Category: Team Performance

7 Ways to Identify a Prospective Leader

6 Ways to Identify a Prospective Leader

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Imagine this: An organization is seeking a key financial officer. Because of their location, the position is very difficult to fill. Two of their staff accountants have leadership potential, which they’ve identified, but neither has leadership experience or their CPA, which is a requirement of the position. Time constraints force the company to hire an experienced financial leader from the outside and provide competitive compensation, relocation assistance, and extensive orientation to the company.

Promoting from within is rarely possible if leaders wait until the position opens to begin identifying potential candidates. If the leadership team of the above organization had been identifying prospective leaders consistently and investing in their education, training, and development, they would have had a leader in house when the position opened. They would have dodged the high compensation for an experienced professional, the relocation allowance, and the costs invested in orientation to the company. Furthermore, the right leader from within the organization has employee respect and knowledge of roles and processes from day one.

Identifying leadership potential requires conscious observation of behaviors. What characteristics can indicate leadership potential?

They Show Above-the-Bar Performance

Performance and attendance that exceed expectations are two very early indicators of a potential leader. Potential leaders personally invest in the success of the organization through commitment to their role. They show relentless drive and hunger for increased knowledge and success.

They are Solution Oriented

Potential leaders are solution oriented. They never bring a problem to the table without a viable solution and an understanding of the shortcomings or potential issues each solution may bring. They are quick to identify problems in processes whose solutions may improve the organization.

They Display an Organizational Viewpoint

One surefire way to spot a potential leader is to identify those are able to see the big picture. They understand what others do in the organization and the value of each role. They express agreement with their supervisor often and display an understanding of their supervisor’s responsibilities. They understand the discernment process and trust the administration team.

They Make Decisions

Potential leaders analyze data to make sound decisions. They weigh out pros and cons and take risks when beneficial to the company. They seek guidance when necessary, but require very little in the decision making process. Strong leaders must be able to make decisions based on data presented and very few employees show this kind of commitment to a decision.

They Do the Right Thing

A potential leader claims their mistakes regardless of their fear of repercussion. They make ethical business decisions, always choosing what is right over what is easy or may benefit themselves. They stand up against unethical behavior and refuse to participate.

They Appreciate Feedback

In order to be a good leader, an employee has to be able to take feedback constructively. Employees who show increased drive following constructive feedback indicate high potential for leadership ability.

Supervisors and management should seek to identify leaders as early as possible; some are evident as early as during the screening process. Identified leaders should be provided with coaching and mentoring, educational opportunities, and insight into the management process. It should be clearly communicated to them that the leadership team believes they have the potential to advance within the organization. They may be promoted slowly to more demanding positions to test their mental fortitude, people skills, commitment, and ability to learn and evolve.

Because leaders promoted from within are tested over a much longer period of time and in more complex ways and trained specifically for the organization, most companies find that there is less risk involved then when hiring from the outside.

How to Set Performance Goals that Motivate Employees

How to Set Performance Goals that Motivate Employees

Shannon Cassidy 1 Comment

In today’s culture of goal setting and performance motivation, it is common for managers and employees to meet regularly and set improvement objectives. This practice isn’t new, but despite its solid history, many organizations still do it wrong. If you’re interested in setting performance goals that motivate employees to do their best, improve their output and quality, and remain loyal to your company, the tips below will help you do it.

Respect Intrinsic Employee Motivation

The reason the Internet is filled with advice about how to set and reach personal goals is that people are inherently motivated by their own desires. The ways in which they naturally want to improve, and the successes that fill them with pride and satisfaction, simply have more sway than metrics imposed top-down by a company.

Of course, part of running an effective team or organization is that you have to ensure employees meet the goals necessary to keep the company profitable. Nevertheless, there are various routes to the same goal, and talking with employees to find out how they learn, how they work best, what motivates them and what gives them satisfaction can all help you target the right goals in the right way.

Don’t Set Stretch Goals

Although goal-setting is a routine aspect of most management strategies, research hints at its destructive side. It’s bogus to say you shouldn’t set goals at all, but stretch goals may not be that helpful. These can add stress to employees’ lives, cause them to focus on certain goals to the detriment of others, add work to their coworkers’ plates, and sap motivation if they fail to meet them regularly. Instead, stick with in-between goals that challenge without running the risk of proving too arduous.

Choose Specific, Measurable Goals

Vague goals can be destructive. An employee who works in a call center benefits much more from the objective “Handle two more customer calls per hour” than “Improve your call time.” Always wondering whether or not they are meeting the goal can be stressful and draining to the employee, so be very clear.

Be sure to take into account both quantity and quality. It is unfair to set an employee up for a fall by focusing on one metric to the detriment of another. For example, in the case of customer calls, if you’re trying to up the employee’s number of calls, be clear on how to do this without sacrificing quality. Otherwise, you may have a worker with a higher number of completed calls and worse performance ratings. That’s no good for anyone.

Align to Overall Company Goals

A performance goal isn’t worth much if it caters to the employee’s strengths, desires and learning style, but does nothing to help the company itself. Therefore, any performance goals you and the employee choose must align to the company’s strategy for improvement. Success Factors recommends focusing employee efforts on company goals and clearly outlining the expected responsibilities associated with meeting them.

Plan How You Will Assess Goals

This is closely related to a step above – choosing specific goals – but is actually connected to how you will ascertain whether or not the employee is meeting the goals you’ve chosen. In order for a goal to be successful by truly motivating an employee, both you and the employee must know what the follow-through will look like.

Perhaps you schedule informal bimonthly reviews to talk about how it’s going, or perhaps you track stats in a spreadsheet, a program or an app. Maybe you randomly sit in on customer calls to check progress, or monitor the sales numbers. Such a plan lends the manager peace of mind and the employee motivation to succeed and security in knowing their strides will be recognized. Which brings us to …

Recognize Goals Regularly

No matter how well you target specific areas of improvement, align goals and create assessment plans, if you routinely fail to acknowledge employees’ progress, they are less likely to try. Unfortunately, after second grade, stickers and candy bars don’t work so well, so you’re best off finding a way to recognize employee successes that will be meaningful to the employee.

Be sure to take into account each individual’s personality and preferences when doing so. While some employees might feel gratified to be put on a project as a result of their hard work, others might feel punished by the increased workload. Similarly, while many people love validation in front of the group, others find it humiliating. If you’re not sure, ask.

Goal-setting, once you institute these tips into your routine practice, is an effective way to motivate employees and lend them a sense of achievement in their daily work lives. Doing it right will benefit you, them and the company, so don’t wait.

Four Ways to Lead Through Failure

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failure

“Failure is NOT an option!”

This unspoken NASA creed was in understood to be in effect during every mission, especially the Apollo 13 Houston-We-Have-a-Problem episode.

While this quote makes a great motivational mantra to build team enthusiasm, it is not reality. In fact, failure is ALWAYS an option. The Apollo 13 astronauts could have easily launched themselves on an endless journey into deep space. Whether internal error or outside occurrences beyond our foresight or control, failure happens. But what are we to do as leaders in the midst of failure?

1. Maintain enthusiasm

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

A good leader keeps her or his head up during tough times. The leader is called to stand on a parapet and look out towards the horizon, discovering possibilities. Shoegazing at the problem at hand will not inspire confidence, lead the troops, or promote outside-the-box thinking needed to find solutions. When, as a leader, you take this higher view, you can maintain enthusiasm without becoming a false, rah-rah cheerleader, and this you must not become. Your team will disregard inauthentic attempts at motivation. Instead, be honest, stating clearly, “I know things are rough,” or “Okay, we did experience failure on this project.” But quickly let them know that though this battle may be lost, there are more battles coming which are quite winnable.

Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, experienced colossal failures in individual battles, yet he kept a can-do attitude. “If you’re going through hell, keep going,” he said, as well as his famed statement on adversity:

“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

2. Shape the story

Failure is often measured by the numbers–a poor profit statement, an abysmal product launch, or a bad department review. But know this, no data is ever perceived in an entirely objective manner. Everyone sees the data through their own colored lenses and shapes their views of the current situation within the context of their internal narrative. This is always true, no matter how analytical a person appears to be. In bad (and good) situations, as a leader you should never pitch data “neutrally” before your team without context. Recent studies have shown they won’t receive it without bias. Instead, as the leader, you must shape the context by telling the story that surrounds the data. Leaders articulate, “Here is what the data means, and here is our response to this challenge or failure.” To maintain morale, be sure to tell the story of past obstacles that have been overcome through your team’s smart and diligent efforts. Include historical stories of those who faced incredible failure and saw the cards stacked against them, yet they succeeded. (See Abraham Lincoln, Apollo 13, and the WWII Allies if you need fodder.)

3. Encourage Failure

Wait, what? Yes, good leaders encourage micro-failures to avoid macro-failures. Applying creative efforts that have a chance of failing to the smaller scope of a problem is crucial to overcoming over-arching failure at the highest levels. Encourage your team to think beyond traditional solutions while providing them safe boundaries to work within. In this way, if things go south, one area of the project is affected by the creative effort’s failure, but, hopefully, cross-infection into other areas of the project can be avoided.

Many businesses have team members who are so afraid of the reaction from on high, they become paralyzed, unable to come to any viable solution when failure or problems occur. Reward your team members for innovative efforts regardless of the outcome. Today’s botched solution may become tomorrow’s genius idea.

Have team members or departments share their failures with other team members without reprisal. Of course, before they share it, you will want to vet their presentation to help them shape the context and narrative. Good leaders are always story-shapers. Having those under your leadership hear others say, “We hit a huge pothole. The wheels came off, and here is how we are putting them back on,” is a way to ensure your team stays nimble in their thinking when failure does occur.

4. Keep a Failure Catalog

Failure is rarely an end in itself. It is simply a means for a great leader to say, “Ouch, let’s learn from that and not allow that to happen again.” Keep a catalog of your failures with the story of how you overcame each of them attached. This record will give you great hope when a new failure or problem arises. You can view a situation that seems insurmountable, and reflect back as you realize many other problems appeared to be the Mount-Everest-of-all-failures in their time. You survived and grew from those failures. You’ll grow from this one, as well.

Remember

Failure IS always an option. In fact, to fail is human, and every leader, at last check, was human. Press forward when failure happens, using your talents and skills to lead through adversity—maintain enthusiasm, tell stories, encourage failure, and keep a catalog. It is this type of leadership that will inspire your team and, should a large enough problem occur, place your name in the history books alongside other great leaders. Remember, failure is merely a means to better the story of future success. 

5 Signs of a Positive Work Environment

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positive work environment

Whether looking for a new job or considering ways to increase fulfillment within your current company, a positive work environment is crucial in determining how successful a company will be in the long run, as well as how content and motivated a team of employees will remain. Though all companies have their own unique work environment, there are five key signs that indicated whether an organization truly is healthy and able to thrive.

Open Communication

Whereas nearly all organizations claim to value open communication, many do not maintain it. A positive workplace consists of leaders who are dedicated to setting aside time to communicate clear goals and expectations, and then offer and invite honest feedback that seeks to better employees and the company as a whole. Most truly healthy organizations have implemented an open-door policy where leaders are ready and willing to listen to concerns in a non-threatening manner, and then actually address those concerns. A strong atmosphere of trust is established when open communication is a key function of a company.

Opportunities for Development

People who are given opportunities to grow and learn in an area where they can personally and professionally grow are highly motivated to put their new skill-sets to work and therein make a company more productive. Businesses that offer opportunities for employees to grow and learn are filled with empowered and content employees. People feel cared for as employees and they then tend to remain loyal to the business that helped them to grow and advance. Companies that offer opportunities for development tend to be filled with ambitious employees who feel appreciated, thus creating an upbeat, thriving work environment.

Recognition

Positive work environments are those characterized by leaders who take time and energy to recognize the efforts and successes of employees. Organizations with an atmosphere of recognition boast employees who are satisfied and motivated to produce results. An environment where goals are set, achieved, and celebrated is one that going to be measured as healthy and desirable to work with and for. This type of environment harbors employees who feel valued and who want to contribute to the overall productivity of the organization.

Flexibility

People who are able to have flexible work arrangements that help them balance out all aspects of their lives are proven to be happier, and therefore more productive and engaged at work. Studies are showing that individuals who are employed by companies that offer flexibility in hours and location to work on and complete tasks have reduced stress levels at work and in their family life. They feel valued and cared for by their company, and the work environment, as a whole, is exceedingly favorable.

Teamwork

A company whose departments actually work together as a team is most often one that effectively solves problems, uses resources, and produces results significantly more efficiently than businesses without that sense of team. A positive work environment is one where people enjoy working together, and where employees offer help to each other. Ultimately, this type of work climate is populated by people who feel a stronger sense of purpose as they are surrounded by a team of employees working toward a common goal.

Which of these traits can your company work on to adopt a more positive work environment?

 

 

How Hierarchy Takes You from Surviving to Thriving

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chain of command hierarchy leadership

Many leaders believe an effective leader’s subordinates consider them a friend. They feel uncomfortable with hierarchy and/or chain of command and feel everybody in the organization should be treated equally.

While these misconceptions aren’t entirely wrong (your subordinates should believe you respect and appreciate them and everybody in the organization is immensely valuable), when leaders adopt these trains of thoughts, their teams suffer. An established, structured, well communicated, and enforced chain-of-command can eliminate confusion and frustration when it comes to conflict resolution or employee grievances and improve morale and productivity. The word hierarchy may not be well received by leaders or staff, but its effects are positive and necessary for organizational growth.

Some of the benefits you can expect to see when you establish and implement a chain of command include:

  • Improved morale. Employees are more likely to see the direct results of their suggestions or grievances when they have addressed it at the closest level first. Leaders are more apt to follow up with their direct employees regarding their grievance. Employees trust that if their supervisor has failed to respond, they have further options for resolution, which improves morale as well.
  • Decreased legal risk. When policy outlines clear guidance for grievances, employees have an obligation to take the steps recommended to resolve complaints. When the grievance or chain of command policy is followed, the organization has increased opportunity to address issues before they reach a judge.
  • Lower turnover. Employees who see action following an appropriate grievance or suggestion are likely to enjoy their jobs and stay on board longer.
  • Increased productivity. Satisfied employees work hard and feel personally vested in the organization. They look for efficiencies and solutions and are driven by quality results.
  • Lower costs. When your turnover and legal risk decrease and your productivity increases, your bottom line goes up. That should provide the justification you need to get your chain-of-command idea past upper management.

What are the characteristics of an effective chain of command?

  • All employees report directly to somebody who has overall responsibility for their results. Supervisors who are responsible for the results of their team are personally vested in the performance and productivity of their employees, understand the processes, know the staff, and have the authority to address concerns appropriately. They also have several levels above them for support and guidance.
  • Few employees report directly to upper management. Those reporting to upper management have only one option when it comes to grievances. Only the most professional people in the most independent positions in your building should report to the president or CEO.
  • All employees are trained upon implementation and then annually and upon hire regarding the structure of the organization and the grievance process. All supervisors are trained to manage authoritatively – to take personal responsibility for the performance of their team. In order to do so, they must be comfortable directing and correcting their team when necessary (remind them to balance reward and constructive criticism).
  • Everybody must be willing to say, “Have you addressed the right person with these concerns?” before they act on concerns that do not come from their direct subordinates. This enforces chain-of-command and provides maximum opportunity for resolution.

If you choose to establish and implement a chain-of-command, it is vital that your employees understand that it dictates who has the authority to make which decisions and where they should go for help, not who has value within the organization. Employees often view authority as value and poor morale results.

Furthermore, your leaders must own their authority. Weak or inexperienced leaders often feel that they are no more valuable than anyone else and therefore should not delegate or correct. While their value remains equal, their authority makes them different – and this authority is vital in order for the organization to operate as it should. Leaders must feel comfortable correcting their subordinates.

If you are struggling with employee morale, legal risk, poor productivity or attendance, or high turnover and you are not yet utilizing an established chain-of-command, consider moving forward with a chain-of-command policy. The cost is in the time it takes you to establish and the benefits far outweigh the investment.