Not sure how to unlock the potential of your team? Start with this.

In my opinion, a crucial part of leadership is about service and setting your team up for success.

Whilst team members are working in your organisation and for a future outside it should they choose to leave.

Any good manager should want that for their team.

So, guiding, nudging, encouraging your team to grow and develop is something that needs to be at the front of a leader′s mind.?

But how can you go about it. Here are a few ideas from my own experience in the world of public affairs and things I′ve seen other leaders and clients in other sectors do:

1. Get out of the way: an important part of good leadership is trust. Restraint is critical to develop trust between you and your team. It′s important not to interfere unnecessarily, to give space to your team to define and crack problems by themselves.?

Why? So they can stretch, grow, think, create, feel ownership of success which creates confidence and desire to keep getting better.

2. Help them to get 1% better all the time: create positive opportunities to grow but do not set crazy goals that set them up for failure or will be demoralising.

As a leader you can′t set a stretch goal and then take a mental vacation though. Stay close to give them guidance – not interference.?

And genuine opportunities as well - no fake development opportunities so you get out of doing work yourself.

3. Advice and?focused?feedback: that helps them to identify where they can sharpen performance or reduce friction to deliver goals – so they can put all their energy into excelling with their strengths and tackling gaps in their skills.?

Don't use all your 1:1s as status updates that don't really help professional development. Use these precious meetings as golden opportunities to check-in and make sure you better understand the actual person who are managing, their aspirations and future hopes.

4. Recognise their efforts: finally, in countless studies many workers in organisations often cite a lack of recognition as key factors in how they feel about their organisations and managers and what they assume their manager thinks about them.??

Genuine recognition is super important as it′s a clear signal to a team member that they are doing well, adding value and making a contribution.?

And the impact of this is amplified because of the trust and sense of confidence it can create.?

Thanks for reading and subscribing.

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Whenever you are ready…

If you ever feel that you want to improve your ability as a leader or there′s a need for your organisation to reflect on leadership in more depth, consider:

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1. Working with me via a formal one to one leadership coaching programme to help you with your strategic thinking and practice positive leadership.
2. The Influential Leader?workshop?will challenge your team and equip them with tools to create the foundation for a common leadership culture.
3. My ′How to be a Public Affairs Leader′?training that will equip managers in the public affairs sector with the practical tools to make an impact and influence others.
4. Or, if you need help making a breakthrough with personal development goals take a few seconds to?read what some clients?have said about me here.