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Every successful business leader knows that it took them a lot of time and effort to get to the top and manage highly efficient teams. Taking your leadership skills to the next level can be a painstaking, life-long process that requires a lot of learning and reflecting on the aspects you can improve.
Business leaders facing the raging trend of the Great Resignation are more pressured than ever to develop their skills, take steps to retain and attract top talent, and save their businesses from potentially devastating high turnover rates.
Here, you’ll find ways to reach this goal.
Be True to Yourself and Your Employees
The times of authoritative, detached leaders are long gone. If you want to gain your employees’ trust nowadays, you need to show your vulnerable side. Sharing different experiences and issues that you’ve had to deal with over the years is the fastest way to build long-lasting, trustworthy relationships with your employees.
Furthermore, according to Uche Ezichi, international speaker, published author, and executive coach, when it comes to authentic leadership, everything revolves around the 3 Fs. Being fair, fun, and firm.
Growing a business requires dedicated work and effort. This is why you need to include some fun in your teams’ daily activities.
Treating your employees fairly should be a top priority. But this may be a demanding task, especially if you run hybrid teams and you need time to get to know your employees and track their performance.
Luckily, advanced solutions, like employee monitoring software, can help you create fair, real-time employee performance evaluations by gaining detailed insight into their daily activities. By offering objective, data-based feedback, you can reward overachievers and provide additional support and guidance.
Finally, being firm doesn’t mean that you need to be unapproachable and over-demanding with your employees. It only means that you need to define expectations, boundaries, and responsibilities and set clear and achievable goals and reasonable deadlines.
Focus on Making Mental Health a Priority
Over the past two years marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, mental health and employee well-being have become hot topics for all business leaders. If you want to retain and attract top talent in a competitive market, try to create a work environment where your employees will feel heard and appreciated.
Psychologically safe work environments require leaders who listen to their teams’ needs and objections and are open to their ideas and suggestions.
By dedicating time to listen to your workers, you’ll provide much-wanted work autonomy, involve them in decision-making processes, and encourage them to speak their minds, make mistakes, and learn from them.
Make Time to Focus and Think Clearly
Business leaders in charge of planning company structure and culture as well as envisioning the direction their business will take in the future need to have quiet time to think. However, this rarely happens.
Your days are probably filled with unnecessary meetings and a variety of digital distractions, like email or Slack notifications that ruin your focus, that minimize the time you have to think quietly without distractions.
This can lead to overworking and burnout, which is devastating for your productivity. If you want to avoid this harmful result, you need to create time for focused, meaningful work and limit unproductive activities. Imagine the optimal conditions where you can clear your mind and focus on your business’s top priorities to come up with fresh ideas and effective solutions.
Get Closer to Your Team
The changed workplace reality with the rising demand for hybrid and remote work arrangements has made it difficult for employers to connect with their employees and get to know them better. But if you want to prevent high performers from leaving, you need to foster people-first culture and make your remote and office workers feel equally accepted and appreciated.
You also need to make sure their achievements are recognized equally between your remote and office-based teams. You can achieve this by organizing virtual meetings where you’ll get to know your employees, identify their needs, and do your best to meet them.
