There are specific qualities that leaders must demonstrate if they want their people to voluntarily commit themselves to action in support of a common cause. The majority of us look for leaders who are honest, forward-looking, inspiring and competent. Consistently these four characteristics rank well above any other qualities desired in leaders.
My definition of an effective leader is a people manager (ie.first and mid-level) who inspires commitment, grows employee engagement and work motivation, confronts non-performance and maximises employee performance.
In an ideal world, performance reviews can be used as a motivating tool for communicating performance expectations to employees and providing them with feedback. Yet for many managers, performance reviews seem to create more problems than they solve.
Leadership and management training is provided within many organisations. Leadership skills, on the other hand, are less widely applied. Teaching managers new skills is one thing. Getting them to apply what they have learned is another matter entirely.
There are two potential pitfalls with employee recognition that are worth bearing in mind. A recent business tip on employee recognition from the guys at Results.com has prompted me to comment on them and expand on my post “The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”. Stephen Lynch, the Chief Operating Officer for Results.com makes a [...]
We’re overwhelmed with choice; not only in everyday life, but also in our work. For many people managers, this is a barrier to leading people for high performance.
In a recent post, The Breakfast of Champions, I suggested that it’s no coincidence that where possible we set up visual mechanisms to display what’s happening or what’s been achieved. Something that people can see in picture form is usually better than verbal or written descriptions of how well they are performing. As the saying goes, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.
One thing many poor leaders have in common is that they are simply not aware that they’re just bad people managers. Frequently they actually think they’re good. And if they’re aware on some level that they’re not that great, they’re often not willing to admit it to anyone, least of all themselves.
Ken Blanchard is said to have coined the phrase, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” A great line, which is surprisingly accurate.
No doubt you pay attention to a range of numbers in your organisation. With frequent and detailed reporting, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that in the end one key number is important.
That number might be profit per transaction, or profit per employee. However, as an end product it’s of more use to the head of your business unit than it is to frontline leaders.
From a frontline leadership perspective, you’ll find that a focus on one seemingly less important result can have the flow-on effect of dramatically improving the important numbers.