It is hard to overstate the effect of running your organization with the most influential leaders. Studies show that effective leadership improves internal systems like employee retention, and external ones, like financial performance. Every company needs to build proficient managers. So, how can you get managers to help more at your company?
Based on research, leaders who intentionally build trust regardless of who the person is or what they do for business shows that the most influential leaders focus on:
- Working with teams, soliciting ideas from team members, and involving them in decisions that may affect them.
- Recognizing employees, mainly through their accomplishments and helping them move up in the career ladder
- Inspiring employees to follow by showing them that leaders are proficient.
Below are some tips on how to get managers to help more:
Identify behaviors for great managers at your organization
While the characteristics of great managers apply across most companies, proper awareness comes from determining the unique behaviors. It is crucial to identify behaviors that best align with your company’s mission, culture, strategic goals, and client needs.
To achieve that, identify the managers within your organization who develop high-trust relationships. An employee survey and interviews with managers could be conducted to gather relevant data. Use this information to determine at least five behaviors that foster a great work environment and share them across your organization.
Build trust
Trust is fundamental both for in-person teams and remote workers. The advantages of high-trust relationships include less stress, more energy at work, more significant engagements, and higher productivity.
Strive to forge deeper connections with your colleagues by engaging in small and informal conversations before meetings. Also, try to learn more about their lives outside the scope of their work. In addition, encourage inclusive dialogue about personal and professional differences, and respect diverse viewpoints in discussions.
You can cultivate empathy among your team, resulting in a greater sense of belongingness, camaraderie, and motivation.
Collaborate
Collaboration is working successfully with others towards a common goal. Encouraging a collaborative team and work environment should be a priority for managers. The more people enjoy working together, the more efficient and productive their work will likely be.
Enhance collaborative efforts by:
- Involving team members in decisions that affect them. Gather their feedback before decisions are made. For example, ask their opinions before moving to new office space and address any concerns on the transfer.
- Seeking staff’s opinions on the next challenge you are trying to resolve.
- Having regular one-on-one and informal conversations, like staffroom lunches, coffees or teas outside of the office, team dinners, etc.
These effective management behaviors will make your employees feel involved, valued, and in return, motivated to do their best work.
Give recognition
Employee recognition has long been a foundation of effective management. But as the talent competition intensifies, the ways organizations show that they value their employees have become more critical than ever.
The initial step is creating a recognition program – so if you don’t have one, that’s a good start! However, some large companies do more than that because they constantly reevaluate their employee reward program.
Employee recognition refers to all the approaches an organization expresses its appreciation for employees’ contributions. It comes in many forms and may or may not involve monetary reward. Companies recognize employees for things like:
- Achievements
- Exhibiting desired behaviors
- Going above and beyond expectations
- Milestones such as tenure
A recognition program initiates tangible goals that get managers to help more. For example, Hotel chain Hilton gives managers an annual “Recognition Calendar.” It has easy-to-implement ideas to show gratitude to employees every day of the year.
Employee recognition helps retain top talents, increase employee participation, and encourage high performance.
