Browse Category: Leadership Tips

5 Ways to Improve Your Employee Motivation Skills

Look around at the successful businesses in your area or anywhere in the world. What made them successful? Reasons for business success are many and complex but one of the underlying reasons for success in most businesses is employee motivation.

If your employees are not motivated, your business will suffer from the inside out and it could begin to crumble one employee at a time. Soon, you’ll be surrounded by poor, dissatisfied employees with the good ones gone seeking job fulfillment elsewhere.

Without question, people work to make money, to make a living and support their family and the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed or would like to achieve. But, if your business strives to maintain a healthy environment it must go beyond monetary reward. If we fail to gain fulfillment in our work and feel needed then the paycheque becomes secondary and may not be worth it at all.

1.  Treat your employees with respect. If possible, learn their names and address them as such each time you see them. If their job gives them no dignity they will dread coming to work and want to leave as soon as possible. Without respect, there is no company loyalty and they will undermine you each chance they get.

2.  Earn your employees trust. Make them feel an important part of the company’s success. Share with them company plans for change and expansion. Communicate with employees individually and as a group. If they hear about a change in their company from an outsider or on the news, they feel left out and even betrayed. Be generous with inter office memos to be followed with meetings in person. Lack of communication with employees is one of the chief reasons for inter office turmoil. When the truth is not shared, false rumours can triumph.

3.  Listen to what your employees have to say. In many cases, your employees are closer to the job than you are. They have a feel for what’s right and what’s wrong and will be willing to share this information with their employer if they’ll listen. You may not want to take action on all their suggestions, but give them an opportunity to vent. You may be surprised at what’s going on right under your nose.

4.  Show your appreciation. Merit raises are nice but sometimes not feasible. Schedule an appreciation day with a small party or get together. Perhaps name an employee of the month. Present them with small tokens of your gratitude such as a bonus, employee pin or a coupon for dinner. Your appreciation should be spread throughout the year, not just at an annual meeting. Frequent boosts of employee morale are essential.

5.  Provide employees incentives for advancement. No one wants to work in a dead end job. Find out what each employee wants in the job and in life in general and express an interest in helping him or her to fulfill those desires. Many times you’ll learn they want nothing more than to love what they do and feel they’re contributing to the overall effort.

Your employees deserve to have your respect, trust and appreciation. Communicate with them and provide work incentives and your employee motivation skills will greatly improve. So will your business.

Further reading:

Leadership With Authority

Quote – Unquote

“True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation and reflection.

False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance and impudence.”

Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1815-1885)

I always like this quote because it emphasises that experience is not enough.  Experience has to be combined with observation and reflection in order to bring true wisdom.

Do you take the time to turn what you experience into true wisdom?

Leaders under stress

Last week I was fortunate enough to have a few days break after a conference on Australia’s beautiful Gold Coast. We caught up with family and friends we hadn’t seen for some time and I’m returning to work today feeling very relaxed.

Then I looked at my diary and I realised that another month is almost gone. I have so many things to do before the end of the month and my stress levels start to rise just a little, before I even have to handle anything unexpected, difficult or challenging…

It got me thinking. Stress is such a part of any leadership or management role it’s easy to forget what a stress free life can be like. But the question is, is that a bad thing?

There’s no doubt that a bit of stress helps us to function at a higher, or more intense level and therefore get more done than usual. I certainly got more done the day before I left for my conference and short break than I would have, if I had not been under the pressure of a deadline.

Planes just don’t wait for us to finish one more thing, do they?

And there probably wouldn’t be any need for the management or leadership role in organisations, if there weren’t the sort of problems and challenges that can lead to stress.

But there’s also no doubt that higher and higher stress levels can be unhealthy, unsustainable and unproductive – and that’s what too many leaders and managers struggle with, every day at work.

Being told day in and day out to do more and more with less and less is undoubtedly stressful.

If that’s your reality, I know it won’t help to tell you to “relax and take a holiday”. Much as you might want to and know you really should, I know it’s not always possible – especially when you are most stressed.

Yet you and I both know that you owe it to the people on your team to know how to manage your stress levels so you are productive rather than stressed out of control. If you allow your stress to get out of control you’ll begin to miss deadlines, forget critical things and struggle to cope with anything unexpected. In fact your productivity will drop.

So what can you do? Well, there is plenty you can do to effectively manage your stress levels and help your team members to do the same. Here are three quick tips to help:

* First, make sure you are quite clear on whether and why tasks really need to be done. As we are asked to do new things, it is important to constantly take the time to check whether the old tasks we are used to doing really still need to be done. Sometimes we cling to old tasks (maybe we are confident doing them or just enjoy doing them) even though they are no longer really required. If a task no longer needs to be done, or it can be done annually instead of monthly for example, that can free up significant amounts of time and reduce stress on everyone.

* Second, even if you can’t take a whole week’s break, you can take a brief break to do something you enjoy. Walk around the block to clear your head. Take 20 minutes to listen to some music you enjoy. Enrol in a weekly exercise or stretch class. Take up painting or gardening. Borrow a neighbor’s dog and take it for a walk. In other words, doing something different for a short time can work magic in reducing your stress levels.

* Third, make sure you really understand what stress is, how the different types of stress impact on performance and how to manage it yourself and for your people. Keep yourself motivated and don’t make doing tasks more stressful by procrastinating. These resources will help you to manage your stress and be more productive: Less Stress and Better Productivity

Leaders who understand and work well with stress make better leaders. That link for some really helpful resources is:
http://kmgsupport.com/2/61yn/order
Check them out now.

Do People Listen to You?

In this issue of Leading Well we look at why it can be so hard to get some of those messages across to your team that should be really obvious, and what you can do about it…

Have you ever asked yourself… WHY DON’T PEOPLE JUST LISTEN?

Some things are so obvious you would think people wouldn’t even need to be told them. Or at least you should be able to tell them once and they ‘get it’ immediately!

Of course if you manage people or lead a team you know this is rarely the case… Take wearing their safety equipment in hazardous workplaces. Or taking stretch breaks for keyboard operators… Or lifting things properly… Or finishing one file before starting on the next… Or keeping the tea-room clean… Or whatever that annoying issue is for you…

Not every message you need to get across as a team leader or manager is a big picture or strategic vision one. Not all could be described as inspiring.

Some messages are not even very exciting or interesting ones.

And some are downright obvious.

But even the obvious messages can still be very important.

And as team leader you need to do what ever it takes to make sure everyone acts on any important messages you need to deliver. You are the one who will be held accountable for their mistakes if they don’t do the right thing, after all.

There are four things you need to remember when you are trying to get even obvious messages to stick… Find out what they are at:
http://leadershipskillcenter.com/products/gymacross.html

WHAT’S NEW IN THE LEADERSHIP COACHING CLUB

Recent articles added include:
* Ten top tips for motivating and inspiring through effective
listening
* Why do people resist change
* Making meetings work – and much much more…

Join at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com or login if you are already a member for details.

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QUOTE OF NOTE

“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

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The Leading Well Bottom Line:

You don’t have to do it all on your own. Join us in the Leadership Coaching Club and leverage off all the wisdom, insight and experience of dozens of guest experts, other participants and your mentor Kerrie Mullins-Gunst. See http://leadershipcoachingclub.com for details.

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That link again for the four things you need to remember when you are trying to get your messages to stick… READ MORE at
http://leadershipskillcenter.com/products/gymacross.html

Kind regards, Kerrie

Leading Well – Planting the seeds of success

Recently I caught up with a group of friends from my university days. It was great fun to hear all about what people were up to after so many years.

One of my friends was describing how her new weekend farming life had captured the interest of her team at her city legal office. So much so that, not long ago, her whole team had volunteered to help out with planting the latest vegetable crop.

“We had a great weekend” she told us. “Some teams might go away to the country for ‘Planning days’ but my team went away for a ‘Planting day’.”

Afterwards, the more I thought about the concept, the more I liked the analogy.

As a leadership specialist, I am often asked to facilitate Strategic and Team Planning events and I can’t think of a better way to describe their purpose than planting seeds for the future.

Planning days aren’t magic wands that fix all your problems. But they do plant the seeds that can be nurtured into your ideal outcomes over time.

If you are fortunate (and your planning event is well facilitated) you may secure agreement on the day from all team members about some of the fundamentals: your team vision and values, how your team roles relate to your organizational mission or purpose, and the essential actions and strategies that will ensure you deliver results.

But any team gathering also offers an opportunity to foster understanding and develop a strong team culture – which takes much longer than a day to achieve. Yet you can plant the seeds for a team that works well together even in difficult times, that supports and respects other team members, that shows initiative and embraces change. And over time these outcomes may be even more powerful than the traditional outcomes of Strategic or Team Planning events.

As with any seeds, planting them is not enough. They have to be nurtured, fed and watered over time before they grow to their full potential. And that is your primary role back in the office as leader of the team.

The nurturing of those powerful seeds of success over time needs to be attended to daily and weekly – in fact every time you interact or meet with your team.

This consistent follow-up to any annual Strategic or Team Planning event can be even more critical than the event itself. In it lies one of the secrets of all successful leaders.

Kind regards, Kerrie

PS. If you are wondering HOW to nurture the seeds of your team’s success, watch out for details about my Leadership Coaching Club, coming soon. If you want to be among the first to know all the details, register at http://leadershipcoachingclub.com and be confident of catching our special launch discount or bonuses.

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QUOTE OF NOTE

“Our great business in life is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

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DON’T FORGET!

Don’t forget to have a look at ‘Powerful Ways to Sharpen Your Memory – A Guide for Leaders and Managers’ – Now available for instant download. It includes both basic and advanced tools you can use to overcome forgetfulness, remember names, faces, numbers, places, events and more!

I wish I had know some of the things that are in this ebook years ago! So many things would have been so much easier…

Have a look now. There’s a free bonus – just for looking! You can register for the Memory Boost MiniCourse for free and try out just a few of the ideas you’ll discover when you pick up your own copy of Powerful Ways to Sharpen Your Memory.

See http://FreeMemoryCourse.com/sharpen for details.

Be A Great Leader

A guest article by: Donald Wilson

Picture an unproductive workplace, staffed by unmotivated employees. People are standing around, some are trying to look busy, but nothing ever seems to get accomplished. The team leader is frustrated because things just don’t happen the way they’re supposed to. Even in busy workplaces, goals are never fully reached despite the hustle and the bustle. If this scenario describes your workplace, maybe it’s time to do something about it.

Many people are content just to stand around listening for orders. It isn’t unusual for an entire staff to become complacent and adopt a follow-the-leader mentality. But you’re different. Somewhere inside of you is the desire to make things happen, and you dream of being the head, not the tail. You could be the born leader that your company needs to succeed.

Some people believe that great leaders are born, not made. Although it may be true that many are born with natural leadership talents, these qualities will never be fully developed without practice, drive, enthusiasm and experience. Good leaders are continually working and studying to improve their skills, and possess a natural commitment to constantly improving both professional and personal endeavors.

A leader is defined as ‘one who influences others to accomplish a goal or objective’. This person contributes to the organization and cohesion of a group.

Contrary to what most people believe, leadership is not about power. Good leaders do not harass people or drive them by inflicting fear. Rather, they encourage others to meet the goals and objectives of the organization. Effective leadership entails putting everyone on the same page and helping him or her see the big picture of the organization.

There is a big difference between being a leader, and being a boss.

The first step to being an effective leader is encouraging others to follow your lead. How is this accomplished? People follow others when they see a clear sense of purpose. Your team will only follow you if they see that you know where you are going, and have a sensible plan to meet your goals. Think of the bumper sticker that read “Don’t follow me, I’m lost too.” The same logic holds true for leadership. If you do not know where you’re headed, how can you expect others to follow?

You must understand the vision of your organization. Have a clear sense of hierarchy; know whom the bosses are, and whom each person can go to for guidance. By displaying a clear understanding of the organization’s goals and objectives, and how the organization operates, you will be able to prove to others that you are a confident leader.

Being a great leader is not about what you make others do. It’s about who you are, what you know, and what you do. You are a reflection of what your team strives to be.

Studies have shown that another basis of good leadership is the trust and confidence that your team has in you. If they respect you, they will go through hell or high water for you and for the organization. Trust and confidence are built on the clear communication, high ethics and trustworthiness that you display on a day-to-day basis.

The way you deal with your team, and the relationships you build, will lay the foundation for the strength of your group. The stronger your relationship, the more trust they will have in your capabilities. Once you have earned their confidence, you are able to communicate goals and objectives to your team.

Communication is a very important key to good leadership. Without consistently clear communication you cannot succeed as a leader. The knowledge and technical expertise that you possess must be clearly imparted to other people.

Sound judgment is also vital for good leadership. You must be able to assess situations, weigh the pros and cons of any decision, and actively seek out a solution to any problem. Your team will begin to rely on your good judgment; so good decision-making is vital to the success of your organization.

Leaders are not expected to be heroes. Trust your team to fulfill tasks and make their own decisions. You should not claim to know everything, and you should not expect others to rely upon your skills alone.

Recognizing and taking advantage of the skills and talents of your group is the only way that you will be able to succeed as one cohesive unit.

Being a great leader takes a good deal of work and time, and is not learned overnight. Remember that it is not about just you. Great leaders take every opportunity to involve the people around them.

If you feel that you have the drive and desire to be a great leader, and to make a real difference in your organization, then go ahead and make the change. In other words, take the lead.

About The Author:

Donald Wilson contributes articles to several web magazines, including http://bowyn.com and http://hopir.com.

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For help developing all the skills you need to Be A Great Leader visit the Leadership Skill Center at http://leadershipskillcenter.com