Leadership is measured by the improvement of others
The success of your leadership is defined by the way your team performs. Reaching targets, smashing KPI’s and growing a company is never a one man job. It’s all about making the most of your employees skills and setting them free by promoting a culture of trust, initiative and understanding.
As a leader it is your job to set the scene for growth by understanding, acknowledging and utilizing your employees strengths and offering support around shortcomings. It all comes down to connecting with your team by facilitating open communication, encouraging employee growth and development, and giving and receiving feedback. Here are three easy-to-remember things to keep in mind which can help you in your effort to become a better leader.
Honest communication is a cornerstone
Open and honest communication is a cornerstone in leading a team to success and it gives a clear notion of what type of leader you are. This will help employees learn how to navigate in the leader-employee relation and sets the ground for real talks that will strengthen the relation over time. As a leader it’s important to remember that host communication can only prevail if it goes both ways. Receiving feedback from employees on your own performance or leadership is a good way to establish a strong leader-employee relation that builds on honesty and trust.
Lay off with the micro management
Through employment you show your trust in someone's ability to perform within a defined set of skills and responsibilities. Every employee needs to have a feeling that this trust exists and is upheld in their everyday job. This is done by trusting insights, skills and capabilities of your employees and in the end trusting that you made the right decision when employing. It’s obviously okay for a leader to make a decision around termination of an employee or defining a new role for an employee over time, but this should be done by evaluating the overall progress, deliveries and KPI’s and not the details. Micro management leads to distrust and strangles motivation.
Get to know your team members
If you want to utilize your team members' skill sets in the best possible way you surely need to understand not only the employee, but the people in your team. People are different and what motivates one, may be quite different from what motivates another. Some employees may be motivated by the paycheck or by the opportunity to advance in their position and others may be more in need of recognition and to be understood. We all have needs and most of them are universal, but how much we value these different needs differs from employee to employee and a great leader understands this.
