Leadership – Connect to Engage!

Written by Richard Gorham


Continued from page 1

Showing most improvement quarter over quarter.

Achieving balanced performance - your team is listed inrepparttar Top 3 ranking in every key category.

Reachingrepparttar 119477 net income annual goal, or gaining market share over a key competitor!

2. Leaders must communicate their vision in a way that inspires others to "believe". Communicating change can be difficult.

Communicating a clear action plan that everyone can understand lessens anxiety. Change always creates opportunity. Turningrepparttar 119478 anxiety of change into excitement for opportunity should berepparttar 119479 goal ofrepparttar 119480 leader when communicatingrepparttar 119481 new vision. Here are some examples:

Breakdown vision into individual goals so team members understand their roles and responsibilities.

Hold all team kick-off meeting to unveil overall vision and action plan. Add fun and excitement. Anticipate questions and be prepared to overcome any perceived barriers.

Implement tracking and regular progress reporting to keep team focused on achieving each step leading up torepparttar 119482 ultimate goal.

3. Leaders must support, promote, inspire and motivate team members to realizerepparttar 119483 vision. Motivate team members by giving everyone an opportunity for personal gain, above and beyond their regular pay. For example:

Introduce a special incentive program. (This doesn't have to cost a lot of money.) Base awards on a percentage of "net" gain torepparttar 119484 organization - not just one persons ability to achieve an individual goal.

Offer "interim" awards to key contributors oncerepparttar 119485 team achieves mid-level goals.

Make a point of "celebrating"repparttar 119486 small wins, which will ultimately lead torepparttar 119487 BIG WIN! Use gift certificates, lottery tickets, recognition awards, etc - praise and recognize individual and team accomplishments alongrepparttar 119488 way.

4. A team is only as strong as its weakest link. Leaders must hold team members accountable for their duties and responsibilities. This is only fair to those employees doing a great job. Hold accountable any team member who is not doing his/her fair share. In order to achieve great things, you must expect great things from your people. Consider these examples:

BE CONSISTENT in your counsel. Hold yourself accountable! Did you TEACH? Did you COACH? Only then can you EXPECT!

BE CONSISTENT in your counsel. 1st offense = verbal warning (ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities)

2nd offense = written warning (get signature for documentation)

3rd offense = final notice (employee must understand that you will support their choice to either improve immediately or to move on to a more rewarding opportunity.)

4th offense = termination

And finally, BE CONSISTENT in your counsel.

In wrapping up this conversation may we reiterate one last time - when you have succeeded in creating a team that is connected, you can count on each of them having a higher degree of personal engagement toward meetingrepparttar 119489 goals before them.

Still wondering if this connection thing is really that powerful of a concept? Real quick, think aboutrepparttar 119490 following examples of leaders who have connected with people on a broad scale, andrepparttar 119491 kinds of results that came from achieving such a powerful connection:

1. President Reagan - connected so effectively withrepparttar 119492 people of a foreign nation and aroundrepparttar 119493 world by effectively communicatingrepparttar 119494 words "Tear down this wall!"

2. Boris Yeltsin - won support from people all acrossrepparttar 119495 globe as he stood on a tank and quite literally stared downrepparttar 119496 face of communism.

The final point here is that you do NOT need to be a world leader in order to be a great leader. Throughrepparttar 119497 power of connection you can inspire a higher degree of employee engagement which will enable you and your team to achieve new levels of efficiency and production.

Enjoyrepparttar 119498 journey!

Richard Gorham is the founder and President of Leadership-Tools, Inc. His web site, http://www.leadership-tools.com is dedicated to providing free tools and resources for today's aspiring leaders. Offering high-quality tools in the areas of Business Planning, Leadership Development, Customer Service, Sales Management and Team Building.


Having FUN In Leadership

Written by Richard Gorham


Continued from page 1

Let's be frank,repparttar days whererepparttar 119476 leader is a strong authoritative director and where all employees simply wait to see whatrepparttar 119477 manager tells everyone to do does NOT producerepparttar 119478 results that are recognized by a fully engaged team. The leader may be having fun, but his/her subordinates certainly are not.

Managers who want to micro-manage allrepparttar 119479 details are finding that it is virtually impossible to do. The marketplace simply demands too much for one person to micro-manage their team.

We all have incredible people working for us, and if we are effective leaders we need to create an environment where every employee feels like they are empowered, and understand they are expected to proactively contribute. Okay, let's get to our definition of Leadership Fun inrepparttar 119480 Workplace.

To those of us here at Leadership-Tools.com, FUN is NOT always laughing, being light-hearted, having low stress, and being comfortable.

Quiterepparttar 119481 contrary – FUN is:

Working in an environment where people are challenged, they learn new skills, they grow, they seek opportunity and advancement, they take risks, they ask forgiveness - not always permission. People with these traits make an organization grow - these people succeed more often than fail - and ultimately reaprepparttar 119482 rewards and recognition of one who consistently achieves results. They stay motivated withrepparttar 119483 knowledge that they arerepparttar 119484 exception torepparttar 119485 common rule of human behavior. All told, they are having FUN because they make a difference and a contribution - they simply do not allow themselves to settle forrepparttar 119486 status quo. They would rather experience "engagement" - because being engaged - is FUN! Good luck, and have fun.

Richard Gorham is the founder and President of Leadership-Tools, Inc. His web site, http://www.leadership-tools.com is dedicated to providing free tools and resources for today's aspiring leaders. Offering high-quality tools in the areas of Business Planning, Leadership Development, Customer Service, Sales Management and Team Building.


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