As a CEO or Senior Executive, Promote Engaging Your Employees and the Results Will Accelerate

Recently, at one of our clients, I was working with the front line leadership to help them develop their 6-12 month performance plans to continue their development of leadership competencies.  We have been working with this particular plant for almost a year.  Over the past year this plant has done a great job transforming their performance from being categorized as a problem plant to now being applauded as top performing.  The entire workforce and leadership made this possible so you can imagine they are feeling pretty good right now.  As I was working with he front line leaders their performance plans focused on how to help their teams take their performance even higher.

The great news is these 3 leaders are at the point in their leadership maturity that they are ready to accelerate their teams growth which will in turn help them be even better leaders.

We started with their three top roles, which are set goals, provide resources, and remove barriers.  As we where defining their responsibilities this time around we focused less on their personal development (although that is always important to include) and more on the development of their teams through further increasing engagement, helping their team grow, and continuing to embed the companies values into daily activity.  At this point in leadership maturity a number of questions usually arise.  It usually starts with, “That’s sounds great but how do I do that with MY team?”

The good news is it starts with defining behaviors you want to see and developing the systems and structures that will support the growth of these behaviors.  We have found there are 5 behaviors common in high performers that when infused into an organization the companies performance and results are amazing.

These behaviors all focus on doing an exceptional job in day-to-day activities and view every activity through the lens of providing value to a customer.  This customer could be internal such as the next department receiving work you have completed or external being the person purchasing the product or service your company provides.  This mindset, when coupled with the following 5 high performance behaviors, will help you accelerate your employee engagement and help you grow your entire team’s performance.  The 6 behaviors are:

  • Inspire a shared vision
  • Engage the heart
  • Challenge the process
  • Model the way
  • Enable others to act

Inspire a shared vision

This first behavior sets the tone for all the others.  Inspiring your team to greatness includes incorporating the company’s purpose, vision, and mission into daily discussions and activities.  By doing this your leader will ensure all the actions within the team are aligned, thereby greatly improving daily and monthly productivity.

Engage the Heart

Lou Holtz (University of Notre Dame – 1986–1996) said it best when he said, “I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.”  Being a leader is much more than being in charge.  It is having the ability to find the best in people by truly caring for others.  When your employees see you truly care they will follow you through the breakthrough changes knowing you have their best interest at heart.

Challenge the Process

Look at every process through the eyes of the customer and examine how that processing is flowing value to them.  Constructively challenging the process includes keeping the aspects that are working and tweaking the aspects that are not aligned with flowing value.  When your leaders embrace this behavior they will challenge the processes with complete respect for people.

Model the Way

Your people will watch what you do much more than listen to what you say.  Your leadership needs to “walk the walk” as they are driving change and improvement in your company.  In the case of the client I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the local plant manager did a great job of leading by example.  He is constantly in the plant engaging the team where the work is happening.  When there is a problem pulls together a multi-disciplinary group to figure out the root cause and develop the solution that works for everyone involved.   By modeling the way it is clear what this plant manager expects from his team!

Develop Your Team

Developing your high performers cascades to these leaders focusing on developing every member of their team at the same time.  As your leaders develop their team you should expect that they will identify the next generation of high potentials.  When you get very good at employee development in your company you will find high performers being attracted to your company and wanting to join your organization.

Enable Others to Act

This last behavior puts the first five to work by empowering your team to take action while coaching and mentoring them along their journey.  The best way people learn is by practicing what they have been taught.  Empowered and engaged employees yield much higher profits for the company.  Recent studies have found fully engaged companies are as much as 256% more profitable!

Next Steps

The first step to embracing these leadership behaviors in your company is gaining consensus with your senior leadership team through understanding and creating conviction move the company towards these behaviors.

The next step is to implement the reinforcing systems and structures.  We have systems and structures based on decades of shifting leadership behavior that are proven.  When you visit our website www.CompleteBusinessTransformation.com look for our Win Conscious Leadership model and Daily Leadership Program.  Download the Empowerment Conversation which will provide you an introduction to our Daily Leadership Program.

The third and most important step is for you and your entire senior leadership team holds each other accountable to model these 5 behaviors.

About the Author:

David Tweedt is President of Win Enterprises, LLC. He helps visionary business leaders conquer their profit and performance challenges in the short term and sustain them for the long term. He helps leaders double their profits following their guaranteed methodology and proprietary frameworks with a goal of doubling profits in 6-8 years.

Industry-Leading Guarantee!  Our commitment to you:  When you follow our recommendations, your annual Return on Investment will be greater than 100% of your investment with us or we’ll keep working with you until it is.

David is contributing author of the Best Selling Book! –  Elite Business Systems: Insider Strategies of Industry Leading Consultants

If you are not achieving the results you want, then contact David to learn more about how he can help you maximize your results. Learn more at www.CompleteBusinessTransformation.com Contact David: David@winenterprisesllc.com