Emma Littmoden, as a partner at leadership programme provider, The Living Leader, helps HR directors and other senior managers to find ways of encouraging members of their teams to take individual responsibility and innovate.
Here she shares five tips to ensure that you get the most out of both yourself and your staff:
1. Appreciate 20 things daily
If I start the day feeling good, the day is good, but sometimes life gets too busy to think about all of the positive things around us. In my opinion, however, it’s important to be grateful for the small things – where would we be without them?
2. Let staff know that you appreciate them
If we want our teams to perform as well as they possibly can, why do we forget to tell them when they do something right, but pounce on it if they get something wrong?
Each day, I make a point of telling someone that I work with that I appreciate something specific that they’ve done as I get a real kick out of seeing them improve and grow. The idea is that whatever we focus on will grow and develop, while whatever we take our attention away from will wither and die.
3. Support team members in finding their own answers
When my team asks me a question, first of all I think to myself, do they require more information from me in order to answer this or could they develop their own solution? If it is the latter, I ask them how they believe that they could best handle things?
4. Recognise that you have choices
Whatever I do, I know that it is me who has made the choice and that I will perform to the best of my ability – it’s just a matter of working out what needs to be done. I also understand that each choice has its own consequences and assess on that basis whether I am prepared to go down that route or not.
5. Take responsibility for your own actions
Each of us creates our own life, choosing where to work, what hobbies we undertake, who our friends are and the kind of relationships that we have with our family. Being in control and understanding the nature of responsibility are powerful things.
