Supercharge your Leaders

3 Ways to Supercharge your Leadership

The attitudes and behaviors of your leadership play a critical role in your company’s success. When your leaders are putting forth their best effort, the more likely it is that you’ll, in turn, get the best performances out of the rest of your employees. Here are three ways to supercharge your staff:

1. Transform them into teachers.

Today’s leadership must be more than team leaders — they must also be teachers. Attentive leaders look for situations that will help co-workers learn how to work smarter and more efficiently.

Typically, learning occurs most readily when rewards are applied as close to the intended behavior’s occurrence as possible. Thus, train leaders to look for moments when employees are being successful and to immediately recognize those efforts. Leadership should praise them in the presence of others and regularly. Low-cost rewards such as the occasional free lunch or gift card can also be highly motivational.

2. Turbo-boost their reaction times.

Be sure leadership address problems right away. The operative word there is “address,” and its meaning may vary depending on the nature of the trouble.

For minor difficulties, just leaving a friendly voice mail or carefully worded email may do the trick. But for more serious conflicts or dilemmas, a thorough investigation is important, followed by face-to-face meetings documented in writing. In either case, it’s imperative not to let problems fester.

3. Turn off their micromanagement switch.

While leadership needs to keep an eye out for good and bad behavior, they shouldn’t micromanage. Those who perch atop employees’ shoulders, checking every detail of their work, are as bad for a business as rude customer service or defective products.

Why? Because the more leadership micromanages, the more they communicate the wrong message — that they don’t believe employees can get the job done. Micromanaging not only lowers morale but also hinders efficiency, as the leader is basically spending valuable time doing the employee’s job rather than his or her own.

In the day-to-day grind of keeping a business running, leadership can understandably get worn down. If your leaders need a lift, consider reinforcing the points above in training sessions or during performance evaluations. For further information and other ideas, contact us.