We are focusing on the Wrong Things...Let's change that

The Power of Relationships in Senior Living Leadership

In this solo episode, Erin reflects on the importance of relationships in senior living communities. 

Drawing from personal experiences, the Erin emphasizes that authentic connections, not just tasks or outcomes, drive true success. 

The discussion spans actionable strategies for leaders to nurture relationships with themselves, their teams, residents, and families, stressing kindness, trust, empowerment, and effective communication as key components. 

Practical advice on managing expectations, providing constructive feedback, and fostering a positive community culture through genuine interactions is provided.

The episode concludes with a call to action for leaders to focus on one relationship needing attention this week and an invitation to listeners to share the podcast and provide feedback.

00:00 Introduction and Gratitude
01:09 The Importance of Relationships
03:14 Real-Life Examples of Relationship Impact
07:35 Building Trust and Influence
16:28 Managing Expectations and Feedback
27:15 Empowering Your Team
38:32 Conclusion and Call to Action

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Transcript

Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone): 0:35

Hi, I want to say wow and thank you. last week, the first week in January, I had over 500 episodes downloaded, which came as quite the surprise for me. So thank you. The majority of those episodes were listened to the 12 steps and recovering from burnout, which, to me, is a very personal episode it's certainly a personal episode for an award good of who was my guest and, over 100 listened to my solo episode of answering vulnerable questions and honestly, I thought no 1 would listen to that episode. So I got really vulnerable and it was really helpful for me, it's certainly. Shocked me that so many people listen to it. it's scary and thrilling all at the same time. So I just want to say thank you. I appreciate that. it was a shock to see and something I'm absolutely very proud of as well. I want to get into today's episode where the title is, we're focusing on the wrong things, plain and simple. And my main message is relationships are the reward inside of a senior living community, inside of a company where you have to manage people. It's Relationships are the reward. Relationships gets you the occupancy, relationships gets you the NOI goal, the referrals, the phone calls, the tours, it's relationships. It's not anything other than your ability to want to build them, identify the need to build them, and to actually do it. Make the effort to build them, right? my goal is to inspire you to shift your focus from tasks and outcomes to the relationships that will drive long term success, trust, and peace of mind for you. If your goal is to create a great place to live and work, your goal needs to be creating relationships. I, when I was in the community, and even recently when this past year, I visited quite a few communities, imagine walking in to a community the team feels connected. The residents are happy. The families trust that good care is being provided, not perfect care, but good care. And then you walk into a community where you feel disjointedness. people who aren't smiling. You hear people calling out to each other in a negative way, and you don't feel as safe you did at the other community. What do you think the difference is to me? It's relationships. I did visit and got to visit a few times, or at least my length of stay was significant at 2 different communities in 2024 with some projects that I was working on. They were out of state and I walked into one of them and I felt relationships instantly. It was a veterans center. You could tell everyone cared. They were not perfect. They certainly had the, some of the same issues that, that multiple, that you and your community have that other people have in their communities, but you felt cohesiveness. You felt relationships. I knew. With my work at the leaders at the top level in the community that they cared. And I knew that when I walked in and I saw people who were cleaning the walls, delivering the food, I knew that they cared too. And I knew that they knew the supervisors cared. the community was really broken out too. the administrator's offices were behind a locked door. It was. It was not as open as some communities are, but still the flow, the energy, the connectedness of the community was there and it wasn't a perfect community, but it was a connected community. The other community that I went to was a great community. It was a successful community. It was a bigger community and I knew instantly that the leader of the larger community did not have a relationship with the frontline or the different departments within that community. One of the leaders. In that community had the most responsibility dealing with all the emotions within the community, dealing with all the personalities of the community. This leader was completely weighed down and I could see it instantly and the leader above this, the next rung up leader did not understand all that was put on the community. This one person's plate and how overwhelmed this one person was. that's a disconnection. That is not somewhere where we want to be. Now, this particular community was very large. And so one person cannot manage all of the dynamics. But one person was. And I asked that one person, Why don't you take this, all of this to the executive to the leader quote unquote inside the community and the response was It will just come back to me. And so then I discussed, I had a, to me, a very good coaching moment with this overwhelmed leader who had a lot on their plate. And I just talked about relationships and boundaries and understanding why we do what we do. Why we overextend, why we allow certain things, why do we allow ourselves to make everyone's problem our own and not solve our own problems first. Right? So, connection is more important than perfection. Relationships are the reward, and I hope that by the end of this episode, you'll gain clarity on why relationships matter, how they drive your success, actionable ways to nurture them. it starts with you and your relationship with yourself. If you want more freedom, if you want more peace of mind, you have to be aware of your relationship with yourself. Are we being a super man to someone else? And then being a martyr to ourselves, right? Are we getting everybody else's work done and yet none of our own? And so I think it's really important for us To understand relationships with ourself, along with relationships with our residents, their families, our associates, our vendors, our corporate office, and our state regulators as well. I believe in 2025 relationships need to be our greatest focus in leadership because relationships are the reward of our hard work that starts with the relationship with yourself. too many leaders focus on outcomes instead of connections and the disconnected community. 1 leader was focused solely on outcomes and the other leader was focused solely on just trying to keep everything together that outcomes were not even on the list, which is a problem. we have to create a balance of understanding relationships and outcomes. So how can we strategically. Make relationships a priority, so we can hit the outcomes. When we focus on occupancy numbers, quarterly targets, and surveys, these are certainly drivers of expectations. That our corporate office or our owners have of us, but the real driver of success is the relationship ecosystem within the community. And I say that because you can't do it all. you're the executive director, you can't be the memory care program director, the activities director, the sales director, the director of nursing. At the same time, you can't do that, but if you want better outcomes, your relationships with those managers are very important. If you want better surveys, your relationships with those managers and educating them and walking through problems with them and your relationship with the surveyors, when they walk in the community are all very important. You as a leader. Whether I like to say an executive director, but if you're an administrator, if you're a director of nursing, I'm going to tell you this a community is just a community until a great leader steps in and creates a great place to live. that's you have that opportunity to do that, but your relationship with yourself, your relationship with success, your relationship with your residents, their families, the vendors, the associates, and your corporate office all plays a role. In your success, if you don't have a relationship with those key stakeholders, you're probably not going to have a lot of sustainable long term success. Long term success requires long term employees, consistency, credibility, trust. All of that is required for success and the best and easiest way to create that success quickly. And, authentically, is to build trust with your team, with your families, and watch how they start falling in line with your vision. When you build trust, you build influence. You have to be very clear on what is important to you. are your leadership qualities, values, your purpose that drives your motivation to be successful inside of your community? What can you be consistent with that people can see and start trusting you? really important. If your goal, the top goal that your company gives you is to have, a plus four move in for the month or for the quarter, then if I'm an executive director, I'm going to start communicating that to people and then I'm going to start being involved in tours, I'm going to start meeting them. I'm going to start trying to help solve the problems of those prospects. I'm going to introduce them to my team and I'm going to show my team that their engagement in the tour is important because they're important. I'm going to use a tour to connect to the families, to the associates, to the salesperson, to the management team, because those relationships are important because I understand that my bottom line Is my front line that the foundation of my residence experience starts with my caregivers, my housekeeper, my servers. All of that is very important. And so, when I build trust, I build success and that's very important. when you understand that trust. Equals influence, Influence is a likability, know like and trust. if I want to create influence. for my leadership inside my community. They need to know that I know what I'm doing. They need to trust that I'm going to say what I'm going to do and do what I'm going to say. And they have to like me. At some point, they have to find a way to like me or what I stand for or the experiences that I'm giving and that doesn't mean they have to like me 100 percent of the time because that doesn't happen, but they have to like something about my leadership, the direction that I'm taking the community, the way that I say what I'm going to do something. Because that's where influence starts, the know, like, and trust. And when we start focusing on our own influence, who is influencing us, where do we get our influence from? I'm going to tell you this, and I'm going to tell you this over and over again, that your greatest influence, you, for you, is your mindset. Every limitation, every roadblock, every pushback, every obstacle that's in our way, it starts with you. Can you overcome it? Will you overcome it? Are you allowing your stories that you tell yourself to prevent you from moving forward? Is it too hard? Do you want to do it? Do you believe you can do it? Have you failed before? All these are stories. It doesn't matter what I do. They're never going to do it anyways. No one's going to work this shift. All of these are obstacles that start in your mind. They're thoughts. They're thoughts that lead to emotions. They're emotions that lead to your actions. And then the action or the inaction that you do leads to the results. So you have to come to grips with the relationship with you. Your influences, so you can then create relationships with other people, because let me tell you something. It is hard out there in the community. Associates can be very challenging sometimes. Residents can be very challenging sometimes. Families can be very challenging sometimes, and there are days where you are literally just hit constantly with these challenges. And you start telling yourself a lot of lies. That you start believing ultimately all you can do is control the controllables. And what are the controllables? way you think, the way you react, the way you respond, how you follow up and follow through. How you react in a positive or negative or educational way with people. All of these are very important. These are the controllables that you can control, rather than allowing people constantly disappoint you, which happens all the time. if we are not careful, we will find ourselves in a place of great resentments. And resentments, I define them as uncommunicated expectations. And expectations can be your best friend, or they can be your biggest enemy. And when you have expectations of other people, and they don't meet them, What do you do? do you start thinking? Why do you have those expectations? What are the expectations that you have for your team? Do they know them? One of the most freeing mindset shifts that I have had in my life is to have high expectations for myself, reasonable expectations for others. I lose the expectation that people are going to do things like me, think things like me, solve the problems like me, all of that I have lost and I have just allowed, I've just let them, right? And so when I have zero expectations for someone else except for the basic requirements, of working inside of a community. Now I get to really start influencing the situation in a powerful way because I didn't expect them to be me. I didn't expect them to solve the problem the way that I needed to. I just expected them to show up, ask the questions or follow the policy with a good attitude. But when I don't expect The same level of commitment, follow up and follow through, or maturity as me, I actually am able to see a situation for what it is. And I can start asking the right questions. Now, I don't want you to get confused because we still have to have expectations for people. But what are those expectations? what are realistic expectations to have when we put expectations on people that are up to our standard? Do we even live up to our standard? if we don't live up to our standard, are they living up to what standard? And then are they these negative emotions, this negative energy that's being created because somebody else didn't live up to our expectations. Do we even know? Is that their fault? 1 of the best things that you can do to influence your mindset is to figure out what are your expectations for people? What are the expectations for yourself? Because when you can define those, that's when you have the influence. for example, when I started to let people and now granted, I don't all I'm not always great at this. I'm better than I have been there are some people in my life that I constantly let them Be who they are. I'm not gonna try to change them. I'm gonna be here when they need me, but I release the control that those, that the way they choose to live their life has no longer, has an effect on me. Because I want to live a better life. I want to live a more peaceful life. But then there are people that I do for some reason, still try to influence in, a controlling kind of way that I have to constantly remind myself. You are not in control. You are just scared. You are fearful of uncertainties. You are scared of what Could or could not happen and you have no control over that result anyway, so just allow it to happen. But when I think back inside of a community and I started exercising this, understanding what resentments really were controlling me and why, I had to realize what are the basic expectations that I have for people. What are they? Obviously the policy and procedures, those are basic. The rules and the regs, those are basic. But on top of that, what are the expectations that I need my team to know that are above basic and very specific to me. And then once I can identify that, I needed to communicate that to them. So if you're a caregiver or if you're a server, if you were any community associate in my community, one of the basic expectations that I expected from you is to greet everyone who walks in, every visitor, Every vendor, every person who doesn't work there or even who does, I want you to make eye contact with them and I want you to say, hello, how are you today? It is not okay if there is a visitor in our house and we do not acknowledge them. That was a, that was an expectation for me. Why was that an expectation for me? Because I had too many people come up to me and say, they didn't even say hello when I walked in, or they started complaining about things that. Were not real problems. The real problems were the lack of connection to the team. And I knew that I needed to set my team up for success. And the way to do that was to help build relationships with every single family member and visitor in. In the community now that has a couple of really beneficial, outcomes here, because if everybody feels warm and fuzzy when they walk in, guess what they're going to do when they walk out, they're going to talk to somebody about it. Right so it's really important and it's also giving people. that work in my community, the ability to say, Hey, they like me. I feel good after I talked to this person. I have value. I need to share more. So those were basic expectations beside the policies and procedures. I expected people to walk in and introduce themselves on a tour. I expected people to say hello to me, to be polite. and I stopped assuming and expecting everybody to solve problems, be outgoing, understand how to connect the dots with the big picture. And I started constantly educating people on how to do that. I realized that it was my responsibility. To educate people, to skill them up, and it was their responsibility to implement it and practice. And so we have to ask ourselves when we are feeling mad about somebody not living up to our expectations, and we start building that negative energy inside of us. To take accountability and say, are they willing and do they understand how to do it? It's the will and the skill component of leading and training our team. are they willing to do this? Do they wanna do this? Why are they not doing it? And asking them, if you've known that you've educated them and you've explained this and they understand it, asking them in a very empowering way. I see you want to be successful here. I see the dedication to your team. What do you need to feel successful in welcoming people into the community or coming into a tour? What do you need from me because I want to make you as successful as possible. Our role as leaders is to educate and empower, not to control, Our teams benefit more from being led rather than being controlled. And that's hard. I think coming from a person who likes to control outcomes as much as possible, that's a tough pill to swallow, but it's the only way to create more peace and freedom in your life. I think it's important to note here when we're talking about control and expectations and influence and resentments that policies and procedures, and even the rules and the regs of each state, they tell you what you have to do to be proactive and they tell you what to do when you have to be reactive. But they don't tell you that you have to be perfect. They don't tell you that you have to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They tell you what you have to do each month, and then they tell you how to respond when something goes awry, that you couldn't control, because you don't get to control everybody's actions. But you do have control over how you respond, and how you proactively communicate and empower your team. And that's an important distinction and we get lost in that because we try to control as much as possible Because it's what's what we're trained on how to do but we have to put that energy of control into education and empowerment and Identifying who has the will and the skill who has the will but needs the skill and who doesn't have or want either your role as a leader isn't to do everything yourself You It's to train, empower, and let others implement uniquely. And when you make relationships your focus, understand that leadership is about kindness and generosity. And that it means that you pour into people without any expectation receiving anything back because you poured into them. Because when you create a leader, you impact the world. And when you Teach people how to become better leaders. Yeah. Maybe they'll leave. Yeah, but you're going to have them in your community for as long as they're going to be there. And if you want peace and freedom, the better your leaders are, the better peace and freedom that you're going to have in your life. It's just this cycle of significance and impact. And if that's what you want, freedom, peace of mind, a life, some kind of pattern, balance of life, in your world, then the more you proactively empower and lead and develop relationships, the more you will have of what you want. When you give what you desperately need and what you want, you will see it return. I promise you it has happened over and over. Your mindset and your generosity set the tone for your team's culture and success. Culture starts with you as a leader. Whether you're the department head leader, whether you're the executive director, whether you're the regional director, it doesn't matter. Your company can have a culture, but the culture inside of your community, inside of your department starts with you. Know your values, know what's important to you, and build relationships. Give without expectation, and believe me, it will come back. Every seed you sow will reap a harvest in some way when the timing is perfect. I promise you that is a principle in life that I have seen work over and over in my life. Three key strategies that is really real important when you are trying to invest in relationships in order to control less. Not every problem is yours to solve. Train them, advise them, and let them own their work. That is so hard. But as a leader, and even from a leadership principle, and I'm sure as a regulatory principle inside of your state, an administrator's responsibility is to oversee the community. It is not to do everything listed. It's your job to know if there's a fire drill done that month and what shift it's on. It's your job to know if the fire extinguishers have been checked. It's not necessarily your job to do them unless you, your maintenance director or someone in that department is absent or you don't have one and it is your job. It's your job to know and ensure it's been done. It's not your job to necessarily do it. Train people, advise them, let them own their work, and review it. The more that people can do, the better off your entire community is. It's okay that you're not part of every problem. And when a family member or a resident comes up to you and says, Wow, so and so did such a great job, you say, I know, I heard about it, I believed in them, and I'm proud of them. And now trust has been built. In your leadership and in your other associates, other leadership associates work. And that is very important. Feedback is not an attack. is not an attack. Okay. that over and over again. Feedback is someone's perspective. It's not a verdict on your worth. So take what helps you grow. Take the perspective of, oh, I didn't see it that way. Oh, okay, I can understand it that from a little different from a different context and leave the rest. There are going to be a lot of people who give feedback in a very demeaning way. It's not about you. I promise you it's not about you. It's about them. Those projections, that tone of voice, the way they respond, it's not about you. So take the words, leave the tone, take the perspective. It helps you grow and leave the rest. Your worth is the same whether you work there, whether they spoke to you that way, whether you're successful or you're not. You just have to grow and learn, take your licks, and keep going. And also set boundaries. believe I let people talk to me in a way too much I understood this concept, and so I sat in conversations in disrespect that I should not have, too often. And that is something that I would go back and change. I would set the tone very early that I will not be spoken to this way. I will listen to you, I will validate you, and I will understand that this is a very tough conversation to have. But I will not be degraded, and I will not be spoken to in this way. Feedback is vulnerable. It's very hard to hear where we went wrong, what we could do better, or even if we're doing great. But allow the discomfort as long as it's respectful. Take what propels you to grow the perspective of growth and leave the disrespect at the door because maybe you messed up. Maybe you forgot something. Maybe you deserved this conversation, but it doesn't change your worth. It just changes how you go about certain things. allow for grace and chaos. Look, things are gonna go off course. I could sit here and tell you what to do every day. I could sit here and tell you to wake up at 5 a. m. And do this thing and do that thing and you know plan this and plan that. But then there are days that just come and destroy every plan you ever had. that's normal. sometimes there's weeks like that, and sometimes there's months like that. if you have a huge move in month, there's probably not much that you're going to get done besides managing all of these move ins to make them happen in a successful way. And that's okay. when things even out and you are back and fresh minded and ready to get back on track, get back on track. that's important. Don't lose track, just get back on track, right? These strategies I have learned frees mental energy, it builds trust, and it powers your team. When you control less, you empower more when you understand why you have this desire to control to solve every problem to not allow feedback in your life and why you're so hard on yourself instead of allowing for grace and chaos, you'll realize that it's more of a self preservation protection mechanism than it is anything else. Protecting ourselves to the point of not feeling discomfort only hurts us in the long run. And that's really important to understand. so if we are building and making relationships a priority, including the relationship with ourselves, you have to become likeable. at some point people follow people they like they know and trust and if you want influence you have to be likable But how do you become likable? You have to like people more you have to Literally make an effort to get to know people and like them even the most difficult Resident even the most difficult associate who never looks at you who scowls at you You have to like them. You have to like them make it a game You Bring them a drink, ask them their favorite candy bar, tell them they're valuable, tell them thank you, whatever it is, break through the barrier, because in order to become more likable, you have to be a better liker. They have to like you, look them in their eyes, say hello, smile for no reason, see them every day. They're there. It works. I promise you it works. When you build relationships without an agenda. Influence naturally grows. You have no other reason than to say hello to them. Beside the fact that you want to make sure that you're fully staffed for the day in that department. I get that. But, Maybe they don't feel valuable at all and the manager or the executive director comes to them every day and says hello or thank you. Or I see what you did here for no other reason except to build trust and connection, right? And if they can start putting their defenses down and start building a relationship with you, then that means they're building a relationship with residents and their families. They're creating loyalty and all of a sudden we're going to start seeing a huge increase in listen more when you're walking around and rounding in your community, ask yourself, am I trying to manage them or am I trying to build a connection? There should be very strategic and intentional walk around the community where you're just building connection, where you're not managing unless you see something that's really important. And obviously you're going to have to do something about that, but. In the morning, I am building connection. In the afternoon, I'm going to walk around and see what's going on. Or opposite, right? Try to say, this walk around is for connection. This other walk around will be for management, if need be. The best leaders, in my opinion, create environments where people feel seen, heard, and valued. And that's where true success happens. Seen, heard, and valued can create positive energy, Being seen, heard, and valued can create deep loyalty and influence inside of your community and it's important for you to grow those seeds because when they feel seen, heard, and valued, guess what happens? You feel seen, heard, and valued. So let me ask you this question as we wrap up. What is one relationship in your community? One resident, associate, or family that needs more of your attention and care this week? The most cantankerous, ones that are in hospital in and out, ones that you feel like are unapproachable now. Maybe some bridges need to be rebuilt. What is one relationship that you can say, I'm going to throw away any expectation that I have, I'm going to be vulnerable, authentic, and I'm going to connect with this person, this family, this associate, this department, right? Is there an opportunity there for that? And if there is, make it a point to do that. Seen, heard, and valued. Feedback. It's not a verdict on your worth. It's a perspective that you need to grow. And that's really important. So thank you today for joining me today. Thank you for your downloads. Thank you for your time. Your time and attention are two of the most important assets that you have. And so you gave that to me today. And so I greatly appreciate it. If this episode resonates with you, please share it with a teammate, an associate or anyone that you think could benefit from the content. And if you haven't already. Leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or on my LinkedIn page. Your feedback is very important to me as a listener, a perspective of growth. I'm doing these individual solo episodes because of some of the feedback that I received that I value so highly. So thank you. We're going to take a deeper dive in the month of January in 2025 and about mindset boundaries and energy. And really the goal of creating relationships, stronger relationships inside of our community so we can have sustainable success. Thank you, and as always, aspire for more for you.