5. Do a 360. It is a brave leader who willingingly has his/her teams assess them as leaders. The 360 degree performance evaluation system does just that. It allows for employees to evaluate their leaders and to provide sound feedback on how their leader can improve. Tell your team you want their opinions and input on how you can be a better leader. Be open and willing to hear good with bad and sometimes ugly. Then do something with feedback- communicate back to your team what you are going to do as a result of feedback.

6. Coach regularly. Statistics show that leaders who have a coaching plan in place for their employees have less absenteeism, higher productivity and overall higher morale. It makes sense doesn’t it? Spend quality one on one time with your employees on a regular and rotating basis and they begin to perform at higher levels due to ongoing personal attention and validation. Coaching prevents bad behavior and negative attention methods by employees.

7. Praise in public- criticize in private. There is nothing that replaces pure praise. Employees surveyed stated that they value recognition above pay raises by their leaders. We often undervalue power of praise and we may even feel that if they are doing a good job they should know that we think they are great. Some leaders feel that giving praise all time is hard work and that employees requiring it are high maintenance. The rules of giving effective praise are: praise specific behaviors or results, be sincere, make it timely when event happens and when possible make it public.

8. Be a psychologist. Adapt to different personalities of your team. You already know your people to a high level and yet we tend to overlook unique emotional needs that each individual has. Treat them as they want to be treated and be willing to see things from their perspective. Openly communicate and be willing to share yourself with your team. You can’t be everyone’s friend however you can be accessible, open and trustworthy. Teams who have an understanding and compassionate leader tend to be more loyal and can weather ongoing change at higher levels. Often we feel that we just need to throw money or perks towards our teams to keep them happy. This is an erroneous belief and it has been found that truly what people want is to have open communication, straightforward and direct leadership and an easygoing environment to work within. Sounds good doesn’t it? The rewards of leadership are many and we can have greater satisfaction, less stress and a sense of accomplishment when we look at what we can do to improve our team’s performance and happiness on job.

This article may be used in your publication with following byline:

Cheryl Cran www.cherylcran.com is author of “Say What You Mean- Mean What You Say” and International Speaker who specializes in communication strategies for improved leadership, teams and customer care.

4.The Generation Y is 22 and younger. I think they are called generation Y because that is question they often ask “why?”. These are children of baby boomers and so far are one of most creative generations we have seen in a long time. Generation Y want to work where they are allowed creative expression, flexible approach and control over their own hours. In workplace they show little loyalty because they know they will have about 10 careers in their lifetime. They get bored very quickly and need incentive to work other than just a paycheck.

When we look at value differences at a glance notice your judgements about generational values that do not match your own. Notice we may label an attitude or value as right or wrong. This is one cause of conflict and communication breakdown in workplace. We need to build our sensitivity around understanding where a person may be coming from based on their generation. A master communicator learns to recognize differing perspectives among generations and then to come up with creative solutions that appeal to each of different generational belief systems.

Other articles or sites on topic of generations: www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/workplace/communication/2002-11-15 www.bbhq.com/bomgenx.htm

This article may be reprinted and used for your publication with following by-line:

Cheryl Cran www.cherylcran.com is author of “Say What You Mean – Mean What You Say” and an international speaker specializing in communication strategies for improved leadership, teams and customer care.