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4. Find Common Ground Some managers don’t understand they are in people business and lack patience to work and develop their team members. I even had supervisor during a coaching and mentoring workshop make following statement to me at break:
“If I knew I had to communicate with my team I would have never taken job.”
What did this person think? True leaders understand that their employees’ success is their success. They comprehend during this journey that some employees will need assistance, coachings, motivation, feedback, and discipline. Good leaders will work to find common ground with each staff member so that everyone wins. Perfect leaders will understand that some employees will need consistent managing, and others will need less managing; some employees need refocusing, while others will be very focused, etc. Perfect leaders recognize need to find common ground with each person.
5. Take others to a new level Perfect managers are concerned with their staff’s professional advancement and do everything possible to help staff members develop their capabilities. These leaders “see employees for what they can become, not what they are now.” The leaders’ actions might range from improving specific aspects of job performance, to delegating special assignments, to developing an action plan for promotions. Perfect leaders must have ability to assess strengths and weaknesses of employees and use that to coach for continuous improvement.
Ideally basis for improvement combines best interest of organization and employee. Many times I am brought into organizations to assist them with this need:
“I have managers retiring, and we have no one to replace them.”
These organizations have created a “talent black hole,” because they didn’t implement a plan to “help others improve” and be ready to step up to when needed. Remember, you can always replace a chair, a desk, a computer. But you can’t always replace a talented employee if you don’t have a plan in place to develop others to take their place when time comes.
6. Believe in your staff Recently, I was presenting concerns of an employee workshop to management of an organization at their staff meeting. One manager looked at report and questioned me as to whether employees really mentioned items in report. I assured manager employees did. To that manager answered in meeting, “This must mean we have smart employees.” Little did this manager realize that he had a negative attitude toward his employees. Through his subconscious mind, he is showing his employees, through words and actions, that he doesn’t believe in his staff.
Perfect leaders believe in best qualities of their employees. They believe their employees are smart enough to handle tasks and find solutions to challenges if given correct guidance and opportunity.
This comes with earned trust from past performances and investment by leaders to ongoing shared coachings and feedback to give employees experience and skills to succeed in future.
7. Integrity is best It is important that employees feel they can trust managers’ words and actions. This means honesty, fairness, and consistency when interacting with employees. If employees share in private a confidential sensitive subject with their mangers in morning, this must not be known throughout organization that afternoon. Or if managers promise to give employees an answer by end of day and never get back to employees, managers’ integrity is destroyed.
The best leaders realize their word is their bond and that actions speak louder than words. Perfect leaders work at being honest, open, and reliable everyday.
Take time starting today to apply these seven secrets; and you, too, can be a “perfect” leader.
Ed Sykes is a professional speaker, author, and leading expert in the areas of leadership, motivation, stress management, customer service, and team building. You can e-mail him at mailto:esykes@thesykesgrp.com, or call him at (757) 427-7032. Goto his web site, http://www.thesykesgrp.com, and signup for the newsletter, OnPoint, and receive the free ebook, "Empowerment and Stress Secrets for the Busy Professional."