Leadership Posts
Encourage Employees to Take Smart Risks
Take smart risks with your employees to unlock their full potential. If they successfully reach a difficult goal, they'll feel more masterful and you will have a more valuable employee.
State Your Assumptions
When you state your assumptions, you are provide context that helps team members best execute against your goals and objectives.
Let Me Think a Minute
Ask for a moment before giving a response if something has caught you by surprise. Saying "let me think" ensures you eliminate knee-jerk reactions.
Go to Lunch
Build rapport and hear new perspectives by inviting an employee to go to lunch. Focus on connecting with each other as people.
Go for a Walk
Go for a walk with someone on your team to discuss how things are going. This informal setting equalizes the supervisor-report dynamics.
Ask for Their Thoughts
When faced with a difficult problem, give your people an opportunity to assist. Ask for their thoughts or recommendations.
State Your Beliefs
Hearing from one's leader about what he or she believes can have a powerful impact on morale and motivation. State your beliefs to reinforce what you feel is important to your team.
Provide Context, Not Control
Provide the information (the context) to a team or team member in order to allow them to make their own decision about how to respond to a situation rather than simply telling them what to do (asserting managerial control).
Let Them Think a Minute
Give people time to think before giving you a response to a big decision. Requests for assistance, or other changes in their expectations often require time to process. Let them think for a moment before forming their response.
Give Socratic Guidance
People like being able to solve their own problems. When they come to you with unsolved problems, it is an opportunity to help them become better at solving their problems themselves. Offer Socratic guidance instead of answers.