As we face another uncertain year in business, companies must equip themselves with smart practices to position themselves for greater opportunities in 2010. These begin with those who lead the company. Behavior strategist and performance management coach Joe Takash offers 4 tips leaders must consider to drive performance and profits in the year ahead.
1. Retain your top talent:
- Communicate with your people, who must be informed about what is going on, why things are happening and how they contribute.
- Make individual meetings a standard. The only way to truly get the best ideas and perspectives out of people is in a trusting atmosphere. In business environments, group settings are not that atmosphere. Meeting with your folks individually, ask open- ended questions and listen.
- Compliment people. Remember how it feels when someone provides you encouragement and positive feedback on your unique qualities? We all share the common need for appreciation.
2. Determine what your people are motivated by:
Leaders, like coaches, must find what motivates their staff members and intact teams. Tapping into the motivations of your organization creates a winning energy. At a time when so many companies are operating from a place of fear, you can differentiate yourself with a play-to-win approach.
3. Embrace a culture of teaching leadership:
Leaders have teaching moments every single day. By what they say and what they do, they are influencing right and wrong. Telling isn’t teaching. Data dumping is not educating. You must be a great listener and understand that direct reports learn in different manners. Some are analytics who require visual repetition. Others need to be shown how to do things and physically practice them.
4. Pass the bucks:
As employees evolve into positions of management, responsibilities expand, necessitating leaders to lead people and get away from the daily tasks. Unfortunately, many managers are either not comfortable with big picture leadership or they can’t let go because they feel like things will not “get done the right way or fast enough.”
Leaders should incrementally delegate responsibilities. In time, they’ll realize that their team members can accomplish more than they even thought and can periodically do things better and faster than they can.
Joe Takash is the author of the newly released Results Through Relationships: Building Trust, Performance and Profit Through People. He is also the founder of performance management firm Victory Consulting. Website: www.JoeTakash.com
