People-Centric Leadership Equals Exceptional Results

It's all about the win-win.?

If you care more about your profits than your people, you'll eventually have neither. As a leader, instilling a win-win organisational culture is a key contributor to the level of success your people achieve. Your team watches how you choose to handle each situation, and a leader who ensures a consistent commitment to win-win, while building rapport, gains favour with those around them. When everybody wins, company culture flourishes.

1. Give feedback. Feedback is a critical component to improving performance, and it's a two-way street. Not only is it important for leaders to regularly provide feedback to their team, but team members should share feedback with their leaders and colleagues as well. If you're not receiving feedback from your peers and team members, ask them directly to share some thoughts on where you can develop. People are more willing to give you feedback when you ask them to share their thoughts and expertise with you.

2. Set clear job expectations. Being incredibly clear about your expectations leaves no room for ambiguity and gives your team confidence in their delivery. Clear expectations equal increased productivity, and helps your team focus their efforts, giving them clarity about their priorities and enabling them to work efficiently. They're also less likely to duplicate activities performed by their colleagues or to go off-task.

3. Promote the right people. It's a very simple rule for great leadership. Multiply leaders, don't diminish their ability to bring greatness to the table. Clear the obstacles in the way of your team on their journey towards development. Promoting the right people can have a positive impact, not just on your team, but also on the entire organisation. It boosts morale, increases productivity, and creates a positive working environment.

4. Pay people what they're worth. Attract and keep exceptional talent by providing exceptional compensation. Great people don't work for subpar wages. They're smart and they know their worth, that's part of what makes them exceptional. If you fish at the bottom of the barrel, that's what you'll catch.

5. Avoid a meeting heavy environment. Too many meetings, especially when they're back-to-back, zap everyone's energy. Meetings multiply the ineffective use of time because most of them (a) include too many people and (b) are far too long. They have evolved into a lazy way to shift accountability from an individual (or two) to a group. All meetings should have an agenda and a desired outcome tied to a timeframe.

6. Face-to-face is better, for the brain. Wherever possible, meetings should be in person. Seasoned event professionals tap into this phenomenon all the time to create spectacular and memorable conferences and seminars. Greater emotional engagement takes place when we come together because of how our brains work. We have mirror neurons that are deeply activated in the presence of other people. Our body reacts to what their body is doing. Our emotions react to what their emotions are doing. There is a symbiotic connection that happens in the presence of another human. If you’re looking to improve collaboration, understanding, empathy, and consensus building within your team, do it face-to-face.

7. Support growth. It's about mindset. When we have a growth mindset as a team, we can convert setbacks into future successes more easily. To succeed in any industry, organisations must constantly innovate and evolve to stay on the cutting edge, and that entails helping your team to continuously develop professionally. Making employee development a key part of your company culture ensures that your people stay up to date with industry best practices and learn new skills. This, in turn, boosts employee engagement and attracts top talent.

8. Remove toxic behaviours immediately. Toxic behaviour greatly diminishes the morale of a team. When individuals feel that they're working in a hostile or negative environment, they are less likely to be engaged, motivated, or happy at work. Low morale can lead to reduced productivity and higher turnover rates. Office outbursts, bullying, gossip and negative attitudes should be called out immediately and removed from the environment before such behaviour becomes condoned.

9. Avoid micromanagement. Your team's skills, talents, and insights can fall to the wayside if you manage everything that they do. The result is a team that only knows how to do what they're told, and a leader who is overloaded and burnt out. Surround yourself with experts in their field, allow them the freedom to think and act on their own, and guide rather than manage. You'll be amazed at the results.

10. Have a plan. Planning is a predictor of a high-performing team. It provides a clear roadmap to success by identifying the strategic objectives for your team and breaking these down into specific projects, goals, and tasks. Instead of focusing solely on day-to-day tasks, team planning allows your people to zoom out and see the bigger picture. It also ensures that everyone in your team has a clear understanding of what they need to do in order to succeed, and it helps demonstrate what needs are being met by your team and how your department contributes to the overall success of the business. A plan is a not just a plan, it's a story of how your team moved the needle.