How leaders encourage independence in their teams

It’s a common challenge with leaders that they move through the ranks due to excelling technical competence in their roles only to find that management is all about coaching the competence of others.

New working landscapes such as hybrid working and flexible models along with an increased focus on employee wellbeing with psychosocial legislation leaves a lot of leaders scratching their heads and often asking:

?“How can I give my staff enough independence to perform while I still build confidence and trust in their capabilities?”

There are a few key areas of focus for leaders that research suggests have an impact on the increased autonomy of their staff.

We know through research on employee engagement that staff require role clarity, role competence and role autonomy.?

This means they need to understand what is expected of them, feel they are competent to achieve it with enough stretch to feel challenge but not too much to experience overwhelm.?

They also need to be able to have the autonomy to deliver their role with the required systems and tools for you to be able to assess the outcomes of their work.?

Here’s a few enhancements leaders can make in their approach to increase self efficacy in their team.?

1- Create self sufficiency by providing a no blame culture.?

This is where the employees feel they have the systems and tools to support the work they need to do but the confidence that if things don’t go to plan that they can work through and improve and have the freedom to make mistakes.?

Being less afraid of failure also increase the ability to innovate and come up with new ideas so it can have a double benefit in the position.

If staff that feel they can make enhancements and suggestions to streamline a process then this leads to increased efficiencies in their role and being able to reduce the time to do task which will have an overall increased productivity in the business in the long term.?

2- Keep upgrading your systems and tools.

?It’s vital to??have a way to measure success around key invoicing targets or performance indicators with a clear plan on how to get there.?

When staff feel that the processes is clear and achievable they know they have the tools to help them deliver to your standards and that relieves a lot of anguish in growing businesses.?

3- Avoid micromanaging and adopt coaching.?

Here it’s about asking curious questions to help the employee uncover the answer and develop self efficacy in the process.?

When encountering a problem you can work through the GROW coaching model together to uncover solutions instead of jumping to fix the problem.

G- What is the goal?

R- What is our current reality?

O- What are the options ahead of us or possibilities to resolve?

W- What is our willingness to commit to one of those options and be accountable for the success or need to readjust our approach if it doesn’t pan out?

Ultimately we want to keep hiring people who are a “culture-add” and build on the capabilities of our teams.

There’s a reason you hired the person into your business and continually tweaking your own leadership approach will help bring out the best in your team.

When you encourage them to show up, build their strengths and continue to grow in performance then you ultimately influence the growth of your business.

?PS?- Whenever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you with your business:

1. If you want inspiration to overcome adversity, create opportunity, and accelerate your career, listen to the?Building Doors podcast.

2. If you want 2024 to be the year you land your dream job, get guidance, support and opportunities through ?consultants who truly listen at Karan & Co.

3. If you want to hire the right people and grow your business with confidence work with?our talented team?at Karan & Co.

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