3 Techniques Leaders Can Use to Get the Most Out of Their People
Jacob Morgan
5x Best-Selling Author, Futurist, & Keynote Speaker. Founder of Future Of Work Leaders (Global CHRO Community). Focused on Leadership, The Future of Work, & Employee Experience
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Are your employees suffering from mediocrity?
One of a leader’s most important jobs is to make sure their employees are delivering great work.
It’s one thing to tell people what to do—it’s another to make them actually want to do it.
Here are three techniques leaders can use to get the most out of their people:
Motivate
This is the pushing motion that moves employees towards greatness. You can’t motivate people until you understand what they value, but not everyone values the same things. To truly be able to motivate people, you have to get to know the people you lead as individuals, not just as cogs in the corporate machine. It’s all about human connection.
Engage
Engaging employees sustains them and keeps them going. When employees are engaged, they are much more likely to put forth their best work. Employee engagement is directly related to employee experience, which has three parts: technology, physical space, and culture. Leaders can impact each of these areas to create an engaging environment for employees.
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Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking and working with some of the world's top leaders. Here are 15 of the best leadership lessons that I learned from the CEOs of organizations like Netflix, Honeywell, Volvo, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and others. I hope they inspire you and give you things you can try in your work and life. Get the PDF here.
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Inspire
This is the technique that pulls employees towards a better future. Being an inspiring leader includes doing both tangible and intangible things. Tangible actions include engaging in highly collaborative behavior and encouraging creative thinking. Intangible actions are sometimes harder to see but include making emotional connections with employees and championing change.
As a leader, you need to help your employees do their best work. Don’t just tell them what to do—motivate, engage, and inspire them to get the most out of your people.
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CAREER, LEADERSHIP AND LIFE COACH WITH A SPECIALIST FOCUS ON CHALLENGING ASSIGNMENTS. ENJOYS WORKING WITH THOSE FROM A NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING BACKGROUND PARTICULARLY CHINA/ASIA. TRAINED ETHICS COUNSELLOR. MENTOR.
3 年I could have cried when I read the central tenets of this approach. Not with joy, sadly, with despair. It is not the role of ‘great’ leaders to make people do something. It is the antithesis to making people DO something. It is the leader’s responsibility to provide purpose and meaning to the roles they expect people to occupy. Sure, I didn’t read all of this ‘future of work’ theory. I found the central promotional criteria to be quite authoritarian. Perhaps that’s just me, and I will look at it more closely, once I overcome my initial repugnance in respect to its headline themes.
Strategic Brand Builder & Storyteller | Transformative Brand Marketer & Leader | Architect of Unforgettable Brand Journeys | Versatile Marketer Shaping Iconic Brands
3 年The best leader I ever had was like a conductor in an orchestra. He worked on building the team up to do their very best, he encouraged knowledge transfer, he played to everyone’s strengths and worked on everyone’s weakness. And the team was strong, solid and delivered best in class work. We were a motivated inspired unit, who performed like a well oiled machine! Unfortunately I have never met anyone who leads like him since!
Stakeholder Focused Servant Collaborator; Systems & Process Oriented; Data Driven Performance & Quality Improvement Leader; Interdisciplinary Project & Change Implementation; MBA; CLSSMBB; ADKAR
3 年I would be interested to know if anyone has a position on "Three Things Teams Can Do to Get More from Their Leaders", and I don't mean getting more as in pay increases, or in-office games and snacks.
The Life's Core Purpose Experience | Empower your Career in Changing Times
3 年Ken Blanchard says it best in the OMM. “What motivates people, is what motivates them.” In other words, all true motivation is intrinsic.