Great leadership is critical for the success of every organization, every year. Leadership is dynamic and requires continual feedback, growth, and change. The beginning of the New Year offers a great opportunity to start your growth as a leader.
I encourage every leader to assess their leadership and performance from the past year and make a resolution on what to improve – and stick to it.
My hope is that these seven leadership resolutions will guide you throughout the year and raise the performance of your team.
No. 1. Asks for feedback: Do it throughout the year with your team members, peers and leader. And, once they’ve given you this feedback, and you’ve tried to address it, follow up with them to see if they’ve noticed positive changes in you. Self-awareness is critical for the success of leaders as it helps them to continually improve, meet their commitments, and to motivate their teams. Unaware leaders can needlessly overwork their teams and make statements that are harsh and demotivating.
No. 2. Constantly communicates: The effective leader is always communicating, whether by offering new information about goals, roles, or operating norms. Today’s workplace is continually changing and there is constant pressure to improve efficiency all while implementing the latest digital technology. Leaders need to continually update their teams with new information and goals and make sense of the changes to their teams.
No. 3. Treats employees with respect and builds trust: Research from many other organizations points out that mutual respect and building trust are an effective manager’s top trait.
No. 4. Knows the skills and abilities of their employees: InnovationOne’s research shows that when managers know the skills and abilities of each employee and give them opportunities to demonstrate these skills, employee motivation and loyalty raises. Managers can start identifying the skills, abilities, and career ambitions of each employee by holding engagement interviews. They are easy to hold but require courage as they require honest feedback from the employee. Engagement interviews work like this: Managers meet with each employee and asks the following questions:
- What do you like most about your job?
- Like least?
- What would you change if you could?
- What do you believe are your strengths?
- Development areas?
- What do you want to be doing in three years? Five years?
- How are we doing? Is there anything you would like me to change? Let the employee know what you can commit to changing.
No. 5. Encourages employees to make suggestions: An organization’s employees have many of the solutions to the opportunities and challenges facing the organization. They need to be given permission to ask questions and recommend solutions. InnovationOne’s research shows that the most innovative and profitable companies ask all employees — not just a select few — for their feedback
No. 6. Encourages constructive conflict, debate, and problem solving while assuring collaboration. InnovationOne’s research shows that without a vigorous debate based on facts and different expert perspectives, organizations fail to identify their best solutions. Other researchers, such as INSEAD have identified the same traits. The catch is to have vigorous, fact-based debate while maintaining mutual respect and trust.
No. 7. Measures progress, manages performance and provides feedback and recognition. Without excellent measures, timelines and metrics, feedback, and recognition teams will not know if they are making real progress or just spinning their wheels. Employees cannot grow without feedback and coaching. It is an essential part of a leader’s job. Leaders may believe that employees do not want feedback, especially negative feedback when things don’t work out. The research shows they do want feedback and will listen intently if they believe you have their best interest at heart and if the feedback also comes with coaching.
Learn more about how a program director was able to turn around his and his team’s performance by learning how to provide positive recognition and less harsh criticism. Read Employee recognition leads to exceptional performance.
I wish everyone a great New Year and hope these resolutions will help you achieve personal and professional success. Now is the time to commit to these resolutions for a great new year.
About Victor
Victor Assad is the CEO of Victor Assad Strategic Human Resources Consulting and Managing Partner of InnovationOne, LLC. He works with organizations to transform HR and recruiting, implement remote work, and develop extraordinary leaders, teams, and innovation cultures. He is the author of the highly acclaimed book, Hack Recruiting: The Best of Empirical Research, Method and Process, and Digitization. He is quoted in business journals such as The Wall Street Journal, Workforce Management, and CEO Magazine. Victor has partnered with The Conference Board on innovation research. Subscribe to his weekly blogs at http://www.VictorHRConsultant.com