Sawubona is an African Zulu greeting that means, “I see you.” It goes far beyond the rote, “Hello,” or, “How are you?” so many of us say every day. Sawubona says, “I see deeper than the surface. I see your personality. I see what makes you unique. I see you as a person with dignity, worthy of my respect.”

Ngikhona is the traditional response to sawubona. It means, “I am here.” In the Zulu culture, the call “Sawubona” says, “I see you. You are a person.” And the response, “Ngikhona,” says, “Because you see me, I am here.” There is a question underneath that greeting: If you do not see me, do I exist? Indeed, the Zulu proverb “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” means, “A person is a person because of other people.”

Although not often discussed, the longing for significance is a basic human desire. Everybody wants to know that they are significant—someone truly cares about them, their existence has meaning, they matter, and they are making a noticeable difference in the world. So as a manager, helping employees (each and every one) become more significant makes a big difference in their lives. If each person you manage knows that he or she is truly significant to you, you dramatically increase their engagement and the likelihood of retaining them.

So how do you demonstrate that a person is significant to you? Dr. Shalom Saar is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. A renowned authority on leadership, Dr. Saar taught me that caring and time are key factors in making people significant. They are related. The more I care about you, the more likely I am going to give you my time.

Genuine caring is not merely some feeling you have. Unless that feeling results in action, it has little value to the other person. Genuine caring means extending yourself to meet that person's needs, to support them, and to help them succeed.

Demonstrate to employees that you are their ally, not their judge. Demonstrate that you are fiercely interested in helping them succeed in their jobs, but not merely because that will help you. If you truly care about a person, you will extend yourself to help them simply because it benefits them.

Expressing genuine interest in your employees is a powerful way to demonstrate how much you care about them. Focus On You can be a great place for you to start, but do not stop there. Human relationships grow organically. This kind of growth cannot be accomplished solely through programs or through the use of tools, no matter how good they are. It takes daily commitment and repeated interaction to cultivate the strongest relationships. This insight about daily interactions applies to any relationship. Think about marriage, for example. It is good to express your love and gratitude on special occasions, such as your anniversary. But how you treat your spouse every single day is much more expressive of your true feelings than how you respond on your anniversary. So as a manager, find out what each employee values in life, understand their aspirations, and show interest in what is going on in their personal lives. Dr. Hall, who defined relationship as the response one person makes to another, taught that you can never know enough about another person, provided that you want to know for the right reason, which is to benefit that person.

In addition to daily interactions, showing up for major life events powerfully conveys significance. If you are cultivating close, positive relationships, employees are more likely to invite you to attend their major life events. Showing up makes a huge difference. This is a really big deal. It shows people that you care about the things they care about. This is what friends and family do. Be there for these occasions. Visit employees in the hospital. Celebrate engagements, promotions, graduations, the completion of major work projects. Be there for funerals too. Witnessing the events that matter most to your people adds to their sense of significance. We have seen it in action. We work for a company in which the most senior leaders (president and board members) rearrange their schedules and go to great lengths to be present at these types of events. Going to that kind of effort makes a major statement about other people's significance to them.

Remember, Dr. Saar emphasizes both caring and time as key factors that demonstrate how significant a person is in your life. Spending time with people, not just on special occasions but on a daily and weekly basis, makes them more significant. Make yourself easily accessible. Give people your time when they want it.

Think about your relationship with your own manager. How easy is it for you to see her? Does she fit you in only when it is convenient for her, or does she show a higher sense of urgency to meet with you? Whatever her typical response is, what message does it send about your importance to her? How does that make you feel?

Now imagine for a moment that your very best customer or the president of your company came to her workplace unexpectedly. No appointment. No advance notice. How would your boss respond then? Would she not rearrange her schedule to speak with that person right away?

We can see this in personal life as well. When you invite someone to spend some time with you, that person's response sends you a clear message about how much he or she really wants to spend time with you.

As a manager, what can you take away from all this?

How easy is it for an employee to speak with you one-on-one? An open door is the best approach. Unless you are actively involved with a customer or another employee, meet with that employee in the moment, right when he comes to you. If you cannot meet with him when he wants, do you have a sense of urgency about getting together as soon as possible?

No matter how sincerely you believe that you have no space in your schedule to meet with him until next week, that person who wants time with you knows that, if he were important enough, you would meet with him as soon as possible. Whether you like it or not, you are sending a message.

When one of your employees wants to meet with you or speak with you, that person has a need at that moment. When you interrupt what you are doing to listen to that need, you are demonstrating that person's significance to you.

You may be thinking, “This principle about giving people time sounds good in theory, but I simply can't get my work done if I practice an open-door policy.”

That might be true, but don't fool yourself. When you do not make time for people on their terms, you diminish the likelihood of retaining them because the message is clear: I have more important things to do than to listen to you. Conversely, when you make time on their terms, you have the potential to enjoy significant gains in their performance, productivity, and engagement.

When you do spend time with people, what you do makes a difference, too. One-on-one time with the people you manage is a time to forget about multitasking.

When you meet with an employee, are you fully present? Are you really listening? Or do you check your computer or phone?

What you do with your phone sends a message about how important the person is. There is actually research on this topic. It shows that just having a phone visible on the table has a negative impact on your relationship with the other person. The mere presence of your cell phone diminishes closeness, trust, and the other person's sense that you are extending empathy and understanding in the interaction. That negative impact is most intense when individuals are discussing a personally meaningful topic (Przybylski and Weinstein).¹