What people look for in a leader..

Forgive me if I focus on leadership again as this is my passion and I have been handling teams for more than a decade now. I can say that this is my passion – seeing people thrive from nuisance to greatness.
I can say that through the years, more than coaching associates, and training them how to grow in their careers, I have also enriched myself on what people really look for in a leader. These are combined items of what I normally practice, failed to practice and still learning to practice up until this very day.
I have managed to lead high performing teams through the years and during interviews, management meetings, and coaching I am always asked how come my team always performs. Now it is time to spill the beans, in the hope that it can help you manage your teams.
Do not accept any excuses. I know it sounds imposing yet it should be done in a fashion where you were already able to make your expectations known at the beginning. By setting expectations, you yourself should be committed to getting out of your way to assist your employees to become the best that they can be. Communicate it in such a way that they know the benefit for them or what’s in it for them. Like, “do not accept excuses for underperformance, for self-limitation, self-growth...” At first this will shake mediocre and intimidate them, the secret is constant communication as a team and individual one to one sessions to inspire your individual employees that they can achieve more than what they think they can. In time, your team will appreciate what you are doing as they see their scorecards are way higher than most average. This happened when my team was evaluated for a year and my lowest performer employee still scored above average of the business unit’s individual scorecard. Make it known to your people that it is more to their benefit to highly perform than it is for you.
Build an ambiance of appreciation. Appreciate good behavior and high performance daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and even annually. This requires creativity on your part to create some form of email reminder, SharePoint posting to remind your team’s individual standing in comparison to their team to reflect their daily, monthly (whatever works for your group) scorecards, performance. Always recognize small achievements, improvements and stellar ratings. Again, this will shake the feathers of your mediocre and even outperformers will begin to sympathize to your poor performers and it is up to you as a leader to create individual time equally to each of your team members to make sure that you appreciate each of their efforts.
Roll up your sleeves. I have had leaders who have practiced the “lazy-manager” technique by mastering the art of delegating to the point that the associate feels overwhelmed and unsupported. My rule of thumb is I will delegate a task if I myself have already done it the first time myself and willing to offer help in case my people is shorthanded. Now, there are certain processes that may require expertise that you don’t have, then it is something you may want to sit down with your team member to provide support and direction in case they need a helping hand. The idea is to make them feel you are there to provide any support they may need from you as long as it is in your capacity to help provide or, at least, you can ask someone to provide.
Be creative. Ideally, I need to have creative time to think, plan and strategize to help my team improve. I sit down with a pen or a paper to some place quiet and draw inspiration from a book or article I have read, a training I have attended, a conversation I have experienced to think of ways on how to motivate my team. Sometimes I end up coming up with a coaching conversation, training, an inspirational email or a measurement tool to help my team be motivated to reach their goals. In time, the goal is for your team to manage their own scorecards and you will be surprised that they are not aiming for the satisfactory but for the perfect rating month on month.
Coaching. You can never go wrong with coaching. Coaching is not a time for you to just lay down your strategies and reminders but an open time for you to draw out ideas, thoughts and insights from your employees. It is where you can also identify their motivation; areas of deficiencies, thinking style and from there channel it to their performance. Most of the time, those you coach get their solution out of their own light-bulb moment with you. I will reserve this topic for another time. "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care".
Be a rewarder. Be careful to reward people based on their performance. Buy them chocolates, small tokens or items every month based on their performance and put a simple note of gratitude for, after all, you are not there without their stellar performance. You will be surprised to know that your associates look forward to those times that you give them their reward. At times email recognition also builds the team and individually, the key here is consistency.
Create an atmosphere of teamwork, collaboration, and trust. Look for opportunities you can build the team during team meetings, group work, pairing the tenure and the amateur for job shadowing, creation of mentors and sub-teams within the team and change teams as necessary. You cannot guarantee you can always be there for each of your people but having a strong connection amongst the team will help them glue together. Just ensure you look for ways and activities to make each of your team members appreciate one another. Build one another up, inspire each of them. Build trust amongst your team. There will always be bashers and bullies, make sure you channel it properly and discourage animosity.
Personal time. I have had teams of 21 members each in groups of 3 and I made sure I have personal time/touch with each of them. Make sure you have a sit-down session even if it takes monthly, quarterly just so you can book a time with them. Do not appear to be so unreachable and meeting oriented as sometimes you just need to stop and talk on their stations just to buy a personal time with them. To companies with group chat, it is a good way to have a personal time with your team or an online group chat outside work.
There is really no formula here but it will require some sort of investment of your time, love and personal time. You have to create likeability from the people you are handling. It may be difficult at first and you may not be 100% successful but it is something to keep you mindful since it will be very difficult for your team to follow your instructions without touching their hearts first and foremost. Do not give up on people, just sow goodness, and love and although unreturned, you have done your part to inspire them.
This I learned very recently that whilst it is important for you to have the “presence-factor”, as a leader you have to learn to let go of your reigns on your people from time to time. Have an excellent best friend at work who will inspire you to do great and encourage one another excel. You may need some time off during your breaks with this best friend at work and you will discover that taking necessary breaks makes you more productive.
Also published at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-people-looks-leader-claire-ann-sansolis?trk=prof-post