Your company’s leaders have the ability to make or break the satisfaction of your employees. Rarely do we see truly happy employees who do not feel good about their leadership. That’s one reason why leadership development tips are essential for anyone focusing on employee happiness. Here are the 5 tips for leadership development we feel are most important.
#1: Set Expectations
When we’re looking at five tips for leadership development, the first one is supporting leaders in setting expectations. While this may not seem like a glamorous skill, being clear in your expectations can go a long way in improving employee satisfaction and happiness. When expectations are clear, employees are likely to feel more empowered to complete tasks and be more likely to deliver the results their management was hoping for. This is a win-win in setting a positive company culture.
#2: Improve Communication
How many times have you seen “excellent written and verbal communication skills” in a job description? It’s so easy to say that leadership development must focus on communication, but achieving that goal is much more challenging.
Being a great communicator involves:
- Giving good instructions
- Presenting well
- Listening actively
- The ability to ingest information and use it in a meaningful way
Leadership development in communication can also focus on praising team members, reflecting the company values, and helping employees feel happier at work.
#3: Instill Respect at all Levels
In each of these five tips for leadership development, there’s a foundation for recognizing that leaders are people, too; they are not perfect. Instead of laying expectations on top of leaders as though they are robots or should be flawless, it’s essential to recognize that leaders have challenges, too. They struggle with work/life balance, get frustrated with poor communication, thrive on understanding the company’s expectations of them… and want to be happy. Listening to your leaders and making even small changes that can improve their feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and respect can have a trickle-down effect to benefit all.
#4: Continue Training
Everyone can benefit from education, no matter what stage they are in their career or life. Instead of only focusing training opportunities on lower-level employees, ask yourself the following:
- What training or education might your leaders benefit from?
- Are there new skills they could hone that your industry will need?
- What about a 3-day stress management course?
- Could some of the communication and expectation improvement you want to see be taught online?
By offering training and education opportunities, you show leaders that you value who they are today and see their growth potential. Involve leaders in the conversation about what courses may benefit you, and you’ll learn new things about their thoughts.
#5: Measure Your Baseline
Focusing on leadership development is a positive step for any company. But before taking essential steps… have you considered measuring your baseline? How do employees feel about their leaders? How do your company’s leaders feel about their jobs? When you start by measuring your team’s satisfaction and happiness, you can better evaluate the effects of your efforts in developing your leaders.
Reach out to us today for a demo and see how we can give you tools to measure both your baseline and your growth as you implement initiatives, such as these tips for leadership development.