LEAD

All of us like to start afresh in the New Year !

So, to all my leader friends, here’s your opportunity to make the best of 2024 and beyond.?

As we become more complex with new challenges in the workforce; workplace and work, it’s a great time to look at new ways where we can our team to greater successes amid chaos, uncertainties and complexities.

??Listen

Listening with an intent to understand, and not to respond, is a great way of showing empathy to our team members and helping them to voice their opinion and feel included in conversations, decisions and drives of the organisation. Amidst a lot of technological advancements especially through generative AI, we could be cornered to doing more chair leadership by indulging in more data analytics and perhaps lose out on building meaningful relationships. Doing both hand-in-hand (technological dependence and relationship building) can reap rich rewards.

??Engage

Engaging in thorough and meaningful conversations, discussions could be very enriching for the team. Such meaningful sharing can help to engage the team in a much more effective manner. Teams that are involved in understanding not just their own roles but also the bigger picture of the organisation goals are more likely to be a high impacting and high performing team. While individuals have a competitive edge in all their approaches, collaboration and team cohesiveness continues to be much pursued. Hence constant engagement with the teams help in the long run.

??Appreciate

Appreciation and gratitude go a long way in keeping teams motivated. After all, rewards, even intrinsic in nature, has a bigger bearing as emotions directly impact performance. Egos are out of the equation when management appreciate not just great performance but also appreciate meaningful contributions no matter how small it may be. One of the common expectations from today's workforce is that respect and appreciation is extended to each member in a team. This in turn results in a total commitment to their jobs.

??Drive

While listening, engaging and appreciating are great foundational steps in leading a team, but as leaders, we should not forget that our main responsibility as a leader is to drive results and to conclude with impacting outcomes. Hence driving results should always be top recall in the mind of a leader. Make no mistake that, if we do not get the first three steps right as mentioned above, then it will be a futile exercise to drive results. Infact it would be a non-starter.

This article is written by Willis Langford, an unbiased, result driven & passionate HR professional who has a flair for technology and keen interest in making this world a better place with a zest for life.