Employee Morale Crushers

Employee morale is perhaps one of the most important but most difficult things to manage. It’s critical to maintain high morale in order to increase retention, but it’s often difficult to get an accurate read on how employees feel and what is causing them to be dissatisfied.​

Most managers believe the leading reason employees leave is for more money. While compensation is a contributor, it is not the leading reason. Rather, a large number of employees leave due to: decreased employee morale, lack of respect from management, lack of employee development, and feeling disconnected from overall company priorities and objectives.

Employees want to feel like they are part of something “bigger” — that their individual role has a broad impact to the business. This applies regardless of job function.  While “local” relationships are critical to everyday morale, their feeling of being connected to the company as a whole is what drives them to stay. It’s more important than ever to nurture the relationship between employees and their direct managers as well as senior leadership, to communicate frequently but with focus, and to make sure employees have clear development plans that establish expectations as well as draws clear lines to business objectives.

Below are the top 10 employee​​ morale crushers as provided by the HR ​ Advisor.​​

1. Managers that treat employees poorly. Poor management is often cited as a cause of morale issues, and it can take many forms. One example is a manager who acts as though an employee is lucky to even have a job, rather than respecting the employee and his or her work.
2. Moving the goalpost. Employees will be understandably frustrated if their goals are continually changing—especially if this happens before the first goal can be accomplished or if the new goals contradict the old ones, making the previous work obsolete.
3. Unclear expectations. Similar to the item above, it’s discouraging to not know what you’re working toward. If the goals are not clear and employees don’t know what role they’re meant to play, they will get frustrated. This is especially true if they’re being judged by a set of criteria, yet don’t know what those criteria are. Employees should be given frequent feedback to know where they stand and what is expected of them.
4. Lack of communication. When employees feel like they’re kept in the dark, it creates resentment and presents opportunities for rumors to run wild. Communication is important all the time and is critical at times of extreme change. The ability to communicate up the chain of command is also crucial for employees to feel heard, and feeling like their opinions matter is highly important to employees’ sense of engagement.
5. Not feeling recognized for hard work. While not every employee will respond to the same types of recognition, most do desire to have their efforts recognized in some capacity. Not only does it confirm that the employee is meeting and exceeding expectations, but it also gives a sense of accomplishment and pride in the work.
6. ​No clear employee development plan. When an employee is hired, often he or she has a long-term vision for what roles they will take on next. When the company and an employee are on the same page, clear employee development plans will be in place and the employee will likely take on new roles over time. But when there is no development plan, there’s a high risk that employees will feel dissatisfied and unable to work to their full potential in the role they’re in. They’re likely to start looking for another organization to get new opportunities. Employees need to see a clear line of how they will progress their career and achieve their goals.
7. Lack of trust to complete the work. This often manifests as micromanagement or an environment in which an employee does not feel he or she has any leeway. Many employees would prefer to do their job to the best of their abilities and make appropriate judgment calls without having their actions called into question at every turn. On the other side of the coin, employees also need to feel free to ask questions without having negative repercussions. They should be able to ask for help and receive it without being perceived as unable to complete the work.
8. An unreasonable workload. While most employees understand that workloads can fluctuate, requiring an employee to keep up with an unreasonable workload for too long is a recipe for burnout and resentment. This is an especially common problem for employers that downsized during the recession and simply expected employees to take on more work—especially if that didn’t come with any recognition.
9. Inappropriate compensation levels. Surprisingly, compensation does not factor as high as some may guess when it comes to morale levels, but it needs to be reasonable, and it needs to reflect the quality of work and responsibility level of the employee. When low wages are coupled with any other item on this list, they will be much more of an issue to contend with, as inadequate compensation tends to compound other frustrations.
10. High turnover rates. When an employer has high turnover, it puts undue stress on the entire organization—remaining employees have to pick up the slack. Additionally, if the turnover comes from employees being let go frequently, remaining employees can lose confidence in their job security.

Companies’ and workers’ priorities have changed during the coronavirus pandemic.

HR experts expect employers and employees to experience a new work world initially, and perhaps long term, rather than business as usual once the Coronavirus pandemic ends.

Not only will organizations need to consider measures to ensure the health and safety of their returning workforces—phased-in returns to the workplace and physical distancing, for instance—they also may encounter greater employee demand for flexible hours, remote-work arrangements and generous paid sick leave as part of the new normal.

I think we’re walking into a completely different world with a different set of rules.

Reopening May Start and Then Stop

Business leaders told President Donald Trump, who recently announced phased-in, less-restrictive social distancing guidelines, that they want to see extensive testing and more available personal protective equipment before allowing people to go back to work.

Large swaths of the U.S. economy remain fully or partially shut down or are operating remotely as the country struggles to contain the virus, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives domestically. At the same time, employers are starting to think about moves they might take to re-establish a regular work life, including rotating schedules, virus screening, cleaning and providing protective equipment.

I could see that return drag on for six months plus, at least. The return will come in phases, and I think there will be a real examination about what needs to return and when.

Forecasters expect the outbreak and restrictions to mitigate them to persist for months or longer, with potential subsequent waves of waning and resurgence, until a vaccine or effective treatment becomes widely available.

Workers’ Priorities Have Changed

When employees return to the workplace, HR consultants predict that many will have shifted priorities after a long stretch of remote work and sheltering in place with their families.

I think that people are going to not only demand more flexibility, but they’re going to have a proven business case for it.

Employers hurting financially after the shutdown might find that keeping employees working from home can help cut costs.  As this goes on it’s going to be a blueprint … of how businesses might operate in the future.

Schedules and Work Areas Shift

Some of the issues HR may face once employees start coming back to the office, include the possibility that some workers won’t be comfortable taking public transportation or being in the office.

New policies will have to be created related to remote work, commuting and workspace etc.

Mercer, which has been talking to clients and surveying employers around the world, has started to hear about rotating schedules, splitting teams and staggering the workforce so companies don’t concentrate workers in one place.

Longer term, there’s going to be a lot more questioning around where to work and the hours of working.

Pay Practices Change, Too

Meanwhile, retailers, fast-food companies, manufacturers and other employers unaccustomed to having workers exposed to serious illness may need to provide hazard or premium pay during the high-risk period, and some are already are doing so.

The return phase can be complex, with schools and day cares closed and children at home, employees may need more paid-sick and family leave.

“I think more time with family at home is going to change the dynamic about the role that work plays in [an employee’s] life,” she said.

Time to Create Policies and Guidelines

Automotive-seating manufacturer Lear Corp. recently published the “Safe Work Playbook,” a guide for safe practices at work during the pandemic, including steps for cleaning and disinfecting equipment, staggering shifts and lunch breaks, setting up a pandemic response team, establishing onsite health screening, and creating protocols for isolating employees who come to work sick.

The 51-page guidebook, which includes information based on recommendations from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, aims to help organizations navigate the new normal, said Lear President and CEO Ray Scott. “This has been a difficult time for everyone, and re-establishing a workplace where employees feel comfortable performing their jobs safely is a multifaceted challenge.”

 

If you’re not helping people develop, you’re not management material

Skilled managers have never been more critical to a company’s success as they are today.  Not because employees can’t function without direction, but because managers play a vital role in talent management. Gone are the comprehensive career management systems and expectations of long-term employment that once functioned as the glue in the employer-employee relationship.  In their place, the manager-employee dyad is the new building block of learning and development in many organizations.

Good managers attract candidates, drive performance, engagement and retention, and play a key role in maximizing employees’ contribution to the company. Poor managers, by contrast, are a drag on all of the above.  They cost your company a ton of money in turnover costs and missed opportunities for employee contributions, and they do more damage than you realize.

Job seekers from entry-level to executives are more concerned with opportunities for learning and development than any other aspect of a prospective job.  This makes perfect sense, since continuous learning is a key strategy for crafting a sustainable career.  The vast majority (some sources say as much as 90%) of learning and development takes place not in formal training programs, but rather on the job—through new challenges and developmental assignments, developmental feedback, conversations and mentoring.  Thus, employees’ direct managers are often their most important developers.  Consequently, job candidates’ top criterion is to work with people they respect and can learn from. From the candidate’s viewpoint, his or her prospective boss is the single most important individual in the company.

Managers also have a big impact on turnover and retention. The number one reason employees quit their jobs is because of a poor quality relationship with their direct manager.  No one wants to work for a boss who doesn’t take an interest in their development, doesn’t help them deepen their skills and learn new ones, and doesn’t validate their contributions.

This isn’t what departing employees tell HR during their exit interviews, of course.  After all, who wants to burn a bridge to a previous employer?

Instead, they say they’re leaving because of a better opportunity elsewhere.  And so what happens is that organizations remain in the dark regarding how much damage their inept managers are doing.

Regardless of what else you expect from your managers, facilitating employee learning and development should be a non-negotiable competency.  Becoming a great developer of employees requires managers to expand their focus from “How can I get excellent performance out of my team members?” to “How can I get excellent performance out of my team members while helping them grow?”  Savvy managers know that doing well on the second part of the last question helps to answer the first.

The best managers ask, “How can we harness employee strengths, interests and passions to create greater value for the firm?”  Systematically linking organizational performance and individual development goals in the search for learning opportunities and better ways to work is a hallmark of organizations where sustainable careers flourish.

 

A simple thank you

Think of the last time someone really thanked you for doing something. Especially if that something was normal to you and you certainly didn’t go out of your way. You felt good and probably wanted to do it better next time. You cannot underestimate the power of a simple thank you. A long and sometimes grueling workday can melt away when staff members know their efforts were appreciated. It’s amazing how the last interaction of the day can become the last thought and make employees look forward to coming in the next day, knowing that their contributions were noticed.

The most effective leaders I know work diligently to thank their people. The validation can come from end of day departures and acknowledging extra effort on the fly, to even just thanking them for doing their normal work, giving input, or being positive throughout the day. These leaders know the value of their people and their basic need of feeling important, the feeling that their top three needs on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) are being met.

Take every opportunity to find reason to thank as often as you can. That presentation didn’t go quite well? Thank them for the time and effort they put in to it anyway. The account dropped out to do business with a competitor? “You did a great job meeting their needs Marcie!” The 2nd shift comes in when your first shift leaves; thank them for working strong during the evening hours. Simple and genuine acknowledgement yields committed people and sustained performance.

Thanking your people for their everyday efforts is a simple and easy way to make a powerful lasting impression in your organization. Make every connection a reason to find and give thanks to your people.

 

Move beyond your current circumstances

As an entrepreneur life can sometimes be a roller coaster with lots of uncertainty and chaos. When you’re struggling it can be tough to see a clear path to success, but it’s crucial to let your vision guide you and NOT your current circumstances. You must embrace those challenges, because that’s where your hunger for a better life is developed.  No one wants to be broke and certainly no one wants to struggle, but according to Peter Voogd the author of the best-selling book “6 Months to 6 Figures”, asking the right questions, and taking the right action while in the struggle is what can change everything. At Peter’s toughest spot he was dead broke, yet six months later he earned a six figure income.  Many successful people who I speak with today experienced similar desperate situations before they were able rise to success.

What it took to make the change is available to everyone. What he realized to make the changes necessary to succeed:

Absolute clarity. 

It’s easy to make decisions once you determine what your real values are.

Reflecting back on the lowest points of my life, I have realized I didn’t take responsibility for anything. I was playing the victim role. I was blaming the economy, my company, lack of resources and my location. I soon realized my focus was jaded and what I needed to change was myself. The moment I got clear on that, my life shifted from complexity to simplicity.

Clarity is the ultimate power, and if you want results you’ve never had you need to get 100 percent clear on what you want. Only when you take full responsibility for your current reality can you change it. Minimalism is a great way to run your business, and a great way to run your life. Get rid of the messes and noise in your head and figure out who you are, what you want and what you must give up to get there.

Your Confidence Account.

Insecurities will destroy you, while real confidence will take you to a level very few attain.

An interesting thing happens when you start to gain clarity. Your confidence follows. If you don’t have confidence, you will always find a way to lose. Everything you accomplish is based on the confidence you have in yourself and your ability to “make it happen.” The bigger the goals, the bigger the challenges.

You must realize the moment you go after your biggest goals, obstacles will show up. They are there to test your character and faith, and to see if you are serious about your goals. The person with the most confidence always wins. When I got clear on the actions needed to start thriving, I felt my motivation and energy elevate. These days, the only security you have is the confidence in yourself and your ability to make things happen.

Shifting your circle of influence.

There comes a point in your life when you realize who really matters, who never did and who always will.

Once you get clear on who you are and what you want, you must re-evaluate your Circle of Influence. Who you associate with is who you become. The term “role model” is not used enough in our society. It’s extremely important to have role models. A role model will raise your standards. A role model will not let you get complacent. Finding a role model or mentor will spark your mind because they are playing the game at a higher level than you are.

• If you hang around five confident people, you will be the sixth.
• If you hang around five intelligent people, you will be the sixth.
• If you hang around five millionaires, you will be the sixth.
• If you hang around five idiots, you will be the sixth.
• If you hang around five broke people, you will be the sixth.

It’s inevitable.

Such a simple concept, but what a difference it can make on your performance and business. There’s no faster way to advance into the top 5 percent of your industry than this. Yet, most people don’t do it. I challenge you to find those people, because you’ll become a lot like the people you spend the most time with. Their belief systems, their ways of being and their attitudes are contagious. Once you elevate your peer group, your standards will follow.

Crafting your ideal result rituals.

The amount of stress you have in your life is in direct correlation to the lack of rituals you have in place!

Without the right rituals and habits, your long-term growth will be stunted. Once I learned where my results were coming from, I created “result rituals” that moved my business forward. Intentional action is the only thing that will get you out of the struggle. I had been working 60 to 70 hours a week, but nothing seemed to change until I started asking myself what are the 20 percent of activities that I needed to focus on that created 80 percent of my results. Then I organized my schedule around those priorities.

The greatest wisdom of all time is in astutely choosing what not to do with your time. Say “no” more than you say ”yes”. Don’t be a slave to your phone. Design everything around the lifestyle you want, not for the convenience of other people.

There has never been a better time in the history of our economy to create your ideal life. Whether you’re in the midst of struggle or thriving, I encourage you to continue challenging yourself. When you make a definite decision on what kind of person you will be, on an everyday basis, you start to gain control of your financial destiny. If you continue to choose growth in the moment, and show up better than you were yesterday, you will astound yourself at what you can accomplish. You’re a lot closer to your success than you think.

 

 

Corporate Vision – Does your team need one?

The only things more painful to read than most corporate mission statements are corporate vision statements.  Many vision statements are written by committee.  They start out direct, clear and compelling but as everyone involved has their turn at contributing their input those visions lose their luster.  The direct parts of the vision get watered down as not to offend, exclude or intimidate people.  Also, things are added to the vision because people want to ensure that their pet function or goal is included in the vision statement and this lengthens the document and makes it more confusing.

Eventually some vision statements come to look more like a bill that has moved through Congress, where everyone involved has tacked on their personal amendment, than they do a compelling articulation of what the organization will be in the future.

Before you go skipping forward with the defense that you do not write vision statements at the corporate level, you must realize you are responsible for setting direction for your team.  You as a leader must create a vision statement for your team when your team is large enough to warrant having one.  Any team that is responsible for a discrete organizational function should have a vision.  It doesn’t matter if that team is as small as five people or as large as five thousand.  You can write a powerful vision statement as long as all members of that team are focused on delivering the same goals in the same functional area.

Whatever your situation or your title happens to be, the simple fact remains – you need to articulate a vision for the future state of your organization or team.  We usually leave this up to the C-suite but writing a vision statement at any level is a powerful exercise.  Your people want to be excited to come to work.  They want to be part of something bigger than they are.  If you can paint a compelling future picture for them, they will be more excited to follow you to that destination.  If you do not paint that picture, they are likely following you out of laziness or just morbid curiosity to see what is going to happen.  The earlier in your career you learn how to create vision statements the more successful you will be at writing them as your responsibilities expand.

Writing a vision statement requires a great deal of thought and an ability to step outside of your daily grind and into a time beyond the foreseeable future.  When you write it you need to make it concise and it must clearly explain how your organization creates value.  This value creation component is easier to articulate than you might think.  Ask yourself “what will the business outcomes and results be if I achieve this component of my vision?”  Your vision should include several key phrases and you should be able to link each phrase to a desired business outcome.

To create your vision, look five years into the future and ask yourself what your organization should look like.  Using a five-year planning window will generally help you balance between being achievable but not too ambiguous.  This is because it is a short enough time frame for you and your team to have a measurable impact and feel like you have made progress, but it is far enough in the future that you can be aspirational in how you describe that vision without protests of “we’ll never achieve that goal in that short an amount of time!”  Conversely, visions set beyond five years into the future can lead your team to feel like the world will change so much over that period that the vision will be neither achievable nor relevant.

Below are some thought starters to assist you with tackling this big question. Do your best to answer as many of them as you can even if at first glance the question does not apply.

– How big will your organization be?  How will you define its scope?
– What new skills will your team members have?
– What new capabilities will you build over this time period?
– How will the way you work with other groups change?
– What should your customers, both internal and external, expect from you?
– What will set your team apart and distinguish it when it is compared to other teams?
– What is your future vision for your team?
– Will they be excited by it?
– What aspects of it will they find inspiring?

Once you have drafted a preliminary set of answers to these questions look at all the answers as pieces of a bigger puzzle.  Create the most powerful elements into the simplest statement you can.  Write down the statement that captures what your team is all about.  That is your first rough draft of a vision.  As you evaluate the resulting vision ask yourself:

– Is my vision clear on how my organization creates value?
– Is the vision ambitious but realistically possible?
– Is the vision worth pursuing and does it win people’s commitment?
– Does the vision explain how we differentiate ourselves from competitors?
– Is the vision concise and does it consist of only a few critical words?

How does the first draft of your vision stack up against these questions?  If you are not happy with your vision relative to these questions, continue to revise it until you are.

 

Developing Others is Your Job

Nobody has told you that you need to spend time and effort developing others in your organization. It’s not part of your job description. You have too many other things to pay attention to, and besides, isn’t developing leaders the job of human resources?

If you are an organizational leader and this is how you think about developing others, you might want to rethink your position. Put simply, it’s your job. It should be one of the most important things you do, and for the best leaders (meaning those leaders who understand the importance of people to their organization), it is a pleasure to assist and watch others grow and develop.

There are lots of reasons to spend time developing leaders in your organization. Some of the most important reasons include:

Tapping potential: There is leadership potential in all of your employees that is lying fallow, just waiting to be set free by you. As you think about the upcoming Olympics, consider how many of those athletes had a coach or mentor who tapped into their unused potential to guide them to becoming world-class. The ability to become the best at their sport was there all along; it just needed someone to help it along. Look for those who are eager to be more, willing to work hard to become world-class leaders, and guide them to reach (or exceed) the potential within.

Performance: The best leaders know that their organizations can become so much more than they are currently; they see the future and they know that when everyone leads, organizational performance increases and innovation, creativity and output improve. Developing leaders makes possibility become reality, and studies have shown that investments in developing leaders can help the bottom line.

Talent attraction: It’s so much easier to recruit and hire when people actually want to work for your organization. Developing leaders attracts talent, period. When you become known as a leader who is willing to spend the time developing other leaders, high potential employees will beat a path to your door, because they want what you have to offer.

Culture of leadership: Imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like for your organization to have a culture of leadership: employees at all levels taking responsibility, accountable to the vision and mission, collaborating and leading to the future. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? It’s not an impossible dream. I’ve been privileged to know a few organizations with a culture of leadership, and in every instance there is a leader at the top who places emphasis on developing leaders.

Sustainability: I don’t mean to be too ominous, but if you get hit by a bus tomorrow – or, more likely, left the organization — who will step into your place? I can’t think of a better reason to develop leaders in your organization. You have an obligation to make sure that others are ready to take your spot.

Legacy: What better legacy to leave behind when you move on than the memory of yourself as a person who grew and stretched others? The managers I’ve worked with who believed in me enough to mentor, coach and stretch me to go beyond what I thought I was capable of are the ones I remember fondly, use as examples, and write about. They left a positive emotional legacy for those whom they invested time and effort in helping become the best leaders they could.

Regardless of whether it’s part of your job description, developing others is something you need to spend time and effort doing. So coach and mentor them, give them stretch assignments and allow them to take risks and sometimes fail. Your leadership and your organization can reach great heights when you put the effort and time into developing leaders.

 

Be The Change You Wish To See

In my last blog I explained how powerful it can be to lead by example. But what happens when you don’t follow this rule? How does your team feel when you tell them to do one thing, and then you do the exact opposite?

When leaders don’t “practice what they preach,” it can be almost impossible for a team to work together successfully. How can anyone trust a leader who talks about one thing, but does another?  And so it is with your team. If you say one thing and do another, they likely won’t follow you enthusiastically. Why should they? Everything you tell them after that may meet with suspicion and doubt. They may not trust that you’re doing the right thing, or that you know what you’re talking about. They may no longer believe in you. Good leaders push their people forward with excitement, inspiration, trust, and vision. If you lead a team that doesn’t trust you, productivity will drop. Enthusiasm may disappear. The vision you’re trying so hard to make happen may lose its appeal, all because your team doesn’t trust you anymore.

Key Points:

Good leadership takes strength of character and a firm commitment to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. This means doing what you say, when you say it. If your team can’t trust you, you’ll probably never lead them to greatness.

Leading – and living – by example isn’t as hard as it might sound. It’s really the easiest path. If your team knows that you’ll also do whatever you expect from them, they’ll likely work hard to help you achieve your goal.

One of my favorite quotes is from Mahatma Gandhi who said “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Mahatma Gandhi helped change the world because he lived by example – and, as a result, he accomplished great things. Apply This to Your Life.  If you ask a co-worker to do something, make sure you’d be willing to do it yourself. If you implement new rules for the office, then follow those rules just as closely as you expect everyone else to follow them. For example, if the new rule is “no personal calls at work,” then don’t talk to your spouse at work. You’ll be seen as dishonest, and your staff may become angry and start disobeying you. Look closely at your own behavior. If you criticize people for interrupting, but you constantly do it yourself, you need to fix this. Yes, you want people to pay attention to one another and listen to all viewpoints, so demonstrate this yourself. If, in the spirit of goodwill, you make a rule for everyone to leave the office at 5:00 p.m., then you need to do it too. If you stay late to get more work done, your team may feel guilty and start staying late too, which can destroy the whole purpose of the rule. The same is true for something like a lunch break – if you want your team to take a full hour to rest and relax, then you need to do it too.

Leading by example requires you commit to live a life that is a reflection of your leadership message. Every day there are numerous opportunities around us to influence others, to show the way and to set the example. The choice is yours, either you opt out of leadership or you choose to seize the moment and take the lead to show the way and make the difference.

The Damage of “Do as I say, not as I do”

There’s hardly anything worse for company morale than leaders who practice the “Do as I say, not as I do” philosophy. You can typically see the loss of enthusiasm and goodwill among the staff instantly. It’s like watching the air go out of a balloon – and cynicism and disappointment usually take its place.

• There’s the boss who tells everyone to be on time for meetings and yet always arrives late, or asks employees to stay late, and then leaves promptly at 4:45pm to go golfing.
• There’s the supervisor who criticizes everyone for spending time on the Internet, but is discovered searching eBay for a new camera online in the middle of the afternoon; or
• The CFO who recommends layoffs to end “unnecessary spending,” but then buys brand-new luxury office furniture for her office.

Do you know any of these people? Hopefully it’s not you……………………

No matter what the situation it’s a double standard.  Employees witnessing a leader say one thing, and then doing another.   For an employee it feels like and can be very destructive.

If this ever happened to you, you can probably remember the sense of disappointment and letdown. If you’re in a leadership position, then you know that you have a responsibility to your team. They look to you for guidance and strength; that’s part of what being a leader is. And a big part of your responsibility is to lead them with your own actions. So, why is it so important to lead by example; and what happens when you don’t?

Well there is an old saying about the difference between a manager and a leader: “Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things.” (It’s best to be both a manager and a leader – they’re just different processes.) As a leader, part of your job is to inspire the people around you to push themselves to do better and in turn, the company to success. To do this, you must show them the way by doing it yourself.

Stop and think about the inspiring people who have changed the world with their examples.

When you lead by example, you create a picture of what’s possible. People can look at you and say, “Well, if he/she can do it, I can do it.” When you lead by example, you make it easy for others to follow you. One example is Jack Welch of General Electric. Welch knew that to push GE to new heights, he had to turn everything upside down. So that’s just what he did. He developed the whole idea of a “boundaryless organization.” This means that everyone is free to brainstorm and think of ideas – instead of waiting for someone “higher up” in the bureaucracy to think of them first. He wanted his team turned loose, and he promised to listen to ideas from anyone in the company. And he did. Everyone from the lowest line workers to senior managers got his attention – if they had something to say or a new idea that might make the company better. It wasn’t just talk, and it didn’t take his team long to figure that out. Welch stayed true to his passions and what he knew was right. As a result, GE became an incredibly successful company under his management. His team was always willing to follow his lead, because the people within it knew that he always kept his word. What does this mean for you? If you give yourself to your team and show them the way, then, most likely, they’ll follow you anywhere.

But, what happens when you don’t walk the talk?  I’ll give you my insight in my next blog.

Showing Others How To Lead

When you move on to your next opportunity, who will you leave in your place? Will it be one successor who has been carefully groomed to fill your specific job title? Or will you depart having developed the capabilities of as many people as possible?

One definition of leading is “to show the way to by going in advance.” When you use this definition of leadership, you’ll see all sorts of opportunities to develop people, and far beyond just promoting them to a management title.

At some point in their lives, everyone has the chance to “show the way.” When you provide your team members with an opportunity to exercise their leadership muscles, you’re giving them a tremendous gift.

Leadership development is not just for those who aspire to an official job title. And, you don’t need to spend large amounts of money. The key is seeing leadership development opportunity in everyday situations.

Common workplace scenarios where development opportunities lie in wait:

Setbacks. Character is the foundation of leadership and nothing builds character like a project that fails. If you as the leader frame the failure as a learning opportunity, you will set in motion a powerful motivator to grow. I once led a high-visibility project that fell short of expectations. My leader adopted an approach of “get back up on that horse.” She expressed confidence that I could learn from my mistakes and that I would be a better leader on the next go-round. And I was.

Transition. Any time there is an imminent change, you have a prime opportunity to coach people to lean into leadership, either formally or informally. Possible opportunities: promotions, appointment to project leadership, department restructuring or procedural changes. Look for any situation that requires that others be “brought along” into a new territory. Then, identify someone on your team who has both the competence and enthusiasm about the change to act as a lead.

Technical expertise. Do you have a highly skilled “technician” on your staff — someone who excels in a particular skill that others would benefit learning about? Work with that individual to help him craft a series of “lunch and learns” for your team. You can also look for ways you can showcase your team members’ talents beyond your department — send them in your place to meetings or have them make presentations at all-company meetings.

Differing opinions. In the workplace, there’s an abundance of opinions. When those viewpoints clash, your team needs leadership to help bring the group to consensus. That person doesn’t always need to be you. When you help others in your team develop the skill of facilitating dialogue, there are multiple paybacks. Not only do your discussion leaders gain key business skills, but your team works together more smoothly.

Tom Peters has said, “Leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders.” There are ample chances to grow leaders each and every day. When you know where to look, it’s surprising just how many “leadership development” opportunities there really are.