BUSINESS STRATEGY / LEADERSHIP
expanded possibilities that will empower you and your team to reach the highest peaks of your potential. Your own ability to conceive of a bigger and brighter future matters, but so too does your ability to inspire that belief in others. Challenge limiting beliefs and make it OK for people to suggest and try things that haven’t been done before.
Aiming for easily achievable goals is only ever likely to inspire ordinary levels of engagement and outcomes. The real cost of this approach to leadership can be seen in suboptimal operational performance, customer satisfaction, staff loyalty and engagement
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TOP 8 REASONS WHY PEOPLE QUIT Forbes has listed the top reasons why your best employees leave. As the saying goes, ‘people quit their bosses, not their jobs’: 1. You’ve overloaded your best people with too many responsibilities 2. You’re a micro-manager 3. You’re never around 4. You’re not in touch with how some of your hires or promotions are driving your best people nuts 5. You’ve never given your people a sense of where they can go with their careers 6. You run terrible meetings 7. You communicate that you care more about yourself than the team 8. You’ve never given them the big-picture vision of where your group is heading or you are constantly changing the big picture Source: Forbes.com
KEEP DREAMING
Karen Gately is a leadership and people-management expert and a founder of Ryan Gately, a specialist HR consultancy practice. She is also the author of The People Manager’s Toolkit: A Practical guide to getting the best from people and The Corporate Dojo: Driving extraordinary results through spirited people. For more information, visit www. karengately.com.au or contact info@ karengately.com.au
54 | AUGUST 2014
Visioning is neither a one-off nor a once-a-year event. Looking into the future, dreaming about what might be possible and imagining the places you would like to go are crucial if a business or team is to achieve their full potential over time. Our ability to continuously grow and evolve depends on curiosity and the desire to keep exploring new and better options or approaches. Leaders who lack imagination and are happy to evolve slowly will struggle to inspire other people to strive for excellence. Plodding along doing what you have always done is not necessarily going to serve you well in the future. Organizations that ‘stick to their knitting’ and fail to innovate are those most likely to be adversely impacted by change. Unless you inspire people to challenge what they do and how they do it you are unlikely to keep pace with the rapidly changing world in which all businesses operate. No matter the competitive advantage your organization may have today, it can change quickly and you are wise to be ready to respond.
UPHOLD STANDARDS AND DEAL WITH POOR PERFORMANCE Inspiring a team to strive for excellence requires that leaders hold people accountable for the standard of contribution they make. It’s essential
that immediate steps be taken to address mediocre through to inadequate performance. As poor performers drag down a team’s results, those who are making a positive contribution begin to lose motivation. Failing to deal with the issue will eventually lead others to give up, resigned to the fact that only ordinary is possible. Among the most commonly reported reasons people leave an organization is because they are unhappy with their manager. While it’s common for complaints to relate to the manager’s style, just as often people express frustration with their manager’s failure to deal with the poor performance or behavior of their colleagues. Often when strong performers feel held back by their manager’s failure to hold some people accountable, they choose to move on.
IN SUMMARY Expect more than ordinary and you will have taken the first step toward inspiring people to give more than ordinary. Lead by example and showcase what it means to strive to achieve the heights of what is possible. Bring energy to your own role and hold people accountable for doing the same. Give people something to strive for and keep them informed about how your team is progressing toward turning your dreams into reality.