Inspire and Develop

Today Donna facilitated an AZ-based nonprofit CEO Roundtable.?The topic was how to inspire and develop your employees. It was a rousing discussion with a few key insights:

Know Your People – what inspires and motivates each employee is different. It’s essential to build relationships in order to achieve results. As Coach Swider said in an advisory board meeting Donna attended last week:

Rules + Relationship = Responsiveness

Rules without Relationship = Rebellion?

The rebellion in the workplace today is disengagement or "quiet quitting".To inspire your people, get to know them.

The GAP – there is always a gap between what we say we are and what we do or how we act. The bigger the gap, the worse (more inconsistent) the culture. The smaller the gap, the more effective the culture. Inspire your team to greatness by understanding and closing the gap.

Visual Accountability – what you measure matters and what people see they understand. So a helpful tip from the CEOs was to create a visual dashboard that gives everyone insight into the most important numbers that are driving the organization's?results. Several leaders agreed that this?inspired their team members to step up and achieve greater results.

Development is more than educational classes – there was a consistently recognized reality that many managers are promoted into positions of leading other people without receiving any coaching or learning about their new role. Whether it’s development through 1:1 conversations or through mentorship or peer coaching, there are many ways to help these emerging leaders get the skills they need to move from the individual contributor career ladder to the leadership ladder.?Develop people using all the methods available to you rather than just focusing on offering training classes.

?One of the realities that all CEOs in the room shared is – no money (or no margin), no mission. Despite being nonprofit organizations, they still needed to get the funds to do the good work. The outcomes or results are as important as the relationships. Several of the CEOs talked about the balance between the need to be a “touchy-feely” leader while achieving results. It’s always about results. Consider how to help employees elevate their perspective to see the importance of achieving the results to accomplish the mission.