May 2023 - dachverband-werder.de

Leadership Development and Importance of Building Trust for Motivating Employees

Leadership development focuses on growing leadership skills for leaders in any role. This includes those that formally lead employees and those who engage peers and others over whom they have no formal authority.

Start by objectively identifying your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. This will help you set leadership development goals.

Organizational Transparency

Leaders who embrace transparency have a clearer picture of how their organization is operating. This helps them combat the hierarchical dynamics that might ostracize lower-ranking members of the team by ensuring everyone is working toward a set of common objectives. This can include common business goals, shared KPIs for evaluating those goals, and well-understood performance expectations.

Employees who understand how their individual contributions contribute to overall company success are more likely to take a proactive approach to their role. They will be able to anticipate the impact of their decisions and can identify areas that require improvement.

If a company doesn’t foster a culture of transparency, it is unlikely to keep up with its competitors. In a world where employees have free and immediate access to information, companies that cling to outdated management styles risk losing top talent to competitors. Invest in leadership development to ensure your leaders have the full palette of skills needed to manage with transparency.

Employee Trust

Employee trust is one of the most important factors in a leader’s ability to inspire, motivate and drive results. When employees trust their leaders, they feel confident that the decisions made by the leadership team are ethical and in line with the values of the organization. Similarly, they know that if a mistake is made, it will be addressed with honesty and integrity.

Creating an environment of trust is the responsibility of every leader. It’s also critical to communicate clear expectations. This limits miscommunication and misunderstandings. Additionally, it helps to set clear deadlines and accountability. Lastly, it’s important to show empathy and encourage employees to bring their concerns to you. This shows that you care and is the first step to building trust. Employees who experience this type of trust in their leaders are more likely to be able to push through difficult times. This can have a positive impact on the company and its future.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement goes beyond whether employees are happy to show up and collect a paycheck. It focuses on how fulfilled, valued and connected they feel to your organization’s success and growth.

Schaufeli (2015) suggests that leaders can help satisfy their team-members’ basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. Facilitating, strengthening and connecting leadership behaviors are all important to a leader’s ability to satisfy these needs. For example, when managers facilitate their employees by empowering them with authority and responsibility, they fulfill the autonomy need. When they strengthen their followers by providing them with challenging work and developing their talents, they satisfy the competence need. And, when they connect their followers by building trust and encouraging teamwork, they satisfy the relatedness need.

Employee engagement has become a popular topic in the business world as turnover continues to be an issue. A focus on boosting engagement can reduce the headaches and costs associated with replacing lost workers and improve productivity.

Employee Satisfaction

Employee satisfaction is an intangible but powerful force that facilitates more engaged and productive workplaces. An employee who is happy at work puts in extra effort and goes above and beyond the required duties. They take pride in their job, think of it as a career rather than a simple way to earn money, and act as an advocate for the company.

Satisfaction does not equal engagement and it’s important to recognize that. Employees who aren’t satisfied with their jobs won’t be able to engage in the ways that they should and may not perform at all.

To boost job satisfaction, leaders must listen to their employees and make changes based on the feedback that they receive. This could mean rethinking compensation, relaxing strict policies, addressing lingering conflict, or other initiatives that lead to greater employee happiness. Satisfied employees are also more likely to stay with the organization, which boosts retention and productivity. Ultimately, boosting employee satisfaction will lead to better collaboration and innovation within teams.