News & Insights

In this continuation from part 1, we discuss more specific traits good leaders exhibit that allow them to motivate and boost productivity to ensure the loyalty and the success of their employees.

Warren Bennis defines leadership as “the capacity to create a compelling vision, translate it into action and sustain it.”

For me, this is the perfect articulation as I interview lots of people capable of the vision to develop a strategy, but all too few who can deliver on it through appropriate actions and then, for me, the very best individuals are those who can do all of this and crucially, can sustain their achievements over time.

Once you have your strategies for establishing your leadership style in place, what considerations should you have for daily team leadership that will help boost productivity and keep morale high?

Here are some suggestions based on what successful leaders we work with, are using now.

Daily Leadership Skills

Establish Equality

Treating your employees equally is paramount to building equality and diversity in your team.  A good leader will aim to create a psychologically safe environment as discussed in full in this recent HBR article – where employees can express their thoughts, concerns or plans.

Listen to Your Team

There is a difference between hearing someone and actively listening to them. In a busy workplace, it can be easy to hear someone speak and start forming an automatic response in your mind. But beware, as soon as you start thinking about your answer, you have already stopped listening to that person.

Learn to engage in listening and understanding actively to ensure you and your team have meaningful conversations.

Provide Motivational and Developmental Feedback

Providing timely feedback is critical for your employees’ development and of course, so that they can improve and are aware of the impact of their actions.

Unfortunately, leaders can fall into feedback traps. As a general rule, many avoid giving feedback promptly, so behaviours continue unchecked. Or they deliver too much developmental feedback which isn’t counterbalanced by the positive actions of the employee. Nobody is the finished article, and timely and appropriate feedback is a real gift for all.

Take time to prepare, stick to the facts and the behaviours you observed. Saying something like “You work is always late”, without any specific dates aren’t helpful. Better to have dates and times written down.

Here is something key to remember: If there has been a change in someone’s behaviour or attitude, for example, lack of motivation, inappropriate responses, or general changes to how they usually act, first check-in that they are OK.

Some of your team will wear their life on their sleeve; others won’t. Though there is a school of thought that people ‘should’ leave their home life at home, not everyone has the skills to do this.

Remember, motivational feedback should always aim to encourage and show faith in an employee’s ability to improve.

Of course, managing your team day to day requires a set of skills such as thorough planning and delegation, but there are other, specialist skills which will set you apart from other leaders and turn you from a good leader into an outstanding one.

The following looks at some of those particular skills and how you can develop them in your leadership style.

In the next edition, we discuss how to develop your leadership style and what areas you should focus on now.