Leaderships is not a one-time action. Effective leadership is a cycle of service and support. We’ve identified three phases that every leader navigates their employees through. These phases are independent of any particular individual style of leadership.
Phase One: Education. It is imperative that every employee clearly understand their role and the responsibilities that come with it. It is also imperative that they understand HOW to fulfill those roles and responsibilities. If you missed phases one, you can read the full article here.
Phase Two: Empower
Once employees are educated, they need to be empowered to do their jobs. One of the biggest mistakes managers make is micromanaging their employees. They become task managers not developers of careers. The adult workforce (once educated) do not need to be told how to do every little component of their job.
Here’s the Beauty of Empowering Your Employees
- Doing their job is not your job. You should have other things to do than to hover and constantly dictate small actions. If you feel like you do need to do this, revisit phase one and gain clarity on why it is so important to educate your employees first. It is a wise investment that pays great dividends.
- Your employees will be more productive if you stay out of their way. Every time you disrupt them to check on the progress or to discuss next steps, you break their concentration, interrupt their flow and actually slow down their progress. You may think you are ‘managing’ but what you are doing is actually hindering them.
- Innovation is the product of creative problem solving. If you are always hovering, employees will not be forced to thoroughly think through their problems and have the opportunity to develop creative solutions. If any business or department is to be successful, it needs creative thinking. The future of the business hinges on the innovation of its employees. Most of the genius ideas come from the employees who are knee deep in the day to day, not from the suits in the board room. The genius that comes from the board room is hiring creative people and effective leaders.
The Impact
Be an effective leader. Empower your employees to do their job, their way. Empower them to think through their problems and recommend solutions before asking for guidance. Perhaps more importantly, empower them to get creative, to innovate and to lean into their individual genius. I bet you you’ll have a few people who will surprise you. Some of them will even surprise themselves. They’ve been waiting for an opportunity to shine. They will raise their sails and begin to lead in ways you didn’t know was possible. One of the most important things a leader can do is to develop other leaders.
Educate your team. Empower your team. Evaluate your team. Repeat. Repeat again… and again…
You don’t have to do it alone. For help creating a system that moves your team through the three phases of leadership, schedule a consultation today.
