5 Functional Ways to Lead Employees with Intention
Anyone can be a leader, but the most efficacious and well-founded leader is the one who can lead and motivate employees with intention. There is a subtle line of nuance between commanding leadership and leadership with intention. Your tone, vision and the comfort of the employees with you determine your leadership style.
You want the most motivated, empowered and engaged employees on board. To be able to achieve this, you need to guide and motivate employees in a way that they feel valued and contribute to their full potential. Following are a few inherent benefits of leadership with intent:
· Employees feel motivated and inspired.
· The work atmosphere is congenial.
· Employees give their best potential.
· The goals of the employees resonate with that of the company.
· Enhanced Employee retention
· Lower employee turnover rates
With these benefits, it is evident that to get the best out of employees, you need to lead with intent and make everyone a valuable part of the team.
Here is a list of 5 effective and practical tips to lead employees with intent:
1. Transparency and Sharing Details
Most often employees complain of not being treated like a team and information being withheld or passed on to them with filters. To work as a team is akin to living like a family. You need to share the project details with the utmost transparency and not hold back any details.
"Sharing information with employees makes them a part of the mission and they are ready to give the best inputs to accomplish the task fully," says Vimal Gupta, CEO of New Idea Farm Equipment Company.
2. Incorporate Soft skills
This is usually a much-underrated pointer, but the relevance of incorporating soft skills in the behaviour of the leader goes a long way in bringing out the efficacy of the team. Skills like empathy, people skills, self-awareness and self-regulation are vital essentials of effective leadership. These skills help the leader understand the employees and think from their perspective.
Anil Aggarwal, CEO of Krishna Brickworks says, "The most looked up leader will see the glass from the perspective of employees. This humane approach motivates employees and makes them feel wanted. A leader should exercise full control over their tone, voice and be aware of how the employees feel at the end of the day."
3. Go Beyond 9 to 5 Regime
This implies that the leader and the leadership should extend over to friendly banter with a genuine concern for the personal problems of the employees too. Do not overstretch beyond the limit, but do show a genuine concern for the employees and their well-being.
Rajesh Trehan, CEO of Shree Ram Plywood Industries is an epitome of humanitarian behaviour towards his employees. He states, "The employees should be treated like human beings who have families and personal problems. Always being too meticulous and focused on work deadlines makes your relationship too mechanical with them. This will not thrive in the long run." Vimal also seconds this idea absolutely.
4. Avoid Ambiguous Directions
What bothers and irks the employees are unclear or incomplete instructions. Nobody is too keen to do revisions or rectify the work once done. This is detrimental to the time of both the employee as well as the employer. So it is advisable to give absolute clear and precise instructions so that the work can be done without any changes. Ramneet Kaur, COO of Rapid Skillz states, "Employees will follow your instructions and directions. For a cordial work atmosphere and maximum productivity, it is imperative that the leader should deliver absolutely crystal clear instructions in a tone that is understandable by the employee."
5. Two-way feedback
This is the most effective pointer wherein both the employer as well as the employee should be encouraged to give constructive criticism related to work and behavior. This is like a two-way window working towards the achievement of the company goals as well as the personal evolvement of the employer and the employees.
Reena Gupta, founder of Home Signature says, "Everyone has scope for improvements and so do the employees and the employer. There should be open channels of communication within the organization that offer a scope of improvement with the aid of constructive feedback and suggestions."
The Last Innings:
Committing to the employees' welfare apart from the fixed emoluments and work commitments open their insight to work better towards accomplishing company goals. An effective leader must learn and incorporate "lead with intent' for maximum results. The employees' morale, efficiency and productivity are bound to touch the sky if led well with intention.