While this leaves their employees educated, equipped, and encouraged  or at least informed after class, the big shock comes in when they still observe the same performance issues, that made them resort to training to begin with, with them individually and as a team.

Why is that?

It’s because there are some companies that are often misled wrongfully thinking that the problem always lies in the knowledge, skills, and attitude of their rank and file when in fact, the real issue at times exists in and among their own middle management or worse, the top executives themselves.

Approaching talent development is always a top-down process and never a bottom-up methodology. The top and the bottom or vice versa may meet halfway but it can never be attacked from the bottom up.

Let’s keep in mind that everything employees are supposed to do every day are all implementations of the strategies and techniques that have been crafted based on the organizational, divisional, departmental, and then team-level goals and objectives that the top and middle management design together or one after the other. Now these, themselves, are inspired by the corporate vision, mission, and values from the strategic level. It’s never the other way around.

Therefore, if there’s something wrong with the company’s vision, mission, and values which in turn, negatively affect the goals and objectives, for instance, it becomes a ripple effect that also trickles down to the strategies and techniques that the employees’ work revolves around.

The case is the same with mistakenly and repetitively focusing on training the rank and file when the root cause/s of their performance deficiencies are brought about by factors external to them like their management or their quality of support and workplace environmental aspects like culture and workplace safety and comfort.

What do we mean by this?

Who should we train first? Outlying employees who are demotivated or uninspired by the organizational culture they are forced to thrive in and/or troubled by their uninspiring, irresponsible, and abusive line supervisors or managers or the latter who clearly need help first themselves before their subordinates receive training and development?

We can’t or shouldn’t just keep on training our people expecting that it shall make a difference when change must first come from and be exhibited by the environment they work in and the leadership/management they report to.

It’s like strengthening the walls, the floors, and the corner supports of a building but leaving the foundation weak. No matter how quality the work on the floors, the walls, and the ceilings is, the structure is still going to come down when the base is questionable.

The organizational culture and the people that create and manage it represent the foundation or the base. When they lack or have the wrong business acumen, inspiration, motivation, knowledge, skills, and attitude themselves, no matter how many times their subordinates are mentored, trained, coached, or counseled, their people shall still fail in what they do.

It only means that the employees may be strong inside but are very gullible on the outside especially when they are adversely affected by these factors external to them.

So, let’s ask ourselves these questions.

1. Does our organizational culture support, promote, and strengthen an ambience of high performance?
2. Are the top and middle management people role models? Do they first display the excellence pattern that they expect their employees to emulate?

If not, then stop training the rank and file when the management actually needs it first and more.

The post Stop training the rank and file if we haven’t done the same to the management appeared first on MSS Business Solutions - a Top HR Training and Consultancy Company in the Philippines.

Even with ourselves, when we assume a leadership/managerial position, we’ve always been worried about how we could be a better leader or a manager or if we’re a good leader or manager in the first place.

The success in leading or managing does not lie in whether we understand and apply the differences between being a leader or a manager nor how many leadership and management theories from the books we can apply in real life.

True success rests in our willingness and ability to lead and manage our colleagues to appreciable results even through business challenges and individual imperfections.

One who has a holistic approach to directing people with varied personalities, priorities, and purposes in life and in their career usually enjoys the pleasures of people truly communicating, collaborating, and cooperating.

A holistic approach to leadership and management means that the supervisor caters to the internal and external factors that bring in productivity and efficiency.

These factors are internal and external to the person being led or managed. If these so-called components are taken into account, utilized to one’s advantage, and maximized, there is no way the supervisor is gonna have difficulties exceeding targets with the help of his employees.

I have personally named these factors as the Eight Es to Leadership and Management Success. Let’s talk about them one by one.

Educate

Effective people who demonstrate efficiency at work are those who can honestly affirm they get complete education (coaching and even training) from their supervisors.

Supervisors must ensure that when they give instructions and even when their staff is simply going about their routine work, they thoroughly know their assignment, the accountability in place, their authority over their responsibility, and the needed aspiration/s to be successful in what they do.

All of these are accomplished if leaders are there for their employees every step of the way guiding and providing them with the necessary knowledge or information to complete their tasks the best way they are capable of.

Orientations must then be consummate. Therefore, job assistance or support must be all-encompassing.

Supervisors don’t just tell their employees what to do and how to do it. They’re also better off explaining to them what aspects of the job they will be held liable for, what the extent of their shared power is, and what their required performance standards or success indicators are.

Don’t confuse this with spoon-feeding though. Spoon-feeding is offering excessive help or information all throughout the duration of the work that employees are not left to think for themselves anymore.

This is merely making it a point that they are ‘fully-furnished’, so to speak, at the outset of the delegation even before they carry out the task.

Remember, when supervisors know how to educate their employees in every sense of the word, success is a surety.

Equip

Knowledge needs skills for the former to translate to observable and measurable individual and organizational efficacy.

Even if employees know a lot about their assignment, their accountability, their authority, and the company-prescribed needed aspiration, they may still be bound to fail if they are not equipped with the right competencies.

To become effective leaders and managers, supervisors must personalize their employees’ learning and development in order to tool or retool their manpower properly.

Depending upon a person’s strengths and areas for improvement and working, communication, and learning styles, they must assess, formulate, assemble, execute, and evaluate the perfect talent development plan to help employees do their best at work with the fewest work-related errors and the optimal results possible.

Take note that well-prepared and sufficiently-geared employees are confident implementers and when there is confidence backed up by the right knowledge and the correct know-how, quality of input and output is assured.

Encourage

A company may have the most brilliant and proficient employees on board, but if they lack the right attitude to not only remain loyal to the organization and their bosses but to be able to work perfectly with their colleagues as well, talent retention is in danger and organizational and interpersonal communication will suffer.

Leaders ought to strike a balance among the education (knowledge), equipment (skills), and encouragement (attitude) of their employees.

They should ensure that while their people enjoy the best learning and development, embodying positive values is equally significant.

Part of encouraging employees is also keeping them motivated and inspired. When they are, they look forward to getting back to work wanting to do the same thing and desiring to work with the same people over and over again.

As they say, when people love their job, their job loves them back. When there is a mutual feeling, success is guaranteed.

The find out how else to motivate or inspire your employees, you might be interested in reading our article on The CONNECT Strategy too.

Engage

To engage somebody is not only to catch his attention to interest him but also to allow him to take part in something.

When employees’ drive for work is always kept burning and when they are engaged in planning, problem solving and decision making for matters concerning their job, their tenure, their compensation and benefits, their promotion, and their relationship with other people, they feel valued and actively involved.

Supervisors should not treat their employees as merely soldiers who are expected to die in battle during wars. They must be conferred the avenue and the voice to demonstrate their developing leadership and management skills.

An effective leader and manager is someone who leverages his people and maximizes their knowledge, skills, and attitude to help overcome chronic business challenges, solve tricky work problems, respond to long-unanswered questions, and bring in innovations and creative ideas.

Empower

The true measure of a great leader is not how many followers he has but how many new leaders he gets to develop or replicate during his regime/tenure.

When employees are given official authority to decide on their own and test their knowledge, skills, and experience in a very challenging yet realistic work scenario, their maturity as a professional is enhanced.

They also feel valued because they feel that they are being developed. They can see they are also leveling up because they are immersed in situations where the scope of the assignment is wider and the level of difficulty is graduating.

When supervisors empower their people the right way and in the right direction, they develop a sense of responsibility and accountability that doesn’t only prepare them for future promotions but also enhance their independence and level of efficiency even when they don’t want to be promoted.

Entertain

Happy, contented, and satisfied employees are the best assets of any organization.

When they don’t only need their job but also want and desire it, supervisors have themselves the most faithful and loyal business partners who will not leave them even when the going gets tough.

There’s also a saying that goes, “Happy Employees, Happy Customers”. This is very true. When employees are happy, the feeling is carried over to the way they serve their clients and the manner by which they give them a ‘feel-good’ experience during the whole customer service experience.

Ultimately, people who have genuine fun at work never look at their job as a job but as a leisure activity or a hobby that they are excited to put their mind and heart into every single day.

Automatically, the happiness, contentment, and job satisfaction translate to unprecedented business and individual performance results.

Exemplify

To be a great leader and manager is to be an awesome role model. Even when supervisors or managers know and apply all the known leadership and management theories the books teach, the impact to the employees is less if they don’t practice what they preach or walk the talk in terms of displaying all the positive attitude and positive actions expected of them.

It’s very awkward and unbecoming of so-called leaders and managers if they keep on lecturing their employees about always being present at work, not coming to work late, and/or giving more than their best all the time when they don’t do the same with their personal job expectations.

Therefore, leaders and managers are expected to first showcase themselves first what they expect of their employees before they have the right to do the same with them. Lead by example.

Escort to Success

The last E to leadership and management success is when supervisors don’t just act as authorities to their subordinates but as buddies to their success too.

When they always remind their team members what’s in it for them and the company every time they do their job and they appreciate it/them or inspired by it/them, quality and effectiveness are almost always assured.

An ‘Escort to Success’ is someone who doesn’t only lead his people to where they are supposed to be based on their individual goals but is one who also aligns them with the vision, mission, core values, and strategic directions of the company.

They should be on the same path as the company is on. They should be doing what the company expects them to do. They should be living up to the standards that have made the organization successful. They should be learning, loving, and living the work values that the company’s brand and reputation communicate to both the internal and external clients. Lastly, they should be one with the company in taking it to whatever its vision is – be the #1, the most preferred, the go-to guy, etc.

In conclusion…

When a supervisor exemplifies and exhibits these Eight (8) Es of Leadership and Management Success, directing people through the needed organizational and individual results should never be difficult again.

Being a leader and a manager doesn’t have to be a very dreaded or stressful job.

For as long as we all employ a holistic approach to taking charge of people and their purposes, personalities, principles, preferences, and priorities with these Eight Es, we can all enjoy being a leader and a manager as much as we expect our employees to do the same with their functions.

Finally, our Es of Leadership and Management Success is already a public Corporate EnterTrainment. Please see the details below:

The Es of Leadership and Management Success

A High-Value Corporate EnterTrainment on Enhancing Managerial Cognition, Competencies, and Character Towards Organizational and People Success
March 3, 2017
8:30am – 5:30pm
Charlston Room, 3rd Floor, The Eastwood Richmonde Hotel
17 Orchard Road, Eastwood City, Bagumbayan, Quezon City, Metro Manila 1110

To sign up for this EnterTraining Advanced Leadership and Management EnterTrainment, ring us up at (02) 919-2734. You may also text or call us at 0936-988-6199 or 0933-232-6149.

EnterTrainment Overview:
A lot of companies are now investing more in sending both their newly-promoted and tenured supervisors and managers to public leadership and management seminars or in hiring external training providers to facilitate their similar in-house training need.

It is great news that they have seen the need and they already appreciate the advantages of allowing their leaders and managers to possess the right needed knowledge, skills, and abilities to be effective in the performance of their functions.

Nonetheless, only few learning opportunities truly provide value not only to the people but also to the company that the learners represent. The resource speaker may be very capable and the training’s content looks very good on paper. In fact, the whole learning experience is memorable. The only usual area for improvement though is that as soon as the learners go back to the workplace and apply all the wisdom gained from the training in the next 30 to 90 days, only a few learnings are retained, their application is not sustained for a long time, and/or worse, some aspects are still lacking in the way the training’s beneficiaries lead and manage their employees.

We all have learned about some of the world and our history’s renowned leadership and management theories and concepts like the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory. The challenge though is that employees still could not close the gap between theories and practicality or application.

This EnterTrainment has been put together from the belief that adult learners learn best when what they ought to learn was designed and developed not from the perspective of the trainer but from the viewpoint of the learners themselves, these supervisors and managers and the people they lead and manage, the employees.

This EnterTraining learning opportunity introduces the EnterTrainees to the Es of Leadership and Management Success. These Es are action words that the leaders and managers are expected to do if they desire to truly bring out the best in their people while guaranteeing productivity towards people and organizational success and employee retention and loyalty through happiness, satisfaction, and contentment.

EnterTrainment Objectives:
By the end of this one-day EnterTrainment, the EnterTrainees should have been able to:
1. Know, understand, appreciate, and apply the Es of Leadership and Management success to develop and sustain high-performing employees who care for their company and employees as much as they care for themselves
2. Be multi-dimensional or ‘a complete package’ leader and manager that contributes to the company’s downlines while taking care of happy, satisfied, and contented employees at the same time.
3. Replicate themselves and echo the Es of Leadership and Management success through the people they influence, motivate, and inspire on a daily basis.

EnterTrainment Highlights:
MODULE 1: EDUCATE
 The Five As to Delegating or Giving Instructions Clearly and Thoroughly
 All-encompassing Guidelines in Job Assistance or Support

MODULE 2: EQUIP
 The I.N.S.P.I.R.E. and R.E.S.U.L.T.S. Model in Coaching People to Success
 Root Cause and Talent Needs Assessments and their Role in Effective Management
 The Holistic Approach in Leadership and Management
o Strengths and Areas for Improvement Identification
o Working Habits
o Learning Styles
o Communication Preferences

MODULE 3: ENCOURAGE
 Five Proven Strategies to Improve Employee Loyalty
 Management’s Role in Work-life Balance
The CONNECT Strategy in Motivating and Inspiring Employees

MODULE 4: ENGAGE
 The True Meaning of Employee Engagement – Keeping the Employees’ Drive for Work Burning

MODULE 5: EMPOWER
 How to Empower Employees – Enhancing their Maturity as Professionals

MODULE 6: ENTERTAIN (HAPPY EMPLOYEES – HAPPY CLIENTS)
 Ensuring HCS (Happiness, Contentment, and Satisfaction) – Make-up of Model Employees
 How to Make People Love their Jobs More Despite Work Stress and Management Pressure

MODULE 7: EXEMPLIFY

MODULE 8: ESCORT TO SUCCESS
 The Ws of Leadership and Management Success
 The Ps of Employer-Employee Harmony

We are renowned in the country and in the industry of professional training and speaking as The Corporate EnterTrainer. Our EnterTrainees will learn so much while having fun at the same time. We understand and apply the Adult Learning Principles and know how adults best learn through a mix of different training methodologies.

ABOUT THE TRAINING FACILITATOR

MR. MYRON STA. ANA, BBTE, CLDPT

• Ranked as one of the Top Best Motivational Speakers in the Philippines
• Ranked as one of the Top Best Inspirational Speakers in the Philippines
• Ranked as the Best Freelance Corporate Trainer in the Philippines
• Renowned as ‘THE CORPORATE ENTERTRAINER’ and ‘THE SOFT SKILLS GURU OF THE PHILIPPINES’ in the Philippines
• One of the Philippines’ most sought-after resource speakers, corporate trainers, and learning and development consultants on a wide array of topics including but not limited to Leadership and Management, Customer Service, Customer Experience, Communication Skills, Train the Trainer, Work Attitude and Values Enhancement, Change Management, etc.
• Chief EnterTrainment Officer (CEO), MSS Business Solutions (formerly Myron Sta. Ana Training and Consultancy Services)
• Chief Partner Speaker, Trainer, and Consultant, Thought Leaders Philippines Speakers, Trainers, and Consultants Bureau – the speakers bureau arm of MSS Business Solutions and one of the Top Five (5) speakers bureaus in the Philippines
• Founder, Philippine Network of Young Speakers and Trainers (PNOYS) – a network of speaking, training, and consultancy practitioners below 35 years old
• Global Partner Speaker, Trainer, and Consultant – Professional Development Training (PDTraining Global Pty. Ltd.) in Australia (www.pdtraining.com.au), Globibo Corporate Training (Globibo Services Ptvt. Ltd.) in Singapore (www.globibo.com/ct/), and Customized Training Solutions in Singapore (www.ctssingapore.com)
• Representative in the Philippines and Exclusive Local Partner Consultant, Spintel Pty. Ltd. or Spintel – a mobile and internet services reseller in Australia that outsources its call center to a Mandaue City, Cebu-based call center company
• Widely-affiliated partner speaker, trainer, and consultant to the Philippines’ most renowned training companies and speakers bureaus like Ariva Academy Philippines (www.ariva.com.ph), Southeast Asia Speakers and Trainers Bureau (www.speakerstrainers.com), Bay Hewitt Learning and Consulting (www.bayhewitt.com), Aptus Business Solutions (www.aptus.com.ph), Limitless Power Coach Training and Consultancy (www.limitlesspowercoach.com), Umbrella Speakers Bureau (www.umbrellaspeakers.com), etc.
• Globally-certified Leading Dimensions Profile Facilitator and Consultant of Leading Dimensions Consulting (www.leadingdimensions.com), a Tampa Bay, Florida-based global provider of behavioral profiles and employment surveys, with affiliates on five continents
• International Member, Association for Talent Development (www.td.org) and International Association of Teamwork Facilitators (IATF) (www.iatf.groupsite.com)
• Around seven (7) years as a Human Resources Generalist in the BPO industry
• Frequent radio and TV resource person for topics on Career Success, Work Excellence and Productivity, Personality Development, Work-life Balance, etc.
• Bachelor in Business Teacher Education Degree Holder, CUM LAUDE – Polytechnic University of the Philippines Sta. Mesa, Manila
• Masters in Educational Management (MEM) Units earned – Polytechnic University of the Philippines Graduate School
• Recipient of the following Industry Awards and Recognitions:
  o 2017 Philippine Top Choice Awards for Excellence and Outstanding Achievers, Top Choice Outsource Solution Specialist
  o 2016 Acquisition International Excellence Awards 2016, Most Outstanding Corporate Training Provider in the Philippines
  o 2016 APAC Insider Business Elite Awards, Corporate Training Firm of the Year
  o 2016 The National Product Quality Excellence Awards, Seal of Service Quality
  o 2016 Philippine Awards for Customer Service Excellence, Outstanding Customer Service Training and Consultancy Services Provider
  o 2016 Golden Globe Annual Awards for Business Excellence, Best Event Services Consultancy Provider
  o 2015 APAC Insider Business Awards, Best Corporate Training Provider in the Philippines
  o 2015 Golden Globe Annual Awards for Outstanding Filipino Achiever, Medal of Distinction for Business Achievement
  o 2014 TOP BRAND Awards Philippines, Corporate Trainer and Motivational Speaker of the Year
  o 2014 TOP BRAND Awards Philippines Corporate Training, Leadership and Event Consultancy of the Year
  o Juan Sumulong Memorial Junior College Taytay, Rizal Outstanding Alumnus of Class 2002
  

Your Investment:
Save-a-lot Rate: P4499 + VAT (On or before January 2, 2017)
Early Bird Rate: P5299 + VAT (Between January 3 and February 2, 2017)
Regular Rate: P5999 + VAT (Starting February 3, 2017)
Group Rate: P4899 + VAT (5 pax or more)

Your EnterTrainment investment includes: An awesome EnterTrainment package inclusive of workbooks, certificates and free stuff plus delicious AM snack, lunch, and PM snack.

Payment Details:
Please deposit your payment at any branch of:

Bank of the Philippine Islands

Account Name: Myron Sta. Ana Training and Consultancy Services
Account Number: 4099 3271 09
Branch: Ortigas Avenue Extension, Cainta, Rizal 1900

Please email your validated deposit slip with your company name, contact person, contact information, and name of enrollees and their contact information to registrations@mssbizsolutions.com.

To get in touch with us directly, just reach us at the following information:
(02) 919-2734 
0936 988 6199 | 0933 232 6149
info@mssbizsolutions.com | registrations@mssbizsolutions.com 

By the way, you might be interested in checking out our other leadership and management-related training programs that are perfect for your in-house corporate training needs on people-handling or supervision. Just click the link below:

Leadership and Management Training in the Philippines

The post The Eight Es of Leadership and Management Success appeared first on MSS Business Solutions - a Top HR Training and Consultancy Company in the Philippines.

But we’ve still been wondering why there’s something lacking in what we do and how we do it. It remains that not all people on our team perform up to expectations and even if they do, it’s obvious they don’t look as engaged as they should.

What seems to be wrong here? Aren’t the world’s most famous and widely-used theories and frameworks about leadership and management effective or sufficient? Not really. They’re not famous and widely-used for nothing.

However, in my years of being supervised myself and getting to observe different people, both supervising and supervised, I’ve realized that all these years, we’ve kept on handling our people based on what we should do and not on what our people need to see, hear, get, and experience.

You might be thinking I’m just talking about the same thing. Isn’t what we are supposed to do the same as what our employees have to receive in return? Not exactly.

More often, what we think we ought to do isn’t always what they need to get. This is because what we think we need to do is only based on what our own supervisors, the one higher than us, have told us to do. Everything has always been on their and our perspectives.

When have we ever considered our employees’ thoughts? Their points of view. Should we supervise people based on what we know or should learn or based on what they simply deserve to get in return?

That’s the whole point of this article. Let me share with you the CONNECT Strategy in motivating and enhancing our valuable employees. If we do all the techniques that come with this methodology, together with constantly arming them with the right knowledge, skills, and abilities, we don’t have to worry about making them perform at their optimum level while being contented and contributing at the same time.

All these techniques start with the word ‘CONNECT’. It’s all about connections, really.

Connect what they do and what they must accomplish to the bigger picture that benefits them and everybody else.

Simple Equation: What they are doing + Why they are doing it + What’s in it for them

Our employees are sick and tired of just being told what to do, how to do it well, and what our expectations and standards are. At the end of the day, they would always feel pressured and stressed.

But if we find the connections among what they must do, why they need to do it, and how it actually benefits them the most in return, the knowledge and the understanding of the job expectation levels up to appreciation and hard work. This is what the bigger picture is all about. It’s not just about the company, us as the supervisors, and them. It’s about everyone, everything, and the greater good.

Connect the process (the steps they need to take to finish the job) and the outcome (the result).

When we’re teaching and/or coaching our employees (especially the newbies) about how to accomplish their task, we’re very thorough with our instructions and the details of each step. However, what we come short of doing is describing how we want the outcome or the output to look. It’s all about managing expectations.

Our employees are fed up with doing their best to please us only to hear that their best wasn’t good enough or they still deviated from our standards.

Every time we provide instructions or explain to them how a job must be done, we are better off also explaining what quality and quantity of work we really expect and what condition will really make us happy. What kind of performance are we expecting to get? Poor, Good, Very Good, or Excellent? We need to be very specific about what we look forward to. Our employees will appreciate to know what for you is ‘BEST’ and how they can achieve it.

Connect your motivational strategies to what triggers their motivation.

When was the last time you asked each of your employees what motivates them and what/who inspires them? When have you ever cared about these things in the first place?

All along, we’ve thought that it’s enough for people to be knowledgeable, skillful, and prepared. That’s not the case. Our employees are human beings too. We, as human beings, have emotions. We feel. There are times that when situations don’t cooperate with us, we get demotivated or uninspired. All of us do.

We should always see to it that their level of motivation and inspiration is steady all the time. The best way to know what motivates them and who/what inspires them is to basically find time to find it out. Whether you’re in an actual coaching or counseling session or just taking a sip of coffee together outside of work, we can talk to them about it anywhere, anytime.

And when we finally know what those are, we use them to customize our leadership and management approach in a manner that always gasses up their need-for-motivation-and-inspiration tank.

Connect them to their tasks and the company’s desired or expected results

This is very like connecting the process to the outcome.  When we assign tasks to our employees, we need to be very clear about what I personally call the Five As of Coaching/Delegation/Giving Instructions.

Apart from explaining and covering all aspects of their ASSIGNMENT (1^st A), our employees would also appreciate if the following are clarified to them as well:

1. AUTHORITY

What are they permitted to decide on by themselves? What are the things that they must consult you about first before they make any next move? The limits of authority or decision-making must be explained. Our employees don’t want to be reprimanded for something that they only did just because they wanted to show they have initiative.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY

When something goes wrong, what are they gonna be held liable for and who should they explain to? What circumstances should they keep from happening that will put them in big trouble? The answers to these questions are their accountability and they would definitely feel very equipped if they learn these matters.

3. AMPLITUDE

Amplitude refers to the degree, extent, quality, or state of being of something. When giving our employees tasks, it would empower them if they understand our desired results or expectations. We need to be very detailed about the kind of performance that we want. When they know it, they would know how much they should show and how good they should be.

4. ATTITUDE

It’s not enough that our employees are educated and equipped when we delegate an ASSIGNMENT to them. They also need to be encouraged to be empowered to accomplish their task with flying colors. We need to verbalize not only our support but also our commitment to be with them every step of the way. When they are motivated and inspired enough, they can work with minimal to even zero supervision.

How does it sound or look when we’re able to connect what we want them to do and our standards and expectations this way?

Connect them and the management

When have we ever made our employees feel that they’re not only salaried employees but also family members of the organization? When have we ever made them appreciate that they’re not only like soldiers in the battlefield that can just be left to die anytime?

Employees perform and contribute selflessly when they are in a company that only treats titles as no more than functional roles or responsibilities. At the end of the day, everyone’s equal and even newly-hired employees and rank-and-file ones are treated the same way that supervisors and managers are.

Employees hate that when changes are introduced, they are always the last to know. Worse, they never get to know and they’re only surprised when they can already experience these adjustments themselves. They would appreciate if they are provided updates about matters concerning themselves, their jobs, their positions, their tenure, and everything else in the company consistently and openly. (Also learn about A.D.A.P.T., our self-conceptualized framework or model about managing our employees through changes)

Furthermore, if we need to achieve an alignment among the rank and file, the management, and the higher-ups, it would help a lot if everybody’s calibrated about the company’s vision, mission, work values, directions, and strategies and each one practices what’s preached.

Connect them to opportunities.

Let’s be honest. Usually, the ones who only experience to be sent to a public seminar more often than others are supervisors, managers, directors, and up. Basically, anyone that already holds a leadership position.

Let’s accept the fact too that with some companies, learning and development opportunities are not for everyone especially when finances are a major concern.

Some owners and top-level executives see training more as an expense than an investment, don’t they? Even if they don’t, the reality is that the supervisors and the managers are always the ones prioritized when not everybody can avail of public seminars, in-house corporate training, and even technical and non-technical local and global certifications.

Employees leave when they feel they’re not important and that their contributions are downplayed. Let’s do them a favor. If we expect them to turn in profits/revenues for the company, then let’s help them do so by making sure they’re always educated and equipped with the right knowledge and skills through learning and development opportunities, shall we?

Connect their problems to their own solutions and your recommendations.

As I always tell people I train, mentor, coach, and counsel, the best way to lead and manage our employees is when they can already lead or manage themselves.

When they have problems about their performance or state of motivation and inspiration, we need to instill in them the value of independence and self-organization. (Read our other article that also talks about how to help our employees correct or improve their performance)

When we’re coaching or counseling them, let’s first ask them how they can help themselves instead of us giving the solution right away. It empowers them when they are encouraged to think of their own strategies before we spoon-feed with our own best practices.

Employees commit more when what they should commit to is their own idea or their solution to their own problem. Nobody would cheat or make a fool of themselves saying yes to something when it’s their own thoughts to begin with.

Connect yourself to them.

Usually, employees who don’t perform or who always come short of their performance targets are those who don’t have at least a good working relationship with their bosses. It’s even worse when it’s not them who distance themselves away, but it’s the supervisor who puts up an imaginary wall between him/her and the employees.

Studies have proven that our employees are more engaged and empowered when there are both a congenial and a very professional connection between us and them.

Therefore, we are expected to balance job and company requirements and making our employees feel at home and happy, satisfied, and contented (HCS) at the same time. This can be done by:

1. Just being a role model.

We don’t have the right to remind our employees about their attendance or punctuality when we’re always absent or late all the time ourselves. How can we motivate or inspire our employees to give their best at work when we deliver an average performance ourselves?

2. Display positive attitude

How can we expect our employees to be high-performing individuals when we act like an Adolf Hitler reborn in the office? Relationships are important. The supervisor-subordinate relationship will never be mutually-respectful and productive if either party is antagonistic towards the other.

When we’re displaying a role-model attitude that is worthy of looking up to and deserving to be followed, it becomes a pleasure for our employees to help us make the management happy.

3. Use power words at work.

Words are no doubt very powerful. Even in the absence of tangibles and actions, when our employees hear praises, uplifting statements, and optimistic words from us, they feel valuable and indispensable.

When our employees feel as such, they are resolved to always give their best at work to repay us and the company for the trust, respect, and kindness showed to them. It will help us if we think first before we speak and frame our words positively every time we communicate with them about both work and non-work related stuff. (Read our other article talking about how to improve communicating in the workplace using five time-proven strategies)

Connect motivation and the working environment

Everybody knows Google, the global multi-billion-dollar internet company we better recognize as the search engine. It’s always placed as one of the top, if not the best, employers and best companies to work at in the world.

Why? Because this company recognizes the fact that the working environment, in terms of rest, recreation, and quality of management, has so much bearing on the level of competence, confidence, and satisfaction of employees. They’ve proven that the more employee-friendly the workplace is, the more motivated, inspired, and driven people are to help the company.

Our office doesn’t need to look like Googleplex but if our office was inspired by its very users’ comfort and convenience or always renovated, redesigned, or at least reorganized to incite employees’ creativity, innovation, productivity, and enjoyment, making them perform or help us achieve the company’s bottom lines should never be that complicated ever again.

Connect employees to one another

No man is an island especially in a workplace where different people with different personalities and backgrounds converge. It’s inevitable that people, regardless of their level of closeness to one another, must work together on a certain project.

When our employees genuinely get along very well and they don’t feel uneasy or awkward working with anyone, we can tell that we’ve been successful in connecting them to one another.

Synergy tells us that interconnected and compatible participants, as with our employees, translate to a faster accomplishment of projects that are done with quality and a more efficient way of exceeding performance targets.

Therefore, we will reap so many benefits if we correct or strengthen team camaraderie and collaboration through team and team culture building interventions like play-and-process structured learning activities (we commonly call as team building) or simply allow the employees to bond better in and out of work.

Your/our TAKEAWAY

Now we know that motivating and inspiring our precious corporate talents, our employees, should never be tedious or burdensome again. By leveraging the CONNECT Strategy in motivating and inspiring them, we can be assured that our company, through us, is ready and equipped to realize its vision, achieve its mission, and breathe life into its core values.

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If you would like our company to convert this article into a one-day or a customized in-house corporate training or public seminar for your organization, just give us call at (02) 919-2734 and talk to our Chief EnterTrainment Officer and The Corporate EnterTrainer and Soft Skills Guru of the Philippines himself, Mr. Myron Sta. Ana himself or email us at inquiries@myronstaana.net. To view the training outline, just click the link below:

Basic Leadership Training in the Philippines

The post THE CONNECT™ strategy in motivating and inspiring our employees appeared first on MSS Business Solutions - a Top HR Training and Consultancy Company in the Philippines.

The fact that the employee is being paid by the company to do what has to be done is not an automatic guarantee that the person will follow the leader unhesitatingly and cooperate with him willingly. We all know, unless the leader is also the owner of the company, that the superiority of the boss does not always equate obedience, respect, or loyalty.

In my years of training people on leadership and management and being led and managed myself , I have personally observed and experienced this dilemma. The good thing though was such exposures from both perspectives have made me arrive at what I call the Ps of Effective Leadership and Management or  The Ps of Enhancing Workplace Leadership.

In this article, I will enumerate and tell briefly about these Ps that aid leaders and managers, regardless of their industry or nature of work, in communicating with their team members better and making much more effective their leadership and management skills.

Personalities

Effective leadership is one that thrives in and fosters positive differences. A great leader is someone who does not feel uncomfortable with the personality variances of the people on his team. Instead, he uses such differences to find out how the various attitudes can translate into better communication, familiarity,  and effective delegation of tasks.

It is very true that…

a great leader knows his people and knows about them too.

For a leader to be more effective, it is not enough that he knows the name, position, function, roles and responsibilities, home address, and age of his staff. It is also very helpful if he also knows, albeit carefully and sensitively, everybody on a personal level. This even includes a little of their personal background, some behavioral tendencies and even personal imperfections.

Leadership is a form of communication and a leader can better communicate if he can easily and quickly identify with where his employees are coming from, why they often do what they do and behave the way they do, and what areas for improvement in character can be corrected, replaced, or enhanced for a much more improved teamwork.

Preferences

We all have our own preferences in the workplace. We prefer one colleague or boss over another, we opt to go home early instead of rendering overtime, or we’d rather stay holding on to our current positions than get promoted and face much greater challenges on a higher level. These are just a few of our differing work-related preferences.

However, the preferences that a leader needs to make use of and benefit from are the following:

Working Style

Our working style is our personal liking of how we want our work done and done fast. Each employee has his/her own working style.

In terms of working with others, there are those who prefer to work alone as opposed to those who perform better when they have many people to brainstorm and accomplish tasks with.

In matters of quick responding, some people carefully plan their actions first before making any move whereas others prefer to take action right off the bat and just assess situations as they come; play everything by ear in other words.

Even by looking at how people perform on the outside, one can also see what their working styles are. Realistically speaking, others look very relaxed and ‘feel-at-home’ while others look very busy and ‘into it’ but both are actually putting in the same number of contributions for the achievement of the day’s goals and objectives.

Working styles are very important for leaders to know as much as they are for employees who want to know themselves deeply in order to become more productive, contributing, and efficient.

When leaders know what each contributor’s working style is, they would determine how they get things done and how efficiently they do it.

Learning Styles

There are so many models or theories about learning styles that a concerned leader can refer to and leverage in order to know more about his team members. From a reference as simple as Neil Fleming’s VARK Model (Visual, Auditory, Reading, and Kinesthetic) and David Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory to Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s or Anthony Gregorc and Kathleen Butler’s versions, each uniquely recommends interpretations by which people learn differently in relation to influencing desired results and performance.

When a leader understands his people’s learning styles, giving instructions, delegating tasks, and even training and developing them become manageable.

Communication Styles

Another group or framework of styles or preferences that leaders need to pay attention to and study among their team members is Communication Styles.

As mentioned earlier, leadership is a form of communication or communication is an important aspect or task of leadership itself. Therefore,  a leader who has figured out how to communicate better with his people and with his people also communicating effectively to him in return has basically nailed how to maximize people correctly.

The best ways to find out persons’ communication preferences are by observing them during personal conversations and sitting down with them and asking them directly how they prefer to be communicated to instead.

For instance, one would find out that somebody on his team just prefers to be quiet but somehow still contributes in his own ways, there’s another one who is naturally vocal about his thoughts, and there’s another person who has always wanted to speak up but just could not find the right timing or avenue.

Putting this in perspective, upon knowing a team member’s preferences, it is very imperative for any leader to first of all, acknowledge and respect them and then make them work to his advantage.

Priorities

The next P we’ll talk about is Priorities. For a leader to supervise his people much better and for the same to trust, respect, and look up to the leader, these priorities unique to each of them must be known, understood, and addressed.

The beauty of knowing about others so well as opposed to just knowing them is they get to open up more about their personal lives and they get to share or let their leaders discover what their work and life priorities are.

The leader would intentionally or even know by accident that people’s priorities are different. Some prioritize work and these people are easy to deal with because they don’t have to appreciate What’s In It For Them?.

On the other hand, there are some others who prioritize quality time with their families and they treat work as merely a ‘must-do’ for them in order to earn money to put food on the table, pay their bills, shoulder their children’s tuition, and sustain whatever their lifestyles are.  These are the ones that need a little more compelling when they are supposed to render overtime work with or without pay, participate in company events or ‘out-of-office’ gatherings, or be given unusual tasks that would require them to step out of their comfort zones.

By respecting people’s priorities and finding a work around them instead, without allowing oneself to be abused and without sacrificing ‘Business As Usual’,  there would be no need to antagonize the very same people whose support needs to be solicited.

Points of View, Positions, or Perspectives

As one of the sought-after in-house training providers in the Philippines on teamwork, leadership and management, and communication skills, I always tell people I train that:

The beauty of opinions is we get to see and hear differences in positions but don’t let the distinctions tarnish friendships and connections.

Opinions may be positive or negative and constructive or destructive. Nonetheless, everyone is entitled to his/her freedom of expression. In most instances, also, these contrasting perspectives among team members actually give the leader a peek into their thoughts regarding work and a lot more other concerns and topics in and out of the workplace.

Therefore, points of view, positions, or perspectives should actually be a good thing. When the leader promotes  a team culture where it is okay for team members to be themselves, say their thoughts without rocking the boat, and even use these different perceptions as a source of of intelligent ideas during brainstorming, then the entire team gains more than the opposite.

Relating this back to improving people supervision, the leader must be acknowledging, understanding, appreciative, and respectful of dissimilar outlooks whether they be about career, religion, politics, or the society in general.

Purposes

Last but not least, leaders can only be great if, for the sake of their employees’ growth and development, they would also factor in variations among their team members’ purposes in life and their career in particular.

Agree or not, not all people would want to get promoted. Some of them only have the desire to be the best they can be on their level. Reasons can vary from they’re afraid of leadership responsibilities, they are simply not interested, or they’re too happy, contented and satisfied where they are that they don’t  need to get any higher. Furthermore, some people are only motivated by their salary and for as long as they are still getting paid and their pay consistently goes up year to year, they are already good with that.

The point is, it is very important that leaders make or find time sitting down with each of their employees to find out what they want to happen with their career and what career track they want to progress to during their stay in the company. By doing this, they get to know more about their life or work priorities and are able to design their career path based on those purposes.

The team members, for their part, get the chance to communicate their vision and mission in life and this event becomes the leader’s opportunity to align these personal vision, mission, and values with those of the team and the organization. Thus, alignment comes in and we all know that when there is alignment between the company and its corporate talents, leadership becomes less complicated and challenging.

In other words, leaders ought to find out their individual purposes. Whether one employee wants to be successful in his job, desires to be successful somewhere else, simply hopes to be a good spouse, sibling, or child, or needs to serve others, the leader must be respectful of these self-found roles in life and guide their careers towards these directions.

The takeaway:

If the leader employs any or better yet, all of these Ps of Enhancing People Supervision, leading and managing don’t have to be a dreadful responsibility. We can all have fun helping others help themselves and our hopes of being respected, trusted, and looked up to as leaders are almost always assured.

Count on me with that.

The post The Five Ps of Enhancing Workplace Leadership appeared first on MSS Business Solutions - a Top HR Training and Consultancy Company in the Philippines.