Human Resources

Sharing ideas

By Brian Horn

Print This Page

Send this page to a friend

Lori D. Marcus
principal, QUAD656 LLC

---

Even though she’s been in the business for two decades, Lori D. Marcus still doesn’t think she knows it all, and she doesn’t hesitate to ask employees for their opinions.

By getting employee input, the principal of QUAD656 LLC — a recruiting firm that posted 2007 revenue of about $10 million — can then use the best pieces of advice to complete a task.

“Now that’s not to say what you tell me I’m going to necessarily do, but through that conversation, something else might arise or it might give me a different way of looking at something,” Marcus says.

Smart Business spoke with Marcus about how to communicate with your employees to build a successful company.

Q. What are the characteristics of a good leader?

It’s all about communication when people need help. It’s a very open-door policy. You can help somebody through a process and ... you can work with them hand in hand, and you can role-play a particular situation.

You can share with them your ideas, and that’s valuable as being a team. You can elicit information from a whole bunch of people. You can get their perspective. Everybody is going to have their own style, and when you’re young in your career, whether you are on a leadership track, a management track, you are building a foundation.

So, that foundation, you need to have ethics, and you need to be loyal, and you need to be honest, but you are going to adapt your own style based upon what you pull from each person you are working with. I think that helps to build a good leader.

Q. How do you set up an open environment?

Communication is really the key. When you set that groundwork when you bring somebody on board that that’s the expectation, then you foster that expectation. You reach out to your team members or to your employees, and you share information from them, and you solicit information back — that makes them feel a part of the organization.