Leaders don’t focus on driving their employees to work harder.
Leaders strive to make their vision a reality by seeing to it that employees are more efficient and are unified in supporting their objectives.
How?
For self-improvement as a leader to propel your business to higher profits, you should use the following fundamental principles:
1. Develop a growth mindset.
Know that you can and will develop what you need in skills and to build on your talents. That means treating every situation as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Understand that for every problem, there are multiple possible solutions to consider.
With the right mindset, you’ll provide strategic leadership for growth.
Pat yourself on the back for your footwork – efforts you make in addressing challenges. But don’t focus on the results. Use self-affirming phrases like “I will…” or “This is an opportunity to…”
Remind yourself that you’re a strong individual.
Pass these philosophies onto your team members. Pat them on the back for their efforts, not necessarily their results.
2. Propagate a mindset for emotional intelligence (EI), not only for you but your employees, too.
EI means you have empathy and are self-aware and aware of others.
Pay attention to the emotions of team members in your workplace. Equate emotions to salient data to understand how events are understood and with how they’re dealt.
Invite your employees to analyze their emotions and what impact they have on the company.
With an emotionally intelligent culture, you’ll have a healthier culture and strong performance.
3. Enthusiastically support your values.
If you’re in touch with your values and harness them to guide you, you will triumph over difficult situations.
By leading with your values, you’ll have more confidence. You’ll also better grasp behaviors, beliefs and motivations of your team members.
4. Have a consistent management approach.
Reward positive behavior in your workplace. Discourage bad behavior. Treat everyone with fairness.
5. Communicate well.
However you communicate with your employees – whether it be via email, on the phone or in person – be accurate, clear and thorough.
6. Stress teamwork.
Inspire your employees to work as a team. Encourage congeniality. Provide a vision and encourage employees to work together for the benefit of your organization.
7. Publicly acknowledge and praise employee efforts.
Whether you give employees a bonus or just praise them, do it publicly.
Don’t play favorites. Criticize privately.
8. Be a role model.
Set a perfect example in temperament and habits so your staff members will emulate you.
9. Be alert to individual personalities.
While it’s important to treat everyone fairly and equally, know that different people have unique personalities and should be inspired differently as needed.
10. Be approachable with transparency.
Build trust throughout your organization by being transparent. Don’t mislead or be furtive unless absolutely necessary.
11. Elicit ideas and opinions.
Keep an open mind. Encourage discussions to improve your company.
When an employee respectfully submits an idea, be cordial, even if it’s not viable. Otherwise, you’ll discourage employee participation.
12. Make work fun.
Create a happy environment. Do what you can to make the workweek fun. In this way, you’ll make it more likely employees will look forward to coming to work.
13. Continue to be a good listener.
Walk the floor twice a day. Encourage employees to share their thoughts and feelings by asking open-ended questions, such as “What do you think…?” or “How did you feel…?”
You’ll garner important information for a mutually beneficial workplace. Your employees will be appreciative and will feel validated.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are links to related leadership strategies:
Habits of Leaders Who Have Positive Workplace Cultures – The Digital Age and global economy are demanding. Texting and emails are the norm. Face-to-face communication is minimal. This can hurt workplace cultures. Here’s what leaders do about it.
Communication Tips to Lead Your 5 Generations of Workers – It’s one thing to create your company’s core values and mission. But it’s another to effectively communicate them and to embed them in your culture, especially across five generations of employees.
For Best Business Performance, How to Evaluate Your Culture – If you’re convinced that your marketing is top shelf but your business is not enjoying its full potential, chances are you need to evaluate your culture. Here’s how.
How Leaders Inspire Employees to Follow Vision for Growth – When a company’s vision is not implemented, the organization suffers dire consequences. Leaders also know the situation is preventable.
5 Traits of People Who Deliver Bad News Well – Are you nervous about giving bad news to others? Do you wish you were good at it? If you answer yes to either question, here are five traits of good messengers.
