Relationships.

There it is. That’s your lot. For frontline managers, leadership is about relationships. Period.

If you’d like more than one word, stick around. Let me expand.

The difference between leadership at a senior management level and at a frontline management level is that one is strategic and the other is tactical.

For frontline managers, tactical leadership is simply about influencing and motivating others to perform valued work activities that generate desired results. Influencing their team members to undertake specific work activities which maximise productivity. And motivating team members to provide discretionary effort over and above the minimum required.

Nearly all jobs require employees to make choices about their work, such as the pace at which they work, how they do it and how well it’s done. The extent to which they choose to do more than the minimum requirement dictates their level of productivity or performance and is referred to as ‘discretionary effort’.

Increased discretionary effort is a direct predictor of improved performance. As such it is the only way an organisation can maximise performance. Consequently, organisations that can trigger valued discretionary behaviour from their employees do better than others. And the key to triggering this discretionary effort is the relationship the team member has with their frontline manager.

Taking this further, relationships are made and broken through the quality of interaction and communication. Improve the quality and frequency of communication and interaction and the relationship is strengthened, which leads to an improved ability to influence and motivate. Decrease the quality and frequency of communication and interaction, and the opposite is ensured.

All that is then left for frontline leaders to know is what frequency of interaction works best, and to understand how quality communication looks, sounds and feels.