When it comes to leadership, it’s good if you have great personal qualities such as authenticity, integrity, humility, etc., but at some point, you have to achieve results.
Results are the benchmark of success and to do that you have to be able to inspire your teams to achieve great things.
So how do great leaders achieve that?
Engage
Everything starts with engagement. If your teams are not engaged, then they are just turning up, taking the money and doing the bare minimum.
And when you look at the statistics for employee engagement that covers a very large percentage of the work force, as 68 percent of US employees are disengaged, and 65 percent of managers are disengaged.
Employee engagement is a contact sport. You cannot engage people from behind your desk or via emails. You can’t engage them if you are not engaged.
You need to get out there showing your passion and enthusiasm, clarifying the objectives, explaining the purpose and aligning the goals and desires of the teams with the goals of the initiatives.
Companies with engaged employees perform 147 percent better than those with disengaged employees.
As the leader is your job to engage them, it’s not their job to be engaged!
Excite
Once teams are engaged, the next step is to excite them. Everyone wants to work for a successful team and feel like they have done a great job, so if you can show them how they will be successful, this will get them fired up and ready to work hard towards the goals and objectives.
People are not afraid of hard work; they are afraid of failure. By showing them how success can be achieved will help increase their confidence and belief that they will be successful, which is a great inspiration.
An engaged and excited team is a powerful team that can achieve great things. To help ensure that this results in the success you need to empower them.
Empower
Empowered teams take ownership, and when things start to go awry, they will look for solutions to ensure that the desired outcomes are met.
Too often leaders want to retain a tight grip on the controls, but if that grip is too tight, then you need to be involved in everything, giving approval for even the smallest of changes.
You become a limitation on what can be achieved!
To empower your team, you need to give them the flexibility to make the necessary corrections if things start to slip. You need to delegate some of the control that you hold, but with clear boundaries, so that they understand when they can make decisions, and when they need to refer back to you for approval.
The more you can empower your teams the more committed they will become. Empowerment is a delicate balancing act, but it’s one that you get better at with practice, and it will be appreciated by many of your staff.
When you can create engaged, excited and empowered teams not only will it help you achieve the goals and objectives, but it will make others want to come and work with you and for you. It will separate you from the other leaders in your organization, putting you in demand and presenting great opportunities to you.
How engaged, excited and empowered is your team and what are you going to do to help improve in these three areas?