Struggling to meet your performance standards? It may be time to examine your leadership strategies. Simple mistakes and oversights by executives or company leadership can trickle down to lower levels and create major problems within the company. Organizational excellence depends on the strength and skill of company leaders. If you’re a leader, follow these tips to optimize performance. With just a few steps in the right direction, you can achieve a wealth of benefits throughout the enterprise.
Set SMART Goals
Without clear-cut goals to follow, your staff will be floating without a paddle. They need a sense of purpose and direction created by leadership within the company. Members of your team need a deeper meaning to the tasks they perform day by day, such as meeting a quality goal or making a certain number of sales. You must define a specific mission for your staff and reinforce your goals through one on one meetings, team meetings and continuous performance feedback. Giving your crew a common goal and providing ongoing feedback can forge a path for your brand – helping increase market share or win the market. Failing to set goals or failing to set meaningless goals, on the other hand, will lead to confusion and no sense of drive or purpose in your company.
Listen to Your Team Members
As a leader, it’s your job to set the strategy and ensure operational execution. However, it’s also your job to listen to those closest to customers. A leader who listens is a leader who maintains control over the engagement and success of his or her employees. Otherwise, you could overrun your employees and make them feel expendable. This can foster low employee engagement, decrease brand loyalty, and lower the overall performance of your brand. You must practice active listening skills as a workplace leader and constantly look for ways to improve your employees’ lives at work.
Learn How to Problem Solve
Organizational excellence depends on a leader’s ability to solve problems at all levels of an enterprise. Effective problem-solving not only resolves the problem at hand, it ensures a similar issue won’t occur in the future. For example, say an employee is unhappy with his work schedule. You could simply change the employee’s schedule, or you can get to the bottom of why he is unhappy. It may be that working at certain times of the day, such as in the heat of the afternoon, isn’t optimal for the employee’s productivity. Getting to the source of the problem allows you to come up with a solution that will improve your company, not just offer a temporary Band-Aid.
Help Employees Follow the Company Mission
It is of utmost importance to ensure your employees’ actions and behaviors align with the bigger vision within your company. Employee performance must be purpose-driven, with the goal of achieving the company’s mission and strategic plan. You can drive the right kind of business results by establishing your mission and core values from the very beginning and constantly encouraging your employees to link the corporate mission and values with their goals.
For example, you could offer incentives to employees who strengthen company culture, such as putting together an after-work meet up. Establish your company’s mission and values, clearly define them to your staff, and promote a workplace environment of growth and learning. Only then can you enjoy true organizational excellence.
This article originally featured on the Inspire Software blog by Ashley Ansari, Product Marketing Manager for Inspire Software.
About Drea Zigarmi:
Dr. Drea Zigarmi is a highly respected and experienced management consultant, best-selling author, powerful trainer, and motivational speaker.
Drea is coauthor of Leadership and the One Minute Manager, the third book in Ken Blanchard’s best-selling One Minute Manager Library, and various chapters in Leading at a Higher Level. In addition, he has coauthored The Leader Within, Achieve Leadership Genius, and The Team Leader’s Idea-A-Day Guide. Drea has coauthored numerous Ken Blanchard Companies products, including the widely used Situational Leadership II, DISC, and Optimal Motivation programs.
