7 Things Leaders Can Do to Immediately to Boost Employee Retention

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retaining top talent should always be a focus of leaders and organizations. However, during times of high employment, or an historic Great Resignation, the topic gets more attention. While there many facets to talent retention, too often individual leaders look to the organization and/or HR to find solutions that keep the best talent onboard. Yet, there is much individual leaders can do to improve employee retention.

The Leader’s Role

There are many things people look for when choosing their work. Of course, they want to be fairly compensated, but that is just the start. Too many leaders assume retention and turnover hinge solely on factors like pay, benefits, and policies that lie outside of their individual control. While all those things matter, the experience people have with their boss plays a large role in their desire to stay – or willingness to look elsewhere and leave.

 The Seven Simple Things

What can leaders do to improve talent retention? Here are seven specific and immediately implementable ideas.

• Say please and thank you. After we teach children their names, “please” and “thank you” are among the first words we want them to learn. We know these words show respect and appreciation for others. Just because you have positional power doesn’t mean you must (or can) demand things. And just because “it is their job” doesn’t mean we can’t (or shouldn’t) say thank you when they do something well. If you appreciate what people are doing, are you letting them know?
• Ask for opinions. Your team members have a perspective on the work that you don’t have. In many cases, they are doing work you never did. Even if they are doing your former job, if you have been the leader for any length of time, things have changed. When you ask for the opinions of others, you will show respect and appreciation to them – and arrive at better decisions.
• Listen. When you ask for those opinions, then you better listen to their ideas! Asking doesn’t mean you always have to implement what you hear, but asking without really listening to understand might be worse than not ever asking. Work to be a better listener in all your interactions with team members.
• Trust more. One way to show your trust is by becoming a more active and effective listener. But there are plenty of ways to show your trust in your team. Here are two other examples that will show your team members you trust them – delegate more responsibilities and micromanage less.
• Provide feedback. Feedback needn’t be all negative and saved for the annual review or in emergency situations. Let people know how they are doing. Show them what is working and encourage them to continue. Help them see where they can make corrections and adjustments. We all want to do good work and know how we are doing.  Regular feedback allows both to happen.
• Ask for feedback. Who better to give you feedback on your as a leader than those you are leading? And what better way to show your trust than by asking those same people how you are doing? Asking for feedback is one of the best things you can do as a leader. It will show you want to improve, and give you input so that you can.
• Communicate the big picture. People want more than a paycheck; they want to do work that makes a difference. When we as leaders help them see where the work leads, who it helps, how they are making a difference, they are less likely to leave. People find their own meaning in work, but not in a vacuum. Make sure people see how what they do matters and is making a difference.

Read this list again and ask yourself two questions:

• Do I want to work for a leader that regularly does these things?
• Everything else equal (or even close), would I more likely stay to continue to work for that person?

Assuming your answers are like mine, then there is just one more question …

Where Will You Start?

There is nothing on the above list that is shocking or new. Just because they aren’t new, doesn’t mean they can’t improve talent retention. All are things you have done and can do – starting today. Doing any of them will help, doing all of them will make a bigger positive difference than you can imagine. You will get better relationships, you will get better results, and you will improve retention of your most important asset – your people.

While all will help, you must start somewhere. Resolve to work on one of these suggestions immediately. The beauty of the list is that none require a new policy, a decision from senior management, or additional training. Pick one, and start right now.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

How to Be a Better Leader in 9 Minutes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want to be an even better leader? Not just one that develops employees, but one that gets results as well. Leadership and motivation specialist James Robbins book, Nine Minutes on Monday,  is based on the theory that it's the little things -- done consistently -- that bring the biggest results. I agree based on 25 years of coaching and training leaders.

The purpose of a leader is to lead a team to great results. This is not an innate skill and many people have experienced the pain of having a bad manager. Additionally, many people get thrown into a manager role without proper training and understanding of what they should be doing. Robbins has 9 questions you should ask yourself each Monday morning. They are:

1. Whom will I show a genuine interest in this week?
2. Whom will I give feedback to?
3. Whom will I recognize?
4. How will I connect purpose to pay for someone?
5. Whom will I help grow this week?
6. Whom will I help feel autonomous?
7. What can I do to foster team unity?
8. Where can I inject some fun?
9. What do I need to model for my team members?

Note how none of these are connected to the typical worries of managers -- productivity, budgets, project timelines and any of the other million problems that land on a manager's plate. Instead, they focus on the key purpose of managers -- getting their team to perform at a higher level. All of those other things are necessary, but they go better when you have good people.

Of course implementing these things take a lot more than 9 minutes, but not so much more that doing them will take away from the rest of your work time. After all, how long does it take to give feedback to one of your employees? Or recognize good performance?

All 9 are critical however, number 6 intrigues me the most. Asking yourself, Whom will I help feel autonomous? flies in the face of so many managers who think they must control every aspect of their employees' performance. If they are managing the department, they must have their hand in every little thing.

But, this level of micro-management tends to destroy morale and results in your good employees leaving and your bad employees doing just enough to not get fired. This isn't successful for anyone. Robbins points out that we crave autonomy and the ability to make choices. Having flexibility to do it your way typically results in more engaged and more productive employees.

In today's inflationary environment and the resulting tightening of budgets and headcounts, leaders need every trick in the book to get the most out of their employees. Perhaps Robbins' strategy of these 9 steps each Monday will allow you take your team to the top.

Click here to read our related post: How Leaders Who Ask More Leverage The Power of The Brain

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Elevate Your Work Culture By Having Better Conversations

 

 

 

 

 

 The quality of your workplace culture depends on the quality of the conversations. The stories about the past, present, and future shape the identity of your organization. From watercooler conversations to passionate meeting debates, how people engage with each other (or not) is a true indicator of your company culture.

Poor conversations are frustrating, keeping your team stuck in the past.

Better culture starts with better conversations. Teams create better solutions via dialogue. Transform your company culture with effective conversations.

Everything your team members do is facilitated through conversations. They envision the future through dialogue. They uncover new possibilities to move the organization forward. Conversations bring culture to life – both what's working and what's not.

Crucial conversations lie all around us – all the time.

Curiosity starts conversations. Conversations spark action. Action drives change.

From performance appraisals and brainstorming solutions to making decisions, conversations are the foundation of effective team collaboration.

Your organization's culture is created and reflected in the conversations people have – and the ones they avoid.  

How to Have More Effective Conversations

Defining moments in the workplace are the result of crucial conversations – they shift our mindsets and behaviors.

Facilitating candid conversations is not easy. It requires courage. You must be able to work with people rather than through people. Take the first step. Listen more than you plan. Reflect, learn, and explore possibilities.

The purpose of conversation is to grow as a team, not to win an argument.

Better conversations are built on the four most important core skills, according to research by The Center for Creative Leadership:

Listening to understand: There are multiple levels of information we must tune in to during conversations. Move beyond the facts. Listen to the values at play and understand the other person's perspective.

Asking powerful questions: Great questions spark curiosity, opening new paths for more interesting conversations. Open-ended questions drive clarity, promote critical thinking, inspire reflection, and challenge assumptions. Often beginning with 'Why,' 'How,' or 'What do you think about…,' they set the stage to uncover new perspectives.

Challenging and supportive: Successful teams embrace cognitive diversity by challenging underlying assumptions. Psychological safety is vital to encourage candid conversations – to challenge the idea, not the person. Providing support is about ensuring that people have been heard. Find the right balance between challenge and support.  

Establishing next steps and accountability: Great conversationalists go with the flow – they focus on the journey, not the destination. However, regardless of their relentless curiosity, they always wrap up with concrete next steps. Your team should walk away from a conversation with a shared understanding, clear agreements, and next steps.

Check out a related post: How to Get Clarity, Accountability, and Results In Five Minutes.

Fortunately, the four conversational skills can be developed. You can use them one at a time or together.

Building a strong company culture starts with candid conversations. Which conversations are you avoiding? Which ones harm or nurture your culture?

We help organizations facilitate better conversations through our leadership programs and performance consulting.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Ten Sure-fire Ways to Build A Team of Winners

 

Want to be an excellent leader? A truly inspirational, effective agent of your team’s success? There is literally nothing harder – or more important – in the world of work. That’s why effective leaders are so rare in real life.

If that discourages you, them maybe you don’t have what it takes to lead after all. If it motivates you instead? Well, then, here are a few tips to take it from “in charge guy/gal” to “excellent leader !”

1. Repeat after me (to your team): “My job is to help you be successful by making your job easier.”

No, your job is not to give them the day off to shop while you finish up their work for them. But your job as leader – your only job, as leader – is to remove impediments and provide the tools for your people’s success. Take the obstacles out of their way and give them the resources so they can do the important work of your company: serving your customers and stakeholders!

2. Foster friendships among your staff.

After work socialization is important – it is! But nothing builds camaraderie and team spirit like shared success as the result of shared struggle. What’s your team’s greater goal? What significant challenges are you confronting that all of you can be proud of overcoming together?

3. Reward for the big things. And the medium things. And even the itty-bitty little things.

We like praise. We want recognition. One winner-takes-all vacation or mega-bonus for the year’s top performer is great and all, but how about a $5 Starbucks, or even a made-up certificate from your printer, because someone filed her report on time? 

4. Coach them.

People of quality want to be good at their jobs. Kindly help them to improve. …Kindly, but maybe not gently.

5. Release the “Just Enoughers” to other “opportunities.”
We all know the “Just Enoughers.” Employees that do just enough to avoid getting fired. No one likes to work with slackers – except other slackers. Redeploy them sooner than later. As the old saying goes, “If it’s inevitable, make it immediate.”

6. Hire slowly and caaaaarefully!

Show your current team members and your new recruits that not just anybody belongs on your team. If you want to build an elite group, hire top performers. You’ll have to kiss a lot of frogs as you vet the talent pond.

7. Give them something important to get up for in the morning.

Remember number 2, with the part about shared challenges? Pick a lofty goal. Then make pursuit of that the rallying cry of your team. Change lives, change how business is done; don’t just settle to change who wins this year’s sales contest. 

8. Talk up your people to others.

Talk your team up to your peers, to their peers, to your boss and her boss and heck, to the security guard, too. Be proud of each of them, and share that pride with anyone who’ll listen. Word will filter back to them, and as it does, it will have have a major impact. 

9. Expect the world of them.

Establish with your team how highly you respect and admire them. Expect big things from them. They will live up to your image of them, no matter what it takes.

10. Be worthy of their effort.

Want to really be the best, most effective leader ever? Work to improve yourself every day, in every way that is important to your team’s success. In order to lead a group of champions to new heights, you as leader must be worthy of the team’s time and energy. And that’s a lot more than we have room for in one blog post.

You will never be as good as you can be as a leader. But every hour of every day, if you’re sufficiently devoted to the success of your team, you can improve. Keep at it, and your people will start bragging about you – to their peers, your peers, your boss and her boss. And yes, even to the security guards.

When it percolates back to you how admired you are by those you serve as leader… you’ll be infinitely prouder than if they told you themselves! 

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

The Leadership "Super Skill" of the 21st Century

    

 

 

 

 

 "The first person you lead is yourself."  

                                      --Epictetus of Hierapolis, 95 AD

Self-awareness is the leadership "super skill" or meta-skill of the twenty-first century. Skills are temporary; meta-skills are permanent higher order capabilities. Skills are temporary because they are learned and developed, and therefore can be forgotten and refreshed. 

By contrast, a meta-skill is a permanent part of you that enables you to achieve things. Learning a second language or how to code constitutes a skill. A meta-skill, on the other hand, is your ability to learn new languages. Once you’ve developed that meta-skill, it becomes easier to learn a third or a fourth tongue.

Why is self-awareness the meta-skill of this age? Because qualities that are most critical for success in today’s world —things like emotional intelligence, empathy, influence, persuasion, communication, and collaboration—all stem from self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the ability to see ourselves clearly—to understand who we are, how others see us, and how we fit into the world.

Our self-awareness sets the upper limit for the skills that make us stronger team players, superior leaders, and better relationship builders. And here, even small gains in self-awareness can have a big payoff.
 
Internal self-awareness has to do with seeing yourself clearly. It’s an inward understanding of your values, passions, aspirations, ideal environment, patterns, reactions, and impact on others.

External self-awareness is about understanding yourself from the outside in—that is, knowing how other people see you.Now, it’s easy to assume that someone who is internally self-aware would also be externally self-aware—that being in touch with our feelings and emotions helps us tune in to how we’re seen. But strangely, research (mine and others’) has often shown no relationship between them—and some studies have even shown an inverse one! 

You probably know someone who loves to gaze at their own navel but has precious little understanding of the way they’re coming across. The other side of the coin is also dangerous. Being too fixated on how we appear to others can prevent us from making choices in service of our own happiness and success. The bottom line is that to become truly self-aware, you have to understand yourself and how others see you—and what’s more, the path to get there is very, very different than what most people believe. But if this sounds intimidating or untenable, there is good news. Research has shown that self-awareness is a surprisingly developable skill.

Self-aware people possess seven distinct types of insight that unaware people didn’t. They understood their values (the principles that guide them), passions (what they love to do), aspirations (what they want to experience and achieve), fit (the environment they require to be happy, energized, and engaged), patterns (consistent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving), reactions (the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reveal their strengths and weaknesses), and impact (the effect they have on others).

The key skill we must develop to read our impact is perspective-taking, or the ability to imagine what others are thinking and feeling (this is different from empathy, which involves actually experiencing others’ emotions).
 
Let’s pretend that internal and external self-awareness are hydrogen and oxygen, two of the most well-known elements on the periodic table. On its own, hydrogen is dangerous because it spontaneously ignites. (Remember the Hindenburg?) And though oxygen is not flammable by itself, in excess, it causes many things to burn more easily. But when you combine hydrogen and oxygen in the right proportions, the two elements unite to create life-sustaining water.

Self-awareness is a bit like that: when we couple a clear perspective on ourselves with the ability to abandon that perspective and see ourselves as others do, this magical combination is a powerful force for realizing the next best version of ourselves.

Self-awareness has a more positive impact on leadership than an MBA. Studies show that self-awareness encourages us to lead ourselves with authenticity and integrity — and in turn, better lead others.

Teams with high self-awareness make better decisions, interact better with each other, and manage tensions and conflicts more effectively.

The problem is that self-awareness is a scarce meta-skill. According to self-awareness expert Dr. Tasha Eurich, 90% of people believe they are self-aware but only 15% of them actually are. This gap is the base of most problems in the workplace — blind spots are the elephant in the room.  

Here are some things to can do (or do more frequently) to build your self-awareness muscle and illuminate your blind spots.

5 Tips for Building Self-Awareness 

1. Look at yourself objectively.

Trying to see yourself as you really are can be a very difficult process, but if you make the right efforts, getting to know your real self can be extremely rewarding. When you are able to see yourself objectively, you can learn how to accept yourself and find ways to improve yourself in the future.

2. Perform daily self-reflection.

In order to have self-awareness, you must do self-reflection. This requires setting aside some time, hopefully every day, to honestly look at yourself as a person and a leader. Committing to this practice can help you improve.

In our demanding business world, daily self-reflection is easier said than done. There is always pressure to do more with less, and an endless flow of information through our portable technology.

Because it takes time to self-reflect, start by setting aside just 15 minutes each day. Self-reflection is most effective when you use a journal and write down your thoughts. It’s also best to find a quiet place to think.

3. Take personality and psychometric tests.

Take these personality and psychometric tests to help understand what traits you have. Some popular tests that are aimed at increasing self-awareness include the Myers-Briggs test and the Predictive Index.

There are no right or wrong answers to these tests. Instead, they compel respondents to think about a set of traits or characteristics that closely describe them relative to other people.

4. Ask trusted friends to describe you.

How are we supposed to know what other people think of us? We have to listen to the feedback of our peers and mentors, and let them play the role of an honest mirror. Tell your friends when you are looking for open, honest, critical, and objective perspectives. Allow your friends to feel safe while they are giving you an informal yet honest view.

Make sure your friends know that they are doing this to help you, not to hurt you. Also, feel free to ask questions of your friends about topics they bring up if you feel like you need some more clarity to completely understand.

You can also ask friends to bring it to your attention when you are doing something that you know you want to change. For example, if you know you tend to “one-up” people when they are telling stories, have your friends discreetly let you know that is happening so you can learn to stop.

Ask your friends to give you an honest evaluation of what they think about you. | Image of spending time with friends Ask trusted friends to describe you. Allow your friends to feel safe while they are giving you an informal yet honest view. 

5. Ask for feedback at work.

In addition to consulting friends and family, use a more formal process at work to get some feedback. If your company does not provide a structured way to do this, try to implement one. Provided it is constructive and well done, having an option for formalized feedback allows us to self-reflect on our own strengths and development opportunities.

To have an effective formal feedback system at work, you need a proper process and an effective manager. Once the feedback process is finished, it is important to reflect on it by writing down your main takeaways. Write down any surprising strengths and opportunities that you did not realize you had before.

Building the necessary habits to help you become more self-aware will help you thrive as a person and by extension a leader in the 21st Century.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.