The level of cohesion and degree of personal connection between leaders and followers can make a difference. Leaders who connect well with their followers are likely to enjoy greater success.
Ms. Ann Moore, chairman and CEO of Time, Inc., oversees roughly ten thousand employees around the world who publish more than 115 magazines. Moore is convinced that the majority of people who work for her are overwhelmed by the amount they have to do, frustrated by the paucity of time they have to do it in, and paralyzed by an inability to prioritize.
Paying attention to help workers and managers eliminate time wasters, that distract them from the job at hand, is an example of how she leads. For example, Time Inc. took a look at email usage at the firm and found employees were receiving on average twenty thousand emails a year. That figures to seventy-five full days managing email accounts. Even worse, email traffic was growing at 15 percent annually.
Moore says the company set a goal to reclaim fifteen days from the email swamp. Time Inc. now bans emails after hours or on weekends, unless it's regarding a breaking news story. Employees have been told to disable the "out-of-office" auto reply and stop using the "reply all" button, both of which generate emails that generally are simply deleted. One survey found Americans spend 2.8 minutes per day deleting email, which calculates to $21.8 billion in lost productivity on an annual basis. Instead of email, employees are encouraged to pick up the phone or speak to a colleague in person. "We have to go back to having more human contact," the Time, Inc. executive says.
It seems a small thing for the head of a multibillion-dollar company to focus on. But Ann Moore's success stems from her ability to capitalize on the seemingly insignificant. She says the power of respect has been key to her success. "I got the corner office because I figured out how to have respect for women readers," she says. "You can look all over American industry and see people who do not respect their consumers and are not walking in their shoes." She says you have to ask, "How do you make their lives better? How does he or she feel?"
Source: Deborah Norville: The Power of Respect: Benefit from the Most Forgotten Element of Success