knew how to solve the problems in their daily lives. By empowering them to make the changes they needed, employee engagement and job satisfaction spiked. Kevin shares how he hopes other business and communities can learn from his new leadership style and more authentic voices can be brought into the light.
Click here to listen to the full podcast.
Here are a few highlights from the podcast (click here for the full transcription):
- The idea is to put more power and control in the hands of the very people on the front lines of the business, who are doing the work and who know their area of the business best. So in that approach, management’s job really becomes a function of learning how to listen and making it safe for people to say what they actually think. My biggest wish for any organization would be that it’s safe for people to say what they think. 14:18-14:59
- Leaders have done more to limit, restrict, intimidate or direct the voices of others than to free them. (17:59-18:12)
- I think the purpose of work should be do advance the lives of the people who do it. Work should be meaningful to the people who do it. And if a company focuses on creating an exceptional work experience, one of the outcomes will be the employees will take great care of the company. So this approach will actually improve corporate performance. (23:06-23:34)
