Six Principles for Empowering Leaders in an Ever-Changing Business World
Do You Have Empowering Leaders in Your Company?
The business world is changing – and our organizations’ leaders must evolve alongside to help their companies survive and thrive.
One thing that’s changing is employee engagement. According to Gallup, employee engagement levels reached record highs last year. Why is this so important? First, team members with higher levels of engagement are less likely to leave their company. To measure employee engagement, Gallup looked at key factors, from clearly defined roles to employee development opportunities, and strong coworker relationships to working with a purpose. As you can see, each of these factors is highly influenced by the leaders within an organization.
The Impact of Empowering Leaders
Empowering Leaders are the forces behind successful organizations. Empowering Leaders have the power to make things happen, and they have a strong influence over the future of the organization. That means empowering leaders also have an impact on the decisions of employees choosing to leave a company. As more companies encourage the professional development of their leaders and give them the tools to lead with purpose, develop emotional intelligence and create policies and procedures to support high-performance teams – more employees will be looking for similar opportunities within their organization – or they’ll leave it.
What else is changing in today’s business marketplace? Business competition is on the rise due in part to a growth in entrepreneurship, the impacts of globalization, and new business technologies. It’s more complicated than ever to build and sustain a strong brand, create dedicated consumers, and grow your client base. One reason why is customers are more educated and sophisticated than ever. They demand transparency, instant gratification, and more information about their consumer decision than ever before. Understanding your customers’ needs and desires is essential, but the amount of market research out there to help can be overwhelming. By creating a high-performance company culture that rewards flexibility and innovation, you can build a company that adapts to meet your customers’ changing demands.
Empowering Leaders and Employee Engagement
Another critical item related to employee engagement is clear business goals, vision, and strategy. As you know, having a strong company vision is crucial to long-term success. Great leaders have a better understanding of how that impacts employees – who want to work with vision and understand their role in the mission of their organization. As the leader, it is your job to establish clear goals and implement strategies to achieve them. And it’s essential to communicate that to your team and provide ways for employees to provide feedback.
Six Principles for Empowering Leaders
- Leading with vision is a crucial component for empowering leaders – especially in an ever-changing business environment. Being a good leader is not about being in control. It is about knowing how to guide a team towards a common goal. Leading from the front and by example, is what makes your employees want to work alongside you to achieve your business goals.
- Empowering Leaders are Passionate: No matter how passionate you are – one of the most critic drivers in your business success is the quality of your teams and teamwork. By leading with vision, however – you can transfer that passion to your workforce and build high-performing teams that tackle the most significant challenges together with dedication, creativity, and innovation. Passionate leaders encourage passionate employees, as long as they respond to leadership challenges with emotional intelligence and support the creativity and passion of their employees, as well as their own.
- Empowering Leaders are Humble: When meeting with your team, it is crucial to “leave your title at the door.” Allowing each team member to provide feedback and share ideas – from interns to managers – is essential to building strong teams and diverse, high-performing organizations. When everyone is on an equal playing field, employee engagement increases, expensive problems are avoided, and creativity flourishes. Humble leaders who ‘lead from the front’ are much more likely to gain the trust and respect of their team members.
- Empowering Leaders Build and Sustain Trust: Many attributes make a great leader, but one of the essential skills is building trust. The best team in the world can’t meet their business goals if they don’t trust their leader and trust in the mission and vision of their organization. Building trust requires excellent communication and emotional intelligence. It also needs time to develop. People notice when someone does the right thing. They also appreciate when leaders identify their own mistakes and shortcomings and apologize when they make mistakes. Practice excellent leadership skills to develop influential leaders of the future.
- Empowering Leaders are Social: Strong leaders aren’t timid or shy. They lead from the front, communicate effectively, and support their team members in times of trouble. You can’t lead with the vision behind a door or from a glass office on the top floor. An essential part of being a leader is building strong relationships built on trust. Sometimes, you can learn more about your employees when something goes wrong. Employees also appreciate feedback and want to be recognized. When you spend time with your team, you’ll better identify how each member communicates best, what drives them, and when they succeed (or fail). You’ll gather vital information to help you make better team management decisions in the future, to support the development of individual team members, and to challenge employees to improve.
- Empowering Leaders are Optimists: Negative vibes travel fast. Empowering leaders drive success with positive feedback and a can-do attitude. They encourage diversity in their teams and diversity if thought in the organization. They support differences in opinion and talent and encourage personal and professional growth. They aren’t ‘yes men-or-women,’ but they are open to new ideas and don’t ‘knee-jerk-no’ when presented with them. They believe in the mission, are happy to be there and lead from the front with a positive attitude and an open desire to achieve success.