A leader must know how to improve work performance instantly no matter what obstacles get in the way. One of the biggest challenges a leader faces in their role has to do with making sure that they have enough qualified people to get the work done. It seems like every time they get a good employee, they either get promoted or they leave the organization to go explore a different opportunity. Over time, this can get very discouraging and start to affect the overall productivity and performance of the entire organization in more ways than one. The morale and motivation of people can drop and they can start to feel overworked. I have personally seen this happen time and time again and have finally figured out a way to solve this problem.
It really comes down to being proactive and when a leader can start to become proactive, they really know how to improve work performance instantly. I developed a concept called "Build the Team Before You Need the Team" which consist of three key components. They are to always be developing your people, empower your people to make decisions, and make it okay for your people to make mistakes so they can grow. By implementing this strategy a leader will never have to worry about whether or not they have enough people to fill any roles that become available no matter which ones they may be. Not only will the leader have little trouble filling positions, they will have improved work performance at the same time. Now let's jump right in and learn how to improve work performance instantly.
The first thing that I recommend a leader do to start building the team before he/she needs the team is by getting in the habit of always developing their people. This is how to improve work performance while obtaining several benefits at the same time. This creates a win-win situation for both parties because the more the people know, the stronger their skill set will become and they will be more prepared to take on both current and future responsibilities. The leader wins as well because the more he/she develops their people, the easier their job will become and they also will have people who are prepared to fill future job openings as they come up quickly. This is important because anything can happen at any given time.
Someone can give sick, get a serious injury, walk off the job, had an unexpected major life change that requires them to move to another state, and the list goes on and on. A leader wants to put the organization in the position to maximize profitability and the best way to do this is by staying staff of the best people. I remember when I used to run supermarkets as store manager. I built a reputation of always being fully staffed with an abundance of great people. If a job opening came up, I just about always had someone in-house that could step right in immediately and do a good job. I'll only reason why I was always able to do this was because I made it a priority to make sure that we will always developing people to backfill every position in the store.
I acted as if there were never going to be candidates that were qualified outside of my building and because of this mindset we hardly ever had a staffing issue. The other cool thing about this is that most of the time our people were developed so strongly that even if we did have candidates outside of our store; our people were better qualified for the position. I can't really think of another store manager in that company that took people develop their as serious as I did and it paid off. This stuff work's and this is how I know how to improve work performance.
The second thing the leader should do is empower his/her people to make decisions. This has a lot to do with what was just shared but empowerment in itself builds leadership skills. In my opinion, empowerment is one of the most powerful ways of developing people but at the same time one of the most under utilized concepts as well. People are so used to being told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. There's nothing wrong with this but if you really want to know how to improve work performance at its highest level, a leader has to teach their people how to fill a leadership role.
Every once in a while instead of the leader telling their people what to do, the leaders should ask them what they think needs to be done next. The leader should also let it be known that if something happens and a decision needs to be made right away and the leader just so happens to not be around that its okay for someone else to make a decision. One of my mentors told me that making the wrong decision is always better than making no decision. That is so true and I still think and act on that statement every day of my life as well as teach it to others. I want you to share your comments about this on my blog as well as any questions you may have about this. Go there now why they're fresh in your mind!
The third thing that I highly recommend that leaders do is to make it okay for his/her people to make mistakes or even fail. They must be very careful with this tip because traditionally we are taught that making mistakes are bad. Think about it, every time students make a mistake on the tests they took back in school they lost points and if they make too many mistakes they end up failing the test. The truth is mistakes are good because they help people learn. The more mistakes people make the faster they will learn. Another one of my mentors by the name of Alex Mandossian said that "There is no such thing as failure, there is only winning and learning". What a great mindset to have!
Let's refer back to what we were just talking about earlier regarding empowerment. When a leader empowers someone to make decisions, there will be times where they make the wrong decision but the leader must support it. If they don't that person may not feel comfortable making a decision ever again in the future. So what the leader has to do after supporting the decision is to share with that person what they would have done differently if it wasn't the correct one. If it was the right decision, congratulate them and celebrate the win. Now in the future, they'll know how to handle that same situation if it ever comes up again. By doing this over and over again they will begin to develop the decision-making muscle of each person they empower.
In conclusion, knowing how to improve work performance instantly is simple when you know this strategy and is not used even close to as much as it should. "Build the Team Before You Need the Team" gets a leader into a proactive mindset of continuous professional development of the people within his/hers organization. People are a leader's number one asset and the more they focus on their development, the stronger their people will become and the stronger the entire organization will become. People want to learn and grow but they need a leader who is going to take the time to help them and when this happens they win, the leader wins, the customer wins, and the organization wins. Visit my blog today to post any questions you may have as well as any feedback on this information. Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Rob Moore helps people in leadership positions get their people to perform better no matter what they do. Give him the people who are challenged with a lack of motivation, low productivity, under performance, poor attitudes, and he will turn them into top performers.
Show Up, Step Out, & Shine!
http://www.leadershipperformancetips.com/
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