18 Quick Leadership Tips
Tip 1: Be willing to learn and adapt.
Tip 1: Be willing to learn and adapt.
A good leader is focused on both the
relationship and the task. They
have a clear vision of both the “what” (end result) and the “how” (team members
behaviour in achieving the task.
A leader who is passionate about their
people will tend to create a work environment where their people are able to
flourish and do their best work. Easier said than done.
To be passionate about your people, you
have to be adaptable and genuinely interested in your team members as
people If this does not come
naturally, do not worry as you can learn these skills. Leaders who find the relationship
aspect easy often find the task aspect challenging and vice versa. Key is the openness and willingness to
learn and adapt your style.
Tip 2: Motivate your people
Motivating your people is about your
“leadership life style” it is about all of the things that you do with your
time, the things that you prioritize and the themes of your conversations. Your
employee’s motivation is a consequence of how you live when you are at work.
Peer pressure is the greatest motivator,
you can use peer pressure by setting stretch team goals and team goals around
the adoption of change.
Be innovative in your reward systems, you
can be innovative by asking your people what reward systems they would like you
to adopt. If they choose the reward it is more likely to be a motivator. (Also
ask what recognition your people would like).
Spend 50 - 60% of your time directly
communicating with your workforce
Nothing is more enticing than the feeling
of being needed, let your people know that they are needed and that they are
doing valuable work.
Tip 3: Communicate, communicate, and communicate
You need to provide significantly more
communication than your people need to do their job.
As a leader, in addition to enabling your
people to do their job you need to create a sense of purpose for your people,
providing reason and context for their work. Then there is our innate need” to
know what is going on around us, so let your people know what other parts of
your business are doing, only then will they feel like a part of the business.
Leaders also encourage informal
communication meetings to just happen in addition to being planned, let the
right people gather around, informally, to discuss problems and possible
solutions. (Informal communication meetings will help to create passion and
energy).
Tip 4: Keep your emotions in control
Managing people is an activity reserved
exclusively for those of us who are emotionally stable. The best leaders remain
calm in all situations whilst the worst managers allow their emotions to
control their behaviour.
Be business like, emotional decisions are
poor decisions
If you yell you will loose the respect of
your people and without respect you cannot lead
Tip 5: Provide more feedback than you think
is necessary
80% of employees claim that they do not get
enough feedback whilst 80% of managers claim they give enough feedback.
Informal or impromptu feedback is one of
the strongest drivers of a high performing culture, especially when your
feedback relates the employee’s performance with your business goals and the
employee’s personal aspirations.
Tip 6: Schedule one on one feedback
sessions with each of your people
Formal performance feedback in a one on one
will help strengthen your relationship with your people.
Whilst academics will disagree on the ideal
frequency of a one-on-one session you will find that you only need to do them
regularly to be effective, however we do advocate for formal one on ones
monthly.
After the first few one-on-ones your people
will look forward to their scheduled one-on-one sessions. It will give them an
opportunity to talk openly with you about their assigned work, their
performance and any ideas or suggestions that they may have.
Tip 7: Have Fun at Work
Fun is not something reserved for outside the work environment, work should have a degree of fun about it. You can have a 5 minute fun activity at the start of your team meetings, you can have a fun team name, run a general knowledge quiz of a few questions with a small prize every Wednesday
The options are limitless. There are
hundreds of things you can do to have fun in the work environment.
Tip 8: Be polite and considerate, be honest
& fair
Using your manners, saying thank you or
please does not cost anything.
There are no situations where it is
appropriate to be inconsiderate, rude or unpleasant.
If you are polite and honest your employees
will see you as more approachable and they will feel more valued, therefore
being fair is a must for all team leaders.
Tip 9: Listen more than you talk
Listen to your people, the more you listen
to your people the more information they will give you. When you listen more
you
Get more employee suggestions
Find more opportunities to give feedback
Increase your understanding of each
employee and what drives them
Build stronger professional relationships
with your employees
Improve your ability to influence change
Tip 10: Thank your people for their
suggestions
Listen to your employee’s suggestions and
then thank them for making a suggestion. Let them know that you value
suggestions and the people that make them.
Tip 11: Always give negative feedback in
private
Feel free to give praise frequently and in
public, however always give negative feedback in private – no matter how small
or trivial the feedback is. Your people are more likely to listen to negative
feedback given in private and are more likely to be defensive when the feedback
is given publicly.
Your people will respect you for being
discreet.
Tip 12: Develop a keen eye for the doable
Change programs often fail because the
change drivers are only focused on what cannot be done. When facing a change scenario,
instead of spending early energy worrying about what cannot be done try to find
something that your people are ready to do right now and do that first.
Tip 13: Be Persistent
The lack of interest and persistence of top
management is the primary cause of failed change. Change applied without
intense top management interest simply won’t work
Your interest in your people, your
processes and your customers and your persistence reinforcement of your
business priorities will ensure you achieve the results that you seek.
Tip 14: Tell people what they can do
Often employees believe that they are not
empowered to take action to resolve an issue or to fix a problem. Sometimes
empowering people is as easy as telling them what they can do.
Helping to get them started is the job of a
leader
Tip 15: Creating Passion for Your Product
or Service
Allocate time everyday to talk to your
people about the value of your product or service
The benefits it has that your customer
value
It’s design characteristics
The critical characteristics that define
its quality
Your passion for your product/service will
rub of onto your people, within weeks their passion for your product or service
will increase.
Tip 16: Setting objectives
In most planning sessions the peer bravado
of the executive leads them to commit to too many initiatives.
Too many initiatives is the same as having
no initiatives: with a little luck and a lot of persistence one might actually
get two things done in a year.
Tip 17: Align your leadership behaviour and
communication
There is nothing more frustrating than a
manager who has not aligned their communication messages with their behaviour.,
employees are often heard to say “They say one thing, but do another” a common
example is a manager who speaks at staff meetings about the importance of
quality whilst outside of the staff meeting only ever enquires about
productivity.
To ensure that your employees all receive a
consistent message you need to align your communication messages with your
actions.
Tip 18: The Right Amount of Planning
Planning is an essential part of running
your business or your projects. Your challenge, as the leader, is to find the
right balance between too much and too little planning.
The old adage “A failure to plan is planning
to fail” still remains true, too little planning will result in a poor outcome
for your business or projects.
However, you will also find that the
absence of over planning will lead to a successful outcome. Over planning will
bog down a new idea and will ensure that the progress of a new project will
stall. Requesting further planning is a great way for managers to avoid
committing to an initiative or making a decision.
At the start of all projects or initiatives
it is worth spending time to determine the appropriate level of planning for
that project or initiative.
No comments:
Post a Comment